The Waiting Time

by Margaret Carr

‘What else? What are you playing at, Jenny? You come round to my place to get the programme then don’t even bother to turn up.’

  ‘I have my reasons, Tim.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to any of them?’

  ‘No, it’s difficult getting the time and Patty isn’t always available. Besides, I don’t have to give you my reasons.’

  ‘Why not? I’m always there for you, aren’t I? These lectures could make a heck of a difference in the finals.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt that, Tim.’

  She gave a rough laugh that ended in a cough.

  ‘I have more faith in myself than to lay my life’s hopes at the feet of Ryder Surtees.’

  Tim frowned, his eyes never leaving Jenny’s face.

  ‘That’s not like you,’ he said, sounding puzzled.

  Jenny struggled to pull herself together. She was very fond of Tim. She owed him more than a bout of bad temper. It had been Tim who had introduced her to Patty when Jenny had been desperate for accommodation. Patty far from ostracising her for having a baby in tow, saw it as a heaven-sent opportunity to indulge her own childless maternal urges. In the past four and half years, Patty had taken the place of Helen’s grandmother and although Jack, Patty’s husband, paid less attention to the little girl, she looked on him automatically as a grandfather. Tim was the beloved uncle she could twist around her little finger.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tim, I’m just tired, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll take turn about with Helen for the lectures if that will help.’

  ‘No, Tim, but thanks anyway.’

  ‘But . . . ’

  ‘That’s my last word, Tim.’

  He shrugged his shoulders and climbed to his feet.

  ‘Well, I best be going.’

  Jenny saw him to the door.

  ‘Don’t forget, Jenny, if you want to talk, I’m the best listener around.’

  His grin was full of gentle self-effacement. On impulse Jenny leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

  ‘I know,’ she said, then he was gone.

  Was she really missing out by not attending the lectures, she wondered. Ryder had been a local journalist when she first met him at a student demonstration for a ban on the shipment of live animals. He’d singled her out for a personal interview and been a sympathetic and interested listener to her enthusiastic offerings on the subject.

  He’d sat on the corner of a table in the Student’s Union Hall, swinging a long cord-clad leg and every now and again a hand would flick back a lock of brown hair that persisted in falling forward over his brow. His smile lightened the dark brown of his eyes and caught the corners of a straight mouth above a strong chin. It had been a short step from that interview to the dates that followed.

  When he’d asked her out that first time to see a film they were both interested and her thoughts had been of sheer disbelief that a handsome, knowledgeable professional would find something interesting in herself. As their knowledge of each other increased, common ground was found; their love of literature, music and the countryside, something that could be shared, plus a sense of humour that often excluded the people around them.

  She hadn’t been alone in her attraction to him, for all females found him fascinating. The fact that even then he was a man in his thirties and she a student of nineteen never bothered them, although it frequently gave rise to comments from others. He delighted in her thirst for knowledge and gave her every encouragement in her ambition to study linguistics.

  They married six months after that first interview and she moved into his home. At that point in time, Ryder still lived with his father in the house he’d lived in all his life.

  Jenny, shy and unsure of herself, had accepted the large draughty house with its dark wallpaper and varnished skirting. Anything was better than the tiny flat she shared with two other girls neither of whom were people she would have chosen as friends in other circumstances.

  Reginald Surtees, Ryder’s father, was a retired businessman who had been a widower for twenty years. He kept very much to himself, only joining them for the occasional meal. His manner was pleasant if negative to his young daughter-in-law while he expressed a stubborn reluctance to her interference in any change to the running of the home.

  Their dour housekeeper of indeterminate age and tiny stature refused point blank any effort on Jenny’s part to help with housework or cooking, even grumbling when Jenny made herself toast before leaving for college.

  Whenever Ryder was away chasing a story for the paper, Jenny would stay out late with friends rather than go back alone to the cold house and people in it. Loving Ryder had felt so right. In his arms she had learned the power of give and take, woken to a loving that hurt in its need for reciprocation.

  Once married, however, he seemed to have less time for her than prior to their quiet registry office wedding. His job was taking him away more all the time. They had frequent discussions about moving away once Jenny qualified. But that seemed so far off and Jenny was left with only the company of ghostly Reginald and the dour housekeeper.

  When Ryder came home one evening and spun her around in his arms, with a huge smile across his face and broke the news that he had been offered a wonderful opportunity in America with a television company, Jenny had been equally excited for him. But as the following days passed and she became more aware of what the American job entailed, her eagerness cooled. She tried to voice her worries but all her efforts were brushed aside for this wonderful future that had presented itself. That he failed to sense Jenny’s frustration and unhappiness added to her worries. She wanted a home of her own and in America there would only be a series of rented rooms waiting for them with the possibility of several moves.

  Her career also was important to her and if they were to be travelling how was she to continue with her course work? She loved Ryder to distraction. But when, after several weeks of worry and unanswered questions, she was told bluntly that he was going and that she must decide one way or the other, she had dug her heels in and asked for more time. Then Ryder had coldly, and without concern, called it a day.

  If, in the months following Ryder’s departure, it hadn’t been for the awareness of Helen growing inside her, Jenny would have faded from the world without a ripple. When Reginald was informed of the coming baby he immediately took control of the situation and sent her off to a private nursing home. Life and death decisions were taken from her and slowly she began to regain her health and strength.

  Jenny now took a deep, quivering breath. That was all a long time ago and she was no longer an impressionable teenager. She would be twenty-five next month and had nothing to worry about from the likes of Ryder Surtees. Surely it was silly to deprive herself of these lectures on some fanciful idea that Ryder might try to take Helen from her, when in truth his reaction would possibly be the very opposite.

  When Jenny told Tim of her change of heart and promised to accompany him to the next Surtees lecture his relieved grin made her laugh.

  ‘Gimme one,’ he said, slapping his open palm on hers and sending shock waves all the way up her arm.

  So, on the following Tuesday, after making sure Patty could have Helen, Jenny accompanied Tim to the college. A cheeky sun was poking between high clouds as she and Tim stepped down from the bus. In the park across the road from the college’s main entrance daffodils covered the grass with colour. It had been a cold, wet spring but now the mornings and evenings were stretching out and soon the sun would be generating more heat. She felt a surge of well-being flow through her. Tim took her bag from her grasp and took hold of her hand.

  ‘We’ll have to hurry if we want to get decent seats.’

  They hurried through the main hall, up the stairs and right to the new extension. It was only two years old and housed two new lecture theatres, with low ceilings. It swept around in a wide semi-circle, with comfortable, individual seating and an amplification system that owed everything to modern technology.

  Jenny allowed Tim to find the
ir seats, then sat down pulling the little writing rest over her knees. She was acknowledging other friends when two men strode down the aisle and mounted the platform. Ted Harrison, head of Humanities, walked up to the table at the front of the platform and began his introduction, while the second figure seated himself in a director’s chair at the back.

  ‘This is the fourth of eight lectures. Now, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Ryder Surtees.’

  There was much clapping as Ryder stood up and came forward from the shadows. Thanking Mr Harrison, he came out in front of the table and leaned back until he was sitting on the edge, one foot a few inches from the ground. His head remained bent for a few moments to allow his audience to satisfy their curiosity then he looked up into the sea of waiting faces.

  Jenny, after her first quick look, kept her eyes firmly on her notepad. By the end of the lecture her body ached from head to foot with the tension in her muscles. Now was the time to be noticed, when at the end of a lecture a short period was thrown open for questions. The speaker would search the faces above him and concentrate on the area from which the question came. Defying her stiff neck Jenny bent it even farther and scribbled like mad. She was horrified therefore when she saw from the corner of her eye Tim’s hand go up.

  ‘The gentleman over there.’

  She heard the familiar voice directing everyone’s attention towards them. Quickly she bent over her table rest and foraged in the bag at her feet.

  ‘Perhaps if the person next to you stopped delving in her bag I could hear your question,’ Ryder was saying.

  The shock to Jenny was like a douche of cold water and had the effect of making her sit bolt upright. Mortified, she listened to Tim repeat his question. Ryder answered it, his tone calm and authoritative, his eyes cool and intelligent with no sign of recognition. Now it was over and they were filing out, Jenny let go a sigh of relief.

  ‘Yes, it was good, wasn’t it?’ Tim said misinterpreting her sigh. ‘You must have taken more notes in that one lecture than I have over the lot.’

  ‘There was more to it than I thought.’

  Jenny allowed Tim to persuade her to go for coffee. On the bus back to the flat there was quite a crowd. When she finally reached home, Patty and Helen had tea ready and it wasn’t until Helen was in bed and Patty returned to her own flat that Jenny had time to reflect about her first sight of Ryder Surtees in five years. Tall, well over six feet, slim, though his slimness had always been that of an athlete rather than plain thinness. Today though, his slimness had revealed a gaunt quality that had been missing five years ago and a neat haircut unable to hide the grey threads. The deep brown eyes were Helen’s eyes though they lacked his daughter’s soft warmth. She let the picture of him drift through her mind, renewing a loneliness she’d thought long since buried.

  The relief the end of Ryder’s lectures brought to Jenny was quickly squashed when on her way out through the hall she once again caught sight of a note asking her to call at the office. The envelope with the thick black scrawl was laid on the desk and Jenny picked it up and thrust it into her pocket, but not before Tim had seen it.

  ‘Look, I hope you don’t mind my asking but wasn’t that Surtees’ writing on that envelope?’

  They were on their way up to her flat and she was able to reply without guilt.

  ‘No, it isn’t, it’s my uncle’s.’

  ‘But I thought your uncle was dead.’

  ‘So he is, but he must have left the last two allowances ready for delivery. The regular cheque is not due for another week yet.’

  Tim shrugged, then the door at the top of the stairs opened and Helen gave a squeal of pleasure at the sight of her favourite person and all queries about the cheque were forgotten. Tea that day was a fun meal. Patty disappeared after tea and reappeared just in time for Helen’s bath, while Jenny and Tim went off to the cinema.

  It was the next morning before Jenny had a chance to open the envelope containing the cheque, the amount covering the remaining two months’ allowances. She rushed downstairs to tell Patty. This meant that with her part-time job, the gap between her finals and taking full-time employment was secure. She could have kissed the fates, she was so giddy with relief.

  Patty was happy for her, clucking away behind the sheet she was folding after her ironing.

  ‘About time your luck changed,’ she said, watching the blonde head bobbing about behind the sheet. ‘Now all you want is some good news from that job you wrote away about.’

  ‘Oh, just imagine, Patty, if I was to get an interview for that local teaching post everything would just fall into place. I could keep an eye on Helen during school hours and we could stay here with you for the time being.’

  Patty watched the slight figure of the girl who had brought so much love into her life, her fair hair waving naturally over her shoulders and grey eyes full of cloudy promise. A straight nose divided an oval face and her mouth lifted sweetly when she smiled, as she was now.

  ‘Jenny, when the good lord looks down and sees how things stand, why he’ll have so much to make up to you, you’ll be happy for the rest of your life.’

  Her eyes glittered with tears.

  ‘I’m not looking forward to the day you move on but I’ll be happy to see you really settled with a good husband, a career and more family to keep the little one company.’

  Jenny wrapped her arms around the older woman and buried her face in the ample bosom.

  ‘I’m not away yet, Patty. First I must get a good pass.’

  ‘You will, dear. I feel it in my bones and you know how right they always are.’

  ‘Thank you, Patty, for all your support. I couldn’t have got this far if it wasn’t for you. Now I must get to work or I’ll lose the part-time job I already have and all the glee will have been for nothing.’

  She was on her way out when Patty called.

  ‘By the way, Jenny, there was a woman here yesterday looking for you. A Mrs Mitchell she said her name was.’

  Jenny’s hand stilled on the door knob.

  ‘Mrs Mitchell? Did she say what she wanted?’

  ‘No, just that she was the mother of one of Helen’s friends.’

  ‘Thank you, Patty.’

  The bubble of excitement had burst.

  Meanwhile, Helen’s fracture was healing nicely, sister informed her, during a visit to the local hospital. Helen had been indignant because she had not been given a pot plaster for her friends to draw on but only a stiff splint to support her arm during its healing process. The splint she could take off at inconvenient times like bathtime and bedtime. It had a Velcro fastening and was easy for her to adjust herself.

  A few days later Helen came home after nursery school without it. Jenny was very cross to think that the teacher had allowed her to take it off. On this particular day Anna’s nanny had collected both children from school at lunchtime, as they only attended half days and had brought Helen home at teatime after she had been playing with Anna during the afternoon.

  ‘I didn’t leave it at school, Mummy,’ Helen said, with a look of great concentration. ‘I left it at Anna’s. She wanted to try it on.’

  Jenny looked down at her daughter’s defiant expression and said, ‘Well, I suppose we can always get it back tomorrow as we know where it is.’

  She wasn’t happy at the thought of a trip to the Mitchells’, but she was curious as to why Mrs Mitchell had called at the flat.

  ‘Maybe nanny will find it and bring it to school tomorrow,’ Helen offered.

  Jenny’s flat was housed in an old building and although the rooms had been large and spacious once, they were now divided many times over by plasterboard. With the exception of the living-room, the other four rooms were extremely poky. So Jenny’s cry of exasperation when she stood in the entrance of Helen’s tiny bedroom that evening and saw the entire contents of her daughter’s drawers covered the floor was not unexpected to Helen.

  ‘I can’t find it, Mummy, I can’t find my daddy’s picture,’ the
child wailed.

  Together they tidied the room searching for the photograph as they went.

  ‘When did you last have it?’ Jenny asked her daughter.

  ‘I showed it to Anna’s mummy when she came to talk to Patty. That was when she asked me to tea, but I’m sure she gave it back.’

  Jenny’s mouth was a sharp line against her pale face, but what could she say to a five-year-old? She had never regretted anything so much in all her life as allowing Helen to find and keep that photograph. Ryder knew nothing of Helen’s birth for Jenny had been in the very earliest stages of pregnancy when he left and she had sworn Reginald to secrecy, for the good of his son’s career, she had told him and he had agreed. No wonder Mrs Mitchell had not returned to see her. If she had been curious about Helen’s reaction to the sight of Ryder, she had her answer now.

  That night Jenny walked the floor until the early hours of the morning. Would the woman keep it to herself, or would she have shown the picture to Ryder by now? For Jenny had no doubt that was where the missing photograph was. What a mess she fretted. She would just have to brazen it out tomorrow, go around to the house, ask for Helen’s arm support and the photograph all in the same breath, then beat a hasty retreat and hope that Ryder never got to hear of it. With a bit of luck he would be out of the country again by now.

  Anna’s nanny met Jenny at the school gate next morning and returned the splint, thus spiking Jenny’s plans. She decided to phone Mrs Mitchell only to be told, when she did so, that Mrs Mitchell was in London. Eventually, forcing herself to put matters aside for the time being, she settled down to study. Time slipped passed unnoticed. When she eased back once more and stretched her arms she could hear Helen’s voice, shrill with excitement, on the staircase outside.

  Patty’s getting an earful today, she thought with a smile, as she put her books to one side and went to welcome her daughter.

  The door swung open and Helen cried, ‘Look, Mummy! I’ve brought Daddy home.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  The shock took Jenny’s breath away and had her step back against the table next to her chair. ‘Hello, Jennifer, it’s been a long time. I take it this visit is entirely unexpected,’ he said softly.