Present Tense

by Gil Hogg

  GIL HOGG

  PRESENT TENSE

  A story of rape and revenge

  Copyright © 2010 Gil Hogg

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador

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  Kibworth Beauchamp

  Leicester LE8 0LQ, UK

  Tel: (+44) 116 279 2299

  Fax: (+44) 116 279 2277

  Email: books@troubador.co.uk

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  ISBN 978 1848 764 262

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset in 11pt Bembo by Troubador Publishing Ltd, Leicester, UK

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  FICTION

  A Smell of Fraud

  The Predators

  Caring for Cathy

  Blue Lantern

  NON-FICTION

  Teaching Yourself Tranquillity

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  1

  The first sight I had of him in fifteen years was that moment, in the crowd, at the bar of the Abbott’s Point Golf Club, Monroe County, in upper New York State. He was half turned towards me. I could see his short, red-gold hair, ruddy cheeks, and the thick neck of a college quarterback.

  I hadn’t the slightest doubt. The man was Dwight Chadwin. I was shocked. I disengaged from the people around me. I put out my hand, rested the glass of wine I had been drinking on a shelf, and steadied myself with my fingertips touching the wall.

  I looked across the room for my husband. Greg had just come into the clubhouse with his buddies. He was over the other side of the bar, settling bets after the game. We had arranged that morning that we would meet at the club, have a few drinks with friends, and go home early together.

  My eyes were drawn back to the man at the bar. Yes, it was Chadwin. A few pounds heavier now, but in good shape under a navy-blue jacket; a flat belly, narrow waist, and with his jutting jaw nodding agreeably to his audience.

  I had difficulty in drawing breath. I made a move to cross the room toward Greg. At the same time, the people around Chadwin parted, and blocked my way. Marty Kutash, Greg’s boss, with a friendly hand on Chadwin’s arm, stepped forward.

  “Loren, I’d like you to meet Bucky Chadwin, a new member, from Pittsburgh.”

  I felt like running. I couldn’t manage a ‘Hello,’ and inclined my head a little.

  Marty turned to Chadwin. “Loren is Greg Stamford’s wife. You remember meeting Greg?”

  Chadwin surged forward. His golden-haired paw reached out for my hand which was dead at my side, and his pale, blue-tinted eyes cascaded down my body.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Loren,” he said, warmly.

  I never spoke. My eyes flickered as they met his. It wasn’t embarrassment or shame or fear. I had simply lost control of my reactions for a moment. Chadwin had a sociable smile. Nothing disturbed his pudgy, self-confident features. He did not give the slightest sign of recognition.

  I stepped back when Chadwin let go of my hand, tripped on the edge of a rug, and nearly fell. Chadwin’s attention was diverted to somebody else. The crowd closed around him, shutting me out. My fear had been that I must be as recognisable to him, as he was to me. Instead, and thankfully, I seemed to be no more than the unknown wife of another club member.

  “You OK, Loren?” Marty Kutash asked, taking my arm. “You look pale, kid.”

  “I have a migraine. I’m going to ask Greg to take me home.”

  Greg was his usual agreeable self when I said I wanted to leave so promptly, though perhaps he gunned the car out of the parking lot more briskly than usual.

  “I’d have liked to stay longer,” he said, eventually, in the silence when we were on the road.

  “I’m sorry. It’s only a company party.”

  Greg glanced quickly at me, frowning, trying to get my mood. “We have to earn our living.”

  “Not at the bar at Abbott’s Point,” I said, knowing I was being unfair.

  “Joining was your idea, my dear.”

  I barely listened, as Greg reminded me, lightly, that I had pointed out to him years before the importance of the social side of business. I felt ill as the car rolled softly on the curves of the Medford Parkway, its tyres moaning.

  “Could you slow down, please?” I asked.

  Greg spared me another quick look. Then he eased up, both the speed of the car, and his manner. “OK, I’m being a pig. But I should have got around a bit more tonight. As one of the membership committee, I have to take an interest in the new members, Loren.”

  “Chadwin?”

  “Amongst others. Did you meet Mrs Chadwin?”

  “No.”

  There had to be a Mrs Chadwin. Probably more than one in the past as well.

  “Donna introduced me. You’d like her. She owns a slice of Hudson,” Greg said.

  Hudson Electronics, Chadwin’s new employer, was one of the big companies in the Chester Forks area.

  “One way to get her husband a job.”

  “I don’t think so, Loren. Chadwin will have to deliver.”

  I sighed. I was trying to think of a way to bring the conversation to a point where I could open my concerns to Greg. It had seemed unnecessary to tell Greg when I met him ten years ago, and every year since had confirmed how unnecessary it was – until now.

  I looked out of the car at the blue satin sky over the hedges and rooftops of Park Drive. As Greg turned the car into our driveway, the beech on the lawn fluttered its copper leaves against the whiteness of the house. The lights were on, and I could see through the conservatory, deep inside the living room. I had a sense of a bright and beating heart of security in there. Roseanne, from next door, who baby-sat for us, would be struggling to get the girls washed up. My sister Grace would be waiting in the girls’ bedroom to read them a story.

  Our home on Park Drive was the centre of everything that was important in my life. It seemed to me to be solid, untouchable. The house was in the Cedar Falls area of Monroe County. Cedar Falls was quiet, with wide, well sealed roads, and family houses set in spacious lawns and gardens. The neighbourhood was middle class, business and professional people. I would concede that it was an ordinary, somewhat dull, and rather predictable place.

  Greg and I owned a three level wooden frame house, set well back from the road in an acre of ground. You find a similar kind of house in many parts of middle America, with verandahs, a mansard roof and a variety of spacious rooms. I had always thought that the outside suggested that the inside must be comfortable. We had lived in Park Drive for five years. With Greg and the children, it was more than I ever seriously thought I would have.

  Chadwin didn’t quite invade my life in th
ose few seconds at the clubhouse bar. I already had a painful inkling of what I feared, earlier today, at breakfast. I heard the name ‘Chadwin,’ whispered as it were, out of the darkness of the past. Greg had come downstairs. He was a slim, five feet eleven inches, with a frizz of thin, dry, fair hair, and a long face with good-humoured lines around the eyes and mouth. He was dressed for the office, swinging his light grey suit jacket over his shoulder. He pressed his lips to my cheek in a preoccupied way.

  Greg wasn’t a worrier, but he was always brisk on Monday mornings. Instead of sitting at the breakfast bar, where I had placed half a grapefruit and a bowl of cereal, he picked up the diary by the phone. He was going to mention the schedule for the week. I was distracted for a moment by the noise from the girls upstairs. They were yelling at each other and my sister Grace. I decided the commotion didn’t require me to go to the rescue, but I wasn’t quite listening to Greg. When I focussed on what he was actually saying, a few words loomed up out of all the rest.

  “We’ll be meeting the Chadwins at the golf club tonight.”

  I thought I had misheard. “Who?”

  “The Chadwins. Loren, listen, please. By the way, you’re spilling the orange juice.”

  I looked at the mess I had made on the bench. I said I’d meet Greg at Abbott’s Point at six, and asked again about the people we’d be meeting.

  “A new member and his wife. He’s joining Hudson. I wasn’t at the membership meeting. I don’t know much more. He’s being fast-tracked.”

  Being fast-tracked meant that this particular Chadwin was jumping a two or three year queue to join the club. It meant that he had influence. When Greg had finished his breakfast, he came over to me. I was stacking the dishwasher. He put his arms around my waist from behind.

  “You’re not yourself this morning, honey. Didn’t you sleep?”

  Before I could answer, Gail screamed from upstairs, and there was a heavy crash.

  “I’ll have to go and see what’s happening,” I said, unwrapping myself from Greg, and heading for the stairs.

  “OK, babe. See you at Abbott’s Point,” he said, slipping on his jacket, and going through to the garage.

  Fifteen minutes after Greg had left for the office, I was sitting behind the wheel of the Jeep 4WD in the drive. We bought the Jeep for our visits to our house at Lake Chateaugay, to tow the sailboat trailer. The engine was idling. Gail and Rosemary were loading parcels of costumes, made from old clothes of mine, which they were taking to school for a play. On Mondays, the twins had a preschool gym class, and I had the time to drive them to Mt Vernon School, and make my office by nine. I was watching the progress of the pair in the rear-view mirror.

  “Hurry up! You’ll be late for the gym,” I said, but without any real urgency.

  Close up – in the rear-view mirror – I thought I looked healthful. Clear, unlined skin. My shoulder length hair had a natural wave, and a natural golden-blonde colour. I was wearing a tweed skirt and jacket, with a blouse tied at the throat, and little makeup. My dress was unfussy. I didn’t spend a lot of time on grooming.

  I leaned back on the head-rest, and closed my eyes. I wasn’t tired, as Greg had suggested at breakfast. In my mind, there was a dark spot which spoiled the pleasure of the Monday morning flurry in the house. I enjoyed getting the children ready for school. I was always slightly amused by Greg’s beginning-of-the-week sharpness which so contrasted with his laid-back weekend self. I liked the thought of a challenging week at the office. And there was always the agreeable anticipation of little engagements during the week, a keep-fit class, shopping for a present for Greg’s forty-first birthday… All these events were suddenly shaded.

  If I opened my eyes slightly, I could see an imperfection in my image in the mirror. My nose was very slightly thickened at the bridge. It was a small irregularity which Greg insisted gave me character, but I wasn’t really convinced. Every time I looked at my face in the mirror, and turned my head slightly, I could see that one side of my face wasn’t quite the same as the other. Over the years, I had made myself ignore it, and one of the ways of doing this was to spend as little time as possible looking at myself. That’s why I didn’t bother too much with makeup.

  At this time, on the morning of the meeting at Abbott’s point, I was telling myself that I was being stupid. We were going to meet a couple named Chadwin. So? There were probably hundreds, or thousands of Chadwins in America. It wasn’t a common name, but surely it wasn’t all that uncommon. My life was just as good at this moment, sitting in the Jeep, as it had been when I slipped out from under Greg’s warm arm in bed, an hour or so earlier. I was foolish to succumb to mere pulses of alarm flicking through my mind.

  I felt a gentle touch on my cheek, and opened my eyes fully. It was Gail’s hand.

  “I thought you were in a hurry, Mom,” she said.

  “This isn’t the time to sleep,” Rosemary added, as I made a startled flurry to ensure the children were secure, clicked my seatbelt, and rolled the car down the drive.

  I saw my sister Grace at the dining room window as we passed, watching with a self-contained smile. Grace waved and the children waved back.

  “I got sleepy waiting for you two,” I said to the girls, feeling defensive.

  “That’s funny because we’ve been sitting in the back, waiting for you for the last minute or so,” Rosemary said.

  At the gate, I swung the Jeep to the right, to go up Park Drive to Mt Vernon. My gaze fanned the empty, tree-lined road, with its neatly clipped verges as I eased the vehicle forward.

  Gail gave a high-pitched scream. I stomped the brake, and froze.

  With a deafening horn blast, and a yowl of tyres, a black Cadillac sedan swung wide past us. I hadn’t seen it! It had appeared from nowhere!

  “Gee, that was close!” Gail giggled now.

  “Mom, you really are asleep this morning. Admit it!” Rosemary said.

  I set the children down at Mt Vernon School with their bags, and greeted Mr Pegler the duty teacher who saw all the pupils safely inside the gate. Then I drove the four miles to the Ulex Business Machines site, on a new industrial park a few miles outside Rochester. The park was landscaped with rolling green lawns, and high-tech glass buildings. I usually got a pleasurable buzz out of arriving on a Monday, knowing that an airy, pastel-coloured office awaited me, with my own personal-assistant, and a pile of work that I was beginning to handle with increased confidence. But I didn’t get a kick this morning. I gave and received greetings from others, as I strolled from the parking lot to the office buildings. I was one of the senior people in the finance department, well-known and, I believe, well-liked. I acknowledged my colleagues with a mechanical wave of my arm. The dark spot was still there.

  When I reached my office, I spent a few moments chatting to Sally, my PA, pleasantries about the weekend. I asked for coffee. I went into my room, logged on to the computer and checked my diary. Monday morning was usually spent in the office, preparing for the meetings of the rest of the week. It was a relief to see the task list for the day. Nothing I couldn’t put off.

  I sat at my desk with the coffee, staring at the screen. I dealt with reports from staff, answered Sally’s queries, and the phone. The morning passed in a haze. At twelve-thirty I left the office.

  Chesterfield, population 6,800, was the town nearest to Cedar Falls, and most of the residents of Cedar Falls regarded it as ‘their’ town, rather than Chester Forks, which was further down the Caribou River, much bigger, and industrialised.

  The town was on the south bank, overlooking the river. It had a grassed town square – actually a triangle – with benches shaded by maples and oaks. The main shops, the courthouse, two churches, and the sheriff’s office surrounded the Square. Chesterfield, originally a farming centre, had become an attractive retirement place over the years. The shops had moved stealthily up-market. Three were selling antiques. There were two fine art galleries, an antiquarian bookshop, and a collection of exclusive boutiques.

/>   It was after 1pm. I didn’t feel hungry, and was thinking about getting back to the office. I was coming out of James & Charles, the men’s shop on the Square. I had wandered through the store, feeling silk ties, looking at the tooling on waist-belts, trying to think of a present for Greg. I couldn’t concentrate, and without deciding anything, I drifted out of the door.

  “Loren, honey. Hi!” a drawly voice greeted me.

  I looked up to see Donna Kutash in very high heels, and a long, clipped mink coat to keep out the chill that was creeping into the air.

  “Hi, Donna. I was dreaming.”

  “How about a little something?”

  “I have to get back.”

  Donna’s husband, Marty, was a managing director at Insel, another of the big local corporations. Greg, who was head of corporate planning, reported to him. I therefore had to view Donna and Marty as compulsory friends. I relented.

  We linked arms and went into Giovanni’s Coffee Shop. Donna could never resist the homemade strawberry cheesecake when she was in town. We found a table. I had a cappuccino, while I watched Donna fork the rich, scarlet mix into her mouth.

  We talked about Marty’s team’s hopes in the golf tournament. Greg was a team member. Donna wiped the cream from her full lips. I mentioned the new members. I couldn’t get my mouth around the name Chadwin.

  “Oh, yeah,” Donna said, chasing the last fragment of strawberry and cake on her plate with her fork, and finally blocking it with a long, polished fingernail, “the Chadwins. She’s a together lady, but OK. I met her at Kitty Calino’s. Loaded, I’m told. From LA, I think.”

  The mention of Los Angeles was a sudden relief. LA was a world away. I brightened. There were thousands of Chadwins in America!

  My state of mind at lunchtime on Monday was relieved, hopeful. I put in a zombie-like attendance at the office in the afternoon, and went home at 5pm to change. I wouldn’t normally have bothered to go home before going to the club. It was not so much that I wanted to have a shower and change my clothes; I wanted to take myself apart metaphorically, and reassemble the pieces. The twins were clattering around the house, and Grace was trying to organise them. Gail, always the most timid, came into the bedroom and watched me silently as I moved around in my bra and pants.