The Long and the Short of it.

by Jan Ruth

  THE END.

  Part Two: The Longs

  Wild Water - Chapter One

  WILD WATER

  By Jan Ruth

  Jack Redman, estate agent to the Cheshire set. An unlikely hero, or someone to break all the rules?

  Wild water is the story of forty-something estate agent, Jack, who is stressed out not only by work, bills and the approach of Christmas but by the feeling that he and his wife, Patsy are growing apart. His misgivings prove founded when he discovers Patsy is having an affair, and is pregnant.

  At the same time as his marriage begins to collapse around him, he becomes reacquainted with his childhood sweetheart, Anna, whom he left for Patsy twenty-five years before. He finds his feelings towards Anna reawaken, but will life and family conflicts conspire to keep them apart again?

  Chapter One.

  As Mondays went, it was the worst Jack could ever remember.

  It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, waiting for something, or someone to come and blow you apart, but in retrospect, it was exactly how he’d felt. The Monday halfway through December was probably the catalyst, when Jack began to wonder exactly why he felt so uneasy.

  “I’m not sure I like you in that tie anymore,” Patsy had said to him, just that morning. An innocent, almost banal remark, but if he eliminated ‘in that tie’, did it leave the truth? Or did it mean he was just stressed, and slightly paranoid?

  Christmas traffic was already building into a vortex of road rage on the bypass into Wilmslow. Negotiating the Cheshire set, with their oversized off-roaders and top of the range executive cars, ensured Jack remained in a bad mood. He swung onto his private forecourt, and the windows of Redman & Son, Estate Agents and Property Management, twinkled with tasteful white lights and sprigs of holly.

  He managed to smile at the cluster of staff making coffee, but went directly to his office, purposefully avoiding the weekend gossip. On his desk was a tower of paperwork waiting for urgent attention, but his concentration was sapped by a lot of miscellaneous rubbish. Maybe it was a combination of being forty-three and having to endure Christmas when it no longer appealed. Someone had tied shocking pink tinsel around the litter bin, reminding him that Christmas was indeed coming, so were the in-laws, and so were lots and lots of bills.

  There had been a statement in the post this morning for Patsy’s credit card, which he had never opened before, and goodness knows what prompted him to do so this time. There was an entry for almost a thousand pounds’ worth of underwear. Some of it, black and see through, was lying in tissue paper in an old vanity case. Charlotte, his seven-year-old daughter had discovered it the previous day at the bottom of Patsy’s wardrobe, whilst on a forbidden forage for dressing up clothes.

  Through the open door of his office, Jack could hear Clare his receptionist, reading out loud from a magazine. “It says here that men who like animals make better lovers.”

  He ran a hand through his untidy dark blonde hair, and scanned the new work that had materialised since the previous week. There was a Barbie-decorated fax from Lottie, as Charlotte called herself, because according to her brother, the dictionary described Charlotte as a pudding filled with stewed fruit. ‘Daddy pleese pleese can I have a puppee for Kristmas?’ On top of the old fax machine, there was a photograph of Patsy and their three children. It was a few years old because Lottie was a baby, and Patsy was laughing in that natural carefree way she had. He could remember taking the picture, and she’d been crying with laughter, or was she just crying? How odd that crying and laughter were so close physically. Did it follow then that happiness and sadness were almost the same? And love and hate?

  There was a burst of hilarity from the staff, as they argued about whether it would improve Clare’s love life if she bought her boyfriend a gerbil for Christmas.

  “Is no one doing any bloody work today?” Jack yelled from his desk. After a short silence, there was a lot of weary sighing, followed eventually by the tentative sounds of phone calls and guarded conversations. Jack didn’t know which was worse, the innocent remarks, or the feeling of alienation.

  He picked up an envelope penned in a familiar hand and tore it open, while reading a long list of trivial messages that should have been dealt with by the Sunday staff. Normally, he had a strong sense of humour, but this morning he saw it as irritating and unprofessional to be informed that one of their tenants had broken a dishwasher by trying to steam fish in it.

  Jack glanced through the letter instead. It was a plea for immediate leave, from Jean, the company secretary of about thirty-five years. Apparently, she needed a hysterectomy operation, which she could have next week due to an NHS cancellation, followed by five months of recuperation with her daughter in Australia. It ended apologetically, mentioning the fact that she hadn’t taken any leave for two years, but Jack was too mortified to take it all in and found himself checking the handwriting for signs of forgery. It was a joke, it just had to be.

  His telephone buzzed and Clare’s modulated voice came over the line from reception. “Your mother’s calling long distance from Spain.”

  His parents had been on holiday in Majorca for the previous three weeks because it was quiet at that time of the year for sales, but the lettings and management side of the business in Wilmslow was suddenly manic, and Jon Kelly, who ran the whole operation for Jack, had been sent to manage the North Wales branch in his parents’ absence.

  The thought that Leo and Isabel were still in Spain instead of on their way home was disconcerting. Jack was beginning to feel overloaded. He lit a cigarette quickly and pressed speak on the keypad.

  “Jack! Is that you?” Isabel said shrilly, as if being abroad meant she had to shout. She sounded as high as a kite, which was totally out of character for his mother. His father on holiday and with nothing much to do was enough to make even the terminally depressed seem cheerful.

  “Jack, your father’s gone and done something exciting! Well for your father anyway.”

  “Yeah?” he said, cautiously, unsure whether he could cope with exciting, and sat down on the edge of his overflowing desk, trying to remember whether Patsy had ever worn the black body stocking. It wasn’t anything he’d bought himself, he preferred her in light shades because she had very pale skin like porcelain, and long chestnut hair. The previous Christmas he’d given her cream Italian lingerie, and she’d worn it beneath a wrap-around satin dress the colour of her sludgy green eyes. It had clung to her body like a beautiful, poisonous vine...

  “Jack? Are you listening? I said we’re buying a villa in Puerto Pollensa!”

  “That’s great, Mum. Put Dad on will you?”

  Actually, Jack didn’t think it was great at all. There was a lot of scuffling and whispering as the telephone changed hands, and then his father’s gruff voice came over the line. “Jack. I need you to go to Conwy for a few days next week. I’ve something coming on the market and I want you down there,” his father said, not waiting for any kind of reaction. “I’ve already got a buyer, e-mail you all the details later. Jean can manage there if you put Jon back in lettings,” he went on, then trailed to a halt, remembering that his son had a life outside the office as well. “Patsy and the kids okay?”

  “Yeah... great.”

  When Jean came in with a tray of coffee, he was thumbing through a pile of parking tickets and a speeding fine, wondering if he could persuade Jon to stay in Conwy. After all, he was a single guy with no ties and they were paying him a lot of money. The thought of being a hundred miles away in a North Wales town on top of everything else was filling him with a feeling close to panic.

  “Why are you smoking again?” Jean said, then looked at his desk in exasperation, searching for a small free area in which to deposit a cup. “You haven’t smoked for twenty years! There’s a ban now as well.”

  “Jean,” he said, holding the letter in his fingers, “We need to talk about this.”

  “Yes,” she said awkwardly, and pushed the ashtray to his
side of the desk.

  It was well after ten before Jack found himself back on the bypass, heading for a nine-thirty meeting with Marlow Homes. No doubt Jean would be on the telephone now, apologising for him running late and smoothing the way. Jean was fifty something; a bit tweedy maybe, but smart and capable of running the entire operation in Jack’s absence. She was irreplaceable.

  There had been no way round the gynaecological problem. She was determined to have everything taken out as soon as possible. “You’re so lucky being a man,” she’d said with a sigh, and the rest of the female staff had immediately rallied on her side, ganging up on him.

  “Yeah, men don’t have to put up with periods,” Clare had said with a sassy smile, and Jack had replied, “Yes they do; periods of bloody insanity.”

  Then they’d all just laughed at him.

  He thought briefly about contacting Leo and getting him to come back, but it felt a bit pathetic really, and anyway he couldn’t ruin his mother’s holiday. This was the first time in years his father had spent any time with her and after everything his father and the business had put her through, she deserved her villa in the sun.

  There was no sun in Wilmslow. The December darkness fell early, but the town remained fully employed in the business of making money. It was stockbroker belt, full of social climbers trying to be middle class, and middle class pretending to be something else. Then there were the small time television personalities, a few well-known faces from the sporting circuit and a smattering of titled gentry. Jack wasn’t sure where he fitted in, but when he told Patsy once that his roots were working class, she wouldn’t speak to him. Much as he sometimes disliked the contrived personality of the town, it always had a constant turnover of property, waiting to do business, and Jack always got a buzz from doing the business well.

  By the end of the day, he returned to the office marginally more optimistic, having received instructions to sell Barbary House, a huge gothic mansion belonging to some ageing third rate rock star from the sixties.

  “Put it on at six-nine-five, no board,” he said to Clare, handing her the specification details and a set of keys, then managed to give her a smile. “Sorry I was in a mood earlier.”

  “So what’s new, boss?” she said brightly, then added, “Actually, you do look more wrecked than usual.”

  Clare was a lot more decorative than Jean, being younger, blonder, and a lot less tweedy. Jack liked her a lot. She’d worked for him for a long time, and was now more or less immune to his moods and tempers.

  “You would tell me if there was anything wrong with this tie, wouldn’t you?” he said.

  “Jack, don’t you think you’re becoming a bit paranoid about your ties? I’m sure you said something similar last week.”

  “Yeah, yeah probably, don’t give it another thought.”

  Inside his office, Oliver, Jack’s son, was swinging round in his leather chair and drinking a can of Coke. The computer was making a lot of alarming, explosive noises. Every so often an American voice said, “That’s real cool shootin’ dude! Wanna hit me with that one again?”

  “Ollie! What are you doing here?” Jack said, dumping his bag and a pile of Marlow Homes brochures onto the floor. “I thought Mum always collected you on a Monday?”

  “So did I, she didn’t show.”

  “Did you phone her, Ollie?”

  “Yeah. Phone was switched off. Can I go get a Big Mac?”

  *

  It was well after seven by the time Jack pulled onto his drive, behind Patsy’s silver Mercedes Sports. When he saw the battered Volvo parked next to it, Jack’s spirits drooped. It belonged to Sonia Adams, one of Patsy’s staff from the beauty salon. As far as Jack was concerned, the woman only just fell short of being a nymphomaniac. She’d gone through dozens of relationships, all wildly unsuitable, all of which had been sobbed over at his kitchen table while consuming vast quantities of his gin and whisky.

  Jack slid his laptop and a briefcase full of paperwork onto the hall table, and was greeted by Lottie, standing at the top of the galleried staircase in a baggy swimsuit and a pair of Barbie wellingtons. Sonia’s daughter Freya was completely naked and showered with talcum powder. There were clothes strewn all over the banisters and something was dripping off one of the chandeliers onto the pale blue carpet, and foaming into a dark brown sludge as it travelled down the stairs.

  “Daddy!” Lottie shouted, “We’re playing strip Barbie!”

  “That’s nice, love,” Jack said, with as much patience as he could muster. “Maybe you and Freya should get dressed now.”

  “Her name’s Fred, not Freya!” Lottie shouted back angrily and threw a pair of Barbie knickers at him. Oliver catapulted them back, and laughed with derision. “Ugh, you two are so sad.”

  Against his better judgement, Jack marched into the sitting room and sloshed a lot of whisky into a glass. The gin bottle was missing and he could hear shrieks of laughter and low mutterings in the kitchen. At least there was no sobbing. He lounged back on one of the cream sofas and waited for the alcohol to hit his system, which didn’t take long, as he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. When he glanced around the room, he was aware of certain subtle changes.

  Because the house was so big, it was a six bed-roomed Victorian property on the edge of Prestbury golf course; they had always employed help, but Patsy was so fussy she usually ended up sacking them after a while. The latest one hadn’t been replaced, and there was a vase of dead flowers sat in a film of dust on the fireplace. The heavy swag and tail curtains were tied back unevenly, leaving one of the tassels trailing across the limed oak floor. It didn’t really faze Jack very much; it was more the change in the lack of care, which was significant.

  Rather than announce his presence in the kitchen, he poured himself another, slightly smaller drink and went and stood under the shower for a long time. After a while, drowning out the rush of water, he could hear Lottie arguing with her brother, gradually winding him up. “Well Mummy has done something bad and only Fred and me know what it is. Stupid Liver doesn’t know.”

  “Shut up, Puddin,” he said, then more harshly, “Look just sod off, will you?”

  There followed a good deal of theatrical screaming, a loud thud, then something that sounded like a small child crashing down the stairs. Jack dashed out of the shower, fumbling for a towel and falling over Patsy’s handbag and hairdryer, amazed that Patsy and Sonia were still gossiping and drinking gin in the kitchen, while everything else felt like it was spiralling out of control. By the time he reached the landing, Jack’s mind was on fast forward, already calling the ambulance and trying to explain to social services why the children weren’t being supervised.

  It turned out to be two empty golf bags filled with rubbish from the kids bedrooms. Lottie and Freya were standing in the hall, surrounded by the debris, knowing he was going to explode.

  “Clear all that crap up right now and go to your room!” Jack yelled. There was a short silence as they took this in; then Lottie gave a knowing smile.

  “Daddy,” she said sweetly, “We can see your todger.”

  His heart pounding unnaturally fast now, Jack abandoned the shower, and dressed in denims and an old shirt, then studied himself carefully in the full length mirror. For a forty something stressed out man with possibly disturbed children, all the inner turmoil didn’t show, well not yet anyway.

  He was just under six foot, a natural athletic build but with a tendency to put weight on easily, especially if he didn’t keep swimming. For as long as he could remember, although he always struggled to keep it that way, he’d always worn a size sixteen collar and trousers with a thirty-four inch waist. Of late, his clothes felt slightly loose. Like everything else in the house, they were well made and co-ordinated and carried the required label, but then Patsy was in charge of them, otherwise he’d probably slob around in track-suit bottoms and a washed out t-shirt.

  Jack peered more closely at his face. He had the s
ame sort of tired face as yesterday, mid grey eyes, hair not too tidy. His late summer tan from Italy was just about fading, and he needed a shave and a haircut. But was that enough to stop someone loving you?

  Resisting the urge then to go through Patsy’s Gucci handbag or search the clutter on the dressing table, Jack made his way downstairs. He could hear Lottie and Freya singing breathlessly in the playroom as they practised some sort of energetic dance routine. There was the usual pounding bass from Oliver’s den.

  That he should feel nervous about entering his own kitchen was faintly ridiculous, but the feeling just wouldn’t go away. The reasons soon presented themselves. Sonia stood on her toes and embraced him tightly, for much longer than Jack thought was necessary, then glued her red cavernous mouth onto his face.

  “Jack! You smell delicious as usual.”

  “It’s soap,” he said, as politely as possible, and pulled her arms down from his neck. She gave him a petulant frown but grinned at Patsy and helped herself to another gin and tonic.

  Patsy was chopping some sort of unappetising vegetation on the granite worktop, but when his eyes left the food to look at her, he almost passed out. Her hair, which had always been a chestnut curtain, almost to her waist when she wore it loose, was sheared to within an inch of its life. By far the most alarming aspect was the colour, not far off pillar box red.

  Sonia smirked. “Jack, your jaw is dragging on the floor.”

  For a long minute, he couldn’t speak. He was gutted, and it was hard to hide. Patsy’s emerald eyes met his and there was just enough defiance there to make him feel uncomfortable. When he did speak, his voice came out little more than a whisper. “Please tell me it’s a wig... Patsy?”