by Joan Smith
Robert sighed. ‘It’ll have to be, won’t it? Let me know as soon as you can – I don’t want to waste the other ticket.’
‘I will.’ She allowed him to kiss her cheek and watched as he started down the stairs. ‘Bye,’ she called as he reached the bend.
He was right, of course, she told herself, going back into the flat and shutting the front door. What Sandra did was up to her – though it did seem odd that she should go off without a word. Perhaps she’d been in touch with her husband? Presumably he’d be back from his skiing holiday by now. Loretta wondered if she’d ever had his telephone number, and doubted it. Nevertheless she went into the drawing-room and opened a pine corner cupboard, rummaging among old notebooks and out-of-date lecture notes until she came across what she was looking for, a stack of Spare Rib diaries held together with an elastic band. She was just opening her 1980 diary when the phone rang, so she put it down and hurried across the room, half expecting to hear Sandra’s voice when she picked it up. Instead there was a loud humming noise and the sound of distant, barely audible voices.
‘Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?’ She pressed the receiver close to her ear, trying to make out what the voices were saying, not even sure they were speaking English. She was about to put the phone down in exasperation when another, marginally less faint voice came on the line and spoke her name.
‘Yes, yes, this is she. Who’s that?’
‘Happy new year!’
‘John – is that you?’
‘Course it’s me. I was just. . .’ His voice trailed off and she did not hear the rest of the sentence.
‘Sorry, I can’t hear,’ she shouted. ‘Where are you?’
‘Nicosia. How are you?’
‘Very well. I thought you were somebody else.’
‘Charming! I spend a fortune ringing from Cyprus and. . .’ Tracey’s voice faded again, then came back loud and clear. ‘New boyfriend on the scene, is there?’
‘You haven’t rung from Cyprus to ask me that?’ Loretta picked up the phone and settled into a chair, ready for a lengthy conversation. Tracey’s telephone bills were paid by his employer, the Sunday Herald, and he had never shown any inclination to economize on their behalf. ‘How’s things? What did you do for Christmas?’
‘It was terrific’ The improvement in the line was maintained, with Tracey’s voice as clear as if he were in the next room. ‘I went swimming on Christmas Day, and this little taverna put on Christmas dinner for the English corrs – roasted a whole lamb. The Reuter’s bloke put me on to it – it’s a sort of tradition in these parts. Not a turkey in sight. Brilliant.’
‘We – I didn’t have turkey, either.’ Loretta was about to cover her mistake by telling Tracey about Sandra when he interrupted her.
‘Actually, Loretta, there’s something I want to talk to you about. I’ve been thinking – you know, New Year and all that – makes you think about. . . life and things. Neither of us is getting any younger, and it’s been a while. . .’
‘Go on,’ Loretta said, her suspicions aroused by these incoherent philosophical ramblings.
‘Well, I was just wondering – don’t take this wrong. I was just wondering how you’d feel about us getting divorced.’
‘Divorced?’ Loretta repeated the word in astonishment.
‘You sound amazed. But it makes sense when you . . .’ Tracey faded away in a storm of crackles and hisses.
‘I can’t hear you,’ Loretta shouted, taking the phone from her ear and giving it a violent shake. ‘Hello? Are you there?’ John’s voice muttered inaudibly in the background. ‘You’ll have to speak up, I can’t – oh, that’s better.’
‘Can you hear me?’
‘Yes, I can now. But I missed everything you said after the bit about divorce.’
‘Well, like I said, neither of us is getting any younger, and we haven’t lived together for years, so I just thought – why not make it official?’
‘Yes, I suppose . . .’
‘What’s the matter, Loretta? You don’t sound very pleased.’
‘It’s just rather sudden, that’s all. . . we’ve never really discussed it before.’
‘Yes, we did – when we first separated.’
‘I know, but it seemed a lot of bother, and we couldn’t do it straightaway.’
‘We can now, though,’ Tracey pointed out. ‘Good God, Loretta, I didn’t expect you to react like this. Anyone would think you want me back after all this time.’
‘No thanks!’ she said hurriedly, without thinking. ‘I mean – sorry, that didn’t sound very nice.’
‘Don’t worry, the feeling’s mutual,’ Tracey said with asperity. ‘Look, Loretta, it’s just a formality. All you’ve got to do is fill in a few forms and send them to me –’
‘All I’ve got to do?’
‘Well, it’s easier for you – you’re in London and I’m not.’
‘But I haven’t the faintest idea how to go about it.’
‘Go and look it up.’
‘Where do you suggest I start? The town hall?’
‘Why not? That’s where we got married, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘Come on, Loretta, you’re not stupid. I’m sure I can leave it all in your capable hands. And I’m quite willing to go halves, whatever it costs.’
‘That’s very generous.’
‘Loretta!’
She sighed. ‘All right, I’ll make inquiries and let you know. But it may take some time. Term begins soon, and you know how busy. . . There’s no hurry, is there?’
‘No – no.’
‘You don’t sound sure.’
‘No, of course, you’re quite right. . . Oh, while I think about it – don’t forget to put your real name down on the form,’ Tracey added maliciously. ‘We do want it to be legal.’
‘John –’ Loretta was sensitive about the fact that she’d changed her name from Laura to Loretta when she went to university, and Tracey knew it. There was a brief silence, then Tracey apparently decided he’d gone too far.
‘So – how are you, anyway?’ he asked lamely.
‘I’m – very well,’ Loretta paused. An unfamiliar element of formality seemed to be entering their relationship, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with it. She heard Tracey’s voice, but it had become faint again. ‘Sorry, I can’t hear you –’
‘I’ll ring you another time,’ Tracey bellowed, ‘line’s breaking up. Bye, Loretta. Happy new year!’
She replaced the receiver and put the phone back on the table. Then she sat back in her chair, unsettled by the conversation. Tracey was quite right, they hadn’t lived together for years, and there was no reason why they shouldn’t formalize the situation. But I left him she thought indignantly, plucking at a loose thread in the arm of the chair, a consequence of Bertie’s habit of sharpening his claws on the furniture.
Suddenly Loretta laughed out loud, reluctantly admitting what was wrong: she had been piqued by the fact that Tracey had suggested the divorce. The absurdity of her reaction amused and embarrassed her, and she got to her feet shaking her head at this demonstration of human frailty on her part. She stood in the middle of the room, trying to remember what she had been doing when Tracey rang until the sight of the open cupboard door reminded her. She returned to the 1980 diary and flipped through its pages to the section which contained telephone numbers. She found an entry under Neil, but it was a London number, the one for Sandra’s old flat in Blackheath. Loretta put the diary back, debating with herself as to whether she should check the others. Sandra might turn up at any moment, and she would not thank Loretta for contacting her husband behind her back – on the other hand, since she’d gone to the trouble of getting them out . . .
Loretta had a quick look in her 1981 diary. The Blackheath number was there under Neil, and it appeared again in 1982 and 1983. Then it disappeared. Loretta breathed a sigh of relief, winding the elastic band round the diaries and putting them back in the cupboard. There was n
othing she could do, and she might as well put the problem of Sandra out of her mind and think about more pressing matters. How did you go about getting divorced? She toyed with the idea of ringing up one or other of her divorced friends and quizzing them on the subject, but the prospect made her feel foolish. It occurred to her that Tracey’s suggestion of looking it up wasn’t such a bad one, and the obvious place to try was Islington Central Library in Holloway Road. She wondered if it would be open on 2 January; she stretched, thinking she felt like a walk. It would do her good after the alcoholinduced lethargy of the last couple of days. She turned on her answering-machine, went into the hall and took down her coat.
Chapter 4
Loretta awoke on Monday morning in the confident expectation that her absent guest would turn up at some point during the day. She had had no word from her since the morning of New Year’s Eve, but the longer Sandra was away the more likely it seemed that she had been offended by Loretta’s grudging hospitality and had taken herself off for a long weekend somewhere. Today was different: shops and businesses would be back to normal for the first time since Christmas, and the question of sorting out the waterworks at the Notting Hill flat must be assuming some urgency. It was already 4 January, and while Sandra had been vague about the starting-date of her new job, Loretta had the impression that it was imminent.
Cheered by the thought that the small mystery of Sandra’s whereabouts was certain to be cleared up soon, Loretta parcelled up the typescript of her book, which she had read through in the course of the weekend. There were still one or two passages which weren’t entirely to her liking, but she was delighted with her title, an adaptation of the quote from Virginia Woolf – A Woman and her Fate: A Life of Edith Wharton. As she stapled and sellotaped the bulky parcel and wrote the address of Vixen Press in large felt-tip letters on the front, she speculated that Sandra might already be at her flat, letting in a plumber. Loretta hummed under her breath as she weighed the parcel in her hands, savouring the joy of authorship.
When she went out on her errands to the post office and the County Court – she had discovered from the library that this was where she would acquire the forms needed for her divorce from John Tracey – she was careful to switch on her answering-machine, but was rewarded on her return only by a long message from her mother and one from Robert reminding her about the concert on Friday. Loretta clasped a hand to her forehead, realizing she had forgotten to check whether or not she was free, and spent half an hour getting hold of the friend who had invited her to dinner at the weekend. It turned out that the dinner party was on Friday, the same evening, and she had an uncomfortable phone conversation with Robert, who pressed her to drive up to his house in Oxfordshire on Saturday night instead. Loretta agreed reluctantly, not looking forward to the journey on a dark winter’s evening, and went upstairs to her tiny utility room to put on some washing.
Then, in a rather less cheerful frame of mind than she had started the day, she sat down at the kitchen table to study the forms relating to the divorce. They did nothing to improve her temper; having written Laura Anne Lawson in the box which asked for her full name, she was then required to supply her maiden name. Loretta glared at the form, wondering what to write; it was about time, she thought, that the people who designed such documents recognized that an increasing number of women no longer followed the convention of giving up their surnames on marriage. She wondered if she should attach a covering letter to this effect, then decided against it and simply wrote ‘None’ in the space provided. As she read on, pen poised, it occurred to her that some literal-minded official might misread the entry, and she smiled briefly at the thought of receiving correspondence addressed to Dr L. A. None. She went on filling in the form, then discovered that she was required to produce her marriage certificate, a document she had neither seen nor given a moment’s thought to for several years. She wasted a considerable amount of time looking for it, turning up old letters, Christmas cards, even Bertie’s vaccination record, but not the certificate. Eventually she sat back on her heels on the bedroom floor, surrounded by cardboard boxes, and concluded that it must be among John Tracey’s papers, not hers. She should have thought of this solution before, for Tracey was far more sentimental than she; she would have to ask him about it when she wrote to explain the divorce procedure, and to get his signature on the forms.
She looked at her watch, saw that it was a few minutes before three, and frowned as she realized there was still no word from Sandra. It was frustrating, not having the Notting Hill address and phone number, and Loretta began to feel uneasy again. Uneasy and not a little angry; what on earth was Sandra playing at, disappearing for days like this? She really was most inconsiderate – Loretta shook her head crossly. Pushing the cardboard boxes back into the bottom of the wardrobe, she went downstairs and stood looking at the phone in the drawing-room. She bit her lower lip, telling herself there must be some way of tracking down her lodger, and an idea came to her. Sally Wilkins, Sandra’s closest friend in the women’s group, had kept in touch with Loretta; she glanced at the mantlepiece, where Sally’s Christmas card was standing next to one from her parents. Perhaps she had heard something? It was even possible that Sandra had despaired of Loretta and had gone to stay with Sally. On the other hand, Sally’s flat was very small, hardly big enough for herself, her lover Peter and their baby. . . Nevertheless it was worth a try. Loretta went to get her address book, looked up Sally’s number and dialled it.
‘Sally? Hi, it’s Loretta. How are you?’
They exchanged news, Sally telling Loretta about the progress of her year-old daughter, Felicity, and the difficulties of combining motherhood with even a part-time job. Loretta told Sally about her Edith Wharton book, then explained why she had phoned.
‘I was wondering if you’d heard from Sandra Neil lately?’
‘Sandra Neil? Gosh, not for ages – it must be a couple of years. No, wait a minute, less than that – it was just after I was pregnant with Felicity. She rang out of the blue and I didn’t have time to talk, I was on my way to the ante-natal clinic. . . She sounded a bit depressed, but I was pregnant and – well, I should have phoned her back but you know how it is. We’d sort of lost touch a bit anyway. . . Why d’you ask?’
‘Oh, only that she’s been staying with me –’
’Staying with you? Heavens, Loretta, I thought you two didn’t get on. How on earth –’
‘I didn’t have much choice. She rang on Christmas Eve and said her pipes had burst. I’m surprised she didn’t ring you. . .’
‘Maybe she did – Peter and I were away over Christmas. Is she still with you?’
‘Well, that’s the thing – I haven’t seen her since last week. I came home on Thursday, that was New Year’s Eve, and she’d gone. There was no note or anything, but she’s left all her clothes behind. . . I’m getting a bit worried – I hoped you might have heard from her.’
‘Not a thing. Have you tried her husband?’
‘I thought of that but I don’t know his number. You don’t happen to have it, do you?’
‘I might. Can you hold on?’
‘Of course.’
A moment later Sally was back. ‘Found it. Have you got a pen?’ She dictated a Winchester telephone number. ‘I shouldn’t worry,’ she added reassuringly. ‘I’m sure she can take care of herself. Her life was always a bit complicated, what with her being up here and the kids away at school. . . How is she, by the way? Still working for Westminster?’
‘No, she’s given up social work, it turns out. She’s starting a new job in a health club.’
‘A health club? Sandra?’
‘Oh dear, that’s what I thought. But I – she obviously didn’t want to talk about it but I got the feeling she was fed up with social work.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me in the least. I always had the impression it was tougher than she expected – that’s the trouble with women who’ve not worked before. When did she leave Westminster?’
‘That I don’t know. It must be quite some time ago – she said she’d been working away from London.’
‘Don’t tell me she went back to Tom!’ Loretta heard a throaty chuckle. ‘I always thought. . . That was Sandra’s problem in a nutshell – when something went wrong she always had Tom to fall back on. What I never understood is what he got out of it.’
‘But Sally, I thought you liked her. You always used to see a lot of her outside the group.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. I just got a bit cynical – she only seemed to get in touch when something was wrong. . . When she’d had a row with Tom over the kids, or there was a problem with one of her clients. That’s all we had in common, really, the job. I’m probably doing her an injustice, it’s just I always thought she’d go back in the end. It’s all speculation – as I say, I lost contact with her a while ago.’
‘I wonder – she was very vague about where she went after Westminster. I assumed she’d moved because she got a new job somewhere. It didn’t occur to me that she’d gone back to him. It didn’t sound as if they were on good terms, but. . . Well, thanks for the number.’
‘Honestly, Loretta, I shouldn’t worry too much. You’ll probably find she’s gone off to see Tom and the kids and it hasn’t occurred to her that you’d be worried. . . Nice to hear from you.’
‘And you.’
‘By the way – there’s another number here you could try – it’s a place they’ve got down on the coast, he keeps a boat there. I went for a weekend once with Sandra, years ago now. It was lovely, in the New Forest, right on the water. Tom likes sailing, apparently, though I don’t think she’s keen.’
‘I’d better write it down – there’s no harm in trying. I’m probably wasting my time, but you never know. . . Thanks, Sally.’
Loretta took down the number, which had a code she didn’t recognize, and said goodbye. After she’d put the phone down she sat staring at the piece of paper, reluctant to dial either number. She remembered how vehemently Sandra had reacted to Loretta’s question about her husband on Christmas Eve: ‘We are separated, you know.’ It occurred to Loretta that perhaps Sally was right, that Sandra had indeed returned to her husband but had now left him again. If that were the case, Tom Neil would hardly welcome a phone call from someone who wanted to quiz him about his wife’s movements. Loretta stared glumly at the paper, her extreme reluctance to involve herself in Sandra’s affairs doing battle with her mounting anxiety over her non-appearance. Anxiety won, and she picked up the receiver.
