The Mixture As Before

by Rosie Harris

  She enjoyed Jason’s company, but in many ways Reginald was still as dominant an influence in her life as he had been when he was alive. Anyway she wasn’t ready for a deeper commitment.

  Apart from that, she reminded herself, Jason was far too young for her. Twenty years age difference may be acceptable when it is the man who is older but not when it is the other way round. Especially when he looks so much younger.

  Being completely bald would have aged most men, but in Jason’s case it made him look almost juvenile. The smooth golden skin of his head, together with his soulful amber coloured eyes, plump cheeks, and pouting mouth gave him a cherubic look.

  When he wore a formal suit it was in mohair or linen, smoothly emphasizing his slim build and highlighted by a contrasting shirt and an outrageously colourful tie.

  He was a head-turner in every sense and that, to her mind, made it all the more incredible that he seemed to be so interested in her.

  True, her figure was as slim, and trim, as it had been when she was in her thirties, but her blonde hair was showing rather more than a mere hint of grey. And when she applied her make-up each morning she was only too aware that there were age lines around her mouth as well as at the corners of her eyes.

  She had never been one to pamper herself with facials, or expensive beauty creams but now she wondered if perhaps she should take professional advice from a qualified beautician and hope that she hadn’t left it too late.

  She hadn’t visited a hairdresser in years so perhaps the time had come for her to do so. She kept her hair shoulder length by snipping an inch or so off the ends when it became too unwieldy to roll up into a French pleat. That, and a twice-weekly shampoo when she was taking her shower, was the only attention she had given it since Reginald retired.

  Having set her home in order, perhaps it was now time to do the same for herself. After her dramatic clear out, she ought to start by replenishing her wardrobe and not with quality, classic styles that would last a lifetime and classified her as a sensible middle-class woman but with up-to-the-minute styles.

  It wasn’t merely clothes; her mental attitude also mattered. She ought to get a job. The thought haunted her. It was as if there were three heads on her shoulders, each screaming a different answer.

  Before she did either of those things though she intended to buy a small car. She had been without far too long and now that Jason had finished working on her house she would have plenty of time on her hands and would need her own transport.

  She missed having her own car so very much. She might not be able to afford the open-top sports car of her dreams but she still had enough of her savings left to buy a smart little runabout.

  She wouldn’t tell anyone, not Jason, her friends or her family about it until the deed was done. Charles would say she couldn’t afford it and everybody else would be offering advice that she didn’t want.

  She certainly wouldn’t be going to the garage in Maidenhead that Reginald had favoured because she was pretty sure they would get in touch with Charles and tell him what she was doing before she could complete the deal.

  For the next few nights she scanned the small adverts in the newspaper hoping to spot something suitable.

  It was quite by chance that when walking home from the village she saw the bright yellow sports car in the driveway of one of the houses. It had a home-made FOR SALE notice in the back window and as she stopped to read the price she was delighted to see that it came within her budget.

  ‘Fancy trying it out?’ asked a young man who had obviously noticed her interest and came down the garden path to meet her.

  Margaret smiled hesitantly. ‘I’m not sure if it’s suitable,’ she prevaricated.

  ‘Who is it for? Your son?’

  ‘No!’ She felt irritated. ‘It’s for me!’

  ‘I see. Well why not sit in it and see if you like the feel of it?’

  Again she hesitated knowing full well that she would like it. It was almost exactly what she’d dreamed of owning. She knew so little about what to look for, though, that even though she’d found it and wanted it she felt someone ought to take a look at it before she bought it.

  She wouldn’t ask Charles, of course but Steven had said he would help her if she needed him to do so.

  ‘I am interested and I do like it,’ she admitted, ‘but I would like to have it checked out.’

  ‘That’s fine by me, so why don’t you bring your mechanic round? I’ll be here all evening.’

  Margaret smiled. ‘I might do that,’ she promised.

  Twenty

  It was over forty years since she had worked, Margaret reflected. The moment they had set the date for their wedding Reginald had insisted that she should resign from her job as his secretary.

  She’d been so infatuated by him and in such a state of euphoria that she hadn’t dreamed of arguing. It had all seemed like a dream when Reginald Wright, managing director of Wright Engineering, actually asked her to marry him. He was so handsome, so worldly and the fact that he’d proposed marriage to her, a shy eighteen-year-old, had seemed unbelievable.

  Margaret recalled how nervous she’d been when she’d first joined the company and Reginald had called her in to take dictation. She had been afraid to lift her eyes from her pad in case she missed getting something down.

  It wasn’t until an hour or so afterwards, when she had taken in the batch of letters for his signature, that she had really looked at him.

  Reginald had been in his late thirties, a tall, imposing man with a shock of well-groomed dark hair. He had a strong face, clean-shaven with a straight nose, strong cheekbones, and a firm, square chin. His smartly cut dark charcoal suit sat well on his broad frame. With it he was wearing a crisp red and white striped shirt and dark red tie.

  His compelling dark grey eyes, under wide dark brows, had unnerved her. His penetrating gaze had made her knees feel weak. She held her breath as she waited for him to sign the letters she’d brought in, her fingers crossed, silently praying she’d not made any errors. When his wide firm mouth relaxed into a smile of approval after he had signed each one and handed them back to her to send out, her heart had pounded wildly with relief.

  She’d done everything after that to try and impress him. She’d invested the whole of her first month’s salary on a smart grey suit, high-heeled black shoes and two crisply tailored white blouses to try and make herself appear more sophisticated. She’d painted her finger nails with pale pink varnish and sought advice about make-up. She’d abandoned all her pieces of junk jewellery in favour of plain gold ear studs and a discreet gold necklet.

  She checked her work meticulously. The slightest error and she retyped the whole letter. For the first few weeks, because she was so nervous, her waste-paper basket was full to the brim each evening. Afraid that someone else in the office might notice she took to secreting the spoiled sheets and smuggling them out at the end of the day so that she could dispose of them in the dustbin at home.

  She had been working at Wright Engineering for about two months when Reginald asked her if she could stay late to type up some reports that he needed urgently for a meeting first thing the next day.

  ‘Leave them on my desk and I’ll call in and collect them later on this evening,’ he told her as he left the office.

  He returned earlier than she had expected. She was still typing the last page.

  He had changed out of his formal business suit, and was wearing a tweed sports jacket, grey slacks and a black polo-neck sweater. In her eyes he looked even more devastating and there was a catch in her voice as she answered his questions about the work she had almost completed.

  When he came and stood behind her chair, reading the page over her shoulder, her heart thudded so loud against her ribs that she was sure he must be able to hear it.

  ‘I’ve kept you very late,’ he apologized. ‘You must be starving!’

  ‘Yes, I am rather hungry.’ She smiled awkwardly.

  He frowned. ‘Have
you let them know at home that you’re working late?’

  ‘Oh yes. I phoned my mother.’

  ‘So what time is she expecting you home?’

  ‘I … I didn’t say a specific time because I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to type the reports …’

  ‘Good! Come on then, I haven’t eaten either so we’ll have a quick snack together.’

  He’d taken her to a Chinese restaurant and ordered a selection of dishes without asking her what she wanted. She’d been too nervous to say anything. The food had been new to her but delicious and she had eaten in silence, letting him do all the talking.

  Later, relaxed by the food and wine, she had answered his probing questions about her background, telling him about the rest of her family.

  She told him about her brother Joseph who had only recently married and was trying to build up his own business as a market gardener. She even spoke about her sister Vivienne who was ten years older than her and wanted to leave home and share a flat with her friends.

  ‘So what about you, Margaret? What are your plans for the future?’

  She took a deep breath before answering. ‘To go on doing what I’m doing now,’ she finally told him.

  ‘Working as a shorthand-typist!’

  ‘That’s right. I … I’m very happy … I love my work.’

  Two months later, Reginald had appointed her his private secretary. That had been a milestone in her life.

  Although she hadn’t realized it at the time, it had marked the end of her independence as Margaret Chapman.

  Their whirlwind courtship had swept her off her feet. Within the year they were married and Reginald had installed her in Willow House.

  Built on the edge of the Chilterns, within walking distance of Cookham Village, it offered the best of all worlds, yet it was only six miles from the house she’d grown up in outside Windsor.

  Before the novelty of being a full-time housewife had time to dim she had found herself pregnant with Charles. Alison followed him two years later and she was barely out of the pram before Steven arrived. Even with full-time help in the home and a live-in nanny, Margaret found that having three babies in four years kept her fully occupied.

  She saw less, and less, of Reginald. He worked long hours, and quite often his business meetings extended late into the evening. At weekends he unwound on the golf course.

  In the space of four years he had become a family man, yet basically he had not changed his bachelor ways one iota. Under the banner of business commitments he left himself free to lead an independent life.

  He had been astute enough not to neglect her. On the occasions when they dined with some of his business colleagues he seemed to be inordinately proud of the fact that despite several pregnancies she had managed to retain her svelte figure. That and the fact that she was only half the age of most of the other women who were present had other men eyeing him enviously

  She was the one who had become disillusioned. More and more she felt that Reginald treated their marriage as he would one of his business transactions and was glorying in the fact that he had achieved the desired result.

  Although she had a beautiful home, a delightful young family and a very handsome husband she sometimes felt lonely.

  She had her own car and plenty of money to spend on clothes and personal needs. She lived in luxury, yet in some ways she had nothing.

  They rarely went out as a family because during the week Reginald was always too busy and at weekends his golf took priority over everything else.

  Reginald rarely told her anything about what was going on in his business life and when she did attend official functions other wives looked at her in surprise because she appeared to know so little about his business affairs. Some of them seemed to think it was because she wasn’t interested; others were sure that she knew but was refusing to disclose any details.

  As the children grew older and began to make lives of their own Margaret attended fewer and fewer of Reginald’s business functions. Instead she began to make a life of her own and she took refuge in the friendship that had developed between herself, Brenda Williams, Thelma Winter and Jan Porter.

  Twenty-One

  Margaret listened with wavering attention as Charles tried to explain her financial situation now that everything to do with Reginald’s will had been settled. Unease clutched at her insides like a clammy hand.

  The realization that she still had to pay Jason Parker for all the work he had arranged for her to be carried out on Willow House was uppermost in her mind. She had no idea how much this would amount to. She had given him a free hand, told him that money was no object. Her only criterion had been that everything must be top quality, especially the standard of workmanship.

  Accordingly, he had engaged only the most skilled tradesmen and craftsmen and used only the finest materials. She suspected this meant that everything had been extremely expensive.

  It was no good telling Charles that every room in the house had needed to be redecorated and refitted. It wasn’t true. She had insisted on having it done because at the time she had wanted to exorcize the past. She wanted Willow House to have the stamp of her personality on it, not Reginald’s. Now she wasn’t sure that it had been necessary, or that it had been successful.

  There was no denying that the work had completely transformed the house and she loved all the new colour schemes and furnishings, but Reginald’s presence was still there.

  She found herself thinking more and more about him and the life they’d spent there together, Not constantly, but in flashes. It was like turning a corner and suddenly catching a glimpse of a scene long forgotten, or seeing someone in the distance and remembering the occasion when you last met.

  It seemed to happen whenever she was in the house alone, and she attributed it to the fact that until now she had rarely been there on her own. For the last ten years Reginald had rarely left the house. When he did, it was to visit the doctor or the hospital and she had always gone with him. Before that, even though he had been out a great deal, there had always been the children and their countless friends.

  She sighed contemplatively. In those days the house had resounded to voices, laughter and music. Now the house was practically deserted and only the echo of her own footsteps broke the overall silence.

  Four bedrooms, and she occupied only one of them. Three large reception rooms as well as a huge family kitchen and a big square hall and she was the only one using them.

  While the workmen had been in and out, measuring up, painting, wallpapering, rewiring, hanging curtains, laying carpets, and the hundred and one other tasks they had carried out, the place had been alive. The sound of their banging and hammering, their constant chatter and occasional bursts of singing had filled the air.

  When they’d been there she had even looked forward to the evenings when she would at last be alone and everything would be peaceful.

  While the work had been in full swing, Jason had been around much of the time. On those days when they were not out together, on some buying or viewing excursion, he would be at Willow House overseeing the work in progress.

  Since his declaration that his feelings for her transcended mere friendship she had avoided being alone with him whenever possible. She didn’t feel ready for such complications of that sort. Instead she had thrown herself back into family life.

  It wasn’t the same though.

  The easy camaraderie that had always existed between her and Alison seemed strained. Whenever Alison came to visit it was as if she was walking on eggshells, trying desperately hard not to criticize, or say anything that might upset her.

  Alison seemed to measure her words carefully as if afraid to bring her father’s name into the conversation. She had obviously cautioned Christopher to do the same. Whenever he was about to say something about his grandfather, Alison distracted him by changing the subject. It made things so strained and so uncomfortable that Margaret wanted to scream.

  She l
onged to tell Alison that she didn’t mind his name being mentioned; she wanted to talk about him and the past. Yet she didn’t do so. Instead she condoned her avoidance by pretending not to notice.

  In the past she and Alison had freely discussed anything under the sun. There had been no holds barred. Sometimes their criticism of each other had led to sharp words and even tears but they had always made up with hugs and kisses. Now, they were so restrained it was as if there was an invisible wall between them.

  Mark was aware of it, Margaret was quite sure. Whenever the three of them were together he did his best to keep the conversation on general topics. If he did mention Reginald’s name he did it in a matter-of-fact way.

  On the few occasions when that happened Alison would visibly wince and give him a pained look.

  If she wasn’t careful, thought Margaret, this state of affairs would lead to a quarrel between Mark and Alison. She didn’t wish to be involved so she kept away from them.

  Things weren’t much better when she dropped in uninvited on Steven. It was something Sandra had never liked her to do. Her explanation was that she might be at work and it inconvenienced her mother if she was there looking after the children.

  Margaret accepted this excuse even though she knew that when Matthew and Hannah were babies and Sandra was at home all the time, she had still preferred visits to be prearranged. By the time she arrived Sandra would have made sure that her home was in apple-pie order and the kettle on the boil or even the tea or coffee prepared ready.

  It had made Margaret feel so uncomfortable that her visits were regarded as an inspection that she had rarely visited them. Instead, Steven had called in at Willow House two or three times a week and brought the children along to see her at the weekends.

  Now, sheer loneliness had driven her to seek their company and Sandra’s cool reception made her feel unwanted.

  She began to feel sorry for Steven. He was such a warm, friendly person, bubbling with good humour. He was the sort of man who enjoyed an open house. She was sure that if he had his way the place would be full of friends, and echoing to laughter.