The Last Dance

by Carolyn McCrae

  One of the first savings he had made was to stop Alicia’s allowance. Kathleen had been urging him to stop these payments but in March he had known he couldn’t keep them up anyway.

  Other actions were even more blameworthy. He had raided all the trust funds. Arnold had succeeded in raising a lot of money; but not enough.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was with mixed emotions when, sitting at my desk early on the last Monday morning in May 1958, I heard her voice. She was speaking loudly and her words were clear despite my office door being quite substantial, and shut.

  She was not happy. That much was very obvious.

  “I need to see Mr Fischer.”

  “He is not here today. What did you say your name was?” Judith, the receptionist, had been with us only a short time.

  “I am Alicia Tyler.” The name meant nothing to the girl.

  I had not taken any of Alicia’s calls in the preceding weeks. I had had to find excuse after excuse not to take her calls. I knew what she would be ringing about but I wouldn’t be able to tell her the truth.

  “Mr Fischer is not in today. He will not be in all week.”

  “Is he at home?”

  “I really cannot answer that Madam. Do you want me to tell him you called in? He is telephoning to pick up messages.”

  Alicia ignored this.

  “Is Ted Mottram in or is the office completely staffed by imbecilic young girls?”

  “There is no need to be rude, Madam.”

  “I have come a long way to be here and have had a stressful journey. I did not expect to be disappointed.” She didn’t sound very sorry for her rudeness.

  There was quiet for a few seconds and then, with a softening of the voice, “No I really am sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. It really isn’t your fault.”

  One of Alicia’s more endearing habits was her ability to change mood almost instantly from an almost pompous arrogance to contrition and charm.

  Responding to the changed tone Judith admitted my presence in the office.

  “Is he with someone or can I go in?”

  “I will ask him, Madam. Do, please take a seat.”

  Seeing a way out of this difficult start to her working week, Judith pressed the buttons on the intercom and told me what I already knew. “A lady named Alicia Tyler is in reception and would like to see you.”

  During her visit to the Wirral five years ago I had seen her for a total of, perhaps, three hours, and after that visit I had spent many months trying to live with the humiliation it had caused me. I had spoken to her as a friend, I had told her things I should not have simply because I was fond of her. I had betrayed the confidences of my client, her husband. Max had not been pleased with me, but had understood what had happened, probably better than I, and, despite making life rather difficult for me for a short time, did confirm my promotion that summer – so I knew I was forgiven. The damage had been in my relationship with Arnold. We had not spoken, I had left his cricket team and had lost contact with the children. It was only years afterwards that I spoke with them and with Kathleen and filled in the gaps in my knowledge of their lives. Those five years had been made worse by my knowing that I had broken my promise to Alicia. I could not look after the children, I could not keep an eye on them and keep them safe, even at a time when I knew Kathleen’s influence was growing and her ambition for Carl was overruling all the rights of Charles and Susannah.

  Before that it had been a further five years since I had seen her. In all we had had two or three meetings in over ten years. But through all that time I had been driven by my feelings for her. I knew so much about her life and, once, we had almost been friends.

  She went straight to the point.

  “Ted what is going on? I haven’t received any money from Arnold for months.”

  Aware that I had previously told her too much by answering her questions directly, I had to be circumspect.

  “Wouldn’t it be better if you talked to Arnold?”

  “Oh I can’t, no I won’t talk to that damned man. I can hardly bring myself to hear his name. He has treated me disgracefully. You do not know what I have been through these past five years, Ted. I have had to do such things to get by,” she paused, concern on her face, perhaps she was the one to be in danger of giving too much away, “teaching elocution to silly little brats, Ted, no-one deserves that fate!” The change of tone, making a joke of what was obviously hurtful, was the Alicia that I found so appealing.

  “I do think that Arnold is the only person who can tell you what is going on.”

  “Max?”

  “Elizabeth is very ill, Max has not been in the office for some time.”

  “Oh dear, I am sorry to hear that. Has she been ill for long?”

  “She never recovered her strength after Veronica, you know. Then she had a breakdown of some sort. She has been in a nursing home for some years now. She had a stroke last week and they think it’s now only a matter of days.”

  “Oh how sad” she said, but then I was shocked at the coldness in her voice as she continued “He’ll probably find a widow and re-marry. He would even have another family, he’s still young enough to attract someone who could give him the son he wants.”

  Years later she remembered this conversation. She went over it again and again, in all the meetings with Max in those years he had said nothing. Was she so unimportant to him? She was so hurt that he had never confided in her as a friend.

  Seeing her looking so sad I turned the subject. “Arnold doesn’t speak to me nor I to him since your last visit.”

  I hoped she would remember how she had compromised my position, but she seemed to have no thought about that. I looked across at her but she showed no sign of knowing what I was talking about.

  I continued “I think you should talk to him. Should I ask Judith to call him and tell him you are in Liverpool and that you would like to meet him?”

  “He won’t want to see me will he?”

  “Even if he does I can’t see it doing any good.” It was best to be honest. “But I think you have a right to know of certain,” I paused to find the right words “developments, but I am not the one to tell you.”

  I pressed the buttons on the intercom. “Judith. Could you call Mr Arnold Donaldson and ask him if he could make an appointment to meet his ex-wife. It can be here or at some other location of his choosing. Make it clear I will not be present at the meeting. And no, I do not wish to speak to him myself.”

  So that explained to Judith who this woman in the outrageous hat was.

  She knocked on the door. “He was not very happy Sir. His exact words were “I suppose I’d better meet the bitch.” Pardon me Madam. He said he would be in the lounge of the Derby Hotel this evening at 5pm. He could not come to Liverpool. He said he could spare her half an hour.”

  So again I drove Alicia through the tunnel and out over Bidston Hill onto the fields of the Wirral – now becoming more built over with housing estates. This time I dropped her off at the hotel pausing only to make sure they had a room for her for the night. Now was not the time to be troubling Max with a house guest.

  In the first ten minutes of their meeting Alicia heard most of what she needed to know.

  Henry was dead. “Good riddance” was her response “he was a weak man to allow himself to be so manipulated by you, though you must be so pleased that it fits so well into your overall scheme.”

  Kathleen and Carl now lived with them at Millcourt, “What a surprise! Not so prissy now then!” but he was selling that house and they were all going to live in her old home. “I haven’t told them yet but that is what we will have to do.”

  She had no easy sarcastic answer to that.

  “Why are you selling up?”

  “There is no money left.”

  “None?”

  “None. Not one more penny can I give you. That’s it. You’re on your own.”

  It was worse than she had imagined, and Max would not be there to h
elp.

  She sat back in the comfortable armchair, her saucer held precisely in her left hand, the teacup in her right and reflected. Not so many years ago she had had a position in this community, she had been the admired and respected wife of a rich businessman with realistic political ambitions and the contacts and money to achieve those. She had had a large house with staff, she hadn’t had to work or worry about a thing. There were the two children who everyone had thought beautiful, a boy and a girl, just as it should be. She had achieved a good life out of the wreckage of her accident.

  She had had all that but still had not been happy, but then perhaps that would have been just too much to ask.

  Now she was not only unhappy but also, it seemed, broke.

  Her eyes filled with the same pity for herself she had felt two days before after her phone call with Charles.

  She did not spare too many thoughts for what this man would be feeling, this man who had been her husband and who a long time ago, and for a very short time, she had thought she loved.

  He had what he had always wanted, his sons and Kathleen.

  “Why don’t you marry her?”

  “Why?”

  “Do you mean why do I ask or why should you?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “It is of importance to my children.”

  “Since when were your children important to you?”

  She couldn’t respond immediately, for he had hurt her. She answered with the only weapon she had “You could adopt Carl then, make the relationship legal.”

  “Don’t you dare!” His voice was rather too loud and people in the room began to notice them.

  Alicia had wondered why he had chosen the lounge of an hotel just half a mile from his house to meet her, when it was not unlikely that someone might recognise her. Maybe it was to inhibit her, to stop her talking about things that were too personal or to stop her being too argumentative. She wasn’t going to be tricked into avoiding the topics she wanted to raise, but she did lower her voice a little.

  “Don’t you think half the county would be fascinated to know about you and Kathleen. Henry and Kathleen had hardly even met! Such a convenient wedding! Then followed by a 7 month baby, a son who weighed over 8 pounds and was absolutely healthy! He even looks like you! Isn’t it about bloody time you made an honest woman of her?”

  “No one would believe you. Henry and I were cousins. It’s no more than a family resemblance. I have looked after them through family loyalty – that’s all.”

  The last couple having tea in the lounge left, they were alone.

  “Oh Arnold, don’t be such a fool. Marry her. Get it all over with. Give me a settlement and we can all get on with our lives.”

  “I’ve told you. There is no money. There can be no settlement. And anyway I can’t marry her.”

  “Why the hell not – you’ve practically been married for years – probably since before you met me.”

  “She is a Catholic. I cannot marry a Catholic.”

  She knew there had to be more to it than that. What it was she didn’t know but she knew there was something.

  “I’ve heard some sorry excuses from men in my time but that has to be the weakest, feeblest reason for not marrying someone I’ve ever heard.”

  “It is neither weak nor feeble to me. The arrangement we have is perfectly satisfactory.”

  “I bet she’d marry you like a shot.”

  “I am not talking about it any more. It is not a question we should be discussing and I will not have another word spoken about it.

  “What about me then Arnold? My allowance?”

  “You have the house. No doubt you can find a way of earning a living or of getting someone to keep you, but I can’t send you another penny.”

  “What about all the money in the trust funds?”

  He went quiet for a moment, probably debating how honest he needed to be, undoubtedly wishing that she had not raised the subject. “There is no money in the funds.”

  “There has to be! They are secure! Even you can’t have got at them!” She had always assumed there would be some income from those – whatever happened.

  “They are gone.”

  “How? You had no right to touch that money. You had no way of touching that money – your father left it for the children.”

  “I just used the powers you gave me in those papers you signed before going to Switzerland.”

  “I didn’t see any powers over the trust funds? I wouldn’t have signed anything that let you get at that money. I know I wouldn’t.”

  “You obviously didn’t read those papers carefully enough. “

  Of course she hadn’t. She had trusted Max. She had told him what she had wanted and hadn’t checked the wording. She found it difficult to believe Max would have betrayed her and the children. Arnold must have got to him somehow.

  “You’ve been milking those funds for years.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Do Ted and Max know?”

  “I don’t see how they could fail to – unless they are completely incompetent which I am sure they are not.”

  Alicia had felt angry for the weeks since the cheques had dried up, now she felt betrayed. The two men she had placed some trust in, and for whom she had some affection, had lied to her. Neither of them had told her anything of this, neither of them had warned her or given her any idea of the problems that now had to be faced.

  “Max didn’t tell me. Neither of them told me.” Was all she could say. Eventually she continued with an inevitable question “What happened to all that money?”

  “I have to think there were people stealing from me.”

  “Henry? It couldn’t have been anybody else.”

  He did not reply immediately. He did not want to admit to such failure but in the end the need to tell her outweighed his fear of ridicule.

  “Probably, he wanted to give his son everything that Charles and Susannah had. Nothing was too good for Kathleen and I can’t see him doing it all on his salary.”

  She burst out in laughter “Wonderful! You! So intelligent, so clever, so gifted and so rich brought down by that ignorant little wimp! Wonderful! Perhaps there is some justice in the world after all!”

  Arnold looked at her more closely now. How well did he know this woman, his ex-wife? They hadn’t seen each other for nearly five years, their meeting then had been short and antagonistic. They had parted in the offices of Roberts and Jones hating each other. Before those two days in July 1953 they had not met since she had left the week after Susannah’s 2nd birthday, nearly five years before that. This was only the third time he had met his ex-wife in 10 years. How different she was from the naïve, sulky, withdrawn, selfish and uncertain woman she had been when she had been his wife. Nearing 40 she had the complexion and figure of a much younger woman. Her clothes were stylish without being too fashionable, her voice was cultured without being affected, her manner confident and refined.

  If things had been different he would have found her very attractive.

  What had her life been since she had left? He probably imagined one of luxury and well-being, she would not want for anything for long – she was too able to wrap men around her little finger to want for much.

  What did she think of him? He was practically 50 with a defeated air about him. He knew that he could not match Alicia’s assurance.

  “I’d hardly call it any sort of justice I can believe in.”

  “And you’ve got nothing left? You had a business, property, half a million quid in cash and you’ve got nothing left?” Her voice conveyed disbelief.

  “All gone. I thought it would go on forever. I bought the things we wanted whenever they wanted them. No one had to wait for Christmas or birthdays for their presents, not even Susannah. I may not have had much time for her or for Charles but I wasn’t going to have them seen wanting anything.”

  “Or Carl.”

  He ignored her interruption.

  “The
upkeep of the house is expensive and we have had a certain standard of living to maintain. And the children... the children’s education has not been cheap.”

  “and the most expensive school for Carl....”

  He ignored her again, determined to justify his failure.

  “It is not my fault. Nothing has gone right, everyone has done well out of me, everyone except me. You’ve had the house and your allowance – don’t forget that, you didn’t go cheaply. I’ve kept you for years and had nothing in return.”

  “You had my silence, Arnold. That’s what you were buying. You were buying off your guilt and making damned sure I didn’t tell anyone your precious secrets. And I haven’t. All the time you paid me my allowance, hush-money if you want, but all the time you kept your side of the bargain I bloody well kept mine. Now I’m not so sure. I’m coming to realise what a sad, weak man you really are.

  She paused, he said nothing, so she continued.

  “You’ve brought it all on yourself, your selfishness, your complete indifference to others, your blindness to your own weaknesses and your absolute inability to recognise anybody else’s strengths. These are the reasons you are a failure. You were a failure as a lover and husband, you were a failure as a politician and businessman and you’ll always be a failure at anything you do. What have you ever succeeded at? Name me one thing you have done that you can be proud of. Have you ever stood up in front of the world and yelled “I have done this!” No, Of course you haven’t. Not one solitary thing have you ever done of which you can be proud. You are despicable Arnold. I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.”

  She had surprised herself.

  She gathered her handbag, stood up and walked out of the lounge. She wasn’t sure where she was going she just had to walk. She had feared this man. For the best part of 20 years he had been a part of her life and all that time she had considered herself inferior. He had always had the upper hand in their relationship and she was fast realising that he was not worth it. She had hated him for so many years, now she just despised him.