“Do you love him?”
“What’s love got to do with anything?”
Anya noticed the bitter resignation in Margaret’s voice and for a few seconds felt sorry for having been so cruel. But that brief sympathy was rapidly replaced by a feeling of something approaching anger. Margaret was not academically gifted but neither was she stupid. She could have set her sights higher. She could get qualifications, forge a career for herself. Her life and livelihood didn’t have to be dependent on any man, let alone Tim.
Anya looked across at Kathleen and understood. From their earliest years she had brought up both her children to believe that men were the breadwinners and women the supporters. In the past two years Anya had taught Geoff that that was wrong but no one had made Margaret understand that there were other roles she could play in life. When she spoke to break the heavy silence Anya spoke directly to Kathleen.
“I had no family to leave me money. I have always known that if I’m going to get anywhere in life I have to do it by myself so I’ve worked hard and now what I do is my choice. Whatever my mother may have been she made me understand that what I make of my life is down to me. I have never felt that my only option is to be a parasite on a man.” Without pausing Anya turned to Margaret. “It’s not your father who’s put you in the position you think you are in, it’s your mother. She’s made you think that all you can do is to get a man to look after you. And she didn’t even let you find your own man. She’s arranged everything with an arrogant, philandering, egotistical shit called Tim. It’s not your father who’s the source of all your problems it’s your mother.”
Neither Kathleen nor Margaret ever forgave her.
“Pile on in there!” Anya instructed the twelve men who made up the stag party. “All aboard for… where is it? The Chequers?”
In the back of the van Geoff, Tim, John and Dave sat with eight men she did not know. She had been told who they were but within minutes she had forgotten their names, they weren’t important.
At The Chequers, the first pub stop of many, she stayed in the van studying the map Tim had given her of their route for the night. She was on her own for half an hour and wondered when someone was going to take the opportunity to spend time with her.
They had been at the second pub for ten minutes when she was relieved to see John walking out of the pub, two glasses in his hands “Sorry Anya, it’s only orange juice since you’re driving.”
“That’s really nice of you John.”
“Can I?”
“Of course.” She welcomed him into the van where he sat down on the cushions that were all the seating available.
“That week in London was the best.” He took her hand awkwardly.
“No need for all that.” Anya interrupted. “Do you want to repeat the experience or not?” She was already stripping off her t-shirt and reaching to unhook her bra.
“Christ Anya. Geoff’s inside.”
“So what?”
John had been alone at the station bar when he had seen a girl who reminded him of Anya crossing the station forecourt. Dave and Tim were later than usual and the station was crowded since many trains were cancelled due to the bad weather. When he realised it really was Anya he looked around for Geoff thinking that surely she wouldn’t be in London on her own.
“Hi John.” She dropped her bag at his feet and gave him a strong hug, kissing him full on his lips. “The others not here yet?”
“Anya! Where’s Geoff?”
“We’re not tied by an umbilical cord you know. I’m here on my own for a few days so I thought I’d look up some old friends.”
“Who?”
“You three of course.” She hugged him again.
“Why are you here?” John could never accept anything on its face value, there was always a reason, an alternative motive, for people acting out of character.
“An old friend of mine died, Geoff and I had some arguments and I needed to get away for a bit.”
John realised that was all she was going to say. He noticed the way she was turning the locket around her neck around her finger and imagined the scenario. Old friend, old boyfriend, the one who had given her the locket had died. He would have been young so it had probably been an accident. Geoff hadn’t understood her grief, had been jealous and had picked an argument, Anya, quite justifiably, walked away for a break. It all seemed perfectly reasonable. “Geoff knows where you are?”
She was saved from answering as Dave arrived, pushing his way through the crowd towards them.
“Where’s Geoff?”
John answered for her. “In Liverpool, Anya’s having a break for a few days and we’re going to look after her.”
“Yes? How? Have you seen all the trains are cancelled because of the snow. We’re stuck up here.”
“Hi guys. Have you seen the…” Tim was pushing through the crowd looking very pleased with himself when he spotted Anya. “Anya. What a wonderful surprise. Where’s Geoff?”
Anya smiled and John answered for her a second time. “He’s in Liverpool, Anya has thrown herself on our tender mercy for two or three days.”
“Really?”
Anya wondered if Tim practised his leer in front of a mirror.
“Well we’re not going to get back to the flat tonight. I heard the news about the trains before I left the office so I booked a hotel room, lucky that because I reckon if we were trying now we wouldn’t have a hope in heaven. Have you seen how many people there are trying to find a place other than their office floors to sleep the night?”
“But there’s four of us?” John had said.
“I knew there’d be three so I got a suite, anyway it was the last they had. Two double beds. That’ll be just about right.”
Anya knew what he meant, he would share one with her and Dave and John would double up on the other or one of them would have the, no doubt comfortable, settee.
“I’m laying down a few ground rules.” She spoke with a confidence that had been lacking recently. “If I sleep with one of you I sleep with all three.” She noticed the look on their faces and continued with a smile “One at a time. No-one is to be left out and no one is to have more favours that the others.” She was pleased to see that Tim didn’t seem too happy about the deal.
“OK. Agreed?” He looked at Dave and John but didn’t wait for an answer. “Follow me.”
The fraught receptionist in the hotel was dealing single handed with the unexpected rush of guests and checked in ‘Mr and Mrs Tim Cross’ and their two stranded friends without question.
As the door shut behind the porter Tim pulled three matches out of a box on the mantelpiece and, with the penknife he had on his key-ring, carefully sawed a few millimetres off one. “Whoever gets the short straw goes first.” It was John. “Now who’s second?” He threw one of the long matches into the fire. “Short straw goes last.” He seemed to be making the rules up as he went along. Dave drew the long match from Tim’s clenched fist. “Dave, you’re second. Then me.”
Anya watched Tim as he organised everything. “Don’t I have any say in this?”
“No. You don’t. Come on Dave. We’ll go to the bar and leave John to it for, how long?” Now he did turn to Anya for an answer.
“An hour each.”
“OK Dave will be here at,” he looked at his watch, “eight o’clock, and I’ll be here at nine. Won’t you be wanting anything to eat?”
“We’ll all go out at ten.” She said firmly, knowing that Tim, being last, had hoped for longer than his allotted hour.
She had been kind, encouraging, gentle, teasing, and had made John enjoy the experience that he had worried would lead him to come third in any ranking. As he relaxed he had gained in confidence and her hour with him passed more pleasurably than she had expected.
Anya lay back on the cushions in the van and let John show her how much he remembered of what he had learned in January. It was barely ten minutes before John rolled off her and leant over to pick up his glas
s and finished his pint.
“Go back and send out Dave. But before you go, I’ve got an idea…”
A few minutes later Dave was in the van. “Jesus Anya are you working through us all?”
“Only re-visiting January.”
Again Anya made the running and Dave was amazed at himself as he managed to delay his climax to give Anya more pleasure than he had managed six months before. He had thought then that she was a really nice, interesting girl and he wished she was around more, he wanted to know her better. He wondered if he was the only one who thought there was so much more to Anya than just sex.
“Anya?”
“Yes?”
“Do you make everyone you bonk feel this good?”
“Bonk! What a lovely word. I hope so. Before you go, Dave, I’ve got an idea…”
Twenty minutes later Tim was on the floor of the van. He was far more experienced and far more skilful than either John or Dave. He manipulated her as though he wanted her to enjoy sex with him. He took her near to climax and then away, he took her near again, and then away, finally he took her there and stayed there, for what seemed like hours. He stayed on her, in her, with her, longer than he needed to. With John and Dave she had been the leader, it was she who had directed the action, but Tim was the director, leading her to do what he wanted, when he wanted. She realised she rather enjoyed that.
“Shit.”
“Was I that bad?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Good then?”
“Christ Tim. What were we doing back then?”
“I think I was shagging you.”
“I know that but there was something different.”
“I’m marrying Margaret tomorrow but one day, Anya, one day you and I will be together. We’re like one person you and I, two sides of the same coin.”
“Hi there you two.” Geoff opened the door of the van unsurprised at seeing Tim with Anya. “How much do I owe you?” He was business-like as he turned his back allowing his soon to be brother-in-law some privacy as put his clothes back on.
“I’m a bet?” Tim asked weakly.
“Of course you are. One hundred a go.”
Tim was not going to admit that his pride was dented. “Come on Geoff, let’s get our own back on this little lady of yours.”
“No Tim, you go back to the bar, it’s my turn.”
Anya was surprised at how bright she felt when she woke in the uncomfortable bed in the unfamiliar bedroom half an hour before the alarm was due to go off. She watched Geoff as he slept, his breathing even, his mouth slightly open. The light caught his face and showed the dark stubble around his cheeks. It was a gentle face, trustworthy, calm and kind. But did she love him? She thought perhaps she might.
Tim and Margaret would be waking up in their separate beds on the day of their mockery of a wedding. It was a wedding for show, an arranged marriage between the families. ‘So suitable’ Kathleen had said. Yet Anya was certain there was no love involved. It was only a ceremony; nothing would change for either of them. Tim would continue his bachelor lifestyle of work, drinks with the boys, golf and cricket at the weekends with an occasional screw and probably a longer term mistress, his secretary perhaps. Margaret would play house until she had a baby or two and then she would be a bored wife and maybe even have an affair of her own. How long before they were divorced? How long before the lives of those two children, inevitably a boy and a girl, would be messed up by their parents’ divorce? Then the children would marry too young, have children of their own and then divorce or even they might be brave and not marry, just have the children anyway. So whichever way they went they would muck up another generation. And so the downward spiral would continue.
The whole thing, Anya thought, was so depressing.
She turned over to stare at the hands of the clock waiting for them to work round to the time for her to make the tea. Was Margaret lying awake, wondering whether she really had no option other than to marry Tim. Was she having last minute doubts? She should be, Tim was a shit. Surely she knew that she was letting herself in for a life of excuses, late meetings and cancelled trains. Anya almost felt sorry for the bride. Almost.
She wondered what it was that made people want to tie themselves to one person for life. Was it money? Security? She thought of unmarried Marion, with three babies by the time she was twenty-one, all dead, all gone, with so little left to prove she had ever existed. She thought of Dot, unmarried because of her memories of the young man she had loved and who had died. Perhaps, had they married, they would have grown bored with each other; perhaps reality could never have matched the life imagined in the excitement of the war years.
As she looked across to Geoff she wondered whether she would say ‘yes’ if he proposed. If she did she would be stepping onto a conveyor belt that would take her where she really did not want to go but would she have the strength to say no, to leave him and start a new life on her own? If she did take that easy way out could their marriage possibly last? Geoff was fun, kind, gentle and generous but he was his mother’s son. Under her influence he would soon forget his Liverpool Resolutions and come to expect his wife to do nothing with her life other than be his wife. In time, inevitably, his mother would encourage him to have a family and that was the one thing she could never give him. If they married they would, sooner or later, divorce, however much love might be involved.
Dispirited, she got up and made the tea.
By eight o’clock Anya had dropped Geoff at his mother’s and had driven the van back to Tim’s house.
“Good morning.” He seemed none the worse for his stag night experiences but looked serious. “I’m afraid we’ve got a bit of a problem. I don’t suppose you can help?” Nothing in his voice would have betrayed their very different relationship a few hours before. He was, Anya thought, cold, distant and incredibly pompous.
This was the Tim who was going to do what was expected of him, this Tim would spend a few hours of his life playing the game. Anya went along with it. “What is it? I’ll help if I can.”
“Mother has ordered the cake from somewhere miles in the country and the woman’s car has broken down. Could you pick it up then deliver it to the Golf Club. You take my car and I’ll take the van back.”
“Sure, just tell me where. I’m getting to know the roads round here.”
Half an hour later Anya arrived at the Golf Club and entered a world she had never guessed existed.
There were signs ‘Men Only’, ‘Members Only’, ‘No women except Weekdays before 6pm.’ Anya walked confidently to a door that said ‘Members Only’ and was stopped by a man in a white jacket with white gloves.
“And where might you be going young lady?”
“I have the cake for the Philips-Cross wedding reception.” Tim had told her what to say.
“Ah yes. In here Miss.” The attitude of the attendant changed. “Can I help at all? Where is the cake?”
“In the boot of my car, there’re five boxes I think. It’ll need re-constructing.”
“That’s alright Miss I’ll show you to the housekeeper. In the meantime can I get you a coffee? Sorry.” He stopped her walking through the open French windows. “Ladies aren’t allowed on the terrace on Saturday.”
“I’ll help you get the cake then and thanks, no coffee.”
“Mr Cross. He’s a real gentleman.” The attendant spoke conversationally as they crossed the car park to Tim’s car. She had enjoyed driving it that morning and had parked it neatly between two Jags. “But you shouldn’t have parked there you know, ‘Members only’.” He was not telling her off, simply commenting and they shared a mischievous glance. “But what the heck. No harm done is there?”
“And in any case Mr Cross is a member.” She added innocently.
“And it is his car.” He agreed.
Anya thought for a moment whether she could arrange a retrospective bet with Geoff ‘£30 each for golf club staff’ but decided she didn’t have the time.
They carried the boxes carefully to the kitchen and Anya kissed the young man lightly, but provocatively, on the cheek. “Thanks for all your help. I’ve got to get back now.” She knew he would be looking at her bottom as she walked back to the car so she didn’t disappoint him, walking with rather more movement than was necessary in her tight jeans.
Instead of the organised calm she had expected when she arrived back at Tim’s house she found Esme Cross standing in tears in the middle of the living room. “How could they do this? They’ve let us all down!”
“Now now mother.” Tim was doing his best to calm his mother. He threw Anya a look of desperation as she walked in. “Everything will be fine Mother. Don’t worry. We’ll get it all sorted out. Trust me.”
“But Kathleen…” Esme gulped “Kathleen will expect everything to be… perfect. Oh dear. What can we do?”
“It will be fine mother. Don’t worry. Sit down. Let me get you a gin.”
“It’s only half past nine.”
“But this is my wedding day Mother, you could say that’s a special occasion.”
“All right then.” Esme allowed herself to be led to the comfortable settee where she sat down, rather inelegantly, as Tim handed her a large glass filled with clear liquid.
“What’s up?”
“John. He was going to be best man.”
“And?”
“He’s disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Gone. He’s got the ring and everything. He’s my best man for Christ’s sake.”
A small voice said ‘Don’t blaspheme darling,’ but they ignored it.
“What about Dave?”
“He’s gone too. I phoned the flat. There’s no reply. I went round. There’s no one there.”
Anya began to laugh.
“What’s so bloody funny?”
“Nothing Tim. Silly really. It’s just that last night we talked about the wedding and we all thought you were making a dreadful mistake so they decided the only way to stop you was to run away with the ring. I thought it was just the drink talking, I didn’t for one moment think they were serious.”
Highly Unsuitable Girl Page 13
