by Terry Tyler
At Christmas we were all up in Northumberland, which was when I noticed that Mum didn’t speak to him anymore unless she had to. She actually behaved as though he wasn’t there. She’d insisted he move into another bedroom six months before, shortly after the diagnosis, because his sleeping patterns were disrupted and he woke her up every night, she said.
Kirsty explained to me that she was distancing herself from him because she couldn’t deal with it, but I couldn’t see her actions as anything other than selfish.
On New Year’s Day we were sitting in the conservatory, just him and me; Mum, Amy and Kirsty were getting lunch ready. Giles was off being Giles somewhere, probably airing his obnoxiously right-wing views at the bar in the local. I was flicking through the papers, and Dad was staring out of the window. It was one of those bright, bitter January days, beautiful, bleak and very Northumbrian; when he turned around, the sun was shining on his face and he looked older than he had before he became ill, but I could tell he was in a ‘normal’ phase. I smiled at him; he frowned, as though he was about to say something of great importance to me.
I waited.
“I want you to find Raine,” he said. “I want to see her, just once more, before I get too bad.”
“Okay,” I said, slowly, putting the paper down. “I’ll do my best.”
“Not just your best, lad. Do it,” he said. “Find her. Bring her to me.”
Shit. Even if I knew where to start, getting her to Buntingford when Mum and Kirsty were both out, and coinciding her visit with a time when Dad wasn’t going through one of his batso phases, was going to take some doing. Perhaps I’d give him a double dose of his meds that day, though whether that would make any difference I didn’t know.
“Okay.”
“Good.” He looked down at his hands, bending and flexing his fingers. “She was the love of my life, you know.”
I felt overcome with sorrow for him. I couldn’t imagine how it would be, to be not only in the autumn of one’s life, but in an autumn that was hurtling into a very messy winter. I was twenty-six and had all the time in the world for love and adventure, but for Dad it was almost all over.
“Dad—were you really going to leave Mum to be with her?”
“Why aye,” he said, “but then it all went wrong. Isabella saw to that.” He looked terribly sad.
I thought back to that time; all his plans had ground to a halt the minute Isabella took over Lanchester Estates. I assume they’d involved Raine, too.
“It’s sad how some things that are right just aren’t meant to be,” I said, hearing how lame that sounded even as I said it.
He didn’t answer, but just turned to look back out of the window.
Half an hour later he was arguing with Mum and refusing to eat any lunch unless she let him open another bottle of wine; he didn’t mention his request again that holiday, but I knew how important it was to him, and I was the only person he could ask. Giles—forget it. Kirsty was brilliant, but out of loyalty to Mum she couldn’t have condoned such a thing. My own situation made me more insightful. Mum and Dad had been together since they were so young; people change. He’d been a good husband and father; maybe they’d had their time. I’d liked Raine. She was no ditzy young trophy girlfriend, and, looking back, I had rarely seen my father so alive and happy as he was when he was seeing her. Not since we were children.
I would do this for him. I didn’t know how, but I would.
The first e-mail in my inbox when I logged in on my return to work after the holiday was from the Human Resources monster at HQ, Regina Pole. It was a list of the people at Lanchester Commercial who would be facing redundancy. Great. My instruction (originating from I.C. Castillo) was to gradually redistribute their workload and cease to involve them in new projects, pending their notices of redundancy in March. Double great. So they’d feel side-lined and paranoid for two months prior to getting the push, too. Each person getting the boot would be paid up to the end of the month, along with any statutory redundancy pay, but asked to clear their desks as soon as notification had been made. Wonderful. Some of the people earmarked by I.C. Castillo were moderately effective. She and that batty old lesbian must have had a field day, cooking up the woe of others in their cauldron. I filed the document in the folder on my desktop named ‘mad shit from HQ’ (made especially for memos from Isabella), and considered how I might locate Raine Grey.
It wasn’t hard. I e-mailed one of the girls in HR who told me she’d come from a firm called Bradgate Sports, where she’d worked for some years. I phoned Bradgate, said I was trying to get in touch with her because an old friend had died (rather poor taste, I know), and was put through to a woman called Dana, to whom I apologised for my methods. I asked her if Raine had ever mentioned a Jim Dudley to her, and her sharp intake of breath told me much. Within a few minutes I was tapping out the number of Raine’s mobile.
I could hear her shock when I told her about Dad.
“Oh, Rob,” she said, “Christ. This is awful. I’m so sorry. Oh, my God. Hang on.” I could sense her trying to compose herself. “Yes, of course I’ll come but—oh dear, it took me so long to get over, I’ve buried it now and I’m happy again—oh, shit, it’s going to stir it all up again if I see him, but—oh no, look, I’m so sorry, ignore me, I’m just being selfish, there’s no way I wouldn’t come, I want to, it’s just the shock—”
“I know. It’s okay, I understand; and I still can’t get my head around it, either.”
“How’s your mother coping?” she asked.
“Not well.” I didn’t want to say more than that. Loyalty, I suppose.
“Is he—is he very different?” she asked.
“Yes, and no. He’s aged a bit, but Alzheimer’s does that to you. Now and then he’s totally out to lunch, often he’s just irritatingly forgetful, and other times he’s his old self, but even then there’s something a bit glazed about his eyes. No, not his eyes, exactly; I can’t put my finger on it. It’s just something that isn’t quite there anymore. Or maybe it’s because you know that any moment he could ask you something you’ve already answered ten times that day. It’s like, even when he’s normal you’re waiting for him not to be. You ask if he’s different; it’s not something that anyone who didn’t know him before would notice, he seems perfectly normal but—oh, I can’t explain.”
“I suppose I’ll see what you mean when I see him.”
“So you’ll come, then?” I asked.
I heard her sniff, and gulp. “How could I not?”
She told me that she was married (happily, she said, rather apologetically) to a man called Martin, a lecturer in history at a college in Northamptonshire. They lived in rural peace in a Northants village called Farthingstone, and she’d begun training to become a physiotherapist.
“What happened to the PR?” I said. “Dad told me you were brilliant at it, and I remember when you came over to Calais; I thought you were great.”
“Ah, Calais,” she said. “That was a wonderful time.”
“What made you decide to change course?” I asked, gently.
“Oh, I just re-evaluated my whole life after—after—oh, you know. I thought Jim and I both had our priorities wrong; oh, I can’t explain—I’m sorry—”
I smiled. “It’s okay. I think I know what you mean, anyway. I think he did, too.” Should I tell her? I decided I should. “He told me he thought he’d made a mistake. Not being with you. The, um, biggest mistake of his life, he said.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone, but I could sense her reaction. “Did he?” she said, her voice shaky. “Oh, why didn’t he come to me?”
“I don’t know. I wonder if, well, you know, if he was already starting to forget stuff even then, or that he’d already put you through enough, I don’t know—”
“Yes.” Silence. “I’m sorry, Rob, I’m sure this isn’t a conversation you want to be having.”
I smiled. “It’s fine, honestly. It’s okay.”
&nbs
p; We discussed the practicalities of the meeting, and agreed to be in touch soon.
“Give him my love, won’t you?” she said. “Tell him I’m looking forward to seeing him.”
“Of course.”
Having put a bombshell under my father’s former mistress’s morning, I sat back for a while and thought about the mechanics of getting her to see him without Mum or Kirsty being there, but then I got tired thinking about it, and did what I’d been wanting to do for most of Christmas and the New Year. I phoned Erin.
“Hello, you,” she said, and all was right with my world once more. “H N Y, and all that.”
“H N Y to you too. Busy?”
“Should be. Not enough coffee yet.”
“Fancying doing lunch tomorrow?” ‘Doing lunch’ was one of our jokes, a piss-take of the people who say that kind of thing.
“We’ll be doing it next week anyway, won’t we? I’ll get Michelle to book our usual table at Hampton’s.”
“Eh?”
“Check your e-mails. We’ve been summoned; big meeting at HQ next Wednesday.”
I flicked through them; ah yes, there it was. “I suppose it’ll be about the redundancies.”
Big sigh. “That and other crap, I’m guessing.”
“What do you know that I don’t?”
“Oh, nothing in partic. Well, yeah, something pretty big, actually, but it’s not likely to be touched upon in the meeting. Guess what. Izzy wasn’t pregnant after all.”
“Eh? Really? I thought it was all confirmed.”
“So did everyone.”
“So what happened?”
“Promise you won’t tell anyone?”
“Promise.” Sort of.
“Okay—look, you mustn’t tell anyone this, Robert, you really mustn’t. It’s pretty awful. Jane Dormer told me about it.” Pause. “The pregnancy was a lie this time. However, her cleaner is several months gone, and Iz got her to pee on one of those pregnancy testing stick things, so it would come out positive. Paid her to do it.”
“What? Jesus!” I didn’t know whether to laugh or be appalled; maybe both were appropriate. “What could she hope to gain by doing that?”
“It’s dreadful, isn’t it? Apparently she was scared Phil was going off her, and she thought that if she was pregnant he’d be all lovey-dovey with her, which he was, and in the meantime she kept grabbing him to shag her in the hope that it would happen for real.”
“My goodness.”
“I still can’t get my head round it. Jane said she’d read that being anxious could stop her conceiving, so she thought that doing this would make her less so, or something barmy like that. I think that’s just the excuse she gave—I reckon she just did it to make him pay her attention again. It’s really insane behaviour, isn’t it? I tell you, I’m seriously worried about her.”
“But it’s such a ludicrous lie to tell! So easily found out—how can you fake a pregnancy to someone you have such a close relationship with? I mean, when you’re married you know when your wife’s got the painters in, for goodness sake. I always know when Amy has.”
I sensed her tense up, I hoped because of the implication of intimacy between my wife and me. Good, good.
“Uh-huh,” she said, and gave a little laugh. “Perhaps she was relying on what the doctor told her last time, about one in five pregnancies ending in a heavy period, and was going to do the oh no, another miscarriage thing to get sympathy. Isn’t that Munchausen Syndrome, or something? It’s the stupidity of it that makes me so worried for her. He found out because he saw a receipt for Tampax in the bin. He gave her the third degree, and she admitted everything.”
Now that did make me laugh. It was a blow, though. I’d hoped she’d be on maternity leave and thus out of my hair for at least a year. “Ouch. Not looking good, is it?”
“No. Phil wants her to see a psychotherapist. I actually feel a bit sorry for him; he didn’t bargain for all this.”
“Serves him right.”
“I’m just glad I wasn’t around over New Year; that’s when it all blew up.”
“Oh yes—you went to Dahlia’s, didn’t you? Did you have a good time?”
“Yeah! They know how to do New Year’s Eve up in bonny Scotland! Sorry—Hogmanay. Drunken first-footing in the snow, and all that, it was great. I went up with Poppy and Miranda—oh, and Tim came, too. Wyatt. He’s always such a laugh!”
I knew that was meant to get to me, and it did. “That he is.” I was dying to ask if they’d shared a room, but would rather have bitten my own tongue off than done so.
“He’s gone off to Colorado for a month now. Courtesy of the compensation for unfair dismissal.”
“Good old Tim.”
“I might go out and join him for a few days if I can get away. I fancy a zoom down the slopes!”
“Sounds fun.”
I could sense she knew she’d gone a bit too far.
“Well, anyway, it was good to behave like a total beer monster up in Scotland after Christmas at Mary’s,” she said, “which was also laarvely, but a bit sedate.”
“Ah yes—a child is born.” Erin’s cousin Caitlin, Mary’s daughter, had got herself up the duff at only seventeen and recently given birth to a daughter.
“She’s gorgeous. Little Letty.”
“Letty? Sweet. Short for?”
“Don’t laugh. Lettice. Okay, do laugh, I did! I quite like it, actually. She’s named after some beloved old aunt of her father’s.”
“Oh—so the dad’s stayed around, has he?”
“Uh-huh. Ross. They’re getting married. Letty Knowles; quite cute, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” I grinned to myself. “So, Caitlin dares to commit herself to someone at the age of just eighteen, eh? Did you ever hear of such a thing? I hope you warned her against such tomfoolery.”
She laughed. “Oh shut up, you! Anyway, how was yours?”
“Well, Dad, you know.” I decided not to tell her about Raine; I’d save that till we were face to face.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. How was he?”
“Fifty percent J.Dud, thirty percent Mr Goldfish Brain, and twenty percent Roger Irrelevant.” I decided I didn’t want to talk about it. “So how goes it with Izzy and Gigolo, now?”
She giggled. “Oh, I rang up as soon as Jane told me. Pat answered, said Izzy didn’t want to talk to anyone, so I asked for Phil, but he’s instructed they’re not to be bothered with phone calls, the cheeky little scallywag. I’m only her sister! I phoned Hannah, who’s been told the same. Iz will only talk to Jane, who says she’s in a terrible state, though Phil is actually being pretty good about it all.” Pause. “Oh, shit, my other line’s going.”
“That’ll be New York on the line,” I said. Another of our jokes.
“More like Sir Farty Fart Pants of Felsham Hall who won’t lower his asking price of three and a half mil,” she said. “He’s a total ass pain. Look, gotta go. Laters!”
And she was gone. I just sat and looked at the receiver.
I’d like to put one thing straight. Contrary to popular belief, Erin Lanchester and I are not having an affair. Yes, we used to have a rip-roaring time before I met Amy, and yes I wanted to marry her but she said she wasn’t ready. Now we’re just affectionate friends. Whether or not I would be unfaithful to my wife with her is something that, happily, I don’t have to test, because she won’t go to bed with me (or do it up against a wall, in a field, in the back seat or my car, or anywhere else) while I belong to someone else. Said she learned her lesson after her dalliance with Aiden Seymour, and still feels dreadful to this day about what she did to that nice stepmother of hers.
The fact that we still have this explosive chemistry thing going on is neither here nor there, because we don’t do anything about it. I won’t pretend I’m not wild about her, but I keep it nicely hemmed in. How much Erin still wants me, I don’t know; I think she feels the same but she could win a gold medal in the art of driving a man to fever pitch then pulling away. Thi
ng is with Erin, she doesn’t try to be alluring and enigmatic, she just is, which is why it works so well, of course.
The day of the meeting came and I wanted to pick her up and thus enjoy her delicious company on the journey there and back, but she said she was going to stay over, to attend to Isabella and see Hannah.
She was outside having a cigarette when I got there. I was delighted that she’d decided not to give up smoking after all because it meant we got to take fag breaks together, and also that she wouldn’t be put off by my smelling of it when we got close enough for her to pretend she didn’t want to kiss me. She didn’t smoke much, just with a drink or when tension was high. On that snowy January morning she stood outside HQ in a cream-coloured suede coat with a fur collar, high heeled boots and an enormous, pale fur hat; she looked like a fairytale Arctic princess. God, but she was so damn pretty. She smiled and waved at me, and I felt happy for the first time since before Christmas.
“Phil’s chairing the meeting,” she said, throwing her cigarette butt down and linking her arm through mine as we walked through the revolving doors. “Izzy’s not up to coming into work.”
The meeting was bloody boring and frustrating, with Castillo and Regina Pole taking us through the redundancy situation; I wondered why they’d called the poxy meeting as it had already been explained in the e-mail, and nothing that anyone said to oppose the decisions made any difference because The Mad Axe-woman had already brought the chopper down. To be fair, Castillo was always very matey towards me, but I think that was because he fancied Erin and knew I was her best pal. Office politics, school playground, it’s all the same.
I always liked being at HQ. The offices were so luxurious, made so by Erin’s father, a totally rocking geezer. Brilliant bloke, sadly missed.
Okay, I admit it. I like striding around the place being the son of the great Jim. I like going into the large departments like General Accounts and seeing all the pretty girls. Oh, and it’s rather cool when they nudge each other and go ‘look, it’s Rob Dudley!’, too. And it’s fun winning the alpha male competition with Phil Castillo, because I’m taller and more popular and have shagged the gorgeous Lanchester sister instead of the loopy one, and my dad used to run the place, so ha fucking ha, you smarmy git.
