The Queen's Margarine (12 page)

As she returned to her room, she almost ripped the Christmas stocking from the bed. All it did was emphasize her empty, fruitless life; nothing of any value in it; not even sweet frivolities.

‘Thanks for nothing, Santa,' she muttered, pulling the duvet right over her head and praying for total oblivion.

Her mind felt slack and soupy as she opened her eyes to darkness. She sat up in a daze, and suddenly glimpsed the Christmas stocking hanging at the end of the bed – a
bulging
Christmas stocking.

She rubbed her eyes in disbelief. It must be some trick of the light – except there wasn't any light; just the gleam of a tangerine, winking at her from the bottom of the stocking.

Her hand groped out towards the bedside lamp, only to pause as it found the switch. OK, she might be mistaken. The sleeping pills could well have blurred her faculties, especially as she had taken them so late. But that first miraculous glance had showed the stocking full to overflowing, just as in her childhood, so why check on its reality, try to prove it an illusion?

She lay back, closed her eyes, began the wondrous process of unpacking all the treasures. First, the tangerine, tingly in her mouth, than the overlay of chocolate, velvety and smooth, followed by the sugary crunch of the
WOODBINES
. Next, the bath salts – gritty and puce-pink; then the hair slide: black and white, in the shape of a cat, with twinkly emerald eyes. Then the tiny glass giraffe, triple-wrapped in tissue, so its long neck wouldn't break. And the most perfect diary in the world, a big, important, scarlet one, its pages edged in gold, like a Bible or a Prayer Book, and with a matching gold-and-scarlet pen attached.

Having uncapped the pen, she flicked swiftly through the pages, almost to the end, until she reached Christmas Day next year. Then she wrote in big, bold capitals, HAPPY CHRISTMAS, HANNAH!, right across the page.

And, suddenly her grown-up self knew, beyond all doubt, that next Christmas
would
be happy. Impossible to explain. In fact, in the absence of her parents, she would surely still feel aching loss. Yet, that inner voice continued to assure her that, despite the grief, despite the loss, things would be transformed.

She lay mystified, head muzzy from the pills. None the less, she couldn't help but entertain the faintest gleam of hope – like the orange gleam of the tangerine she thought she might have seen.

Had
she seen it? Truly? It was just possible, perhaps. As was the hope of happiness.

Just possibly.

Perhaps.

‘Do you
have
to go, my love?'

She nodded, already sitting up and throwing off the duvet. But he caught her by the waist and drew her down again, pressing his hot, damp body into hers.

‘The time always goes too quickly,' he whispered, twisting his fingers through a strand of her hair, as if to hold her captive.

Not for me, she thought, hating her own edginess. Couldn't she enjoy a few brief hours of pleasure without the continual worry that clamped her in its jaws these days? Her body might be here, with Rory, but her mind was still at home. She kissed him, in compensation – a long, tender, lingering kiss.

‘Please stay a wee bit longer.'

‘I'm sorry, Rory darling, but I can't.' Determinedly, she slipped from his embrace. ‘I'll shower first, OK?'

‘OK.'

The shower seemed a vital part of the affair: washing off not just his sweat and smell, but her anxiety and guilt. She ran the water as hot as she could bear, then used the balding nail-brush to scrub his traces down the sluice. Returning to the bedroom (the skimpy towel covering only her bottom half), she found Rory still sprawled full-length on the bed, clearly intent on luring her back.

‘Just one more kiss before you go.'

She shook her head. Wonderful to be adored, but he didn't understand her situation. ‘Shower's all yours. I've left you the decent towel.'

‘I'm sorry things are so basic here.'

‘Don't worry, I don't mind.' It amused her, actually, that they should meet in this bare, shabby room above a charity shop. It
seemed fitting, in a way, that below them should be stacks of stuff – faded, old and second-hand – when they, too, were past their prime. And at least they were safe from discovery, since the flat was vacant at present, and Rory had an arrangement with the owner – an ancient, unsuspecting guy, who asked no awkward questions. And, as the shop was a good twenty miles from both their respective homes, there was little danger of running into anyone who might gossip or tell tales.

As she towelled her hair, she peered down at the street: people bustling along the pavement with shopping bags or pushchairs; couples taking tea in the café opposite; a group of children wobbling past on bikes. This small, pretty town didn't seem quite real; merely the backdrop to their monthly meetings, and comprised of just one room; its other streets and whole civic life mysterious and closed to her. Rory, too, was something of a mystery, since he had told her almost nothing about his job or wife or home. She knew only part of him – the lover, not the husband; the playmate, not the boss. Having never had an affair before in thirty years of marriage, she'd had to learn the rules: don't discuss your spouse; leave your problems and your guilt behind.

Easier said than done.

She squinted in her powder-compact to re-apply her lipstick and comb her tousled hair. There was no mirror in the room, let alone a dressing-table, so she did her toilette sitting on the bed. Then she smoothed the sheets and duvet, plumped the one thin pillow and tidied their few things away: wine bottle and glasses, half-eaten chocolate bars, two empty Durex wrappers. She it was who insisted on the condoms, fearing pregnancy as much as infection, despite being fifty-one. Four children were enough, and, as yet, there hadn't been the slightest sign of the menopause. Perhaps she was a freak of nature and would avoid it altogether, while her less fortunate contemporaries burned and drowned in hot flushes and night sweats.

‘Delia, are you sure I can't drive you home?' Rory reappeared, damp-haired from the shower, the large, purple towel looped around his neck.

‘Positive.' His body still intrigued her. Naked male bodies had featured very rarely in her life – other than her husband's, of
course. Indeed, she hadn't even realized that penises could vary quite so much. Morris's was thin and long and now retired from active service, whereas Rory's was short and squat and supercharged. The two men were different in other basic ways: Morris tall and skinny, his pale, myopic eyes half-hidden behind spectacles; his soft, white, straggly hair thinning with each passing year, whilst stocky, thickset Rory had emphatically dark hair (barely tinged with grey, as yet), which grew exuberantly thick and strong, and required constant taming and trimming by the barber. He was combing it now, the small, brown, plastic pocket-comb no match for its unruly strands.

‘I hate to think of you struggling on the bus.'

‘I don't struggle – I just sit and read. When you've never learned to drive, Rory, you get used to public transport.' In truth, Morris had been her transport all these years, and the fact he could no longer drive had been something of a shock – one of many, recently.

Rory came up behind her, ran his fingers sensuously along the nape of her neck. ‘They forecast heavy rain for later on, and I don't want you getting wet. I know you always worry about people seeing us together, but I could drop you half a mile away – that should be safe enough.'

‘No, it's still a risk.' She couldn't really tell him that she preferred to travel back alone; needed time to change from the role of mistress to that of wife and carer. ‘And I'm well prepared, in any case, with an umbrella and a mac. In fact, I'd better get off right away. It's already clouding over.'

They always left separately, in case anyone was watching. Unlikely, in a strange town, but she was determined to be ultracareful.

‘OK, but I insist on a nice kiss goodbye.'

Rory held her both too fiercely and too long. Occasionally it irked her to be needed quite so desperately by yet another person in her life. ‘Must go,' she repeated, squirming to extricate herself.

‘Promise one day we'll have longer together, so we can try out lots of wild, exciting things. I'd like you to get here first thing in the morning and stay all afternoon. Go on – say you will.'

‘I will,' she mumbled anxiously, wondering
how
, for heaven's sake.

‘Morris!' she called, preparing her lies, as she let herself into the house. Not that lies were really necessary. He would have long ago forgotten where she'd pretended to be going. Indeed, even were she to admit straight out that she'd been in bed with a lover, that, too, was bound to slip his mind, given half an hour. Yet shame and apprehension were fluttering through her stomach – inevitable when she returned from these assignations.

She shook out her umbrella and removed her dripping mac, hoping Morris hadn't opened any windows. The forecast had been right; the late-September sunshine giving way to blustery wind and rain, as if even the weather was mourning the fact that she and Rory were now parted for four weeks.

‘Morris!' she called again, surprised to hear no answering shout. He wasn't in his usual chair in the sitting-room, nor in the kitchen, or the room they still called his office, nor upstairs in the bedroom. She checked the bathroom and the lavatory, beginning to feel seriously alarmed. Surely he wouldn't be outside in such a deluge, although she tried the garden anyway, getting drenched in the process. She even peered into the potting shed – despite the fact his gardening days were over – found nothing but a spider and the remains of a dead bird. He must have left the house, but that, too, was inexplicable, since he never went anywhere without her. Having lost his confidence together with his memory, he now relied on her as chaperon and nanny, and always waited till she was back before venturing out, even just down the road. Could he have popped next door, perhaps, tired of his own company?

‘Sorry to bother you, Peggy, but I wondered if you'd seen Morris?'

‘No, but I've only just got in. Why? What's wrong?'

‘Nothing – don't worry.' Hastily she backed away; hated the neighbours' pity. Dementia was shaming, especially in a man of only sixty-five. The fourteen-year age-gap between them had never mattered before. Up till just nine months ago, Morris had been his usual self: lively, energetic, keen on new experiences, young in heart and spirit.

Embarrassed by her predicament, she tried the other houses in the street, only to draw a blank each time. Rain and wind notwithstanding,
she would have to go out and search for him; scour the shops, the church, the library and the park – all the places she took him in the course of a normal week. And this must be a warning to her. Never again could she leave him alone. When she next arranged to meet Rory, she must book a sitter, or at least ask one of her daughters to come over. But how could she lie to her daughters? If she fabricated some excuse, she was bound to blush or stammer or tie herself in knots, and they would never, ever forgive her if they discovered her infidelity. They were avowed ‘Daddy's girls', all four.

However, there wasn't time to speculate, now that Morris had gone missing. For all she knew, he might have wandered off without his coat – or even shoes. It was her own stupid fault for not having locked the doors, but she couldn't bear the thought of treating the man she'd married like a prisoner in detention. Well, this was her due punishment for having risked her husband's life and health in order to shag a virtual stranger.

‘Stop here, Tom! I think I saw someone sheltering under those bushes.'

As her son-in-law pulled up the car with a jerk, Delia scrambled out, feeling close to panic. If she herself was hungry, wet and tired, then Morris, who'd been lost for hours, would be exhausted, famished and soaked to the skin. And maybe dangerously disoriented, on top of everything else. And suppose they didn't find him? He could have died of exposure; been hit by a car as he blundered across the road.

‘Wait, Mum!' her daughter shouted. ‘You'll trip and fall if you don't watch out.' Nicolette caught up with her as she ran towards the bushes, stumbling in the dark. ‘Slow down, for goodness' sake!'

Delia took no notice; went racing on towards the shadowy figure now looming into focus. ‘Morris, it is you! Thank Christ! Are you all right?'

He didn't answer, just stared at her in confusion, as if he no longer recognized his wife of thirty years. And, yes, he was
coat-less
, hatless; his best shoes caked in mud; his hair plastered to his head in dripping strands.

‘Morris, speak to me. Tell me you're OK.'

‘Don't press him, Mum. He's in a state of shock.'

Delia took off her coat and draped it round his shoulders, then she and Nicolette led him to the car – a slow and halting process.

‘Why on earth did you go all this way?' she asked, once she was sitting in the back with him, his cold hand clasped in hers.

‘Mum, he doesn't want to talk, Just leave him be until he's got his bearings.'

Did her daughter have to interfere? She
needed
to know what had happened; otherwise her own life would be thrown into chaos, just as much as his. Never before had he strayed so far from home; never acted unpredictably, or been completely lost for words like this. True he'd suffered memory problems, a loss of interest in the outside world, and some measure of confusion, but nothing on this scale. He seemed to have aged a decade since this morning, and to be deteriorating before her very eyes.

They drove back through torrential rain; the headlamps lighting up great swathes of water on either side of the road. Tom said very little, maybe secretly resentful at having been dragged out on a rescue mission when he'd planned on playing squash. Nicolette, however, kept plaguing her with questions.

‘So where were you, Mum, all afternoon?'

‘Just … shopping.'

‘But couldn't you have taken Dad with you?'

‘It, er, wasn't convenient.'

Silence. The word ‘convenient' hung in the air, sounding callous, even cruel.

‘I mean, the whole point of giving up your job was so you actually be
there
.'

‘I
am
there, mostly, Nicolette, but just occasionally I need a break.' She had no desire to discuss Morris with her daughter, as if he were a mental case, and with no idea of what was going on in
his
mind.

‘Ask
me
. I'll come and help.'

‘You can't, with a full-time job.'

‘Look, my boss is pretty decent. And he knows the situation. In fact, if you'd like me and Tom to stay over tonight—'

‘No,' she said, too quickly. ‘We're fine now, aren't we, Morris?' She squeezed his hand, but felt no answering pressure from the
stiff and chilly fingers. It was as if part of him had died. ‘How about a nice warm bath as soon as we get in?'

He didn't appear to have heard; was clearly inhabiting some nightmare world, closed to other people. She continued talking to him, however, if only to stop her daughter butting in. ‘I'll make you a hot drink, and how about some scrambled eggs, or a cheese and mushroom omelette? Then we'll have an early night and—'

Hardly early. It was already after nine. She had searched alone, on foot, at first, and only in increasing desperation had she phoned all four of her daughters, in case by any chance they'd heard from him or seen him. Which meant they were bound to keep checking on him in future; pestering her with phone-calls to find out how he was. Of course, she shouldn't be ungrateful – she was extremely lucky to have their help at all – but none of them could understand how hard it was to be a full-time carer.
They
still had their precious independence, and jobs with intelligent colleagues, that included meaningful discussions of art or sport or politics. They could even go on holiday – see the world, spread their wings. Her own life, in contrast, had shrunk, and her main tasks at present were taking Morris to appointments with the psychologist or geriatrician, and keeping him ‘mentally stimulated' (as the doctors recommended) with simple little word-games and childish puzzles and quizzes. Was it any wonder that she had responded to Rory's overtures; jumped at the chance of reinstating some small part of a satisfying adult life?