Authors: R J Gould
With both children upstairs, David disposed of the high
volume of leftovers, cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. Bridget had
been on his mind all day and now he imagined her in the kitchen with him,
sharing a bottle of wine, chatting as they tidied up. All good clean fun until
he fantasised about removing each other’s clothes and making love on the
kitchen table.
The reunion aside, he’d done nothing to start his new life
without Jane. There were fair enough reasons for inactivity – shopping, cooking,
cleaning, chauffeuring and generally supporting his children – but he was well
aware these were self-imposed barriers. There were times when both children
were out, including stay-overs at friends, when he could have done something
for himself. Now there was Bridget, an opportunity he must not let slip. They’d
met only two days ago. Was it too soon to call her?
As he carried saucepans from draining board to cupboard,
he glanced at the letter from Rachel’s headteacher. It was smeared with a
streak of tomato sauce. Her improvement had been guided by an action plan so perhaps
that was what
he
needed. Just maybe, Rachel’s view, the one he had been so
dismissive of, was correct. An individual did have the power to change things,
perhaps in his case not the whole world, but certainly his world.
An action plan to change his world! Daft, but with an
hour or more to kill and nothing better to do, he’d develop something for the
fun of it. A plan with SMART objectives.
Sitting down with paper and pen he decided the SMAR was of
value, but not the T for Time. So rather than being specific, he wrote ‘short
term’ at the top of the page to cover things best done within the next month or
so, then ‘medium/long term’ half way down the sheet.
He put on a Fleet Foxes CD. He’d loved it at first
hearing but now it seemed bland. For this exercise he wanted music with a bit
of a punch. He ejected Fleet Foxes and inserted The Maccabees. Satisfied with
this choice he looked at the sheet in front of him. Jane had been amused by his
handwriting. She claimed it was like a young schoolboy’s – tiny, the letters
not quite joined up. She was right.
But it was the content that counted and short term
objective number one was easy. He had yet to tell his mother about the
separation from Jane. Rachel and Sam had been instructed not to mention it. They’d
spoken on the telephone several times over the past month and he’d replied to
her standard ‘how are things with you’ with the usual ‘everything’s fine thank
you, mother.’ He was wary of the danger of causing distress; after all she did
have a weak heart. He needed to tell her in person rather than over the phone. He’d
arrange a trip up to Birmingham one Saturday within the next month to break the
news.
Number two was about Jabulani. He had fled from Zimbabwe approaching
two years ago. Although a qualified accountant, he couldn’t get employment that
matched his experience. Over the last few months they’d developed a strong bond
and most days met up for lunchtime chats. It was evident Jabulani knew more
about English history and culture than David did, picked up during his school
days. His knowledge extended to the names and locations of the major London
stores and he had a particular obsession with Harrods. Jabulani’s birthday was
coming up. David would take him out for tea at the Ladurée Café one Saturday
within the next month.
Jane had made it clear she wanted a quick divorce. She
intended to marry Jim as soon as possible, which did make David wonder how long
their clandestine relationship had been going on. In a scribbled note found on
the kitchen table when he’d returned from work one evening the previous week,
she had stated her target was a divorce by March so they could get married in
early summer. The following day he’d received a letter from her solicitor
suggesting that the first step, the financial settlement, could be tackled
immediately. David decided it was reasonable to put this as a short term
objective since the process was to begin in the near future, even if not
completed within the first month.
Next he turned his attention to Bridget. He really had to
concentrate on her – she should be right at the top of the list. He’d call her
over the next day or so to ask if she’d like to meet up. Who could predict what
would happen, she might well say no? On the other hand it might mark the start
of a wonderful relationship. A no was more likely, David reckoned. Or even
worse, the dreaded ‘I do like you but I just want us to be friends’.
The Maccabees had ended and it was approaching ten
o’clock. He considered this a good time to stop, with the first part of his
action plan complete and the evening news programme about to start.
Short term
1. Inform
mother about separation
2. Take
Jabulani to Harrods for tea
3. Start
process to obtain an amicable divorce from Jane
4. Call
Bridget to arrange a meet up
Self-mockery surfaced as David read over what he had
written. It had taken an hour to put down merely twenty-six words. In terms of
priority, number four should have come first, but he’d listed it last. Why? Cowardice
probably, fear of rejection. It was too late to call Bridget that evening and
anyway, he wanted time to plan what to say. But it wasn’t too late to make a
call to a long established night owl. He dialled.
“Hello mother.”
“Who is it?”
That was her standard infuriating reply. She would have
recognised his voice and it could only be her single son who was addressing her
as mother. “It’s me, David.” He knew what would follow.
“Oh, David,” she said in a tone implying surprise. “I was
wondering when I’d hear from you. I suppose you’re too busy to call an old
lady. Mind you, I’m not complaining. How are you?”
He ignored her implicit accusation of neglect. “Everything’s
fine, thanks. And you?”
“I suppose I shouldn’t make a fuss. My bones are creaking
a bit, par for the course as soon as it gets cold.”
“I’d like to visit on Saturday if it’s convenient.”
“Of course it’s convenient. It’s not as if I have a busy
social life. Who’s coming with you?”
“Just me. Rachel’s got a rehearsal for Fiddler on the
Roof and Sam’s playing football.” He hoped she wouldn’t pick up on the lack of
explanation for Jane’s non-attendance. “But that’s good because I need to talk
to you about a couple of things.”
“I hardly ever get to see your children now they’re grown
up. No time for their old grandmother, too many more important things to do.”
“Mother, you saw them about five weeks’ ago and they
phoned you last week.”
“I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies. Well,
I’ll see you when I see you,” she muttered in the dour Brummie accent David had
tried hard to lose.
He’d been nervous dialling, but right from her greeting
Bridget made the conversation easy. She had joked about events at the reunion
before accepting his invitation to meet up the following Wednesday evening
after work for a drink at The Greyhound. He was a teenager again, his heart
racing as he asked her, then mumbling incoherently after she had accepted.
He passed Junction 14, the Milton Keynes turnoff. This
was almost half way and so far so good. After listening to ‘From Our Own
Correspondent’ on Radio 4 he switched it off. He needed to concentrate on how
best to tell his mother about the disintegration of his marriage. She would be devastated;
she was very fond of Jane. She was from the generation of female stay-at-homes with
life devoted to supporting her husband and children, and for her a closely knit
family was paramount.
David had been her favourite. She’d made no attempt to
hide this and it had created considerable tension between him and his sister Charlotte.
Day in day out, as they stepped through the front door after school, the two
children had been greeted enthusiastically with ‘tea dears?’ His routine reply
of ‘yes please, mum’ was swiftly followed by her bringing a pot of tea and
plate of biscuits into the lounge. Charlotte usually declined the offer to join
them, intent on going straight to her bedroom to blast her punk music. They
always sat on the same two armchairs. His mother then endeavoured to drag out
any detail she could about his school day. She was proud of even the smallest
achievements. The older he got the less he revealed and now, approaching thirty
years on, there was a tinge of guilt about how he had shunned her, particularly
when she most needed his support and affection.
He could still visualise the ashen faced, swollen eyed
mother who met him at the front door on the day his father died. A policewoman
was supporting her. As he stepped in she rushed up and squeezed him with
extraordinary force.
"Daddy's dead," she wailed. "Daddy’s
dead," over and over again. "My poor Cyril."
A heart attack. At work. No warning and no second chance.
Dead on arrival at hospital. David was seventeen and Charlotte was two years
older.
His mother struggled to cope and considerable responsibility
was placed on Charlotte and his own young shoulders. Between tears she would
reminisce about family times together. The same stories over and over again. Journeys
to the seaside in their Ford Capri. Competitions for who would be the first to
spot the sea as they reached the summit of the South Downs. Breaking into a
refrain of
Oh I do like to be beside the seaside! S
triped windbreakers
providing protection from the harsh breeze. Thick grey clouds filling the sky,
obliterating the blue. A rapid collection of possessions and a dash back to the
car. Then the slow journey home, stretched out, exhausted, the two children
falling asleep on the back seat. He was unsure which parts of the stories were
genuine memories and which were family mythologies.
A few months after his father’s death he left for
university, a planned exodus to far away Exeter with the strong intention never
to return home to live. ‘The Great Escape’ Charlotte called it, resenting David
for the resulting additional responsibility she had to endure. She didn’t go to
university; she worked as a secretary in a local estate agent’s office. From
there she plotted her own getaway, achieved four years after their father’s
death when she married one of the estate agents.
It was many years later when they found out that the
official account of their father’s death at work wasn’t quite the truth. He was
having an affair with a colleague and died astride her on her bed. That morning
over breakfast he’d informed his family he was going to be late home. ‘I’m
rushed off my feet,’ he’d said. His mother knew the truth all along of course
because the emergency team were called to the distraught woman’s flat. The
cause of death was recorded as a heart attack brought on by physical exertion. Their
mother had protected them from the facts until an uncle got drunk one Christmas
and relayed what had happened in lurid detail to the full extended family. Later,
upstairs in Charlotte’s bedroom and now far removed from the tragedy of the
event, they had laughed at the irony. He was rushed off his feet well enough,
but he wouldn’t have expected to be off his feet for ever more.
David was approaching the Junction 18 exit to Daventry,
just a few minutes away from the turnoff onto the M6. He was making excellent
progress and might be able to get home by early evening if he could escape
within a timeframe that wouldn’t offend his mother.
Her intense bitterness had taken root from the time of
his father’s death, only later did he appreciate that the circumstances of it were
the cause. Living alone in the same house she never made an attempt to
socialise beyond the family, with few friends or interests to keep her
occupied. Bearing in mind the betrayal by her own husband, how would she react
to Jane’s infidelity? He would need to choose his words carefully.
David drove onto the M6. Even at this horrendous motorway
merging point it was devoid of congestion.
He’d decided long ago that he didn’t much like his
mother. After all these years there was still a pang of guilt about his escape
to university because he could have carried on living at home and commuted to
Birmingham or Warwick or even Aston. But how much of the guilt was justified
and how much was fostered by his mother’s words? There was always that hint of admonishment
in her tone when he visited, implying insufficient interest in her well-being. And
the truth was the more she behaved like that, the more he backed away.
He reached Junction 4 at Lichfield to be confronted by the
flashing lights of an overhead sign alerting drivers to reduce speed to 50 mph.
This was superfluous because ahead there was a complete standstill. He braked
sharply. He was less than ten miles from his destination and it was anybody’s
guess how long it would take.
It was Jane who had first made him aware of his mother’s
deviousness and she refused to tolerate such behaviour.
“Are you sure it’s not too much bother visiting me? Have
you got the time?” his mother would ask Jane during a telephone call.
“You’re right, we are busy this weekend. That’s very
understanding, Glenda, we appreciate it. Perhaps some time next month,” came
Jane’s reply, smiling broadly and giving David a thumbs up sign. Jane did have
a nice smile and he would miss it.