“Did you enjoy looking at me, Eliot?” she rasps. My mind whirs. ‘Of course not,’ I want to scream. With a deep breath, I have to admit to myself that would be a lie; and that she would know.
No, I must practice the art of avoidance, pure and simple.
“I’m not interested, Mrs Taylor. Okay?” She looks shocked at my bluntness. I’m forced to whisper the next lines so as to not attract attention from the bobbing heads along the corridor. “We should never have...” I can’t find words to tastefully describe what it is we shouldn’t have done. “Leave me alone.”
Unable to resist a glance back when I’m sure I’m far enough away, the pale face and staring eyes look nothing like Uma. She’s hurt, and I’m sorry. But if it’s a choice of hurting her or hurting Imogen, she’ll just have to get over it.
“You’re looking well, Mr Armstrong!” The robust forearm of Jonesy brushes my back as he smiles up at me from his lowly stature. “Did my advice help?”
Unwilling to go into it further, I nod. “You know, Jonesy? I rather think it has.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Have you fixed the airbag yet, Dad?” Jess asks me while we sit at the table the next Saturday morning.
“Shit! No,” I curse, slurping my coffee which has gone cold. “Don’t you use language like that. It’s Daddy’s prerogative.” She sneers at me and laughs.
“You better get it done. Why don’t you phone the garage now?”
“Are you sure I need to go to the garage. Isn’t there a way to do it?”
She sniffs. “Er, yeah! But that’s how you managed to switch the seatbelt warning off! That’s how Mum’s able to drive around without her seatbelt.”
“She wears it now though, doesn’t she? I mean she said she would.” Jess raises her eyebrows and purses her lips. She holds my stare until she’s sure I’ve got the message.
“Okay, I’ll phone the garage. She’ll have to wear it then.”
“Exactly,” Jess pronounces. She stands over me until I dial the number. Grinning, she skips off into Jess’s little world of sunshine and I’m left with a lengthy ring. I’m about to give up when there’s an answer.
“Moorcroft BMW. How may I help you?”
When I explain the nature of my call, the out of breath telephonist explains that the service department is closed on Saturday. Reluctant to agree to phoning back on Monday morning (I know I’ll forget), I soon persuade her with my flirtatiousness that perhaps she could try and find a slot for me.
I can hear her redden. “Er, Friday morning. About ten?”
“Can’t do mornings. It’ll have to be after three thirty.”
“Will you be bringing it in yourself, Mr Armstrong?” she coos. It’s hard work being a sex god.
“Probably,” I confirm, not wanting it to sound like a date.
Jess bustles back into the kitchen. “Going to Amy’s.” She blows kisses as she closes the back door.
“What time’s your mum back from Doctors-on-call?” I yell. She pauses long enough to pop her head back in the door and shrug. The garden gate slams and I hear Amy’s wheels on the gravel drive as she whisks my company away.
I wish we had a dog. Imogen always says it wouldn’t be fair to leave one at home on its own as we both work. But other people do it. I could go for long walks and recharge my batteries.
Having consumed a three pack of craft beers from the fridge, I decide I can’t wait until Imogen gets back from work. Her turn at the out-of-hours service can go well into the evening.
I go for a walk anyway. A footpath beside our house leads straight onto Chadwell Springs Golf Course and within minutes I’m in glorious open countryside.
Skirting the edge of the golf course, I pause at the bubbling brook that gives the course its name. The sound of the pure water, ascending to the surface after a journey in utter darkness, through the annals of the earth, to emerge purer and more delectable at the surface, seems an over-elaborate metaphor for my marriage. But it’s one my beer soaked brain is happy to accept.
Strolling further up the steep slope, I pick my way through the monstrous yellow dumpers and diggers, and I’m soon confronted by the vast chasm of the abandoned quarry. The canyon-like proportions take my breath away as I stand on top of the world.
It’s beautiful. A world away from life’s troubles. Mine seem further away than ever in the silent chalky paradise.
I stretch out my arms, the sunlight casting shadows on the white like a soaring Raven’s wings silhouetted on the clouds. Smiling, I close my eyes and imagine I’m flying.
The peace splinters as my intoxicated balance fails me and my feet slide from under me. Toppling forward I throw my arm out grabbing at tufts of grass, sparse at the edge of the pit.
Eyes wide as plates, I know this is it and I wait for my life to flash before my eyes just as an imbedded rock saves me gaining purchase on my shoe. Along with the friction provided by my knee as it scrapes along the stony ground, it’s enough to keep me the right side of oblivion.
The agony of my knee, seeping with blood, is not my biggest concern. What a fool. If we had a dog, it would probably run for help and bark “Jimmy’s stuck in the mine; or Eliot’s dangling above a several hundred feet drop into a fucking quarry!”
But I don’t have a dog, and no-one’s around, or likely to be around. My life is literally hanging on a thread; a thread of thankfully incredibly tough grass.
Forcing my senses through the drunken fug of my head, I frantically search out a foothold, dangling my leg and making contact with the edge of the pit until my foot gets enough leverage to shove me forwards.
Toes edging me up have the alarming effect of slackening the tension of the tuft of grass. When it takes my weight again, my heart thumps at the sound of several blades snapping.
I throw myself forward just enough to make a grab with my other hand. If this grass is as strong as the tuft in my hand, I should be able to pull myself to safety. If not, it will be the last thing I ever do.
Grab! It holds, but starts to tear straight away. With a desperate scramble, my poor knee is forced into action and I haul myself away from tumbling hundreds of feet into the yawning void below.
Scrabbling ten metres from the edge before I sit round and face my foe. My heart pounds in my ears.
“Fuck. That was close.” The pain in my leg and the undeniable sense of my mortality makes me sick. I try to stand, suddenly desperate to be away from what was contentment moments before. Another metaphor, perhaps?
Oh, for a golf cart to toddle up just now and offer me reprieve, but no-one ever comes up here anymore. What If I’d gone? Fallen over the edge? Who would ever find me? Not the digger drivers. How could they? The quarry is so deep you can barely see the bottom!
I’d have floated up in a couple of weeks, maybe, once the stream is diverted and the quarry lake fills. I shudder.
My injury is painful, not life-endangering. I’ll make it back, even if I have to crawl all the way. Imogen will be pleased, I’m sure. She’ll just get back from work and have to bandage me up.
I can quite understand why the golf course avoids this area. The trees to one side and the quarry pit to the other would claim a lot of golf balls. But I wish I could see a golfer, even in the distance, whom I could hail.
A quick examination of my knee makes me shudder. I don’t like pain. I know no-one does, but I have a particular aversion. A wave of intense nausea fells me and I collapse to the soft ground.
“Come on,” I encourage. “Don’t let being a wuss stop you getting home.”
Raising my waist, bowing forward, my weight is on my knee. I shift it onto my right leg, determined to get blood to flow back to my head. I must look like I’m in worship of the great god of golf, but it works. Slowly the nausea passes.
Making sure I avoid using my knee (and certainly avoid looking at it), I hobble slowly along the verge of the green, the small lane leading back to my lovely home becoming ever closer.
I speed up w
hen I pluck a sturdy branch from the ground and use it as a crutch. Despite my prompt progress, I don’t beat Imogen back home. As I push open the door, her look of agitated uncertainty softens the instant she witnesses my stumble through the door.
“Eliot! Oh, what’s happened to you?” I give her my best boyish grin and slump on the sofa.
“I was missing you, so I went for a walk.” Her look of puzzlement begs more from me, but I’m reluctant to let on quite how close a call I’ve had.
“I slipped, that’s all. And bent my knee.” Her doctor instincts have already taken over and she’s examining my leg.
“Does this hurt?” Waiting for pain to strike, I’m relieved when it doesn’t. “What about this?” I cry out at a twinge.
After several such manoeuvres, Imogen is satisfied that nothing’s broken and it’s just a sprain. “You’ll live,” she declares, ruffling my hair as she stands from kneeling in front of me. I’m sure she’d like to give me a sticker for being brave. I’d probably take one, too.
“The stick helps.” I say, not sure if I’m not just fishing for more sympathy.
“You need to rest it. Good job it’s the weekend.”
Monday morning, and I have to take a bloody crutch with me (provided by Imogen after a Sunday morning raid of the surgery store cupboard.) I’ll be a sitting duck for Uma.
I’m right. Limping out of assembly, she catches me halfway along the corridor.
“Whatever has happened, darling?”
I cringe at the endearment. She calls everyone darling. Calm down, Eliot. I turn to face her, acting on the presumption she has heeded my advice from last week that we are over. Completely.
She’s stood a respectful distance away, and I relax. I allow a warm smile to decorate my stern countenance. “Just slipped whilst out for a walk, that’s all.” She considers me for a moment.
“You’ll have to be more careful, Mr Armstrong,” she says with a wink, alluding to a double meaning. I haven’t any idea what it could be, but I’m certain avoiding her as much as possible is the best plan.
I sit in the school canteen. The food is actually rather good, and I’m hurrying through my spicy meatball baguette so I can tuck into the spotted dick and custard.
“Is this seat taken, Eliot?” She’s not leaning in suggestively, or displaying her trademark cleavage, yet I still decide to push home the point that there’s nothing doing.
“Clearly not. But really, Mrs Taylor, I don’t think our sitting together is appropriate.” Guilt grips my throat and I add a rasped, “Sorry,” as she considers me with a knowing, purse-lipped smile.
Walking away with her tray of food, her glance back at me, a pale wetness to her eyes, pricks my conscience. Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh. We were both to blame for what went on between us. It takes two to tango as they say. And whilst I pardon myself of most of the responsibility, and she is undoubtedly a home wrecker, she does seem to have got the message. I guess there’s no harm in our being friends.
I don’t see her for the rest of the day. That’s fine. I’m in no hurry to offer the olive branch. Having spoken to her and been so firm expressing my intentions, and with the plan of camaraderie towards her, I feel the bigger person.
It all seems nicely settled and I’ve developed a rather self-satisfied smugness. I joke with students throughout the day (vital defence against regular comments as to why I’m wielding a walking stick.) As I bid my final GCSE class farewell, I enjoy their expressions of joy and relief as I declare, “No homework tonight.”
Hobbling out to my car, I feel old. I worry for a moment if my mid-life-crisis might take fuel from the misfortune, but instead, it has the effect of giving me a mature outlook.
I’m looking forward to getting home to domestic bliss, I’m looking forward to whatever the future has in store, and I’m looking forward to that future being with my wonderful wife.
My drive through Ware is at a relaxed pace. Smiling at an old lady for whom I have stopped at a Pelican Crossing, a glance up takes in the fearsome face of the Saracen as he surveys the street below from his home high on the wall, but no twinge of desire grabs the steering wheel this time.
I’m surprised and thrilled, when I pull into the driveway that Imogen’s car is already there. The pleasure increases the moment the door cracks open as delightful aromas waft from the kitchen.
Imogen evidently heard my return and has hurried into the hallway to greet me, wiping floury hands on her Cath Kidston apron. “I’ve cooked.”
“I know. It smells wonderful.” The quizzical expression on my face is answered;
“I didn’t think you’d want to cook with your injury. The practice was quiet, so... Here I am, putting a hot dinner on the table for my handsome husband.”
I hobble over and kiss her cheek. We avoid getting too close so as not to get white flour on my smart suit.
Imogen invites me to sit at the perfectly laid table and disappears briefly. She returns in a totally impractical, revealing slinky top and tight skirt covered by a frilly apron in what might as well be a French maid’s outfit. In each hand rests a plate of restaurant quality food which she wafts skilfully in place.
Looking at my wife, who has gone to all this trouble, and is the most incredible woman in the world, why is my mind being infiltrated by imagining Uma in her place?
In my head, the frilly vest is just that little better filled. The slinky walk, just that bit sexier. If I were to obey my desires, I’d rush my phone from my pocket just to see her.
But I don’t love her. Nothing of the sort. And I’m sure this infatuation will pass. It’s my mid-life nonsense enjoying a final fart on my feelings. I know it.
With a shake of my head to restore my senses, I take her in. This is where I want to be. Of course it is.
“Oh my god, Im! You sexy little minx. Come here!” (Because I can’t hobble to her and maintain the mood.) She saunters to me and kisses me soft and long on the lips before her tantalising meal draws her gaze and dampens my ardour.
But the food is good. Very good. I sometimes forget how accomplished she is when it’s usually more practical for me to provide the meals, what with finishing so much earlier.
The realisation forms a hard-to-swallow lump in my chest. The emasculating, house-husband discontentment is back, and now this lovely meal seems no more than a role-reversed romantic gesture from my usually preoccupied keeper.
Despite my waning appetite, I finish the meal. It’s tasty, and its nouvelle cuisine presentation means there’s not much of it. Cutlery placed in parallel resemble quotation marks denoting the end of this scene. Or perhaps a ‘pause’ icon is what it is, because neither of us seems to know what to say.
Pushing her chair back, Imogen is determined to retrieve the seduction. She slinks towards me, hands outstretched. I gratefully take them and allow her to lead me to the lounge where she offers me a massage.
I sit on the floor between her knees as she sits on the couch behind me. She begins with fanned fingers and a firm pressure on my scalp. It’s always been a favourite of mine, and Imogen knows it.
“Take your shirt off, husband,” she orders, and I melt into her touch as she sprays fragrant oil, plucked from I don’t know where, and caresses it into my skin. “Ooohh, Mr Armstrong. What strong muscles you have,” she coos.
My fists clench, and I want to pound them into my ridiculous head as, even now, Uma cleaves her sultry curves into my thoughts once more.
If I didn’t like it. If the pictures repulsed me, it would be something; perhaps even strengthen my affection for my wife. But I do like it. I want to snap my fingers right now and swap Imogen for her. Just for this moment.
Oh stop it, Eliot, you absurd buffoon. I force her out and picture Bath and my first glimpse of Imogen. If I’d seen Uma instead, all those years ago, I wouldn’t have given her a second glance. (Well, that’s not quite true, but the glance would have been for far shallower reasons.) Imogen captivated me effortlessly because she’s the one
. My one true love.
With a deep breath, I allow pleasure from Imogen’s delicate touch to flow into my taut muscles, and I begin to relax.
“You have a lot of tension here, my love,” she says. “But, it is beginning to ease. I’m massaging all your troubles away,” she says, kneading intensifying.
If only she knew.
“Feel the stiffness leave your strong, muscular arms, Eliot Armstrong. Big... Strong... Arms,” she purrs with each squeeze of her fingers.
“All the better to ravish you with,” I proclaim, twisting around and swinging her from her seat on the sofa into my lap where I sat between her legs on the floor.
“I love you,” I say, gazing deeply into her eyes.
She’s silent for an age, and I’m sure I detect the tell-tale moistness in her eye as she strokes my face and whispers, “Do you?”
Chapter Fifteen
My furtive love-making fails to convince my beautiful wife that I do love her, and the closeness we both wanted to experience from her seductive efforts is instead an uncomfortable confirmation that something is wrong.
It will be hard to pass my oddness off as disturbance from my nightmares, because I haven’t had them, and Imogen is already heeding their warning (or she will be forced to after Friday.)
How long will it be before she flirts with the same notion as Jonesy? And how long will it be before she suspects my vehement denials about Uma are not as solid as they should be?
I’ve barely slept worrying, and from the taut arch of Imogen’s back as we attempt to spoon throughout the night, I don’t think she did either.
The tension is hardly improved at breakfast when my mouth is so dry, I can’t take advantage of the distraction of eating because I can’t swallow my toast.
I coax down a dry mouthful, threatening to choke me, with a glug of strong coffee. Imogen smiles wanly as she walks past me with her plate, stroking my arm on her way to the sink.
Blurred Lines: A box-set of reality bending supernatural fiction (Paranormal Tales from Wales Book 9) Page 70