by Ella Craig
She sat at the table and studied her hand not yet used to its new adornment, a gold band set with three opals. The weight dragged her whole arm down. She took a sip of whiskey, revelling in the burning sensation in her throat.
'It's a beautiful ring.' Kath drained her glass. ‘Opal is my birthstone.’
‘That makes it even more special. You do understand what it means?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I will leave Jackie, and we can be together.’ He sat on the edge of the bed. ‘We can marry when the divorce comes through.’ He lay back with one hand under his head and the other holding his drink on his chest. He carried on talking about their future.
Kath stopped listening and focused on the ring: Argos or antique? Either way, the ring bound her finger like a dog collar. Is this what she wanted? Her lack of emotion scared her, no excitement or happiness, just nothingness, apart from her anger at Tony for making her so conspicuous on the dance floor. That moved her more than his declarations.
‘What do you say, Katkins?’
‘I expected nothing like this, and I don’t know what to say.’
‘You don’t have to say anything except yes or no. Do you want to keep the ring?’
(Do I?) ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Of course, I am,’ he said. ‘Give me a few weeks to prepare Jackie and the kids. Easter. I’ll leave her at Easter.’
Kath’s stomach dropped, this she could cope with. ‘Take the ring and give it back to me at Easter, after you leave your wife.’
‘OK.’ He didn’t seem upset. ‘Hey, you look sexy tonight.’ He pulled her down on the bed beside him. They kissed, and his hands roamed over her body.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked as she squirmed out of his embrace.
‘The loo, I need to unplug myself.’ He looked blankly at her. ‘I’m on my period and stuffed to the gills with cotton wool.’
‘It’s your time of the month?’
She nodded. ‘Sod’s law, but even the pill’s no protection against the painters arriving at the worst possible moment.’
‘What is the matter with you?’ she asked a little while later. Tony’s ardour had gone into a serious decline, and not because of brewer’s droop.
‘Sorry, love, but we don’t ever, not when she’s on.’
‘I am not Jackie,’ said Kath through gritted teeth.
‘I don’t like it.’ He gave her an apologetic smile.
Kath squirmed with embarrassment. None of her friends had men who found making love at this time a problem. She thought of Darren, probably only a dose of syphilis would stop him. She eyed Tony and the generation gap, which stretched between them. Although a certain part of his anatomy was trying to breach the void, with an indulgent smile, Kath went to work.
Tony mumbled words of love, punctuated by moans of pleasure. ‘That’s so good... don’t stop, baby... Oh, Jackie,’ he shouted as he reached the point of no return.
Kath spat him out.
The next morning finally came after a night spent listening to Tony snore. He was flat out on his back, and she couldn’t shift him. She curled up in a ball in the farthest corner of the bed and let her thoughts chase each other through her mind. At five in the morning, she abandoned the idea of sleep as physical discomfort added to her mental commotion. Her head began pounding, and her mouth was as dry as the Sahara. She tiptoed to the bathroom to find the water warmer than yesterday, but the towels were no thicker.
She came out from her shower to find Tony on his front with his head spot-welded to the pillow by drool. A stale odour emanated from the bed, beer sweat, blood and sex. Kath guessed the sheets needed changing. Well, he could do that or ask Jackie to do them, after all, he was thinking of her when, as Onan allegedly had, he spilt his seed. Kath smiled grimly, opened the windows and went out to breakfast.
Tony found her later reading the newspapers in the clubhouse. He smelled fresher but moved slowly and winced at every noise. ‘Hello, love.’ He spoke in a low voice as if worried he would frighten the horses.
‘Afternoon.’ Kath said in a loud and cheery tone and flapped her newspaper at him for good measure. His face screwed up with pain. ‘Do you want some breakfast? I had a lovely greasy fry-up, sausages, bacon and eggs, the works.’
The remaining colour drained from his face. ‘I’m not hungry although, I would love a coffee.’
Kath relented and took him to the restaurant. She chose a seat as far away from the food as possible and ordered a pot of strong coffee.
‘I know I drank too much last night, but I meant every word. At Easter, or before if you like, I’ll leave Jackie and the ring is yours.’
‘What do we do in the meantime?’
‘Carry on as normal,’ he said. ‘I’ll try to see you a couple of times a week. If not we can talk on the phone.’
‘I need time to think this over.’
‘What for? I am ready to tell Jackie I’m leaving her.’
‘Please don’t do anything rash yet. This is important to us and to your children.’ Kath paused, unsure as to which cliché to use next. ‘I want us both to be one hundred per cent certain about this before we burn our bridges.’
‘Kathy, I tell you, I am ready to make a commitment. You are the one dragging her heels this time.’
‘I need to reconcile what we are doing with how many people will be hurt.’
‘They’ll get over it.’
‘Like Fiona did?’
‘Our happiness is at stake here, and I don’t want to waste any more time. Kathy, I thought this was what you, what we, wanted.’
‘Give me a couple of weeks, we both need time to think.’ The faces of Linda, Darren, Miles and Jackie would haunt her until she died if she cocked this one up.
‘OK,’ said Tony. ‘We could do next Saturday?’
Kath shook her head
‘All right, Saturday week. That gives you two weeks to get yourself sorted. I’ll come over to your place, and we can plan our future,’ he smiled.
‘Not then, and not in my place.’ Whatever she decided on it would be better for them if they met on neutral territory. Besides, Miles’ birthday fell on that Saturday. ‘Make it on Sunday, and I’ll meet you in the Old Mill House at eight.’
‘Okey-dokey.’ He leapt up, his hangover apparently gone. ‘We are wasting the day; shall we go for a drive or something?’
The rest of the weekend passed in a daze with Kath struggling to remember much of what happened. It involved a lot of drink with another night waiting for one of them to pass out, followed by another morning lost to the effects of too much booze. The drive back to Plymouth was quiet, with Tony too hungover to be behind the wheel of a car and Kath too shell-shocked to care. They also had a car full of flowers from the campsite staff and many of the campers. Kath shivered and suppressed a sneeze. The combined smells of lilies, carnations, roses and chrysanthemums overpowered her with the nostril-flossing stench of the sickroom. She slid further into her seat.
Her relief at getting home was indescribable. Tony dropped her at the door, kissed her goodbye, and for once Kath did not respond to him, but he didn’t notice. His mind had already left her, and Kath waited for Tony to take his body with him.
‘Bye, Kitten, I’ll see you on the second.’
She wiped his saliva from her face and ear and dumped the bouquets in a handy skip. Inside her flat, she found an orchid and a card on the doormat. Miles! Who else would post her a flower with its stem immersed in a water-filled condom? She opened the card. There were no hearts or Valentine references; the cover featured an ostrich with its head in a bucket. Miles’ subtle touch had deserted him. Inside he had written one word: ‘yours’. Overcome by guilt and tiredness, Kath crawled up the stairs and collapsed into a chair.
Yours.
god bless the child
Kath needed to talk to someone. Miles was out of the question and if she didn’t watch her step, out of her life. Jenny would not be a source of comfort, no longer supportive, and never
sympathetic, when it came to Tony. Liz might understand, but knowledge is power and Liz had megalomaniac tendencies. As for the rest of her friends, either she had a case of incipient paranoia or her stagnating relationship with Miles was causing a few rifts.
What do you do when life is a complete cock-up, and you are up to your ears in the brown stuff? Turn to the one person who will love and respect you in the morning, and is never offended if you ignore her advice: not for too long anyway.
‘And to what do I owe this honour?’ Angela Beck looked up in surprise when Kath came in through the kitchen door.
‘Don’t be sarky, mother. I came over for a chat, and to relieve you of the boredom of a lonely Friday night.’
‘You mean there is no one else to go drinking with, and as a last resort you came over to plague me.’
‘Not quite, but I do have a bottle of Chardonnay.’
‘I’ll dig out the glasses.’ Angela bustled around the kitchen. 'We need to celebrate. Margaret just called me.’
Kath thought quickly. Ah, Claire’s wedding with its pregnant, married cousins and smug aunties. ‘Karen’s given birth then?’
‘At three thirty-five this afternoon to a boy. Where is the blasted corkscrew? Nine days early and a good job too, he weighed in at ten pounds and three ounces.’
‘I bet that hurt.’ Kath’s pelvic muscles clenched in sympathy. ‘What’s he called?’
‘Christopher Albert and both mother and baby are doing fine. Drat, the wine is corked. Pass me the tea strainer, please, and go on through to the lounge.’
Kath made herself comfortable on the sofa and clutched a cushion to her chest in a vain attempt to stop biting her nails.
‘Here you are, to baby Christopher. Cheers!’
Kath sipped her wine and listened with a growing impatience as Angela relayed all the unpleasant details of the birth. After her second refill, she butted in. ‘No Dad or Billy this evening?’
‘They are at a five-a-side football tournament with the scouts tonight. My sentiments exactly,’ said Angela, as Kath wrinkled up her nose. ‘Now, what is up with you?’
‘What makes you think anything is wrong?’
‘A mother’s intuition. Man trouble, isn’t it?’
‘What other sort is there?’ Kath tried to laugh. ‘Mum, you wouldn’t believe the trouble I’m in.’
‘You are not pregnant are you?’ Angela’s voice rose in horror. ‘I’m not ready for you to make me a granny.’
‘I am not pregnant, and I have no unmentionable diseases unless being an idiot is classed as an illness these days.’
‘You haven’t broken up with Miles?’
‘Not yet.’
‘But, I thought, you two...’ Extreme shock left her mother speechless.
‘Mum, Miles isn’t the problem.’ Kath took a deep breath. ‘It’s Tony.’
‘Who is Tony?’
‘Tony is, or rather was, my boyfriend. We’ve been together on and off, since last August.’
Angela tried to digest this information. ‘You had two men on the go at once? Oh, Kathy, what a thing to do, I don’t know what to say.’
‘And I don’t know what to do,’ wailed Kath.
‘You must give up one of these men at once. What you are doing is so very wrong.’ A hard edge deepened Angela’s voice. ‘Who do you love, Miles or this Tony person?’
‘At one point, Tony was everything I ever wanted but not anymore. I love him, but I no longer want to be with him.’
‘Then tell him so and stop seeing him. It is as simple as that.’
‘It isn’t because Tony is forty-five-years-old, and married.’
‘You are going out with a married man!’ Angela shrieked. ‘How old did you say he is?’
‘He will be forty-six this year.’
‘He is five years younger than your own father. That you are involved with a man twice your age is bad enough, but a married one. How could you?’
Faced with her mother’s wrath, Kath lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.
‘Did you never think of his poor wife?’
‘No,’ said Kath in a small voice.
‘Such selfishness,’ said Angela. ‘I don’t believe I am hearing this.’
‘Mum, please don’t go on like this,’ Kath felt close to tears. ‘I know I’ve done wrong, but how do I put this right?’
‘Do you remember when Billy was born?’
The question surprised Kath, what did her brother have to do with this? ‘I remember the celebrations lasted longer than the weaning process.’
‘You need to understand how much I wanted Billy. At forty, he was my last chance to have another baby.’
‘He wasn’t an accident?’
‘No, planned from the outset and this was a risk I was willing to take.’
‘Because of your age?’
‘I never thought of my age, I gambled everything, because of your father. Is there any more wine in the bottle?’
Kath shook her head.
Angela shut her eyes for a moment. ‘I’ll fetch another one. This will be a long story.’
Kath chewed her nails and waited for her mum to get to whatever point she was trying to make.
‘Would you like some nibbles as well?’ Angela called from the kitchen. ‘There are some walnuts left over from Christmas, and I’ll bring in crisps too, shall I?’
‘That would be lovely.’ Kath came close to dragging her back into the room and hoped when she came back that she wouldn’t go off on any irrelevant tangents. Mother’s Tangerine Dreams, Kath’s sister used to call them. Kath smiled and tried to relax as her mother spent ages laying out the bowls of nuts and crisps.
‘Well, now,’ said Angela. ‘Where was I?’
‘My little brother.’
Angela plunged straight back into the story. ‘Billy happened because, after fifteen years of marriage, your father and I were stuck in the same old routine, going through the motions. I thought it was a phase, and we would pull through, but I discovered your father was having an affair. When it started and who she was, I never found out, and I never wanted too.
‘He was going to leave us, he never said as much, but I could read the signs. The only way to keep him was to become pregnant, and so I seduced him one night. He had taken to sleeping on the floor by then.’
‘You seduced your own husband, my dad?’ Parents didn’t do that kind of thing. Parents were asexual. Kath struggled to picture her mother in the role of temptress and conjured up an image of a desperate woman poring over plans like a battle-ready soldier. Her weapons, a flimsy nightdress and a half bottle of port.
‘I had no choice because the one thing your father craved was a boy. Don’t for one minute think he never wanted you or Jo. You are and always will be a great delight to the both of us, but he wanted a son, and I suppose he thought she would give him one. When I told him I was pregnant, he refused to speak to me and spent more time with her. What a fool, to try to trap him with a baby. I thought I had ruined everything and would end up a pregnant divorcee.
‘My last hope came with the sex test, and everything changed when I discovered I was carrying a boy. Your father stopped seeing that woman, and he treated me like glass throughout my pregnancy. Nothing was ever too much trouble for him.’
‘Are you saying Dad went from a wandering husband to a doting one overnight, just because you were having his precious boy?’
‘Your father didn’t stay simply out of duty to me. He loves both you and Jo very much. You were two of the reasons he stayed despite his other woman. After I gave him Billy, your father was ours for keeps. We both dote on our boy so much. He gave your father a new lease of life and saved our marriage. Jo had just turned fourteen, but she understood Billy gave us all something special. I suppose you were too young to notice.’
‘At eleven years old? More like self-centred!’
‘You were still a child,’ Angela gave her a fond smile. ‘But I am so glad you didn’t pick up on any of this.
’
‘But I do remember the um…’ Kath fumbled for a word. ‘The unremitting joy when Billy was born, and how we fought for the privilege of feeding him, bathing him and changing his nappies. I was chuffed to bits to have a baby brother. Did Jo realise Dad was seeing another woman?’
‘No, but she saw the tension before Billy came along and the change for the good in your father afterwards.’
‘The trips to the seaside, Paignton Zoo, walking on Dartmoor, just me, dad and Jo, I always thought he did that to give you some peace and quiet. Then we all used to go out as a family.’ Kath smiled in reminiscence. ‘I miss those days.’
‘I do too, but think of all those precious memories and all the new ones we shall build in the future.’
‘Let us drink to that.’ Kath topped up their glasses.
‘Thank you,’ Angela took a sip. ‘How would you have felt if your dad had left us?’
‘Devastated, betrayed, angry and with a growing hatred of my own father.’
‘I suppose Tony has children?’
‘Two from his first marriage and three from his second.’
‘Second? How can you trust a man who runs off every ten years because he doesn’t like the way things are going?’
‘He doesn’t come across as ideal husband material, does he?’
‘This is no laughing matter, Kathryn.’
‘Sorry, mum, and I can assure you I am not laughing. Tony proposed to me last Friday. I didn’t say yes.’
‘But you didn’t say no.’
‘To be honest, I was worried about hurting his feelings.’
‘What about his wife’s feelings and those of his children, all of them? This particular marriage may not last, but it will stand a better chance without you around.’
‘You are right, as ever. When he asked me out I, like a silly selfish cow, said yes. I would come to my senses and split up with him, but we kept trying again. However, I realise now it will never work out between us. Unfortunately, Tony thinks it will. He wants to leave his wife and marry me. How do I stop him?’