Change of Season

by Anna Jacobs

  She had to stand very still for a moment on that thought. She had known of agony like this, but only intellectually. The reality was far worse, a bleak cliff of pain that she had to scale an inch at a time. She realised Paul was speaking.

  ‘Yes. I’ll go and do that. Where should I go, do you think?’

  ‘Munham’s. In Wareham. They’re used to these cases, apparently. You can probably find their address online.’

  She heard him go into his office. She let some of the tension sift slowly out in a long breath, but her relief was short-lived. A few minutes later she became aware of him standing in the doorway. She covered the embroidery instinctively.

  ‘I’m not going to touch your precious toys. I’ve seen what you’re doing there. A pitiful attempt at a family portrait.’

  ‘Did you want something?’

  He scowled. ‘I think you should come with me. I don’t know anything about arranging funerals. You’ve just done one for that old witch.’

  ‘Don’t,’ her voice was so sharp it surprised her as well as him, ‘call Aunt Sophie that.’

  In her bedroom, eavesdropping as usual, Louise grinned. Good one, Mum. She made a sign of triumph with an upraised fist.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody touchy! It’s only a nickname.’

  ‘Well, it’s one I don’t care for. I was extremely fond of my aunt.’ Rosalind sighed, but put down the sewing and shepherded him out of the room. ‘Very well. We’ll do this together.’ She knocked on Louise’s door. ‘We’re going to sort out the funeral. Do you want to come with us, love?’

  Louise recognised the look of pleading in her mother’s eyes and steeled herself. ‘Yes. I’d like to be part of it, Mum.’ And found to her surprise that it was the truth.

  ‘Thanks.’ Rosalind squeezed her daughter’s hand.

  Watching them, Paul thought how successful his methods had been with this child, at least. Louise had fallen into line, just as he’d known she would. It took discipline, something Ros wasn’t good at. These housewifely types never were, but they made the best sort of wife for a man like him.

  ‘You drive,’ he said outside, waving a hand at Rosalind. ‘You know the district. I’ll just program the address into the satnav.’

  She couldn’t remember the last time he’d asked her to drive him. And he was very quiet on the journey – amazingly quiet, for him – sitting staring out of the window with a grim look on his face.

  Louise was just as quiet in the back.

  When they got home, Rosalind fidgeted round the house then decided to go for a walk. She had to get out of this brooding atmosphere for a while if she was to continue coping. As she came downstairs, dressed in her outdoor things, Paul peered out of his office, where he’d been making phone calls and sending faxes intermittently, as well as doing a lot of staring into space. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘For a walk.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Just out.’ She tried to pass him, but he grabbed her arm.

  ‘I need to know where you’ll be, in case the police want you.’

  She had promised herself no confrontations till after Tim was buried, but suddenly she’d had enough. She tore her arm out of his and shrieked, ‘I’m going out and I don’t know where. I just need a bit of peace, so damned well leave me alone.’

  She went out before he could say anything, and judging by the way he was gaping, her outburst had startled him. Well, that’s just the beginning, Paul Stevenson.

  In Western Australia Audrey decided to ring round her daughter’s friends and let them know what had happened. ‘Liz? Audrey Worth here. Yes, I’m fine. Liz – I have some bad news.’

  Liz braced herself to hear that Paul and Ros had split up.

  ‘Tim’s dead.’ Audrey took a deep breath. ‘Overdose.’

  Liz collapsed onto the nearest chair, speechless, shocked.

  ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes. I just – I don’t know what to say.’

  Audrey’s voice was thick with tears. ‘I thought you might like to ring Rosalind. You two have always been so close. Do you have her UK number? Oh, well, here it is, then.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She wasn’t sure what to say, just knew she had to offer her sympathy. Liz put the phone down and sat there, feeling numb. Then she looked at the clock. No, not a good time to ring.

  When Bill came in, she was sitting in the kitchen with an empty mug in front of her. She didn’t even look up.

  ‘Something wrong?’ He was getting quite used to the idea now, was looking forward to being a father. He would make himself the child’s father, and let anyone try to say different. He’d been wondering about moving away from Perth, too. It’d been hinted lately that he needed to broaden his experience, work overseas for a while. If he found somewhere to go for a year or two, it’d get Liz out of the Stevensons’ way, and keep the baby out of that bastard’s hands, too.

  Liz shook her head and managed a faint smile. ‘No. No, it’s not that. It’s – oh, Bill, Tim Stevenson’s dead, an overdose.’ Her eyes filled with tears again. ‘What must Rosalind be feeling?’

  He came to stand beside her, his hand on her shoulder. ‘You’ll have to ring her.’

  ‘I can’t. Bill, I just can’t face her.’

  ‘You have to.’

  So a little later, when it would be morning in England, she picked up the phone. ‘Ros? Liz here. I just heard. I—’

  ‘Go to hell, you cheating bitch!’ Rosalind slammed the phone down.

  Liz sank to the floor in the hall, burying her face in her hands. Rosalind knew. How long had she known? Had he told her? Surely even he wouldn’t do that?

  Bill peered out of the living room, saw her and rushed over. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Rosalind knows.’

  ‘Oh, hell!’

  Liz burst into tears and wept till she was so exhausted and wrung out that Bill was seriously thinking of calling out the doctor to sedate her.

  When she stopped sobbing, he brought her a cup of camomile tea and sat beside her while she drank it, steadying her shaking hand round it at first, but not saying anything. What was there to say? The harm had been done. Nothing they could do would make things right again, not between Rosalind and Liz, anyway.

  Hearing the phone, Paul came into the hall. ‘Who was that?’

  Rosalind stared at him blankly for a moment. ‘What? Oh, wrong number.’

  ‘But you told them to go to hell.’

  ‘Nuisance call, then. What is this? The Inquisition?’ She drifted up the stairs into her own room, not to embroider, no, just to sit and stroke the face she had made for Tim’s figure. And to wish this dreadful waiting time would end. Not until her son had had a proper funeral would she feel like facing the rest of her life.

  A little later she went out in the car. Paul heard her go but didn’t ask where she was going this time. He stood in the hall watching her drive away through the glass of the front door, feeling abandoned. They’d all gone out, Jenny with that fellow – God, she could certainly pick ’em, what a weak-looking prat! – Louise for a run – ‘Keeping fit, Dad,’ she had said brightly as she left – and now Ros. Didn’t they realise he had feelings, too?

  There was a knock on the door and he went to open it. A woman was there with a big arrangement of flowers in her hands.

  ‘Special delivery,’ she said in a hushed, sympathetic voice.

  He took them off her and she drove away. It was a while before he realised he was still standing there, with the door wide open, clutching the damned things.

  He set the flowers down on the hall table. What good did flowers do? But when he looked at the label, he felt a bit better. From the chairman himself. He studied them again. They must have cost a packet.

  But the flowers didn’t solve the problem of what he was going to do with himself for the rest of the day. He tried ringing work to catch up with a few things, see how the workshop had ended, but everyone insisted they could manage, speaking to him in gentle to
nes, as if he were ill.

  He’d rather have worked. Much rather. It’d have stopped him thinking so much, stopped him regretting so much, too. He cut that thought short. He wasn’t going to allow himself to get maudlin again. He’d follow Louise’s example and go for a run.

  It didn’t help as much as he’d expected.

  Rosalind drove for a long time, eyes blind with memories. Then she realised where she was and turned right. ‘Why not?’ she asked the wind as it buffeted the car. The cold spring was being featured on the news every night now – one of the coldest Mays on record. That suited her, somehow. It was much better than soft, sunny days, which would have seemed to mock her grief.

  Jonathon opened the door, glanced round and saw that she was alone, so simply opened his arms.

  She walked into them, resting her head against his chest with a weary sigh. ‘Can we go into one of your lovely rooms and just sit? The one with Araminta’s embroidery, perhaps?’

  ‘Of course.’

  They walked along the hall arm in arm and she let him fuss her into an armchair near the unlit fire.

  He struck a match and soon flames were crackling in the hearth. ‘Want a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  When he got back, she was sitting there, staring into the fire with her hand on Dusty’s head, stroking him absent-mindedly.

  She looked up. ‘I’m not very good company, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I don’t need entertaining. Would you like me to leave you alone here?’

  She considered this, head on one side, then nodded. ‘I would, actually. I love this room. I need to be alone and quiet. Paul’s so – loud and demanding.’

  ‘Want me to take the dog with me?’

  She looked down and seemed surprised to see her hand lying on the soft fur. ‘No. Leave him.’

  ‘Come and join me when you feel like a bit of company. I’m varnishing the gallery floor upstairs.’

  The peace and silence enfolded her like a lover’s arms. Like Jonathon’s arms. Only she couldn’t make him her lover. Well, not physically, anyway. And perhaps not in any way. During the long hours of the night she’d woken several times and begun to worry about it, to wonder if she could leave Paul now.

  She had to face the fact that she’d lost some of her certainty about what she was going to do after the funeral. There was no doubt Paul was upset in his own way. She’d never seen him behaving so irrationally. He’d even looked at her pleadingly a couple of times. Could she just abandon him after all those years together? She didn’t know.

  Only – she didn’t think she could continue as his wife, either. The thought of him touching her sexually after playing around with Liz made her feel like vomiting.

  Dusty nudged her with his head, asking for more caresses and she obliged, finding the action soothing on herself as well as gratifying to the animal.

  Oh, hell, she thought after a while, she didn’t know anything any more. She had just been starting to get her act together, just been finding herself. And now she was lost again.

  Chapter Twenty

  It was a long, dreary week, whose only brightness for Rosalind was seeing Jenny and Ned’s love for one another. Paul mocked the engagement when his daughter wasn’t around, though he was more or less civil when Jenny brought her fiancé home.

  Ned was never anything but stiffly polite to Paul, refusing to be provoked again and hiding behind that peculiarly glassy politeness at which the English were experts.

  Rosalind took herself and her daughters into Bournemouth one day to buy some black clothes for the funeral. Afterwards they had lunch together then strolled along the promenade and cliffs, which were magnificent. They didn’t say much, just enjoyed walking slowly along the miles of walkways that overlooked the water.

  None of them mentioned a reluctance to return to Burraford. They didn’t need to.

  Paul was in a foul mood again when they got back. ‘Didn’t think to ask if I wanted to come, did you?’ he snapped as soon as Rosalind walked through the door.

  Her voice was cool and disinterested. ‘No. I wanted to go with the girls.’

  ‘I’ll just put my things away, Mum,’ Jenny murmured, hating the way he was glowering at them, then hesitating, feeling guilty for leaving her mother to face him. He was getting nastier by the day. She didn’t know how her mother coped, she really didn’t.

  ‘Will you take my parcels upstairs, Louise?’ Rosalind nudged her younger daughter. The girls might as well stay out of the firing line. She went to sit in the living room and he followed.

  Coming in here with him is an act of bravery, she thought, and smiled briefly at herself.

  ‘Have a big spend-up, did you?’ He threw himself on a chair opposite her.

  ‘We spent what was needed.’

  ‘How did you pay for it?’

  She was puzzled. ‘By credit card, of course.’

  ‘That’s right, spend my money. I’d have thought you could start using your own now for clothes and things. You’ve certainly got plenty.’

  ‘We’ve only just got probate. I haven’t sorted out Aunt Sophie’s money yet.’

  ‘And you still don’t intend to follow my suggestion of contesting the terms of the will?’

  ‘Of course not. Aunt Sophie had a right to leave it how she wanted. And besides, I like having my own money.’ She ignored his snort and got up, going to nip a couple of dead leaves off the plant in the window that was struggling to cope with the nearby central heating radiator. If he carried on like this, she’d walk out. She’d done that several times this week. Had sought refuge with Jonathon on two of those occasions, brief encounters that had nonetheless strengthened her backbone.

  ‘Did you think to get me a black tie?’ Paul threw at her.

  She didn’t turn round. ‘No.’ She had spent the day trying not even to think about him.

  ‘Well, thanks for nothing.’

  ‘If that’s the sort of mood you’re in, I’ll go upstairs and unpack my new clothes.’

  ‘That’s right, run away. You’re good at running away from trouble, always have been.’

  She didn’t turn to refute that, just walked out. Upstairs she sighed and sat on the bed with her head in her hands, making no attempt to open any of the parcels.

  After a minute or two Jenny came in. ‘Dad’s in a foul mood today. Even worse than yesterday. I think I’ll go over to Dorchester this evening, if you don’t mind. I can catch the five o’clock bus.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t let him upset you, Mum.’

  ‘No.’

  Louise peered round the bedroom door, saw no sign of her father and joined them. ‘It was good to get out of the house,’ she said wistfully. ‘Just us three.’

  ‘Yes.’ Rosalind gave each of them a quick hug. ‘I’m glad I’ve got you two here. You’re such a comfort.’

  Of course Jenny dissolved immediately in tears, but Louise nodded and said ‘Good’ in a gruff voice.

  ‘Could – would one of you fetch me up a cup of hot chocolate? I think I’d like to lie down for a while. I’m not sleeping well.’ She kept waking up and jerking away from any contact with Paul’s body. If he had tried to touch her in that way – but he hadn’t – which was not like him. She was too tired to puzzle that out now, though.

  ‘I’ll get it.’ Louise left.

  Jenny leant against her mother. ‘I hate the thought of the funeral,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how I’ll cope.’

  Rosalind patted her hand. ‘We’ll face it together, love. And you’ll have Ned for extra support.’

  She was dreading tomorrow just as much as her daughters were, not only because of saying a final farewell to Tim, but because she’d decided to confront Paul afterwards. He was already speaking of getting back to work in London. Well, he wasn’t leaving here without them having a serious talk about their future. Definitely not. If she had to, she’d lie down in front of his car to prevent him.

  ‘Um, Jenny – after the fu
neral I’d like to talk to your father on my own. Do you think you and Ned could take Louise out somewhere? Give us a couple of hours to iron a few things out?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She began to fiddle with her skirt. ‘Is something wrong?’

  Rosalind hesitated, then said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you going to leave him?’

  ‘Would it matter to you if I did?’ she glanced quickly sideways, wincing internally as she saw the anxiety on her daughter’s face.

  Jenny nodded. ‘It would, rather. I know he’s – difficult. But you’re my parents and I’ve always been so glad you’ve stayed together. For better, for worse. Isn’t that how the service goes? And this is the worst our family has ever had, isn’t it?’

  Guilt speared through Rosalind.

  Louise came back with a steaming mug. ‘There.’

  ‘Thanks. I think I’ll have a rest now.’

  The sisters went into Jenny’s room to whisper together as she got ready to go out and meet Ned.

  ‘She wants to talk to him tomorrow after the funeral,’ Jenny worried. ‘On her own. She asked me and Ned to take you out somewhere for a couple of hours afterwards.’

  ‘I hope she’s going to tell him she’s leaving him,’ Louise said fiercely. ‘And if she does, I’m going with her.’

  Jenny began smoothing a corner of the bedspread. ‘But why should she leave him after all these years? I mean – Tim’s death isn’t a reason to leave someone, is it?’

  Louise chewed her bottom lip, then decided to put her sister in the know.

  Jenny listened in horror to the tale of her father’s infidelity with Liz and others. ‘Oh, no!’ she kept saying in a hoarse whisper. ‘Oh, no! Not Mum’s best friend. How could he?’

  The door opened without so much as a by-your-leave and Paul stuck his head round it. ‘Louise, I – oh, hell! What’s she upset about now?’

  ‘Tim.’ Louise jerked her head towards the door, hoping he’d take the hint.

  He scowled but left.

  ‘He just walks in without knocking,’ Louise fumed. ‘What if I’d been standing here naked, eh? He’d probably have enjoyed the sight of another female body, knowing him.’