"Next time," I said, gently easing Gemmie's head from my lap. "I'll read you a story next time."
But I'd no idea when the next time would be. It was a weak subterfuge and Gemmie saw through it, treating me to a sulky look, and a jutting lip. It hurt because she was my child and I did not want her to be sad. "Saturday night then," I promised. "You can stay with me and Witchipoo - if that's all right with mummy."
There was a flicker of interest, the lips parted in anticipation. "Really?"
But I saw the flash in Annie's eyes, and knew it was far from all right. Or perhaps it might have been, had I not put her on the spot like that, turned the emotional floodlight onto her. Gemmie was on tip toes, tugging at my arm, demanding confirmation. "Promise, Daddy? Promise?"
I looked to Annie for help, but she shrugged and turned away, a cruel smile on her lips. She would not make it easy, would not say: "Of course it's all right," but chose silence and the petty revenge of my discomfort.
"Got to go now sweetie. I'll call you."
I prised myself free and walked out leaving a teary tantrum in my wake. It flayed the hide off my back: a promise broken,… while Annie took the emotional high ground, the sympathy, the comforting hug,… a complex game unfolding,… me and Annie, with the children in the middle. No winners, only losers.
I sank inside the tatty sanctuary of the Midget, spilling tears for the second time in twenty four hours. For want of distraction, I fished the telephone from my pocket and switched it on. It scanned sluggishly for a connection then bleeped in accusation - not there when you were needed: message from Rachel.
"Hi, Tom. Hope you get this in time. Don't go to the house. I'm running late. Can you meet me at the factory? Something's come up. See you."
No need to rush then. I could have gone back inside, smoothed things over with Gemmie,… read her the bloody story, then driven to Skelmersdale with a clear conscience. But this was something I wasn't going to solve in a day with a few placatory words. This was a lifetime's work yet to begin, and the best I could hope was that neither of my children would grow up hating me.
Chapter 34
The door to Rachel's office still bore the pony tail's name, but when I walked in I could see she'd made herself at home. Dark suited, she looked at ease behind the desk, her head laid back in the deep leather chair as she studied a handful of papers. Not everyone was cut out to be a manager of people, I thought. For all the supposed rewards, the demands were heavy and I had always been happy for others to try their hand instead of me. But this was what she wanted and I sensed she would be good at it - even handed and sympathetic to people's feelings, yet firm and forthright when the need arose.
"Thanks for coming," she said. "Is everything all right? You look like you've had a fright."
I guessed my hair must have been standing on end, so I smoothed it flat and sank down in the swivel chair facing her. "I've just come from Annie's, that's all."
"Problem?"
"Not really. At least it needn't be. The chap she was with has dumped her. "
Rachel gave a sigh and looked away. "And now she wants you back."
"No. She just wants the house. I said she could have it."
Rachel was cautious. "Was that,… wise?"
"I don't know. Hawksworth will probably have a fit, but I'm happier knowing she'll be there,… that the kids won't be uprooted."
"Always supposing she can afford the mortgage on her own."
"I'm guessing her dad will just pay off what's owed. She'll be fine."
She gave me a pointed look and I held up my hands in surrender. "I know,… then she'll sell it, keep whatever profit there is, and move in with her parents,… I'll be out of pocket by about a hundred thousand. I know,… I'm just tired of the confrontation. I want to move on."
She smiled, perhaps not understanding but at least not criticising. "Any news about France?" she asked.
"I'm still thinking about it. But you're right,… it's probably the best thing."
She laid the papers on the desk and came around, then leaned back, arms folded, studying me. "You don't sound so certain."
I gazed down at her shoes,… blue shoes, school shoes,… balancing on the sides of her feet. I remembered white calf length socks and silver buckles. I smelled dusty corridors and floor polish, heard the thunder of feet in the stair wells. "I'd rather be nearer to home, if I'm honest."
"But what is there that's so important here any more? I mean with your father gone, and your divorce going through,… "
"It's just,… . the children."
"Ah,… I'd forgotten the children. But surely children grow up and leave us one day. We need something else in our lives Tom, and you'll have nothing but them if you stay."
"I was thinking I'd have you. It seems a pity to leave when I've only just met you."
"You shouldn't worry about that. We'll be fine. We'll still see each other,… I mean whatever happens,… won't we?"
I might have been comforted by those words. Whatever happened, we would see each other,… Tom and Rachel, twenty five years on,… perhaps I should have found that tree and carved our names after all! But there was something in her tone that came like a warning shot, a red hot shell screaming across my bows.
I looked up at her, tried to engage her eyes but she lowered them, out of reach. News to break. Not good. "Has something happened?"
"I wanted this job so much," she said. "I was too blind to stop and think why Jefferson was offering it to me."
"And?"
"You were right. They're transferring production to the far east - to Korea. This place is shutting down."
"No!"
"Jefferson must have known the only thing left to do here was make everyone redundant. That's why I'm still hanging around, just waiting for a fax from him to confirm the details. My job is to tell everyone,… tell them in the morning, hand out their redundancy notices." She gazed out of the window into the darkness. "They're planning to set up an office in Seoul and wanted to know if I'd be interested in running it. I told them yes, but I haven't made up my mind for sure."
"Sounds like a brilliant opportunity," I said, while thinking at the same time it sounded more like the end of everything: me in France, her in Korea. It was not a disaster for her, as it was for me. For Rachel, it was an opportunity, a road opening, one she was bound to take.
"I don't know," she replied. "All I'm saying is that I could be going away."
Of course, I had found it easy to think of altering the direction of my life in order to be with her because in my mind, she was someone I had known all my life. I remembered what Eleanor had said and realised she was right: to Rachel, I was just some bloke she'd recently met, someone she was fond of, but who was not yet important enough to feature in her plans. That sort of mutual gravity took time, or astonishing chemistry, but our time was up and as for chemistry? I saw our footprints in the sand, saw them running parallel for a while, and now in imagination, I watched them part. There was no catalyst, no frothing of emotion, nothing that would feed on itself.
Perhaps sensing my melancholy, she leaned over and embraced me. I felt the cloth of her suit. It was smooth and soft. I caught her scent and felt the lovely firm feel of her. "We'll be okay, " she said.
"I imagined being with you more," I murmured, my mouth pressed up against her shoulder.
"I know, but nothing's for certain. I might not go. I'm only saying, it could happen. But just imagine: we'll never tire of one another. There'll always be excitement and anticipation."
"That's true." I tried to sound convincing but it didn't work and she began to cast about for a change of subject, for a distraction. She'd pulled the rug from beneath my feet, but didn't want it to spoil the evening.
She decided on a guided tour of the machine shop but as she showed me around, she seemed stiff and anxious, pointing out this machine and that machine, uncertain of something, of herself perhaps, of how much she might be willing to share her self,… her life.
&
nbsp; We walked slowly, side by side, our footsteps ringing hollow below the tin roof, and all the while I could feel a dull ache in my gut, a sense of incompleteness. We were together, we were lovers,… but still she did not know me. Still, in my heart I was trying to turn her head, still shouting like a child: look at me, look at me! I was still longing to hear her say those words: I want to be with you.
The machines were quiet, their hard, mechanical outlines softened by the paraphernalia of their minders: potted plants, cardigans draped over chair backs, a plethora of calendars celebrating busty, cheeky girls all pouting stupidly. It was an ugly, oily place and shared the same acrid scent of machine shops the world over, but during the day there would be laughter and the good-natured banter of people coming together for a common purpose - a purpose now rendered redundant by the blind god of global economics.
"It's all about people." She sighed. "That's what they say, isn't it? Only somehow it doesn't feel like that right now."
"It's never been about people Rachel. Just hands,… and money."
"You sound bitter. I can understand that."
"No, not bitter. Pragmatic. We're through making things. Our hands are too expensive. We've got to face it; I've got to face it. I've got to move on."
"You're more than a pair of hands, Tom. You're looking at it all wrong. Okay, the factories are closing. The world's changing and maybe we can't make things here any more, but there'll always be place for those who are prepared to accept we've got to move around. Your place is in France, now, at least for the time being. Tell them tomorrow, like you said. Promise?"
Go to France, I thought. Leave everything behind that meant anything to me. Then, sure as anything, in a couple of years, bottle production would switch from Korea to some other place, and Derbys would move out of Paris to Milan or Madrid or wherever the suits decided, or more likely were compelled by forces beyond their control. So there seemed little sense in settling my life around a job - better to settle where I liked and take whatever work was going.
There was nothing wrong with Middleton, or Skelmersdale, or Parbold. As places went, they were much the same as you were likely to find anywhere in the world - some bits pleasant, some ugly - a house in which to lay one's head, a corner store, a supermarket on the edge of town, places further out for the weekend,… . an hour to the airport for an exotic change once in a while. Sure, Middleton was as good a place as any to call home.
"Will they be shipping these machines over to Korea, then?"
"I doubt it. Most of this lot came off the Ark. Look, I used to work on that one down in Norwich, years ago. It spends more time being repaired these days than making bottles."
I pictured her standing there in an overall, pressing the buttons, ejecting the tools, the little bottles piling up, the rhythm of the machine filling her daily life for decades. But she had done well for herself, better than I, considering the fact we had set out from more or less the same place. She had progressed from an overall to a suit and now the suit was opening doors on the other side of the world. But I did not envy her, for somehow in the process she seemed to have lost the need for attachment, for belonging. She was driftwood, content to go with the tide.
The fax was waiting when we returned, an inconspicuous pile of cheap and curly paper but it spelled the end for Bexley's. Rachel slipped on a pair of spectacles and scanned through the sheets, one by one.
"Okay," she said. "That's it. Give me ten minutes. Then I need you take my mind off things." She looked at me from over the tops of her spectacles, the corners of her eyes creasing a little, conveying a warm intensity. "Did you bring a bag?"
"I did, yes."
But I was distracted, thinking of her having to face the owners of those potted plants and cardigans in the morning. Some might understand, might take it well, but there would also be tears and anger and even though the sensible ones would say it wasn't her fault, her face, the face that had haunted me my whole life, would be the one they'd always remember.
"Telling these people," I said. "It's probably the hardest thing you'll ever have to do."
"I won't enjoy it, that's for sure. But believe me, Tom, it won't be the hardest thing I've ever had to do."
We left at seven, placing Rachel's BMW in the care of Bexley's night watchman. Then we strolled across the car park to the Midget. I thought it looked rather sad and neglected, just an old car showing is age rather than a restoration project, full of optimistic promise. But when she saw it, her eyes opened wide.
"I love it," she said.
"No need to be polite - it’s a wreck."
"I mean it! My husband had one, when I first met him. It was a red one, brand new. His father bought it when he turned seventeen. Imagine! He was driving down Langholm Avenue, in Middleton, where I lived back then. I saw the car first,… then I saw him, and that was it. Silly, isn't it, the things that'll impress a young girl?"
I couldn't believe what I was hearing and perhaps it was perverse of me but I simply could not resist the irony. "Fancy a trip down Langholm Avenue then? Old time's sake and all that?"
"Oh, but it's miles out of our way."
"Not that far. Come on,… a bit of nostalgia never hurt anyone."
"Okay, why not? You know Langholm Avenue?"
"Yes, I know it."
It didn't hurt so much the fact that his car had been brand new, while mine had been old and knackered. It was more the realisation that perhaps things had not been so hopeless as I had supposed back then. She had not been seeing him while we were at school, only later, after he had driven his car down her street, driven it down on the day I hadn't, and turned her head in the way I'd intended but eventually given up on as an impossible dream.
I saw the sunshine, the top down, the shiny red paint. It might have been me! And it might have been me a thousand times over, if only I'd spoken to her just once in all those miserable school years. I cursed myself. Why hadn't I? What had I to lose beyond the shattering of the fantasy that she loved me? But of course, the fantasy had been everything, a bitter sweet delusion to be preserved at all costs.
As we drove, I was overwhelmed by her scent and her closeness. I don't know why I'd suggested it. No logical reason,… just fantasy again,… me and her together in this car twenty five years ago, driving down Langholm Avenue. I'd pull up outside her house as John had perhaps done. She'd lean over and kiss me - the taste of her, the freshness of our youth,..
"Thanks," she'd say. "Can I see you again?"
"Of course,… how about tomorrow?"
"That would be great!"
"I'll pick you up. Same time."
And then she'd look at me, her eyes becoming very still. "I want to be with you," she'd say.
I was still clinging to it, still not facing up to the truth about Rachel and me,… even though it was by now as plain as day. But all that was changing, changing by the minute as we drove.
The curtains of Langholm Avenue were drawn against the chill November darkness when we arrived. "Here," she said. "That was our house. You know, I've not been back in twenty years?"
"You’ve no connection here then?"
"No. Mum and Dad went to Knutsford after I married. That's where I'm from originally. Dad came to work at the Motors, but when that closed down there was nothing to keep them here."
She gazed up at one of the windows, her former bedroom perhaps. "My marriage was a disaster," she went on. "Oh, it was wonderful at first, but it turned into a nightmare. And afterwards, I was afraid to risk it again for a long time."
Then she came out with it, a confession that cost her the first tears I'd seen her shed. They welled up unexpectedly, and spilled, painting silver lines down her cheeks. "I abandoned him."
"Your husband?"
"Yes,… not a nice thing to do is it?"
"I'm sure there's more to it than you're telling me."
"He had an accident. His brain was damaged. It changed him. He became another person to the one I'd married. When I met him he was s
o gentle and reserved. But afterwards, he became aggressive,… unpredictable,… violent."
"He used to,… what? Hit you?"
"Sometimes."
"God, Rachel, I'm sorry, but you were right to leave him! You did what you had to do."
"You don't understand. It wasn't his fault. It was like a part of him was still there, but trapped inside a stranger's skin and the only way he could communicate was through that terrible rage. I couldn't deal with it. I was weak. I took comfort in other men for a while, but the first chance I got, I came up here out of the way."
"I don't blame you. You did the right thing."
"But if I'd loved him, I should have stuck with him, shouldn't I?"
Her face was lit only dimly by the street lamp we had parked beneath. I could see her cheek creased with the bitterness of the memory. She had always seemed so strong, so sure, I'd thought her wounds had healed by now, but of course some wounds lie so deep they become a part of who we are.
"I'm sorry," I said. "We shouldn't have come." I hugged her and offered her my handkerchief.
"It's all right," she replied, dabbing at the tears. "Silly really. I haven't thought of him in ages."
I didn't believe her. John Ogilvy was for her as she was to me, a ghost waiting to haunt any quiet moments we might have. Our trip down Langholm Avenue had proved to be unexpectedly evocative. It had allowed me a glimpse at the depth of feeling buttoned down inside of her, and of her love for John. I understood now it was her loss of that man, or rather the man he had once been, that was the defining factor in all that had followed.
The Road From Langholm Avenue Page 25