by Marie Joseph
And all at once she knew she could not take it. In her agitation she knew that she would do something stupid and dramatic, like asking him to stop the car so that she could get out and run. In the middle of the night with Sharon sleeping soundly beside her she had considered giving up her job, then told herself that finding another would not be easy.
‘Ben Bamford came to see me last night,’ she said quickly, forestalling anything the grim-faced man beside her could say.
‘He did what?’ Simon turned and stared at her. ‘He must be a cool operator.’
‘He didn’t do it, sir.’ Emma’s voice was low, and her heart ached as she noticed the nerve jumping in the cheek of the man who had loved her with such tenderness such a short time ago.
‘Stop calling me sir.’ Simon sighed. ‘And you believed him when he said he didn’t do it?’
‘It was a coincidence him going away. He was fed up with what was going on at home, so one morning he just got up and went.’ She twisted the strap of her shoulder-bag round and round in her fingers. ‘And that was the morning after the night you got set on, so since you had sacked Ben a few weeks before, everybody jumped to the wrong conclusions.’
‘Including you, Emma?’
‘Including me.’
‘So now you’re back to square one?’ Simon drove in silence for a few moments. ‘You and Ben have made it up? Is that right?’
Was there a subtle pleading in his voice? Was it tinged with a kind of shamed relief? Emma thought so, and the knowing brought a twinge of physical pain low down in her stomach. Mr Simon was being let off the hook, he was taking Ben’s reappearance as a sign from above, and what he said next proved this to be true.
‘There is a lot of good in Ben Bamford. He was foolish, and I had no choice but to sack him, but I didn’t take it any further, and I could have, Emma. You know that.’
The car pulled up at the traffic lights and Simon drummed with nervous fingers on the wheel as if willing them to change quickly so that he could get this embarrassing journey over. Emma lifted her chin and stared straight ahead. ‘He has got a job as a porter at the station, and he’s going to stay with Patty till things get sorted out a bit.’
‘And you are pleased about that, Emma?’
The question was loaded, and as the car started forward, moving into the right-hand lane at speed, Emma said the words she was convinced he wanted to hear.
‘I am very pleased. Ben is like his sister, always good for a laugh.’
‘And there hasn’t been much of that about for you lately, has there, Emma?’
Now they were on dangerous ground again, and Emma closed her eyes and willed the car to go even faster.
‘You can forget about what happened,’ she said clearly. ‘We were both in a bit of a state, and it’s best forgotten.’ She waited for a moment. When he remained silent she said, ‘Is Miss Day coming back from America soon?’
‘Next week.’
‘And you are pleased about that?’
Was she mocking him? Simon had no way of knowing, but risking a quick glance sideways he saw that her small face was set in determined lines of resolution. He took a deep breath.
‘Yes, I am very pleased. We will be getting married soon. We are buying a house, you see.’
The car was turning into the long street with the tall red-brick Victorian buildings that housed Delta Dresses, and for once there was no stream of traffic delaying the right turn into the car park to the rear. As Simon swung the car into his own allotted space with his name painted in white on the far wall, Emma’s hand was already on the door handle.
‘That’s that.’ Simon switched off the engine, hearing himself say the two words without accepting their context, and surprised when Emma repeated them clearly as she closed the passenger door with a slam.
‘That’s that! Thanks for the lift then.’
‘Take care of yourself….’ Simon got out of his side of the car, his face a mixture of ravaged emotion and relief. But she was running away from him so quickly that his words were lost as if they had never been spoken.
From force of habit he locked the car, although his hand was shaking so much he could hardly perform the simple task. And in that one revealing moment all the years of ingrained self-confidence, of professional know-how, of accepting his odd mistake and regretting nothing in retrospect – all Simon Martin’s sureness of himself as a person deserted him totally. Leaving him diminished and more bleakly ashamed than he ever remembered being in the whole of his life.
Nine
WHEN CHLOE CAME back from the States her approach to Simon was entirely different from the dignified withdrawal that had been Emma Sparrow’s way.
She was tanned, alive and brimming over with how if had been back home, the trips she had made, the visits. She was appalled to find that the contracts for the new house were still not exchanged, and she stormed at the passive acceptance by the English of delays she felt were inexcusable.
That first night, when Simon tried to make love to her and failed, she asked him straight out what was wrong.
‘All the time I was away I was picturing the way it would be, and the way it is wrong,’ she told him, switching on the light so that he cowered beneath the sheets, hiding his still painful eye with one hand. ‘I love you,’ she said clearly. ‘Being away from you told me just how much I love you. It’s the job, isn’t it? You’re worked half-way to death, and if you go on this way you’ll have a coronary before you’re forty. I have seen too much of it, honey.’ She got up and went to the bathroom.
Chloe always took a bath or at least washed even after their unsuccessful love-making, and when she came back, cool and sweet-smelling, Simon drew her down into his arms again.
‘Give me time, love,’ he whispered, his face buried deep in the soft curve of her breasts. ‘As soon as the Bolton thing gets off the ground we will go away. I promise.’ He trailed a hand down the long warm length of her thigh. ‘The Lake District is only an hour’s drive away from here, and it is so beautiful. The lakes merge into the middle distance, and there are little stone-built pubs where you can eat the kind of food you only dream about.’ He moved his hand only to find that she closed her legs like scissors.
‘Is there … has there been anyone else?’ Chloe had left the light switched on, so Simon kept his face hidden as he felt the rush of blood to his cheeks.
‘Don’t talk rot,’ he mumbled.
‘But it wouldn’t be rot, honey.’ Chloe spoke into the top of his head. ‘We made no promises. We are intelligent adults, I hope, and I am not the sort to go screaming back to Momma. If I did she would only tell me it was sure to be partly my fault, anyway.’ Chloe gripped Simon’s hand hard. ‘Did you go to bed with someone else while I was away?’
He met her gaze without flinching. ‘Yes, I did. But it was only once. Just once, and never to be repeated. And I’m sorry.’
‘A one night stand?’ There was no shifting of Chloe’s gaze either.
‘No!’ Simon’ voice came out louder than he had intended. ‘It wasn’t like that at all! It was circumstances, and it was unpremeditated, and I have said I was sorry, so can we leave it?’
‘No, we certainly cannot leave it!’ Her voice was even louder than his. ‘What circumstances? Were you drunk or something? Did you go to a party and get sloshed so that you ended up in bed with somebody, because that is not – I never imagined that was your scene, Simon. C’mon, tell me! I have a right to know!’
‘I wasn’t drunk.’ He spoke wearily. ‘And now can we try to get some sleep? It is over. There was nothing between us to be over, and if you want to feel me squirm then I am squirming now.’ Leaning over he switched off the light. ‘I hate myself, if that makes you feel better. Okay?’
‘A factory girl?’
There was no putting Chloe off; there never had been, and refusing to speak, even pretending to be asleep, were only delaying tactics and Simon knew it.
She was over-polite the next morning, very al
oof and attractive in her green silk wrap, with her hair as smooth and glossy as if she had just come from the hairdresser’s salon. But she was badly hurt, he could see that too, and after they had washed up the supper dishes together that evening she told him the plans she had made.
‘I went down to the real-estate office and they verified that there is nothing we can do about the house for at least another month.’ She pulled at her fringe. ‘I think he thought he had got some crazy American woman bawling him out in his tiny office. Then I called my boss, and when he said that the guy who took over from me walked out last week in the highest of dudgeons, I said I would go back. Temporarily.’
She reached for the coffee jar. ‘I hesitated before about marriage and I am hesitating now. And with good cause,’ she added, her back to him. ‘It didn’t take you long to satisfy your masculine instincts once I was out of the way, did it? And if, as you say, it wasn’t like that, then what was it like, Simon?’
At the end of the next week Simon drove her to the station. They were standing on the wide platform, waiting for the train that was to take her to the connection at Preston. Simon had offered to drive her there, but even as he said it she had seen him glance inadvertently at his diary.
Chloe looked very attractive that late spring morning. She was wearing an almond green skirt with matching shirt blouse, with her cream suede jacket swinging from her shoulders. Businessmen turned interested eyes in her direction, and even a porter, lounging against a wall and smoking a cigarette, ambled slowly towards them.
‘The first-class will stop up the other end of the platform,’ he told them, and turning round Simon came face to face with Ben Bamford.
‘This way, sir.’ Ben picked up Chloe’s case and walked ahead, every jaunty step indicating his childish pleasure in the unexpected encounter.
Simon put his hand in his pocket and closed his fingers over a fifty pence piece, only to feel a stab of humiliation at Ben’s dignified refusal of the proffered coin.
‘No, thank you, sir. It’s my pleasure.’ Ben’s blue eyes twinkled at Chloe, who, to Simon’s chagrin, was smiling brilliantly at the good-looking fair boy in the neat dark uniform. ‘Have a pleasant journey, ma’am.’ Ben touched his cap and grinned. ‘Here she comes.’
‘What a sweet boy,’ Chloe said as Simon handed her into the first-class compartment. ‘The age of chivalry isn’t dead, after all.’
As they kissed goodbye, Simon was conscious of Ben’s eyes on them, and as he walked to the slope leading down to the forecourt of the station he could still feel Ben’s audacious cheeky stare on his back. Now he accepted with certainty that Ben had been in no way responsible for what had happened on the night he left the hotel for a midnight walk, but what he could not and did not want to accept was Emma Sparrow’s involvement with the strutting, cocksure, let-the-devil-go-hang attitude of the boy who stared at him as if finding him wanting.
And as he threw his brief-case into the back of his car, Simon told himself that what Emma did or whom she was involved with was none of his business. Of one thing he was certain. Emma had kept their secret. If Ben Bamford had known what had taken place in the flat that morning in May he would have pushed his ex-boss underneath the path of the incoming train.
When it did not come … when the cramping, dragging pain that always pulled at her insides every month did not materialize, Emma thought she would surely go clean out of her mind.
Every day, every hour almost of every day, she locked herself in the toilet, forcing herself to scrutinize the toilet paper for the slightest sign. It was degrading and terrible, but still she did it, telling herself that the shock of what had happened that day had sent her insides out of flutter. That her last visit to her father, where his slow deterioration had horrified her, could be responsible for nothing working as it should. She was anaemic. Just look at her white face and hollowed eyes. All she needed was a bottle of iron pills from the doctor to get her right.
‘Why don’t you go to the doctor, our Emma?’ Sharon was coming into town with her one Saturday afternoon instead of going to work. ‘I can put off getting me wedding dress for a bit. I wish you could sew, then you could make it for me.’ She patted her jean-clad bottom in disgust. ‘I used to take an eight, now what do you want to bet that I have to get a ten?’
‘I’m all right, honest.’ Emma walked to the bus stop with dragging footsteps. ‘What time would I have for making your wedding dress, anyway? Even if I could sew.’
‘Funny that.’ Sharon pushed her way to the front of the crowded bus. ‘You working in a dress factory and not being able to sew. It’s a bit like that girl we used to know who got taken on at a sanitary towel factory when she had never seen her periods at eighteen. Or working in a chocolate factory when chocolate brings you out in spots.’
‘I’ve told you before. Working on piece-work isn’t like proper sewing. I don’t even do the bound buttonholes. Mrs Arkwright has a girl specially trained for that. I don’t think it’s funny at all.’
‘Okay, keep your shirt on.’ Sharon studied her reflection in the glass section behind the driver’s back. ‘I told Ricky you were always ratty these days and he said you were probably a bit jealous because I was getting married before you.’
‘Well, I’m not.’ Emma felt a knot of tension low down in her stomach, and closed her eyes in a silent anguished prayer. ‘Please God, let it be that. Let it come when I stand up, and I’ll never snap at Sharon or the boys again. Let me be sickening for something, where one of the signs is not starting a period, but don’t let it be that. Please!’
‘We’ll go to that new shop in the complex,’ Sharon was saying. ‘Or do you think we should have gone to that shop out Accrington way? It said in the paper that they had over two hundred and fifty dresses to choose from. We might have been able to get your bridesmaid’s dress at the same time.’
‘I haven’t saved enough money up yet, have I?’ Emma looked away from the surprise in Sharon’s eyes. ‘There’s nobody given me twenty pounds like Ricky’s mother’s given you to go towards. My money goes to buy food and pay the bills, or have you forgotten?’ She bit her lip and frowned. ‘Anyway, I’m not in the mood for trying dresses on today.’
‘There’s summat wrong, isn’t there?’ Sharon put a hand on Emma’s arm, only to have it shrugged away. ‘You’ve been crabby for ages now.’ She got up and started to walk towards the exit. ‘But if you won’t tell me, then there’s nowt I can do about it.’ She turned round. ‘It’s not our dad, is it? You’re not keeping summat back from last time you saw him, are you? He’ll be home in time for the wedding, won’t he?’
‘He’ll be home,’ Emma said in a dull voice as they walked towards the shopping complex.
And what will I be like then, she wondered, walking as the lonely do, staring at the ground and putting one foot in front of the other with automatic deliberance. She would be showing then, showing proper, with her front sticking out of her bridesmaid’s dress and everyone staring and pointing. Exclaiming over Sharon in her virginal white, with her sister not married or even courting, and a baby on the way.
‘Shall we leave it over?’ Sharon’s neatly-plucked eyebrows were drawn together in a puzzled frown. ‘You’ve gone all green, our Emma. I’m worried about you. Honest, I am dead bothered.’
One glance at her sister’s face was enough to show Emma that she was near to tears. It should have been Sharon’s mother who was taking her to buy her wedding dress, and Sharon should have been bubbling over with excitement, clinging to her mother’s arm and talking animatedly. It should have been one of those special occasions to treasure, almost as important as the day itself. She swallowed hard and forced her lips into a semblance of a smile.
‘Right then. I’m okay now. I did feel a bit off on the bus, but then I always do when I’m crowded in like that. C’mon. Let’s see if we can find exactly the dress you want, love, but we will walk straight out if they try to make us buy anything but the right one. Okay?’
She needn’t have bothered telling Sharon that, Emma told herself an hour later when her sister had tried on four bridal gowns and declared each one impossible. And the prices were astronomical! Forgetting her worry for the moment, Emma examined the finishings, calculated roughly the amount of material and the workmanship that had gone into it, then made a guess at the retailer’s profit.
‘You will be paying through the nose, Sharon.’ She said the words without thinking, then bit them back. This wasn’t a day to quibble about prices and assess profits. This was the day when Sharon was seeing herself as a bride. A vision in white, floating up the aisle on the arm of her father, with the organ playing the wedding march and all her friends there to see her. What would it matter that the bride in white had been sleeping with her boyfriend for ages? What would it matter that the father of the bride had recently come out of prison after doing a stretch for repeated thieving? So the bridesmaid was pregnant and refusing to name the father? So what?
Sharon was trying on a veil now, holding it in place as an eager-eyed assistant lowered a wreath of mock orange blossom over it.
‘You’ll make a beautiful bride, love,’ the assistant was saying, tweaking folds of the circular short veil into place. She turned to Emma. ‘It’s a funny thing, love, but I’ve been working in bridals for a long time now, and I still can’t get used to that first sight of a young lass trying on her veil. Call me a soft ’aporth, or what you like, but there’s summat gets right to me.’
And this, Emma knew, was going to be the dress and veil that Sharon chose. It was as if she had gone to a far-away place as she gazed enraptured at herself in the long mirror. She was like a child dressing up, seeing herself starry-eyed and beautiful, with the lacy tiered dress standing out from her tiny waist, and the tight bodice showing the curves of her young breasts. The assistant, with a movement that was all reverence, tried the effect of the veil down over Sharon’s face, and immediately the too-bright blusher and the harsh eyeliner faded and merged, turning her into an ethereal creature, her features etched in soft misty watercolours.