Near And Dear

by Pamela Evans

  ‘Everyone has the same idea so there’s a waiting list.’

  Finishing her coffee, Marie got up and mooched idly over to the window. She cleared a patch of condensation with her fingers and looked down into the wet garden, the rain trickling through the trees and bushes, soaking the lawn and forming puddles on the concrete paths and patio.

  ‘You’ve a nice set-up here,’ Marie remarked. ‘It isn’t what you were used to with Mick but at least you’ve a garden for the kids to play in . . . and your own part of the house.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’ll be a pity if you do have to leave when the landlord finds out about the baby.’

  ‘I think so too.’

  Jane’s loneliness was suddenly all-consuming. Oh, Mick, if only you’d had the courage to stay with us, she thought, we’d have worked things out together somehow.

  One evening the following week, when Jane got in from work and her father had gone home, she went downstairs to the garden to get some washing off the line, having taken advantage of the dry, blowy day. When she came back inside with the clean washing in a plastic basket, Mr Ashton was in his kitchen.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asked because she hardly ever came downstairs of an evening. She left his meal ready for him to heat up.

  ‘Yes, everything’s fine. I’m sorry to disturb you,’ she said, looking flushed and windswept because it was cold and windy outside. ‘I didn’t get around to getting the washing in before I went to work. The children both have heavy colds and have been a bit fretful so I was busy keeping them occupied. Sorry to come down here so late.’

  ‘No need to apologise, my dear,’ he said amicably. ‘I just wanted to make sure all was well when I heard you come down.’

  ‘That’s thoughtful of you.’

  ‘Were you able to see what you were doing out there in the dark?’

  ‘Just about, in the light from your kitchen window,’ she said, shivering. ‘Ooh . . . it’s cold out there, though, and blowing a gale.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Something about the way his eyes lingered on her brought an earlier incident back to mind, sending a shiver up her spine.

  ‘I’ll be glad to get back upstairs by the fire,’ she said uneasily, hurriedly moving towards the door to the hall.

  He moved back to let her pass and as she did so he put his hand firmly on her bottom. This time she definitely hadn’t imagined it. Slamming the washing basket down on the floor, she swung round and slapped his face.

  He stood in the doorway with his hand to his cheek, looking wounded and bewildered.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ he asked, as though nothing had happened.

  ‘You know perfectly well . . .’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘So touching up a relative stranger is normal to you, is it?’

  ‘I didn’t deliberately . . .’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ she cut in. ‘And not for the first time, either.’

  ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. I suppose you thought that because I didn’t make a fuss the first time, you could take liberties again,’ said Jane, ignoring his denial. ‘Well, the only reason you didn’t get a kick in the groin before was because you made me think I’d imagined it. But I didn’t imagine it this time.’

  As she headed for the door, he closed it and stood in front of it, blocking her path. Oh God, she thought, sweating with fear and averting her eyes as he unzipped himself.

  ‘Come on,’ he said persuasively, moving towards her, fully exposed. ‘You need a man just as much as I need a woman.’

  ‘Ugh, you’re sick!’ she gasped, pushing him away as he tried to grab her arms.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said, advancing towards her again. ‘I only want us to make each other happy.’

  ‘Get away from me!’

  ‘We live in the same house . . . so where’s the harm in it? No one would know and there would be no strings attached.’

  ‘You touch me and you’ll wish you never had,’ she said vehemently.

  ‘Don’t be like that . . .’

  ‘I mean it,’ she gasped, shrinking back against the wall as he grabbed her arms roughly and moved his face nearer hers.

  ‘All I want is a bit of comfort.’ His grip tightened. ‘Surely you won’t deny me that.’

  She looked him directly in the eyes, her face pinched with pain from the pressure on her arms. ‘If you don’t let me go this instant, I’ll make sure everyone in Lang Road knows what you get up to. You won’t dare put your head outside the door when I’ve finished. I’ll have nothing to lose ’cause I won’t ever be coming down this street again.’

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ he said fiercely.

  ‘I would,’ said Jane.

  He moved back and dressed himself, his attitude suddenly changing to one of grovelling remorse.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, standing by the door so she still couldn’t pass.

  ‘Not half as sorry as I am, mate,’ said Jane, feeling sick and shaky. ‘Now let me pass.’

  ‘Please let me explain,’ he said, and he was trembling too. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ rasped Jane. ‘What sort of woman do you think I am?’

  ‘I didn’t intend . . .’

  ‘Let me through that door!’

  ‘Please don’t move out,’ he begged. ‘I give you my word that nothing like this will ever happen again.’

  And to her utter astonishment, he dissolved into tears.

  Nauseated, and wanting only to escape, she said, ‘Of course I can’t stay. Not now. I wouldn’t feel safe here after this.’

  ‘But I can’t bear to live in an empty house,’ he sobbed, tears running down his face.

  ‘You should learn to behave yourself then, shouldn’t you?’ she said, guessing that this had happened before and that was the reason the flat had been so easily available. ‘Now let me go upstairs to my children . . . please.’

  ‘I promise you that nothing like this will ever happen again if you stay.’

  ‘I’m not staying.’

  ‘Please let me do something to make it up to you, to show you how sorry I am?’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do, Mr Ashton,’ she said gravely. ‘It happened and that’s all there is to it.’

  He stared at her a moment longer then opened the door and rushed up the hall to his living room, shutting the door after him, leaving Jane to go upstairs, sadder and wiser. She pitied him because he obviously had a problem, but she was also aware of the dangers of offering him sympathy.

  Upstairs, she went into the bedroom and stood looking at the children fast asleep in the large double bed, the landing light shining into the room. She began to cry silently - for them. They were happy here and liked Mr Ashton. But once again they must have their lives disrupted. Jane would endure most things for her children, but to stay here would put them at risk too. Who could say what a weirdo like that might do? She wouldn’t dare turn her back for a minute.

  She bent down to kiss each of them and gently pulled the covers over them. ‘I’m so sorry, loves,’ she whispered to the silent room. ‘I’m so sorry to give you more upheaval. Someday I’ll find a place for us to live that will be a proper home . . . somewhere we’ll feel like a family again.’

  Mr Ashton sat in his armchair by the electric fire, staring at the floor and sobbing into his handkerchief. So the nightmare had happened again. He had spoiled a perfectly good arrangement and lost pleasant company around the house, and all because of his lack of control.

  Why, oh why, hadn’t he stuck to his original plan and opted for someone safe and elderly who wouldn’t bring him to shame like this? He couldn’t bear to recall how many times the same thing had happened since he’d lost his wife. He never intended it to, being driven by uncontrollable urges when he was in a situation of close contact with a young female. After the last tenant, who had not been elderly
at all as he’d led Mrs Parker to believe, he’d vowed to leave the flat empty.

  But the desolation of an empty house had driven him to place another advertisement, making sure he stipulated someone of advanced years whom he’d hoped would become a companion of the platonic sort. He and his wife had been so self-sufficient, they’d had no need of friends, which had left him unable to communicate socially after she died. So outside of working hours he saw no one.

  From time to time he’d toyed with the idea of placing an advertisement in the lonely hearts column of the newspaper but had never had the courage to go through with it. Letting the flat had been his only chance of company and now he’d ruined it yet again.

  Thank God nothing like this had ever happened at the office! The shame of that really would be too much to bear. He felt different, somehow, at his place of business. There he was a figure of importance, set apart by his superior position from the young female members of staff with whom he came into contact during the course of the working day.

  It was only here at home that his needs overpowered him so disgustingly. Maybe because it was here he felt so crippled with loneliness and had time to listen to the promptings of his body.

  Oh, well, he couldn’t put things right with young Mrs Parker but there must be plenty of other women out there in need of accommodation.

  Drying his tears, he went over to the writing bureau, sat down and began to compose another advertisement. This time it read: ‘Only mature, retired professional woman need apply’.

  ‘So what happened at Lang Road to make Jane move out in such a hurry?’ asked Eddie the following evening when he got home from work to be told by his wife that Jane had moved back in with her father. ‘I thought she liked it there?’

  ‘The landlord tried it on,’ Marie explained, checking a meat pie in the oven then digging a fork into the potatoes boiling in a saucepan on the gas stove.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Awful, innit?’ she said, poking the bubbling greens with a fork. ‘He got her cornered in his kitchen apparently.’

  ‘Dirty devil,’ said Eddie in disgust, going over to the sink to wash his hands. ‘Did he actually try to rape her?’

  ‘No, it didn’t go that far. But he did expose himself.’

  ‘The pervert!’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘So what happened then?’ asked her husband.

  ‘Jane said he backed off and was really ashamed of himself when she threatened to ruin his reputation. But obviously she can’t stay there.’

  ‘I should say not!’

  Marie gave him an anxious look.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone about it, though, will you? Jane doesn’t want her dad to find out in case he goes charging round to Lang Road to give Ashton a pasting, and gets himself hurt in the process. She reckons she’s caused her father more than enough worry this last few months.’

  ‘He must have wondered why she left Lang Road?’ said Eddie, washing his hands at the sink.

  ‘She told him the landlord found it too much having children in the house.’

  ‘Poor Jane,’ he said, taking a towel from a hook on the door and drying his hands. ‘She’s certainly having more than her fair share of trouble lately.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘Well, she’s not exactly on top of the world after having some old bloke disgrace himself to her, and she’s disappointed at having to move out,’ said Marie. ‘But you know Jane, she isn’t the sort to make a big fuss about anything. I think the thing that’s upsetting her most is having to uproot the children again.’

  ‘Poor little things.’

  ‘I know,’ she agreed sadly. ‘It’s really awful for them.’

  ‘She shouldn’t have to go through all this,’ said Eddie hotly, because he thought Jane was a nice woman who’d deserved better than Mick Parker. ‘That husband of hers should be with her, taking care of her and the children.’

  Marie and Eddie agreed about most things but not about Mick.

  ‘Yes, well, there’s no point in going on about him,’ she said sharply. ‘He isn’t here and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘I know what I’d like to do to him if I could get my hands on him . . .’

  ‘What right have you to judge him?’ she blurted out, unable to help herself. While she felt entitled to criticise her brother, she couldn’t bear anyone else to do so, not even Eddie. It was all to do with blood ties and primal instincts, she supposed.

  ‘I’ve a right to give my opinion,’ he said. ‘Any man who does what Mick did needs a good smacking - which is what he’ll get from me if I ever set eyes on him again.’

  ‘You know Mick would never have gone if he’d been in his right mind.’

  ‘Why can’t you face facts, Marie?’ he said. ‘Your precious brother didn’t have the guts to stay and see his problems through!’

  ‘How dare you call him a coward?’ she said emotionally. ‘He must have had a very good reason for going off.’

  ‘He did have a very good reason,’ said Eddie sarcastically. ‘He was skint and didn’t have the bottle to stay and face up to it.’

  ‘You’ve never liked him.’

  ‘You’re right, I haven’t,’ he was quick to agree. ‘He’s a bighead and a poseur, always has been. Even at school he’d do anything to be the centre of attention. These last few years he’s been unbearable, always being Mr Big and trying to make everybody else feel inferior to him.’ He gave a humourless laugh. ‘The joke is, he had nothing to boast about, if the truth be known . . . it was all talk.’

  ‘Now be fair, Eddie,’ she said, cheeks flaming. ‘Mick did have a very good business and worked hard for it.’

  ‘He did well to get a business of his own, I’ll admit that,’ he said. ‘But it couldn’t have been all it was cracked up to be or he would have managed to stay afloat. Anyway, what kind of an idiot doesn’t insure against fire?’

  ‘That was careless, I admit, but it could have happened to anyone.’

  ‘Not to the shrewd businessman he pretended to be,’ Eddie disagreed. ‘Mick was all top surface. The minute he got the smell of success, he had to have all the trappings of a rich man - when he didn’t have the money to pay for them.’

  ‘He was generous to us,’ she reminded him. ‘Always giving the kids expensive presents and offering to take us out.’

  ‘Only to make himself look big and rub my nose in it.’

  ‘That isn’t fair!’

  Eddie knew he had gone too far and was sorry. It was bad enough for Marie that her brother had left, and only natural she would defend him. Eddie had grown up on the Berrywood Estate and had known the Parkers all his life. He knew how close Marie and Mick had always been, which wasn’t surprising with an egomaniac like Wilf Parker for a father.

  Wilf didn’t need money to get attention because his personality made him stand out wherever he went. That was something money couldn’t buy for Mick so he’d tried to compete with things that could be bought. And it had all come to nothing. It was rather sad, really. But Eddie couldn’t find it in his heart to feel too sorry for Mick when Jane was having such a tough time.

  ‘You’re right, love,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I should think so, too.’

  ‘Am I forgiven?’

  ‘Yeah, ’course you are,’ she said, because she wasn’t the type to bear a grudge. Neither was Eddie and it was rare for bad feeling between them to linger.

  Marie removed the meat pie from the oven and put it on the working top, then strained the vegetables in the colander at the sink.

  ‘The kids are quiet,’ he remarked.

  ‘There’s only one thing that keeps them as quiet as this.’

  ‘Batman on the telly?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  They smiled in unison, the tension between them giving way to warmth and companionship. Eddie was so pleased to be home. It might be only
a council house but they had made it comfortable and, more importantly, he could afford the rent. He had no cravings for the posh house and classy car that his brother-in-law had just lost. Eddie’s old Ford suited him well enough. It might not be in the first flush of youth but it was paid for.

  He was content with his lot. They could have done with a bit more money coming in, but they managed. So long as he had his wife and children, he was happy. He couldn’t imagine any circumstances which could make him act as Mick had done.

  ‘Make yourself useful and lay the table, will you, love?’ said Marie in a friendly manner.

  ‘Sure,’ he agreed amicably. ‘Then I’ll go and see the nippers.’

  ‘You probably won’t get a word out of them until Batman’s finished.’

  ‘I’ll watch it with them.’

  ‘You’ll get hooked on it if you’re not careful,’ she laughed.

  Feeling utterly blessed, Eddie went to the cutlery drawer, thinking of Jane and what a rough time she was having lately. Just when things were beginning to improve for her, some dirty old sod had to go and spoil it. Men like that made him so angry.

  Later that same evening, after the supper dishes had been washed, when the children were in bed and Eddie and Marie settled in front of the television, he got up suddenly and said he was going down to the pub for a quick one. But he didn’t go anywhere near the pub. Instead he went to Lang Road to pay Mr Ashton a visit.

  As a direct result of Eddie’s visit, he decided to sell the house in Lang Road and move to an area where he wasn’t known. To make a new start in a smaller place more suited to a widower like himself. A house without a flat to rent out.

  The sooner he moved away from this house of shame the better he would like it. He would go to an estate agent’s office and talk to them about putting the property on the market - just as soon as his bruises had faded sufficiently for him to feel comfortable about going out to face people.

  Chapter Six

  On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, Jane, Marie and the children went out walking by the river. It was a cold and blustery day with intermittent bursts of watery sunshine gilding the bleak landscape and tinting the muddy waters of the Thames. The river was at high tide, a sharp wind ruffling the surface from time to time. Swathed in woolly hats and mufflers, they found the temperature invigorating and walked at a steady pace.