by Jo Verity
To give him his due, Jack had been doing his best. He went out of his way to fend off his mother’s digs, spent less time than usual in the shed and even missed the first dance practice of the term but, despite his efforts, the dynamics within the house had changed. Having Neil about the place, amiable and undemanding, helped defuse the tension, although there were moments when he seemed almost too eager to please, and it bothered her that they were starting to rely on him. She must apply herself to his CV and put out some feelers in the school careers department. How long had it been since Neil and Vi moved in? Nine days? The house already felt like sheltered accommodation for the unemployed and the aged.
She changed out of her school clothes, wishing that the evening ahead was her own. What a treat it would be to linger in the bath with a book, or sit with a glass of wine and the crossword, or watch something challenging on the television.
When her father had died, without warning, five years ago, she and Jack had agreed that there wasn’t much point in second-guessing what lay around the corner for their three remaining parents. But now that they were faced with the possibility of Harry’s slow decline, Fay wished that they had at least devised a strategy, no matter how sketchy, for dealing with the survivors.
She sat at the dressing table and brushed her hair, leaning forward to inspect the roots. The evening sunlight, bright and revealing, fell on her face, illuminating the fuzz across her upper lip, the enlarged pores on the sides of her nose and the sharp frown-creases between her eyebrows. She pulled her lips back in the parody of an enthusiastic smile hoping that, by exercising her facial muscles, the sagginess along her jaw and the wrinkles around her eyes would disappear, but all it did was reveal her teeth, no longer as white as they used to be, ‘Christ, woman, get a grip.’ But hearing her own voice, railing against the unstoppable clock, had the opposite effect and she began to cry, adding bloodshot eyes to the depressing list.
The catastrophes that had reduced her to the pathetic woman in the mirror were piling up, casting a sombre shadow: the loss of Kingsley – he might as well be dead; Jack’s lack of oomph, on-setting deafness and recent erratic behaviour; Harry’s inconsiderate illness and Vi’s overbearing presence in their home; the daily grind of a job which gave her little satisfaction but which was wearing her out; and her body, wrinkling and plumping and sprouting, no longer capable of attracting the likes of Cassidy Ford. Faint but ominous alarm bells sounded, as her life veered towards the rocks, or worse still, the Doldrums.
The phone rang and she jumped up, mopping her nose and eyes with a tissue from the box on the dressing table. It was Caitlin, inquiring after Harry.
‘I haven’t heard today,’ Fay reported. ‘Neil’s bringing Gran back now. Your father’s had to go to a dinner.’
‘What dinner’s that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. GP Committee, I think. We never have a moment to talk to each other these days.’
‘Poor Mum. Poor Dad. I’ll try and get in to see Grandad tomorrow and perhaps Dylan and Nia can do Thursday. You two need to spend some time together. Get away from it for a few hours.’
Fay heard a key in the front door. ‘They’re back now. I’d better go.’
‘Mum?’ Caitlin caught her before she put the phone down. ‘I nearly forgot. Cassidy’s invited me to the private view of a furniture exhibition. On Saturday. In London. He’s got some pieces in the show.’
Caitlin was seeking Fay’s approval but she was not in the mood to give it. Cassidy’s blatant pursuit of her daughter, whilst he was still sending out unashamed messages of encouragement to her, was reprehensible. He had, without a shadow of a doubt, deliberately touched her breast when he’d reached across to open that window. ‘Really? I remember you made that little stool when you were in school, but I had no idea you were that interested in furniture.’
Jack enjoyed the rhythm of work. He liked putting on the pale blue smock which transformed him from an ordinary bloke into a dentist. He started most mornings with routine checkups, bright and breezy, the patients in and out in five minutes. The bulk of the day’s appointments were for fillings or running repairs and he took a pride in his workmanship and his ability to calm and reassure those of his patients who were nervous. At the end of each morning session he dealt with emergencies – cracked fillings, lost crowns or abscesses, that sort of thing – proud that his skills could relieve the misery of toothache. Today, however, he felt edgy, his stomach fluttery, and several patients mentioned that he looked pale, joking and saying that it made a change for the dentist to be the nervous one in the surgery.
The cause of his apprehension was that, in the early hours of the morning and unable to sleep, he’d finally made up his mind to confide in Sheila. It wasn’t so much that he was seeking her blessing but rather that he needed her help. Planning future jaunts to Llangwm was tricky enough before his father’s hospitalisation but now, without an accomplice, it was going to be impossible. He was sure that Sheila was the woman for the job – she’d always enjoyed putting one over on Fay. Sheila couldn’t bear snobbery in any form and his wife did occasionally display, what Sheila referred to as, ‘English tendencies’.
By late morning he was feeling sick with anticipation. He looked for the right moment to raise the subject, wandering into the waiting room to check if she were on her own, then back to the surgery until, in the end, Sheila confronted him. ‘For goodness sake Jack, what’s the matter with you? You’ve been hovering around like a…’ Failing to find a suitable simile, she shook her head.
‘Have I? Sorry.’ He stood in front of her desk, fiddling with the paper-clips in the desk-tidy. ‘What are you doing for lunch today?’
‘Same as I do every day. I shall lock the door and eat my round of sandwiches and my apple, then drink two cups of green tea.’ Her face gave him neither encouragement to continue nor warning to stop.
‘Sounds good. D’you mind if I join you?’
‘What? You want to scrounge half my lunch?’
‘No, I didn’t mean—’
‘I know you didn’t. Look, why don’t I pop out and fetch you something then we can have a chat about…whatever it is?’
When she’d gone, he stared out of the first-floor window. The pedestrian area surged with lunch-time shoppers, scurrying along on a thousand different assignments. In the middle of the throng, and the only stationary being, stood a man wearing, despite the warmth of the September day, a tweed cap and belted raincoat. Strapped to his torso, by some kind of harness, was a sign that reared up above his head demanding ‘REPENT’. Jack was too far away to see if the man was speaking but, if he were, his words were failing to halt the shoppers. How pathetic. How embarrassing. Was it worse to be ignored or sniggered at by the unrepentant mob? The man held his ground, chin up and defiant, and suddenly Jack envied him his conviction, his willingness to risk abuse and ridicule.
He turned away from the window, trying to involve himself in the list of afternoon appointments. Two crown prep’s and an amalgam replacement. But he couldn’t stop himself drifting back to check if the man was still there. Repent. It left no room for compromise.
The door banged. ‘They’d sold out of ham so I got cheese,’ Sheila held out a cellophane-wrapped baguette. ‘And now perhaps you’ll tell me what’s going on.’
They sat, side by side, in the waiting room and he told her the whole story… The aborted dance fixture; the faulty car; the first night at The Welcome Stranger. He told her about Non; playing Scrabble; seeing the red kites. Then the second visit; Iolo and Zena; tossing pancakes; the carnival float. Finally the financial mess Iolo was in and the money he’d lent to bale him out.
‘Aaahhh,’ Sheila nodded, ‘I thought there was more to Mr Iolo Evans than dodgy medication and a couple of opera tickets.’
He waited for her to voice the understanding and approval that he craved and had counted on, but all he heard was the muffled snick, snick of the wall-clock as it ticked away the first seconds of the new age, when Llangw
m was no longer his secret.
‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ he asserted when he could bear her silence no longer.
‘You may not have done anything wrong, Jack, but it doesn’t follow that you’ve done everything right.’ She snapped the lid back on her sandwich box, signalling the end of the conversation and leaving Jack with an even sicker sensation in the pit of his stomach and an urge to run away.
While the first patient of the afternoon was chatting to Sheila, Jack phoned home, asking Neil to pass a message to Fay about a fictional dinner that evening. ‘Tell her I’m ever so sorry. It completely slipped my mind.’
He made a second call to the ward, to check that there had been no change in Harry’s condition. ‘And can you let him know that I can’t make it tonight?’
Finally he instructed Sheila to cancel his last hour of afternoon appointments. ‘I’m not feeling well,’ he mumbled, avoiding her eyes. ‘I’ll be leaving early.’
The road climbed up towards the Beacons and a layer of low cloud blotted out the sun. Jack shivered and shut the car window. Since he left the surgery, he’d been thinking about his tête-à-tête with Sheila. She’d been barely civil to him all afternoon and when, finally, he’d asked her what she was thinking, she’d snapped, ‘To be quite honest, Jack, I’m disappointed. I thought you, of all people, wouldn’t succumb to…whatever you want to call it. The male menopause.’ She intoned the last three words as if they were an accusation of murder.
Over the past few days, a blanket of wretchedness, leaden and stifling, had settled on him, culminating in his decision to confide in her. But how could he have misjudged her so badly? He’d presumed that she would be delighted that he’d found such amazing new friends and such an idyllic bolt-hole; that she’d be the person he could talk to about Non’s shiny black hair and Iolo’s latest escapade. Undeniably, the female mind was a conundrum but he’d never thought of Sheila as female, more a third gender, capable of tapping in to both the male and female psyche. Now it looked as though he wouldn’t be able to talk to her about anything ever again.
When he reached Llangwm, he pulled in to the car park near the bridge, the very spot where his car had broken down on that first visit, five weeks ago. What should he do now? He could drive straight back to Cardiff and tell Fay that the dinner had been cancelled. A fire in the hotel kitchen should cover that. Or he could hang about all evening until an after-dinner sort of time and get home in time for bed, as Fay would expect. Or perhaps he should go back to Sheila’s flat. Try to win her over. Mmmm. No good. Tuesday was her motor maintenance class. Anyway, who was he fooling? He didn’t have any options. He was an addict and he was here to get his fix of the life that he deserved to be living.
Soft drizzle, barely heavy enough to fall to the ground, enveloped the village, glossing the slate roofs and tracing the cobwebs that looped the hedgerows. His visits, both real and imaginary, had been made in bright sunlight and he’d never seen the place in the rain. He might have known that Llangwm rain would be perfect rain. He opened the car window and closed his eyes, breathing in the fustiness of wet leaves.
Hearing the swish of cycle tyres on the wet tarmac, he opened his eyes, catching a glimpse of a figure in a yellow waterproof, cycling past. He started the car and edged out into the road, following the cyclist.
He was positive it was Non, going at quite a lick, long butterfly skirt flapping like a slack yacht sail. The bike she was riding was the old-fashioned sort, with a black frame and a basket in front of the handlebars, just like the one his parents had bought Marion as a reward for passing her eleven-plus exams and gaining a place at the girls’ grammar school. A Trent Tourist – that was it. Ever even-handed, when he went to the equivalent boys’ school, they bought him a bike, too, but they must have been going through a lean time because his was second-hand, advertised on a postcard in the local newsagent’s window. In the end, neither he nor Marion took to cycling. They lived in a valley town and if the outward journey was easy, then the return was agony.
He drove as slowly as he could, keeping a cautious distance behind her as she slipped in and out of sight along the twisting road. She was probably heading for home. Sure enough, after a mile or two, she turned left into a lane where a brightly painted board proclaimed ‘Coed Melyn Nursery – shrubs, plants, herbs’, a ‘Closed’ sign dangling from hooks beneath it. He passed the end of the lane, driving on until he came to a wide grass verge where he could pull off the narrow road. Before getting out of the car, he checked his phone. There was a text from Sheila, terse and ambiguous. ‘Hope you are soon yourself again.’ She would never tell tales to Fay but her loaded text message, for once in standard English, indicated that she was taking what she saw as his aberration very seriously.
The murky evening was perfect for concealment as Jack, hunched over, crept from bush to bush. Fifty yards or so from the road, the lane curved off to the right and led into a small parking area and, if he straightened up, on the other side of it he could see greenhouses and a display of large glazed pots. To his left there was a wooden gate. The white plastic letters on it spelled out ‘Coed Melyn Cottage’ and, beyond it, a brick-paved path led to a plain, squat house. It wasn’t the roses-round-the-door cottage that he’d pictured but, now that he’d seen it, the grey stone house with the slate roof and small, deep-set windows was the most perfect house in the world.
He slipped in through the half-open gate, taking care not to touch it for fear of squeaking hinges, and, calculating that it would be safer to get off the path, dodged between dripping laurel bushes, weaving stealthily through the shrubbery. When to scurry and when to stay? How low to crouch and when was it safe to stand up? The skills acquired decades ago, during endless summer games of heroes and villains, came back to him as he worked his way towards the house.
Although it was not yet seven o’clock, the lights were on and he made a final dash for the flower bed which ran beneath one of the lighted windows. He knelt for a few seconds, catching his breath before risking a peep. Yes, there she was. His heart lifted when he saw her, still wearing the yellow waterproof, taking items from a carrier bag and stacking them on the kitchen table. It looked as though there was someone else in the room or within earshot because, although he couldn’t hear anything through the closed window, her moving lips paused every now and again and she turned her head as if to catch a reply.
He’d forgotten how faultless those lips were; how gracefully she moved; how lovely she was.
25
Jack leaned against the wall, knees drawn up to his chin. Here he was, less than three metres from the woman who occupied his waking thoughts, and he didn’t have a clue what to do next. He checked the time. Seven-fifteen. To keep up the myth of his attendance at a dinner, he would need to leave Llangwm by ten o’clock at the latest – a little earlier if he wanted time to compose himself when he got back to Cardiff. That would give him a couple of hours with Non. But first he must dream up a convincing excuse for knocking the door. ‘I was just passing …’ Not really. ‘I was wondering how Iolo’s getting on.’ Why call here then, rather than at The Welcome Stranger? ‘I needed someone to talk to and you sprang to mind.’ Almost as feeble as ‘a wife who doesn’t understand’…
The phone in his jacket pocket vibrated against his ribs. It was Fay. Not daring to ignore it yet anxious not to be detected, he crawled hastily away from the house, taking refuge amongst the lower branches of a yew tree.
‘Jack?’
‘What’s the matter? Anything happened to Dad?’ He kept his voice down, cupping his hand around his mouth.
‘No. He’s much the same, from what your mother says.’ There was a pause. ‘Why are you whispering, Jack?’
‘Was I?’ He risked a slight increase in volume. ‘What’s wrong, love?’
‘Nothing really. It’s just that…’
He heard her voice catch. ‘Come on. Spit it out.’
‘Oh, I’m being pathetic. I must be overtired. Go back to your meeti
ng. I shouldn’t have bothered you.’
‘Don’t be daft. That’s what I’m here for. We’re a team.’ What a load of tosh.
‘I don’t know what the matter is…’ She paused. ‘And Caitlin’s worried about us. She thinks we don’t spend enough time together. Perhaps she’s right.’ She was sniffling now. ‘Life’s so bloody banal at the moment. So directionless. So bleak.’
‘I know. I know.’ He crouched amongst the sodden branches, muttering soothing clichés whilst peering at the window, hoping he might glimpse Non. What kind of a heartless monster must he be? ‘Tell you what, I’ll sort out a few things here, show my face to the committee, then skip off as soon as I can. How does that sound?’ He made a kissing noise into the phone, switched it off and stashed it in his pocket.
He stayed where he was for a few minutes, reluctant to abort his mission but consoling himself with today’s sightings of Non on her bike and in her home – two new images to add to the cache of pictures in his mental scrapbook.
It was only when he arrived back at the car that he noticed the muddy patches on the knees of his trousers, and felt damp seeping through the seat of his underpants. Although it wasn’t cold, in an effort to dry out he put the heater on ‘max’ then he doubled back through the village, past The Welcome Stranger. The lights were on in the big, solid house but the front door was shut and he drove away feeling excluded, like a child who hasn’t been allowed to join in a thrilling playground game.
‘That’s what I’m here for...’ ‘We’re a team...’ The phrases he’d so readily trotted out nagged away as he drove home, trying to remember the last time that Fay had called upon him for emotional support. In the terrible period after Kingsley’s disappearance, Fay had girded herself in armour that had become thicker and more impenetrable as days became weeks, and weeks extended to months. They certainly hadn’t been a team then, just two individuals, drifting apart, each struggling to survive.