The Mysterious Miss Mayhew

by Hazel Osmond

  ‘And careful with the colours – none of the acid greens and yellows I’m seeing in the style mags.’

  As he finished speaking, he checked on Stan, the Men’s Editor. He was looking as if he suspected that, under his suit, Tom was wearing a tutu and hold-ups. Stan was not someone at ease with his own or any other man’s feminine side. He was married to a doughty woman who had only fingertip contact with her own.

  Pre-Tom, the Men’s section was stuffed with all things sporty and anything that had an engine. Fashion, if it was tackled at all, was the odd V-neck jumper or some slacks from the local men’s outfitters who Kelvin had persuaded to buy a quarter-page ad. Once, shock horror, they had featured a blue mackintosh. With. A. Red. Scarf.

  Since Tom’s arrival, Stan had been forced to raise his game and he grumbled regularly about having to arse around with ‘dressing-up clothes’. Yet when Victoria had suggested he hand men’s fashion to her, the answer had been a loud ‘No’. Since then, Stan had gone on the offensive and started writing all his own fashion copy. It had to have extensive snark surgery from Liz, who kept his worst efforts in ‘The File of Shame’. Recently slotted in had been his review of men’s satchel bags:

  If you like to carry around something that most of us grew out of when we were nine …

  Tom decided to make Stan wait till later and went to the portly man sitting next to him.

  ‘So, Flat Plan Meeting, Monty.’ (To remind Monty where he was.) ‘Give us your ideas for July’s issue.’ (To prompt him into remembering why he was there.)

  Monty usually needed a lot of spoon feeding (which was apt as he was the Food and Wine Editor). And the amount he needed depended on how good a time he was having outside work. As he freely admitted, he had slid a long way down the food chain from a glossy supermarket supplement to The Place, The People. That slide had included a couple of divorces, a stint in rehab and a failed attempt to run his own restaurant.

  ‘Monty?’ Tom said again, knowing that if it was down to Monty his pages would be plastered with photos of him in vineyards knocking back wine or eating in Michelin-starred restaurants. On Tom’s budget, he was more likely to get a voucher for Wetherspoon’s.

  Monty was opening his mouth. ‘I was thinking a couple of pages on Prosecco. Great alternative to Champagne. Could tie it in with a plug for local wine merchants. Right, Kelvin?’ He didn’t wait for Kelvin’s reply. ‘Got some nice bits of puffery about a pink bubbly being produced this year – should be able to cobble together an article from that.’

  Monty smiled, which made his eyes close to slits and his already wide face appear wider. ‘I’d like to spotlight some local food producers and I’ve sounded out someone for asparagus.’ He was flicking through his notes. Notes! Monty had notes. Astonished expressions around the table.

  ‘And, last page, soft drinks. Cordials. Home-made lemonade. There.’

  ‘Very good, Monty,’ Tom said, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice.

  ‘Well, I’ve been laid up all weekend, nothing else to do. Waterworks,’ he added, doing a very unpleasant mime with his hand.

  ‘Thank you, the patron saint of bladders,’ Liz said, drily.

  Tom speeded up the meeting with a quick trip around Stan’s ideas, although he did pause for a discussion about whether sarongs for men were making a comeback, just to hear Stan say the word as if he had faecal matter under his tongue.

  ‘Right,’ Tom said, finally. ‘Let’s hear what the rest of you have to suggest for your sections, fifteen minutes each and try and remember what your budget is and who your readers are. No titting about …’

  As they got stuck in, Liz passed him a note. Ooh, you’re so masterful, Meryl.

  CHAPTER 8

  Monday 12 May (Part 2)

  My mother would not approve of a second page for the 12th. She’d call it cheating.

  Which is ironic really.

  Anyway, more things I’ve learned today:

  1) A person, namely the estate agent, can be as charming as anything until you bring up the fact that the reality of the ‘cottage’ differs greatly from the description in the paperwork and that you’d like a reduction in the rent.

  Then that person gives you what I believe is called ‘grief’. I think what I’ve just witnessed is some kind of highly ritualised display of aggression.

  2) The local library keeps records of all its old newspapers on microfiche.

  3) Microfiche and the machines used to read them are the work of the devil (as my mother would say).

  4) The only good thing about reading a newspaper on microfiche is that you can eat biscuits without getting the pages greasy.

  5) I have started at 1940 (of course) and reached 1960. By 2013, I will need spectacles. And a tumbrel to transport me around as I will have eaten over seventy years’-worth of biscuits.

  6) I was right about the colour of the car. The only way it could be more conspicuous is if I painted ‘Fran Mayhew, digging for information’ along the side.

  7) I may be using this research as a means of putting off the day when I have to actually do what I came here to do.

  8) No matter how long you look at a photograph in a newspaper, the person in it won’t talk to you.

  9) There is no 10.

  CHAPTER 9

  As Tom left the office, he recalled the high spots of this Monday. Tasty pesto and Parma ham roll for lunch. Good cup of coffee, not made by Liz. Yup, that was it.

  The crinkled gusset in this underpants of a day had been his trip to the Finance department, during which he’d had to listen to the Finance Director tell him once again that the magazine industry had never had it so bad. On balance, Tom preferred the Finance Director’s second-in-command, Linda – he had never heard her say anything.

  He unlocked his car and had one final think about whether there was anything he had forgotten to do and then pushed his job to the back of his brain.

  Unless he had something to write, or some proofs to check, he left work at work. He wasn’t that guy any more; on his mobile in the car, or sitting with one eye on the TV, the other on his laptop. If he thought about his life in London it was like looking back at some over-eager high-achiever who he vaguely recognised.

  Even his social life had seemed like a competition to get the best table and the premium tickets.

  Yet it all went, more or less overnight.

  Whether he missed that stuff was immaterial. Whether his life was richer or poorer now was off the point. He’d just been irrevocably changed. When a small child looked at you with absolute trust as you were about to get a splinter out of her finger, the idea of getting worked up about a table by the toilets seemed more than a bit fuckwitty.

  He drove across the stone bridge over the river, past the showground where the marquees were nearly all down and the rugby posts back up, then climbed the hill. Right again and he was on a lane of a few houses with his at the end.

  Hell of a commute.

  He stopped to look down at the view and could see the roof of the magazine building. At least it was still standing.

  There were a couple of new estates changing the shape of the village, but really it hadn’t altered much since he was a child. The Roman site was still trying to attract visitors by dressing some poor tit up in a centurion’s uniform. The river still got uppity in winter and ran amok in the low-lying car park. There was still a butcher’s and a baker’s and a fruit and veg shop. The thought of all that unchanging life wasn’t driving him mad this evening as it had at the show. Stupid to feel grouchy when the swallows were diving and everyone was out in their garden with their shoes off.

  Correction, when everyone was in his garden with their shoes off. He came down the drive to see Rob’s car tucked behind his mother’s and as he pushed open the side gate, Hattie was shouting, ‘Look, Dad, Uncle Rob’s ready to put up a wall!’ She was jiggling about on a wooden platform built into the horse chestnut tree. It was the floor of her tree house and Rob pulled her leg that Tom and h
e had made it out of the sawdust Rob smuggled out of work down his trousers. As his company took huge swathes of conifer forest and converted it into chipboard, Hattie had believed him for a while.

  Rob wanted to crack on while the weather held and it looked as if he’d come straight from work. He had his back to Tom, but from the way he was kneeling and his shoulders moving, he was obviously fixing some brackets into the floor.

  Kath was sitting in one of the canvas chairs, a pair of barbecue tongs hanging from her hand. ‘Won’t be long,’ she said. ‘Your mum’s already given Hattie a snack, but we thought there aren’t many days you can do this.’ She pointed towards the barbecue with the tongs. ‘Had to fight someone for these sausages.’

  Tom used his laugh as cover for a surreptitious glance at Kath’s ankles to see how swollen they were. He wondered if he could subtly bring something out from the house for her to rest her feet on.

  ‘Hey, stop with the jumping,’ he heard Rob say, ‘it’s like working on a trampoline.’

  ‘Come here, you,’ he called to Hattie, knowing that ‘stop jumping’ was as effective a command as ‘stop breathing’.

  When she was down the ladder, he got a partial hug, her head turned back towards the tree house, amid a long stream of chatter about Rob letting her screw in some of the bolts.

  She looked like an unmade bed as usual, but he was pleased to see she was in her oldest clothes. He guessed her school dress would be festering away on her bedroom floor, complete with lunch/paint/soil decoration.

  ‘Behave at school?’ he asked the back of her head.

  ‘A bit,’ she said, skipping away, and he didn’t know if she meant a bit of her had behaved, or she’d been on her best behaviour for nanoseconds.

  ‘Just fix this last one in place, then you can give me a hand getting the wall panels out of the garage,’ Rob called back over his shoulder.

  A laugh from Kath. ‘Tom’s helping? So … finished by Christmas, then?’

  Hattie was back round his legs. A tug on his trousers. ‘It won’t take that long, will it?’ Her most appealing look; huge green eyes, freckles as if someone had flicked them on from a paintbrush.

  ‘Auntie Kath was joking, Hats. If the weather stays like this, it might be up by the weekend.’

  ‘No might about it,’ Rob cut in, one hand reaching behind him blindly and then obviously finding what it was searching for.

  Hattie was climbing up the ladder again.

  ‘What’s the view like up there?’ Tom shouted to her.

  On her tiptoes, scanning the horizon through the branches and leaves, she shouted back, ‘I can see the Spanish fleet.’

  That would be a sight, the Armada heading up the Tyne.

  I was down the quayside, completely mortal, and these Spanish gadgies came right up to the bridge in a boot, like, and I swear they were lush. I come home with a bra full of doubloons.

  Rob stood up. ‘That’s that done.’ Tom saw his eyes immediately seek out Kath. ‘All right there?’ he called to her and she raised the tongs as if to say, ‘Don’t fuss’. She stood up, probably to underline that point, and started moving the sausages around on the barbecue.

  ‘Can Auntie Kath climb up?’ Hattie asked and Rob’s ‘No’ was too abrupt, which he must have realised the minute it left his mouth. He put his hand on Hattie’s shoulder. ‘Sorry, love,’ he said. ‘It’ll take a lot of weight, but not that much.’

  There was a ‘charming’ from Kath, but Tom knew she wouldn’t have been fooled by his brother’s attempt to hide behind humour.

  He wandered over to her.

  ‘Good day?’ she asked him.

  ‘Had better, but the main thing is it’s over. You OK?’

  ‘What, apart from feeling like a bit of china?’ She glanced towards Rob. ‘Start our classes at the hospital tomorrow. He’s a bit nervous.’

  ‘You want me to try and talk him down? From, you know … Not the tree, obviously.’ He took the tongs from her and pushed a couple of sausages to the edge of the barbecue and moved the burgers to the middle.

  ‘No. Think he’s got to work through this himself. And why do men always do that?’ She was looking at the tongs. ‘They have to take over the barbecue. Is it a phallic thing? You know, the sausages? Here,’ she took the tongs from him, ‘you’ll get fat on your suit.’

  ‘Phallic thing? Sometimes you make less sense than my mother. Hang on …’ He looked towards the house. ‘Where is she?’

  When Kath looked evasive, he pulled her chair nearer to the barbecue. ‘Plonk yourself there. I’ll be back.’

  One quick scan of the kitchen and the sitting room confirmed his suspicions and when he got upstairs, he tracked his mother down to the bathroom. She was bent over, cleaning the bath.

  ‘Step away from the cleaning products, lady,’ he said and regretted it as he saw her shoot up straight.

  ‘Oh, bugger me,’ she blurted and then rounded on him, ‘Tom, don’t do that. My heart’s come out of my mouth.’

  ‘That’s going to make a mess on that newly cleaned bath.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said … Oh, never mind.’ He put his hand on her arm. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. But it’s the only way to catch you at it.’

  She was looking as if she’d been discovered rooting through his wallet. ‘I just saw the cloth,’ she said. ‘Thought I’d give it a bit of a … freshen-up.’

  ‘And what about downstairs? The hoover just happened to leap into your hands?’

  She moved to the sink and started wiping around the taps. ‘New teaching assistant at school. Looks about twelve. Can’t be, I suppose.’

  ‘No, Hattie says she’s twenty-five, and she’s only covering for Mrs … Wait a minute … you’ve changed the subject. God, you’re good.’ He took the cloth from her. ‘Don’t expect you to do this, Mum. Picking up Hattie twice a week is enough.’

  ‘You’re working all day.’

  ‘You’ve worked all your life.’

  ‘Aw, get away with it.’ She tried to get the cloth back, but he wasn’t letting go. She gave it up and started dabbing her hands on the towel. He half expected her to pick it up and smell it. Perhaps she already had.

  ‘While I think on,’ she said, ‘I put Hattie’s karate kit and her school dress in to wash.’

  ‘Mum …’

  ‘Oh now, it’s nothing.’ She straightened up the towel to her satisfaction and as they went downstairs said, ‘I don’t mean anything by having a quick tidy-up.’ She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘You keep it lovely. For a man.’

  Pointless explaining to his mother how sexist that was – she’d only just got used to that nice Clare Balding being a lesbian.

  *

  Two walls and twelve sausages later, they waved goodbye to Rob and Kath and he wondered whether he should tell Hattie that her mother had rung that morning. He always told her about any contact, believing it was her right to know. But the timing was crucial. Too near bedtime and he was afraid she’d lie awake in the dark.

  No, not tonight, it was too late. And he couldn’t tell her in the rush and tumble of the morning and then leave her at school to think about it on her own.

  Whenever that conversation was going to take place, he wasn’t looking forward to it. He knew how unsettling it was for Hattie to have Steph zoom in and out of her life and then disappear as if she’d been abducted by aliens.

  Sometimes miracles did happen, though. Like on Hattie’s first day of school, a phone call from Morocco and all the right things said. Easter, when Steph had arranged to Skype her. And actually done it.

  He walked around the garden, packing away the chairs while Hattie had a few more minutes in the tree house.

  It was the bats swooping and darting now and, at times like this, he was glad they were the end house in the row, with nothing between them and the fields.

  ‘Come on now,’ he shouted to Hattie. ‘No arguing.’

  While she had her bath, he sat on the stool and
she made a beard out of bubbles and they chatted about Josh, her best friend in the world, and how hot water came out of taps. He felt a drawing sadness that one day the bathroom door would be closed on him. Even now, it was probably more acceptable to say you owned a sub-machine gun than admit that the favourite part of your day was sitting chatting to your daughter while she had a good soak.

  When she got out, he wrapped her in a towel as if she was something precious. Definitely not a parcel.

  ‘Put your pyjamas on, choose a story and I’ll go and get you some water.’

  ‘And Gummy.’

  Yeah, the little bugger. ‘And Gummy.’

  Downstairs he filled up a cup with water, but could not find Gummy in Hattie’s reading bag. He saw it had fallen under the table and when he reached for it, cracked his head on the wood. By the time he’d stopped cursing and was aware the phone was ringing, he was also aware that Hattie had padded into his bedroom and picked it up in there.

  ‘Mummy!’ he heard her say and the happy glow of the evening went fizzle, phut. Two phone calls in one day? Damn, he just knew what was coming now.

  He went up the stairs softly and stood outside his bedroom door, hating being an eavesdropper, but unable to stop himself.

  Hattie was talking fast about the tree house and he imagined her face, alight with the fact that Steph had rung. There was an expanse of silence, he could hear his own breathing in it. Then, ‘Yes, it was lovely, Mummy. And the bag.’ Good girl. More silence and his stomach tightened. Hattie getting more excited, ‘Yes, yes! Please. Will it be deep snow? Do they have reindeer?’

  Steph hadn’t got him to agree, so had brought in the heaviest gun of all on her side.

  More gabbling from Hattie before, ‘Nun-night. I love you too. Bye, Mummy. Bye.’

  It felt as if his heart was being scrunched up by the longing in that ‘bye’.

  The door swung back and there was Hattie, face like it was Christmas already. ‘Dad, Dad! I’m going to Italy. Mummy says I can. We’re going skiing.’

  *

  Lying on his side on the sofa later, he felt almost too weary to raise the bottle of lager to his lips. Bloody Steph. She’d come out of this looking fantastic and he was the villain for nipping all that joy in the bud.