The Mysterious Miss Mayhew

by Hazel Osmond

  He stepped back through the door, feeling as if he was witnessing something intensely private.

  An older man on the outside looking in.

  CHAPTER 33

  Saturday 7 June

  1) Tom is affected by stress like a sailing ship is affected by the wind. Yesterday, with the magazine put to bed, he transformed into kind Tom again. Open Tom.

  2) Sunglasses are very good for hiding behind. Almost as good as untruths. Or should that be half-truths?

  3) I don’t know much about fashion, other than that most of it seems designed to make you discontented with:

  A. Your body.

  B. Your income.

  This ignorance, I suppose, makes me ill-equipped to comment on a woman who chooses it over her family. My mother used to say, ‘Do not judge others, lest you be judged yourself.’ But really, things over people? 1½ marks out of 3,000 – that’s my judgement.

  4) Tom is a hopeless liar. If you’re going to say, ‘It works’, then you should make sure your face is telling the same story as your mouth.

  5) I’d like to meet Kath, she sounds … this is going to look patronising to anyone who reads it … courageous. The kind of courage that is just about clinging on and refusing to give up. I nearly had to put my sunglasses on again when Tom was telling me about her and Rob and the babies. I wish, too, that I believed in Something as my mother did, so I could pray that all will be right with this one. ‘It’s the furthest they’ve ever got,’ Natalie said when she told me. Of course the tragic effect of Natalie’s words was ruined by her adding, ‘Whereas my mother, she’s popping them out left, right and centre.’ I said I wasn’t sure about the left and right bit.

  6) It felt lovely teasing Tom. He took it in good part too, which proves that, despite some evidence to the contrary, he does have a fine sense of humour.

  7) Mrs Mawson was very kind to me on the phone. Almost warm. It’s a comfort that, at this moment, she is having pleasant thoughts about me. I hope she remembers that when I’m standing in front of her.

  8) Tom should look at his staff and read the signs. It’s as if he is also wearing sunglasses but can’t see out of them properly.

  9) Stairwells can be the best places – somewhere to be private for a while and let the world go on without you. Wonderful to be able to tell someone how you feel about them. There’s nothing I don’t like about Jamie, from his floppy hair to his slightly oversized feet. I’m fascinated too by the way he is quietly getting on with what he wants to do with his life, while all this other stuff is heaped upon his shoulders. He says we’re heading for trouble. I’ve told him to remember he has a strong woman on his side now, one who loves him back.

  10) The thought of what I’m going to do tomorrow is terrifying me. But I know that now is absolutely the right time. I’ve done the homework, I’ve laid the groundwork. Besides, until I take this step, I can’t get on with ‘other things’.

  CHAPTER 34

  Sunday 8 June

  1) No matter how gently you tell someone something they do not want to hear, they will not like it.

  2) When people feel cornered, they call you names and question your motives. That does not hurt as much as the many things they call your mother.

  3) Being ejected forcibly on to a gravel drive does not leave you much opportunity for making a dignified exit.

  4) Cruelty takes many forms and all of them seem to be acceptable if you live in a big house.

  5) The absence of love and warmth smells of furniture polish and dog beds and horse manure.

  6) I am a naïve idiot who does not understand how the world works. I thought it would be a matter of what I could bring to their lives, but they can only think what I might take from them.

  7) I have learned nothing in twenty-four years. This book was a waste of time. I can’t write in it any more. What’s the point? Of anything?

  8) See point 7.

  9) Ditto.

  10) Ditto.

  CHAPTER 35

  ‘She what?’ Tom asked, not because he hadn’t caught what Liz said, but because it might as well have been in Welsh.

  ‘She wanted to know if there was any way we could halt printing.’

  ‘Mrs Mawson?’ It was as if his brain refused to absorb what he was being told.

  ‘Rang about twenty minutes ago. Voice like razor wire. Said she’d ring back at 9.30, you’ve got a few minutes.’

  ‘No explanation?’

  ‘Whatever it is, it’s too late to put it right. She said she’d discuss it with you, as if I was too inferior to hear what she had to say. Halt printing! I bloody ask you.’

  He recalled how happy Mrs Mawson had been on Friday, and now this. Flicking through the magazine in his brain, he tried to pinpoint what might have blown up in their faces.

  ‘Check out the local news sites, will you, Liz? See if you can find any scandal relating to someone we’ve featured. Use mine.’ He nodded at his computer.

  ‘This is a first, eh?’ Liz said, with what seemed like relish. ‘You caught the sun?’

  ‘What?’

  Liz pointed at her nose, then at his.

  ‘Yeah, probably. We went up the coast to one of those cottages we featured back in April. Buckets and spades, crabbing, fish and chips, you know the kind of thing.’

  ‘Sounds perfect. Now, let’s see: Fashion editor on local magazine caught wearing cheap watch. Nice picture of Victoria, mind.’

  Tom has been halfway round the desk before he realised it was a joke. He must be doing a good job of hiding the fact that he didn’t feel like laughing.

  What was funny, though, was that he’d expected his main problem today to be how to act normally around Fran and Jamie. He had no right to be sulky with either of them – he was the one who’d misread the signs or, more accurately, seen them where they did not exist.

  Why was he surprised that Fran fancied a younger, good-looking guy and not an older one with ‘baggage’?

  Trouble was, that reasonable outlook kept slipping and then he felt as if life was closing down again. It would be work, eat, get rid of head lice, sleep, day after day now. Until Hattie left home.

  The phone rang and Liz whispered, ‘Do you want me to stay or go?’ As if, even before he picked it up, Mrs Mawson might be listening.

  ‘Stay.’

  ‘I talked to someone earlier,’ Mrs Mawson said, with no preamble. ‘She told me that halting the printing process would be highly difficult. Is that correct?’ It was a harsh voice, a voice that said, ‘I own this magazine and you work for me.’

  He explained the cost and time penalties involved in stopping the print run before asking her what the problem was.

  ‘I suspected it wouldn’t be feasible,’ she said, ignoring his question. ‘I just needed you to confirm it. Perhaps I should have come straight to you on Sunday evening, but one’s never prepared for this type of thing.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made much difference, to be honest. And this problem? Are we in danger of printing something that’s going to get us into legal trouble?’

  There was silence before Mrs Mawson came back with, ‘I wish you’d asked me before hiring that woman. It was a poor decision, Tom.’

  Fran. This was about Fran.

  He sat down, but had enough presence of mind to say, ‘Could we just backtrack a second? A poor decision? When I talked to you on Friday you were delighted with her work. You rang up especially to tell her.’

  Silence.

  ‘Mrs Mawson?’

  ‘I don’t want to use her again.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’

  ‘No.’

  He couldn’t hold back the scratchy anger at the way she was talking to him or her assumption that she could dictate who he hired.

  ‘I always thought you were happy that I had full editorial control,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to change that, I think you owe me—’

  ‘I don’t owe anyone anything,’ Mrs Mawson said with some force. ‘I’d be obliged if you’d t
ell your staff that no further work will be commissioned from Miss Mayhew. And I do not want her allowed access to the office. There will be no further discussion of this matter. Goodbye.’

  ‘Well, that’s the peasants told,’ he said, not even checking that she had rung off. He threw the phone on the desk.

  ‘So I gather it’s about Fran, then?’ Liz put the phone back on its stand. ‘What’s she supposed to have done?’

  ‘Wouldn’t tell me. But whatever it is, I’m at fault for hiring her, evidently.’ He filled Liz in on the rest of the conversation.

  A whistle from Liz was followed by the word ‘harsh’.

  ‘Bloody harsh.’ Tom was so incensed that he couldn’t even feign loyalty.

  ‘You don’t suppose this is something to do with Jamie, do you?’ Liz said, with enthusiasm. ‘His mother’s got wind of him and Fran getting friendly and she doesn’t like it? Hey! You don’t think Fran’s one of those gold-diggers?’

  Liz hadn’t said the last bit with any seriousness, but he still wanted to throw her out of his office. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ he said, flatly.

  She got up to open the door and then closed it again. ‘Thought if Jamie was missing, it might mean something. But he’s already in.’

  Tom didn’t know what difference that made.

  Liz was doing serious pacing. ‘This is tough on Fran, but it’s landed us right in the crap again too. We’re back looking for someone decent to take over the nature pages.’

  ‘I’m not being bounced into this, Liz. If I roll over now, she might start interfering all the time – who I hire, what we feature. And I’m insulted that she doesn’t trust me with what’s really going on. She can’t just demand this.’

  ‘She probably can, she’s the owner. Just be careful, Tom. Don’t get yourself sacked.’

  ‘They can’t just sack people – do the words “Industrial Tribunal” mean nothing to you?’

  ‘Do the words “Feudal Overlord” mean nothing to you?’

  He ignored that. ‘I’m going to go and see Fran, find out what this is all about. Then I’m going to try and get an audience with the Mawsons. Until I get back, let’s keep this to ourselves. It might all blow over.’

  *

  There was no answer when he rang the bell at Fran’s, but there was a red car on the drive, a slightly different model from last time.

  At the rear of the bungalow, he found the back door open.

  Someone was clattering bits of metal about – suitable sound-effects for the jittery feelings in Tom’s stomach at the thought of seeing Fran again. He knocked on the door frame and the noises stopped abruptly.

  She appeared at the window, holding a baking tin in an oven-gloved hand. She had an apron on over her dress, her hair up, but even seen through the glass, her face looked changed. As if someone had soaked it in water overnight. Every muscle seemed drawn downwards.

  She moved to come to the door, but then didn’t.

  He took the initiative and went in.

  ‘Tom,’ she said, as if confirming it to herself.

  The kitchen was messy and hot. Dirty bowls and baking trays lay on the work surfaces and were piled up in the sink, and what he could only describe as attempts at baking were arranged on plates, or strewn over the table as if she’d removed them from the oven, but didn’t know what to do with them. On the cooling racks sat a handful of singed cupcakes.

  As he watched, she wandered over to the table and turned the baking tin upside down and some half-hearted muffins plopped out and landed in a drift of flour.

  There was nothing decisive in her movements today – as if everything was too much effort.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  She shrugged, picked up a wooden spoon and started to stir some beige-looking mixture in a large earthenware bowl. Although she was doing it slowly, there was a huge amount of feeling going into her movements, as if she was beating something she hated intensely.

  It was no good; even though he knew Jamie was her preferred option, he still wanted to hold her.

  He tried to concentrate on business. ‘I had a call from Mrs Mawson,’ he said and the beating stopped.

  ‘Ah.’ She did not look up. ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘She wanted us to stop the magazine being printed.’

  She did raise her head at this. ‘You won’t do that, will you? All your hard work. Everyone’s hard work.’ She put down her wooden spoon and reached for a roll of paper towels balanced on top of a jar of sugar. Tearing one off, she dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘It’s too late to stop it,’ he said. ‘But she also told me that I shouldn’t have hired you and that she didn’t want me to use you again. She doesn’t even want you back in the building.’

  Fran wiped her eyes again before the scrunched-up paper towel went into a pocket of her apron. She resumed her beating, this time with more determination than before. He had no idea what was in the bowl, but it wasn’t going to survive.

  ‘Did she say why?’ she asked, letting the spoon rest for a moment.

  ‘No. I was hoping you would. She didn’t want to discuss it.’

  ‘She doesn’t want to discuss anything,’ Fran said, bitterly, and started with the wooden spoon again. Tom felt as if the two women were treating him like an idiot. He walked over and took the bowl away, leaving her holding the spoon in mid-air. Carrying it to the sink, he balanced it on a baking tin.

  ‘Right,’ he said, back at the table. ‘It seems to me that Mrs Mawson knows what’s going on and you know what’s going on, but I – the editor of the magazine – haven’t got a bloody clue. So … explain how we’ve gone from Friday, to this.’

  ‘All I can tell you, Tom,’ Fran said in a wobbly voice, ‘is that I went to see her yesterday evening about a personal matter. I intended to go in the morning, but courage is a funny thing, isn’t it? Comes and goes. Anyway. My visit did not turn out well. Not well at all.’ She put the wooden spoon down quickly and retrieved the paper towel from her apron pocket.

  ‘That’s all I get?’

  She sniffed. ‘Yes. I’m sorry. But if Mrs Mawson hasn’t told you the full story, Tom, I can’t. I don’t want to add indiscretion to the many other crimes I’m evidently guilty of.’ She gave her eyes a more ferocious wipe at that.

  ‘I need to know, Fran,’ he said.

  ‘Well you can’t, Tom. That’s how life is. Some of the things you want you can’t have.’

  Yes, I know. I’m looking at one of them now.

  ‘Fran,’ he tried again. ‘Is she upset that you and Jamie … seem …’ He couldn’t say it.

  ‘This is nothing to do with poor Jamie.’ As she spoke his name, it seemed as if someone had let the air out of her. She fumbled for a chair and sat down heavily. Folding her arms on the table, she laid down her head by the wooden spoon and started to cry.

  It was proper crying, noisy and dragged from deep inside her, so that instead of shouting, ‘Don’t you say “Poor Jamie” to me, he’s the luckiest bastard around,’ Tom pulled up a chair next to her and sat down too. There was so much pain in the crying – nothing like that manipulative stuff Steph used to turn on.

  How to comfort her? Any permutation of a hug would have probably been too much for her and definitely too much for him. He settled for patting her gently between the shoulder blades. She felt soft and warm under his hand and he wasn’t sure whether he actually said ‘There, there,’ lost as he was in his own pleasure at being so close to her.

  When the crying lessened and she sat up, he let his hand fall away. She looked a mess, puffy and red-eyed and with whatever had been on the wooden spoon smeared across her chin. He would still have kissed her face off if he could.

  ‘Well, this is embarrassing,’ she said, sounding more Fran-like. She had a go at smoothing out the crumpled-up paper towel, but it was too soggy. ‘Could you …?’ She was indicating the roll and he passed it to her. She wiped her eyes and face and he pointed out that she’d missed the stuff
on her chin.

  ‘And you have cake mixture on your suit.’ There was a sad laugh. ‘You always get yourself in a mess. I’ll try some water on it.’

  As she rubbed at his lapel, he fought the urge to kiss the top of her head.

  ‘Fran,’ he said, softly, making her look up at him. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done anything so bad that you deserve to be treated like this. Tell me what it is and maybe I can help.’

  ‘Oh, Tom.’ She pressed her lips together as if saying anything else was too difficult.

  There was more wiping before he said, ‘Dry-cleaning job, I think,’ and she agreed and offered to pay.

  ‘No, I’ll send Mrs Mawson the bill. It’s her fault.’

  ‘I don’t disagree with that. Oh, if only she were a different kind of woman …’

  He guessed that made sense to Fran, but knew it was pointless asking her to explain.

  She disposed of the paper towel in the pedal bin, saying, with her back to him, ‘I’m so sorry about this, Tom. You’ll have to start looking all over again for someone to do Charlie’s pages. I did so much enjoy working for the magazine. And for you.’

  When she turned back to him, her eyes were grave and a few days ago he might have thought that ‘And for you’ was a sign. Now he knew she was just being polite.

  There didn’t seem to be anything else to say after that and so he left her and when he got outside and glanced back through the window, she was retrieving the earthenware bowl from the sink, the wooden spoon in her hand.

  CHAPTER 36

  Everything about the Mawson residence was designed to impress and intimidate.

  During the long drive from the gates to the front door, it was possible to catch glimpses of woodland and lake. There were gardeners, mowing and clipping. You passed the sign for the stable blocks – plural. Nearer the house, the drive was gravelled, with a turning circle bordered by large urns filled with spiky foliage.

  The building itself was a square property, not pretty enough to be called a manor house, not fortified enough to be a castle.