For One Night Only

by W W Walker

  Eva wanted to change the subject. She’d been thinking about Jack all day and she was enjoying the little quiet moments to dream about him making love to her. Last night had been the beginning. She was sure of it. She’d been a reluctant participant, but she knew she was falling for him. As for long term, she’d never leave Roger. As her old mum used to say, the grass is never greener on the other side.

  Jade had spent the afternoon with her feet up on the sofa reading a magazine. The woman was downright idle. She could have hoovered or something, just to help out. Honestly, the house didn’t need much cleaning. Constance had been in a couple of days ago to have a good spruce up in readiness of the party. They’d taken her on as a daily after that unfortunate incident when Eva and Roger heard an almighty row going on at No.7. It was the middle of the night and Constance’s screams had drifted up to the top of the headland and through their bedroom window.

  Eva had nudged Roger out of bed. “You’ll have to go over there,” she said. “It sounds like he’s killing her.”

  Roger threw back the blankets and got out of bed. “I hate that Eddie.”

  “We all do. And I expect his wife hates him most of all. Honestly, I don’t know why she doesn’t leave him.”

  Half an hour later Roger brought back Constance wrapped in a raincoat. She’d looked broken when Eva helped her into bed in the spare room. “Try and get some sleep,” she’d said softly as Constance stared at the wall as if her eyes had frozen over.

  The following day Constance told Eva and Roger that they’d argued over money and that it didn’t happen very often. Eva had suspected that wasn’t true, but she gave Constance the benefit of the doubt. That’s when she offered her the job of cleaning the house once a week. Just to give her a bit of pocket money. Constance took her up on it and she’d cleaned for them ever since.

  Now, at 4 pm, just as Eva stood in the kitchen neatly arranging bottles of spirits to make cocktails, the lights went out. “What on earth!? Oh, don’t tell me,” Eva cursed.

  The late afternoon light still spilled through the windows, so she could still see her way around when she went to the electric box in the pantry. She pulled a few switches and then went back into the kitchen where Jade was pouring herself a sherry.

  “Power cut,” Eva announced.

  “You get a lot around here, do you?”

  “Of course. We’re on the Headland. We’re often at war with modern amenities.” Eva picked up a plate. “It won’t last long. We’ll just have to wait it out.” Then, she had a thought. “Of course, if you’d prefer to go home, I’d understand.”

  “No, I’ll stay with you.”

  Great!

  Frowning, Eva put the plate in the dishwasher. The breakfast dishes were still in there and it was almost full. Now she wouldn’t be able to do a wash until the electricity came back on. She thought about the food she’d be making for the party. Luckily her stove was gas, but the oven was electric, so she wouldn’t be able to bake the sausage rolls. Damn!

  She had plenty of candles, but it probably wouldn’t come to that. The power would be back on by then. The CEGB wouldn’t dare leave them without power on a Saturday night. People would be up in arms if they couldn’t watch Match of the Day, let alone get the Pool results.

  For now, she’d just have to put up with it, just as she’d put up with Harry’s bitch wife all day long.

  It was just before 4pm when Rhianna went tentatively around the back of No.6 to visit Tom. She noticed how wheelchair ramps had replaced steps. Everything else was concreted over with just a small patch of grass down the end of the back garden. There was a wooden bench down there, facing the view of the Atlantic, and a vision popped into her head of the man in his wheelchair staring wistfully out to sea.

  She knocked on the back door and waited. A light went on and she heard footsteps. A woman answered. She was medium height, with long luscious red hair gripped by a comb at the back of her head. She was beautiful and Rhianna realised she couldn’t possibly be the wife of the man in the wheelchair. She couldn’t be Tammy.

  “I was wondering if I could speak to Tom,” Rhianna said.

  “Who are you?” she asked with a warm smile.

  “My name is Rhianna Loxley. I’m staying with my uncle Rolf over at No.6.”

  “Oh, I see. Come in.”

  “Thank you.” Rhianna walked up the shallow concrete ramp and into the kitchen. It was a big room with plenty of space to move around, uncluttered.

  “My name is Tammy,” the woman with the red hair said.

  Rhianna had to ask herself why she thought the woman couldn’t have been Tom’s wife. It bemused her. She’d have to think about that one.

  “Follow me.”

  She had expected to be shown into a bedroom, where Tom would be lying in a hospital bed with the lights turned low and a water jug at the side. Instead, a door opened to a room that had been converted to a gym.

  It smelled musty.

  The late afternoon light was filtering through a wall of windows, the floor was wooden, the walls white, and at a weightlifting machine sat a man, his back bare to the waist, with broad shoulders, muscles, tan… His hair was pulled into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck and sweat rolled off him in easy freefalling drips.

  “This is Tom.”

  “Oh!” She was stunned to see the man Eva had described to her, the man in the wheelchair.

  He turned and smiled. His face was strong, and he was unshaven in a sexy way. Rhianna recalled her mother once saying that men always aged better than women. She wasn’t wrong. Tom was drop dead gorgeous. He was around thirty-five, maybe forty, but his body was fit and he was alert, more than she had contemplated or expected.

  Tom released the bar that pulled the weights. He turned on the seat and then she noticed the chair. He pulled it toward him and swung into it using the strength in his arms. He positioned his legs onto the footrests, tugged on a white cotton shirt and then wheeled himself towards her.

  At the door, he reached out his hand. “Tom Granger,” he said simply.

  She pumped his hand, unable to let go. She was using it to ward off the guilt she felt for pre-determining what Tom would be like. “Rhianna Loxley,” she said back.

  “Hey, sis,” he said to Tammy, “How about some lemonade?”

  Rhianna turned about. “Sis?”

  “You thought we were husband and wife, didn’t you?” she said.

  “Well, yeah. That’s what I was told.”

  “The neighbours!” She raised her perfect eyebrows and smiled. “Let’s have lemonade. It’s homemade.”

  Rhianna held the door open for Tom to wheel himself through, but he stopped and offered his arm. “After you,” he said.

  “Oh…okay.” She was flustered. She’d made a mess of the whole thing.

  Then the lights went out.

  “Power cut,” said Tammy.

  It was about 4 pm when Kiki knocked on Marigold’s door Marigold answered straight away. She invited her in, but seemed distant, not like Marigold at all. Maybe she had a lot on her mind. She wasn’t the only one. Kiki needed to talk to someone…anyone.

  Inside, Marigold immediately sensed Kiki’s distress. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I still haven’t been able to get a hold of my friend.”

  “Tyra?”

  Kiki hesitated, biting her bottom lip “Ehm, no, it’s Tyrone. He’s my ‘kind of’ boyfriend.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  It was right to come clean. Marigold obviously hadn’t believed her story about a ‘girlfriend’ and if Kiki was going to be the modern woman she wanted to be, then it was time to tell the truth. Besides, something wasn’t right, and she couldn’t shift a feeling of dread, that somewhere and somehow, Ty was in trouble.

  “Look, Marigold, I think there’s something really wrong. His car is still outside the gates at the side of the road and I can’t get him on the phone.”

  “Well, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explana
tion.”

  Kiki stepped forward and stared into her face. She wouldn’t look at her. She was pretending. “Oh my god, you’re offended.”

  “No, I’m not,” she answered quickly. “I realise times have changed. There’s a lot of unmarried couples living together these days.”

  “We’re not living together. We’re just having sex.”

  Marigold blushed. She looked like she didn’t know what to do with herself. “Well, Kiki, I don’t really know what to say to that. I’m just not that modern, I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve always been progressive. It’s held me back a lot.”

  That was true. After she’d put herself through college, she acquired an engineer’s degree, which was unheard of in those days. She had no social life, because, apart from working to pay rent in a two bedroom flat shared by five girls, she did a night-time college course on business management, another class where women were predominantly absent.

  That’s what got her into Phillips. She’d worked her way up through the ranks and finally took the first female managerial role ever for Phillips UK. That was how she became an entity along with being a single female resident at Seaview.

  “So, have you tried calling him at home?” Marigold was saying.

  “Yes, I have, hundreds of times.” She walked to the window to see the headland, where the waves were crashing over the rocks. “I’m not usually this uptight, really.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  She spun about. “What?”

  “You’re always uptight. You’re the most uptight person I know.”

  “Look, I know I haven’t always been a good friend to you,” Kiki said. “We’ve had our moments, I understand that, but it’s not that I never liked you. I’m just a very private person and I work a lot, so I’m always very tired.”

  “Not too tired to have night-time guests, it would seem.”

  “Okay, I deserved that.”

  She was surprised that Marigold was that observant. She always had her down as a mindless busybody who enjoyed getting into people’s heads and into their homes. The very notion that she actually liked Kiki was a surprise too. Kiki wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. She knew that only too well after a friend told her once she was always psycho-analysing everyone.

  She watched Marigold remove rollers from her hair and throw them into a basket on the table. “Going somewhere?”

  “Yes, the cocktail party at No.5. You are too, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not sure. Not until I find out if Ty is okay.”

  “Perhaps he couldn’t start his car and he walked home, or maybe he got a lift.”

  Kiki pouted and nodded. It was a sensible suggestion. “Maybe.”

  “Have you checked to see if his keys are in the car.”

  “No, do you think I should?”

  Marigold shrugged. She either didn’t know or she didn’t care.

  Kiki wasn’t used to Marigold not caring. Maybe she had something else on her mind. “Do you think I should call the police?”

  “If you want to put your mind at rest, and if you really think something’s wrong, then, yes, maybe it would be for the best.”

  “Can I use your phone?”

  “Of course.”

  She was just in the middle of dialling 999 when the lights went out.

  “Power cut,” Marigold said, from the dimming daylight. She went to the wall next to the door and checked the light switches.

  “Now I won’t be able to report him missing,” Kiki said, looking at the sky outside becoming overcast.

  “And you won’t be able to get through the gate either. You’ll have to wait until it comes back on.”

  “There must be an override to the keypad.”

  “Nope, we tried it before when we had a power cut. It’s a modern contraption, so, it won’t work without electric. Sorry!”

  “That’s a really stupid design fault.” Kiki wondered if she could fix it. She was an engineer after all. Then she decided that maybe it would be a futile exercise. The power could come back on at any moment.

  Marigold shrugged again. “You’ve been here when we’ve had a blackout.”

  “Yes, but I can’t remember ever trying the gates.”

  “Well, take my word for it, when the power’s off, no one gets in or out.”

  “That’s ridiculous, especially when we can’t even telephone for help.” She thought about that. “Wow! We’re like sitting ducks. What if there was a fire or something?”

  “That’s what the cliff steps are for. When we bought the house, the developers told us that in the event of a fire, we should go down to the beach and wait for the emergency services.”

  Kiki frowned “What about when the tide is in?”

  Clearly Marigold hadn’t thought about that eventuality. “Well anyway,” she said dismissing the problem. “We haven’t got a fire. It’s just the power and I’m sure someone will report it. Until then, we’ll just have to wait it out.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Rhianna was welcomed into their house with open arms. After a glass of lemonade, Tammy dug out some candles, while Tom opened a bottle of wine. The cork popped out and he poured three glasses. “Tell us about yourself, Rhianna,” he said. He spoke with a deep voice. His mouth was shaped into a soft smile and his teeth were beautiful, off-white, not bright white. He wore a bangle made of leather twine on one wrist and a large gold watch on the other. He wore no ring, and his fingernails were well cared for. Not that he’d had a manicure, he was too masculine for that, but he clearly didn’t do any dirty work.

  “Well, I’ve only just arrived. Last night, actually. My Uncle Rolf offered to put me up until I settled into my new job.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’ve secured a position at the Devonshire Post, as a reporter. I love to write.”

  “Me too,” said Tom.

  “Really?”

  Tammy spoke after she’d lit the candles and she sat down. “Tom writes novels.”

  “No way.”

  “Well, it’s just a hobby. I’ve never had the nerve to submit anything. Rejection isn’t something I find easy to overcome.”

  “But you have overcome your disability…” She rushed…“if you don’t mind me saying so. You seem very brave.” Rhianna couldn’t believe how blunt she was being with him. It was as if she’d known him all her life.

  He stared at her. He was probably thinking how rude she was for being so blatantly honest. “I’m not brave,” he said. “I just have no choice the matter.”

  She bowed her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You have no idea how much I resent people who avoid the subject. So much so, it’s embarrassing, making it difficult for me to raise the subject in case they faint away at the notion of an invalid being so direct.”

  “I think I understand a bit about how you feel,” Rhianna said. “I had an aunt who had MS. She was confined to a wheelchair and when I took her out, people would ignore her and talk directly to me. I found it quite shocking. It was as if she’d suddenly lost her whole identity.”

  “It’s the ‘does she take sugar in her coffee’ syndrome. That’s why we hardly go beyond the gates,” Tammy said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “My brother and I are pretty much reclusive. We found we were intolerant of the stares and the opinions and the whole stigma attached to his disability.”

  “I don’t really get it…but, honestly…when I spoke with your neighbour today, she said you were husband and wife, and she gave me the impression that you were a lot older than you are…and she whispered when she spoke about you as if the subject was taboo.”

  Tammy and Tom chuckled. They seemed to appreciate Rhianna’s candour. However, she had to wonder if she was pushing it a bit too far. “To be honest…I have to say, I had a picture in my head too. And when you opened the door, I couldn’t believe that you were the woman she’d
described to me. Is that odd?”

  “No. It’s normal, apparently. Terribly normal! More’s the pity.”

  “How do you put up with it? I mean, you’re clearly independent…young, intelligent and self-reliant…why aren’t you shouting from the rooftops, complaining about how the image of you is wrong?”

  “We’ve done that. We never gained much.”

  “And we never will,” Tom said. “Not until attitudes change.”

  “Frankly, though,” said Tammy. “There are a lot of handicapped people who don’t have a lot of drive or ambition. I’m not saying Tom is unique, but he never gave up when it happened to him and that’s what matters.” She was pensive when she said, “Maybe one day, people will be accepted for their disabilities, you know, not looked at, as if they had two heads. Maybe forty years from now!”

  “Or maybe never,” said Tom.

  Rhianna didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say.

  The candle was flickering. It was almost completely dark outside now, except for the moon reflecting against the dark clouds overhead. The candlelight made the room glow. “It’s getting cold,” Tammy said. “Let’s go sit in the front room. We can put the fire on.”

  The whole house was without carpet, and Rhianna loved the effect. Almost like it was a cosy log cabin. The furniture was seventies modern, except for an old grandfather clock in the hall surrounded by dark wooden shelves laden with books.

  Tammy and Rhianna carried torches as they went into the front room. Tom followed on behind. He threw a match on the fire and it flared up. “It’s gas,” he said smiling.

  Rhianna thought it looked completely real. “I like it.”

  As Tammy lit candles and went back for the wine, Tom swung himself onto the couch next to Rihanna. She almost backed away, but then she realised she wanted to be close to him. But he misconstrued her hesitation. “I should go shower,” he said smiling.