by Jan Ruth
‘Helen I-’
‘Just piss off!’
His eyes level with hers, he walked backwards down the hall, only coming to his senses when he collided with an umbrella stand and the evening bingo crowd trying to get through the front door. It was difficult to tear his eyes from hers, but in the end he had to.
Some twenty minutes later he drew up at the farm, not entirely sure he wanted to face, anyone but the second he got the car door open, Fran came trotting out. She slowed down as she neared the car and spotted all the mess inside, himself included.
‘Why are Greg’s things in the car?’ she said, tugging at a half-open bag. Her eyes roamed through the belongings crushed up at the windows and began to point out items she recognised. ‘That’s his yellow jersey from the Cymraeg Centenary Circuit.’
She began to stockpile things into her arms with a horrible desperation, looking more and more like the doctor out of Back to the Future, all wild bulging eyes and mad hair. ‘But why, Al?’ Fran cried, rifling through a bag of shirts.
‘What’s going on?’ Kate shouted from the doorway. The pool of light from the hall just about illuminated the scene and he could see his brother’s bulk hovering behind Kate. Great. The day had started really well and then everything after lunch had been a downhill race to a smack in the face dead-end.
‘Kate. I’m sorry but the charity shops were shut.’
‘So… you brought everything back here?’
‘I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘That’s because his brains are in his pants,’ George said. ‘You look wrecked.’
‘I’ve had some unwelcome news.’
‘Oh,’ Kate said, her face tight. ‘Well, nothing serious I hope?’
‘It is pretty serious actually. Worst serious news I think I’ve had in a long time,’ he said, and made to get past his brother.
‘Blown you out, has she?’ George said, then shoved his way outside. He caught hold of Fran, gently relieving her of the armful of clothing and began to load everything into the rear of his 4x4. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ he said to Kate, full of authority. ‘I’ll sort this out for you. My brother can never be relied upon to do the right thing.’
Doing the right thing. He thought he had done the right thing by Jo and the baby. He thought he’d done the right thing in being a great dad to Tom and Maisie but none of these things seemed to count for anything. The role reversal of men and women didn’t work either. The man’s role was all about making money first and then being efficient in everything else. The woman’s role was just about anything they fancied; from a cute stay-at-home super-mum to some kind of ball-breaking bitch heading up the boardroom, ready for the company take-over.
He’d made a mistake a long time ago, quite a big one he was the first to admit, but he’d done the right thing in the aftermath, hadn’t he? He’d protected the one person he loved the most from the entire mess with his silence.
Until he’d told Helen.
Chapter Seven
Kate.
Odd, that she thought about sex in such a sustained way since she’d found herself a singleton at the age of forty-nine. Sex was everywhere; films, books, even street advertising, but never a muffin top in sight unless you were in the supermarket, of course, and even then, there were subtle sexual signals at work. No limit to its power of seduction, or variety. The advert for yoghurt for example, was enhanced by a blonde thirty-something with her cleavage on display, a spoon halfway to her pouting mouth. She found it irksome, an insult to her intelligence and deliberately avoided the brand.
In books, out of the public glare, it seemed the more extreme the better. Her daughter read books about multiple BDSM relationships - she’d had to Google the initials to understand what it meant - and had distasteful public chats about it through a book discussion group on the internet. The themes were along the lines of sex with two men at the same time, or two women and one man, or if you were bored by all of that how about sex with other people watching? Then there was a flash-fiction section built around the plot lines from fairy tales but destroying them with various sexual acts along the way. Alice in Wonderland and the Queen of Tarts explore the Hole, or some such atrocity. No doubt the White Rabbit didn’t get away unblemished either.
Their mother-daughter arguments around these subjects were prolific and frightening. Sad, that the only trigger for any deep emotion usually happened after one of her daughter’s rants. It just made her weep, the memory of the little girl she used to be and the woman she had become. She seemed so hard, and selfish. Was it her fault? Maybe the divorce had made her like this? Did she expect to be used by men and so strove to get in first?
‘Why are you even reading what I post on the Internet?’ she’d snarl. ‘My reading and sexual preferences have nothing to do with you!’
‘Can you not see that I’m worried about the kind of men knocking on my door looking for you. Older, with a pair of bloody handcuffs!’
‘Look, Mum,’ she’d said, as if she were far more worldly-wise. ‘I know what I’m doing. It’s just a bit of fun. We even have a safe word.’
‘Fun? And why would you feel unsafe?’
The key word of course was erotic but it had a wide-ranging meaning. In all cases, it looked tacky and cheap to Kate. Some of the books were headed romance, and this seemed doubly insidious.
She’s hot, he likes it when she’s a dog and begs for it.
They argued about everything. Her musical taste had a pounding darkness to it with lyrics repeated over and over. Wake me up inside. Photographs on her Facebook page presented another battleground. Studded tongues pulled out, backsides showing, nipples poking through flimsy tops, her friend throwing up in a neighbour’s hanging basket. Kate thought it was mindless and degrading, but perhaps that was her age, her generation, where women had fought for years for equality and respect, only to allow their daughters to throw it all away again.
Did sex really underpin one’s existence and happiness? Did one need to be having lots and lots of sex? After all, it was only nature’s way of procreating children, there was nothing more mysterious to it. Anything more was just self-gratification, wasn’t it?
When she’d been with Greg there was a protection from the more blatant intrusion of sex. There was a presumption you had some sort of sex life. The truth of it had been very different, but behind the facade of marriage, it had all quietly taken a back seat.
She hadn’t minded. At first, Greg’s obsession with keeping fit and all the cycling had seemed a good thing, but then as time had worn on, watching his aero-dynamic body sliding into all that sweaty Lycra and padded underwear, had just revolted her. She no longer enjoyed the feel of him, either. He seemed to grow long and stringy, like a youth. It was likely tied up with his general need for cycling and she’d simply grown to hate his hobby, jealous of the time it consumed. Maybe.
And now there was a pile of his things in the sitting room at Chathill. Fran was clearly horrified that Kate had wanted to get rid of certain items of memorabilia, and clearly miffed that she hadn’t been asked or consulted. She’d made an odd choice of items to cherish, and Butter had already made off with an inner tube. While all of this awkwardness was going on, George had taken control of the situation and emptied her car. Al, slunk upstairs to his room like a teenager.
She was deeply annoyed with him for being unreliable and insensitive, but then she was curious about the bad news. He’d been such good company in the pub, easy to talk to and unfazed by her outburst concerning Greg. She’d never confided in anyone about the morning of the accident but somehow Al had a way of drawing her out, or did he draw her in? He’d been so attentive, everything she’d said had been considered, and absorbed.
When she padded back across the landing from using the bathroom some two hours later, she could see he was still sprawled across the unmade bed, fully clothed and staring at the ceiling with his trademark cigarette in place. She was almost past the doo
r when he called her name, then when she stopped in her tracks, motioned that she perch next to him. He’d picked up her hand and rubbed it. The gesture was almost too intimate, but the warmth of it had her captivated.
‘Kate, I’m so, so sorry-’
‘It’s okay, it doesn’t matter. It’s only things.’
She wished she could believe it; she did on the whole, but Fran didn’t see it like that at all and had taken to wearing the cycling jersey over her jumper as she did evening chores outside, a huge number 9 just visible in the dusk.
*
The discomfort over the charity bags rumbled on. Kate found herself interrogated over a late breakfast on Wednesday.
‘So, yesterday, you went into town with Al?’ Fran said.
‘Yes, then we had lunch. Can’t believe how long we talked for, I guess partly my fault the charity shops were shut.’
‘What did you talk about? Sorry, that’s a bit rude.’
‘Mostly books. I’m going to get his old titles out onto the e-book store.’
‘Has he said anything about that girl? Jo?’
‘No,’ she said, truthfully.
Fran continued to be slightly off-hand with her, despite keeping to the loose arrangement that Kate had agreed to ride Stilton, Becca’s new horse. Now she was faced with the reality instead of the wine-induced bravado from a couple of evenings previous, she wasn’t so certain it was a good idea. Watching the hunter-fit horse career around the perimeter of his field sent her stomach churning with anxiety. She’d ridden as a teenager, a lot. But the sixties and seventies had been a long time ago, her days filled with treasure hunts on the ponies of her youth were distant memories, and the sun was always shining in them.
She drove past one such trekking centre some days and it was sad to see it closed, given over to private liveries because it was easier, cheaper, less hassle. The horses looked sad and bored, pulled out at the weekends to trot round the same circuit, the pasture sick and unkempt because no one wanted the responsibility of it. Some days her heart was in her mouth when she saw young girls trying to get horses in or out of the paddock gate, cars whipping past with no thought of slowing down. It made her feel incredibly melancholy, a little like the sex issue with Tia had.
Greg had smirked and told her it was the start of the menopause. Maybe it was, but it was tiresome, this constant harking back to when things were better. It was exactly what her mother did, and she and Annemarie used to laugh with derision.
Stilton came to her with no fuss, nuzzling her hands for treats as she fumbled with the halter, first getting it upside down and then not being able to fasten the buckle. He walked with her across the muddy grass, his long swinging stride keeping pace and it felt good, just to be doing something different. The thought of riding again was something of a mixed bag, because although it felt good to push herself to feel something, it was a little odd to think that even fear was a welcome visitor.
Fran had her trotting on small circles and other shapes, requiring a surprising degree of concentration, and all of which confirmed how unfit and uncoordinated she’d become. Once upon a time her centre of balance aligned to the movement of the horse without thinking about it, it now required substantial effort. After ten minutes, she was running with sweat and had to stop.
Fran grinned. ‘Just take your time, you have a natural seat, obvious you’ve ridden a lot in the past.’
‘Nothing feels natural, I assure you.’
‘Let’s do some more warming up and then you can finish with a canter.’
Her stomach sank, but she was determined to do it, to feel the connection she used to have. She persevered, until Fran declared them both good to canter. Stilton anticipated all of this long before she got to the right spot, and bunny-hopped with enthusiasm before bounding into too fast a pace for the size of the circuit, causing him to swerve round the bend instead of slowing down. Kate lost a stirrup and had to pull up, distinctly lopsided and holding on to the front of the saddle like a novice.
‘Are you all right?’ Fran said anxiously. ‘He put in a funny one didn’t he?’
‘I think I’ve bitten my tongue!’
They laughed together, and for a moment it was like it used to be. ‘You recovered well though.’
‘I don’t feel recovered, not from anything.’
Fran smiled wistfully at this and patted her leg. When Kate followed her line of sight, she saw Al had been watching, hat jammed down, collar up.
‘That was rubbish!’ he yelled.
‘Get over here and you do it then!’ Fran yelled back, but he just grinned and tapped a cigarette over and over onto his mobile phone.
Kate jumped down from the horse, wincing at the jolt of pain it sent reverberating through her feet. So that meant she had no natural shock absorbers left either. Once Stilton was untacked, they both walked the horse back to his paddock. A cold wind snatched at her hair and Stilton’s grey mane, blending both into a monochrome sky streaked with an odd hue. Early snow, or hail maybe, falling on higher ground.
‘I think I enjoyed that,’ she said to Fran with a smile. ‘Although I need to do more exercise, clearly. My small excuse is that I was up half the night reading Al’s book.’
Fran studied her face carefully. ‘What did you think of it?’
‘Well, I read it all in one sitting, very entertaining.’
‘Yes he is, very entertaining.’
On the return walk to the house, looking at Chathill from a distance, she was struck by how shabby everything really was. Not that there was any welfare issue with the animals, but the whole place looked dismal, sagging fences patched up with planks of wood, and huge holes in the chicken wire, all pulled together with complicated bits of string. Once upon a time, George used to keep it all contained and tidy with everything in good repair, but it was as if he’d given up, and although she had to admit there were far too many animals for the space. She hated to think what it must cost to feed them all, let alone pay the feed merchant and the vet. Fran might be big-hearted and generous but it all came out of her husband’s pocket.
The aforementioned invitation to lunch with George was scheduled for 1pm at The Fairy Glen Hotel and Kate found herself pleased to be driving along the valley road to Betws. Hellishly busy in the summer, the town was virtually empty out of season, so no problem parking. The venue was typical of many establishments in the area, too big and too old to keep in good repair, but there was an appetising aroma when she pushed open the door. Gloomy, full of huge mirrors and portraits, Kate found her way into the bar area, which was a mix of eighties carpets and curtains. In its favour, it boasted a very welcome, albeit fierce log burner.
George waved and held out a chair for her at a small table by the window. She smiled at the chivalrous gesture and accepted a glass of wine and a copy of the menu. He told her he’d dealt with the charity bags, and that his brother was an abnormal waste of space. She thanked him, but chose to ignore the predictable slight on his brother. They ordered local lamb with roasted vegetables and Kate remarked on how well they seemed to know him, the barman and the waiter.
‘Yes, well I eat here every day, virtually. Do you blame me?’ he said, and topped up her wine glass. ‘I bet you wish you’d gone away somewhere warm and exciting for your holiday, rather than the local animal sanctuary cum drop-out centre, hmm?’
‘Have you brought me here to have a moan about Al and Fran?’
‘Not entirely, no. But I wanted to have a frank chat, you know me, I say things as I see them. And I see you slaving away in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning, trying to scrub cat shit off the mat. What sort of a break is that?’
‘Well, I’ve enjoyed it so far. I’ve been taken out to lunch twice, caught up on my reading and this morning I rode Stilton, which I am very proud of.’
He almost smiled at her, then shot her something halfway between a laugh and a derisory grunt. ‘And this is preferable to a week in the sun, being waited on, sho
pping and sightseeing?’
‘In a way, yes. I’m with my family, what’s left of it. It’s nice to be slightly unavailable for my sister. My daughter doesn’t need me in any capacity and my mother… look, to be honest I couldn’t have coped with planning anything and getting to an airport, too much bother.’
George extended his big hand across the table and covered hers. ‘You’re still vulnerable from your loss, you need to be careful.’
They were interrupted by the arrival of the lamb. It was remarkably good and halted the conversation, which gave her time to think about his words and how she might change the subject, but she didn’t get the chance.
‘I saw you, with Al,’ he said, dabbing his chin, eyes on hers. ‘I saw you both walking through town.’
‘We had a good day, as it happens.’
‘Don’t be drawn in by him, Kate.’
‘Why are you at each other’s throats? Do you mind me asking?’
‘Not at all, but you may not get a full answer.’
‘Did you ever get on, in the past?’
His eyes locked on to hers and for a long moment, she thought he wasn’t going to respond. When he did, it was with such gravity she was left with no doubt every word was from the heart. ‘I loved my brother, Kate.’ He took a moment to consider, draining his half-pint thoughtfully. ‘You know, Mum and Dad couldn’t have any more kids so they went for adoption. I was dreading getting a sister, but from the day he arrived I loved Al more than if we were real blood, even when he told me I’d have to be locked in a glass case and be operated on by aliens when I needed a tonsillectomy. I wet the bed that night, thanks to him. And do you know, he stole every single one of my girlfriends? We fought like dogs over Bethany Brown.’ He shot her a wry smile and screwed up his napkin. ‘Oh, I’m no fool, he had all the looks and the charm. Still does.’
‘What did he do that you can’t bury the hatchet?’
‘Oh, I’d bury one in his head if I thought it would solve anything.’