Would You Believe Him?

by Jack Hollinson

  ‘Right, right, we’ll have to have a meeting to discuss this. When are you in town next?’

  They arranged a meeting for the following week, at Kevin’s agency first, then onto a pub. Barry replaced the telephone with some satisfaction. He would show that Charles! He felt that he needed some luck at the moment - life had been too hard in recent months.

  Barry was able to park his car outside the City office when he went to the meeting, but he got out thinking that it didn’t really fit - a street where expensive Jaguar and Mercedes cars were joined by a tiny Renault 5. Barry rushed into the office.

  ‘Hi, Barry,’ said Kevin. ‘We’ve got to go into the big chief’s office to work things out. He does want his say!’

  They went into the Managing Director’s office and Barry told them about his plans and needs. He was interested about what they wanted and if he would have to pay for insurance and mentioned this.

  ‘Oh, we don’t insure our clients anyway,’ said the Managing Director. ‘I think we can handle your business for you but we will charge three per cent of the total cost of each graphic design, is that okay? I’ll put this in writing to you soon.’

  ‘Thank you very much. That sounds fine to me,’ said Barry.

  ‘Let’s go down to the jolly old watering hole,’ said Kevin. ‘I need some light refreshment.’

  Barry and Kevin sauntered into the pub and sat down. They discussed many things - the past, the present, holidays, and cars and Kevin seemed quite keen on Triton’s. It was almost as though he wanted to work there but, if Barry had been any quicker, he might have realised that Kevin had had words with Charles and had been asked to try and persuade Barry to return.

  Barry was thinking of telling Kevin about the poisoning, but, luckily, thought better of it. Kevin wouldn’t have believed him and Barry did want to use Kevin’s agency.

  In the next few weeks, letters were exchanged and the deal was made. Barry then wrote a letter to Triton’s telling them of his decision not to buy artwork through them, any more. He felt a kind of glee as he pushed each typewriter key down, and a thrill when he put the letter in the envelope. Free, he thought!

  In next to no time, it was the second meeting with Cathy and crew. Barry turned up a bit later this time but, still Cathy wasn’t there. Barry had a drink and a chat and, when she arrived, they went downstairs to a meal of spaghetti bolognaise. It was a nice evening but, again, little progress was made. They were thinking of getting a fund-raising event together but where and when was to be decided at a later date.

  Barry was a little more vociferous, this time, describing his, and his client’s success in their marketing. He was sure that this would work for the cause but he was told that the cause wasn’t ready to spend any money, yet. He came away in quite confused frame of mind, wondering which way they were going.

  He was just turning into the end of his road when he felt a sudden pain in his bowel region. He went into his house still feeling this pain and thought that it must have come from the meal he had just eaten.

  Over the next few days, he had quite serious pains when he went to the toilet and this worried him so much that he decided to wear a condom when making love, to stop whatever it was from being transferred to Shu. She was simply amazed.

  Barry told her nothing about his pains in case she refused to believe him again so he had to attempt to reassure her that he wasn’t round the twist and just carried on. That first climax since experiencing the pains felt as though someone had put a red hot branding iron on him - he squirmed but said nothing.

  He spent the next few days trying to get rid of the pain and finally went to see his female doctor. She examined him, carefully putting on medical gloves to stop anything being transferred to her and could find nothing wrong so just gave him a prescription for some pills to help him. Barry took it and left without questioning her about what she thought it was which he regretted later.

  The pills worked, however, and Barry made up his mind not to see that crowd again. He felt in the same position as when he had worked for Charles. He had been, presumably, poisoned but how could be prove it? The reason was simple - Cathy had a crush on him and wanted to ruin his relationship with his wife in some way or another. He could have gone to the police, but nothing had happened yet and they only dealt with cases where there was a clear object, like theft or murder - suspicion wasn’t enough.

  The next time Barry and Shu made love, Barry didn’t use a condom and only had a slight pain but was satisfied that nothing would infect her.

  The next time he saw Cathy was at another hospital where a different local group of the Head Injury Trust was starting up.

  He was getting out of his car when she drove up, got out of hers and hurried away. She didn’t speak to Barry all evening and that suited him fine. He knew she had a guilty look on her face but Barry saw no point in questioning her - he would only get lies.

  Shu’s pregnancy was continuing without any cause for alarm and, in May, she discovered a bump on her stomach which made her sure that she was pregnant. She had asked her mother to come over to see the new baby and was going to stop work at the end of July, which was when her mother would arrive.

  Barry wasn’t fussed. He had only seen his mother-in-law once before when they had gone on holiday and he couldn’t speak Chinese and she couldn’t speak English. No problem.

  Time flashed by and in no time at all they were at Heathrow to meet her. She had come over by one of the longest routes and had been travelling for almost twenty-four hours and when she walked into the airport lounge, she looked the worse for wear so Shu and Barry whisked her home. It ended up with Shu calling the doctor to come around as her mother had badly swollen legs. Barry was a little worried about the cost of the doctor’s time, as she hadn’t got medical insurance, but, luckily, no bill ever materialised.

  In August, everything went according to plan. Shu’s due date was the thirtieth of August and she felt no abnormal pains all month. Shu’s mother - seemed at ease in the first two weeks, getting to know the garden, which she was completely unaccustomed to, walking around the area, praying or chanting to Buddha at night and being out at weekends.

  She liked the garden so much that, one day, Barry was in the kitchen and Shu’s mother came in from the garden with a dandelion in her hands. She walked over to Barry.

  ‘I rove you,’ she said, laughing girlishly. Barry didn’t know what to make of this.

  ‘Ha, ha, yes, mother dear, I love you too,’ he joked. But what did she mean? She was sixty-nine, a bit too old for Barry, so was this parental love for her daughter transferring to her son-in-law?

  Shu’s mother went slowly out of the room, still tittering. Barry was impressed. She only knew a very few English words but she chose to find out how to say that! Anyway, Barry quickly forgot it and concentrated on his wife and child. They were of uppermost importance in his mind.

  Shu was overdue and went into hospital to see the doctor. He was concerned, as the baby was getting bigger and she was such a small lady so he gave instructions to have the baby induced and, as it would be quite a few hours before the baby was born, sent Barry home. This certainly pleased Barry for he hated waiting around and doing nothing so rushed home to do some work.

  Shu’s mother seemed content to wait in her room almost all day, venturing out only to cook the midday meal. Barry had enough to do to keep himself busy, writing letters, following up old letters and his general office work,

  At 4 p.m., the phone rang and a nurse told him that Shu was almost ready to give birth. Barry didn’t spare the horses and rushed to the maternity unit of the hospital, expecting an almost immediate delivery. Shu’s contractions were occurring at a rate of one in every seven minutes and, as there was not much to do between times, Barry got his newspaper out, sat down and read. He didn’t realise that this was not the most tactful thing to do, but wh
at with a nurse giving her gas and another standing the other side of the bed, there was not a lot that he could do. When Shu was fully dilated, the midwife started to instruct her as to when to push to help the baby to come out. Suddenly, she looked up.

  ‘It’s inverted - a breech birth! Quick, call Doctor Lacey.’ A nurse rushed out of the delivery room and, soon, the room had doctors, nurses, midwives and student doctors humming around the bed and Barry was pinned to the wall.

  ‘Why are there so many people here?’ he asked the midwife.

  ‘Oh, it’s not often that we have a breech birth so they’re here to study the techniques used. That’s if you don’t mind?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ said Barry. ‘The more, the merrier!’

  Shu went through a great deal of pain and had to be cut to allow the baby to come out, but, because her face hadn’t been squashed, the little girl was beautiful.

  ‘Isn’t she gorgeous,’ said the midwife.

  Barry had his camera to hand and finished a film taking pictures of everybody - especially the baby.

  Pretty soon after the birth, Shu’s mother decided that she’d had enough of England and demanded Shu to book her a seat on the earliest possible plane home. Shu was sad that she didn’t stay any longer but, dutifully, she booked a seat for the next week. The whole family fought traffic jams and suffered a burst tyre en-route to Heathrow but got there just in time and Shu’s mother looked very pleased to be returning to Japan.

  Shu had remained determined to go back to work and, two months after the birth, set off for town on a Monday morning, leaving Barry looking after the baby, Sara. Luckily, it was as Barry had hoped - eat, burp and sleep - so he managed to service his clients adequately. On occasions, he did have to go out but didn’t feel at all embarrassed, doing business whilst he clutched the child. His artist had children so he knew the score and he felt quite proud when taking his baby down the High Street to the bank.

  Barry was lucky that Sara was using a dummy because he didn’t hear a sound after feeding her and giving it to her. However, it did have a bad side, because it was going to be almost impossible to take it away from her, as she grew older.

  The family was settling down nicely. Shu was earning a good salary and Barry had made a reasonable profit from his first year. Sara was getting more boisterous by the end of January so, with the place at the nursery still not becoming available, Shu sent off to the council for a list of approved child-minders. There were many to choose from in the area so Barry and Shu made several appointments to visit child-minders to select the best for Sara.

  They went to visit one in the road parallel to theirs but she wanted them to give her Sara’s car seat every time they dropped her off, she didn’t seem to have many toys and she had about eight school children to look after between the time that they left school and the time that they got picked up by their mothers.

  They finally found a child-minder, recommended by a lady at the council. She had a separate playroom packed out with toys and seemed very competent. Her name was Betty and she had three children of her own who were very well behaved. Barry was to drop Sara off at nine and pick her up at four-thirty, which seemed a good way to handle things and the charges were well within their budget.

  After Sara had been going for two weeks, Shu was a little worried because she had immediately caught a cold.

  ‘Oh don’t worry; she must build up her resistance to diseases. Meeting new adults and children each day brings her into contact with many other people with germs,’ said Barry.

  ‘But supposing she gets a serious disease?’ Shu was showing her motherly love for Sara.

  ‘Then she’ll go to the doctor’s. Don’t worry. I’m sorry but I can’t look after her now - I’m too busy.’

  ‘Please keep an eye on her,’ said Shu, shrugging her shoulders.

  Shu then mentioned a letter she had had from Carol in Japan.

  ‘In this letter I got from Carol today - she wants to know if we can put up a student for a while. What do you think?’

  ‘Yes, that’s okay by me. It will make us some extra money, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes I suppose so.’

  ‘She can sleep in the Penthouse Suite.’ Shu looked puzzled. ‘All right, in the extension on the second floor. We might as well use it after paying a couple of grand to make it,’ explained Barry.

  Understandably Shu was a bit worried about another lady moving in and living and sleeping next door to Barry’s office. She did trust Barry - but only ninety-nine per cent of the time.

  ‘Will she disturb you?’ she asked.

  ‘Doubt it. She’ll be at school all day, won’t she, and I have got darling Sara to sort out.’

  ‘Well, okay. She’s coming next month so I’ll have to let them know how much we’ll charge.’

  ‘Yes, you do that and I’ll tidy up the room,’ said Barry.

  He was pleased to be helping his wife’s sister-in-law and even more pleased to be getting some cash into the bargain. The connection between Charles and Carol worried Barry because she was a cousin of one of his ex-wives, but Barry didn’t think that any ties between them would be likely - not now!

  Chapter Thirteen

  Shu had made it very clear that she wasn’t going to put herself out for their lodger, Dongmei, and left her to find her own way from the airport to their home. She arrived on a Saturday, in a taxi, complete with two suitcases and Shu met her at the door.

  ‘Oh, ni hao,’ said Dongmei and rattled off some Chinese. Barry stood behind Shu who welcomed their new guest.

  ‘Harro,’ Dongmei said to Barry, in typical Chinese fashion, having never mastered the ‘L’ pronunciation. Her features were pure Chinese with slanting eyes, high cheekbones and missing upper eyelids. She had a wafer-thin body and waist length hair and she was quite beautiful, but still nowhere near as beautiful as Shu.

  Shu showed her the bedroom and Barry helped with the suitcases and then they left her to sleep off her jet lag and get herself sorted out.

  ‘Seems a nice girl,’ said Barry.

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Shu, as though she thought the entire Chinese race was pure in word and deed.

  ‘How long is she staying? Six months, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, until she has plans to go back.’

  ‘Hmm, a nice little earner. Mind you, I think I’ll declare it to the tax-man for you never know if someone in the road will report us.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’ll be all right. I don’t want to lose money,’

  ‘It won’t be much. I don’t like dodging tax for you never know what the taxman will do!’

  Shu looked away in disgust but Barry wasn’t bothered because he preferred to be on the right side of the law. Dongmei settled in quite nicely over the first few weeks and Barry thought that things were going well. Easter was coming up and they had decided to go to stay with Barry’s mother for four days and Barry took it for granted that Dongmei was going with them.

  ‘You are coming to my mother’s with us, aren’t you, Dongmei?’ Barry asked at one mealtime, shortly before they left.

  ‘Err no - I want to stay here,’ said Dongmei.

  This came as bit of a bombshell to Barry. Seeing as how he could not trust Charles, he found it difficult to trust anyone else.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right. I don’t want anything happening to you whilst we’re away.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll be okay, Barry’ said Shu and Barry stared at her, expecting support, not opposition.

  ‘Oh, well, um, be careful then - and lock up after yourself when you go out.’

  There was not much Barry could do now - just trust to fate, and to God. After his accident, he had lost his faith in God because he thought that if God loved him, why had he let him have the ac
cident. This thought stayed in Barry’s mind for a few years but then he got around to realising that if God didn’t love him, he’d now be dead, so, once again, he trusted and believed in God and was thankful for his life and his brilliant recovery.

  On Good Friday the family motored up to Barry’s mothers in the morning. Dongmei was pleased that she hadn’t been forced to go and made a telephone call to Charles.

  ‘Barry and Shu have gone to his mother’s and Carol told me that I could earn some pocket money by helping you.’

  ‘Yes, right, thanks for calling. I’ll be around to see you this afternoon.’

  Charles rubbed his hands together with a sly grin on his face. He now had the chance to put some more of the poison into Barry’s food, which would stop him from fathering any more children and would, he hoped, drive a wedge between Barry and Shu. He had failed whilst Barry was working for him so now he had a second chance.

  That afternoon, Charles parked his car around the corner from Barry’s house and walked to the front door. Dongmei let him in.

  ‘I have some medicine which Barry needs. Can you put it into his milk when no one is looking.’

  ‘How much will you give me for this?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll pay you £200 a month. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’ll do it but won’t he see it?’

  ‘No, it dissolves completely and it will not kill him. It is just to help him.’

  Charles was using his experience again to try to persuade Dongmei to have no worries about what she was being asked to do and to make her think that he was a nice man, underneath it all. Dongmei didn’t need this persuasion, though, for she saw the money as a chance to gain some independence in a foreign land and to start a life on her own.

  ‘What if he is suspicious?’

  ‘Just believe that you’ve done nothing and tell him so. He can’t prove anything, easily.’