by Hilary Boyd
‘I told you, I’m late,’ she said. ‘I have to go.’
Ray moved silently towards the door and opened it for her. She felt for her keys, couldn’t find them in her pocket of her suit jacket, scrabbled in her capacious bag, slammed her briefcase on the counter again and dredged the corners. No keys.
‘Christ!’ She began again with her bag. She could see her hands were trembling, but she couldn’t seem to do anything but this manic searching, a searching that felt like an end in itself that would continue for ever and ever, even after the keys were found.
‘Are these them?’ Ray was holding up her keys in his right hand.
Jeanie just looked at him, not trusting herself to speak, her heart thudding uncomfortably at the close proximity.
Ray didn’t move, just held out the keys to her. ‘They were on the shelf,’ he said, his voice soft.
When she didn’t take them, just stood gazing at him, he put them down on the top of her briefcase.
‘I’d better go,’ he said.
Everything seemed to slow to nothing as she watched him turn and walk towards the door. It might have been a hundred years till she heard a small voice say, ‘Ray . . .’ and recognized it as her own.
‘I do have to go, I am late for the accountants.’
Ray nodded, smiled. ‘I did believe you,’ he said.
‘Will you meet me later? In town? At least not anywhere near here?’
‘Aren’t you angry?’ They were sitting in a Japanese cafe on the corner of Lisle Street sipping miso soup. The restaurant was heaving with the lunchtime rush but they’d found a cramped space in the corner under the coats, which suited them fine. Ray had taken a long time considering what she told him.
‘Do you really think he made it up?’
Jeanie looked at him incredulously. ‘Well, it didn’t happen, so he must have.’
‘It seems such an evil thing to do. I reckon he must have heard Ellie burbling on about something – you know how they do at that age – and got the wrong end of the stick.’
‘Chanty said the same, but I don’t even think that. You didn’t see him. He wouldn’t even meet my eye.’
‘But Jeanie, unless the man’s a moron, accusing you of being the conduit to his daughter’s abuser is daft. Why would he do that?’ Despite his robust tone, she could see he was worried. ‘They aren’t going to take it any further, are they?’
‘They said no . . . I think I convinced Chanty.’ She shook her head in exasperation. ‘I still can’t believe he said it . . . out of the blue like that.’
Ray took a drink from his beer bottle as they both sat in silence.
‘It would ruin my life if there was even a hint,’ he said eventually, passing his hand across his stubbly grey hair in a gesture Jeanie had come to love. ‘Natalie would stop me seeing the boy, the school would be fucked – nobody has to prove anything, a rumour’d be enough to scupper me.’
Jeanie nodded. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘Like it’s your fault.’
‘They’re my relatives.’
‘So you don’t think Ellie actually said anything?’
The waitress stood beside the table with their food, and both of them looked at it with the same disregard.
‘She might have mentioned you. She adores you and Dylan, you make her laugh. But her stories involve all the people she knows and make no sense whatsoever. She’s too young to know that sitting on someone’s knee might be a problem. Anyway, that’s irrelevant, she’s never been on your knee.’ Jeanie wrenched her suit jacket off, suddenly boiling hot.
Ray shook his head, clearly bewildered. ‘Do you think someone else, another man, could be involved? It is true, but she just got the man muddled up?’
Jeanie hadn’t thought of this, and quickly trawled through the possibilities. ‘She never sees anyone except me and George and Alex . . . not on her own.’
She picked at the rice and chicken with her chopsticks. ‘Of course, they both have her on their knee all the time.’
Ray gave her a quizzical look and she laughed.
‘No, no . . . I really don’t think either my husband or my son-in-law’s a child-molester.’
‘Just a liar.’
‘But the truth isn’t always the point, is it?’
The words hung in the air. They both knew what she meant. The momentary ache of pleasure Jeanie had experienced as she sat down opposite Ray was lost.
‘I’ve never been blackmailed before in my life,’ Ray stated. He looked baffled, out of his depth, his studied calm temporarily deserting him, but she watched as he took a slow breath and seemed to retreat into himself for a moment. ‘In aikido we’re taught to see our attacker as someone who’s lost touch with their own nature, not as evil. It’s not about combat but self-defence; we use the attacker’s body weight to deflect the attack.’
‘Sounds admirable, but I don’t see how it helps if he’s not actually coming at you with a machete.’
Ray shrugged. ‘He’ll show his hand eventually.’
He made to take her hand, but she withdrew it, clasping them beneath the table.
‘You know we can’t meet again.’ She heard the dull clunk of her words.
Ray said nothing, just lowered his head.
‘More tea?’ The waitress hovered with a large earthenware pot. They both nodded, although neither had finished the last cup.
‘This thing with Alex frightened me, Ray. It’s your life, my marriage. God knows how Chanty would react if she found out I was cheating on her father . . . I couldn’t bear to lose Ellie again. It can’t be worth it.’
She looked beseechingly at him, but his grey-green eyes met hers with what seemed like amusement.
‘What are we like, eh? Two old codgers wracked like star-crossed teenage lovers.’
She found herself laughing, and for a moment nothing else mattered.
‘Less of the old codger, please.’
‘Jeanie, it’s our turn, isn’t it? We’ve both done our time with relationships and family, in my case not particularly successfully, maybe. But you’ve done the right thing, been there for them all. Then suddenly there’s this powerful connection neither of us expected.’ His voice dropped. ‘I think about you all the time, Jeanie. It may not be cool to tell you, but hey . . .’
Jeanie found herself blushing.
‘I know we don’t know the first thing about each other, not really. But that doesn’t seem to matter. I’m about to burst into cliché, but you make me feel . . . well . . . new. Like that ad: “You, but on a good day”. Is this love? I’ve no idea, but it doesn’t seem to matter what it is.’
For a moment there was silence. The word ‘love’ lay between them, too delicate to be touched.
When Jeanie didn’t speak, he added, ‘All I’m saying is . . .’ He paused, threw his arms in the air in frustration. ‘It’s simple . . . not seeing you is a very bleak option for me.’
‘What can I do?’ Her voice sounded feeble and small.
Now he took both her hands in his, the food forgotten, the other customers dwindling to background noise.
‘Jeanie, we can’t do anything. There’s no plan that will make this all OK. We just have to live with it, deal with things as they come up. If you have to walk away, then so be it, I’ll have to deal with that.’ He paused, squeezed her hands tight. ‘But this seems so precious . . .’
She felt him gently wipe away the single tear that had escaped her control.
‘I’m always bloody crying these days,’ she muttered angrily.
Ray drew back. ‘I’ve said, I’ll never pressure you . . . it wouldn’t be fair. You have a marriage to lose.’
‘We can’t meet with the children any more.’
‘No . . . no, obviously not.’
He seemed to be waiting for her, but she didn’t know what to say.
‘Will I see you again, though?’
Jeanie shook her head. ‘I say I can’t with one breath, and with th
e next I can’t resist you . . .’
He smiled at that, but it was a nervous smile. ‘But . . .’ he offered.
‘But what will happen next? We meet for a drink, we want more. In the end we have more. What then?’
Ray smiled. ‘I can’t answer that, Jeanie.’
‘It isn’t funny.’
‘It may not be, but it doesn’t feel like a disaster either . . . does it?’
Jeanie shook her head, unable to think about it any more. She looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got to get back in a minute. Can we talk about something else? Something normal, like . . .’
They looked at each other and began to laugh.
‘Politics or the weather isn’t doing it for me. All I want to do is kiss you.’ Ray raised his eyebrows in question.
She looked around, panicky. ‘Not here.’
‘Where, then?’
‘We’re too old to kiss in public.’
Ray chuckled. ‘I reckon most people are. That certainly limits the options in the middle of Chinatown, though.’ He waved at the girl to bring the bill.
‘So in theory,’ he whispered, ‘would you like to kiss me?’
Holding his gaze, Jeanie felt a wave of desire which, against her will, produced a small gasp. Ray’s face told her he didn’t need more of an answer.
12
‘We could put the piano in here, for Ellie.’
It was as if George had bought the house already. As they entered each empty room, her husband started dragging virtual furniture from their Highgate house and installing it in the Old Rectory, Woodmanstead (pronounced Woomsted). The washed and brushed estate agent, James, was standing patiently by, toying with his cufflinks and agreeing with everything George said in an overly hearty manner. He had a glint in his eye, Jeanie thought, that must surely be the reflection of pound signs.
‘This is the first house we’ve seen,’ she hissed at George.
‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t buy it, does it?’ he answered mildly.
‘Of course not, but we should at least look at others. This is very expensive.’
She knew it was a waste of time. George would either buy it or not, regardless of the price, regardless almost of what she thought.
‘It’s so perfect,’ he kept muttering, as the glint in the agent’s eye got brighter and brighter.
‘Stop saying how much you like it, will you? It’ll only up the price. He’s not on our side, remember.’
Jeanie was tired. She had forgotten what it was like to have a good night’s sleep. After lunch Ray had taken her to St James’s Park. The hot weather had vanished as if it never was, and in its place was a sharp breeze and intermittent rain. The park had the usual trail of tourists, but not even many of them, and Jeanie and Ray had sat on his coat under a may tree, him cross-legged with an effortlessly straight back, her clutching her legs to her body, her suit skirt demurely pulled taut over her knees.
‘You look strange in that suit,’ he commented.
She felt a bubble of laughter burst up through the layers of worry.
‘How rude! I’ll have you know this is my venerated Accountant Suit. I never wear it for anything else. Is it that bad?’
‘I didn’t say it was bad, just . . . not you. No, maybe it is bad. Wouldn’t he do your accounts just as well if you wore jeans?’
‘I’ve always thought not. It’s an old-fashioned respect thing, I suppose.’
They watched as a large trail of teenage tourists shambled past, entirely unaware of the world outside their exclusive bubble.
Ray pointed at them, ‘I blame central heating.’
‘For what?’
‘We’re tougher than them by a mile. But we’ve mollycoddled them out of existence and as a result they have no backbone.’ He began to get into his stride and Jeanie could tell this was not a new rant. ‘I was brought up in Portsmouth, my father was in the Merchant Navy, and we had a draughty bungalow with a “turn-the-coals-up-Norman” fire . . .’
‘The ones with the orange plastic coals on top of the bars?’ she interrupted him. ‘I remember them. They were better than the one we had, one of those grisly honeycomb gas jobs. It was either freezing or like a tropical rainforest.’
Ray chuckled. ‘Exactly. None of this namby-pamby heating. I used to hold my clothes up in front of the fire before I put them on in the morning, they were so bloody perishing. What do this lot . . .’ he threw his arm dismissively in the wake of the foreign school children, ‘know about that? It’s our fault.’
‘Ooh aye, and we had nought to eat but the neighbour’s rubbish and one pair of shoes between twelve of us.’ She pushed him playfully. ‘It’s just a changing world, isn’t it?’
‘No, but seriously, take people like your son-in-law.’ Ray was on a roll. ‘He obviously thinks he’s God, and I reckon that arrogance comes not from self-belief but from mollycoddling and indulgence.’
Jeanie frowned. ‘Please, let’s not talk about him again.’
He grabbed her arm and pulled her close. ‘OK, I’ll shut up if you kiss me.’
The kiss, which she willingly gave, was long and very tender. For a moment she forgot she was in a public space. She just wanted it to last forever, to erase the painful decision she had made.
As they drew apart, Jeanie sighed.
‘Ray . . . this can never work.’
She made to get up.
He rose with her, shaking his jacket free of grass. ‘It’s your call,’ he said, reaching over and cupping his hand to her cheek as he looked down at her. For a moment she let it lie, her whole body luxuriating in his gentle touch, the pain of loss hovering beyond it like a predator. She bent to pick up her bag and her briefcase.
‘I’d better go.’
‘Can we potter about on our own for a bit?’ George was asking James, and James obliged by going and leaning languidly on the open door of his Peugeot, his silver mobile pressed to his ear.
George took her hand and walked her upstairs to the stunning first-floor bedroom, the ‘master bedroom’, in agent-speak.
‘Look at that view.’ The house was situated at the head of a valley, and the window looked out towards the rolling Blackdown Hills. Sunlight dappled the hillside and the pink-white apple blossoms in the orchard. Sheep wandered in the fields. It was almost a caricature of the pastoral idyll. ‘Imagine us waking up to that.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ she agreed, but inside she was dead.
‘Not too big, but lots of room for the family,’ George was intoning. ‘If we get going on the contracts James says we could be in by the end of the summer. There’s no chain, the owner died over a year ago apparently, and his rels are anxious to get the estate sorted.’ He put his arm round Jeanie in a totally uncharacteristic gesture. ‘Can’t you just see Ellie running about that garden?’ He peered over Jeanie’s shoulder and pointed. ‘Look, there’s even a swing on the old oak.’ His delight was both touching and ominous. Jeanie knew she was already trapped. If she didn’t say something, or do something, this would be her home for the rest of her life. What had Ray said? There was no plan that could make it all OK?
‘Where’s the nearest town?’
‘James says Honiton and Chard. It’s quite isolated, I grant you, but the village looks nice. And the sea’s not far.’
Jeanie tried to imagine herself here. She’d left home for London at eighteen to train as a nurse, her first home being the nurses’ home by Russell Square, a stark, dreary building, but situated in what seemed to her to be the centre of the universe. That was forty-two years ago. She watched her husband as he chatted seriously with the smooth young man. His certainty made it seem as if he’d been planning this for years.
George was bubbling with excitement as they drove home along the A303. He kept looking over at Jeanie and smiling encouragingly, until she felt so pressured she wanted to scream.
‘We can put the house on the market immediately, but it doesn’t matter if it takes a while to sell, we can bridge. Once we�
��ve got the Rectory we can do it up the way we want it over time; it’s perfectly liveable in, don’t you think?’
Then when she didn’t answer, ‘You seem a bit silent, old girl. I know you weren’t keen on the idea at first, but seeing the house must’ve changed your mind, no?’
And when she still said nothing, ‘Come on, Jeanie, spit it out. What’s the problem? Is it the location? Or the size? Tell me.’ He laughed. ‘Turning sixty has put you in a very odd mood, I must say.’
She was almost too irritated to reply. But she knew her husband. He would go on nagging her till she answered.
‘I’ve told you what I think, George. I don’t have anything else to say right now.’
Jeanie waited every night, as if for a lover, for the moment when George went upstairs and she had the safety of her own bedroom. Then she cried – huge, almost silent sobs, muffled hot under the duvet, which left her gasping for breath. The tears weren’t just for Ray. They began for that reason, but then they seemed to morph into a much larger sadness that encompassed her constrained childhood, her brother’s illness and death, the lie she had lived with her husband since he left her bed, the man that George had become. Tears should be cleansing, she thought, but these were not. These just seemed to intensify into something cruel, almost violent, until she felt she would crack apart. Yet every night was the same, every night she found herself crying – even looked forward to it – and couldn’t stop until eventually she would sink into an exhausted sleep.
‘Mum, you look terrible.’ Her daughter peered into her face from the driving seat as Jeanie got into Chanty’s car. Ellie was stretching out her hand from the back, trying to reach her grandmother.
‘Gin . . . come too . . . look, I got my bag, an’ my underbrella.’ She waved a lurid pink bag towards Jeanie, into which was stuck the green dinosaur umbrella. Jeanie kissed the proffered hand.
Chanty was waiting, hands on the steering wheel, for her mother to fasten her seat belt.
‘Shall I go in the back with Ellie? Keep her quiet?’
Chanty shook her head, her tight, blonde ponytail swinging behind her head. ‘She’ll be fine. I want her to sleep if poss. She’ll be a nightmare if she doesn’t.’