The Perils of Skinny-Dipping

by J A Sandilands

‘You know Mr Koma, who owns the Limpopo Wood Mill? Is he really a witch doctor?’

  Mr Kobe smiled and took her hand. ‘No Abbey. Mr Koma is a successful businessman who sometimes uses his position in the town to get his own way. He and Mr Permelo were gambling and drinking partners. They would help each other out of tricky situations. Mr Koma will not cause you anymore trouble. Not now Mr Permelo is in prison. He will not want to risk his name being mentioned in a bad way by anyone. He has a very good business here and has too much to lose.’

  Abbey thanked Mr Kobe for his kind hospitality and returned to the office with a plan of action for the next ten days. She booked her flights for the following day and left a long list of jobs for Boitachello, who was overwhelmed with joy when Abbey announced she had to go back home for a week or so and was leaving her in charge. She bowed her head and promised that she would take excellent care of everything until Abbey returned. Abbey made a mental note to bring both her and Alfred presents on her return.

  She walked back to the bungalow and wrote a note to Darren, placing it on the kitchen table, explaining where she had gone and what she had to do. She finished the note with ‘I love you’, before packing her bag ready for the journey.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Abbey landed at Manchester Airport on a chilly, November morning. She took a taxi the short distance to her parents’ house, which was about two miles south from the airport. This part of south Manchester was on the border with Cheshire and enjoyed a reputation for being an exclusive place to live. The large houses were set back from the road, behind red brick walls, hawthorn hedges and wrought-iron electric gates. Chestnut trees lined the roads leading into the small village centre, full of trendy wine bars and bistros. Everything looked exactly the same and, although nothing had changed, it felt strange, almost uncomfortable, to be back.

  Abbey was feeling slightly apprehensive about seeing her parents again. She had left for Botswana after a particularly heated row with her mother and, apart from a brief phone call announcing that she would be visiting for a few weeks, she had had no other communication with either of them in months. As far as she could remember, she had only had three conversations with her mother since she left over a year ago, and one of those was to tell her she had got married.

  ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ her mother had said, not indicating any joy or disapproval. ‘I’ll tell your father when he gets in.’ That had been the only response and Abbey had not offered any more information.

  She had never had a close relationship with either of her parents, even though she was an only child, and Abbey felt that in her mother’s eyes she was still a little girl who had never grown up. She could still tell Abbey what to do and how to do it and she was always right. She viewed Abbey’s mistakes, her broken marriage especially, as proof that she could not get things right in her life and that she, as her mother, simply knew best.

  She constantly reminded Abbey of what she believed to be her failings, forcing her to relive sometimes painful events over and over again. This is what had sparked the row the day before she was due to leave the country. Abbey had called round to her parents’ house with some houseplants for them to look after while she was away. She was busily watering them when her mother came into the kitchen.

  ‘I wonder what William would think of this hair-brain plan of yours?’ she said, as she tidied away some dishes.

  ‘I take it you’re talking about William, my ex-husband of now, let me see, thirteen years ago?’ sighed Abbey. ‘Who I haven’t spoken to since the day we signed the divorce papers.’

  Her mother continued to bustle about. ‘Well, Abbey, you’ve never behaved in a responsible way. Your father and I have had a lot to put up with, especially when you were a teenager. I remember you going out and getting drunk and...’

  Abbey spun around on her heels. ‘How can you throw that at me now?’ she cried indignantly. ‘For your information, I was pretty tame if I remember rightly. I never did drugs, and I didn’t make you grandparents. So I had too much to drink and threw up on the bathroom floor. So bloody what? That isn’t so unusual, you know, after a school prom!’

  ‘And, I remember you going out with that awful boy from…’ continued her mother, unperturbed by Abbey’s sudden outburst.

  ‘MOTHER!’ Abbey shouted in desperation. ‘Enough is enough. My teenage years are well behind me now. Do we have to go over the same ground, time and time again?’

  Her mother stood in the doorway, preparing to leave the room.

  ‘Look,’ said Abbey, ‘I realise I’ve made mistakes. OK, I hold my hands up. But I also realise that these mistakes, as you regularly call them, have helped to make me into the person I am now. Isn’t that what life is all about?’ she paused, twisting strands of her hair between her fingers. ‘Do you not like the person I am now?’

  She turned around, unable to look directly at her mother anymore and continued to water the plants, hoping and praying that she would get a favourable reply to her last question. She heard the door slam as her mother left the room, unwilling to discuss the matter any further. Abbey left by the back door, tears streaming down her cheeks, knowing that that would be the last conversation she would have with either of them before she left for the airport the next morning.

  As she remembered that parting row, it constantly amazed her that she could deal with the most awkward people at work, in a professional manner, and yet two minutes in her mother’s company and she immediately reverted into a vulnerable young child. She knew her mother didn’t have a high opinion of her, even though she had a successful job and was on the property ladder. God knows what she would think of her now!

  The taxi stopped outside 32 Cherrytree Lane. Abbey got out into the wet, chilly air and looked around her. It was all as she remembered it. She fumbled for the front door key in her pocket, turned the lock and walked apprehensively into the hall. Her mother appeared at the kitchen door.

  ‘Hi,’ said Abbey, as brightly as she could.

  Her mother nodded. ‘I’ve changed your bed and there’s a clean towel hanging up in the bathroom.’

  ‘Right then, thanks,’ replied Abbey, glad of the excuse to run up the stairs, closely followed by Boris, the cocker spaniel, who was obviously expecting a much bigger greeting at seeing her again than her mother had done.

  When her father returned from the newsagents, they sat down to lunch. Fortunately, and much to Abbey’s relief, her mother did not ask any awkward questions about why she was selling her house, or about Darren. In fact, her mother didn’t ask any questions at all. Great, thought Abbey, she has a new son-in-law and she doesn’t even want to see what he looks like or know how he is!

  ‘Nasty weather,’ exclaimed her father as he ate his ham salad.

  This was the first exchange she had had with him since he walked through the door. Abbey nodded at him, wishing the water in her glass would miraculously turn into red wine.

  As soon as the plates were cleared off the table, she text Phil to let him know she was back in the UK and would meet him the following day. After a quick change of clothes, she picked up her coat and the dog lead and headed to the local park with Boris.

  The park was almost deserted, which wasn’t surprising given the continuous drizzle. She found a bench under an oak tree and sat down. Boris scampered around the trees investigating every smell with his finely-tuned nose.

  Abbey was feeling the cold and drew her knees up onto the bench and hugged them. She had played in this park regularly as a child. As she looked upon the familiar surroundings of her childhood, she realised that she had not been homesick at all in the last sixteen months. She also realised that she felt like a very different person to the one that had left that October morning, with a packed suitcase full of what she had considered ‘life’s little essentials’. Her mind wandered back to Kasane and whether Darren had been home yet and read her letter. She doubted it, as she was sure he would have rang or text her by now, or at least that is what she hoped.
/>   As Abbey sat contemplating, a middle-aged woman shuffled past her and sat down on the other end of the bench. Abbey tried not to stare directly at her, but her shabby appearance drew her attention. The woman was dressed in old, worn clothes with at least three scarves wrapped around her face and head. Her dirty fingers poked through the end of her gloves and her shoes were caked in mud. Wisps of grey hair fell out of the scarves and framed her tired face. Abbey detected a slight odour of urine as she passed by.

  ‘Want a shot?’ she said, holding out a gin bottle to Abbey.

  ‘Got any tonic to go with that?’

  ‘Sorry dear,’ replied the woman. ‘Gave the tonic up some time ago. It kept drowning the gin.’

  Now it was the woman surveying Abbey, staring right at her. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Abbey. What’s yours?’

  ‘Mary, Mary Jenkins,’ said the woman in a very articulate voice.

  ‘Pleased to meet you Mary,’ said Abbey, holding out her hand. The woman seemed surprised at Abbey’s willingness to interact with her.

  ‘Why are you sitting here, on my bench, in the rain, looking sorry for yourself?’ asked Mary.

  Abbey winced at her directness. ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Guess it’s got something to do with a man?’ persisted Mary. ‘It usually has. Are you married?’

  ‘I hope so. I mean yes, I’m married.’

  ‘Has he left you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Have you left him?’

  ‘No, not really. We live in Botswana at the moment and I’ve come back over to sell my house. That’s all.’

  ‘So why the glum face?’

  Abbey hesitated for a moment, trying to decide whether she should give out personal information to this complete stranger, who had obviously made a complete and utter mess of her own life. She decided it couldn’t do any harm and tried to explain, as simply and as briefly as she could, the strain that Anna’s presence had brought on the relationship over the last few weeks.

  ‘It isn’t a solid marriage then?’ continued Mary.

  ‘Yes, of course it is,’ said Abbey, slightly taken aback. ‘I love him, he’s my whole world.’

  ‘OK, so you don’t trust him then?’

  Abbey paused and thought for a moment. ‘Yes I do, I think. No, I do, completely.’

  ‘Does he know that?’

  ‘No. I mean, I don’t know.’

  Abbey thought back to the letter she had left. Yes, she had said that she loved him but at no time had she indicated that she totally trusted him, which might have been a good idea, given she had questioned his connection with Anna. She did believe his account that Anna had been a one-night stand; she just hadn’t relayed that information to him. Abbey started to feel very uncomfortable and decided to change the focus of the conversation onto Mary.

  ‘So, what about you then?’ asked Abbey. ‘Why are you sitting here in the rain?’

  ‘Oh, mine’s a sad old tale,’ laughed Mary, taking another swig of her gin.

  ‘Well, go on, tell me. There must be quite a tale, given your accent is what we would call posh!’ Abbey was starting to feel more at ease now and was quite taken with her newfound friend.

  ‘Well, I used to work in London, for a large financial services company. In fact, I ran it. I was the Managing Director for over seven years. We sold mortgages and unsecured loans, and to begin with it was a solid, failsafe business. Our share prices shot through the roof. But, as well as inheriting large profits, we also acquired an inherent complacency about our success. We thought we couldn’t go wrong and the risks we took were as big as the loans we handed out. Then, one by one, each debtor defaulted, creditors were down our throat and the business was hanging by a thread.’

  Abbey listened in amazement to Mary’s tale.

  ‘Was it your fault?’

  ‘Fault wasn’t the issue. The shareholders wanted blood, an execution, and it was my head on the block.’

  ‘Did anyone else get fired?’

  ‘Strangely no, just the woman at the top. The Board of Directors all kept their positions, and their pensions.’

  ‘So why are you are here now, like this? Couldn’t you get another job?’

  Mary laughed. ‘No, my name was blacklisted and no one would touch me. I lost my huge salary, my annual bonus and they somehow managed to wangle my pension down to a pittance. I also lost my house, my husband and everything I knew and was familiar with.’

  ‘Why your husband?’ asked Abbey, now totally absorbed in the conversation.

  ‘We worked together at the same company. He didn’t lose his job and, rather than deal with the initial embarrassment of being married to an ex boss, he exchanged me for a younger model.’

  ‘What about your house? Didn’t you make money out of that when it was sold?’

  ‘We should have done, but we took out a second mortgage to pay for our exuberant lifestyle. Believe me, my dear, when I say that our expenses account was nearly as big as our salaries! By the time the house was sold, property prices had dropped in London and we made exactly fifteen thousand pounds, divided by two! So, I came back here to my hometown to try and rebuild my life. Only, I’m just not quite sure how to start.’ At this statement, her voice quietened and softened slightly.

  Neither woman spoke for a couple of minutes, content just to watch the dogs around the park enthusiastically chase each other around. It was Mary who broke the silence.

  ‘You say you adore your husband and he is your whole world?’

  Abbey nodded at her. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was your world like before you met him? How did you view yourself?’

  Abbey thought carefully before answering the question. ‘I viewed myself as an independent woman - financially, anyway.’

  ‘How do you view yourself now?’ pushed Mary.

  Abbey started to feel that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach again. ‘I’m not sure anymore. I no longer have a house or a successful career.’

  ‘Do you blame your husband for that?’

  ‘Not really, although I did it for him,’ she replied. ‘For our marriage, our future.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question. Did he write your resignation or instruct the sale of your house?’

  ‘No, he did neither of those things. He told me on both occasions it was my decision to make.’

  ‘So, why did you do it? Were you trying to make him love you more by sacrificing these things?’

  Abbey’s mouth dropped. She had never considered this line of thought before. She immediately thought about her father. She remembered buying expensive birthday gifts for him in a bid to impress him and gain his approval. Is this what she had subconsciously done with Darren? Had she sacrificed what she had in an effort to secure his attention, even though he smothered her with love and affection? Was it still not enough?

  Eventually Abbey spoke.

  ‘I’ve been a bloody idiot. I’ve been so preoccupied with my own feelings, my needs, that I haven’t once stopped to consider his. And all the time he’s done his best to make me happy and to say and do the right thing.’ She thought for another minute. ‘You know, I think I’ve programmed myself to expect failure in all my relationships, instead of building on success. And despite everything, we are a success. I know we are. That’s why I did it!’

  She stood up abruptly, felt in her pocket and took out a fifty pound note.

  ‘Here, treat yourself to a B&B tonight on me, Mary. Oh, and if you ever move on from this bench, you know where to find me.’

  Mary smiled and nodded her head. ‘I might take you up on that,’ she called after Abbey, who was now sprinting back towards the house, Boris racing behind her, his ears flapping in the wind.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  When Abbey got home, she made two phone calls. The first was to the landline at the bungalow in Kasane. She let the phone ring for a few minutes before hanging up. She checked her watch. It would be five o’clock in the
afternoon in Botswana, so it was still pretty early for Darren to be home. She called his mobile and recorded a voicemail.

  ‘Hi, Darren, just ringing to check you’re OK. Don’t know if you’ve been home yet, but I’ve had to fly back to England to finalise the house. I’ll be back next week. I miss you. Ring me when you get this message.’

  The next call was to Phil. ‘Hi, listen, change of plan. I need your help to empty this bloody house. Can you come over here, tonight?’

  ‘Of course I can,’ replied Phil. ‘I’ll meet you at Piccadilly Station, in about two hours?’

  Abbey grabbed the car keys to her mother’s car and drove into the centre of town. She stood by the railings on the platform, waiting for Phil to disembark. She smiled warmly when he came into view, rucksack on his back, walking towards the turnstiles. He smiled back and soon she was hugging him tightly.

  ‘God, I’ve missed you,’ she shouted over the noise of the station. Phil grinned and took her arm as they walked to the car.

  ‘So,’ he said rubbing his hands together. ‘Come on, I want to know everything.’

  Abbey explained on the drive home why she had decided to stay on in Kasane, and the business problems Darren had encountered, hence the sale of her house.

  ‘Hell hun, you must really love this guy to give up everything?’

  Abbey twitched slightly, the conversation with Mary still fresh in her mind. ‘I do love him Phil, but I think I might have fucked up.’

  Phil shook his head. ‘Nah, from what I know of Darren he wouldn’t have anything to do with this Anna woman again. She really doesn’t sound his type. I reckon this is a one-way attraction, and if your nerve breaks she’ll strike even harder.’

  Abbey nodded her head in silent agreement.

  ‘I just wish he’d told me about sleeping with Anna. I feel that she’s had one over on me all this time, knowing that I didn’t know they had a past, brief as it was. And he doesn’t exactly push her away, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Maybe,’ continued Phil, ‘his one night stand with Anna meant so little that he thought it wasn’t relevant, and that she caused no threat to his future with you. Listen Abbey, for fuck’s sake, he’s a bloke and she’s a good-looking woman. Being in love with you is not going to kill off his ultra male ego! He’s still capable of being flattered, you know.’