Brown-black, almost pupiless eyes - moved back onto mine. He wasn’t responding to the dig.
“Maybe you’re needed at home,” I said.
With the emphasis being on the noun again. A reference to the cosy suburban nest that he and Jess shared in Chorlton-cum-Hardy; the most bo-ho town around Manchester. I had lived there once. But my experience of Chorlton had been rather different to his way of life. Some fourteen years ago, I had moved in with Jake Bamber, in an attempt to try and deal with the roller-coaster ride that involved – even then – a secret relationship with Shaun. Jake had been another colleague of ours and was the only person in our office who had been aware of what was going on between us. He had done his best to cheer me up; urging me to flog copies of Socialist Worker newspaper around the Arndale Centre with him and he had also roped me into helping with the organisation of Manchester’s Gay Pride parade. But his efforts proved to be futile. Most evenings seemed to culminate in me drinking far too much Malibu and finding myself sobbing along to various Celine Dion tracks. Which is always a bad sign, for anyone.
So, my own memories of Chorlton were rather depressing. A woodlice problem in one corner of my bedroom. Constantly having my Vauxhall Astra broken into by various scumbags. The excruciating commute along the demonically named A666 to Bolton where I happened to work as a housing officer at the time. Jake and the never-ending stream of gorgeous gay blokes interrupting me at seven AM in the bathroom. Me also possessing a fair bit of pulling-power back in those days; blokes on tap in the bars and boozers at the corner of Beech Road, or in the nightclubs of Manchester. But me only wanting…
And Shaun? Shaun’s version of life in Chorlton-cum-Hardy had furnished him with a four-bedroomed house, a double garage and a ten-minute commute to work. And Jess.
And Jess?
Jess had a garden office. And Shaun, of course.
He stretched out his long legs. His movements had always been lazy and languid. But lots of the bravado managerial body language was just for show. At heart, he was still a fidgeter;
“I need to move this bloody light. It’s right in my eyes. Feels like I’m being interrogated. Did one of the kids bend it over like this?”
I nodded. Matthew had attacked the angle poise lamp earlier on in the week, so that it no longer retained any ‘poise’ and instead, looked more like a contorted stick insect. Shaun jerked the lamp away and muttered;
“Nice lamp, that. You shouldn’t let them play with it.”
I gave him a thin smile. There is nothing more guaranteed to get the back up of a struggling parent than a non-parent providing their expert opinion on how a child should behave. Most non-parents however, possess the sensitivity and the sensibility to realise this before they open their gob and stick their size twelves in. But not Shaun. Or perhaps he was trying to nark me. Getting me back for my nudge about The Wife.
"You rather neatly sidestepped my question there, Shaun. About your home life.” I was perching on my favourite armchair and had tucked my legs under myself as I slowly swished the wine around in my glass. I was enjoying being on my own territory for once; every recent encounter with Shaun had been tainted with the age-old feeling of power imbalance. (Always in Shaun’s favour.)
He gave me a don’t-give-a-toss shrug, put his mobile down on the arm of the sofa and commenced with cracking his knuckles.
“Yeah, well. Doesn’t feel like my home much, anymore. Feels more like it belongs to Jess’ parents. 'Cause they’re moving house. Living at ours for a few weeks till the chain’s sorted. And giving her loads of grief over various things. Mostly to do with me being a crap and absentee husband. So, it’s not a barrel of laughs there, right now.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said, trying to keep the smirk out of my voice. “But the absentee accusations are striking a chord with me. Because if you’re as difficult to get in touch with for those that you live with - as you are for those that you’re supposed to be working with – I can understand why that might piss people off. I mean, all that I’ve been trying to sort out with you is getting your signature for our loan. Time’s running out.”
Shaun burst out laughing. He seemed to have located some profound hilarity in what I had just said.
“Stan, I can’t believe you. Seriously. I offered you a top job the other week. First the money. Way more. And then I said that you can do whatever the hell you want – in effect. And you said no. Got all these principles these days - you said. And now you seem to think that a route out of your own personal money problems is to get your social enterprise backed by Martyn? Some loony Jehovah’s Witness freak who suffers with short-man syndrome? You’re crazy, Stan.”
Bam.
The mention of my own financial mess was way below the belt. In a moment of weakness shortly after Adam’s death, when Shaun and I had resurrected our affair - I had admitted to him that there had been no life or accident insurance payment. I now bitterly regretted letting that one slip. It meant that Shaun would all too often whip it out and try and use it to get the upper hand. But this was not the time to show regrets or irritation. I tried to gloss over the embarrassment; kept my composure.
“No. You’re the crazy one. I’ve told you that I’m not interested in that type of career anymore. And not just because I have the kids, or because of losing Adam. But because, I would rather spend my time doing things that I enjoy. With people that I like. As opposed to chasing some corporate – or council - job title. As opposed to giving myself a heart attack brought on by the stress of working with self-important, parochial, small minded borderline psychopaths who only give a toss about their final salary pension scheme…”
A pause. No response. So, I continued;
“Or whether they got invited to make the keynote speech at the Local Government Association Conference last year...”
Shaun took another gulp of wine.
“Directed at me by any chance?”
“Gosh. Who knows?”
“I know. And I think that you’re being a bit out of order, Stan.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Cause I’ve only ever done the keynote speech for the Local Government Association, just the one time. And even then, what I said – apparently - upset a lot of the sort of people that you seem to despise these days. So, I doubt if they’ll be asking me back in a hurry. I would have thought that you would approve of what I do. Of how I do it. Would like us to work together. Again.”
And that was where he couldn’t see it. Shaun Elliot lived, breathed - would probably die courting controversy. I remembered the press coverage on that particular one. It had been just after I learned about his wedding. Shaun had been all-out, guns a-blazing; he had gotten a massive kick out of telling the great and the good attending that particular conference – and a certain Minister named Michael Chiswick who had delivered the opening speech just moments before - exactly what he thought of them all. That senior employees in the public sector had had ‘a cushy number for far too long’ and that ‘let’s face it – over half of you lot are a pretty talentless bunch’. Shaun had lapped it all up and if it had resulted in him being barred from all such conferences in the future, it would have been an endless source of delight to him. I tried to clarify;
“Oh, forget you - and your daft rabble-rousing speeches. Even if I did want that kind of job; why the hell do you think that I’d want to work for someone who treated me in the way that you did?”
CHAPTER 16
Silence.
There should have been the sound of a clock ticking. No, really. There should have been.
I narrowed my eyes and peered at my great-grandfather’s Victorian mantelpiece clock. It had been beautifully restored and presented to me by my father on my wedding day, with much ceremony; “Make sure that you look after it better than you do your car. Never seen a filthier interior. Your upholstery's a disgrace,” but now it appeared to have a jam butty wedged into the opening at the back of it. Not conducive to tick-tock mechanics.
I stood up and strolled to the clock. Removed the butty, lobbed it into the waste paper basket and then walked over to the window. Red lights that marked out the pinnacle of the Holme Moss mast were winking a warning to low flying aircraft in the near vicinity.
I placed my knuckles on the window sill. Shaun hadn’t replied. Perhaps he was taking my question as a rhetorical statement and was choosing to ignore it. Perhaps he was shocked by the fact that I allowed my children to insert food items into nineteenth-century antiques.
Or perhaps he was just bored again. That oh-so easily bored, Shaun…
And then the house phone burst into life. I wasn’t going to bother getting it, so it tripped into answering machine mode. Julia’s sing-song tones echoed across the living room;
“Rachael, love, it’s me. Just letting you know that Madam is all settled down for the night now, after a rather unusual day. We did as you said – we didn’t ask her about the badge and the Prime Minister – and she managed to get over her sulk about it all. But I’m still tickled pink about it! And I can’t wait to hear about how you met them all and how she came to give it to his baby. Did you get to go inside Number Ten then? You lucky thing! Anyway. I’ll say nighty-night now. Give Matthew a kiss from us all. Oh – and with regards to us dropping Lydia back with you, I…”
I wandered over to the answering machine and in the most nonchalant manner that I could summon, I switched the volume off.
But Shaun didn’t miss a trick.
Shaun never missed a trick.
He went straight for the James Bond eyebrow.
I also engaged in a bit of the Hollywood Facial Expressions Show Time; instinctively flashing back at him a ‘what you looking at’ face. Probably resembling Mr Bean, myself. But what the hell.
And he said;
“Jesus wept, Stan. I mean, Jesus! Don’t tell me that you’ve dragged Lydia into all of this now? Your — ”
“Into what?” I replied. All innocence.
“Into… Frigging headline creation! The stuff that’s been all over the show today! About that pathetic excuse that we’ve currently got for a Prime Minister… about him being ‘outed’ as a born-again Christian. I mean, I know you went down to London to hang out with your Cabinet fella, but I wouldn’t have thought that you… that you’d have levered Lydia into the midst of your seedy Whitehall liaisons.”
I drew breath. Ran my tongue around my teeth.
“First of all,” I spat. “Don’t you ever accuse me of dragging my daughter into anything to do with my personal life . If I ever happened to get the time to be having one. And second of all…”
I couldn’t think of a second of all. So, I just glared at him. Trying to plaster over the humiliation and the fury that I was now feeling, thanks to being rumbled over Badgegate.
But Shaun had already moved on. He had adopted his best Bruce Willis expression (I’m-trying-to-be-compassionate-here… but-I’m-still-gonna-shoot-your-Nanna-in-sixty-seconds-flat). It was accompanied by;
“… And this is yet another reason, why you can’t get me to sign your loan paperwork. It’s like I said to you the other day. If you and your family are going to be running around in the national press; how can I put my name - put the local authority’s reputation at risk – by agreeing to a business venture that might well end up being run by a woman… who’s become a public laughing stock?”
“What? You’re totally blowing stuff out of proportion here. This is just about some little daft badge that Lydia gave to a baby!”
“No, Stan. Can’t you see how much you’re lacking judgement here? You might have a lovely, fluffy social enterprise idea that – yeah – might even make sense on paper. But if I give the lenders the assurance that I think your women’s centre, your management - meaning your leadership - is viable… and it turns out that — ”
“How dare you criticise my managerial abilities!”
“… and if it doesn’t work out, thanks to your Barbara Windsor and your Carry On Up The Tabloids act. Well, it’ll be me that looks like the prize dickhead at the end of the day.”
I was quiet for a second but then murmured.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. You do the prize dickhead thing perfectly well, all by yourself. Without any assistance from me and mine.”
I stared hard out of the window and managed to focus on the radio mast and its blinking scarlet spot. I tried not to blink, tilting my face upwards slightly so that any moisture wouldn’t be seen; that the damned things wouldn’t spill over, that they would melt invisibly back into the tear ducts. Over the years, I had found that this was always a cunning way of disguising upset. But the only trouble with this, is that the tears end up coming out of your nose instead.
So, I wiped my nose with my sleeve. Shaun had now morphed into his Hollywood Hero Number Three expression; the Robert de Niro gurn. This was the one he always whipped out of the box when trying to express either disgust, or his ‘I-don’t-give-a-shit’ attitude. Perhaps he had been revolted by my snotty dressing gown sleeves. With any luck.
But instead, I heard a sigh.
“Stan, look. Let’s forget the Jesus badge thing. And I can even ignore the other one – the running around half naked in the press with your Minister pal thing. And yeah – I know that I might come across as being a tough arse at work at times. But I’ve had to be – in order to get to where I am now…’
I sniffed. And reached for the wine. He carried on.
“And yeah, I know that you’ve had a hell of a time of it… That you think that I made things worse for you. But…”
His words petered out. I wasn’t replying. I was watching the lights of a night flight as it arced its way around Holme Moss and towards Manchester airport.
“… Well. You know that I don’t do apologies, Stan. Too much apologising going on in the world these days. But, okay then. I can understand why you feel like you got a raw deal out of everything. I do get that.”
I moved my arms away from the window, folded them tightly and then turned to face him. Trying to keep my voice steady.
“It’s not about me getting a raw deal, Shaun. It’s not even about what happened the first time round - when there was no excuse to be sneaking around. Hiding from Jess. I mean – you weren’t married. And I was bloody single!”
He looked at the wall and then away again, eyes quickly moving from the family portrait and over to a mess of elastic bands and paper clips that Matthew had woven around the base of the angle-poise lamp.
“It’s about, Shaun - it’s about how it never made any sense to me. Jess not knowing why you’d actually moved out! You not telling her about me. You leaving her – with no real explanation, with her thinking that you were having some kind of early mid-life crisis at the age of twenty-eight, or whatever. Until - for some reason - you decided that you were missing your cushy life in Chorlton-cum-Hardy with her. And you moved back in with her again. And then, you... applying for a job working over in Preston and nowhere near me.”
“You make it sound like it was all really calculated. It wasn’t.”
“Well, that’s how it all felt to me. So, then another eight or nine years passes. We maybe saw each other at the odd motorbike rally or whatever. And then suddenly you pitched up at our wedding reception - along with your other bike chums. Just ‘cause you happened to have done the odd ride with Adam and his bike club. You only knew him to have the occasional beer with at the Snake Pass. You turned up at my wedding reception, Shaun! Where you deliberately waited to catch me coming out of the loos and then you tried to — ”
“Had a bit to drink. We all had.”
“And then a few more years on and my husband has just been killed. So you trundle over here to give me your condolences. And we end up…”
I turned back to the windowsill and picked up the glass of wine. I slurped some. He did the same. Then I faced him again as I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand.
“I’m so… stupid! We end up… in secret again. Whilst you con
veniently forget to tell me that you’re about to get married. At last – at long bloody last - Jess gets her disgustingly expensive wedding over there in Harrogate. So yeah, I mean – let’s not tell Rachael the bimbo about that one, eh?”
I moved to the sideboard and poured myself another glass of wine. I resisted the urge to take a swig from the bottle itself.
“I’m talking about morality here, Shaun. About treating people who you’re supposed to care about with a bit of respect. It’s not about you having to think of me as some pathetic widow-woman who’s had a shitty deal in life. About you giving me some half-arsed tosh about how you’re trying to understand me. It’s about you having the decency to de-code stuff for me. Am I really so lacking in worth that…”
There was a wobble to my voice and my vision was blurring even more than before. No amount of face-tipping would help this one out. But he stood up, suddenly - ducking to avoid the lampshade - and moved towards me.
I looked away. Matthew appeared to have shoved Lydia’s stuffed Scooby-Doo down the back of the bureau. I tried to focus on Scooby and the Gang. Velma wouldn’t have cried. Daphne probably would have done, but not Velma. Think Velma.
Shaun had paused to examine the sole of his shoe, having inadvertently stepped on a small pile of sultanas that Matthew had picked out of his cereal that morning and had deposited on the edge of the living room rug. I used the opportunity to brush away the recalcitrant tears. But then he moved towards me again, looking almost-chastised - if that was at all humanly possible for him.
A muffled complaint came from above. Matthew wasn’t used to hearing adult voices raised at home. Shaun looked towards the door leading to the stairway and spoke quietly, urgently. His hand reached out to my elbow, trying to explain himself;
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