by Gill Mather
LATER WHILE WALKING home through the park, Orielle said to Triss that she hoped he hadn't minded too much Seb making him the subject of a big joke.
“No. He’s a very nice man.”
“I always thought so.”
“It really does give him a huge amount of entertainment apparently, some of my conversations with clients.”
“Well it was really funny actually, especially how Seb told it, but I daren’t laugh in case you were upset.”
“You shouldn't have worried. I’m getting used to things. A great deal of communication here seems to be based on humour. It’s quite an attractive feature, a nice way to go about things, to make light of most things. I’m glad I can contribute, albeit unwittingly most of the time!”
“That’s really nice to hear.”
“Well I can't promise to be able to be easy going as you’d say all of the time but I’ll try for you anyway.”
“Triss, I was thinking. Seb talked to me about you getting some qualifications to become a financial adviser but it would mean having ID. It always goes back to that. But maybe you could make someone in….I don't know….the Department for Work and Pensions or HMRC or something give you an NI number. If you did that, then everything would be OK.”
“No.”
“What? Whyever not?”
“I can't go around as a general rule getting my own way by making innocent people do things they shouldn't do or wouldn't ordinarily do just for my benefit.”
“Actually. It would be for my benefit too,” Orielle said somewhat resentfully.
"I’m not going to start manipulating people. It would be wrong.”
“But you’ve done it before. I’ve seen you. You must’ve done it to get Will off his charge and that time that man pulled a knife on us. Georgie knows you do it too.”
“She does, does she? I did those things for you."
"Well do it for me again then."
"Orielle. Those people in Newcastle were lying. They would have allowed Will to be convicted and sent to prison. The perpetrator would have gone free to do the same thing over and over again. The people you want me to influence would just be going innocently about their normal business. Such a person might get found out eventually and get into enormous trouble, lose their job, etc."
"But why would they be found out?"
"If a false past wasn’t embedded into all the necessary systems, then it wouldn't work in the long run."
"Well then do it without involving any individuals. Couldn't you hack into those systems and sort it out that way. Everything's electronic these days anyway. People don’t need bits of paper any more. Couldn't you make it so that it couldn't unravel at all?" Tristram didn’t reply
"Couldn't you do that?" Orielle persisted.
"Yes."
"Well then?"
"It would be dishonest. Is that the way you'd really want to live? Based on a lie? When people in the US and this country get put on witness protection programmes, they have to assume another life entirely. It's an immense strain for them to keep it up. Would you really want to live that way, pretending I'm someone I'm not? Wondering if someone's going to find out?"
"So you'll just have to stay below the radar then for the whole of the rest of your life," Orielle said, her expression fixed, looking away over towards the buildings of the leisure centre.
Triss looked at her for a long moment and shook his head and they walked on in silence until Orielle said hesitantly:
“Er….Hugh suggested we get married.” She laughed nervously.
Triss stopped walking and looked about him. For the most part he scorned the ceremonies and rituals these people went in for. Even Orielle’s job included a public formalised trial, a set piece, like a rehearsed play, the steps pre-ordained. The trial was indeed the pinnacle of the career she’d chosen. Triss, who had out of interest been to the Magistrates’ Court in Colchester to watch various proceedings and to the Crown Court while in Newcastle to watch part of a trial which involved one of the gangs he was interested in, thought that if these humans had tried to do so on purpose, they couldn't have devised a system less likely to get to the truth and substance of a case.
The marriage ceremony was another of these public displays full of unnecessary pomp and posturing. It would mean nothing to him. Everything he wanted and needed in this material life was already standing right next to him, biting her lip and trying to make light of what she had just said. She continued:
“It might I suppose give you a right to remain here and get some proper documents whether you want to pursue a career in asset management or not.”
“All right,” he said unexpectedly, “if you think it might help, perhaps we can look into it.” And he took her hand and they continued to walk home.
CHAPTER 14
GEORGIE WAS DETERMINED to slim down ready for when Jack came home again. Not that she was that fat really in Orielle's opinion. Just big all over. As she told Georgie, in as tactful a way as possible.
Georgie had snorted and said yes well all the super-models were at least six foot but she looked nothing like them. Orielle had to admit that this was so but stressed that everyone was different. If Georgie lost too much weight, she might just look rather angular.
"You mean gawky don’t you!"
"No! Not at all!" But Orielle thought she should stop there before she dug any bigger a hole.
In any event, Georgie stuck to her guns and, having no willpower to speak of, she had decided on a high protein, low carbohydrate diet (“You can eat as much as you want provided it’s low in carbs!” she told Orielle) and tonight she was shovelling down a plate of prawns fried in lashings of butter with heaps of chopped garlic and a bit of torn up lettuce. Having only had one apple for lunch and bacon and eggs for breakfast, she was eating her dinner with deep concentration and obvious relish. She reached for her glass. Mysteriously, this low-carb diet seemed to allow for gallons of red wine to be knocked back.
"Well," said Georgie when questioned about it yesterday, "I've got to have something to keep me going."
"Actually," Triss had said, "alcohol is only likely to slow you down. And it's calories that count if you're trying to lose weight. If you're not using more of them than you're consuming, you won't lose weight. And large amounts of red wine will have a high calorie content."
"Bollocks. Dr. Atkins advocated red wine. No problem."
"Yes. I've read the book. One small glass a day." He looked meaningfully at the wine bottle, already two thirds empty.
"Well…..well…..bollocks!" And she'd taken another swig.
Tonight Orielle couldn't see any wine on the table. Georgie just had a glass of water, so perhaps she'd taken Triss's comments to heart.
"And you know," Georgie said with her mouth full, "this only took five minutes to make. In contrast to that vegetarian gunk you two are having. It must've taken you at least an hour to cook," she said to Orielle. "Not to mention what Triss had prepared earlier on."
"It's very nice indeed," said Triss who had hardly touched his food and was staring fixedly at Georgie's plate. At last Georgie noticed.
"Look. What's your problem?" she said heatedly.
"You do realise that you have probably forty to sixty small previously sentient creatures on your plate."
"Yes? And?"
Triss looked over at the two goldfishes swimming in a tank on the sideboard. One of them had been brought over a few weeks ago by the cousins in a bowl little bigger than a jam jar. Orielle had been terribly worried about cruelty to goldfish but the next day when she got home, Triss had set up a large tank he'd acquired from somewhere and filled it with water weeds and stones and the next weekend, he and Orielle had gone out and bought a companion for the fish on the basis that fish swam in shoals so they must like company. They had thrived ever since.
Triss looked back at Georgie's plate. "Those little creatures aren't that dissimilar to you in many ways. They’ve been plucked from their natural habitat, kept for h
ours crammed together in a tub on board a ship, wriggling and writhing for their lives and brought ashore gasping for breath. Then boiled alive. That is if they were lucky. Or maybe frozen to death in the hold of the fishing boat. Otherwise they may have been dismembered while still alive and then frozen."
"Oh for God's sake! Give it a rest!"
"I'm just saying." Triss looked innocently at Georgie. It must be an expression he'd picked up from watching TV thought Orielle.
"Oh God!" Georgie pushed her plate aside. There was only one prawn left by this time. "That prawn gave it's life for you," said Orielle. "You should eat it."
"Don't you start. Oh God!" said Georgie.
"He won't help," said Triss.
"There," said Georgie, impaling the prawn on her knife and swallowing it down. "I don’t care what either of you say. The weight’s going to drop off me and I'm going to become sylph-like and get into all those model-girl clothes. Just you wait and see. Jack won't recognise me." She looked at them defiantly and produced a glass of red wine from under the table and downed it in one.
And then produced a bottle and filled the glass up again.
GEORGIE HAD DECIDED to accept Orie's invitation to come to Amanda and Hugh's impromptu engagement party. After all she had sod all else to do tonight as she had most nights now that Triss was returned and Jack of course was away at sea for at least another month. Periodically, she gazed at her reflection in the tall wall mirrors lining the restaurant walls, increasingly unsatisfactory in her view as she packed away more of the free dinner on offer. Tonight on being called up by Orielle and asked to come into town for this party, she had hurriedly forced herself into a new dress, bought last week with several more pounds’ weight loss in mind than had actually occurred. She sucked in her stomach but soon found herself gasping for breath. She should have worn the skirt and top instead then at least she could have left the top button undone and draped the top over the skirt. She’d just have to suffer she decided.
She didn’t know anyone really, not well. Just Orie and Triss of course but she was enjoying herself none the less listening in to office gossip. She found herself half way through the evening tuning into an exchange between Triss and that rather flash bloke who was apparently an estate agent (no surprises there then) whom Orie said was shacked up with the best friend of Hugh's ex-wife. Georgie's wine consumption by this time had rather dulled her ability to take in properly all these complicated connections, associations and relationships and she was starting to lose track but she had listened keenly earlier in the year when Orie had told her what she'd learned about Hugh's past when working at PWT and going out and about with that Cathy "since you were neglecting me with your sailor boy," Orie had joked. So she had some idea of the backgrounds of those most close to Hugh.
She heard Darren saying to Triss, “It must be quite fortunate for you. Meeting someone like Orielle.”
Tristram stared back at Darren for a few seconds. “She’s not someone like Orielle. She is Orielle.” Then Triss looked away dismissively while Darren sat there and blustered and Georgie giggled to herself.
"HELLO DEAR. I'M BABS, Peter's wife. You're Orielle's friend aren't you. He's a bit odd, her boyfriend, isn't he?"
Georgie was just emerging from the cubicle. She hadn't realised anyone else was in the toilets but she recognised the woman especially from the incident earlier when Triss, no doubt totally hacked off having to listen to the, to him probably, inane chatter swirling about him, had made inappropriate remarks about Babs and her husband Peter. Georgie looked down at Babs. Though Babs was a horse-woman, no doubt well-muscled and healthy for her age, Georgie towered above her.
"Well. He's all right when you get to know him."
"Hmm." Babs looked up at her, "I suppose he must be fearfully clever. All those languages and things. But his social skills leave something to be desired. I can't imagine how he can be anything like a satisfactory companion to Orielle. She's such a sweet girl."
"Yes she is. She's the best friend I've ever had. But he behaves more or less normally with her. I used to think of it as the "legover incentive". But now I think he just likes to please her. Like any man would his girlfriend really. Coming here tonight for instance. He wouldn't really have wanted to but he's here to make her happy."
"How sweet."
"Yes it is actually. And he's more or less OK with me too now. Actually we're a very happy household. I mean I wish…."
"Yes?"
"Well it's just that my own boyfriend is away at sea in the merchant navy. I just wish he could be here too more often then everything would be perfect." Georgie realised that she'd had far too much to drink to be coming out with such sentimentality. But his woman Babs seemed to be a human sponge, able to soak up any amount of dross and trivia.
"Oh, how poignant. When I first met Peter, he was away at university and I was at home doing a menial office job. In those days, girls (she pronounced it “gairls”) weren't expected to have careers. So we had to go several months at a time without seeing each other. It was magical when he did come home. I expect it must be the same for you."
Georgie agreed that it must be….was in fact. "Though actually we've only known each other a short time. I met him when he was on leave and then he had to go back to sea and that was that. I hope it'll all be OK when he comes back again. He was just made for me."
"I used to think that about Peter. Well I still do, but after all the years we've been together, things do get stale. Actually I'm really looking forward to him retiring. I'm hoping we can rekindle things. Lots of my friends hate it when their husband's retire. They can't bear them about the house. I think that's so unfair. They've been kept all those years and then they can't stand to have the old chap around them all the time. I don’t feel a bit like that. I can't wait for it myself."
"You know that's really lovely. Peter's so lucky to have you. I just hope my….romance'll last as long as that. I really hope so. And Orie's. She's completely nuts about him. Anyway, I suppose we'd better go back out."
"You do that. I'll just stay here a little longer. My eye make-up's run and I need to re-apply it."
When Georgie got back into the restaurant, everyone had started to move around to chat and, finding her seat taken for the time being, she went and sat with Amanda and Samantha.
"I hope you don’t mind my sitting with you. My seat's been temporarily commandeered." Of course they said they didn’t mind.
To make conversation she said: "I've just been speaking to Bab's, you know Peter's wife, in the toilets."
"Oh, you got trapped with her too did you?" said Sam.
"Actually I thought she was really nice."
Amanda and Sam looked at each other.
"We are talking about the same person aren't we?" said Amanda with a laugh.
"Well perhaps she was extra interested in my situation but she told me about herself too and I thought: what a nice person."
"Hmm," said Amanda. "So how are you finding life living in the same house as Tristram. We haven't worked him out at all."
"Judging by tonight, Orielle's got her work cut out," said Sam.
"Actually, as I was saying to Babs, we're a very happy household," replied Georgie. Incredible she thought that she should be sticking up for Triss after her initial totally adverse reaction. Plus of course she knew what Triss was really capable of and that he must have come from "somewhere else" as she thought of it. But she would never ever give him away to anyone. Not even Jack. Probably.
"Well, good luck to you all then," said Amanda. "Anyway, I think I'd better go and get Hugh out of the place while he's still conscious and able to walk. I can see Andrew over there is plying him with another glassful." Amanda heaved herself up out of the chair.
"Nice to meet you Amanda. And Sam," said Georgie. "We'd better start walking home too soon." And she got up. As she did so, Babs came over.
"If you're ever lonely Georgie with your boyfriend away and Orielle so preoccupied," she said, "yo
u're more than welcome to come and visit us. We're not far out of Colchester. Perhaps we could go riding together or I'd be happy to teach you if you don’t ride." She looked Georgie critically up and down. "For size, you'd have to have Peter's hunter. Peter won't mind." And she handed Georgie her card.
"Thank you. I'd love that," said Georgie gratefully.
Probably just wants to pump her about anything she knows about Hugh and Ali, thought Sam uncharitably. But still, she felt constrained to say the same thing and pass on her mobile number, and Georgie went off thinking that the evening had been quite fruitful from her point of view.
CHAPTER 15
ORIELLE AND TRISS WERE visiting her parents. It had seemed like a reasonable idea. The cousins had told their mother that Orielle had a boyfriend and that they were living together and of course their mother had told her sister, Orielle's mother who had got straight on the `phone to Orielle wanting to know all about him. So she cautiously told her mother that he was working at PWT doing asset management. Which was true. No that wasn't how she had met him. She had to skate over that bit. And where he came from. And just about everything else. But at least if any of Triss's more unusual traits and qualities had reached her mother's ears via the family bush telegraph, her mother had the tact and diplomacy, unusual for her when addressing any of her children, to stay out of these areas. On reflection though, it was more likely that the cousins who, like many offspring when dealing with their parents, worked on a need to know basis and had realised their error as soon as they'd handed out the basic snippet of information that Orielle had a live in boyfriend. The tumult of questions that would undoubtedly have followed would have been enough to see them slinking off muttering to their various rooms cursing their collective weakness at having made absolutely any disclosure whatsoever.
So Orielle thought she was getting off lightly. Then her mother suddenly said:
"Well bring him up for the Bank Holiday weekend. It's your dad's birthday. We can all go out for a meal. And we haven't seen you since Christmas. It'll be wonderful!"