The Old House on the Corner

by Maureen Lee

  He felt her shrug against him. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing!’ The other way around, he would have killed the chap.

  Her breath was warm on his shoulder when she spoke. ‘Michael’s upset, but he doesn’t object to me having an affair.’

  ‘Why not?’ He felt confused. ‘I don’t understand, luv.’

  ‘He’s impotent,’ she said flatly, ‘has been for years, since not long after Conrad was born.’

  ‘Flippin’ heck, Kathleen.’ He sat bolt upright on the bed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  She shrugged again. ‘There was no point. It didn’t matter. It still doesn’t. Michael loves me in his own way, and I love him in mine, but he realizes he can’t complain if I sleep with another man.’

  ‘But you can still do things for him,’ he said awkwardly.

  ‘I know that and so does Michael, but it’s not the same. He’s too ashamed to accept second best.’ She gently squeezed his arm. ‘I’d sooner not go into detail, Steve, not right now. I just wanted to tell you that Michael knows and that he’s not likely to come barging in and play the injured husband.’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t get divorced,’ Steve muttered.

  ‘It may surprise you even more to know that I’ve never met a man I loved as much as I love Michael, not until I met you. He said he’d divorce me if I want. I said I’d ask what you wanted first.’

  ‘This is getting beyond me.’ He got out of bed and began to drag on his clothes. ‘I don’t understand any of it. I don’t want any part of it. It’s unnatural.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ She was sitting up in bed, clutching her knees, as naked as the day she was born, her red-brown hair curled over her white shoulders and her grey eyes misted with love. She had never looked so desirable and he had never wanted her so much.

  ‘Downstairs,’ he gulped, resisting the urge to tear off his clothes and get back into bed. ‘I need to think.’

  He sat on the padded bench in the kitchen, stared at his folded hands. What the hell had he got himself into? He began to dissect Kathleen’s words, split them up into ones and twos, until it eventually dawned on him that she’d just told him she loved him, that she would divorce her husband if that’s what he, Steve, wanted. His heart began to race.

  Was it what he wanted? Did he want to spend the rest of his life with Kathleen Quinn?

  She was a strange woman, mysterious. He could never tell what she was thinking. She was different every time they met, warm and friendly one day, shy and diffident the next. Sometimes he found her in what he called her magistrate’s mode, brisk and efficient, or she might be withdrawn, uncommunicative, or as giggly as a schoolgirl. Perhaps she wasn’t sure who she was herself. Whatever her mood, when they made love, she was as passionate as ever.

  ‘Have I shocked you?’ She came into the kitchen fully dressed, face made up, hair combed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘Not every family is as simple and straightforward as yours,’ she said in her prim and proper voice. ‘Same wife after thirty years, children grown up and living on the doorstep, in and out of each other’s houses by the minute. Other families have stresses and strains you couldn’t even guess about.’

  ‘D’you think it wasn’t stressful when I lost me job as a miner?’ he said gruffly. ‘You’re talking like a bloody judge again, passing opinions on things you know nothing about.’ He hadn’t told her that he hadn’t touched his wife for twenty-four whole years, not since Alice, the youngest, was born. Jean had had four children and that was enough. She didn’t want another. For a while, she took the pill, but it made her sick and it could give you cancer, she said. Other sorts of birth control she didn’t trust – lots of women she knew had got pregnant despite their men using condoms, so they were out, and she didn’t fancy a cap, it was too messy.

  ‘Anyroad, Steve, I was never very keen on that side of things.’ Although she’d been keen enough when they were courting, he remembered.

  They’d slept in the same bed ever since, each on their own side, never trespassing on the other’s territory. But, there you go, that was Jean for you. In her own way, she was ten times more complicated than Kathleen and his own life was hardly what you’d call normal.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Kathleen sat down and laid her hands on his. They felt cool and soothing. ‘Were you shocked when I told you I loved you? I didn’t realize it had slipped out until after you’d gone. And it was stupid of me to talk about divorce, lay it on you so suddenly, without warning. You might only be coming for the sex – lots of men would. Love might be the furthest thing from your mind. I just hope I haven’t frightened you off. I’d hate to lose you.’

  ‘You’ll never lose me.’ He was conscious of his voice breaking slightly. He wrapped her small hands in his large, broad ones, and said huskily, ‘I’d like us to be together, living together, though I don’t know how we’ll manage it. Come July, I’ll be out of a job, me bank balance is in the red since I paid your bloody fine, and Jean’s engagement ring’s still in the pawnshop.’ The whipround in the club had hardly raised a quarter.

  ‘You’ll soon find another job,’ she said, grinning, ‘a big, strong man like you. And I have plenty of money. I own half the house and Michael can well afford to give me my share. We’ll be a partnership,’ she said encouragingly when she saw him frown. ‘Please don’t be old-fashioned and say you can’t live with a woman who earns more than you. This is the twenty-first century. Things like that don’t matter any more.’

  Steve felt as if he’d entered another, quite different, world. His wife, his daughters, everyone apart from Kathleen, seemed to be speaking to him from somewhere else, their voices muffled and unreal. The things in his house, once so familiar, looked strange, as if he’d never seen them before. He no longer knew where the things were kept, and kept looking for them in the wrong places.

  His relationship with Jean had sunk to its very lowest when the pit closed and hadn’t improved since. Yet never once had he even faintly considered leaving. She was his wife and would stay his wife until death did them part.

  But now everything had changed and it both excited and terrified him, the idea of leaving all the certainties behind and treading into the unknown with a woman he’d met only a few months ago.

  He felt confident that Jean would never agree to a divorce, but that wasn’t the end of the world. More importantly, his girls would never speak to him again, and he would lose all contact with his grandchildren. It was something he’d just have to put up with if it meant being with Kathleen.

  They decided to leave things as they were until July when his job came to an end and he’d get his redundancy money. He’d give the lot to Jean. He didn’t want to walk out and leave her penniless.

  One Sunday afternoon in June, they went to Huddersfield in the Mercedes to view a site in the city centre where a block of flats was being built. It was a warm, summery day, the first time he and Kathleen had been out together. She wore a cream flowered frock and a pink velvet jacket that made her look more like a girl than a 42-year-old woman. He found her more desirable than ever.

  ‘Would you like to live in a flat?’ she asked. The car parked, they walked to the site that was partially hidden behind a high wooden fence. The builders had reached the third floor. There would be six by the time it was finished, Kathleen said.

  ‘I dunno,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘We could reserve one right at the top. The view would be magnificent.’

  ‘I dunno,’ he said again. She’d got hold of the details and the prices shocked him. ‘I just wish I could pay summat towards it.’ He was aware he sounded a touch sulky.

  She dug him playfully in the ribs. ‘Don’t be silly. You would if you could, I know that.’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t.’ He hunched his shoulders uncomfortably. ‘I feel like one of them gigolos, if you must know.’

  ‘That’s true enough. I only want you as my own, personal stud.’ She giggled. �
�Let’s leave it for now. You’re obviously not keen.’ As they walked away, arm in arm, she said, ‘Steve, we have to live somewhere. We can rent a place if you prefer.’

  ‘That mightn’t be a bad idea. Once I’ve got another job, I can pay my share.’ He pulled her into a doorway and kissed her passionately.

  ‘Oh, God! I love you, Steve Cartwright.’ She flung her arms around his neck, saying recklessly, ‘Let’s do it here, in front of everyone.’

  ‘I don’t think that’d be such a good idea, luv.’ Right now, it was what he wanted more than anything in the world.

  ‘Why not?’ She pressed herself against him and he felt his body stir.

  ‘Well, someone might see us and we might get arrested. We’d end up in front of a magistrate, and you know what I think about them.’

  ‘Then let’s find a hotel. I can’t wait till we get home. Anyway, Michael will be back soon. I don’t want to rub his nose in it.’

  ‘OK, let’s find a hotel.’ He couldn’t wait, either.

  When he got home on Wednesday, an unsmiling Brenda was sitting in Jean’s chair in the living room. ‘Where’s your mam?’ he enquired.

  ‘In bed,’ she said curtly. His eldest daughter most resembled himself: big-boned, broad-faced, with long, wavy brown hair the same shade as his. She was the sort of woman people described as ‘handsome’. Nowadays, Steve wasn’t sure he liked her all that much. She had grown up a bit of a tyrant: with her kids, with Graham, her husband, and with her dad most of all. Only her mother, of whom Brenda was staunchly protective, saw her soft side.

  ‘Isn’t she well?’

  ‘You could say that. I’m not sure how you’d describe someone who’s just discovered her husband’s having it off with another woman. Don’t deny it, Dad,’ she said brutally when Steve opened his mouth to speak, although he had no idea what he was about to say. ‘Angie Curtis saw you in Huddersfield last Sunday, coming out of some cheap hotel, holding hands with a girl young enough to be your daughter.’

  ‘And Angie came and told your mother?’ He kicked the back of a chair. It was a nervous gesture rather than angry. ‘I was going to tell her meself one day soon. Why couldn’t the bitch keep her bloody gob shut?’

  ‘Why should she? Mam has a right to know. And it weren’t Mam she told, anyroad, it were me,’ his daughter sneered. ‘And it were me who told our Mam. And you might like to know that, yesterday, I rang the hospital and nobody knew anything about you working overtime, so I borrowed Graham’s car and followed you home. It didn’t surprise me when you turned into some dead posh house and didn’t come out again for almost two hours.’

  ‘You should get a job with MI5, girl. You’d make a good spy.’ He was blustering, trying to cover his confusion. This was totally unexpected and he had no idea how to deal with it.

  ‘That’s not all I did.’ Brenda’s eyes were bright with spite. ‘I went to the town hall this morning and looked up who lived in the house: Kathleen and Michael Quinn. Our Maggie said there’s a Dr Kathleen Quinn at her surgery, so it seems you’ve picked a dead posh tart to screw, Dad.’

  Steve’s heart sank to his boots. ‘Do your sisters know?’

  ‘Of course. Why, would you have liked it kept a secret?’

  ‘For now, yes. I told you, I was going to tell your mam soon.’

  ‘When?’ she demanded.

  ‘When I left for good.’

  ‘For good!’ Her eyes bulged. ‘You’re leaving Mam – for good?’

  ‘I would’ve thought she’d be pleased at the idea. I’ve been feeling a bit surplus to requirements over the last ten years.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Dad. Mam’s gutted. And don’t you think it’s about time you went upstairs to see her?’ She jerked her head towards the stairs.

  Jean was lying, fully dressed, on top of the bedclothes, her shoes on the floor, neatly side by side. She raised her head when he went in and he saw her eyes were puffy with tears. ‘Steve. Oh, Steve! How could you do this to me?’

  All he could feel was impatience. He had no intention of saying he was sorry, because he didn’t regret a single thing. ‘What did you expect, Jean? We’ve not been man and wife in a long while. I’m not exactly made of steel. All I can say is, it’s a wonder it didn’t happen sooner.’

  ‘You should’ve said summat, luv,’ she cried. ‘We could have worked things out between us.’ Her nose was running, badly. He gave her his hanky and she wiped it with a trembling hand.

  ‘I remember saying quite a lot when you turned away from me, refused to let me touch you, but you’ve forgotten.’

  She turned, buried her face in the pillow, and said in a muffled voice, ‘I’m nearly through the change, so there’s no chance of me falling pregnant. We could do it now, Steve. We could do it tonight. I wouldn’t mind.’

  He stared at the crumpled figure on the bed. It was years since Jean had given any thought to her appearance. Her thick tights were wrinkled around her ankles, her swollen hips encased in a shapeless skirt, her blouse torn under the arms. The hair that had once gleamed a pretty blonde had turned to dull grey and was cut sensibly short. There was no style to it and she only wore make-up when she left the house. He’d grown so used to it that he no longer gave it any thought. She was his wife. She was Jean, and this was the way she was.

  ‘It’s a bit late for that,’ he said gruffly. ‘I can’t turn meself on and off like a bloody tap.’

  ‘Brenda said Angie told her the girl you were with only looked half your age,’ she whispered into the pillow. ‘I can’t compete with someone like that.’

  ‘She’s forty-two, only seven years younger than you.’ Despite himself, he was beginning to feel sorry for her. He would sooner she ranted and raged, attacked him, than face him with her tears.

  ‘I want to die,’ she sobbed. ‘If you don’t stop seeing this woman, Steve, I’ll kill meself.’

  A few days later, Steve’s supervisor called him into his office. Ken Crook was an ex-sergeant major in the Marines, a hearty, red-faced man in his sixties whose job would also shortly disappear. Lately, Steve had spent most of his time loading equipment and furniture into vans, there being hardly any patients left to push around.

  ‘Sit down, son, close the door,’ Ken said when Steve entered the room that was hardly bigger than a cupboard. He grinned amiably. ‘Seems like you’ve been a naughty boy. Either that, or someone’s got it in for you.’ He threw a letter across the desk. ‘That came this morning.’

  ‘Dear Sir,’ Steve read, ‘This is to inform you that Mr Steve Cartwright is having an affair with a married woman. Yours faithfully.’ There was no signature, nothing to say where it had come from, although he recognized Brenda’s sharp, pointed writing and felt a flood of bitter anger.

  ‘Short and to the point, eh!’ Ken guffawed. ‘Well, all I can say is, good luck to you, son. What people do out of working hours is none of the hospital’s business. Anyroad, there won’t be a bloody hospital by the end of the month. We’ll all be out of a job.’ He gave Steve a lewd wink. ‘I only wish it were me having the affair.’

  Kathleen’s husband and one of the doctors in the surgery where she worked had received similar letters. ‘Michael already knows and Dennis Burke asked if I was sleeping with a patient. Once he realized I wasn’t, he didn’t care.’ She shuddered delicately. ‘But it’s horrible, Steve. Last night, the phone went twice, but there was no one there.’ She went on to say she’d taken the opportunity of giving in her notice. ‘It might be best if we moved away from Huddersfield and lived somewhere else. If we stay, I doubt if that malevolent daughter of yours will give us any peace. What do you think?’

  He didn’t tell Jean what Brenda had done. Jean was a broken woman. Day after day he would come home and find her in bed, her face haggard with weeping, telling him that she loved him, pleading with him to stay. She’d had her hair permed, bought a couple of nice frocks, but it only made her seem even more pathetic as she tried to compete with his beautiful Kathleen.

&nbs
p; He wanted to leave, find himself lodgings of some sort, while he waited for his job to come to an end and his life with Kathleen to start, but it seemed cowardly to shirk the small amount of responsibility he had left.

  For some reason, the girls kept well out of the way. Perhaps they thought that, left alone with their heartbroken mother, his own heart would be touched and he’d stay. Although the guilt was piling on him, choking him, the idea of staying with this sad, weeping woman didn’t enter his head. He was too much looking forward to being with Kathleen, although when they were together, his mind would be pre-occupied with Jean, who’d make herself ill if she didn’t pull herself together. It reminded him of the business with the new house. She hadn’t wanted one when the money was there, but all hell was let loose when she demanded a house and it was too late. Now she was doing the same thing with her husband.

  Kathleen had been writing after vacancies advertised in the medical press. There was, as always, a shortage of doctors, and replies usually arrived by return of post inviting her for interview.

  ‘Where would you like to live?’ she asked. ‘Brighton, Broadstairs, the Isle of Wight or Liverpool?’

  ‘Liverpool,’ Steve said instantly. It was a working-class city and he’d prefer to live amongst his own kind, not in some toffee-nosed, middle-class area where he’d feel out of place.

  ‘Good.’ She looked pleased. ‘There’s a job in the maternity department at the general hospital. I’ve worked with mothers and babies before and I loved it. I’ll ring them later, arrange an interview.’

  Steve’s hospital was now a ghostly place, empty of patients and beds. He spent his last day playing cards and drinking with a group of men who, like him, had been made redundant. The atmosphere was a mixture of gloom and bravado, as they discussed what they do with themselves on Monday when they would normally have gone to work. Most were off to the Job Centre that they’d been haunting for weeks without success.

  ‘What about you, Steve?’ someone asked.

  ‘It’ll be the same for me,’ he said. He didn’t mention the Job Centre would be in Liverpool. Kathleen had got the position she was after, starting the beginning of August. They would stay in a hotel while looking for somewhere to live. He’d booked a taxi to take him to Threshers’ End first thing in the morning – he didn’t want Kathleen collecting him from the house.