Encounters and Enemies

by Diana Xarissa

  “I don’t understand why married people behave like that,” Fenella said.

  “As I said, it was a different time,” Mona told her. “Imagine that your father insisted that you marry some man that he chose for you not long after your eighteenth birthday. You do as you’re told and have a couple of babies, but you’re miserable. Then you meet a wonderful man who woos you and tells you all the right things to make you feel loved for the first time in your life. You’d be tempted to listen, and maybe to cheat as well, especially if you knew that your husband wasn’t faithful.”

  “Maybe,” Fenella said.

  “It was all a long time ago,” Mona told her. “All of the people involved are either dead or old. It can’t possibly matter anymore.”

  “It seems as if it still matters to Phillipa.”

  “Perhaps tea with Paulette won’t be as boring as I’d initially assumed,” Mona said.

  Fenella changed into a light and summery dress for the afternoon tea.

  “Everyone will be dressed up,” Mona told her. “Afternoon tea is an occasion.”

  Since she hadn’t yet taken her driving test, she rang for a taxi. “Wish me luck,” she said to Mona as she headed out.

  “Don’t dawdle,” Mona instructed her. “I want to hear what Paulette says about me.”

  The taxi driver chatted about the weather and local news while he drove, but Fenella was only half listening. When they arrived at the Seaview, she gave him a generous tip as an apology and then walked into the elegant lobby for the second time in as many days.

  “How may I help you?” the man behind the reception desk asked.

  “I’m meeting someone for afternoon tea,” Fenella replied.

  “Afternoon tea is served in the south dining room,” he informed her. “If you follow the light blue carpet down the corridor, you’ll see the dining room on your left.”

  Fenella followed the instructions and soon found herself standing in the doorway of yet another beautifully decorated room. There were a dozen or so tables spread out around the large space but only a handful of them were occupied. It took her a moment to spot Paulette Clucas at a table in one corner.

  “Ah, Fenella, thank you so much for coming,” the woman said, rising to her feet as Fenella approached the table. Paulette was wearing black again, this time an unflattering skirt and top that were at least one size too small for the plump woman. Her hair was in a ponytail again and her face was free of makeup.

  “I hope your mother is okay,” Fenella said as she slid into the chair opposite Paulette.

  “She’s, well, she has good days and bad ones,” Paulette told her. “She was doing so well yesterday that I agreed that she could attend the party last night. That didn’t go very well, though, did it?”

  “Obviously, I didn’t mean to upset her.”

  “It wasn’t you,” Paulette said. “It was hearing Mona’s name that upset her. She’d always thought of Mona as a friend.”

  “Good afternoon,” the waiter interrupted. “Is it afternoon tea for two?”

  “Yes, please,” Paulette said. “Unless you’d rather have something else?” she asked Fenella.

  “No, afternoon tea sounds wonderful,” Fenella replied. “It will be my first ever.”

  “Oh, my, I can’t imagine,” Paulette said. “Afternoon tea is one of the greatest joys in my life.”

  “I’ll be back momentarily,” the waiter told them with a bow.

  “When I was a little girl my mother would take me for a proper grown-up tea once or twice a year. It was our special time together and it always felt, I don’t know, magical or something. Paul wasn’t invited because he was a boy and Paula was just a baby, but mother and I would come here and sip tea and eat cakes and talk about everything and nothing.”

  “It sounds wonderful.”

  “It was that and more,” Paulette said, her eyes shining with remembered happiness. “My mother had a difficult life. Our afternoon teas were an escape for her.”

  “And for you.”

  “Oh, my life wasn’t that bad. I had my mother, you see, and she was devoted to all three of us children. I didn’t understand why my mother was sad all the time, or why we never saw very much of our father, but I didn’t know to care until I was much older.”

  “I wonder how many people actually had happy childhoods,” Fenella said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Very few, I would imagine,” Paulette replied. “There were happy moments in my childhood, but overall it wasn’t good. As I said, my father wasn’t around very much. Times were different then, of course. Men weren’t expected to play an active role in raising children in those days.”

  “No, that is true.”

  “Tea for two,” the waiter said as he pushed a large tea trolley up to the table. He unloaded two pots of tea with matching cups before settling a large tiered stand in the center of the table. “Finger sandwiches, pastries, and cream cakes,” he said, gesturing toward the stand. “If you’d like more of anything, or everything, please let me know.” He gave each woman a small plate that matched the tea service before he turned and walked away.

  Fenella’s mouth was watering as she helped herself to several different items. When her plate was full, she smiled at Paulette. “It all looks delicious,” she said.

  For a few minutes neither woman spoke as they began to eat. Eventually, Fenella washed down a bite with a sip of tea. “This is fabulous. I can see why you have happy memories of doing this.”

  “When I got older, we used to go for tea more often,” Paulette said. “Sometimes as often as once a month. But that was after, well, after something awful happened.”

  “I’m sorry,” was all that Fenella could think to say.

  Paulette sighed. “It’s been so many years, you’d think I could talk about it easily, but I can’t. Perhaps because my mother can’t stand to be reminded.”

  “Can I get you another plate of cream cakes?” the waiter asked.

  Fenella jumped slightly. She hadn’t heard him coming up behind her.

  “Oh, I am sorry,” he said quickly.

  “I think we could use more cakes,” Paulette said with a nervous giggle.

  “Right away, madam,” the man replied.

  He was back only a moment later and Fenella was delighted to see several small chocolate cakes on the plate he delivered. She helped herself while Paulette poured herself some more tea.

  “If you talk to anyone on the island, you’ll soon hear the whole story,” Paulette said. “I may as well tell you everything.”

  “Please don’t, if it makes you uncomfortable,” Fenella said quickly.

  The other woman shook her head. “I want you to understand why my mother behaved so badly last night. You should hear the whole story.”

  Fenella took a big bite of cake. Chocolate made everything better, even sad stories from many years ago.

  “I’m the oldest,” Paulette said. “My mother always told me that she’d hoped and prayed for a little girl when she found out she was pregnant with me. She and my father hadn’t been married for very long, but she was already very lonely. She wanted someone to be her friend, I suppose.”

  “Hence the afternoon teas,” Fenella suggested.

  “Yes, I suppose so. I was far too young to properly enjoy them when we first started going, but I don’t suppose my mother had anyone else with whom to go anywhere. Anyway, about two years later my little brother came along. I believe my father was happier with a son than he had been with a daughter, but that didn’t mean he spent any more time at home, just that he sometimes took Paul, Junior, with him when he went out.”

  “Their own version of your afternoon tea.”

  “Something like that,” Paulette agreed. “But only very occasionally. Anyway, a few years after Paul came along, my mother had another baby. This time it was another girl, Paula, but something went wrong. My mother was never certain whether Paula’s problems were caused by an error in the delivery room or something
that had happened during the pregnancy, but something went wrong.”

  “Could it have been something genetic?” Fenella asked.

  “Perhaps. As I said, my mother never knew exactly what went wrong, but Paula had lots of problems. She never progressed past infancy, really. She could hold up her head, but she never managed to sit up on her own or walk or talk. My mother, of course, dedicated herself to Paula’s care, but it was exhausting and endless. She didn’t trust anyone else to look after her, except for her own mother.”

  “How difficult for all of you,” Fenella murmured.

  “Yes, it wasn’t easy. My grandmother used to come and stay for several days at a time, two or three times a year. That was the only time my mother would ever leave Paula’s side. As long as Paula was doing okay, we’d go for our afternoon tea, though. My mother always insisted on making sure we got to do that.” The woman’s eyes filled with tears.

  “I’m very sorry,” was all that Fenella could think to say.

  “As I got older, I tried to help more, but Paula was, well, difficult to deal with, really. She would slap at me when I tried to feed her or shout when I tried to dress her. My mother was the only one who could manage her, although my grandmother could handle her for short periods of time. I was fifteen when my grandmother passed away.”

  “More tea?” the waiter asked. This time Fenella had seen him coming. She found she was glancing around the room a great deal, trying not to stare at the woman across from her who was pouring out her heart.

  “Yes, please,” she said quickly. The man replaced both teapots before bowing again and walking away.

  “I’m sorry,” Paulette said. “I’m dragging this out because I hate talking about it. I’ll skip over some of the more maudlin bits and simply tell you that my baby sister died that summer, no more than three months after my grandmother had gone. My mother was, obviously, devastated.”

  Fenella nodded. “Losing a child is the most difficult thing in the world,” she said. While she’d lost her only child in the very early stages of pregnancy, Fenella felt a tremendous rush of sympathy for Phillipa Clucas.

  “Her heart simply gave out, apparently,” the woman said. “The doctors said they weren’t surprised. Apparently, they’d warned my mother that she might lose Paula at any time. My mother only told me that after her mother died. I was trying to persuade my mother to hire someone to come in to look after Paula for a few hours now and again. My mother wouldn’t even consider it.” She shook her head. “My mother had been warned. She knew Paula’s heart was weak, but she still fell to pieces when Paula died. She had to be hospitalized for several weeks and it was nearly a year before she began to pull herself together.”

  “How awful for you and your brother,” Fenella said.

  “It wasn’t easy. I was fifteen. I dropped out of school to look after Mum. My father didn’t know what to do about the situation, so he just avoided it for the most part. My brother started spending most of his afternoons at my father’s office, which was good for him, I suppose, but left all of the care for my mother on my shoulders.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “Mum improved slowly,” Paulette said, giving Fenella what looked like a forced smile. “And it was a long time ago. I’m well over the trauma of it all. When I look back now, it’s all a dark blur, the year or so from when my grandmother died until the time when my mother began to improve. By then I’d decided that I didn’t want to go back to school. Instead, I stayed at home as a sort of companion to my mother. Here we are, thirty-odd years later, and I’m still doing the same thing.”

  The waiter dropped off another plate of pastries and cream cakes as Fenella tried to work out how to bring the conversation around to Mona again. She still didn’t know why Phillipa thought that Paul had had an affair with Mona.

  “My father retired about ten years ago,” Paulette told her as the waiter walked away. “As soon as he stopped working, he started playing golf five or six times a week. Mum used to joke that she saw more of him when he was working than after he retired. My brother used to play with him, at least on the weekends. He’s taken over the family business, which pleased my father, I’m sure.”

  “Is he married? Does your mother have grandchildren?” Fenella asked as the questions popped into her head.

  “No. I suppose seeing how miserable marriage made our parents for all those years, neither Paul nor I were ever tempted to try it ourselves. I had a few suitors when I was much younger, but nothing ever came of any of it.” She glanced down at her outfit and waved a hand. “I know it’s hard to believe now, looking at me, but I wasn’t unattractive when I was younger. My father had a great deal of money, as well, which made me even more appealing. That may be why I stayed away from romantic entanglements, really. I could never be certain if men were interested in me or in my family’s money. I’m not sure why Paul never married.”

  “Perhaps he’s simply never found the right woman,” Fenella suggested. “I’ve never married, either.”

  Paulette nodded. “But I invited you here today to apologize for last night,” she said. “All of this has been a very long-drawn-out explanation for what happened last night.”

  “I’m not sure that I follow.”

  “It seems that my father decided, once he’d retired, to write his memoirs,” she explained. “He passed away before he did much more than make a few notes,” Paulette said. “My mother accessed them on his computer after his funeral.”

  Fenella nodded, anticipating what was coming next.

  “She was devastated with what she found,” Paulette said sadly.

  “Let me guess, he claims in his notes that he had an affair with Mona,” Fenella concluded.

  “I’ve no reason to doubt what he wrote,” Paulette said.

  Fenella bit her tongue. She had every reason to doubt Paul Clucas’s words, but she couldn’t very well explain that to Paulette.

  “My mother says she’s only glanced at what’s there. I’m trying to persuade her to delete the file without looking at the rest of it,” Paulette told her. “From what I’ve seen so far, I’m certain that Mona wasn’t the only woman he slept with behind my mother’s back. Having seen how she reacted to meeting you last night, I really don’t want her to find out about anyone else.”

  “I can understand that, but how can you be certain that your father was telling the truth?”

  “He had no reason to lie, not when all of the cheating puts him in a bad light,” Paulette argued. “Anyway, it all makes sense. It explains the long hours he was meant to be at work, and the weekends away. Now I know why he was never around and why he was so distant when he was at home.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fenella said. She was tempted to argue further, but she didn’t want to add to the other woman’s obvious upset. At the end of the day, it probably didn’t matter that Paulette and Phillipa thought that Mona had had an affair with the man. They were both dead, after all.

  “Thank you,” Paulette said. “I know you didn’t know Mona, but I remember her from my childhood. She was incredibly beautiful and glamorous and sophisticated. I remember her visiting my mother when I was very young. She always looked like a princess to me in her fabulous clothes. Her makeup was always perfect and she never had a hair out of place. I don’t know how she did it, but I know my mother was intimidated by her, even though they were meant to be friends.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t mean to be intimidating.”

  “I don’t know what to think now that I know that she had an affair with my father. I don’t really understand how she could pretend to be friends with my mother after that.”

  Again Fenella bit her tongue. There had to be a way to convince the other woman that her father had lied in his book, but she needed to think it through before she started arguing.

  “Anyway, my mother hasn’t been herself since my father died, and this latest news has just about sent her over the edge. I’m doing my best to keep her happy, but it isn’t easy.
She insisted on going to the party last night. Once my sister passed away, she got herself involved in various charities, and she’s still keen to support them. I never imagined that she’d behave as she did, though.”

  “It wasn’t a problem,” Fenella said. “I can’t imagine how she must have felt, reading your father’s notes. I hope you can keep her from reading any more.”

  “Luckily, she was so upset by what she read in the beginning that she had to stop. I’ve told her the computer isn’t working properly now, but she’s already said that she’s going to talk to my brother about it. He’s good with computers. It won’t take him long to realize everything’s fine. I really don’t want him reading the notes, though. He doesn’t need to know the truth about our father.”

  “Paulette, there you are,” a voice called from the doorway.

  The woman looked up and frowned. “Speak of the devil,” she muttered.

  4

  Fenella looked curiously at the man who was rapidly walking across the dining room toward them. He was better looking than Fenella had imagined he would be, with dark hair liberally sprinkled with grey. He was wearing dark trousers and a light sweater and he looked fit and trim. As he sat down next to Phillipa, Fenella couldn’t help but think that he looked far more than two years younger than the woman.

  “I rang the house and Mother said you’d gone out,” he said. “This is the only place I could imagine you going.”

  Phillipa smiled tightly. “You know I love my Sunday tea.”

  “Yes, but you usually bring Mother with you,” he replied.

  “I decided to meet a friend today instead,” Phillipa told him.

  The man looked over at Fenella and smiled warmly. “I’m Paul Clucas,” he said. “I’m sure we haven’t met.”

  Fenella took the offered hand. She was surprised to find that the man had stunning blue eyes that didn’t seem to go with his dark hair. “Fenella Woods,” she said.

  “Ah, but I’ve heard about you,” the man said, holding her hand for a moment longer than necessary. “You’re Mona Kelly’s niece, aren’t you? The entire island is talking about you.”