Union Belle

by Deborah Challinor

‘For a walk.’

  She smiled coyly, then said, As long it isn’t far, I’ve got my good shoes on.’

  ‘No, it won’t be far.’

  He took her hand and led her down the steps and around to the back of the hall. He saw that she gave the dingy shadows there a weary and disappointed look, as if she’d been there before and nothing much had changed.

  ‘Here?’ she asked.

  ‘No, not here, further back, by the shed.’

  She followed him through the long damp grass across the overgrown section at the rear of the hall to an old shed tucked beneath a row of pines, and waited patiently as he shook the rickety wooden door. It rattled but didn’t open. Tom swore. He gave it a last belligerent shove, then towed Meg around to the side of the shed, out of sight of prying eyes where the shadows were deepest. He thought she must know what was coming next, because she leaned back against the flaking weatherboards and relaxed.

  Tom set his hands on her shoulders and lowered his face to kiss her. Her mouth tasted of beer and cigarettes, and something waxy and slightly scented—her lipstick, he supposed. But her lips were soft and welcoming, and he felt himself stir at her response. Her arms came up around him and she moved her ample hips against his groin.

  ‘I knew you’d be a big man,’ she murmured in his ear, and Tom felt his erection spring to full attention.

  He pushed a cold hand down the top of her blouse, not bothering to caress and take his time as he usually did with Ellen. He didn’t think he needed to, because this wasn’t Ellen, this was just going to be a root, and he assumed Meg knew that as well as he did. He was very aroused, though, in spite of the amount he’d had to drink. It was exciting to caress the skin of a woman he shouldn’t be touching, and the more he did it the more he felt he was clawing back a measure of dignity and confirmation that he was still a desirable and attractive man, regardless of what Ellen obviously thought.

  Meg raised a leg and he felt her heel stroking rhythmically up and down over the back of his knee. The gesture encouraged him to undo the small buttons on her blouse and slide a hand up her back. The hooks of her bra defeated him, however, and after a minute Meg reached around and undid them herself. Her breasts dropped heavily, her nipples dark in the expanse of soft, pale skin. He bent his head to kiss them and she sighed, her hands resting on his shoulders.

  But he didn’t stay there for long. Sliding her skirt up her legs, he slipped his hand between them and felt his pulse thud as his fingers moved past the nylon of her stockings to the warmer silkiness of her skin. He inched his way further up and was pleased to note that she had her pants on over her girdle—good, that would save a lot of mucking around.

  She pulled them down herself, wriggling her hips as she did in a manner that made him squirm. She stepped out of them and popped them neatly into her handbag in the grass at her feet, then raised her skirt, giving him unobstructed access to her. He looked down hopefully but couldn’t see much: it was too dark to make out more than the shadowed triangle at the top of her thighs.

  She reached out and rubbed the bulge in his trousers. ‘Ready?’ she asked.

  ‘Hell, yes,’ he said, anticipating the heat and slipperiness of her.

  But when he slid his fingers between her legs she was dry, not ready at all. He felt his mood, and his erection, begin to deflate.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  Meg brushed a hand tenderly across his cheek. It felt strange and he pulled back.

  ‘It’s not you, Tom, it’s being out here. But I can’t take you home because of the kids.’ She spat tidily onto her fingers and ran them between her legs. ‘There, that should help,’ she said, and guided his hand back down.

  The sensation revived him and he unbuttoned his trousers, let them fall around his ankles and shoved his underpants down to his knees. But he was too tall for her, and very conscious of the fact that if he bent his knees far enough to ease himself into her, he’d be crippled within minutes. So he lifted one of her legs up to his hip, set his hands under her buttocks and hoisted her up, but had to let her go again almost immediately.

  ‘Christ, woman, you weigh a ton.’

  ‘And you could charm the birds out of the trees with comments like that.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Shall we lie down?’

  Meg obliged and lay down on her back in the long grass. Tom settled himself between her legs, then pushed himself into her, groaning as her warm flesh enveloped him. She raised her knees and he settled into an urgent rhythm, his face brushed by stalks of paspalum as he supported himself on his elbows above her.

  It only took him a minute or two, minutes punctuated by his grunting, a couple of squeaks from her as he squashed the breath out of her, and the hoots of a morepork in the trees above them. Afterwards, as he lay collapsed on top of her breathing heavily, he thought about asking how it had been for her. But he suspected he knew the answer, and didn’t want to hear her telling a lie, so he stayed quiet.

  When his pulse had returned to normal, he rolled off and pulled his underpants and trousers back up. He felt hollow now, and somehow cheated, the confidence he’d experienced only a few minutes earlier gone. He buckled his belt, then held out a hand and helped her up off the ground.

  ‘Is there grass stuck to my back?’ she asked.

  ‘Turn around.’

  Tom methodically picked off every blade of grass and pine needle adhering to her. It took him longer than the sex had and, for some reason, felt infinitely more intimate.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, turning her around to face him again. ‘You look as good as new.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ she said, and Tom saw in her eyes, hard and sad at the same time, that whatever she’d thought she was going to get from him, it hadn’t eventuated.

  He hadn’t got what he’d wanted, either. He’d thought that having sex with Meg would go some way towards evening the score, that it would make him feel better, less humiliated and powerless, but now he felt even worse. He didn’t even have the moral high ground now.

  He waited for Meg to put her pants back on and apply fresh lipstick, then followed her back to the hall.

  ‘Are you coming back in?’ she asked.

  Tom shook his head; he was still drunk but didn’t feel like being sociable any more. What he really wanted was a good spew to get rid of the beer still sloshing around in his stomach, then to find somewhere dark and quiet where he could lie down and sleep off the booze, and the hangover that would undoubtedly arrive in a few hours’ time.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I think I’ve had enough.’

  Meg shrugged. ‘Up to you,’ she said, and walked up the steps, her heels clacking on the concrete as she went.

  Tom waited a second, then called out, ‘Meg?’

  She stopped and turned around.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  She stared down at him for a moment, then went inside.

  FOURTEEN

  When Ellen got up the next morning, she found Tom on the couch again, but awake this time. She stood in her dressing gown and watched him as he struggled to sit up, then lean forward with his face in his hands. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin a pasty grey, and she could smell him from the doorway.

  ‘Do you want a bucket?’

  ‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘A cup of tea though.’

  Ellen went out to the kitchen. He’d clearly been to the dance the night before and drunk himself silly, and she supposed she couldn’t blame him for that. She’d had an awful night’s sleep herself, tossing and turning in the big empty bed, wondering whether he would come home, wondering whether anything would ever be the same between them again, if in fact she even wanted things to be the same.

  She took the lid off the tea caddy and sighed when she saw it was nearly empty. In the bedroom she got dressed, ran a brush through her hair, then ducked into the bathroom to clean her teeth.

  ‘I’m going down to the shop,’ she said to Tom, who was still slumped on the
couch. ‘We’re out of tea.’

  Fred Hollis greeted her cordially enough from behind the counter, but when Andrea Trask came into the shop a few minutes later, Ellen was sure she felt the temperature drop several degrees. She selected her tea, asked Fred to put it on credit and was on her way out when she felt a sharp tap on her shoulder.

  ‘Thanks very much, Ellen McCabe!’ Andrea said, as Ellen turned to face her.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Andrea thrust her arm through the handles of her shopping basket and hitched it up over her shoulder. ‘Thanks for stealing Jack Vaughan off me,’ she said. ‘I was wondering why he dumped me like a hot potato. But why wouldn’t he, if he was getting what he wanted on a plate?’

  Ellen was shocked at the vehemence of her outburst. ‘I’m sorry, Andrea, I didn’t mean it to happen that way.’

  ‘What way did you mean it to happen, then? I really liked Jack and he thought the world of me.’

  Andrea…’

  But Andrea charged on, her voice getting shriller by the second. ‘I just don’t understand it, why would he pick you over me? You’re old. And it’s not fair, you’ve already got a husband and two kids and a house of your own, and a bloody refrigerator, why couldn’t you be happy with that? What’s wrong with you?’

  Ellen wished she knew the answer to that, but she didn’t. ‘You don’t understand, Andrea.’

  ‘Oh, I understand, all right. I know about women like you. Your mother was the same, wasn’t she? That sort of thing must run in the family, does it?’

  Fred came up behind Andrea, wiping his hands on his grocer’s apron. ‘That’s enough, Andrea Trask. Either keep a civil tongue in your head or take it home.’

  ‘You leave my mother out of this, Andrea,’ Ellen warned, finally losing her temper. And grow up. Jack Vaughan was never really interested in you. You’d still be going out with him if he was.’

  ‘Ladies, ladies,’ Fred cautioned, flapping his hands. If there was one thing worse than women fighting, it was women fighting in his shop.

  For a moment, Andrea looked as though she might take a swing at Ellen with her shopping basket, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, ‘Don’t worry, Mr Hollis, I’m going.’ Then, to Ellen, she added, ‘You can’t have everything, you know. Why don’t you ask your husband what he was doing with Meg Thomasson last night? Hand in hand they were, apparently, disappearing behind the hall.’ And with a satisfied smirk at the expression on Ellen’s face, she flounced off.

  Fred stared after her, then nervously cleared his throat. ‘Ellen, I’m sorry but I can’t have that sort of thing in my shop. If it happens again, I’ll have to ask you to take your custom somewhere else.’

  Ellen regarded him for a moment, and realised with a dull shock that the esteem and affection that Fred had had for her for as long as she could remember was no longer there. She imagined she saw disappointment in his face instead, disappointment and a measure of censure.

  ‘I understand, Fred, I’m really sorry.’

  Fred nodded, embarrassed. ‘I can’t have my regular customers upset.’

  Ellen thought Fred’s regular customers would probably be delighted to be entertained by cat fights while they were doing their shopping, but she didn’t say so.

  Instead, she said, ‘Well, thanks for the tea.’

  She marched back up the street, her shoes crunching on the gravel, blind to everything around her as she forced herself to confront Andrea’s last poisonous little barb.

  Tom was still on the couch in the sitting room, although he didn’t look up when she paused at the door. He looked terrible.

  ‘I just saw Andrea Trask at the shop,’ Ellen said.

  Tom didn’t respond.

  ‘She said you were with Meg Thomasson last night.’

  He did look up then, and scowled, guiltily and belligerently. Ellen suddenly knew that it was true.

  ‘You bloody bastard!’ she yelled, and hurled the packet of tea at his head.

  It hit him in the centre of his forehead, bounced off and sprayed a shower of tea leaves everywhere as the packet burst. The aroma that suddenly filled the room reminded her of cosy, steamy winter mornings in the kitchen, and it made her want to cry.

  ‘Why, Tom?’

  He sat up straighter, rubbing his forehead. ‘Why do you think? Why did you do it?’

  ‘Because I love Jack. Do you hear me, Tom? I love him!’

  It was the first time she had admitted it to him, and the awful power of her words almost knocked him backwards.

  ‘I don’t care if you love him or not,’ he said, ‘you still cheated on me.’

  Ellen ignored him. ‘And I know you’re not in love with Meg Thomasson, so what was your excuse?’ She was standing over him now, so angry she could feel herself quivering from head to toe.

  ‘She was there, she was keen. It didn’t mean anything.’

  Ellen raised her hand and slapped him across the face as hard as she could. ‘How could you, you selfish bloody bastard! How could you take advantage of her like that?’

  Tom gazed up at her, startled and thoroughly confused. She could see in his face that he didn’t know what she meant, and for the first time in her life she despised him.

  She bent down, so close to him she could smell his stale breath. ‘I never thought I’d say this about you, Tom, but using Meg like that is the weakest, most pathetic and selfish thing you’ve ever done.’

  ‘And you opening your legs for Jack Vaughan wasn’t selfish?’

  ‘No, it was a bloody escape.’

  His mouth opened then closed again in anguish and impotent rage. She stepped out of range because she could see he wanted to hit out at her again: his hands had clenched into fists, but, for the moment, he kept them tight against his belly.

  ‘Stop that this minute!’ It was Gloria, standing in the doorway, glaring at them. ‘Stop it, the pair of you, the boys will hear.’

  ‘Are they home?’ Ellen asked, her heart pounding even harder in case they’d heard.

  ‘They’re outside, playing in the tree hut. They wanted to come home, they know bloody well something’s wrong.’ She sat down in an armchair, the look on her face suggesting that she was prepared to sit there for ever if she had to. ‘For God’s sake, you two, you have to sort this out. So, Ellen, go and put the kettle on.’

  Tom said, ‘There’s no tea.’

  Gloria eyed the tea leaves scattered across the couch, on the floor and in his hair. ‘Then get a spoon and scrape some up. And while you’re at it, go and wash your face, you’re a disgrace. Then we’ll talk.’

  The boys came in to say hello, then were sent outside again with jam sandwiches and mugs of cocoa to have as a picnic in the tree hut. Neil wanted to know what was going on, but Gloria shooed him away with a promise of sixpence to spend at the lolly shop if he could keep Davey entertained for the next hour or so.

  ‘I don’t want sixpence,’ he said, ‘I want to know what’s going on.’

  ‘Well, you can’t, it’s grown-up business,’ Gloria said. ‘Go on, be a good man and look after your brother. Everything will be all right, I promise.’

  Neil trudged outside, dragging his feet and looking back over his shoulder at her, eyes filled with confusion.

  When he’d gone, Gloria didn’t actually do much of the talking, in the end. Tom didn’t want her to do any of it, and when he’d cleaned himself up and changed out of yesterday’s smelly and crumpled clothes, he said so.

  ‘I know you want to help, Gloria, but this is between me and Ellen.’

  They were sitting around the table, the three of them.

  ‘No it’s not, Thomas, it’s my business too,’ Gloria said. ‘Anything to do with my grandsons is my business. And I’m warning both of you that if you can’t get this mess sorted out without upsetting those poor little mites even more, then I’m taking them. They can come and live with me until you’ve come to your senses.’

  Tom said, ‘Gloria, I said I don’t want anyone else invo
lved.’

  ‘Well, too bad,’ Gloria replied, ‘because they already are. I am, Neil and Davey are, Jack Vaughan is, and I’m damn sure at least half of the town would love to be as well, if they could. Everyone’s gossiping about it, particularly after your performance last night, Thomas.’

  He had the grace to blush, but at the same time looked thoroughly appalled at the fact that she’d mentioned it in front of Ellen.

  ‘What?’ Gloria went on. ‘It isn’t as if she doesn’t know—you were both going hammer and tongs over it ten minutes ago.’ She stood up and reached for her bag. ‘I’ve brought my knitting and I’m going into the lounge to finish a set of sleeves, and I’m not leaving until you’ve worked something out. And if I hear even a hint of a raised voice, I’ll be straight back in here, you mark my words.’

  When she’d gone, Tom and Ellen sat on opposite sides of the table, eyeing each other warily. The emotional distance between them felt like a bottomless pit, and neither of them knew where to start.

  Tom said eventually, ‘She’s right, we have to look out for Neil and Davey.’

  ‘I know we do.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you think about that when you decided to take your knickers off for Jack?’

  Ellen closed her eyes against the bitterness in his voice. She didn’t feel resentment about what he’d done with Meg, only anger because he’d done it so casually and selfishly. She believed him when he said it had meant nothing, and she wondered desolately whether she would have cared if he’d told her that it had. She suspected not, and it was breaking her heart.

  ‘Can we not snipe at each other, Tom, please?’

  He rubbed his face wearily and exhaled. ‘I can’t help it. This is killing me, Ellen. I just don’t understand what’s happened.’ He pulled at a loose thread on the cuff of his jumper. ‘I don’t understand why it’s happened, either. I thought we were all right, you and I.’

  ‘We were.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’

  Ellen didn’t know what to say. Her earlier anger was ebbing away, and now she just felt sad and empty. The truth was, it had gone wrong simply because Jack Vaughan had come along, and Jack Vaughan had turned out to be the finest thing that had ever happened to her. But she couldn’t say that to Tom while he was looking at her with eyes that were so bewildered and hurt.