Both Christian and Florian were absent when Hector arrived the next evening. He was driving a temporary hired car, but Zillah refrained from commenting on it. She had got her argument all worked out and she didn’t want any distractions. Hector’s first words though, were not what she was expecting.
‘I’ve decided it would be best if I adopted Florian,’ he said abruptly. ‘He and I seem to get on well, and he’s clearly much too much of a handful for you. What do you say?’
‘NO,’ Zillah said, ‘absolutely not.’
‘And that’s your last word?’
‘Certainly is.’
‘See you in court then.’ He turned to go.
‘Wait,’ Zillah called. ‘Come on, don’t be silly. We can talk about this. For a start, what does your wife think?’
‘Oh I haven’t discussed it with her yet. She’s convinced the boy is a bad influence on her precious Morgan, but that’s just prejudice. Morgan’s a fool with or without Florian in my opinion.’
‘But you can’t possibly adopt Florian without her consent.’
‘Well, no, but I could if I was on my own.’
Zillah laughed. ‘You’d be hopeless on your own. You literally can’t even boil an egg! No, I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you pay me a regular monthly whack, and come round once in a while and get your money’s worth?’
To her surprise, Hector flinched. ‘No,’ he said at once. ‘Thanks for the offer and all that, but… no.’
Zillah studied him calculatingly and reckoned that his demand for adoption was just a try-on, and would never be taken seriously by the authorities anyway. She decided to call his bluff. ‘Face it Hector, your idea of adopting Florian was a non-starter from the beginning. Let’s be practical and talk about maintenance. How much will you give us a month?’
‘I’m not doing a standing order,’ Hector warned, ‘and if (and only IF) I agree, then I want regular access to Florian. But if you screw up the access, or Florian messes me about, then you’ll get nothing from me. Is that understood? I’m staying in charge.’
‘All right then,’ Zillah agreed (thinking, we’ll see about that!). ‘I’ll jot down the address of my bank so you can send your cheques straight there.’
‘I could always bring them round personally?’ Hector offered.
‘No, I’d rather you didn’t,’ Zillah said. ‘They’d only get lost. They’ll be much safer in the bank.’ She saw that Hector could appreciate the sense of this. He was looking round her kitchen superciliously as though he had never seen a cobweb before.
They then haggled at length about a suitable figure, with Zillah demanding far more than was reasonable to begin with, in order that Hector should believe he had won by beating her down. It worked perfectly, and she ended up with more than she had hoped for.
‘But I must see Florian regularly,’ Hector insisted. ‘Is that understood?’
‘Fine.’
‘So, where is he now?’
‘Out playing somewhere, I expect.’
‘But how am I going to arrange access days? You’re still not on the phone, I suppose?’
‘Can’t afford it. You can just turn up and take pot luck, can’t you?’
‘That’s not very satisfactory,’ Hector frowned.
‘Well, let’s try it for a while and see how it works out.’ Zillah smiled her best smile and patted Hector on the arm. ‘It’ll be fine, you’ll see.’
Hector looked only partly convinced. ‘I’ll be back to see him in a week or so then,’ he said.
‘Right.’
She watched him walk away down the path to the unfamiliar car, and let out a breath of relief. It was going to work out after all. She had banked on Hector’s liking for Florian growing large enough to entrap his feelings, but on Florian’s difficult nature being awkward enough to dissuade Hector from being determined to have him actually to live with them. For a moment there, she thought she’d miscalculated, and that the first had outweighed the second!
She hadn’t been sure either, whether her concern to make sure Florian was properly financed might have been greater than Hector’s desire for a new son. In any dispute the person who cares most has the most to lose, and is therefore at a disadvantage. In this case, it seemed that Hector cared more about Florian than she did about the money. Fancy that! Zillah thought.
Jess spent most of May and June assembling a collection of her private photographs for inclusion in an exhibition which Vivian was mounting at his gallery in Bath. She thanked the Fates daily that she’d had the wit to store all her personal negatives at home, rather than at work where they would have been destroyed in the fire. When the exhibition was finally hung in July, she went to help Vivian and his staff put it together, and got home that evening still pink with pleasure at the praise her work had received. It got better. Vivian rang regularly to tell her how it was going, and it was going very well indeed. Jess felt her confidence growing.
This was in marked contrast to her personal life. She had had very little time lately to go for country walks, and to her sorrow had missed the return of her pair of redshanks to the rushy field on the Levels where they habitually bred. Their piping courtship flights lasted only a few days, and were rewarding to witness. Jess felt cheated. She could have used some walks for calm thinking time, to breathe in the good air, and try to decide what to do about Hector. He still seemed determined not to give up, as though by sheer perseverance he could force her to change her mind. She had tried avoiding him, but then he waited until late evening and came to her flat instead. Jess was concerned that Wendy would soon discover where he was, and assume the worst.
So, quite often she consented to meet him in the George and Pilgrim, where he drank whisky and was by turns charming and peevish. Jess stuck to orange juice and tried to remain calm. Inevitably their conversations eventually turned either to Hector’s problems with Wendy, or to the infuriating lack of spare parts for the Jaguar, or to Florian…
‘He refuses to see me,’ Hector complained. ‘I take the trouble to go all the way over to their cottage at Slum-over-Peat, and then I find that he’s not there. He’s out on his bike, or he’s visiting friends, or he’s… hiding under the bed for all I know, but he won’t come with me. I just don’t know what to do about him.’
‘Back off a bit?’ Jess suggested. ‘If you put pressure on him, you’ll only drive him further away.’
Hector sighed. ‘When I think how much I’m paying for the little bastard…’ he said. ‘Somehow I don’t like to withold it, although that’s what I threatened them with. They do have a moral right to it after all, but… it makes me so mad!’
‘This isn’t just about money though.’
‘No, no, not entirely, of course not, but it does come into the equation, Jess. It’s bound to.’
‘Are you sure it isn’t actually about ownership?’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Well, put it this way – isn’t affection more important?’
‘I don’t see that it’s a choice? Florian’s my son.’
‘QED’ Jess murmured.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. I’m sorry, Hector, I really ought to be going.’
‘Me too I suppose,’ Hector said gloomily, ‘back to the in-house harridan.’
‘Is Wendy being difficult?’ Jess asked, getting to her feet.
‘Does the sun rise in the east? Of course she is. D’you know, she’s still going on about the thirty pounds I slipped Florian months ago. She says I never give her that much! She’s a real pain to live with these days.’ He sighed. ‘Never mind,’ he said in her ear as they got to the door. ‘At least I’ve got my Jessy-bootle, even if she won’t sleep with me.’ He smiled winningly. ‘I’d be such a mess without you, you know. You’re my oasis in a sea of troubles.’
‘Mmm,’ Jess said, biting back guilt and irritation, ‘that’s not much of a compliment actually. Think about it. You make me sound about as useful as a sandcastle in the desert!’
In bed that night she thought, I really don’t have any choice now. I’ve got to move to London to Caroline’s basement, and escape all this hassle from Hector. I won’t sell my flat, though; I don’t want to close down all my options. I’ll hang on to it and maybe rent it out to summer visitors, or even use it myself from time to time. I can’t go on like this. It really is now or never.
When she finally nerved herself to tell Hector of her decision, he was affectingly distraught. ‘But what will I do without you? You can’t leave me, Jess,’ he implored. ‘I need you.’ Then, when she remained determined, he abruptly changed tactics. ‘I’ve decided to buy that brand-new car I was telling you about,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel the same about the Jag any more, and all those modern gadgets do seem rather useful. Apart from things like electric windows and central locking, they tell me my new one will be alarmed and immobilised. Come to think of it, that’s exactly how I feel at this moment! Tell me you’re not serious about leaving, Jess.’
‘I’m so sorry, Hector, but I am. I’ll miss you too.’
‘But how can I prove to you how much I care? I had a really good offer the other day, you know, and I turned it down for love of you.’
‘Who from?’
‘Zillah Brakespear.’
Jess almost laughed. ‘It’s no good, Hector. Emotional blackmail won’t work either. I’m sorry but I really do have to go. Surely you can see that? There just isn’t any future for me here with you, much as I hate to leave.’
‘You’ll regret it you know,’ Hector said, thwarted and suddenly spiteful. ‘No one else is going to fall for you at your age, especially in those clothes!’
Jess gasped. ‘Thank you so much for that,’ she found the presence of mind to say. ‘That really clinches things. Now I couldn’t stay, even if I wanted to.’
In the middle of the night Jess awoke with doubts. Perhaps Hector was right. Perhaps she would never find anyone else who would love her. Tears seeped out from under her closed eyelids and ran down her cheeks on to the pillow. Should she go? It wasn’t just Hector; there were other excellent reasons for staying. At this moment she had a steady job with a regular salary. Would she be mad, wilfully to throw it all away in order to launch herself into the irregularly paid, seriously dodgy world of the freelance photographer?
Perhaps it would turn out to be the worst mistake of her whole life? Perhaps she would regret it for ever?
Eventually she sat up and put the light on. Then she found a tissue, wiped her eyes, blew her nose and tried to think positively. It might well turn out to be a bad idea, but she was determined to do it anyway. If it all went horribly wrong, she would just have to hope that she could be as blithely insouciant in the face of disaster as the boat owner who once wrote in his ship’s Log:
‘Bright and beautiful morning. Sank.’
Book Three
After Another Seven Years…
Chapter 20
At intervals during the next seven years, Jess forgot her relief at having escaped from the burden of Hector’s unreasonable expectations, and began to regret never having slept with him. She sometimes saw it as a lost opportunity; perhaps her only chance of love? Gradually however, as her freelance job developed, she became more and more engrossed in it and less and less wistful. Business was good. She’d won a major competition in photojournalism early on, and much subsequent work had flowed from that. I’ve been lucky, she thought. It was the right decision after all.
She stayed in touch with Hector. He rang her every few months, ostensibly to ask how she was getting on, but actually to unload some of his troubles on to her shoulders. Jess put up with it. She vaguely felt it was the least she could do, but she made a firm decision not to see him in person. It had been upsetting enough to make the break in the first place, and she wasn’t about to jeopardise her new found equanimity.
‘I’ve resigned from the Chronicle,’ Hector said, six months after she had left.
‘Why?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Oh, lots of reasons – I wasn’t getting anywhere – the job’s changed out of all recognition – the new building is quite ghastly – and anyway I was beginning to feel like a prisoner. I just never got out; spent all day on the bloody phone, and that’s no life for anyone.’
‘But you were never particularly ambitious, were you? I thought you just enjoyed the ambience of the Newsroom. You clearly weren’t in it for the money!’
‘A dilettante, eh?’ Hector said. ‘Probably true, but after you left it wasn’t the same. Did you know Barry’s the Senior Reporter now? Seems no time ago that he was the podgy office boy. He’s even given up crisps.’ He sighed.
‘So, what now?’
‘Oh, I’ve joined the family firm as a Director. Mudgeley Goggles is doing rather well at the moment, in fact. We’ve gone into wraparound sunglasses to protect our customers from all the nasty UV radiation that’s currently streaming through the hole in the ozone layer, and it seems to have been a smart move. Funny, really. I always swore I would never get involved…’
Poor Hector, Jess thought as she put the receiver down. He sounds so unlike himself, so depressed. This mood seemed to set the tone for the intervening years. Hector was invariably miserable whenever she spoke to him, but worst of all was the day when he telephoned to tell her that Morgan had been ‘Statemented’ as definitely having Specific Learning Difficulties.
‘In other words,’ Hector said, ‘he’s handicapped! I can hardly believe it, Jess, he looks so normal. He was such a beautiful baby too.’
He sounded near to tears. Jess, who had recently done an assignment in a school for dyslexic children, was taken aback at the depth of his defeatism.
‘But Hector,’ she said. ‘It’s surely not that bad? Literacy is only a part of life after all, and these days it’s less and less necessary. People are already talking to their computers.’
‘You don’t understand!’ Hector said vehemently. ‘To me, literacy is everything. It’s been my living for most of my life. Books are the greatest recreation there is, after all. I have nothing in common with someone who doesn’t read, don’t you see? It means I can’t relate to my own son! Put it this way,’ he said, ‘as far as I’m concerned, if you aren’t a fast and fluent reader, then you must be educationally sub-normal. In other words you’re mentally deficient!’
‘But Hector, that’s just nonsense!’ Jess protested. ‘It’s simply wrong. Dyslexics may have difficulty in dealing with symbolic stuff like the written word, but they’re really strong on logic and reasoning, and great on things like spatial awareness. They just have weak short-term memories and are slow at reading and writing, but they often have high IQs, and they’re certainly not stupid!’
‘So, how come you’re suddenly such an expert?’
‘I’ve just been working at this school. I wish you could have been there, Hector, their art work was really something.’
‘Oh, Morgan’s always messing about drawing things, mostly buildings, these days.’
‘Well there you are then.’
‘It’s not enough, Jess. I know it sounds harsh, and I wouldn’t say it to anyone else but you, but when a ten-year-old boy can’t even recite the months of the year in the correct order, I just feel despair. I feel like washing my hands of the whole fatherhood thing.’
After many such conversations over a long period of time, Jess pondered on the pressures parents bring to bear upon their children, and wondered why some were driven to do it. In her experience, they mostly said they didn’t want to pursue their own goals vicariously, but then they tried to do just that. Her own parents hinted heavily, constantly, about the joys of marriage and motherhood.
‘You’re thirty-nine,’ her father had said only the week before. ‘You’re not getting any younger, you know?’
‘You do seem to have an extraordinary facility for stating the painfully bloody obvious,’ Jess snapped at last.
‘No need for that tone of voice, my girl. We care about you, J
ess. It’s only natural.’
Jess speculated on whether Hector’s reaction towards Morgan could be counted as ‘only natural’ too. Perhaps if he hadn’t built up this cosy fantasy about the father-son relationship, then he mightn’t be so disappointed now? But then again, why should parents assume they had the right to be disappointed in their children in the first place?
Jess wondered whether there had been any other reasons why Hector had wanted a child. Some men collected status symbols – a smart car, a pretty wife, an elegant house, a pedigree pet or two – and then had to have at least one trophy child to prove their masculinity and complete the set. Perhaps that was it? Of course, she hadn’t forgotten the main reason why Hector had been so determined to have a son, but she had always found that one hard to empathise with. No one cares about hereditary titles these days, she thought. They’re irrelevant, obsolete, and all the best people play down such things anyway – look at Jonathon Porritt! So, who did Hector imagine he was going to impress? Certainly no one like me, and probably not Wendy either. Caroline? I suppose that might have been a factor when they first met. Jess made a face and smiled to herself.
Caroline could barely believe that she had been made redundant. After all those years of service, all that enthusiasm and inspiration and sheer bloody hard slog that she had put into the company, and now they had been taken over and were downsizing. She was above the 26-35 ‘employable’ age range and therefore not to be kept on. She was shattered. She searched feverishly through the jobs sections of the broadsheet newspapers, avoiding all posts which specified a ‘sense of humour’ on the grounds that they were the employers most likely to exploit their workers. She knew she had good communication, interpersonal, management and organisational skills. She enjoyed a challenge, had experience, commitment and energy. She was courteous, unflappable, sensitive and flexible – all the buzz-words. She was also highly motivated and had a good track-record, but at forty-four, she was too old. It seemed hopeless.
The Would-Begetter Page 23