by Paul Kelly
They had lunch together and Fiona played some soft Gounod-Bach music in the background, just after they had enjoyed a coffee, knowing that William played the violin and she hoped it might assist with the conversation which was lagging a little as they ate together, but William ate in silence and it was only when Fiona looked at his eyes ... with particular interest, wondering what this young handsome man could possibly see in her middle aged mother, that he looked up and smiled.
“Am I embarrassing you?” he asked and the question surprised her.
“No ... no, not at all and I am sorry if I gave the impression that you have,” she said, but decided to ask the questions she had in mind herself, now that he had opened the subject of embarrassment. The embarrassment was all hers and not his. “Can I ask you what you are thinking?” she asked, hoping he might say something about his feelings for Maya, but he didn’t reply immediately and she wondered if she had jumped the gun with all the thoughts that she had entertained before William came to the flat. ... or was he about to start stuttering again, but she needed to have no fear in that way as William spoke clearly all the time he was at Fiona’s flat after his initial visit. There was so much she wanted to know. So much she could not understand and perhaps now was the best opportunity to satisfy her curiosity. She had to admit that he had more than beauty in his eyes. They were eyes that ‘spoke’ to you and she was fascinated as she tried not to make it obvious that she admired them, without making him feeling strange in any way, but within a few moments it was he who spoke and broke the ice as he tried to talk with great difficulty and he knew that his stuttering was overtaking him, as it frequently did when he was nervous.
“You …you …you…are probably wondering wh …wh …why I am so in love … with Maya, are you not?” he asked in as firm a voice as he could muster, but there was still the trace of a stutter. Fiona was amazed that he should say that … especially in the slow and deliberate way he spoke. There was no leading up to the subject. It was straight to the point. William was in love with her mother and that was the entire question answered. There was nothing more she could say. He had told her everything she wanted to know, but was it LOVE ... and he had assured her in such a simple way, that it was, but as she watched him even more closely now that he had been so forthright, she found herself attracted to the eyes again and her memory irritated her . . . ‘Bollocky-Boy ... Bollocky Boy ... Bollocky-Boy …’ Fiona kept repeating in her mind and she was ashamed at the way she was thinking. This was not her vocabulary ... and never was and never could be, if ever she could fall in love with someone ... she thought ... and then after a few moments, it was as if she could understand something of the feelings her mother had for the young man who sat beside her so calmly; so peacefully and seemingly unconcerned about his future as he sipped his coffee. She wanted to say the same words to him now. To show him the same feeling of being FREE, but she realized that such a freedom was not for her and only for someone who loved him as so obviously her mother had done and although the picture was beginning to form clearer now in her mind about Maya and her young lover, Fiona wanted to know more. She wanted ... and then she stopped for a moment ... Should she dare say what she had on her mind?
Fiona thought long and hard as they sat together; she by the piano and he on the settee, before she threw back her head with a confidence that she had wanted for so long a time before.
“I know you say you are in love with my Maya, my mother ... and I know you are sincere when you say that, but I find it difficult to understand how a young handsome man like yourself who could have almost any woman he wanted, should fall in love with my mother ... She is twice your age, William. I know she is beautiful in her own way, but I cannot really understand. Please help me,” she said and William looked at her very tenderly as he continued, slowly to he sip his coffee.
“Is anyone able to say what it is that makes them fall in love with another?” he asked her, avoiding her own question and this time as he spoke, there was not a trace of a stammer, but she was persistent.
“Was there such a moment in your life? Was it something that you felt in a moment the first time you met her?” she asked and he put his coffee cup down on the table as he turned again to look at her.
“Maya … your mother took pity on me on the road from Southend to London when the weather was atrocious and no-one else would give me a lift,” he said and again to Fiona’s further surprise and delight, without the slightest trace of a stammer, but Fiona interrupted quickly before he could say any more.
“That is all very well, but how could you fall in love with someone in that moment when all she gave you was a lift when the weather was so bad ... It doesn’t make sense, does it?”
William smiled and as his eyes softened again, Fiona realized in that second what her mother had seen in him. She had listened to her mother’s side of the story and the facts just sickened her, but as she looked at William sitting to calmly and so placidly beside her, she wanted to hear his side of the affair. She wanted confirmation of this relationship and only he could give it to her, but what she was feeling in that moment as she questioned William was her own emotions and not those of William nor of her mother. She wanted to think otherwise, but Fiona Munroe-Smith was falling in love with disaster, just as her mother had done before her and it was all in a second ... She knew . . . in that very second how she felt towards William Bright, but that was another chapter.
“Did my mother seduce you?” she asked abruptly, almost with anger and her voice shook with fear and emotion, wondering what sort of an answer he would give her as she knew him to be so honest in what he had told her before.
“I have been asked this question before and I can only answer in the same way. I LOVE your mother ... She didn’t have to do anything to further that love. I wanted her as I had never ever wanted any woman in my life before I met her,” he replied calmly with a gentle smile on his face.
“Are you telling me that Maya was the first woman in your life …the first love of your life?”
Yes,” he answered firmly and looked towards the floor.
“How old are you, William?”
“Twenty-one and a bit,” he replied . . . “why?”
“I find it strange to think that you have never been with a woman before you met my mother. Surely there must have been someone at some time or other in your life. Not even just a schoolgirl crush that you thought was love?” she asked,” but
William ignored Fiona’s question with a question of his own to her.
“How old are you Fiona . . .?” he asked and she looked at him in surprise as she tried to brush his question aside.
“A woman doesn’t divulge her age,” she said with a mischievous smile, knowing that he was about to ask her about the loves of her own life, but she forestalled the question by making her own statement. “If you are asking me if I have ever been in love,” she replied, “the answer is NO. Most definitely NOT . . .I thought I was a few times, but it was a childish fantasy and this is what I think is the matter with you at the moment William. You are flattered by my mother’s attention, but that could have happened with any woman who paid you the compliments and attention that she has done. Any woman could have had that effect on you since you were so vulnerable, never having had the relationships with a girl or a woman before”
William smirked and raised his head to look into Fiona’s eyes.
“I am looking at you now Fiona and you have been very kind to me since I came to your flat, but I tell you now, when I first looked at your mother when she invited me to her flat, I felt very much different to what I am feeling now.” he said and Fiona was taken aback for a second. It was beginning to seem obvious that her feelings for William Bright were perhaps what she had only just described them to be in her past ... fantasies. Was she going through another ‘crush’ because he was handsome? Was she dreaming in a dream that could never be, becau
se of the love he already had for her mother?
“I think love is something that happens without any effort on your part,” he said, as he pushed his cup away from him and wiped his mouth with his napkin as he rose up to walk around the lounge, but the way he looked at Fiona when he spoke, confirmed the feelings that she had for him and she would not admit those feelings to herself or to anyone ... Nevertheless, there was a certain sense of envy towards her mother and Fiona wished she had met William Bright before he went to Southend that fateful day ...
“I hope you will be O.K. in my little guest room,” she said, trying to change the subject as she ushered William into her second bedroom. “It needs decorating, but I haven’t been very long in this flat and I haven’t quite got round to all I want to do yet,”
William looked around the room and assured Fiona it was more than satisfactory for his needs and that again he was grateful for the trouble she was taking, but she raised her hand in the air.
“No trouble, I do assure you and by the way, I don’t know what time you start work in the morning. I start at eight and I usually have a light breakfast before I go. Can I get you something? I could always put it in the microwave and you could have it whenever you are ready.”
“I start at Belvedere around ten in the morning, but they are very kind there and give me something when I arrive, but thanks anyway. Oh! By the way, I finish work around three in the afternoon, but some of the staff at Belvedere have been inviting me out in the evenings and sometimes I don’t get away until about 7 or 8. Would that make a difference to your working day?” he asked and Fiona was astounded at the power of his speech. Every word was precise and accurate. It was impossible to believe that he ever had a stammer at any time before in his life and she found it almost impossible to believe that he ever had any impediment in his speech. She assured him it didn’t matter in the least what time he wanted to come home, but she wished in her heart that he could have come home to her flat a little earlier than that. It was lonely spending evenings on her own, apart from the times when she went to the junior orchestra where she helped out with her flute on a Wednesday around seven, or when she was ‘on call’ for the veterinary practice where she worked.
“That will be fine, William. Please feel free to come and go when you like. I am busy on a Wednesday evening when I play the flute in the orchestra down at the Junior School.”
William raised his eyebrows when Fiona said that and asked her if she could play any other instrument, hoping she might say she could play the violin, but she could only answer that together with the flute and that was very amateurish, she played the piano.
“You play the violin, I understand,” she said, hoping he might elaborate, but he assured her that his playing was like her own on the flute, very amateurish.
“I would like to hear you play sometime,” she went on. “I understand from my mother that you play very well ... The violin, I mean.” she hastily concluded hoping there was no misinterpretation of her meaning.
“I play reasonably well if you don’t know much about music,” he said, “But I am sure with your knowledge of the musical world, I wouldn’t be able to impress you.”
Fiona smiled as she handed him the key to her flat and they said Goodnight as she retired to the bathroom, but William put his hand on her arm just as she was about to leave the lounge.
“There is one thing I would like to ask you before we retire for the night Fiona ... and I hope you won’t think it impertinent of me,” he said and his voice sent a thrill along her arm as she was hoping that he might have something loving ... or something tender to say, but that wasn’t what William had in mind.
“Yes,” she replied, “You can ask me anything and I will answer if I can.”
He released her arm and looked into her eyes.
“Did you know that there would be someone at your mother’s flat on the night you told me to go round there,” he asked and Fiona was disappointed, if also a little afraid of the question. William’s world seemed to centre on her mother and she wasn’t at all pleased that it should be that way.
“No,” she lied, “I had no idea there would be anyone with my mother. I only know that she was missing you and I felt sure she would want to see you again ... She had inferred as much to me the last time I saw her.” Fiona felt bad as she replied in that way, as she hated telling any form of lie and especially to the man who was with her at that moment.
“But I understood,” continued William with hesitancy in his voice, “that she was never at her flat on a Friday evening and yet …”
“That’s right. Mother was always away at the weekends. Her dental business took her way from London very often, but I knew she had no plans to go away that weekend and I also knew that she would have been delighted to see you, except …”
“She had another visitor that evening, yes?”
“Unfortunately yes, but I would never have asked you to go to see her if I had known that,” she lied again and then within a few moments she changed her story as she lowered her head and stared at the floor.
“William,” she said, “I have told you a lie … an untruth … I did know that there would be another man visiting my mother that evening, but I thought if you found her with someone else, you would realize what sort of a woman my mother is. She is not for you William ... She is not good enough for you. Surely you can see that now?” William stared at Fiona and his lips opened slightly but he did not speak for a few moments. “William ... William, speak to me please,” Fiona called out, “tell me that you understand what I did and that I did it for the best intentions … the best reasons … I am sorry the way things turned out. I would never have lured you into anything so drastic had I known the consequences ... I am truly sorry ... Please forgive me.”
William looked away and turned towards his bedroom.
“Goodnight, Fiona,” he said, but his eyes were sad and Fiona knew she was about to cry …
Chapter Twenty
IT WAS after William had been employed at the Belvedere for just over three weeks, constituting his twenty-four days of punishment, that Fiona came to see him one afternoon at the Belvedere where he was working and asked him to be sure to come and see her that afternoon when he was finished work, which was usually around 3.0pm and that she would prefer if he would come to the flat straight away, as the news she had for him was very important. Fiona had also arranged to have an afternoon off at the Veterinary practice, as she was afraid that William might think she was making some excuse for him to come and see her earlier than he was used to doing, but she did have news for him and it was news that she was reluctant to tell him in front of the staff at the Home, even if she felt she was obliged to do so …Fiona knew that as her mother had been taken into hospital three days before with an earlier birth than she had anticipated, William should be told, even if she also knew that her mother didn‘t want him to know. Maya had told Fiona that she didn’t want William to know anything about her hospital visit as she was sure it was only a small examination and she would be out within a few hours. Fiona had therefore debated whether or not to tell William, but she felt obliged to do so ever since they phoned her from the hospital, as the baby wasn’t due for another four or five months and was therefore very premature in delivery. Maya had been detained at the hospital as the little one had also been diagnosed as being an ectopic pregnancy and that news worried Fiona, giving her more reason to think that William should be informed, regardless of how her mother felt. She also wondered if the court order which, William was under would allow him to visit the hospital to see Maya as he wasn’t allowed to visit her at her Muswell Hill flat and she decided to phone Reggie Gardner at the police station to ask his advice. Unfortunately Reggie wasn’t at the station when she phoned and she left a discreet message, hoping that he would understand. It was impossible to ask outright in the event that it might even cause trouble, not only f
or Maya, but also for Gardner.
Two hours later, around three-thirty that afternoon, Gardner phoned Fiona and told her that the situation was difficult due to the fact that Maya was involved in the arrest of William and that Fiona was the reason why William went to the flat in the first place and committed the offence he had done, nevertheless Fiona was expecting a visit from William that same afternoon and time was passing quickly as she looked at the clock, but she hadn’t been long on her own when the bell rang and she straightened anything that seemed to be out of order before she answered the door.
“Hello William. I hope you are well,” she said, feeling inadequate for words and he smiled as he came into the lounge.
“ I came here as soon as I could and I am sorry if I am a little late, but you said you had something to tell me, Fiona ... this afternoon when we spoke ... Was it something to do with Maya ... your mother?” he asked anxiously and Fiona felt worse.
“Oh … it was just to say that she’s fine ... but missing you, naturally and I’m sure you feel the same.”
William nodded and rubbed his hands as he remarked how cold it was outside for that time of the year and Fiona grasped the opportunity again, to divert from her real reason for inviting William and she asked him if he would have tea or coffee ... or perhaps something a little stronger, she suggested with a smile, but William shook his head.
“I’ll have tea if that’s O.K. I don’t drink anything stronger, but thank you anyway. Is Maya alright? I know you said she’s missing me, but how is she in health. She looked a little pale when I last saw her, but you would expect that, wouldn’t you, after all she had gone through. I wish I could go to see her.”