The Actuary's Wife

by K T Bowes

  “Don’t be like that, Em. I’m still your husband and we have a son together.” Rohan closed the door and stalked across the vast room, hands rigid by his sides. He eyed the empty grate with a wrinkle of his fine nose and observed his wife swaddled in the blanket. “When are you gonna learn to light a fire, devotchka?”

  “I’m fine,” Emma lied, rolling her eyes and hoping Rohan didn’t see the hairs standing up on her chilled arms. “The dog thinks it already is.”

  Rohan’s blue eyes twinkled as he sat next to her and Emma’s heart squirmed. A dart of desire shot from navel to groin and she tensed and looked away. “What do you want?” she snapped, her tone hard.

  “Why did Dolan drive to Lincoln?” Rohan asked, distracted by the blanket sliding apart to reveal Emma’s slender, creamy thigh.

  She chuckled. “You’re the spy, Ro. You tell me. And if you’re here, it means someone else is watching him.”

  “I’m not a spy!” Rohan’s eyes narrowed and his brow creased with indignation. “I’m an actuary.”

  “Ah yeah, the Actuary,” Emma sighed, recalling the bruises on her husband’s body and the healed stab wound on his back. “Well, I don’t love the Actuary; I thought I loved Rohan Andreyev but they’re the same man.”

  “I’m so sorry, Em.” Rohan’s eyes glittered like diamonds in his tanned face and he pursed his lips, shrouded by sadness. “It’s one reason I didn’t look for you; the two halves are difficult to reconcile.”

  Emma pursed her lips and stared at the rug on the polished floor, tracing the intricate patterns in the period weave. She focussed on that instead of her husband, sitting too close for comfort. Rohan leaned forward and brushed a strand of long hair behind her ear. “What, no biting retort?” His voice was soft and he searched her face with his eyes. His fingers began a steady massage of the back of her head, a gentle, soothing action.

  Emma closed her eyes, enjoying the physical contact and an interlude in the pervading loneliness which haunted her. Rohan moved closer, edging his way across the sofa until their knees touched. Emma felt the supple casing of the leg brace through his trousers, another reminder of her husband’s addiction to risk. His magnetism hauled her in with a delicate pull, so light she didn’t react. It enveloped her in Rohan’s aura of safety and intoxicated her with his musky scent, reassuring and solid in its heady mix of perfume and maleness.

  Rohan’s fingers brushed Emma’s dark hair from her shoulder and continued massaging, squeezing and releasing the tense muscles in a steady, calming rhythm. When his lips grazed her temple, Emma pressed her eyelids closed and knitted her brow, fighting the dart of need which began again. His stubble against her jawline and neck made her tense, shivering as though electrified with each subtle touch. Rohan sought the soft skin where collar bone met shoulder, teasing the softness between his lips and tugging. Emma registered the tightness as he sucked, branding her with his signature. She knew he must stop, but stayed frozen in position, her body thrilled with the pleasure-pain reflex.

  Rohan finished and moved up the tendons of Emma’s neck, smoothing and grazing as beard alternated with lips. Her mouth quivered as he found it, settling his lips with teasing kisses. When Emma opened her eyes she stared straight into his, the pupils dark voids in the vibrant blue irises. Rohan’s stealthy fingers stole inside the blanket and his lips parted over Emma’s as he drew in an appreciative breath. Her night attire comprised one of his old work shirts, stolen from their shared wardrobe and the fabric fluttered apart to show a pair of battered knickers. Rohan slipped questing fingers inside the frayed elastic to cup her buttock and Emma held her breath as the reminder began a steady throb in the back of her brain.

  “You have another woman!” She pushed at his chest with force, overbalancing him. The surprise on his face mixed with hurt.

  “Oh, Emma!” Rohan pressed his fingers against his eyelids and shook his head, his body stiffening in anger. The bulge pressing against the groin of his trousers looked painful and Emma glanced away, knowing if he tried again she’d give in. Loneliness and disappointment made poor lovers and Rohan’s sexuality offered fulfilment and the promise of companionship in the empty bed upstairs.

  “Is it because of him?” Rohan asked, his voice hardening with every syllable. “Dolan?”

  Emma stood with an angry huff, the exhalation full of irritation and injustice. The blanket fell from her lithe body revealing slender, athletic legs and the beginnings of a pregnancy bump. She saw Rohan swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he appreciated her loveliness. When she put her hands on her hips, the shirt front parted to show the front of her underwear and the bare flesh of her belly. The wide shirt cuffs hung over her hands as she postured, narrowing her eyes at her husband. “I’m sick of this!” she hissed. “It’s tiring being the piece of meat you two sobaki fight over! Why won’t you both just leave me alone?”

  She strode from the room, her anger warming her up the stairs and along the cool corridor to her bedroom. Nicky slept on Rohan’s side, his delicate face cast into shadow by the lamp he’d lit. They’re like dogs, Emma raged in her head, proud of her use of the Russian word which caused Rohan’s eyes to widen. Emma turned the key in the bedroom door with a click to prevent other disturbances. She climbed into bed, curling her body around the child next to her, guilt robbing her of sleep as she punished herself for giving and then taking away a precious father figure. “Sorry, Nicky,” she whispered. “I’ll try to be enough for you.”

  Chapter 15

  Emma sat in the darkened office, poring over the school logs. Her gloved fingers moved over the tattered leaves, ruined by damp so only the first few pages were legible. “Bloody shame,” Emma complained to the empty room.

  Her lips moved as she read the copperplate script documenting Freda’s mother’s last year of school. She became a class monitor on the first step towards earning a teaching qualification and Emma suppressed sadness at the knowledge by the end of the year, poor Mary Clarke would be a lady’s maid.

  1923

  January 9 - Mary Freda Clarke commenced this day her services as paid monitor.

  January 10 - Paulie Arden absent due to farm duties.

  January 11 - Clarice Dawlish absent due to sickness.

  January 12 - Sid Beetham, Ingrid Arden, Patricia Jameson late due to flooding.

  Emma sighed and walked to the photocopier, hoping not to damage the fragile log as she scanned and copied its delicate pages.

  “I was hoping to find you.” The woman’s voice sounded clipped as she accosted Emma.

  “Hello.” Emma’s body ached and she sighed, emotionally spent with no energy for a robust discussion. “How can I help you?” she replied, smiling as sweetly as she could muster and halting the copier’s frantic paper flinging.

  “Let’s talk somewhere private,” the woman demanded, taking a step closer to Emma and adopting a menacing stance. Her delicate pearls tinkled around her neck, belying the gentle-old-lady image. The tiny, dark eyes bore into Emma’s face with a piercing quality.

  “There is nowhere, sorry.” She smiled, the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. The woman oozed threat. Emma turned back to the photocopier, grateful for its corridor location. “We can chat here though, Mrs Jameson-Arden, as long as you don’t mind me continuing.”

  “I wondered how it was going,” the woman replied, studying Emma with gimlet eyes trained to miss nothing. “How did your research go?”

  “Oh, good thanks,” Emma gushed. “It’s an amazing church. I’d love to have a more thorough look one day.”

  Clarissa Jameson-Arden’s face puckered as though lemon sucking was on the menu and her face pinked in frustration. Emma’s hands trembled over the log book but she daren’t stop and face the woman. As long as I don’t mention the library, nor can she, Emma reassured herself.

  “Where else have you tried to find answers?” Clarissa asked and Emma’s heart sank.

  “Oh, the usual places.” Emma shot her an I’m-trying-to-be-helpfu
l face while exuding an air of extreme busyness. Her hands sweated in the cotton gloves protecting the book from the acid on her skin, tight and itchy. Emma’s long dark curls tumbled sideways, covering her flushing cheeks as stress soared through her body. Danger hung around the women like an oppressive shroud.

  Emma inhaled as Clarissa Jameson-Arden took a long stride towards her, the hem of the older woman’s jacket brushing Emma’s arm. Her breath was warm on Emma’s overheated cheek, smelling faintly of peppermint. With a valiant effort, Emma turned to meet the flashing grey eyes in Clarissa’s angry face. Emma put a haughtiness in her stance and raised herself up to her full height, which didn’t equal her opponent’s but made her appear less cowed. Clarissa’s voice was a low hiss. “It took Mr Dalton a long time to convince the board we needed an archivist for this celebration.” Her voice dripped bile, burning holes in the air between them. “I’m still not convinced we do.” Clarissa’s smile was wooden and her tone laden with threat.

  Irritation burgeoned in Emma’s breast and something of her old self revived, meeting the other woman’s suggestion with newfound confidence and the knowledge she no longer needed a job so desperately. Anton’s gift, from Russia, with love, made it so. “You must do what you think best,” Emma said, scorn building and spewing from her eyes. “I needn’t work; I’m doing this because I love it.”

  “Nice bluff!” Clarissa leaned into Emma’s face. “I’ve spoken to your old employer and he thinks differently. He ended your contract and you couldn’t keep hold of your council house. He figured you were homeless until he heard you washed up here!”

  Warm spittle landed on Emma’s cheek and something inside her snapped. She laughed, a deep forbidding cackle low in her chest which frightened even her. As Clarissa took a step away, Emma moved into her space, enjoying seeing the woman lose ground. “I suggest you ring him again,” Emma jeered. “Ask him why my contract ended. Go on, ask him!” She leaned closer to Clarissa, seeing the grey strands peeking through the bleached curls. Emma lowered her voice to a whisper. “Ring him again. Remind him that telling the truth is a good idea because I have the luck of the Irish.”

  With flushing cheeks and a temper waging war inside her body, Emma seized the log book from the copier and pressed the button to send the scans to Sam’s computer. She made the long walk back to the office with dignity, despite her pounding heart. Clarissa’s eyes bored holes in her back with every step taken and by the time she parked her bottom in the rickety office chair, her stomach had churned her breakfast into ash.

  “You gonna throw up again?” Sam asked, handing her the dustbin. The sight of a browning banana peel alongside sandwich remains growing their own fungal experiment, made her want to heave and Emma clapped her hand over her mouth and moaned. Sam jerked the dustbin towards her again and she kicked it in an attempt not to touch it with her hands. “I’ll take that as a no,” he grumbled. “Just trying to be nice!”

  “Ugh! By showing me things which make me wanna puke?” Emma squeaked. “That’s not helping!”

  “Who’s puking?” Freda tottered into the office and whipped off her woolly hat. Static sent her hair towards the ceiling, giving her a frightened look. “I thought you’d stopped the morning sickness?”

  “So did I. There was a spat with Clarissa Jameson-Arden and it made me unwell. She spikes my blood pressure even from the other end of the corridor.”

  Freda balled her fists up next to her ears. “Where is she? I can take her!” She pushed her scrawny arms through the air like a boxer and nearly flipped herself onto her back.

  “Steady on there!” Sam took her flailing weight and stood her upright. “You’ll end up beached like a turtle.”

  “Turtles don’t beach, young man!” Freda straightened her skirt with a delicate shimmy. “God designed them with the right geometry for self-righting and he doesn’t make mistakes.”

  Sam shook his head and sat on his chair. Emma groaned. “God doesn’t, but I do! Making an enemy of the chairwoman of the board is my dumbest mistake yet!”

  “I’d have to agree with that one,” Sam sighed. “She marched in here on my first day and said she’d put me on a verbal warning if I didn’t stop salting the front pavement in the ice.”

  “But I want you to salt the pavement,” Emma said, poking her face out of her hands. “If I slip over, I could hurt myself and my baby. And what about Freda? She’ll break bones.”

  “She had these special boots, see. They cost a fortune and the salt was eating away the soles. She went mental.”

  Emma groaned and pushed her face back into her hands. Freda got her fists ready again. “I’ll deal with her,” she said. “Where is she?”

  “It’s ok now!” Sam jerked upright. “I salt and then put sand on top. It neutralises it and she doesn’t realise. Please don’t ruin it for me?”

  “Stop bibbling man!” Freda snapped. “I’m defending Emma, not you! You’re ugly enough to fight your own battles.”

  “This is no good.” Emma stood. “I can’t do this. My life’s a mess and I don’t have the energy for her bullying tactics. At the library I found...”

  There was a sharp rap on the office door and its three occupants jumped. When Mr Dalton bounced in like Tigger on cocaine, he found startled faces and frozen bodies. “Ah, here we are,” he intoned with his usual brand of effervescent happiness. “Have you met our board chairwoman? This is the lovely Mrs Jameson-Arden.”

  Sam’s head whipped round to the padlock on his desk and Freda’s lips curled back in a snarl. Emma’s breakfast roiled in her stomach again, but the room remained dead silent. For once Mr Dalton seemed wrong footed as awkwardness descended. “She’s interested in the progress of our archives,” he said, stumbling over his words.

  “What would you like to see?” Emma plastered the smile to her lips and held her hand out, encompassing the large photographs laid in date order on the work bench.

  Freda reached for a sharp blade and held it in front of her, a manic look in her eye. “There’s always room for another helper, isn’t there, Emma?” she said.

  Emma’s smile wavered as every nerve ending in her body screamed a contradiction, but Freda stepped towards Clarissa brandishing the blade. “An idiot put Velcro sticky dots on the back of the original class photos. You can help me slice them off.” She grinned, slashing the air with her blade and her top set of falsies clacked onto the bottoms, giving her a ghoulish appearance. With her other hand, Freda reached out to touch the floaty chiffon of Clarissa’s expensive dress. “You might need an apron though. Look how dirty we get.”

  Clarissa’s eyes widened in horror as Freda’s blackened fingers dropped the fabric, leaving a streak of dust along the floral print. She lurched towards the open doorway. “Oh, no...terribly busy...jolly good...I’ll leave you to it.” She exited backside first and her boots clacked along the corridor at speed.

  Freda’s cackle split the air and with a look of mystification, Mr Dalton left and closed the door behind him. Sam snorted and held his mirth until the headmaster’s voice could be heard chatting to a child in the corridor, then he exploded in a mist of spit and tears. “You’re wicked!” he spluttered, jabbing his finger at Freda. “Nobody’s ever dealt with her like that before.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Freda said, shrugging and plonking her bottom in her seat.

  “You just got me fired,” Emma grimaced and Freda put her nose in the air and refused to be drawn. Emma pushed a photograph with care into its acid free wallet and added it to the pile. Then she turned to Freda as her friend chewed the end of her pencil and pondered the name of long forgotten faces. “What’s the story with you and Clarissa? Why don’t you like each other? She was born while you were abroad and you’ve only been back a year.”

  Freda pushed her spectacles to the end of her bulbous nose and jerked her head at Sam. “Young man, kindly get the ladies tea for two.”

  “What?” Sam’s face shot out of his mending. “Who
do you think I am? The bloody butler? Get it yourself.”

  “Ok.” Freda got to her feet and hobbled towards the office door. She gripped the work surface in gnarled hands and heaved herself along. Emma’s mouth dropped open at the realism of her performance. “I may be a while though,” Freda said in a wavering voice, bending her body from the waist as though bearing a turtle shell on her back. “Ninety’s not the most agile age and I tend to slop when I’m carrying liquids. I’ll try not to spill in the corridor. Is there any particular cloth you’d like me to use when wiping up after myself?”

  “Oh, stone the bloody crows!” Sam exclaimed. “I’ll do it!” He stomped from the room and slammed the door behind him.

  Freda stood upright and shimmied back to her chair. Emma shook her head. “For a Christian lady, you’re diabolical!” she laughed.

  Freda grinned. “God’s got me covered. Every time my poor decrepit guardian angels think it’s time for a lie down, I get them hopping to attention.” She burped and put delicate fingers to her lips. “Ooh, pardon.”

  “So, what’s the secret?” Emma asked. “You must have sent Sam out for a reason. What’s with the eyebrow war between you two ladies of the manor?”

  “Well, back when we were girls, Clarissa’s grandmother, Annie, had her eye on climbing the ranks and marrying John Ayers. She was in my class through school and her parents had a loose connection with the Lord’s family, so every story she wrote involved her life as a future great lady. When poor John came back from the war scarred she didn’t hide her horror. He maintained he always knew her desire for him stopped at his title, but her behaviour was still hurtful. After he and I eloped, poor Annie married a Jameson who left her destitute after a rotten hand at cards. Clarissa’s father was an unambitious Jameson who taught here and she married an Arden. The problem with that family’s always been bitterness and pride. It’s all about the family image and the riches which go with protecting it. I mean look at Clarissa with that dirty mark. She’ll be harrying the dry cleaners in town even as we speak.” Freda knitted her brows. “Perhaps it was mean of me.”