‘Fine. Good. Looking forward to it,’ replied James, trying to sound enthusiastic. A meal with Janice was a trial at the best of times. At least by going out he was spared her cooking or indeed the need to cook for himself. It was actually doubtful as to which of those two options was preferable. He would still no doubt end up being the only one to eat. However, it was harder for them to argue in the middle of a restaurant. The fact that she wanted to drive suggested that he would additionally be spared the public embarrassment of her becoming inebriated.
‘What time do we need to leave?’ he continued, having no idea where she had booked.
‘In about twenty minutes. I managed to get us in at the Willerton Grange.’
‘Ah… right… yes… good.’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘No, not at all. A good choice. I look forward to it.’ Second irony of the day, thought James. He fingered his crucifix through the gap between his shirt buttons. Perhaps I ought to have lit a larger candle, he reflected with a degree of silent amusement.
* * *
‘Has the lady finished, sir?’
‘Yes, thank you. I do believe she has.’
James watched as the waiter removed Janice’s untouched main course, returning to straighten her chair and brush clean her place setting.
Lunch had not been a success. Following an amicable start, the decline started after a rather unimaginative prawn cocktail, when James remonstrated with Janice for lighting a cigarette between courses. As a result, she had announced a trip to the ladies’, picked up her handbag and left the table. She did not return by the time the main course was served and hence James had gone in search of her. He found her sitting in the foyer, cigarette in hand, flicking through the pages of Yorkshire Life. His entreaty for her to continue lunch was rebutted with the announcement that she was no longer hungry and that he should continue without her. This he had done, well knowing that there was little to eat at home.
‘Would you care for Christmas pudding, sir?’
‘Yes please, with brandy sauce.’
‘And the lady?’
‘No. She will not want anything else.’
‘Very good, sir.’
The waiter acted in a matter-of-fact way, as though it was a normal occurrence to eat Christmas lunch alone, having been publicly abandoned by one’s wife. For James, it was indeed a familiar scenario. He had long since become immune to the whispered comments that ensued as other diners cottoned on to the marital drama taking place at a table in their midst.
Whilst waiting for the pudding, he poured himself another glass of wine and looked around the dining room. Broad daylight did nothing but emphasise the garishness of the corporate Christmas on offer from Willerton Grange. However, it was not a sense of dread that had earlier beset him, as Janice parked her red Renault Clio in the car park, but rather a gnarling sensation deep within his chest as his very soul once more clutched at the memory of recent events.
The third irony of Christmas Day was that the Willerton Grange had chosen to use its ballroom as the setting for lunch, presumably in order to accommodate as many diners as possible. Accordingly, he had found himself sitting opposite the dance floor staring at the very space where he had stolen a few moments of illicit, but oh so pleasurable, romance. As the melodious strains of ‘Lady in Red’ started to replay within the depths of his mind, the hubbub of the diners receded into the distance and he heard once more the soft voice of Anna. Only the dance floor remained in focus as he again took her right hand, placed an arm gently around her waist and stepped off into a slow foxtrot.
In his mind, he felt Anna move her right hand onto his shoulder and again felt the delicious sensation of her body closing into his own. He could smell her perfume as her head nestled into the side of his neck; he felt the wisps of long, fair hair falling across his face; once more, he sensed the electrifying moment when their lips met and again felt the deep unspoken longing that had coursed through them…
‘Will you be requiring coffee, sir?’
The waiter’s voice broke into his reverie and the room came back into sharp focus.
‘Eh, no, that will be all, thank you.’
With slow, thoughtful movements, he ate the pudding, hardly noticing it in the process. Those few moments in Anna’s arms may well have had no greater significance in reality than that attached to the many other embraces replayed throughout so many office Christmas parties, except that, for him, they had highlighted the tenuous thread that held together his marriage to Janice. Those moments had placed a harsh spotlight over everything that was wrong in their relationship. They had stripped away the artificial veneer of cosiness and starkly shown it for what it was – cold, soulless and without love. They had revealed to James the true emptiness of his life and the depths of pleasure he was missing. They had given him a glimpse of what might have been had circumstances been different. If only he had not, in the loneliness of student life, agreed to Janice’s leap year proposal of marriage. If only he had heeded the warning signs, which were already there within the relationship. He sighed heavily. If only – the two saddest words in the English language. Pausing to take in the empty place setting opposite him, he drained the last drop of claret from his glass.
‘Happy Christmas, James,’ he said aloud to himself.
Summoning the waiter, he paid the bill and walked out into the foyer. Janice was nowhere to be seen. A quick survey of the car park told him the rest. Buttoning his overcoat against the cold December afternoon, he walked around to the hotel reception where he found the concierge engrossed in yet another replay of Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ asked the concierge, barely looking away from the screen of the portable television.
‘I hope so,’ replied James. ‘I find myself in need of a taxi to take me to Barminster, please.’
Part Two
1991
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him…
Francis Thompson, ‘The Hound of Heaven’
11
Bishopsworth, Lincolnshire
January
‘Bastard.’
Simon ducked as the ceramic vase flew past his right shoulder, landed against the Yorkstone fireplace and shattered. The vase had been a wedding present from his mother. It was one of the few surviving gifts, or had been until now, from that inauspicious occasion a few years previously. The first ominous sign foretelling that all was not well within the new matrimonial union had been when Anna tore up the marriage certificate on the wedding night. Since then, nearly all the wedding presents had either been shredded or torn during fits of fury or, if of a more solid nature, hurled at him with varying degrees of accuracy. Thus far, he had escaped with little more than a few bruises and the occasional minor laceration. However, the message behind the assault was always clear and left him in no doubt as to her feelings for him.
‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!’
Simon ducked, shielding his head with his arms, as each utterance of the word ‘hate’ was punctuated by an onslaught of carved wooden fruit.
‘I must have been crazy to agree to marry you. You don’t even care about me, do you? I doubt if you ever loved me.’ Anna stood facing her husband, having strategically placed herself so that the dining table was between them. Her face was incandescent with rage and her outburst had left her breathless. ‘I’m just a possession to you. Just another statistic. I may as well—’
‘Anna, calm down. Don’t forget your brother’s family is coming for lunch. We can’t very well be rowing when they arrive. Anyway, I don’t understand all the fuss. People leave parties early all the time. It’s no big deal.’
‘It is a big deal when they are my friends – and since when did you care about my family?’ She thumped t
he table. ‘You embarrassed me last night. Just because you did not want to be there. Who else leaves a New Year’s Eve Party fifteen minutes before midnight? You did it just to spite me.’ She glowered at her husband and felt nothing but loathing for his podgy features and balding head; the mere thought of being close to him was increasingly repugnant to her.
‘Why do you always have to spoil things for me? I hate you.’ With that, she hurled the now empty, turned-oak fruit bowl at Simon, catching him squarely on his right elbow as he belatedly turned away.
‘Ow! You bitch.’
He spat the words. Angrily, he grabbed the bowl from the floor and turned back towards Anna, only to hear the door to the kitchen slam shut as she retreated out of his way. Frustrated, he banged the bowl onto the table, an action he instantly regretted as a sharp pain shot through his elbow. Gingerly, he tried to move it, his left hand gently probing a large, purplish swelling that was already forming.
The click of the kitchen door handle made him look up again, fearful of a further onslaught. Anna stood there buttoning her coat, a handbag slung over one shoulder. She resisted the temptation to smile at the sight of him clutching his injured elbow.
‘I need to get some gravy powder for lunch.’
‘You don’t use gravy powder.’
‘Just when did you start to become the culinary expert? You don’t know what I use.’
‘But it’s a bank holiday. Everywhere will be closed.’
‘The corner shop on Haven Road will be open.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘Hell, Simon, just for once leave me alone. I am perfectly capable of going to the corner shop without a minder. If you really want to do something useful, you can peel the potatoes; there’s a bag of them in the utility room.’
‘Be sure not to be long then.’
‘I’ll be as long as I wish to be. God, Simon, I am only going to buy some gravy powder. I’m not running away or about to have a quick meeting with a secret lover, although sometimes your attitude does tempt me.’
‘To run away or have a lover?’
‘Both. But not in that order.’
‘So that’s how you feel about me, is it?’
‘Oh boy, the penny is finally dropping. But unfortunately, there’s a shortage of eligible bachelors around on New Year’s Day, especially on Haven Road.’ Anna walked back through the kitchen and into the hall, picking up her car keys from the Welsh dresser as she went.
‘Don’t forget to do the potatoes. The exercise will do your elbow good.’
Amused by her final riposte, she opened the front door and stepped outside. As the cold January air flowed into her lungs, she felt a sudden release. The very act of leaving the house for a short while gave her a great sense of freedom. Life with Simon is claustrophobic, she thought, unlocking her aged VW Beetle and resisting the temptation to look back at the house. She knew he would be standing there at the window, watching her every move. Again, she smiled to herself, amused by what thoughts might have been sparked by her reference to lovers and leaving.
‘Let him squirm,’ she said aloud, stamping her foot down on the accelerator and reversing the Beetle off the drive in a spray of loose gravel, knowing that such recklessness would irk him even more.
* * *
Haven Drive was situated on the other side of town, in a working-class area of Victorian terraced housing, leading down to what was once a busy commercial waterside. Now, with river cargoes more or less resigned to history, the haven was heavily silted and navigable by only the smallest of boats. Not that many bothered; there was nothing of interest to visit and the water soon disappeared in a series of sluices, most of which were now channelled underground.
The majority of the shops on the waterside had long ago closed. Only one grocery shop remained, situated on the corner of Haven Road and Ropery Lane. A hard-working Asian family kept it open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week, relying on their reputation for being open all hours in order to eke out a living. Anna was in no hurry to get there. Her anger having abated by the time she reached the edge of her housing estate, she dropped her speed and slowly drove towards the town centre. Apart from one man exercising his dog and a middle-aged couple taking a brisk walk, the town was deserted.
The route chosen by Anna was the one she used to get to the surgery, taken on this occasion for no particular reason other than familiarity. Now, as she drove down the High Street past her place of work, she automatically glanced towards it, noting that the lights were on within the reception area. Eighty yards further along she passed the staff car park where a green MGB was parked in solitude. Impulsively, she turned in and stopped alongside the sports car.
Inside the surgery, James pulled open a filing drawer and started to search for a set of notes. The over-stuffed Lloyd George envelopes were tightly packed, making the names difficult to read without pulling out each set of notes one by one. Intent on his task, he did not hear the door from the car park open and close.
‘Happy New Year, Dr Armstrong.’
He jumped at the sound of Anna’s voice, scattering a set of notes across the floor in the process.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Here, let me help.’ Anna picked up some of the fallen papers and passed them to him.
‘Startle me? You almost caused me to arrest! Keep going, you fool,’ replied James, patting the left side of his chest in mock concern for his heart.
Anna laughed. ‘You look as though you could do with some help. Whose notes are you looking for?’
‘Old Tom Sotheby’s. I think he may have had another stroke. I’ve been out to see him twice already today, but he refuses to go into hospital.’
Anna reached towards the centre of the filing drawer and, without hesitation, pulled out the required envelope, handing it to James.
‘Very impressive. How on earth did you know where to go?’
‘When you have filed these notes day after day for a few years it becomes automatic. Now you know how valuable we receptionists are to you doctors!’ She smiled, took the other set of notes from James’ hand, re-filed them and closed the drawer. ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’
‘Good idea. Thanks. I haven’t had much time to make one this morning. This is the first time the telephone has stopped ringing.’
‘I wondered who had drawn the short straw for today’s duty. Has your wife come across with you?’
‘Janice? No. She has gone to Shropshire to see her family. They were supposed to come up at Christmas, but the snow put paid to that. To be honest, being on call here is far preferable to staying in a house full of in-laws for the next twenty-four hours.’
‘So the two of you had a cosy Christmas alone together.’
It was a statement rather than a question. Nevertheless, James felt that he was being expertly probed for information.
‘Alone, yes; together, some of the time; cosy, far from it.’
‘Why, what happened?’ Anna casually threw the question over her shoulder as she dipped two teabags in hot water.
‘We had an argument over lunch and Janice walked out before the main course was served.’
‘Really?’ She half-turned to look at him, her voice now giving away her sense of intrigue. ‘What happened then?’
‘I finished lunch alone and had to hire a taxi home. By the time I got there, Janice had finished best part of a bottle of wine. She spent the rest of the day asleep in bed.’
‘You poor thing. What did you do?’
‘I decanted a rather decent bottle of Taylor’s Vintage Port and spent the next six hours drinking a good percentage of it.’
‘On your own?’
‘No, happy in the company of Mahler and Beethoven.’ James grinned ruefully. ‘I then spent Boxing Day getting over the hangover. Anyway, what are you doing here?’
‘Same as you.’
‘I didn’t know any staff members had been asked to come in.’ James looked puzzled.
‘No. I mean I
am escaping from family, or at least from Simon.’
‘Oh, I see.’
Anna grinned as she passed a mug of tea to him. ‘You don’t at all. You’re just too polite to ask.’
‘Thanks. True. Ok, try me.’ James sat down and eyed Anna over the brim of his mug. ‘Why are you trying to escape your husband?’
‘Because I cannot stand being in the house with him.’
‘But I thought you had only just built the house?’
‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with the house. The problem is, when we moved in I threw out everything that was old and unused. Except that I missed one item.’
James raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Which was…?’
‘My husband, of course.’
‘Oh, I see. That seems rather tough on him. What’s so wrong with him?’
‘He’s possessive.’ Anna perched on the edge of a desk and stared into her tea.
‘Go on.’
‘He tries to rule everything I do, dictates where I go, and doesn’t give me a moment to myself at home. I’m only really free of him when I’m here at work.’
‘Surely he can’t be that bad? He always seems pleased to see you when he collects you from here in the evenings.’
‘But that’s precisely it. I cannot even be trusted to walk home after work. He insists on collecting me.’
‘But surely that is just him showing that he cares for you?’
‘You might think so, but I can assure you it is anything but the truth. Do you remember when all the receptionists went to a pop concert in Sheffield last year?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I asked him to get the tickets because he works near the Arena.’
‘And?’
‘He was supposed to get six tickets, only he bought five. Told me he wasn’t going to allow me to go.’
‘So all the others went except for you?’
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