Anya spent one of her day’s vigils looking at the Ordnance Survey map. She wished she knew more about horses and how far one might travel in, say, half an hour. Thinking it couldn’t be much more than two or three miles from the stable she decided not to follow Fiona but to spend Friday lunchtime parked outside a pub that was less than two miles from Fiona’s stables and also happened to be close to Geoff’s work.
She wrote her report as soon as she got home.
Friday 16th January, 1976
Sat in car park at The Chequers wondering why I was wasting my time when three cars arrived. None were Geoff’s but he was a passenger in one. I hadn’t seen him that relaxed and carefree for months. There were eight or nine of them, obviously going for their Friday lunchtime beer. I would like to have had a job where we all went out to the pub on a Friday lunchtime. I didn’t recognise anyone. He had always kept his life at work completely separate. I wondered what he would say if I joined him in the pub. Would he be embarrassed or angry? I felt stupid spying on him so I was about to start the car and leave him to his friends when I saw the horse. Fiona. I left it a few minutes before going into the bar. It was a small country pub and it was packed, the Friday lunchtime crowd was noisy so I stood near the door wondering whether I hoped he would see me or not. Fiona was standing next to Geoff, she seemed to know the others as they were all laughing and talking at the same time. She was a regular part of this separate life of his. I left.
I know that this was exactly what I had wished for, what I thought was the best for both of us. Well, what do they say? Be careful what you wish for in case it comes true. The bastard. The absolute fucking miserable toe-rag of a bastard.
Anya sat staring out of the window. She had wanted a divorce, she had wanted a new start in life, but as soon as she was faced with the very real prospect of losing Geoff she wasn’t at all certain she was doing the right thing.
The next Sunday morning Anya followed Geoff when he left for lunch. She had wondered whether he would be meeting Fiona, maybe even having lunch at her parents, but he drove directly to his mother’s house pulling into the drive as Anya parked on the road, out of sight. She wasn’t sure why she was so suspicious, there was no reason why this should be any different from every other Sunday lunchtime. It was, she told herself, a family Sunday lunch just like every other week. She started the car and did a three point turn ready to return home when she saw a Jaguar she did not recognise turn into the drive with Fiona sitting in the back. She slammed on her brakes and cradled her head in her arms on the steering wheel. Fiona, with her parents, was invited to Kathleen’s Sunday lunch. Anya bit her lip. It was all arranged. Kathleen had won. Geoff and Fiona were seeing each other. They were simply waiting for her, Anya, to be out of their way.
The next morning she phoned Tim at work.
“Does Geoff want a divorce?” She asked without preamble.
“Ask him not me.” He was obviously annoyed to get the call.
“I’m asking you.”
“Of course he doesn’t.” Tim didn’t sound convincing.
“Then why is the sainted Fiona having Sunday lunch with the Philips family? Why are her parents there? Why is everyone there but me?”
“How do you know about that?”
“I followed him.”
“You what?”
“I followed him. I parked the car at the end of the drive and watched everyone arrive for the cosy Sunday family lunch. How do you think that makes me feel?”
“It’s Kathleen you know. Geoff’s only doing what his mother wants him to do.” Tim sounded almost apologetic.
“What? Divorce me and marry the sainted Fiona? Have lots of little Philipses? Keep the tight knit little group of snobs together free from outside infestation?”
“That’s not exactly fair.”
“You’ve given in haven’t you? After all that rubbish about being my friend and ally against Kathleen you’re really just the same as them. Margaret trapped you with her pregnancies and you’ve just given up haven’t you? You’ve just given in for an easy life.” He didn’t reply for just long enough for Anya to realise she had hit home. She continued, letting her anger and frustration surface. “You promised me you’d help me when I needed it and now I need it. You’ve got to help me get out of this with a little dignity.”
“Keep me out of this.”
“So why doesn’t he do it? I bet the families are all in agreement and the mothers are already planning wedding number two. Why doesn’t he kick me out? Why doesn’t he divorce me?” Tim didn’t answer so Anya answered for him.
“I’ll tell you why, it’s because he still loves me. He doesn’t want to do what his mother wants. He’s holding out against them isn’t he?”
Still Tim said nothing.
“What a fucking joke! I want a divorce and I’m more than willing to be the guilty party but he won’t do it!”
In contrast to Anya’s rising hysteria Tim’s voice was calm, almost sad. “In time Kathleen always gets her way and she wants your nose rubbed in the dirt. She wants you humiliated, she will make sure as many men as she has evidence for will be named. She wants your reputation so destroyed you won’t go near any of us again.”
“She has evidence for?” Anya quoted back at Tim.
“She’s had a private detective follow you for months.”
Anya took that news in her stride even though she wondered what Kathleen would make of the reports detailing the following of Fiona. “But still Geoff doesn’t want to do it?”
“Kathleen and Fiona will win in the end. You know that.”
“Then make it easy for everyone. Be my single co-respondent. Sign the papers and everything will go through quickly and easily. No blood on the carpet.”
“No Anya I won’t do it. It would wreck my reputation and my family.”
“So it’s your reputation or mine?”
“You have nothing to lose. I have.”
“That is so unfair. I’ll name you anyway. I’ll make sure you’re on the list.”
“If I hear you naming me I’ll say you’re delusional.”
“That’s hateful.”
“I mean it Anya.”
“So you’ll leave me to the wolves?”
“Goodbye Anya.”
“I can’t believe you’d be so hateful. After all the promises you made.”
“I made no promises to you Anya.” And he put the phone down. She thought he almost sounded sad.
Friday 23rd January 1976
For months I’ve thought I’m unhappy, I’ve thought the only way out is to leave Geoff and make a life of my own and now it’s about to happen I don’t want it to. I look at him and I love him. But it’s all too late now. I made myself read back through the last year’s diaries. I can’t possibly carry on like that. Can I? No.
I started talking about it in a really reasonable way after we’d eaten. I said we needed to talk. He knew what it was about. I said I’d name Fiona as I’d seen them together. He laughed and said that was silly. They were just old friends. So I said I’d seen them last week, with all his friends from work. He said it was her birthday so he’d asked her up. And I said that was why she was at lunch with them on Sunday was it? He had the grace to look sheepish and I was trying to keep my cool. I said I was going to divorce him and name Fiona. He said couldn’t we be civilised. He seemed quite sad when he said that he loved me, had always loved me, but he realised now he needed children more. I said no, he didn’t, his mother did. I said I loved him too. This is so fucking stupid! We made love one last time. I said could we have an affair after he’d married her. He said he didn’t think that would be a very good idea and we went to sleep in each other’s arms.
I woke up in the night so I got up and came in here to write it all down. I know I’ll want to remember how sad I feel about it all. One day.
Anya was amazed at how quickly life could change once the decision was made. The next day she went into a letting agency to find a place to live
. There were problems to be overcome, Anya had, as the girl in the agency pointed out with a singular lack of interest, no job and no regular income. It took some explanation of her circumstances and a down payment of six month’s rent in advance, over and above the deposit of three month’s rent, to secure her a home. She could move in in a week’s time, subject to satisfactory references. She hadn’t even seen the house, a two up two down cottage in a terrace of five in a tiny hamlet three miles from the town, but as she looked at the photograph she realised she knew the layout of the house without seeing it. It was identical to Tennyson Street.
Tuesday 3rd February 1976
I’ve just jumped off Beachy Head without a hang-glider, crossed the Rubicon and that bridge that’s burned down behind me, and all the other metaphors, analogies or historical/ hysterical references to having acted with no possibility of going back.
I knew I shouldn’t leave the family home. I phoned SB and he said it’s the wrong thing to do but I couldn’t stand it anymore. G was being so nice to me, helping me pack, pointing out stuff that was mine that I’d missed and all I could do was scream at him. He went off to stay with K while I moped around cleaning the house, tidying the garden, packing what little stuff I wanted to bring with me. I really didn’t want to go but it’s not down to me. I kept re-reading the diaries, trying to remember why I had hated living with Geoff so much but that didn’t work. Hoist by my own petard etc etc. I almost suggested we stuck it out and tried to adopt but when I really thought about it I realised that would never work. K wouldn’t accept the wrong genes.
So here I am alone in a Tennyson Street look-alike cottage. I’ve never been alone before. Not really alone. There were those weeks in Hall after Mum died and a few weeks here and there but never alone like this.
Monday shopping for all the things I need but didn’t think to bring.
Tuesday putting everything away, in its place. Wondering what G was doing. Thinking what I would be doing if I hadn’t left. Wondering if G was wondering what I was doing. Oh Shit.
She stopped writing and looked around at the tiny living area that had been her home for just over a day. Would she ever get used to it? It had taken only one journey, in the car that Geoff had agreed she could keep, to transfer all her belongings. It had taken one visit to town to shop for kitchen essentials and she felt she had enough. The house was small but even so it seemed remarkably uncluttered.
She was about to turn back to her diary when she saw the light flashing on her telephone answering machine. She’d only told Geoff her number. She pressed the button to rewind the message to the beginning and the second button to replay.
‘It’s Kathleen Philips.’
Why did she bother to say that, Anya thought, the voice is unmistakable. Anya spoke out loud to the tape, her voice reverberating in the enclosed space of the small room. “Can’t your precious son make his own phone calls anymore?”
‘I understand you have left my son.’ What subtleties were in that voice Anya wondered: relief? satisfaction? victory? ‘You forgot to leave the rings. I’m sure it was only an oversight.’
“How could you say that! You so clearly don’t believe it.” Anya argued with the tape recorder.
‘As you are aware those rings were only on loan to you as long as you were my son’s wife. You will now return them.’ Anya had intended to return the emerald to Geoff when the divorce was finalised, but she did not expect what followed. ‘Do not forget that sapphire engagement ring my son gave you. Both are family pieces.’
“You lying bitch! That’s not any fucking family piece. It’s my ring, my mother’s ring. Her brother gave it to her. What made you think he’d given it to me? You can fucking whistle.”
Kathleen’s voice continued, slow and deliberate. ‘Geoffrey will require the rings to be returned immediately. He has found a suitable partner with whom to raise a family and he will be giving them to her.’
“You cow! Suitable! What’s bloody suitable? No one will ever be bloody suitable enough! And ‘raise a family’. Oh you do know how to hit below the belt don’t you Mrs Kathleen fucking Philips.” Anya was yelling at the tape. But Kathleen had not finished. She had paused simply for effect.
‘You will return the rings to Atherton’s offices by Friday. Is that clear?’
That was it. There was just a click to end the message.
Anya spread out her fingers and looked at the familiar rings. She waggled the emerald off her finger and the simple gold wedding band without a second thought. “You can have those you bitch.” She spoke out loud. “You utter complete and absolute bitch. But not this one, no, not this one.” She turned the sapphire ring round and round on her finger. She grasped her locket and thought of Dot. Dot would have known what to say, what to do, how to help her. As she held the engraved gold oval in her hand she wondered why she had never put Geoff’s photo in it. Perhaps she had always known Kathleen would win.
The divorce has gone through remarkably quickly, Anya thought, as she took the large brown envelope from the postman, who smiled knowingly as he handed it over. Anya looked at the envelope, she had no need to open it. It was formal notification of her Decree Absolute. She was a free woman, whatever that might mean.
In the months since Anya’s first visit to Stuart Benthall there had been periods when nothing seemed to be happening and periods of near constant phone calls as Stuart reported on and responded to the demands of Geoff’s solicitor. Anya knew Kathleen was behind the extreme demands; that she should admit to infidelity with a number of men, that she should claim no maintenance and that she would move from the area. The terms were toned down only after her threat not to take the blame but to counter sue naming Fiona Shepherd. It was eventually agreed that one name would be acceptable as long as it wasn’t Tim. Anya had found it ironic that, in the face of her supposed reckless infidelities, she had had difficulty in finding one single man who would admit an affair and who would sign the necessary papers. John, going through difficulties in his own marriage, had agreed ‘for old time’s sake’ and so it was his name that had featured in the short paragraph printed in the bottom of page 7 of the local paper when the Decree Nisi was announced to the world. Anya wondered who read the legal notices and decided the women of the Golf Club Circle, like vultures, would pick everyone to pieces. She hoped John would never have cause to regret his generosity.
She had still not opened the envelope half an hour later when the phone rang.
“Anya Cave.”
“Anya?” Geoff seemed tentative, almost guilty. “It’s Geoff.”
“I know. I can still remember your voice.” She hadn’t meant to sound so bitchy.
“Sorry. Look. I thought I’d phone to tell you, so you didn’t see it in the papers first. I mean I thought you should know.” He sounded very nervous.
“Know what?”
“I’m getting married.”
“But Geoff the Absolute only came through this morning.” Anya didn’t know whether to feel surprised or hurt.
“I know. We waited until that came through before making the announcement.”
“You waited?” Hurt won.
“Well I asked Fiona to marry me, well it was sort of agreed in April.”
“April? The same April that you phoned to tell me how much you were missing me, and how much you really wanted us to get back together, and how little having a family could mean to you now you realised how much you loved me, the April you phoned to plead with me to stop the divorce proceedings and go back to you? That April?”
“Well. Yes.”
“It’s your mother isn’t it?” Anger took over from hurt. “She got together with Fiona’s mother and father who, of course, she had known since the year fucking dot and arranged it for you. Am I right? Of course I’m right. That woman is lethal. Keep her away from Fiona when and if you marry her. Keep your mother away from her or if she’s got the sense she was born with, which I doubt, your little Fiona will be divorcing you in double quick time. Wh
en that happens don’t forget to get your bloody ring back!”
“Talking of rings…” Geoff’s voice just stopped her from slamming the phone down. “Mother said you returned only the emerald and your wedding ring. She said you didn’t return the sapphire you have always worn. She’s convinced I gave it to you and therefore, since it must have been bought with family money, it should also have been returned. I told her it was your mother’s, that I hadn’t given it to you, but she just doesn’t believe me. Will you tell me now? Who gave it to you?”
She spoke quietly. “It was my mother’s. Why couldn’t you ever have believed me?”
“Help me out Anya. If I don’t give Mother a believable explanation she will just go on and on about it.”
“It was my mum’s.”
“It was your mum’s?” He sounded insultingly doubtful.
“Yes, my mum’s. My father gave it to her.”
“But… well…” He couldn’t put into words the worries he had always had about the ring, worth several thousand pounds, coming from an otherwise penniless family.
“For fuck’s sake Geoff I’ve told you over and over again. If you won’t believe me then that’s your problem. Goodbye, and good luck with Fiona, I suspect you’re going to need rather a lot of it.” She put the phone down knowing that Geoff would be listening to the cold phone tone.
She tried to work out her feelings. Was she angry that Geoff would not believe her about the ring, was she frustrated at his unwillingness to listen to her, or was she simply sad that that simple lack of trust was proof that he could never have forgotten the differences in their backgrounds.
Anya picked up her coffee mug and walked into the small garden. The day was hot already, in one way at least it was going to be a good summer. As she sat down she put her hand to her locket. Dot and Dr Hill had had so much faith in her and she had achieved only a failed marriage.
Highly Unsuitable Girl Page 19