Highly Unsuitable Girl

by Carolyn McCrae

  Tim knew Sir Christopher had never liked him, had probably voted against him for the captaincy. He was of the old school, play away by all means but never get caught and most of all never get caught with the secretary, those were his standards and Tim had failed to meet them.

  “Ah.”

  “Yes, darling, Ah.”

  “You have been watching?”

  “We have been watching. I must say I’ve learned quite a lot about my husband, Sir Christopher.” Gill was talking in a tightly controlled voice. “He has a repertoire I have scarcely ever imagined let alone been lucky enough to experience.”

  “Who?” Tim could hardly finish his sentence.

  “Oh just interested parties, close family.”

  Anyone watching Gillian would have thought she was making polite conversation but her husband knew she was absolutely aware she had him by the balls.

  She had been waiting for Tim to be careless, to give her the grounds for the divorce she had planned since before they were married. She had expected it to take only a few months before she would have been able to divorce him but now she knew her waiting was over. Tim would have to give her a divorce and there could be absolutely no question that he was the guilty party. She looked forward to at least two thirds of his money, maybe more if she exaggerated the humiliation she was supposed to be feeling at this moment. She would have a million, perhaps a million and a half, a decent return for the seven years she had invested in being married to the shit.

  “I’ve learned that a leopard does not change his spots, once a two-faced, deceitful, dishonest cad always a two-faced, deceitful, dishonest cad. Who was it that said if a man marries his mistress he creates a job vacancy? Well spot on. Don’t imagine you can come home tonight but let me know where you’re staying, my solicitor will need to know.”

  “Nice one Anya!” Matthew stood by Anya who was dancing with one of his friends. “My dance I think.” He took Anya’s arms from the shoulders of his friend and placed them around him. “Nice one. Son and father within an hour. I love it. You must tell me which one of us was the best.”

  “The better, Matthew, the better.” Anya avoided answering the impossible but accurately anticipated question. “It’s the better of two and the best of more. Since I have only been with the two of you tonight you should be asking me which of the two of you was the better, didn’t they teach you anything at your undoubtedly expensive school?” Anya said with a twinkle in her eye.

  “So there have only been the two of us tonight?”

  “I’m afraid so. Though I have to say I’ve been tempted by one or two of your friends. Last time I was at a party here I had what the solicitors call ‘intimate relations’ with the groom, an usher, the boyfriend of one of the bridesmaids and also my future husband. Now that was a party. But I was young and fit then.”

  He pulled her towards him and grinned. “You’re fun. I never liked step-mother Gillian, a sour faced, miserable treasure hunter. It looks like she’ll get her divorce now, apparently there were security cameras in Dad’s office. Everyone’s talking about it.”

  “Cameras? Absolutely perfect.” Anya couldn’t have hoped for more.

  “Now he’ll get his divorce from that money-grabbing cow.”

  “She probably speaks highly of you too.”

  “I doubt it. But I think I understand now why they all speak so highly of you.”

  “They?”

  “Uncle John and Uncle David. They introduced me to the legend of ‘The Highly Unsuitable Girl’ years ago.”

  Anya was remembering her times with John and David when she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. She turned round to face Geoff.

  “I think I deserve one dance at least.”

  Matthew relinquished his hold on Anya and, responding to his uncle’s hint, left them to it.

  “Hello Geoff.”

  “Hello Anya. May I have the pleasure of this dance?”

  She had always loved it when Geoff played the old-fashioned romancer but he looked so tired she suggested they sit this one out and she let him lead her away from the dance floor to the bar which was surprisingly empty.

  “Ah bar stools.” Geoff smiled and Anya returned to smile at their shared memories.

  Even if he had been a bit old-fashioned in his views on marriage that had hardly been his fault. He may have been a bit self-centred but he had also been the kindest most generous man she had known. He had been arrogant and selfish at times, but then all men had been in the 1960s and 1970s, that had been their upbringing whatever their class. And she had never found anyone since who could make her feel as he had done when making love. Their marriage had ended because of circumstances, not because she hadn’t loved him or, she believed, because he hadn’t loved her.

  “How are you Geoff?” He knew she was asking after far more than his health.

  “Oh. You know.” She realised he wasn’t going to tell her anything so she guessed quite a bit. He was disappointed with himself for giving in to his mother, he was disappointed with his marriage and what he had made of his life. He had missed her. These things she knew so she spoke for them both.

  “I have missed you Geoff. You honestly haven’t been far from my thoughts all these years. We were good for each other, we should have stuck to it shouldn’t we?”

  “If it weren’t for the children I’d agree with you but they really have made it all worthwhile.”

  She watched his face as he told her of Geoffrey Junior, who he called Gezza, of Rosemary and of James. She realised how proud he was of them. He talked about how much he enjoyed talking to 10 years old Jimmy about computers, ‘he can’t believe they were around when I was at university all those years ago’; how good 13 year old Gezza was at cricket, ‘looking forward to facing proper bowling now he’s not at prep school any more’; how pretty 12 year old Rose could be ‘at least when she smiles which isn’t often enough’. “They’re lovely children Anya, interesting, inquisitive and fair-minded. I’m so lucky to be their father.”

  They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Geoff spoke rather tentatively. “I sometimes wonder what they would have been like if you had been their mother, not Fiona. We would have had wonderful children together.”

  “If only.”

  “Yes, Anya, my dear sweet beautiful Anya, if only.” He lifted her hand, gently turned it over, and kissed her palm in a gesture she remembered so well and which always raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck. They sat, each with memories which overlapped so considerably, occasionally catching each other’s eye and smiling. Eventually, though neither wanted the time to end, Geoff put his still half full glass down on the bar. “I must go but I can’t tell you how wonderful it’s been to see you.”

  She watched him walk back to the other three women in his life, his mother, his sister and his wife, and was overwhelmed with sadness. It was time to leave.

  “Did you have a good evening?” Geoff asked his mother as he walked her to her taxi a few minutes later.

  “Wonderful. Though I suspect Tim has had a bit of a setback to his budding political career.”

  “Tim? What’s he been up to?”

  “He was captured in flagrante delicto on the new security cameras. You know the ones Sir Christopher insisted should be installed around the club house.”

  “Yes? Oh dear. How unfortunate.” Geoff sounded anything but sympathetic.

  “It was great fun actually.”

  “You mean you watched? While Tim…”

  “…had sex. Of course. Sir Christopher thought I might be interested. Oh don’t be such a prude Geoffrey. Sometimes I wonder how on earth your father and I managed to produce you. Sometimes you are just so unbelievably boring.”

  He wanted to say he hadn’t been boring or prudish when he had been with Anya and that it was only because of her prising them apart that he had changed. Instead he simply asked, rather surprised, “You watched Tim have sex?”

  “Of course. The more witnesses
the better Sir Christopher said. I watched with Gill and…”

  “Gill? She watched her husband? That’s obscene.” As he said it he remembered the times in Liverpool when he had watched as Anya had had sex with other men.

  Probably. But it wasn’t just any other woman you know.”

  Geoff realised his mother wanted him to pursue Tim’s partner’s identity but he wasn’t going to humour her. He knew who it would have been. He hoped his mother didn’t see his smile.

  “It’ll mean another divorce but I suppose that’s what the ghastly woman has been angling for ever since she married him.”

  “Before. She was a gold digger, only ever after his money.”

  “Still, although it will have undoubtedly cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds Tim did seem to enjoy this evening’s experience.”

  Geoff helped his mother into the taxi. As he was about to close the door he spoke, as if as an afterthought. “Strange, I could have sworn I saw Anya here tonight.”

  “Anya?” His mother answered as if she was unsure to whom her son was referring. “Did you dear?” Geoff thought that sometimes butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “So did I…” She left a dramatic pause before triumphantly completing the sentence “… on camera.” Kathleen squeezed his arm. “Such an unsuitable girl. You were well rid of her.”

  “Oh Anya.” He whispered, almost softly enough for his mother not to hear.

  “And apparently she was intimate with Matthew in the professional’s hut, or so at least three people have told me, including Esme.”

  Geoff wasn’t listening to his mother. He was trying not to let her see his smile, she would never have understood. “Matt?” he asked, as he knew it would be expected of him.

  “Oh yes. That girl would never do things by halves.”

  Geoffrey had no difficulty in believing what his mother was saying. He said nothing. He could neither have hidden nor explained his feelings of joy.

  “Tim? It’s Geoff. Did she give you a phone number?” There was no need to explain who he was talking about.

  “No. She did not.”

  Geoff didn’t hear the anger in Tim’s response. “Do you think she gave it to Matt?”

  “I very much doubt it. I believe they were occupied with other things than exchanging phone numbers.”

  “How can we get in touch with her?”

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “But we want to, contact her I mean, don’t we?” Geoff still hadn’t picked up on the coldness in Tim’s tone.

  “Of course we do but, I suspect, for very different reasons. She didn’t come back to see you Geoff, she came to cause me trouble.”

  “And did she? Cause you trouble I mean?”

  “You know she bloody did. She’s cost me the best part of half a million. The bitch seduced me.”

  “Please don’t call her a bitch Tim,” Geoff spoke in what Tim thought was an annoyingly calm voice.

  “I’ll call her a bitch because that is what she was, a bitch on heat, she went to that party with the sole aim of screwing me.”

  “She probably had her reasons.”

  “They’d better be bloody good ones. Somehow I don’t think they included love and respect for me.”

  “I don’t think love or respect have ever dictated who she screwed.”

  “Well she’s well and truly screwed me.”

  “Do you know where she lives?”

  “No but no doubt Gillian’s solicitors will be trying to find her as soon as they’re back from this bloody holiday.”

  Geoff was smiling as he slowly replaced the receiver.

  Chapter 13: Opportunities

  Barbados, December 1993

  “Have you everything you need?”

  “I think so, thank you.” Anya handed her empty champagne glass to the stewardess. It was her first trip on Concorde and she had already decided it was the only way to fly.

  The captain’s voice came over the intercom, the stewardess demonstrated the life jackets and the remarkably small plane taxied until it reached the end of the runway where it turned and accelerated at such a rate that Anya was forced back into the comfortable grey leather seat. The angle of the plane changed sharply and the engines were horribly noisy as they strained to lift the fully laden plane into the air. Anya dug her finger nails into the palms of her hands as she listened to the changing engine noises. It was only twenty minutes into the flight with the plane flying level that Anya could relax and enjoy the sheer luxury of being a passenger on the most prestigious plane in the world.

  Barbados, again, just a few days under a year since her previous visit and in that time her life had changed beyond recognition.

  The morning after the New Year ball Anya had phoned the number Peter had given her.

  “I think you’ll have grounds to divorce me.” She said after they had politely wished each other a Happy New Year. All Peter said was ‘Thank you. Was it Tim or Geoff?”

  “Tim.” She didn’t tell him about Matt, perhaps he’d find out anyway. It wasn’t that she was ashamed, it was simply that, with hindsight, she felt she had gone a too far.

  A week later she read the reports in the newspaper and felt that the officers of the golf club must have called in a large number of favours to reduce the impact of the report. There were two pages of pictures of the contented, complacent, great and good of the area. She read the report carefully but there was no mention whatsoever of any misbehaviour. The day after she read the highly selective report in the newspaper she received a phone call from Stuart Benthall.

  In the years since he had dealt with her divorce from Geoff she had put a great deal of work through his firm. He had always been grateful and credited her with making his career a success.

  “I’ve had a letter from Eric Atherton asking if we are still in contact with you.”

  “Are you?”

  “If you want us to be.”

  “Oh I think so. Somebody else’s divorce this time, though mine will be hot on its heels.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “Don’t be.”

  In early February she received the papers from Peter’s family solicitor citing her adultery with Tim Cross on 31st December 1992 as the reason for the irreconcilable differences that would end their marriage. She drank half a bottle of champagne before signing where they had helpfully marked with a pencil cross and sending them back by return of post.

  She and Peter spoke every week as they divided up those things they had accumulated in their sixteen years together. There was no argument about records and tapes, about the glasses, the plates or the furniture. ‘Have what you want.’ Peter had said, ‘Jenny has most of what we need.’ He could not realise how much that hurt but she said nothing. Even though they didn’t love each other, and probably never had, she couldn’t help feeling some sadness at what might have been. It occurred to her during one of their phone calls that she would probably never see him again.

  She had decided, as she drove back from the Golf Club in the early hours of 1993, that if Tim should contact her she would say no to whatever he suggested so when she received the first phone call she put up with his anger in silence and just said ‘No Tim, whatever you want the answer is no.’ He phoned her frequently. Her answer was always the same and he became less and less patient with her.

  “No Tim. I don’t want to see you.”

  “You used me.”

  “What’s it like the boot being on the other foot?”

  She had thought that divorce and very public humiliation would break his insufferable self-confidence but that seemed undented. Perhaps, she thought, repeatedly denying him what he wanted would help burst the bubble of his ego. She knew he wanted her and she knew that through his life he had always got what he wanted. She was determined that, this time, he wouldn’t.

  The house that Anya had always thought of as Peter’s parents’ home was put on the market and, when it sold within days, she moved into one of her p
roperties that was conveniently vacant. She spent time renovating, decorating, gardening but all the time looking to the future. She would get settled in her new house, and then, once the divorce was finalised, she could find something to do with the rest of her life. At 43 she wasn’t too old to start again.

  1994 would be the beginning of her new life and she had decided to say goodbye to the old one with Christmas in Barbados but she knew from the first evening it had been a mistake to return.

  She nearly left at the end of the first week, getting as far as phoning American Express, but since no flights were available she stayed making the effort to enjoy the sun and the pampering of the always attentive staff. She found herself hating the false jollity of the Christmas period and welcomed in the New Year alone in her room, her mind never far from ‘this time last year’. She found herself thinking not of Matt or Tim, but of Geoff, picturing him sitting at a table in the Golf Club with Kathleen and Fiona perhaps remembering the year before.

  Thoughts of Vincent Albert Cave frequently crossed her mind and just as frequently she managed to ignore them. Maybe he still lived on the island but she persuaded herself that it was likely he had left years before, perhaps, he had only been here for a few months. She wouldn’t know what to say to him even if she found him. ‘Hello, I’m your niece. Your sister died years ago and for all those years I thought you had raped her and were my father. Did you? Are you? Or did your father rape her and abuse you and that’s why you left?’ No. She didn’t want to find him because she wouldn’t be able to ask the only questions that mattered.

  After midnight on New Year’s night she left her room and walked along the beach looking up at the crowded bars and restaurants. She returned through the bar, looking at her fellow guests objectively, they would all have fitted in with the Golf Club Crowd. She felt apart from them, she wasn’t one of them and never could be.