by Gould, R J
David put the Sunday Times on the counter and took out his wallet.
“No Mail on Sunday again?”
David wondered whether the Jane and Jim news had got around, it must have done by now. Perhaps Stanley was seeking confirmation of the gossip. “I don’t think I’ll be buying it anymore,” David announced.
This Sunday turned out to be identical to the previous post-Jane ones. On their return from stay-overs at friends, the children embarked on half-hearted homework while David ploughed through the newspaper. A near silent evening meal was followed by television viewing as all three did little more than hang around waiting for the new week to begin.
Back at work on the Monday, at least the uncomfortable sessions with Mary had come to an end. David was tackling her strategy for restoring the finances of his department. His staff were devising new rules, codes of conduct, terms and conditions, information booklets and application forms. At the regular Monday morning meeting, a committed young member of his team expressed concern that the complexity of applying for financial support would result in people giving up. While this might address the problem of over-budgeted expenditure, the cost would be great hardship for many families. He was right and David was dismayed by his own indifference to the fact.
Lunch provided a pleasant break from work. It was Jabulani’s second autumn in England and like the first, the weather was awful. He read from a Bill Bryson book that he’d brought in. Bryson described his arrival in England as feeling like he was now living inside a Tupperware box.
“When I first read it I thought it was funny, now I realise it’s true.” Jabulani went on to describe the contrast to the sun and heat of Zimbabwe, with such passion that David could feel the warmth. The conversation gave him the energy to return to his challenging afternoon tasks.
Rachel was back in Fiddler on the Roof so David collected her after the rehearsal. “Go well today?” he asked.
“Rubbish.”
“Why?”
“The director’s making the musical into a comedy. A whole community is being persecuted and that idiot is going for cheap laughs. It’s like a pantomime. He’ll probably do the holocaust next year.”
“He’s your drama teacher, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he has a lot of experience of what works. Maybe you should go with the flow.”
“He’s wrong, I’m right.”
The journey was completed in silence. Rachel announced she was going for a walk and headed off straight from the car, stopping a short distance away to extract a cigarette from her school bag.
David went indoors and picked up the post from the hall floor. There was a letter from Rachel’s headteacher, Mr Edwards, which he opened with trepidation. Since the meeting at her school over three weeks ago David had been unable to get Rachel to talk about progress beyond a perfunctory statement that everything was fine.
Dear Mr Willoughby
I am pleased to report that there has been a remarkable improvement in Rachel’s attitude and performance in school over the past few weeks. The action plan she presented to me was realistic and well thought out, and she has tackled the points listed with gusto.
In particular she has worked hard in those subjects that until recently she has shown no interest in, with Biology and French marks rising significantly. Teachers now report on a polite, well-mannered girl. She has returned to the cast of Fiddler on the Roof and much to my staff’s amusement, she is frequently heard humming ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ with an engaging smile as she walks along the corridors. Another song too by all accounts, a Queen hit, the one about champions.
Thank you for your support. Let’s hope she maintains the progress, but you are welcome to tell her that we are delighted to note the upturn.
Yours sincerely
John Edwards
Headmaster
That’s one worry out the way, David reflected, despite the reference to the humming. Behaviour at home had improved, too. Although she had yet to see Jane, they had spoken a couple of times and her mother’s name could now be mentioned without the swearing.
When they were sitting together for dinner David announced the arrival of the letter and read it out. There was the standard teenage dismissive response to praise.
The meal turned out to be another culinary failure.
“Eat up, Sam. I thought you liked fish and chips,” David urged when he saw his son looking down at the plate, knife and fork stationary in his hands.
“But what’s this?” Sam asked, stabbing with his fork.
“What do you mean what is it? It’s fish.”
“I mean what type of fish?”
“Sea bass.”
“I only like fish with breadcrumbs, cod or plaice.”
“I thought it would be nice to try something different.”
Rachel intervened. “Stop being so bloody fussy, Sam.”
“OK I’ll try it.”
“Thank you. I’ll stick to what you like best next time. What about you, Rachel? You’ve hardly touched yours either.”
“I don’t want everyone to think I’m fat on stage.”
“That’s not likely.”
The pair of them picked at their food, only the moving of chairs as they got up breaking the silence.
“Hang on a minute please, Rachel,” David said.
Sam left and Rachel sat with her arms folded, impatient, anticipating a telling off.
“You know what you said earlier, that you were right and the drama teacher was wrong…”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. Sometimes in life you just have to do what you’re told, you can’t always have things your own way.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t be silly. The world is what it is, not what you’d like it to be.”
“That’s pathetic dad. What about people like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King? Or Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. They didn’t think that, they changed things.”
“So did Hitler and Attila the Hun,” David added, regretting his put down as he spoke.
Rather than ridiculing his choices, Rachel was prepared to out-debate her father. “Of course there have been evil people. But the world is a better place now than ever before, so on balance the effect of the people who have tried to change things must have been positive.”
Checkmate.
It was evident Rachel knew she had won hands down. “Good discussion, dad. Thanks,” she said with the tone of a victor. She stood up. “I’d like to carry on, but I must do homework so I can earn some brownie points on that list of mine.”
With both children upstairs, David disposed of the high volume of leftovers, cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. Bridget had been on his mind all day and now he imagined her in the kitchen with him, sharing a bottle of wine, chatting as they tidied up. All good clean fun until he fantasised about removing each other’s clothes and making love on the kitchen table.
The reunion aside, he’d done nothing to start his new life without Jane. There were fair enough reasons for inactivity – shopping, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring and generally supporting his children – but he was well aware these were self-imposed barriers. There were times when both children were out, including stay-overs at friends, when he could have done something for himself. Now there was Bridget, an opportunity he must not let slip. They’d met only two days ago. Was it too soon to call her?
As he carried saucepans from draining board to cupboard, he glanced at the letter from Rachel’s headteacher. It was smeared with a streak of tomato sauce. Her improvement had been guided by an action plan so perhaps that was what he needed. Just maybe, Rachel’s view, the one he had been so dismissive of, was correct. An individual did have the power to change things, perhaps in his case not the whole world, but certainly his world.
An action plan to change his world! Daft, but with an hour or more to kill and nothing better to do, he’d develop something for the fun of it.
A plan with SMART objectives.
Sitting down with paper and pen he decided the SMAR was of value, but not the T for Time. So rather than being specific, he wrote ‘short term’ at the top of the page to cover things best done within the next month or so, then ‘medium/long term’ half way down the sheet.
He put on a Fleet Foxes CD. He’d loved it at first hearing but now it seemed bland. For this exercise he wanted music with a bit of a punch. He ejected Fleet Foxes and inserted The Maccabees. Satisfied with this choice he looked at the sheet in front of him. Jane had been amused by his handwriting. She claimed it was like a young schoolboy’s – tiny, the letters not quite joined up. She was right.
But it was the content that counted and short term objective number one was easy. He had yet to tell his mother about the separation from Jane. Rachel and Sam had been instructed not to mention it. They’d spoken on the telephone several times over the past month and he’d replied to her standard ‘how are things with you’ with the usual ‘everything’s fine thank you, mother.’ He was wary of the danger of causing distress; after all she did have a weak heart. He needed to tell her in person rather than over the phone. He’d arrange a trip up to Birmingham one Saturday within the next month to break the news.
Number two was about Jabulani. He had fled from Zimbabwe approaching two years ago. Although a qualified accountant, he couldn’t get employment that matched his experience. Over the last few months they’d developed a strong bond and most days met up for lunchtime chats. It was evident Jabulani knew more about English history and culture than David did, picked up during his school days. His knowledge extended to the names and locations of the major London stores and he had a particular obsession with Harrods. Jabulani’s birthday was coming up. David would take him out for tea at the Ladurée Café one Saturday within the next month.
Jane had made it clear she wanted a quick divorce. She intended to marry Jim as soon as possible, which did make David wonder how long their clandestine relationship had been going on. In a scribbled note found on the kitchen table when he’d returned from work one evening the previous week, she had stated her target was a divorce by March so they could get married in early summer. The following day he’d received a letter from her solicitor suggesting that the first step, the financial settlement, could be tackled immediately. David decided it was reasonable to put this as a short term objective since the process was to begin in the near future, even if not completed within the first month.
Next he turned his attention to Bridget. He really had to concentrate on her – she should be right at the top of the list. He’d call her over the next day or so to ask if she’d like to meet up. Who could predict what would happen, she might well say no? On the other hand it might mark the start of a wonderful relationship. A no was more likely, David reckoned. Or even worse, the dreaded ‘I do like you but I just want us to be friends’.
The Maccabees had ended and it was approaching ten o’clock. He considered this a good time to stop, with the first part of his action plan complete and the evening news programme about to start.
Short term
1. Inform mother about separation
2. Take Jabulani to Harrods for tea
3. Start process to obtain an amicable divorce from Jane
4. Call Bridget to arrange a meet up
Self-mockery surfaced as David read over what he had written. It had taken an hour to put down merely twenty-six words. In terms of priority, number four should have come first, but he’d listed it last. Why? Cowardice probably, fear of rejection. It was too late to call Bridget that evening and anyway, he wanted time to plan what to say. But it wasn’t too late to make a call to a long established night owl. He dialled.
“Hello mother.”
“Who is it?”
That was her standard infuriating reply. She would have recognised his voice and it could only be her single son who was addressing her as mother. “It’s me, David.” He knew what would follow.
“Oh, David,” she said in a tone implying surprise. “I was wondering when I’d hear from you. I suppose you’re too busy to call an old lady. Mind you, I’m not complaining. How are you?”
He ignored her implicit accusation of neglect. “Everything’s fine, thanks. And you?”
“I suppose I shouldn’t make a fuss. My bones are creaking a bit, par for the course as soon as it gets cold.”
“I’d like to visit on Saturday if it’s convenient.”
“Of course it’s convenient. It’s not as if I have a busy social life. Who’s coming with you?”
“Just me. Rachel’s got a rehearsal for Fiddler on the Roof and Sam’s playing football.” He hoped she wouldn’t pick up on the lack of explanation for Jane’s non-attendance. “But that’s good because I need to talk to you about a couple of things.”
“I hardly ever get to see your children now they’re grown up. No time for their old grandmother, too many more important things to do.”
“Mother, you saw them about five weeks’ ago and they phoned you last week.”
“I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies. Well, I’ll see you when I see you,” she muttered in the dour Brummie accent David had tried hard to lose.
The Reunion – R J Gould
Chapter 9
He set off early on Saturday, a pleasant morning with a golden autumn sun struggling to make the M1 a little less unattractive than usual. Almost the whole trip from home to his mother’s house in the Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston was along two motorways, the M1 and the M6. Always a stressful drive what with the high volume of traffic whatever time of day or night he travelled. But today he didn’t care how slow the journey was because he was happy, more than happy, ecstatic, following last night’s conversation with Bridget. Being stuck in traffic would give him time to daydream about what might be. And less time to spend with his mother, too. He’d been nervous dialling, but right from her greeting Bridget made the conversation easy. She had joked about events at the reunion before accepting his invitation to meet up the following Wednesday evening after work for a drink at The Greyhound. He was a teenager again, his heart racing as he asked her, then mumbling incoherently after she had accepted.
He passed Junction 14, the Milton Keynes turnoff. This was almost half way and so far so good. After listening to ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ on Radio 4 he switched it off. He needed to concentrate on how best to tell his mother about the disintegration of his marriage. She would be devastated; she was very fond of Jane. She was from the generation of female stay-at-homes with life devoted to supporting her husband and children, and for her a closely knit family was paramount.
David had been her favourite. She’d made no attempt to hide this and it had created considerable tension between him and his sister Charlotte. Day in day out, as they stepped through the front door after school, the two children had been greeted enthusiastically with ‘tea dears?’ His routine reply of ‘yes please, mum’ was swiftly followed by her bringing a pot of tea and plate of biscuits into the lounge. Charlotte usually declined the offer to join them, intent on going straight to her bedroom to blast her punk music. They always sat on the same two armchairs. His mother then endeavoured to drag out any detail she could about his school day. She was proud of even the smallest achievements. The older he got the less he revealed and now, approaching thirty years on, there was a tinge of guilt about how he had shunned her, particularly when she most needed his support and affection.
He could still visualise the ashen faced, swollen eyed mother who met him at the front door on the day his father died. A policewoman was supporting her. As he stepped in she rushed up and squeezed him with extraordinary force.
"Daddy's dead," she wailed. "Daddy’s dead," over and over again. "My poor Cyril."
A heart attack. At work. No warning and no second chance. Dead on arrival at hospital. David was seventeen and Charlotte was two years older.
His mother struggled to cope and considerable responsibilit
y was placed on Charlotte and his own young shoulders. Between tears she would reminisce about family times together. The same stories over and over again. Journeys to the seaside in their Ford Capri. Competitions for who would be the first to spot the sea as they reached the summit of the South Downs. Breaking into a refrain of Oh I do like to be beside the seaside! Striped windbreakers providing protection from the harsh breeze. Thick grey clouds filling the sky, obliterating the blue. A rapid collection of possessions and a dash back to the car. Then the slow journey home, stretched out, exhausted, the two children falling asleep on the back seat. He was unsure which parts of the stories were genuine memories and which were family mythologies.
A few months after his father’s death he left for university, a planned exodus to far away Exeter with the strong intention never to return home to live. ‘The Great Escape’ Charlotte called it, resenting David for the resulting additional responsibility she had to endure. She didn’t go to university; she worked as a secretary in a local estate agent’s office. From there she plotted her own getaway, achieved four years after their father’s death when she married one of the estate agents.
It was many years later when they found out that the official account of their father’s death at work wasn’t quite the truth. He was having an affair with a colleague and died astride her on her bed. That morning over breakfast he’d informed his family he was going to be late home. ‘I’m rushed off my feet,’ he’d said. His mother knew the truth all along of course because the emergency team were called to the distraught woman’s flat. The cause of death was recorded as a heart attack brought on by physical exertion. Their mother had protected them from the facts until an uncle got drunk one Christmas and relayed what had happened in lurid detail to the full extended family. Later, upstairs in Charlotte’s bedroom and now far removed from the tragedy of the event, they had laughed at the irony. He was rushed off his feet well enough, but he wouldn’t have expected to be off his feet for ever more.
David was approaching the Junction 18 exit to Daventry, just a few minutes away from the turnoff onto the M6. He was making excellent progress and might be able to get home by early evening if he could escape within a timeframe that wouldn’t offend his mother.