The Reunion

by Gould, R J

  WPC Zara Dixon stood her ground by the entrance as the few remaining guests looked on.

  “That’s very kind of you sir, but I’m still on duty. I need you to come with me to the station.”

  Zara watched the woman who was by Mr Willoughby’s side take hold of his right arm. Next Mrs Willoughby, assuming that was still her status, approached and clutched his left arm. The man who had had his arm around the maybe Mrs Willoughby’s shoulders followed her and clasped the spare hand.

  “The station?” David asked, the women on each side of him tightening their grips.

  Diagonally from the right another woman came hurtling towards him at great speed. She pulled away from a man who had been holding her hand and he stumbled and fell to his knees. She ignored him and continued her rush up to Mr Willoughby. She flung her arms around him and their faces all but touched.

  “This is fabulous,” she slurred. “Fabulous. I’m going to miss you so much; please promise you’ll keep in contact.” Before he could answer she kissed him on the lips and sustained the embrace. He didn’t, couldn’t respond, because his arms were still pinned down by the other two women. The man who had been with the kisser edged towards them on his knees then stood.

  “I know all about you two, you are such a crafty bugger,” he said to David as he prised Mary away.

  The two women at his side looked on in puzzlement.

  Unsure who to face, the policewoman addressed a convenient gap to the left of David’s ear. “I’m afraid it’s your daughter, sir. She’s been apprehended for drunk and disorderly behaviour.”

  And not surprising, she thought.

  Things to do if you enjoyed ’The Reunion’:

  Write a review on Amazon, Goodreads etc

  Keep going to read the first chapter of ’The Engagement Party’

  Visit www.rjgould.info to check out other R J Gould fiction and get onto a mailing list to notify you of new work.

  If you didn’t like ’The Reunion’ probably best if you don’t write a review and there’s not much point reading on, checking out the writer’s other work, or visiting the website ☺. But thank you for giving it a go.

  Copyright and publishing information

  Copyright@2013 R J Gould

  All rights reserved worldwide. For all permissions please contact the author at rgould130@gmail.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events in this novel, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons or incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Author information

  R J Gould lives in Cambridge, England. His contemporary fiction introduces quirky characters and explores their relationships using humour and a strong sense of irony. ‘The Reunion’ is his second novel, e-published in January 2013. His first novel, 'The Engagement Party', was published as an e-novel in February 2012 and in paperback in August 2012.

  R J is a member of Cambridge Writers. He was the annual short story competition winner in February 2010 and received a commendation for 'Domestic Blisslessness' in February 2012. This story is available as an e-book.

  He works for a national educational charity and has published in a wide range of journals, newspapers and magazines, including a major work on educating able young people.

  For further information about his writing and to be added to a mailing list to inform you of new work, you are welcome to visit the R J Gould website at www.rjgould.info or email rgould130@gmail.com

  Extract from ‘The Engagement Party’

  This is the first chapter from the R J Gould novel ‘The Engagement Party’, available as an e-book and paperback.

  Clarissa Montague

  “I’m sure you’ll be very happy dear” her mother had said when she’d broken the news of their engagement. It had been a statement of great craft in indicating the exact opposite of what the combination of words superficially suggested. It was accompanied by the look that Clarissa had been subjected to many times over the years. Smile to smirk to frown to smirk to smile. She knew exactly what was implied – you silly girl, you’ve made another wrong decision and I’ll be the one who has to pick up the pieces. “Have you told your father yet?” she then asked, all part of the post-divorce competition for attention and preferential treatment. Clarissa ignored the question, not wanting to give her mother the pleasure of knowing that her father had still to meet her fiancée. That evening she’d popped in to give him the news. “Where does he work?” he’d asked, ahead of even knowing the man’s name.

  “He delivers sandwiches,” she’d replied with mischievous deliberation. There followed a rare moment of paternal speechlessness. “His name is Wayne,” she’d added. Her father had responded with a patronising nod indicating that he thought the name highly appropriate to the trade.

  Clarissa recognised that her father was a complete and utter snob and her mother was a close second. And if pushed she would happily admit that she was too, a product of her parents enhanced by fourteen years at prestigious independent girls schools. She was well versed in the subtle nuances of dress, style, behaviour and expectations that went with upper middle class status. Her ‘you can have everything you want’ only-child upbringing was poles apart from Wayne’s experience of relative poverty, broken home, bog standard comprehensive schooling and a flight from education at age sixteen. Although her parents had also separated it wasn’t the same as for Wayne, for a start the split hadn’t brought on any money problems.

  From the outset she had been sure that differences in background would never be a threat to their relationship but perhaps now she was just a little less confident than she had been before they’d starting planning their engagement party.

  It was Saturday. Just eight days then it would all be over and they could relegate their families to deserved low-level status.

  She’d been woken by the sound of his tacky mobile phone alarm, a dog barking and refusing to give up. Just when you thought it had packed it in the infuriating pseudo yaps repeated at louder and louder volume.

  “Wayne, turn that bloody thing off,” she yelled out for the second time.

  Her left eyelid was fluttering uncontrollably, a movement that kick started whenever she was stressed. Her Achilles eyelid.

  Bark, bark, bark.

  “Wayne!”

  “Sorry” came a weak mumble, barely audible through the closed door.

  When he’d chosen the barking alarm they had shared the joke. Now she found herself analysing his choice in terms of lack of taste. There was no way any ex-boyfriend would have dreamt of being woken up by the sound of a dog, not Charles or William or Sebastian or Christopher or Roland. And certainly not Si either. Class was rearing its ugly head and she was finding things about Wayne annoying that had never bugged her before. She had to escape her growing intolerance.

  She did feel just a little guilty about her harshness in kicking Wayne out. However the ban from the bedroom was entirely his fault. He was usually so compliant, he went along with whatever she said or did. They had never argued, not until now. Well this wasn’t exactly an argument, more him getting on her nerves going on and on about it with her spitefully snapping back.

  Wayne had completed his fourth night in exile. She could appreciate why he was suffering from lack of sleep, the sofa was far too narrow and short for him. She’d peeped out when she’d woken up in the middle of the night and had watched him fidget, his knees bent as he struggled to get comfortable. She heard his sighs and groans as she lay restlessly in bed, endeavouring to dispel her own fears. Her mechanisms for blanking out the high chance of disaster at the forthcoming engagement party were not working and she blamed Wayne for nurturing her high anxiety.

  Clarissa stretched out diagonally across the king-sized bed and buried her face in the goose-down pillow.

  Two Hours. Zero-One-Two. It’s Just For Two Hours she chanted slowly and quietly, as rising panic gathered momentum to accelerate the eyelid flutter. Zero-One-Two
. Zero-One-Two. She’d been told about the benefits of deep breathing and chanting during a session with a child psychologist when she was fifteen. There was some nastiness at school with a plot to marginalise her led by Chloe. All sorts of bitchy things were said and at one stage no one but the weediest of girls would sit next to her in class. Break times were awful, standing alone crying while her ex-friends laughed. In the end it was resilience rather than psychiatry that helped – gradually she had won back her friendships, picking them off one by one and successfully turning them against Chloe. Zero-One-Two.

  Last Tuesday morning had been the final straw with Wayne. They’d been sitting in the kitchen having a quick breakfast before work, she feeling pleasantly relaxed after sex followed by a good night’s sleep.

  “Clarissa, I can’t see why we’re doing this,” Wayne had challenged for the umpteenth time.

  Clarissa took a sip of cappuccino as she considered a new line of attack, or was it defence. “Because my mum is desperate for it and my dad is happy to pay.”

  “That’s hardly a reason. It’s the we I’m talking about. Why are we doing it?”

  “We’ve been over this a hundred times, Wayne. Our parents have got to meet at some stage and an engagement party is as good a way as any. It’ll only be for a couple of hours. Hardly time for a disaster is it?”

  “Yes, but...”

  “Look Wayne, it’s done. Period. We’re not going to cancel, so either make the most of it or don’t bother to come and I’ll go alone.” Rat-tat-tat went Clarissa’s left eyelid.

  Wayne stood, walked round to Clarissa’s side of the table, lifted up her mane of jet black hair, and planted a kiss on the nape of her neck. He turned to face her.

  “You’re right, that’s it then, no more moaning I promise.” He planted a kiss on her lips. Clarissa expected a longer embrace but Wayne backed away. “Though if you don’t mind a final thing. I’ve had Lil on at me for not inviting her to the party for our friends. You know she’ll hate the parents do.”

  Clarissa saw red. Wayne’s sister was thick, a tart, devoid of social skills and malicious. There was no way Lil was going to be given the opportunity to mess up the event that she was planning for her friends. “Right, that’s it Wayne!”

  She leapt up, stormed to the bedroom to collect her things, grabbed what she needed, slammed the bedroom door behind her, strode across the lounge to the front door, then slammed that one shut, leaving without a goodbye. Later that morning she sent Wayne a text: i am fed up with u, keep out the bedroom 2nite.

  And for four nights he’d kept out. To his credit in their brief curt exchanges over meals he hadn’t mentioned the forthcoming event, but that hadn’t stopped her becoming increasingly edgy about the engagement party and she held Wayne responsible for making her feel that way.

  However, four days was enough of a punishment and it was probably time to let him back in. Anyway, she was missing him. So when he gently knocked on the bedroom door that Saturday morning she resolved to be tranquil and loving.

  “What do you want, Wayne?” she snapped. He couldn’t expect her to change tone instantaneously.

  “I just wondered whether you’d like a cup of tea, Clarissa.”

  “That’s sweet of you, but no thanks. I’ll get up too, let’s have breakfast together.”

  Half an hour later they were at the table just like they’d been on Tuesday, sitting in the same chairs, the same crockery laid out, the croissants and coffee set out by Wayne as per usual. Everything back to how it was, how it should be. Being a Saturday there was no work to rush off to. They made light and friendly conversation about Wayne’s eviction. Their shared difficulty in getting to sleep. Missing each other with severe sex deprivation. Wayne having to wear the same clothes too often as he didn’t want to get to the wardrobe early morning whilst she was still asleep in case he disturbed her. Clarissa joking about wading through his dirty clothes strewn across the lounge floor.

  Wayne took a gulp of cappuccino which left a milk foam line on his upper lip. Clarissa smiled as she lifted her serviette.

  “Look at you. Come here,” she said with affection as she leaned across the table and dabbed his mouth. She blew him a flamboyant kiss before sitting back down and taking a bite of croissant. Flakes of pastry adhered to her left cheek.

  “My turn,” Wayne said as he stood and walked round to her side of the table, serviette in hand. But instead of wiping it he licked her cheek and ate the crumbs.

  Clarissa looked up. “I love you.”

  “Love you too, Riss.”

  Clarissa smiled as Wayne returned to his side of the table. She lifted yesterday’s newspaper and began to read the film and music reviews.

  Wayne stood up again. “If you’re reading I’ll get my book. It’s been stowed away in the bedroom since I was banished, I’ve pretty well forgotten what it’s about.”