by Jane Bidder
“Why didn’t you tell me you had seen the whole thing happening?” he might have asked.
Or “Why don’t we talk any more?”
Maybe “Were you involved? Is that why you kept quiet?”
Instead, anger made her get in first. “You called me a slut,” she hissed, as soon as the door had closed behind Paul Black.
He’d stared at her as though she was mad. “I did not. I might have said the girl was one but …”
“There’s no difference!” The words burned out of her mouth. “Don’t you understand? It’s how you really see me.”
“Alice, please.”
She pushed him away as he approached. “Don’t. Don’t touch me.”
Instantly, he stood back as if burned. “I’m not going through all that again,” he said quietly. “Nor am I going to ask why you felt able to tell the policeman about the events in the park even though you haven’t told me. So I will wait until you are ready to explain in your own time.”
Then he had glanced at his watch: a rather superior type that she had bought him for a significant birthday a year earlier, hoping that the quality would make up for the holes in their marriage. “I’m going to walk Mungo now and then have an early night.”
Sometimes they both took the dog on his last walk of the day; usually down to the sea front. If it was a filthy night, there was no need to talk (such a relief). And if it was clear enough to admire the moonlight glinting on the water, they could hold a neutral conversation about how lucky they were to live in such a lovely place.
But that night, there was no such invitation. Instead, Alice was left behind in the kitchen to freeze the fish pie, which now neither of them felt like having, and wonder exactly what she had done.
She was a witness! Well, a potential one. If the boy in the park refused to admit his ‘crime’, it would be tried at court and she, Alice, would have to go in the box and describe out loud exactly what she had said on the statement.
The horror of doing so made her blush hotly all over. What would people in the court say when she explained that initially, she’d thought the young girl had bent over to put a plaster on the boy’s knee.
But it was true.
She had.
“You don’t have to give a statement,” Paul Black had explained (it felt odd to call a policeman by his surname, let alone a first name too.) ”But if you don’t, there’s a strong possibility that the man will get away with it again.”
When he’d put it that way, she’d had no choice. If someone had been there for her, all those years ago, Alice told herself, she might have been capable of living a normal life right now.
Meanwhile, she couldn’t stop worrying about the young girl. “What will happen to her?” she’d asked, before Paul Black had left. “She won’t be arrested, will she?”
“Possibly. Possibly not. Sometimes, if a girl is underage, like this one, she’s allowed to go back home as long as she has someone to live with.”
The thought of a fifteen-year-old not having someone to live with was almost too shocking to contemplate. When her son had been that age, he’d been barely able to get out of bed for school without her nagging and cajoling. Daniel had accused her of over-protecting him and he was probably right. Perhaps that was why Garth had never settled.
“There are plenty of girls out there like that, you know,” the policeman had added as she’d seen him to the door. Then he’d glanced around at the original watercolours on the wall; the rich red and blue rug on the polished floor and the Wedgwood bowl on the mahogany table.
Clearly he thought she came from another world.
“I know,” she wanted to add fiercely. “I was one of them.”
The words were so loud in her head that for a moment, she wondered if she had actually said them. Indeed, he had been so kind and understanding when she’d faltered over the embarrassing parts of the statement, that Alice felt closer to him than she had done for a while to anyone. The temptation now, to tell Paul Black about her own life, was so strong that she had to hold herself back.
After all, not even Daniel knew everything.
So he had gone. And then her husband had gone out with the dog, only to return and go straight to bed. When she had finally crept in an hour later, he had turned away; leaving her to lie motionless, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what the hell she had done.
A witness! Until now, it was a term she had simply read about in the paper or heard on the radio. This was new territory. One which she had never expected to find herself in. The effect was uncomfortable yet inexplicably exciting at the same time.
As for the irony, that was irrefutable. Was someone playing a trick on her, wondered Alice, sitting up in the dark with pillows propped behind her after giving up on sleep. Was some unknown force providing her with the chance to be strong in a way that she should have been all those years ago?
Alice was tempted, later that week, to tell her friend Janice over their usual weekly game of doubles. Tennis at Ladies’ Morning was invariably more of a social occasion than a competitive match. Often they all ended up chatting over the net about who was doing what. Frequently they forgot the score.
Not surprisingly, the conversation still centred around what was being called the Park Sex Scandal. If this had happened in London, Alice told herself, hitting a particularly weak backhand, no one would have thought twice about it. But for some reason, the story had actually made it into a one-paragraph item in The Times.
“Seaway, recently voted amongst the top ten beauty spots in Britain, was thrown into uproar by a couple who had open-air sex in the park during the afternoon.”
“Why bother writing about us?” asked Alice, nervously.
One of the other ‘girls’, as they called themselves, piped up. “Apparently it’s the silly season for news, when not much is going on. That’s what my husband’s cousin says.” She blushed. “He works for a news agency and was staying with us when it all happened.”
So that explained it. Shakily, Alice hit a shot straight into the net. “Sorry,” she said to Janice. “I’m not concentrating.”
Janice giggled. “Nor me. I keep thinking about that couple. Everyone criticises them but I wouldn’t mind a bit of spontaneity now and then. The last time Brian and I did it outside was on our honeymoon.” She brushed past her on her way back to the baseline. “We actually did it on the beach! Seemed frightfully daring. Since then, we’ve always had a bit of a penchant for sex in the open. That’s why Brian bought a summer house for our twentieth anniversary.”
She waited, clearly waiting for a mutual confidence in return. What could she say, Alice asked herself? There was no way she wanted to tell Janice that she and Daniel hadn’t had sex since Garth was conceived.
Thankfully Monica had started to serve on the other side (“Are you two ready or are you going to natter all day?”) and she was saved from having to reply.
As for that statement, several nights of not sleeping had made her wonder if she should have made it in the first place. It hadn’t been fair of Paul Black to emotionally blackmail her like that: to declare, more or less, that if she didn’t give evidence the young man might get away with it again and another girl could be hurt.
Maybe, Alice told herself uneasily, she had done the right thing. But at what cost? Daniel was hardly speaking to her because she’d lied “ although why I still don’t know”. No point in telling him that she didn’t fully know herself; it was far more complicated than that. Just as bad, everyone else would be asking exactly the same question if – when? – the case came to court.
“Great shot,” sang out Janice.
Alice always played well when she was upset. Maybe, she told herself, the best course of action was to ignore it. Hope the case didn’t get that far. Paul Black had given her his number and promised he would let her know what happened. He’d also warned her that this could take ‘weeks’.
In the meanwhile, she’d just do what she did best. Distract hersel
f to stop thinking about the past.
Since that first china workshop, Alice had learned to channel any disappointments in life (Garth’s reluctance to go to uni and Daniel’s ever-increasing distant air) into the restoration of cups and bowls and saucers and anything else which had become smashed, often due to carelessness.
But this particular little rosebud cup had been one of her biggest challenges. The handle was a pretty curved shape which had taken a great deal of care and – she felt embarrassed to admit – a certain skill to reunite with its original resting place.
After returning from tennis, Alice checked it again. It certainly seemed firm enough. Ready to return to her client. The old lady was delighted when she rang. “Thank you so much, my dear. Yes, I’ll be in this afternoon. Are you sure it’s not too much trouble to drop it off?”
“It’s all part of the service,” she replied, glad to have the chance to get out of the house. Since the incident, as she called it in her head, its walls had begun to close in on her. She avoided the park, too, which felt sullied because of what had happened. Instead, she took Mungo for walks in the buttercup meadow on the hill, now that the beach was out of bounds for dogs until October.
Mrs Davies – or Joan as she was pressed to call her – insisted that Alice came in. “I’ve just put the kettle on, dear and besides, we can test it out, can’t we?”
She held the cup lovingly in her hand. “It means a great deal to me, you know.”
Alice felt the usual glow of pleasure. This wasn’t the first time a client had told her this. It was only sensitive people like Joan Davies who went to the trouble and expense of having something mended. Others might just bin it with only a hint of regret. There had to be a link there with how you dealt with life’s memories.
“So silly of me to drop it,” continued the older woman, as she carefully measured out three teaspoons of loose tea into the pot. Her wrinkled hand, studded with liver spots, shook slightly. “But I was thinking of him, you see.”
She said the ‘him’ bit as though Alice should know whom she meant.
“Your husband?”
The old lady shook her head. “Not Bernard, bless him. No. I’m talking about my first fiancé.”
She looked straight at Alice with a direct gaze that reminded her of the policeman’s. “Have you ever been in love? So badly that you can’t eat or sleep?”
Alice thought back to a younger Daniel who had taken her out to dinner on their first date and escorted her back home, giving her a chaste kiss on the doorstep of her rented flat. There had never been any passion. No tingling of spines or goose-pimples down the arm.
If there had, she might have been too scared to have married him in case she got hurt again. Just as she’d been hurt by Gordon. Although whose fault was that …
“Not many people have,” continued Joan Davies, who thankfully didn’t seem to be expecting a reply. “But Gerald was different.” Then she looked down at the little cup. “This was part of an engagement present. There was a whole set once but the rest got broken over the years. Thank you so much, my dear, for bringing it back to me.”
What happened, Alice wanted to ask as they sipped their tea and talked of other things like the weather and that funny comedy on television that they both agreed was ʻhysterical’, even though Daniel thought it ʻinane’.
Then, after Mrs Davies had paid her – something Alice always felt rather awkward about as she did it for the love rather than the money – she unexpectedly clutched Alice’s hand with her own slim one. “I used to tell people, even my husband, that Gerald died. The truth was that he left me for someone else.”
Alice was stunned. It seemed hard to equate this old lady with a young girl who had felt so humiliated that she had lied and kept a secret for all these years.
Then she took Alice’s other hand, holding both at the same time. “Gerald wasn’t really a gentleman, you know. But I didn’t regret it for a moment.” Her eyes shone. “He taught me things that my poor husband couldn’t have imagined in a lifetime.”
Were old people really meant to say things like that? Alice thought of her own mother, whose life revolved around the bridge club, and who had welcomed Daniel with open arms because “he will balance that silly imagination of yours”.
Mrs Davies’ eyes were looking more serious now. “If you ever get the chance, Alice, take it.” Then she smiled knowingly. “Something tells me that you haven’t found true love yet. No, don’t say anything. I’m rather good at reading people’s faces.”
Then she reached up and kissed her cheek. “Bless you, my dear. And good luck.”
The words rang round Alice’s head all night. If you ever get the chance, take it. But what if you did have the chance and you couldn’t take it because of what had happened to you in the past. Something so shameful that no one would believe you. Something that, every now and then, she wondered if she might have misinterpreted, just as her mother had insisted.
Had it just been in her head all those years ago?
Was it possible she’d misread the signs?
“You’re up early,” said Daniel, when she joined him for breakfast at 6.30. Even Mungo, who wasn’t an early riser, was still in his basket by the Aga.
“I couldn’t sleep. One slice or two?”
“Two please.”
He seemed less distant this morning. More normal. Then again, it was always easier to talk to each other out of bed, rather than in it. Routines like the making of toast and topping up the butter dish were soothing. Reassuring. Normal.
“I’m sorry about … about not telling you,” she said, tentatively as they sat opposite each other at the table. “I was embarrassed, that’s all.”
Daniel continued spreading the butter on his toast. “That’s all right.”
“No, really. I don’t want you thinking I hide anything else.”
He was putting the spoon in the marmalade now, carefully taking care not to stain the red-and-white spotted tablecloth while still not looking at her. “It doesn’t matter if you do. Not really.”
His eyes lifted to hers finally. They were expressionless. “After all, it’s not as though we have that kind of relationship any more, is it?”
Her mouth went dry. “What do you mean?”
Daniel pushed his chair back and got up. The consequential scrape on the quarry-stone tiles echoed the nerve-tingling apprehension in her head, “We’re like a brother and sister who happen to have an almost grown-up child.”
He said it in such a casual manner that she wondered if she had heard right. “No we’re not …”
“Alice.” He took her hands in his briefly. The shock of the contact – unexpectedly warm yet cool at the same time – threw her. “It’s all right. I’ve accepted it.”
Never before had they been so open with each other. Daniel’s cruel, candid words had the effect of ripping off a plaster, brutally, fiercely without warning, to reveal a festering wound underneath. Scared, she stared after his retreating back as he made his way into the hall where his briefcase waited.
“What about your toast?” she called out, realising as she did so, the banality of the question.
“I’m not hungry any more. Give it to Mungo.”
Then he was gone, leaving her with so many thoughts and memories and fears rushing round her head, that she simply had to get out. The hills with the dog. And then maybe a trip to the shopping centre in Plymouth. Anything to distract her from the unsettling conversation that she and Daniel had just had.
It was easy to park at this time of the morning. The younger mums were all doing the school run. Older ones, forced into lives of their own, had gone back to work or were doing what she normally did. Playing tennis. Walking the dog. Making a hobby into a ‘little job’ that didn’t interfere with the giving of dinner parties or weekend breaks now families were older and there were fewer financial obligations.
Money hadn’t really been a problem for them, thought Alice slightly guiltily as she fished in he
r purse for some change for the car park machine. Moving out of London had enabled them to buy a bigger house and have some money left over. Her small inheritance from her father had helped too, although she would have given anything right now to have Dad around. Of all people, he was the one who had initially believed her story.
“Let me sort this out,” he had declared. But then he had fallen ill – something that Mum had accused her of precipitating through ‘stress’. It was a subject they never spoke of now.
Alice shook herself. Don’t go down that road, she told herself. Distraction. That’s what the counsellor had said: the one she had seen at university, before dropping out. And why not? Perhaps she would try on that blue dress again. The one she had seen the other day but not bought on the spot. That was her trouble, perhaps. Too careful. Unable to have the passionate affair that old Mrs Davies had. For a moment, the policeman’s clear blue eyes came into her head. He had looked at her. Really looked at her.
Sure. Because he had wanted her to do what he said. Didn’t they all?
Blue dress. Think of the blue dress. It would be perfect for Janice’s forthcoming birthday barbecue. Locking the car, Alice headed for the shopping centre steps. The doors hadn’t quite opened yet. There were people waiting. Other women like her, looking at their watches; even though they might have all the time in the world on their hands.
There were a couple of teenage kids too, whose filthy clothes and wild hair suggested they had been there all night. How awful. Poor things. What, she wondered, were the circumstances that had led to them spending a night out in the open?
Dear God, may Garth be all right. During their last Skype call, two weeks ago from Thailand, she’d asked him where he was staying. “On the beach, Mum. Don’t freak out. Everyone does it.”
Did they? It was all so different from her day when gap years were still new. Usually you went straight into a job or did VSO to help others – not lounge around the rest of the world, looking for yourself, as Daniel scathingly put it. Then she noticed one of the young women stretching out. There was a natural poise about her. An elegance which seemed at odds with the girl next to her with rougher, more common features.