by Gill Mather
What had sunk in that second night with her was that his life had changed forever. He couldn’t go back to sleep-walking through life and getting by on legal challenges. He had to keep her. She had to be his. He would try to remain cool, but he wouldn’t lose sight of that essential objective. At least that’s what he’d thought.
So how had it gone so horribly wrong?
This awful feeling was gripping him, it was gut-wrenching, really hurting like a physical injury. He’d never felt anything like it before. He didn’t know what to do.
It would seem simple to anyone else. Just go and get her back. But he didn’t think he could stand what she had apparently thought he was capable of doing and it had taken a revelation about Graham’s case to convince her otherwise. Didn’t she know very well that he wasn't violent or weird? She should never have thought that about him at all. Ever. She should have trusted him. Like he worshipped her and thought her the most perfect being he’d ever encountered. If he were to get close to her again, he might want to start punishing and hurting her again and that would be a very sick relationship. Doubly horrible after something that had been so sweet.
And now she was gone forever and he’d never be able to hold her again.
He put his head in his hands and stayed like that for nearly an hour. Then he started to thumb listlessly through some post. He looked with disinterest through the parish magazine and one item caught his eye. The parish council had been asked to review the routes taken by the walking groups as to their suitability following a perturbing incident in April. Some house owners had conducted unsuitable outdoor activities which a group of walkers had witnessed in full.
Well they had had an obvious solution open to them, he thought, which they signally hadn't taken.
Luckily no children were in the group but easily could have been. The clerk to the council had been asked to write to the owner and complain and express the council’s hope that there would be no repetition. You can count on that, thought Hugh.
He read it again.
In other circumstances it would have been risible. He’d have shown it to Ali and they would have derived an enormous amount of fun from it. But she wasn’t here and was never going to be again. What was he to do? He put his head in his hands and started to sob like he hadn’t done since he was a child when his rabbit had died.
SAM WAS MISSING Ali too. She missed their lunchtime conflabs and drunken evening sessions. Ali didn’t get back from Cambridge until about eight in the evening and then was tired and had to go to bed early in order to get up early the next day to get to work on time. Sam and Darren between them had four children to cope with. They didn’t have a nanny any longer wanting the privacy to work on their relationship. But they too felt the strain of late nights; getting four kids ready for bed, homework, bathing them, reading to them and staying with them until they went to sleep, being woken up in the night sometimes, then the busy morning routine every day. They loved every second of it, but it really was tiring.
And there were the various activities the kids had to be taken to evenings and weekends.
They had some daily help with the house, washing, cleaning etc, but they wanted to look after the kids themselves, apart from the odd weekend away together when his or her mother came to stay.
Sam reckoned whatever the work of looking after four children, she’d never been so happy in her life. On the rare occasions she did see Ali, she had to try hard not to rub it in.
Infrequently, Ali left work early and they met as before at the S&S. She had to admit Ali looked pretty good on the surface, slim, new makeup, smarter clothes. And Ali laughed and joked about her new place of work and the people there and some of the cases. But Sam knew it was just superficial. There was a kind of brittle cynical edge to Ali’s chatter. Sam was sad to see her going that way.
But Ali said what else have I got. He didn’t want me any more. I’ve got to harden up a bit.
Sam thought about Hugh but didn’t say to Ali that he sometimes, quite often in fact, looked a bit rough. Not untidy or dishevelled but just very tired like he hadn’t slept very well and sometimes like he had a bit of a hangover. But she didn’t think any good could come of telling Ali. Ali was too proud to go and beg to be taken back and if Hugh wanted to ask presumably he would. But he didn't. Therefore what was the point in telling Ali that Hugh appeared to be suffering too. It wasn't going to lead anywhere. Anyway, his behaviour generally was more or less as before, giving nothing away, doing his job well, getting clients off various charges, attracting new business. He didn't come out for any lunchtime drinks any more if it was someone’s birthday but who was she to decide that Hugh was pining. He might not have been. And Ali was trying to get over it. It was best not to interfere. Darren thought so too.
OVER THE WEEKS, Hugh decided he had to get on with things. He couldn't just let everything fall apart. He tried to throw himself into his work. He was good at hiding his feelings and could just about shove his bleeding heart into a corner of his mind so it wasn't at least written all over his face.
He tried not to walk past The Privy. The name seemed to have stuck. But sometimes after everyone else had left, he’d go in there and think about her. He fancied he could still smell the perfume she wore and see the imprint of her beautiful bum on the soft seat of her chair. No-one had moved anything. It was like a shrine. If anyone did start to rearrange the small room, he wondered if he’d try to stop them. They’d think he was a head case.
The letter from the parish clerk arrived. Initially he tore it up then he regretted it and sellotaped it back together. He kept it in his bedside table with the parish magazine. In loving memory. He penned a polite non-committal reply.
Sitting at home sometimes he really did think seriously about driving to the nearest quiet beach and walking into the sea, especially late at night after a few brandies. He wondered how Ali felt. He experienced sudden urges to contact her but the longer time went by, the more he felt he’d blown it. She probably wouldn't take him back and he couldn't stand to feel any worse than he did.
He spent hours and hours and hours, week after week after week sitting at home thinking all these things and getting nowhere at all.
“Oh fuck it,” he said out loud. He picked up the `phone and called his mum in Australia. He told her he was coming over as soon as he could get a flight and sort things out at work.
TIME WORE ON. The Cambridge job was wonderful, all she’d ever previously wanted out of life. Ali threw herself into it and spent all her free time researching, copying and taking home articles to read as well as logging into the firm's accounts with various legal publishers to consume chapter after chapter of text on anything to do with civil rights.
Although she’d promised to go back and visit PWT, she found it impossible. It would have been too evocative of those few precious weeks she’d had with Hugh and how desperately, exquisitely alive she’d felt. It was like another lifetime. She kept in touch with some members of the firm, in particular Sam, Amanda sometime and amazingly Wattsey. If he ever had any family things on, he invited Ali. She’d got into the habit of calling him Wattsey. She just couldn't think of him as Victor and he didn't seem to mind. When she and Sam were both free, they went on shopping trips and of course girls’ nights out when the opportunity arose. Sam could see the old sparkle start to come back although Ali was still painfully thin. “It’s my way of coping,” said Ali, “if I didn’t do this, I think I’d still go to pieces. Anyway it’s not healthy to overeat.”
Sam would sigh and drop the subject.
Ali carried on with the cycling and it made her feel a little better.
She’d been asked out several times by a trainee solicitor at work. He was a nice guy, quite plummy like James but really, really bright. They’d had a couple of lunchtime drinks together and he seemed to know intuitively that she’d had a romantic upset of some sort and not to be too pushy about wanting a date. His name was Phil and he had similar mannerisms to Hugh and looked a
t her in the same way. But there the resemblance ended. He was dark, cheerful and very outgoing, classy but not at all reserved. Ali didn't want to disappoint either him or herself by accepting and then having it turn out that she couldn't cope or that he wasn't any sort of substitute for Hugh. He was very easy going but any bloke would be a bit pissed off if a girl burst into tears the first time he kissed her. She didn't want another break with a work colleague messy or otherwise. So she’d said she’d come back to him about it and that was where they were at.
Truth to tell, she wasn't sure she was ready to relinquish her broken heart quite yet. She was still capable of wallowing in a deep mire of regrets about Hugh when she was on her own, revelling in recollections of all their times together, their totally brilliant sex life and just him and everything about him. What if she fell head over heels in love with Phil straight away? After all she’d been astounded when it happened with Hugh after just one dance together and later one night together. She didn't want to be that fickle.
She told Sam who advised caution. Definitely.
CHAPTER 26
“OH HELLO ALI. You’re looking very tanned and healthy. Was it good?”
“Yeah. Pretty OK. Didn’t do a lot but sunbathe and go on walks and things. Not much chance of going clubbing or anything with my parents and fifteen year old brother. Still it was relaxing and refreshing. What’re you working on?”
“The Maddison case. Trying to draft a claim.” He was in the firm’s small library using a laptop.
“Oh that still. Is there really any chance it’ll get anywhere?”
“Peters thinks it will. And the client wants to do it. So we’ll have a go I suppose.”
Maddison was a so-called celeb, horrified to find that a sleazy alleged journalist had accumulated a huge file on her not very interesting activities and more horrified to learn that journalists were able to claim exemption from the normal rights individuals had to gain access to data and records accumulated about them, and to prevent its publication. She had commissioned the firm to research ways that she could at least have access to data about her and then decide what further action to take.
The best course seemed to be to attack the journalistic credentials of the “journalist”. He had in fact never had an article of any sort published nor any book or other work of literature except that he wrote a monthly column for a local advertiser which they carefully edited complaining bitterly about local goings on for which he was regarded as a harmless eccentric. That was about the sum total of his output. He had no visible other means of support, he was in his fifties, had long greasy hair, dressed oddly, he was unkempt, he looked unwashed and lived with his mother. He claimed to be ready to publish an article and to be in the process of writing a book with a chapter on Maddison.
It was hoped that he wouldn’t have the money to put up much of a defence and the thrust of the case was that his interest was prurient rather than journalistic, more in the nature almost of a stalker though he had no criminal convictions for any offence at all.
“What are you working on then?” said Phil.
“It’s still that surveillance case. It’s arguable whether the group will ever be able to prove anything against the company but if they can prove anything significant, they want to be ready to take action straight away. So I’m supposed to research possible lines of action. I’ve been putting it off all morning. I haven't found much here so I’m going online in a minute. It’s so warm and stuffy though isn’t it. It makes me want to fall asleep. To come back from Crete to a heatwave doesn’t seem fair.”
Phil looked at his expensive watch. “It’s nearly one anyway. Pack up and go for a quick one?”
“Why not.”
They went to their usual watering hole. It was heaving. Phil went to the bar while Ali found a couple of seats on a small table for them and he squeezed in beside her.
They discussed firm gossip for a while. He told her what had been happening while she’d been away on holiday. She told him about the spectacular scenery in Crete and what a pain Ed had been most of the time, moaning that he couldn’t play computer games or see his mates.
“There’s a good party on Saturday. One of my mate’s birthday. Fancy coming?” he said casually.
“Oh I don’t know Phil. I’m supposed to be going to a garden party of one the agents in Colchester. The owner’s girlfriend is my best friend and I sort of promised.”
“Is it in the evening then?”
“Well no, the afternoon. But it might stretch to the evening.”
“I’d come over and get you if you wanted.”
“I don’t think so. Sorry Phil, but I don’t think I can. One party in a day is enough for me really.”
“OK. One day you’ll say yes. If I keep trying.” And he smiled at her nicely and looked into her eyes in that rather dreamy way he had.
Yes, she thought. One day I will say yes. If only Hugh had been so forward at coming forward. They’d have got together a lot sooner probably and maybe they’d still be together if he hadn’t made everything so complicated.
Meanwhile Phil was looking at her in a heart-melting way to which she wasn’t by any means totally immune. She wondered whether to just tell Phil about Hugh and what had happened, to say she was still heart-broken but willing to give it a go if he was, if he was prepared to take it slowly and accommodate a few tears to begin with. It was sorely tempting and any reunion with Hugh seemed as unlikely as ever.
But Phil was speaking:
“Better be getting back then,” he said. And Ali lost her nerve.
CHAPTER 27
IT WAS NEARLY three months since Ali had left PWT.
Late August Sam had telephoned Ali and reminded her about Summer Homes’s late summer party to be held on the first Saturday in September in a week’s time. She forbore to say that Hugh would probably be attending. She couldn’t help thinking, at the risk of stirring things up, that there was still some hope and it was worth one last try to get Ali and Hugh back together again.
Sam sensed that Hugh was unhappy. He normally appeared more or less indifferent to most things and always had. But there was a certain moroseness to his demeanour now. It seemed a criminal waste to her that such a full-on affair had come to such an abrupt and dramatic end and all over a stupid misunderstanding apparently. Darren said she should be careful, that she was playing with fire, with peoples’ lives in fact but Sam decided it was worth the risk. Perhaps time would have mellowed Hugh.
AT THE TIME Sam asked her just before she went off to Crete with her family, Ali was going to be free on the Saturday in question and therefore said she probably would be there. She pencilled it in her diary.
The Saturday dawned hot and humid. The Indian summer predicted by the weathermen was holding up thankfully. It was such a beautiful day Ali decided to walk to Summers office where the party was being held in the walled garden at the back. She was pretty casual in a tight top, short skirt and wedge sandals. Slim girls could wear these short tight things and look quite elegant. It gave Ali extra confidence. About the only advantage of a broken heart she reflected ruefully. Her dark hair had grown longer with paler highlights from the sunshine and she had a decent tan from being away in Crete for two weeks.
She became pensive as she walked along oblivious to the admiring glances. She had assumed Hugh wouldn’t be going to the party or Sam would never have asked her. Though maybe she shouldn’t assume. She was going to have to face things some time. She couldn’t hide from her demons forever.
Darren was at the gate to welcome everyone in. He kissed Ali and told her that Sam was in the kitchen.
She found Sam putting the finishing touches to two enormous gateaux, supervising the making of gallons of mayonnaise and telling people where to put the huge plates of canapés.
“Right,” she said, “I can be all yours for about half an hour then I’ll have to go and check everything all over again.”
They sauntered into the garden. Darren certainly cou
ld organise a party. Everything was just so. There was a marquee for food and another for dancing. And the gardens themselves looked brilliant with late summer flowers, russian sage, rudbeckia, phlox and crocosmia. Ali wondered what Hugh’s garden would look like, if any of her seedlings would have been planted. She cast the thought from her mind.
“So you’re Darren’s social secretary now are you?”
“Well not really. But actually we have got plans for me to leave PWT and become a director of the company. Don’t tell anyone will you. Sharon never wanted anything to do with the business. Do you know in fact in the divorce proceedings she complained that Darren was too successful. Can you believe that? But it’s so interesting. We get on like a house on fire and agree on practically everything. It’ll be such fun. We’re just waiting for our divorces to become final then we’ll do it.”
“Gosh. It seems perfect.”
Just then Ali noticed a familiar figure arrive. Hugh shook Darren’s hand then introduced the person with him. She was a willowy blond in a beautiful expensively cut revealing but somehow modest summer number. The girl was young. Younger than Ali. Fresh faced and gorgeous.
“Who’s that?” Ali asked Sam sharply.
“Oh blimey, her name’s Fiona something. I never thought he’d bring her with him. Though I suppose he did get her the work experience placement now I think about it. She’s only with the firm for a few weeks. Not like you.” Sam ended somewhat lamely.
“Not like me,” Ali breathed.
“Of course not like you. Oh Ali I’m sure it’s not like that.”
“Are you?”
Sam was about to answer but one of the serving girls came over and asked about the beer and whether there was a new barrel ready to be brought on. Sam had to go and deal with that and she didn’t come back.
Moments later however, James bounced up to her like a big friendly puppy and kissed her cheek. He then whispered in her ear how wonderful things were going with Maddie and he was so grateful and he hugged her.