In Search of Love, Money & Revenge

by Hilary Bailey

  On the third night alone she awoke from nightmares of departing trains and the deaths of individuals she couldn’t quite see, to a moment or two of perfect clarity in which she realised that for almost a month she had, on Julian’s instructions, been winding up her own job at Vane Graphics. The contents of her address book, details of all her contacts, were on the computer now. She’d programmed in her system of checking mail and phone calls, records of action taken. She’d progress-chased the team, as Julian had suggested, and put on the computer all the details and deadlines she normally kept on a wall-chart backed by her own notes and what she remembered. All the systems she had devised for keeping things running smoothly and all the up-to-date information about Vane Graphics’ current dealings were, for a successor, tidily to hand on the computer on her desk. Short of agreeing to clear her desk into a cardboard box and go in a month’s time, she’d done everything a person leaving a job would have done. It looked as if Julian had not just unilaterally ended the marriage, but also her association with his firm. For some reason this recognition soothed her and she went back to sleep.

  She awoke a few hours later, in the late dawn of a glum December day, and heard the sound of a key in the front door. Going downstairs, haggard, in a nightdress she had been wearing for two days, she found Julian in the sitting room, disconnecting the computer. At his feet was the video. He gazed at her, startled.

  ‘My God!’ he said. ‘Annie – you look terrible. I just came for a few things – some clothes—’

  She stared at him. It was seven-thirty in the morning. He was neatly dressed in a suit and fresh shirt. He wore a new tie, an expensive silk one, violet, with spots. His blond wavy hair was freshly cut, but there were dark shadows under his big blue eyes.

  ‘Are you ill? I thought you’d gone to Froggett’s.’

  ‘Do you expect me to look well?’ she asked. ‘I still can’t understand it. Why did you do it? And as for this …’ she gestured at the computer, the video, ‘it doesn’t seem fair, coming and taking these things when you thought I was away.’

  ‘Basically, I came for my clothes,’ he said.

  ‘You’d better take them.’ She sank, shivering, into the armchair. She heard him moving about upstairs.

  When he came down he asked, ‘Can I take the picture? I think it’ll go in the back of the car. You’ve never liked it.’

  ‘All right.’ She watched him quickly remove it. He carried it out to the car and came back for the cases he’d left in the hall. The door closed and his car started up. The video and the computer still sat on the floor. Annie went upstairs, slowly as an old woman, and ran a bath.

  A few more days passed. Annie ate and slept a little more. Her mother rang up and this time she answered the telephone. Juliet told her she must come straight to Froggett’s and not return to London at least until Christmas was over.

  Annie looked at Melanie who, used to long waits, just shrugged. The pale young woman bent forward over her two-year-old and selected a tired-looking children’s book from the pile of old magazines on the table in front of her.

  Vanessa Doyle felt so tired. She had had to bring Alec with her because he’d screamed blue murder when she tried to leave him behind with her mother in the house in Leadham Common. The look her mother gave her meant she’d had no alternative, so she’d scooped him up and carried him to the bus stop. Now she wished she’d delayed and got his pushchair from the garage. Alec hadn’t been prepared to walk from the bus to the dentist’s surgery, and he wouldn’t want to walk back either. He was nervy and woke at night. He knew something was wrong, poor little boy. She began to read to him, pointing at the pictures.

  ‘So there’s the goosey gander, and the duck and the owl, all looking at the dog,’ she explained to the child. ‘And the dog says, “Come and see the little pig” – and there’s the pig.’

  As for her, she’d had a terrible Christmas and this visit to the dentist felt like the last straw. Her sister Cherry had, of course, been there at their parents’ over Christmas with her husband, the manager of a building society and their six-year-old boy twins. Although she said over and over again how sorry she was about her sister’s predicament somehow Cherry made a point of continually mentioning her own family’s mortgage, holidays plans and car. Too often she would straighten her husband’s tie, arrange his hair with her hand and turn his face to give it little, proprietorial kisses. All too frequently she asked one of the twins to go and find Daddy, go and tell Daddy he loved him, request Daddy to come and help Mummy. This had depressed Vanessa, as she knew it was meant to, and had also disturbed her children, Alec and Joanne, who did not understand what was going on. But Vanessa knew there wasn’t anything she could actually complain about, or have out with her sister – there never would be where Cherry was concerned. And if her mother had spotted what was going on she would pretend she hadn’t, to keep the peace and because, Vanessa thought, she was on Cherry’s side.

  To Anita Davis there was nothing more shameful than losing your husband. Her father, Alan, had been kind, but the others had been horrible – her brother had been up in Scotland with Leigh Rangers for a Boxing Day match – and Vanessa had cried herself to sleep, quietly, so no one would know.

  On Boxing Day, while the family was watching a TV film, Cherry’s husband had offered her a chocolate. Biting down on it Vanessa had felt something hard in the centre – a nut, perhaps. Then, becoming suspicious, she spat the mouthful into her hand.

  ‘Ooh, Nessa. What are you doing now?’ Cherry had shuddered as if she’d spent all Christmas scratching her armpits and spitting on the floor.

  Vanessa had looked in her hand while exploring her mouth with her tongue and there it lay, in her hand, covered in chocolate: half her top front tooth. She hadn’t said anything, just gone to the bathroom and stared in the glass. She thought she looked like an old woman.

  The next day had been hell. Cherry had taught her sons, who were only too glad to learn, to call her ‘Auntie Gummie’. Her dad had seen her face and got in the car, going quietly to the cashpoint and coming back with £250, which he’d tucked in her hand when they were alone, muttering, ‘Go to Harley Street if you have to, Ness. You want to get that seen to quickly.’ She’d been grateful at the time but had decided to keep the money for bills and clothes for the children and see if Mr Rothko could do something on the National Health. Now here she sat, praying, just praying he could make it come right. Hours in the chilly surgery with Alec moaning and whining, and she didn’t need that toffee-nosed bitch, with her long hair sliding out of the combs all over the place, to start stating her rights.

  Vanessa decided that the dark-haired woman must be the podgy teenager’s social worker. Nobody in a good coat like hers would allow their kid to wear worn-out trainers like those on the girl’s feet, or that British Home Stores anorak. Vanessa sighed and glanced away. Well, there was someone who had it made – good job, wedding ring on her hand – some people had all the luck.

  Alec tugged at her sleeve. She read, ‘Goodness gracious me. Where’s little piggy Edward gone? We must all go and look for him at once.’

  On 22 December, not a good time for a family man to leave home and £100 from his back pocket on the kitchen table, Vanessa’s husband, Geoff Doyle, had walked out. But Doyle was not a particularly good man. He had been one of those boys who from infancy know well the words ‘little so-and-so’ and ‘little hooligan’ almost always mean them. He’d grown up to become ‘that sod’ and ‘that bastard Doyle’, though to his mother he was always ‘my Geoff’. From an Irish grandfather he had inherited his jet black hair, bright blue eyes and fine physique and from his English grandfather his habit of resolving problems without consulting the laws of reason, humanity or the land. Old Doyle had been a quiet God-fearing man, killed young in an accident on a building site. Old Robinson, his mother’s father, had been a lifelong villain, starting life in the 1930s as a trainee in one of South London’s razor-gangs, going on to desert from the British Army an
d take up black marketeering. He ended up as the manager of a run-down second-hand furniture shop with a strong line in stolen property in an upstairs room.

  Geoff bullied his way through primary and secondary school, got a conviction for taking away and driving a car not belonging to him and, fearing prison, went at the age of nineteen into the building trade. Soon afterwards he met and married eighteen-year-old Vanessa Davis who gave up her job as a typist when Joanne was born. Her idea had been to return to work in order to save for a mortgage, but Geoff had said he didn’t want his wife at work, too tired from the job and house and child to look after him properly. When the time came, he would supply the house. In the meantime they were all right as they were, in a small house rented from Kenton Council, on a low rent achieved by his accountant proving the family was almost on the breadline. Vanessa had half suspected Geoff wasn’t always faithful to her, but now, ten years after the marriage everything had gone smash.

  She’d known there was something wrong. Geoff was home late every night, once or twice at two or three in the morning – a game of cards, he’d said – and he looked at her as if she wasn’t there while he was in the house. Then one morning in the supermarket she’d found herself and her loaded trolley of groceries, complete with Alec, sitting on the wire seat of the trolley, at the next checkout to Cindy Abbott, pretty, blonde and, according to Geoff, the mainstay of Doyle, Builders, South London Ltd. It was Cindy who kept the two sets of books, one in the files, the other in her head where the VATman and the Inland Revenue couldn’t find the details.

  In her wire basket Cindy had coffee, unsalted butter, croissants and a bag containing two bottles of champagne she had bought in the other part of the store. Vanessa immediately knew how things stood. Geoff had told her he was staying over at the electrician’s that night, as it was closer to the building suppliers they’d have to visit next morning in order to make an early start on a job. Now here was Cindy in the supermarket with his favourite, his only, breakfast and two bottles of champagne sticking out of the top of a plastic bag. She needed no further evidence. She felt her loaded shopping trolley was growing from her arm like an extension to the limb while Cindy stood there in a cream mini-skirt, raspberry-coloured blouse and matching jacket casually holding a basket containing her, Vanessa’s, husband’s late-night champagne and – yes – breakfast, too. Taking her hand from the trolley she called, ‘Excuse me. Would that be my husband’s breakfast you’ve got in that basket, Cindy?’

  The women behind Cindy gazed across at her. Cindy said loudly, ‘I beg your pardon? Were you speaking to me?’

  ‘Just asking if that’s Geoff’s drinkies and croissants you’ve got there,’ said Vanessa clearly and steadily. ‘Being his wife, I think I’ve got a right to know.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ said Cindy. ‘What are you talking about?’ The woman at the checkout said to Cindy, ‘Three pounds forty.’ Cindy paid no attention as Vanessa continued, ‘I’m talking about you and my husband, Cindy Abbott. You ought to be ashamed. Going with a married man with two children.’

  ‘Thirty pounds, twenty-two pence,’ said the woman at Vanessa’s checkout.

  Cindy, meanwhile, furious at being attacked, in the hearing of everyone in both queues, called out, ‘Look here, whoever you are. There’s a law against saying things like that to people in public. You’re mad, that’s what you are!’

  The tired checkout woman said, ‘Please pay three pounds forty.’

  Cindy took out her purse with dignity, saying loftily, ‘All right. But I don’t think you ought to be letting customers in here who are out of their minds.’

  Vanessa quickly paid for her own things, pushed her trolley through the checkout and, at the other end, snatched up Cindy’s butter, croissants and coffee and flung them on to her own pile of goods. She barred Cindy’s way with her trolley, on which Alec was perched. ‘That’s my husband’s money you’re spending,’ she said loudly, ‘and I’ve got two kids to feed.’

  Cindy stepped past Vanessa and the trolley and, still with the champagne, went a few paces towards the exit. There she turned, ‘All right, Vanessa? You happy? You’ve got his breakfast – but will he be there to eat it? Have you looked at yourself recently? You look a mess. Take my advice and go and do something about yourself—’ And she swung through the doors and went off.

  Vanessa, her face blazing, had to pack all her goods, including the offending breakfast items, into four plastic bags in front of two queues of people who had heard every word, including Cindy’s final, humiliating remarks. As they went through the checkouts the other women avoided looking at her. Alec, in the trolley, began to want to get out. Putting him in his buggy, she collected the bags together and walked back to 42 Rutherford Street. She was shaking and her face still felt flushed. Once in the house, she began to put the shopping away but the silence was terrible and she realised she couldn’t let Cindy get away with her contemptuous remarks, or Geoff with his deceptions. She wanted, and needed, a confrontation, a crisis, some resolution. She phoned Geoff’s office. Cindy answered, recognised Vanessa’s voice, said, ‘He’s out,’ and instantly hung up. Vanessa pushed Alec, still in his anorak and mittens, back in the buggy and half ran down Foxwell High Street, turned left into Carlisle Road, a long street of houses interspersed with small blocks of shops, through the shabby people on the pavements, down an alley to a group of three shops strung together, selling parts for cars and motorbikes. There was a yard behind the shops where a van marked Doyle stood, and items of building equipment were stacked. A tired-looking boy was sweeping up. She crossed the yard to the offices of Doyle, Builders, three Portakabins in a row. She could see Geoff through the window, standing up holding a phone. As she approached she saw a hand with painted fingernails extended, proffering a mug of tea or coffee.

  She parked the buggy, in which Alec had fallen asleep, and ran up the wooden steps of the Portakabin.

  ‘Geoff!’ she shouted as she burst through the doorway. ‘We’ve got to have this out.’ He quickly concluded his telephone conversation. ‘I think that’s all at this moment, Mr Wainwright. If you get back to me when you’ve finally made your decision we can get down to the details.’ Vanessa pointed at Cindy, sitting at the desk behind her, and said firmly, ‘Cindy – out, if you don’t mind.’ Cindy didn’t move.

  ‘She works here,’ Geoff Doyle said to his wife as he put the phone down.

  ‘And that’s not all she does,’ Vanessa said indignantly. ‘You’re sleeping with her, Geoff – that’s the reason for all this working late and staying round at Robbo’s. You’re round at her place.’

  ‘So,’ he said, looking down at her. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want it to stop.’

  ‘That could be difficult,’ he said evenly.

  ‘Don’t give me difficult – I’m your wife. Mother of your two kids. You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you? What are you going to do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, looking her steadily in the eye. ‘Nothing at all. Your best bet, Vanessa, and you know it, is to go home quietly and forget it all. Cindy and me are very close, now. There’s nothing can change that.’ He looked indulgently at Cindy. ‘Go home like a good girl and forget you ever came here. You don’t want things to get any worse, do you?’

  The quiet, threatening tone stopped her for a moment. She began to cry. ‘You’re standing there and telling me I’ve got to put up with it – her, that common little dollop. How can you?’

  He shook his head at her. ‘Vanessa. It happens all the time.’

  In one jump, Vanessa saw what he wanted, and what her life would be like if he got it. She’d provide clean shirts for when he went out with Cindy, get them back dirty. Dinners would dry up in the oven until it was obvious he wasn’t coming in. She wouldn’t be allowed to talk about it. There’d be explanations to make to the children about why Daddy wasn’t going here and there with them – he’s very busy earning money – and everybody would know she was being betrayed and tolerating it, for
security, for a love that was being trampled on. She had no doubt that Geoff would want to go on sleeping with her, having sex when he suddenly felt like it, telling Cindy he wasn’t – while all the time Cindy would be scheming to get him to leave her and go for a divorce. She found herself saying, ‘Perhaps it does happen. But not to me.’

  ‘So you’re different, are you?’ he murmured with some menace in his voice. Then, realising he was angering her too much he said, firmly, because Cindy was listening, ‘All right, Vanessa. We can’t talk here in the office. We’ll go home and discuss things.’

  ‘What about me?’ protested Cindy.

  ‘You stop here,’ Geoff told her, ‘and keep the office open, love.’

  ‘Oh – nice!’ she exclaimed.

  Doyle thumped his desk intimidatingly. ‘Let’s get this straight, shall we? Let’s look at the facts of life. To live you need money and to get money you have to stay in business. That’s why this office has got to stay open.’ Then, in a more placatory way, ‘Sorry, love, but there it is.’

  In the car, with Alec and the buggy in the back, Vanessa said, ‘Are you really so stuck on her?’ She had to force the words out but felt she must know the truth.

  ‘Save it,’ he said, chasing a Mercedes up Foxwell High Street. ‘Let’s get home first.’

  ‘I’m glad you still think it is your home,’ Vanessa observed. At the word ‘home’ Geoff winced.

  Ahead the Mercedes slowed down and Geoff had to stand on the brakes. ‘Black driver,’ he remarked with gloomy satisfaction. ‘You can’t trust a black driver in a Merc.’

  Vanessa suddenly realised that Cindy would be nagging to move into one of the three smart new town houses, with their fitted kitchens, and integral garages, that Geoff’s firm had just built. To Vanessa Geoff had said they all had to be sold to satisfy the bank and the Inland Revenue. With what was left, he would buy their council house, which would be useful as collateral as well as ensuring they owned their own home. A picture flashed into Vanessa’s mind of Cindy stretched out on a recliner on the patio of her smart new house and herself still bringing up two children in a rented Victorian two-up, two-down.