How It All Began

Follow your nose, that’s the recipe for an interesting life. What’s the point of plotting and planning anyway? You might die tomorrow. That was Stella’s problem—one of Stella’s problems: she was always in a stew about what might happen and what can you do to stop it? You can’t. What you do is go with the flow, see where it takes you, spot the next possibility. One thing throws up another—that’s the charm of it.

  The couple eyeing the stained glass panels were bothered by the price. At least the guy was. When he wandered off to look at doors and brass fittings Jeremy went to work on the girl for a bit and soon had her seeing she just must snap up the glass before someone else did. He saw the pair of them out to their car, all smiles and no pressure. They’d be back.

  There were only a few other people around, and the Irishman was on hand. Jeremy went into the office for a quick coffee and a look at his messages. Nothing from Marion. In an hour or so he’d try her again. Meanwhile, time for another wave at Stella—she never replied but he kept at it: “Tell your horrid man to stop wasting paper. I want to talk. Love you—even if you don’t believe it.”

  Stella deleted Jeremy’s text. How typically thoughtless of him to send texts, given that treacherous little message that had triggered all of this. In any case, Paul Newsome had advised her not to reply to anything—letters, e-mails, texts, whatever. Responses from her might compromise future negotiations: “That is what I am for, Stella—the buffer between you.” They were on first name terms now, though he always spoke hers with a certain formality. It was she who had said, “Oh, I can’t go on calling you Mr. Newsome.”

  Her sister said divorce took absolutely ages. The friend for whom Paul Newsome had done so well had been at it for a couple of years. Gill said there was absolutely no point in rushing things, you had to make sure that there was the best possible arrangement for yourself and the children. Actually, there seemed to be no alternative to delay, in any case, since apparently it was impossible to get going properly until Jeremy saw fit to serve up a solicitor of his own: “Your husband’s intransigence—perverse intransigence, if I may say—has us somewhat stymied at the moment.”

  Gill was saying that it could well be that subconsciously Stella had been wanting a divorce for a long time. After all, he hadn’t been exactly the ideal husband, had he? Of course, Gill has never liked Jeremy and made that clear long ago. Actually Gill doesn’t really like men in general. Stella had sometimes felt that if you were as determinedly unmarried as Gill then you couldn’t have much of an idea what it is like to be in a marriage. Gill ran dog training courses, was a churchwarden, and had a staunch circle of women friends whose lives also centered around dogs. Stella had once wondered if she might be gay, which would have somehow made her more—well, emotionally normal. But no, apparently not. Gill didn’t want or need anyone, just dogs. She was eight years older than Stella, had bossed her around when they were children, and then after their mother died young she had become Stella’s support and lifeline, which suited them both. Stella would reach for Gill whenever she felt things were getting too much for her, and if Gill thought Stella was heading for one of her nervous crises she would drop everything and come over, at which point Jeremy would leave home until she had withdrawn once more.

  Gill said Stella was basically unstable—not her fault, quite possibly something genetic, they’d had an aunt who was like that too—and what she needed was lots of support in her tricky times, and people who understood that she shouldn’t be upset. Some breeds of dog have that tendency, and it’s just a question of management. Gill knew a therapist who said that of course family circumstances are crucial in a case like Stella’s, her husband must be aware of his role; whenever Gill referred to this she would raise her eyebrows and sigh. They both knew what she meant. Gill had a vast acquaintance; she drew on many people for expertise, from the latest in supplementary medication to counseling at one remove, and of course for the provision of a top divorce lawyer. Both Gill and Stella were grateful for Paul Newsome; Gill had wondered about coming along with Stella for some of her sessions with him, but somehow he hadn’t seemed very keen.

  Paul Newsome was going to cost a bit. Mercifully Stella had the money her parents had left her, which was in shares and building societies, safely tucked away. Gill had always been firm that Stella must never let Jeremy get at it, and thank goodness. In fact Jeremy didn’t even know about it.

  At the moment, Stella couldn’t work out how much she was missing Jeremy, or what she felt about missing him forever. She was too angry with him to feel anything but resentment; the intimate sign-off from that Marion woman was seared into her brain: “. . . love you.” The last thing she wanted was to see him, to hear the excuses, the protestations, the promises. She just wanted him out of sight and, while not out of mind because that was impossible, out of the house and out of her daily life. So long as he was not there, and silent because she refused to listen, she could try to stay calm and resolute—and really, she was surprised at how level-headed she had been since she had decided that it was divorce, and that was that. She had had no real crisis days, few shaky ones, she wasn’t taking the pills, or not many. Each time she went to see Paul Newsome she felt—empowered, yes, that was the word. This was the first time in her life that she had taken a big strong decision, all on her own. Oh, life was all decisions—but paltry decisions, like where to go for the summer holiday, and what to get the girls for Christmas. This time, she had redirected her entire life, she had taken control, she had not allowed an event to floor her, but had made it the occasion for a radical move. In the twenty years of her marriage, it had always been Jeremy who directed things—by being either broke, so it was worry, worry, or having a windfall, so it was let’s move house again. Now it was her turn.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On Saturdays, Gerry did maintenance work. He tinkered with the car, washed and polished it. He replaced washers on taps, and sometimes interfered with domestic appliances, to Rose’s annoyance, because he thought they were making a funny noise. When he ran out of this kind of job, he retired to his shed at the end of the garden, and could be heard sawing and planing; for the last year or so he had been making a table. Charlotte sometimes felt that Gerry had taken the wrong road in life; he was not an engineer or a carpenter but a local council official. He presided over an office; his daily routine was paperwork and meetings. Saturdays seemed to be some kind of gesture, a statement about his further capabilities. It was not that he felt himself to be by nature an artisan—not that at all, Gerry was extremely conscious of status. More that he needed to demonstrate manual efficiency, the ability to get things fixed. Perhaps in local government nothing ever did get satisfactorily fixed.

  Charlotte had always been aware of Gerry’s Saturdays, but now that she was living with him and Rose she saw them in close-up: Gerry’s special Saturday garb—the old trousers that didn’t matter, the sweater with the oil stain; his tool bag with each implement filed in its proper place; his pursed expression as he dismantled a hairdryer that wouldn’t work.

  “You don’t mend hairdryers,” said Rose. “You get another one. Fifteen quid or thereabouts. But never mind.” She was in the kitchen, out of earshot, dressed to go out, and Charlotte knew where she was going.

  Gerry was a man of routine. Of course. Most people have rituals—Charlotte was aware of having accumulated a fistful, in old age—but his were more remorseless than most. He let the cat out at precisely seven-thirty in the morning; he laid his briefcase and the car keys on the hall table before going up to bed; he had a cooked breakfast on alternate days; he marked promising television programs in the Radio Times over his first cup of coffee on Saturday morning. He was disturbed by any disruption from the norm. Charlotte knew her presence in his house to be a disruption, and appreciated that he was making the best of things. He went out of his way to find some common ground for a conversation; and was forever opening doors for her and offering chairs. The hairdryer was hers; she had produced it with quiet satisfaction,
knowing that Gerry would pounce.

  “Keep him happy for hours,” said Rose, inspecting herself in the kitchen mirror.

  She went through to the sitting-room, where Gerry was happy with the hairdryer. Charlotte, washing up some lunch things (she was allowed now to do a few small domestic tasks), could hear their exchange.

  “I’m off out,” said Rose.

  He grunted, evidently absorbed. As an afterthought: “Going to the supermarket?”

  “No. I’m doing good Samaritan stuff. Mum’s reading pupil. You know—I told you.”

  Another grunt. The hairdryer required his full attention.

  Rose paused in the hall. “Bye Mum.” The front door slammed.

  Charlotte dried her hands and went to offer Gerry a cup of coffee. She could do very short distances now without the crutches—a triumph.

  Gerry declined the coffee. He was looking put out. “I’m afraid this thing has defeated me. I think the heating element has packed up, in which case there’s nothing one can do.”

  “Don’t worry. Many thanks for trying.”

  “I was sure I could do it. I don’t like to be defeated.”

  “And by a mere hairdryer,” said Charlotte. “Pesky thing. Let me get rid of it for you.” His afternoon was blemished, she saw; this challenge should have lasted for far longer. She thought of her Tom, who never so much as changed a lightbulb. Their houses had disintegrated around them, smirking as pipes leaked and gutters sagged.

  She sat down, stowing the hairdryer away in her bag. “Please note, Gerry, no crutches. I can do ten yards now. Fifteen with a following wind. No time at all, and you’ll be shot of me. You and Rose have been saints. Are being.”

  “Our pleasure.” Stiffly. Gerry doesn’t do emotion. And he is embarrassed.

  Charlotte rattled on, to cover the moment. “Being derailed like this is a slap in the face. And having to impose myself on you adds insult to injury.” Dear, dear—cliché upon cliché. “Anyway, not for much longer. I get more agile by the day.”

  Then he surprised her. “If something like that happened to me I would be far less resilient. I know it. Go to pieces, I dare say.”

  It struck her that nothing much ever had happened to Gerry. Nothing adverse. An impacted wisdom tooth, she remembered. A trivial car accident, provoking a dispute with the insurance company.

  “Probably not, Gerry. We all tend to . . .” No, no—not rise to the occasion, or take it on the chin. “. . . well, we accept, in a rather odd way. There being no alternative.”

  He inclined his head, which meant he didn’t agree. “I have always found the unexpected extremely hard to take.”

  “I know,” said Charlotte, surprising herself now.

  He looked at her, and she saw a vulnerability that did not often show. Gerry had features that were a touch severe, a habitual slight frown. The eyes, now, spoke of something else.

  He shook his head. “One is reminded. When . . .” He waved a hand in her direction—indicating, she took it, her ravaged hip.

  “Yes,” she said. “You’ve been lucky. Rose too, thanks be.”

  She wondered if he was perhaps someone who feared death, for whom the idea of death lurked always at the edge of the mind. She did not; she was afraid of the run up to death, not the thing itself.

  She thought: I hardly know Gerry, after all this time. Only the surface of him—the Saturdays, the likes and dislikes.

  “Lucky . . .” he said. Considering the word, it would seem. “It doesn’t feel so much lucky as—normal. Straightforward. It’s the other things that are . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “Violations?” Charlotte suggested. The mugger. The broken hip.

  He nodded. “And, as you say, I’ve been spared. We have. So I doubt any capacity to cope if . . .” A dry laugh.

  “You could surprise yourself,” she told him. “People do.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  She sensed that the chink he had opened was about to close. “You can feel challenged as much as violated. Though at my age one is less keen on challenges. When young I rather enjoyed them. Tom positively sought them, of course.”

  “Yes, I remember. I used to feel he stuck his neck out. And envied him for being able to do so.”

  “Oh. Did you?” Well, well. Goodness me.

  “I don’t mean to be rude.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  “The time he chose to move to that school.”

  She nodded. Gerry was referring to an inner city school at which Tom had taken over, considering that with drive and skill he could rescue it from its “sink school” performance. He had succeeded.

  “I admired Tom,” said Gerry. “He wouldn’t have known that.”

  “No, I don’t think he did.” If only you had shown it. Told him, even. Tom thought you—well, a pretty buttoned-up sort of person. But you wouldn’t have known that.

  “I used to feel that perhaps Tom didn’t think much of me.” The dry laugh again.

  “Oh . . . Oh, no. You shouldn’t think that.”

  “We could do with a few chaps like Tom where I work. Unfortunately local government doesn’t much attract them.”

  It just gets people like me. The unspoken coda hung between them, and Charlotte winced.

  Gerry stood up. “Well, I must go out to the car. Oil change needed. Nothing I can do for you?”

  She shook her head. He went. She heard him crunch down the gravel of the garden path, out to where the car waited, groomed and maintained to perfection. She felt grateful to the hairdryer, for having enabled this glimpse of a Gerry she had not known.

  Rose removed her coat, took the green jacket off the hanger and shrugged it on. She adjusted the shoulders, did up the buttons. “You’re sure she’s about my size?”

  “A little smaller,” said Anton. “Not much. Perhaps a little more short, too.”

  “What about the color? Does she like green?”

  “I think.”

  Rose put the garment back. “Actually I don’t care for it—it feels a bit stiff, the material.” She wandered along the rail, took down a thick soft gray knitted jacket. “Ah. This is a possibility.” She put it on. “Nice. My mum would wear this. In fact so would I.”

  “Gray is not always for old lady?”

  “Not necessarily. We might look for a bright scarf to go with it, if we settle on this. What do you think?”

  Anton spread his hands. They had already ransacked the shop, the assistants observing Rose with respect. They knew a fastidious shopper when they saw one.

  “If you like I am sure it is good. And I like. On you it is very nice.”

  Rose showed him the price ticket. “Is that OK? It’s not cheap—but it’s good value.”

  “That is fine.”

  The deal was done, the jacket wrapped in tissue and put in a large shiny bag with the designer’s logo. Anton patted it: “I will send her this too. She will like for her shopping.”

  Outside, Rose paused. “We need a scarf, but there isn’t anywhere around here, really. A Marks & Spencer would do nicely, but none handy.”

  “But there is Starbucks,” said Anton. “I could buy you coffee. For thank you. Please?”

  They settled in Starbucks, with a small cappuccino for Rose, a Chocolate Cream Frappuccino for Anton. “I am like small boy with this,” he said. “I must try.”

  “You could go for broke and have an apple and cinnamon muffin as well.”

  “Broke?”

  “Oh, sorry . . .” She explained, adding, “The thing is, I forget there are expressions you don’t know, because actually your English is good.”

  “But that is fine,” he said. “That way I learn. On the building site I say now to the site manager, ‘I go for broke and move all these bricks.’ But I think the apple and cinnamon muffin is . . . too much.”

  “A bridge too far,” said Rose. “There’s another one for you.”

  ?
??Ah. So I say to the site manager, ‘You tell me to do all this today is a bridge too far.’ Good. On the site I most learn bad language. I can say bad words now in four–five language. My mother would be—not pleased at all.” He smiled. “She does not like the building site, but I tell her it is just for a short time, until I am a big man in accountancy firm.” He went on, more soberly: “Until I read well.”

  “Which you soon will. Mum says you’re making terrific progress.”

  “Then it is her good teaching.”

  “It must be very odd to have to—go back to school, at your age.” She added, embarrassed, “Our age.”

  “It is not difficult. Perhaps there is always something in our head that is ready to learn. And I remember when I was boy, how you are—hungry—to learn things.”

  “When my son was five he knew the names of all the dinosaurs,” said Rose. “You know—prehistoric creatures. Tyrannosaurus rex and stegosaurus . . . Strings of names.”

  “What is his name?”

  “James. And my daughter is Lucy.”

  “I have no child,” he said. “My wife did not want.” Then, seeing her expression: “You should not feel sorry. It is a long time ago now. I am—accepting.”

  There was a small silence. “And now,” Anton said cheerfully, “I have house full of child—children. My nephew and his friends. Last night I am very father and I tell them—we clean this place up. There is much . . . much not want to.”

  “Grumbling,” said Rose. “I can imagine.”

  “Live like student is fine if you are age of student. But I am not. So I get brush and bucket and soap and thing and I am like manager on the site.”

  “What happened?”

  “They grumble. Then they do it. And I have to buy beer for everyone. Very expensive cleaning—for me.”

  They both laughed.

  “You have to set up a rota,” said Rose. “Turn and turn about. That’s what we did, when I was in a student flat at my university.”

  “But girls are different. They like to be clean. Young men are . . . horrible.”