Duplicity Read online

  ‘Thanks, Anne; I’ll keep you at your word.’

  And she had. At least once a week she had come to tea and Paul had driven her home each time. He had even stopped phoning to warn her, as it became a recognised thing for the girl to be there every Thursday evening.

  It had gone on like that for over three months, until the Thursday that Paul came home alone. ‘Where’s Debbie?’ she had asked.

  ‘She sent her apologies, but said she couldn’t manage tonight.’ Paul did look rather disappointed, but Anne thought that it was because she’d had everything prepared for supper, and he was upset for her.

  The following week, he had rung her in the forenoon to let her know that they would be dining alone that night again, and she felt a stab of disappointment herself.

  ‘What’s Debbie up to that’s she’s stopped coming?’ she teased when he came home.

  Paul had shrugged his shoulders, so she never mentioned it again, and life went on as it had done before they’d ever had their weekly visitor.

  Some eight weeks later, she went into the kitchen one morning with the post to find him staring white-faced at the local newspaper. ‘What’s wrong, Paul?’ she asked, anxiously.

  Silently, he handed her the page. There, smiling in a frothy white creation, was Debbie, under the headline ‘Beautiful secretary weds American banker from Carson City Nevada, USA. After honeymooning in the Bahamas, the couple intend to make their home in Carson City.’

  ‘Well,’ she exclaimed indignantly, ‘and she never said anything about him. Did you know, Paul? Did she tell you?’

  When he didn’t answer, she looked searchingly at him, and realised with a sinking heart what she should have tumbled to months earlier. ‘You’re in love with her!’ It was a bald statement of fact, not a question, not an accusation.

  He had risen blindly from the table, and she heard the front door close quietly as he went out. She had been left alone to wonder. Why had Debbie done such an underhand thing? Why had she allowed Paul to fall in love with her? She must have known - a woman always knows when a man feels that way about her, an inner sense, the magazines called it, woman’s intuition. But what about the other woman in the man’s life? She didn’t always recognise the signs.

  Anne’s attention returned at last to the long-neglected kettle, which had been switched on to make coffee. The pseudo-pine Formica worktop was awash with water now, and she hastily flicked the switch up with her thumb. She would have to buy an automatic one if she was going to be as absentminded as this. As she wearily mopped up the puddle, all she could think of was poor Paul. It was hardly his fault that he had succumbed to Debbie’s charms; she was such a lovely girl.

  Pouring the water on to the granules in her mug, she suddenly thought of something else. Perhaps she was judging Debbie too harshly. Perhaps the girl hadn’t wanted to take Paul away from her. Perhaps she had never realised that he loved her. Or … had she known and not wanted Paul to commit himself? She’d been committed already, of course, to her Carson City banker.

  Anne laid down the mug without being conscious of drinking the contents. She wouldn’t have stopped Paul from falling in love with Debbie, if she’d known about it. His happiness had always come first with her before anything else. She carried out her usual tasks in the house automatically all day, not having to worry about them. She had never been fanatical about cleaning and Paul always said he liked coming home to a homely house, not a showpiece.

  What would happen when he came home tonight, though? What would he say? More important, what would she say? She would have to wait and take the lead from him - that would be best.

  Paul was very late. Anne had switched off the oven hours before and had been agonising over whether he would come home at all, when he walked in, tired and haggard.

  ‘Before you say anything, I don’t want anything to eat. I’ve been walking around since I came out of the office, and I had a sandwich at a snack bar.’ He went off without further explanation, leaving Anne to clear the table and set it for breakfast before she followed him upstairs.

  Paul never referred to Debbie again, or to his love for her, and life carried on in a state of limbo until, after nearly a month of emotional strain, Anne plucked up courage to broach the subject. ‘Has anyone been taken on to replace Debbie?’ She watched for his reaction.

  His flat voice was the only sign that the name disturbed him. ‘They found a young girl through an employment agency. She’s very popular with all the bachelors, and leads a full social life, I believe.’

  Was this his way of telling her that he wouldn’t get involved again, Anne wondered? She felt relieved, yet upset in a way because it proved that he still hadn’t recovered.

  Their relationship slowly reverted to almost pre-Debbie; almost, but not quite. In fact, Anne felt the need of something new to occupy her mind. She took to studying the Situations Vacant columns and came across one which read: ‘Are you bored being merely a housewife? Would you like to earn money while you occupy your spare time? Ladies required for Market Research work.’

  She dialled the telephone number that followed, and her application was successful. She enjoyed her afternoons interviewing women passers-by, but always made sure that she was home in time to prepare a proper meal for Paul.

  ‘I should have done something like this before,’ she told him one evening. ‘I feel more human, not like a cabbage any longer. It’s refreshing, meeting other people again.’

  Paul’s smile was a little strained. ‘I’m glad you’re not stagnating anymore. You won’t feel so lonely when I leave.’

  Anne’s face blanched. ‘When you leave,’ she repeated in bewilderment. ‘What do you mean, leave?’

  ‘I put in for a transfer to Edinburgh. I felt I must get away, have a change, but I’ll be home every weekend.’

  Her drowning senses clutched at a straw. At least he wasn’t leaving for good. She took a deep breath to steady her voice. ‘When do you have to go?’

  ‘I start a week today, so I’ll be leaving on Sunday.’

  Only a few more days left! Oh, Paul, she cried silently, why did you spring this on me when I thought I was coping again? But she was determined not to make a scene. ‘I’ll get everything ready for you to pack,’ she said brightly. ‘Thank goodness I put your grey suit in to be cleaned on Saturday. I’ve to collect it on Thursday.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have mattered. You fuss too much.’

  By the time Sunday morning came round, and with it Paul’s departure, Anne had made herself believe that it was probably a good thing, after all. He would meet different people and, hopefully, would forget Debbie. If this transfer achieved nothing else, that would be a move in the right direction. She hadn’t been sorrowing for herself, only for Paul. He had always come first and foremost for her. If he could regain his peace of mind, he’d come to realise that he shouldn’t be working so far away from home, and everything would be back to normal.

  He phoned on Monday night to let her know how his first day had gone. ‘It’s all a bit strange, but I expected that, to begin with. There’s one thing you won’t have to worry about, anyway. The digs the firm arranged for me are clean and really comfortable. Plus, Mrs Martin seems determined to fatten me up a bit. Well, I’ll see you Friday night, so keep your pecker up, tweetie-pie.’

  Anne was overcome by happy tears when he rang off. It sounded as though he were coming back to normal again, getting over Debbie. ‘Keep your pecker up, tweetie-pie.’ That had always been his tagline when he rang to say he’d been kept late at the office, or couldn’t get home on time for some reason or other.

  Paul had looked after her and comforted her ever since that dreadful day just over two years ago, when her whole world had crashed around her. She had thought she would never get over her husband’s death in that horrible, senseless crash. To think that an uncaring, drunken apo
logy for a man could have … Ah, it was still too painful to think about, but now that she had picked up the threads of life again, she would be able to cope without him; even make new friends again.

  They had both survived his first unhappy love affair, but there would be other girls for her nineteen-year-old son.

  ***

  Word count: 2119

  Sent to Woman’s Realm 21.1.86 - rejected 2.3.86

  Sent to My Weekly 4.4.86 - rejected 3.5.86

  Sent to Annabel 9.6.86 - rejected 25.7.86

  Sent to People’s Friend 9.10.86 - rejected 29.11.86

  Four rejections? Always hopeful, I did not bin this story, but never had the nerve to send it out again. Probably just as well.

  The Peak Of Happiness

  ‘But Grandad, I’m tired. Why can’t we sleep in a bedroom?’

  ‘I told you, Sean, Grandad hasn’t paid for a bedroom, just two seats.’ Arthur Rowse sighed and wished that British Rail employees wouldn’t leave the sleeping compartments with their doors sitting open - the boy would never have known about them if he hadn’t seen them for himself. ‘We’ll easily manage to sleep in here. It’ll be great fun, won’t it - not sleeping in a bed?’

  He slung his duffel bag up on to the luggage rack and sat down, his heart sinking at the sight of the little boy’s disappointed face. Stretching out a gnarled, weather-beaten hand, he patted the fair, curly head. ‘It’ll be easy. Put your feet up and lie down with your head on Grandad’s knees and you’ll be asleep in no time.’ He hoped fervently that no other travellers would want to come in.

  ‘When I waken up, will we be in Scotland?’

  ‘Like enough, Sean.’

  ‘Will I see the mountains, Grandad?’

  ‘Once we’re in Scotland, you’ll see them, I promise.’

  It was 11.15 p.m., and their train was still standing in King’s Cross station. They had left Yarmouth at 3 o’clock that afternoon, so it was little wonder that the boy was tired. Plus, he’d been up at six to wave goodbye to his father and mother, on their way to Aberdeen where his father had taken a job as an engineer with an oil company. As most of their belongings had gone on ahead of them, it was just the odds and sods which had been loaded into the boot and back seats of their Capri.

  The two adults and baby Susan had taken up all the space in the front of the car, so Arthur had volunteered to take Sean by train, trying to postpone the evil hour of parting. It was going to be a long, lonely journey back to Yarmouth by himself.

  The six-year-old settled himself down and was very quiet, and Arthur wasn’t surprised to see that he had fallen asleep already, his long, surprisingly dark eyelashes resting on his flushed cheeks.

  With a shudder, the train drew slowly out of the station, and Arthur shifted his hip slightly to take his pipe out of his pocket. Puffing contentedly, he wondered how Nell and he would fill their lives now that the young folk had left. His wife was probably lying awake right now, going over their John’s life from the time he’d made his first squawking appearance.

  Nell was going to miss John and Marge, his wife, but it was he, Arthur admitted to himself, who was going to miss young Sean most. He’d been the boy’s slave since the day the small dimpled hand had first clutched his finger and taken over his heart. How proudly he had taken out the pram to show off his grandson to his fisherman friends, and when at last the boy was old enough to walk with him, it had always been the harbour they had headed for.

  Since Sean had started school, of course, they’d only been able to go out together on Saturdays and Sundays, except during the holidays, when they had set off early every day, rain or shine. ‘Was that the boat you used to go on, Grandad?’ Sean would ask a dozen times. ‘When I grow up I’m going to be a trawlerman just like you and go out to sea in my boat.’

  Arthur had been pleased about that. It had gone some way to make up for the disappointment he’d felt when John had refused to follow in his father’s footsteps. Sean loved to hear stories of his grandfather’s experiences in the Royal Navy during the war, and, especially just lately, of the time he’d been in Aberdeen. Arthur remembered that time, taken off a minesweeper and spending four weeks in Foresterhill Hospital after having his appendix removed. He hadn’t really seen much of the place, but had told the boy that it was a beautiful city, clean but cold.

  ‘Will I like it in Aberdeen?’ Sean had asked. ‘Maybe I’d better stay here with you and Gran.’

  He had felt his heart lift then, but said, ‘What about your mum and dad, though? They’d miss you, and you’d soon be wanting to see them again, and Susan. No, son, you’ll like Aberdeen and you’ll forget all about Yarmouth in a short time.’ And about your grandad, had come the sobering thought.

  He watched Sean shifting his position in his sleep. He was now lying with his feet against his grandfather’s leg, his head against the side of the carriage, one hand dangling over the edge of the seat and the other flung across his forehead. He looked so sweet and defenceless that Arthur had to restrain himself from grasping him up in his arms, and had to swallow several times to get rid of the lump in his throat. Knocking his pipe out in the ashtray, he put his feet up on the seat opposite.

  No one else had come into the carriage - probably worried that the boy would be noisy when he woke up; but his Sean was never noisy. Well, not all that much. He fell asleep himself eventually, vaguely aware of the station noise at York, but the next time he surfaced was in Newcastle.

  It was daylight now and he took a newspaper from his pocket. It was yesterday’s news, bought before they’d boarded the train in London. But it would occupy his mind and turn his thoughts away from the parting that had to come. He dozed again after a while, and in no time, it seemed, they were in Edinburgh, the milk churns clanking and a magazine trolley rattling alongside the window.

  Sean sat straight up, wide awake at once. That was the best of being so young, there was no land of in-between, when the worries and anxieties of the day, forgotten in sleep, came crowding back to haunt you. ‘Is it Scotland yet, Grandad?’

  ‘Yes, son, this is Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.’

  ‘I’ll soon be seeing the mountains, then, and that’s two capitals I’ve seen, because when we were in London, you said that was the capital of England.’

  ‘That’s right. You’re a clever one, fancy remembering that. You’ll get on just great at your new school, I’m sure.’

  Sean looked thoughtful. ‘I wonder what my new school will be like? Do the people in Aberdeen speak a different language, Grandad?’

  ‘You’ll think so until you get used to them.’

  ‘Will they laugh at me for the way I speak?’

  ‘I don’t think they’ll laugh, but they’ll likely find it difficult to understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘Why will they? I don’t speak funny.’

  ‘It’ll sound funny to them, though, Sean.’

  The small lips pouted for a second. ‘I don’t think I’m going to like it in Aberdeen, Grandad. Can’t I go home to Yarmouth with you to live?’

  Arthur was secretly pleased - there was nothing he’d like more - but shook his head. ‘You can’t do that, son. Anyway, you’re not going to be living right in Aberdeen. Your new house is more than twenty miles north of that.’

  The guard blew his whistle, the train left Waverley Station and, after the scary journey through the tunnel, they could see the scenery again. With the quicksilver change of childhood, Sean forgot his qualms about the new life ahead of him.

  ‘Is that a mountain, Grandad?’ he asked in great excitement. He was pointing to the Castle, on its pedestal of volcanic rock.

  ‘Not really, but we’ll see one soon.’ Arthur stood up and took the duffel bag from the luggage rack. ‘Your Gran put something in here for us to eat. What say we have some breakfast?’

&
nbsp; ‘Ooh, yes, please, Grandad, but I’ll have to go to the toilet first.’

  How could he have forgotten the most important of the boy’s needs, Arthur chided himself, recognising the same need in himself now. ‘Right, then, off we go.’ He hoped that the toilet would be free, or if it wasn’t, that they wouldn’t have long to wait until it was. Thankfully, most of the passengers had been up and about earlier, and they just had to wait a few minutes. Luckily, the Forth Bridge caused a diversion, as Arthur had told Sean just the week before that when he had travelled home from Aberdeen during the war, all the passengers had thrown pennies over the bridge for luck. So he dipped into his trouser pocket, took out a handful of small change and selected a penny for the boy to throw from the open window of the nearest carriage. ‘It only brings good luck,’ he instructed, ‘if it goes into the water.’ Unfortunately, the coin landed at the edge of the bridge, but bounced over the side and splashed into the river far below. Arthur wondered if Sean would worry about it not going straight into the water, but he seemed to be quite happy with his throw.

  Back in their seats, Sean eagerly opened the duffel bag and pulled out a plastic container. ‘What’s in here?’

  Soon they were munching sandwiches and drinking Coke out of tins. ‘It’s like a picnic, isn’t it. Grandad?’ Sean looked up into his grandfather’s craggy face, but the excitement on his own small countenance vanished as a shadow passed over it.

  He’s thinking there’ll be no more picnics for the two of us, Arthur mused. It was going to be a heartbreaking business for both of them to say goodbye when he had to leave the boy. But even before they had finished eating, he was keeping constant his vigil.

  ‘That’s a mountain this time, isn’t it? Say yes, Grandad.’ He pointed to a mound in the distance.

  ‘No, no, that’s only a slag heap. Coal, you know.’