Heralds of Spring

It's been some time since I posted anything into this blog but i hope you enjoy this one.

Heralds of spring.


Kevin and Karen did as their parents had asked; scattered their ashes from the bridge at the edge of town beside their old home. The request, made just after the golden wedding celebrations had, surprised them a little but their mother had explained in her usual soft yet firm tone,
“One day you will both understand.”
Their father had merely nodded his head, and said nothing. Although older than Lily once their mother had her mind made up on anything it had never been in Stephens nature to either question or try to alter her decision.
They had been born within six weeks of each other to parents who lived at the opposite ends of the same town. It was a small country town with a small close knit community and Stephen and Lily grew up together, They attended the same schools and, except for the few years Lily spent away at college qualifying as a teacher, until their final days, they never knew what it meant to be separated. They had also known, since Stephens eighth birthday, that one day they would marry.
It was Stephens home that stood beside the bridge spanning both river and water meadow at the edge of town, and Lily was spending the afternoon helping him prepare for his party later that evening. She loved flowers, especially the early ones that heralded the approach of warmer days, and she had talked Stephen into going with her into the water meadow where snowdrops had just appeared.
Leaning forward to reach something trapped among the riverside rush’s, while still holding her bunch of snowdrops in one hand, she lost her footing on the damp river bank, stumbled sideways, lurched forward, then tumbled headlong into the swollen river.
Stephen higher up the slope saw her disappear from view but, in seconds, he too was in the water struggling to pull her out. The current lapped over his chest and his arm wrapped tightly around her tiny body almost crushed the air out of her lungs, but finally he managed to haul them both up onto the bank.
She’d lost the flowers she’d been carrying and was sobbing and gasping as if her lungs would never inflate again. He became terrified she might still be about to die on him so he held her in his arms, and rocked her until her retching spasms ceased. Finally she looked into his eyes and gasped almost wonderingly,
“ But Stephen… you can’t swim either!”
Something in her tone, and the way she looked at him both thrilled and embarrassed him so he muttered, “So what!…”, then jumped up and picked her a fresh bunch of snowdrops.
It was when he pressed them into her hand that she clambered to her feet, stretched up on her toes, and gave him a sudden kiss. A grown up kiss, straight onto his mouth. After that it never occurred to either of them that they might ever spend their lives with anyone else.
“ Like two breaths onto a single window pane,” was how parents and friends described them.
They married after she qualified and returned to teach in the local infant school; a post she held without any apparent desire to move or rise higher until she retired forty years later.
They moved in with Stephens parents not just because, as the only and late child, Stephen never wanted to live anywhere else, but because the house with the family grocery store occupying the ground floor was a big one. In addition Stephens parents had always doted on Lily seeing her as the daughter they never had. Indeed, sometimes in those early years Stephen would wryly observe that if he and Lily ever had a serious disagreement over anything, it would be he who was shown the door. When his parents went to live out their final years by the sea, Stephen took over the business.
Karen, their eldest, was born in the year before his parents retired, and Kevin came two years later. In almost every respect they were opposites.
Karen, whose birth was an easy one, resembled her father in both physique and temperament. Tall, well built, and easy going whatever she lacked intellectually she made up for in physical ability. It was no surprise to anyone when, in her final college year, she announced her intention to enter the police force.
Kevin, on the other hand, was tiny like his mother with her blond hair and blue eyes, and her apparent lack of any personal ambitions, other than to be liked by everyone. Even at his parents golden wedding people were still asking him,
“ Well Kevin old chap, what are you up to nowadays?”
He replied with vague descriptions of doing something in the ‘performing arts’, and then knowingly added to his enquirers subsequent confusion by adding an oblique reference to ‘ conceptual dimensions of future diversions!’
His birth had been a difficult one as if he was loathe to leave his mothers womb, as if sensing how much she enjoyed having him inside her. In consequence Lily was advised that further pregnancies would be unwise.
Yet Kevin was the one in the years following the anniversary who noticed his parents failing mental health, and it was he who persuaded them both to sell first the shop, then the house, and use the proceeds along with their pensions to finance secure and sheltered accommodation.
By this time Karen was married to another policeman and living with him and her four children at the opposite end of the country and he, Kevin, as well as being constantly on the road with one project or another was in a single sex relationship which even Lily had difficulty dealing with. So a home where they could still be together, but cared for and safe appeared the most sensible option.
It was neither Kevin, nor Karens fault that the brochures issued, and the preliminary visits arranged to the ‘Happy Days Retirement Home’ were so misleading. Especially the Home’s claim that resident couples need to remain together would always be respected. In fact for the first time in their married lives Stephen and Lily found themselves occupying separate bedrooms.
At first it wasn’t too bad. The bedrooms were on the same floor and next to each other. In his lucid moments Stephen even amused himself planning how he would install an adjoining door, but then after a while and for some reason never clearly explained to either of them, they were both moved to rooms which were not only not adjacent but in separate wings of the building. It reminded Stephen of their childhood. Then he found that in the evening he could no longer take a walk to Lily’s part of the Home.
They had a new matron, a large officious woman with a growth of hair on her upper lip which prompted Stephen to nickname her ‘Mother Adolph.’ She carried a bundle of keys everywhere and at night locked the corridor door dividing off the two wings. It bothered him.
“Something to do with fire regulations,” he complained in a letter to Kevin but then, when he didn’t receive an answer immediately, he began to wonder if his mail was being censored, or even confiscated. He found it very hard to trust Mother Adolph. She seemed to have a problem with any residents touching however innocently…. and lately his need to touch Lily whenever they met had become anything but innocent!
One afternoon in the residents lounge he had managed to reach around Lily’s shoulder, under her armpit, and then press his palm against her breast. At first she had tried to move away but had then started to giggle and cough. They were still laughing together when Mother Adolph walked in and, in a loud voice, ordered Stephen out of the lounge.
He became so upset he forgot where his own room was--- even where he was supposed to be going, and ended up standing in a corridor he didn’t remember ever seeing before. He started to cry.
One of the trainee carers: ( he realised she was a trainee because she had glasses and was wearing one of those green pinafore things over what looked like a white gown,) approached him.
“ Where are you going?” she asked not too unkindly.
“I don’t remember,” he tried to explain, but the damn gulps got in the way.
She was still interrogating him as she took a firm grip onto his arm. He remembered Karen telling him that she had to interrogate people sometimes as part of her job…. but she didn’t wear glasses! Not even when her mum advised her to for the sake of her eyes.
“Can you not sleep?” the carer asked.
At least when he got angry he didn’t gulp. “ Of course I can’t bloody sleep!” he shouted.
So later the trainee carer, who actually did care, wrote three words at the top of his file. Three words that signposted his and Lily’s escape route.
‘ Needs help sleeping.’
It took him some time to formulate his plan so that he wouldn’t forget anything, or get so confused that the details went out of focus, but he found that now he had a purpose again his forgetfulness and confusion decreased. He hid the white tablets they started giving him at night in a small pill bottle inside one of his shoes in his wardrobe.
‘Mind you,’ he thought, ‘ I mustn’t let see me getting any better.’ So her started pretending to be even worse than he suspected he really was. What really started to worry him though was how quickly Lily seemed to be deteriorating now that Mother Adolph had even issued instructions that they were not to sit next to each other in the recreation lounge, But at least that separation prevented him accidentally letting slip the surprise he was planning.
He started grinning at the matron whenever he met her, and began following her around without ever answering her frequent demands to know,
“What do you want Stephen?”
What he wanted, of course, what he needed for his plan to succeed, was to find out where she kept her keys when she went off duty every night. When he finally found out by following her late one evening straight into her office on the ground floor, he couldn’t believe his luck. She actually hung them onto a hook beside her black gaberdine overcoat.
‘Hitler had a coat like that,’ he thought as she shouted at him to get out, called him a few names including ‘ silly old pervert,’ and slammed the office door in his face. ‘But he didn’t leave his keys around the place!”
The following day Lily didn’t appear in the dining room at teatime and Stephen asked the trainee with the glasses where she was?
“Don’t tell matron,” he whispered, “ But I’m worried about her. She isn’t ill or anything is she?”
There was just a hint of hesitation in the trainees reply.
“Well, just a bit poorly Stephen,.. But we’re looking after her and she’ll be right as rain in no time.”
Alarm bells rang in Stephens head, and he found it difficult to eat anything. One thing seemed absolutely clear. He couldn’t delay implementing his plan any longer.
It was after midnight when he crept down the stairs, and collected the keys from Mother Adolph’s office.
“ Door wide open,” he murmured under his breath, “ There’ll be trouble in the morning!”
He unlocked the door into what he noticed the staff had now officially labelled the ‘ Female Wing’, climbed the stairs to the third floor, ( ‘lifts make noise’ he thought,) and almost skipped along the corridor to the door of Lily’s room.
He didn’t knock, saw no need to, but turned the handle and stepped quickly inside. He had expected her to be asleep in bed, in the dark; but her bedside light was on and she was sitting on the bed fully clothed, and staring up at him.
“Oh Kevin,” she exclaimed, “ Thank god you’ve come.”
“ No Lily… it’s me Stephen… it’s not Kevin…. It’s Stephen..”
For a moment she looked confused and then it seemed that something within her lit up, her blue eyes focused on him and she began, ever so slowly to sob and then gasp for breath. Sob and gasp as she had another time now lost in Stephens distant memory but experienced as if it was now.
“Ooooh yes… Stephen?…. You’re Stephen aren’t you? ….. Yes… I remember you now!”
He sat on the bed beside her and wrapped his arms around her thin little shoulders.
“Oh Lily what’s the matter? What have you done this time?”
Her head fell forward onto his chest.
“ Ooh Stephen,…. Please..,” she sobbed, “ Please… I want to go home!”
He let her cry like that for a while, rocking her in his arms and stroking her thin grey hair. Finally he turned her sideways, laid her onto the bed and, despite it being so narrow, managed to climb onto the green coverlet beside her. Then he held her once more, their legs and arms entwined and wrapped tightly around each other. When her sobs finally ceased and her eyes closed,… when she was barely breathing at all he whispered into her ear,
“ That’s why I’m here Lily…. to bring you home.”
Ironically it was Mother Adolph who found them both the following morning when, discovering her keys missing from the hook in her office, and realising that ‘security’ had been breached. she ordered a full scale search of the Female Wing.
She found them still fully clothed, but so tightly locked together that she needed two trainees to help her prise them apart. Before summoning help though she took care to dispose of the two empty pill bottles, and the tumbler of water from beside the bed
There would, she knew, be repercussions, and if the press got wind of what had happened, as they almost certainly would do, she would probably have to resign, be thrown into the bear pit of public opprobrium as a sacrificial offering.
She was so angry! Not just at herself, but at what she now considered the selfish, ungrateful pair lying on the bed!

*******************************************

Kevin and Karen scattered their parents ashes at night when they knew nobody would be crossing the bridge and see what they were doing. Just in case anyone was they both assumed innocent looks and both leaned nonchalantly over the stone parapet. They lowered the two urns they were carrying and let the ash’s slide gently down into the cold night air.
Kevin released his mothers while at the same moment Karen, still weeping, released her fathers.
Apparently from nowhere, yet they were sure from somewhere, a sudden light breeze lifted the now mingled grey cloud away from the flowing river and settled it instead onto the sloping bank of the water meadow beside their parents old home.
Kevin wondered aloud if the mantle of grey dust would be visible in daylight, but he needn’t have worried, Overnight a light fall of snow covered everything and, thawing by lunchtime, filtered the ash’s deep into the damp soil.
That afternoon they stood once more on the bridge before driving away to resume their now different and very separate lives. But in that moment together, just as their mother had promised they would, they understood.
In a few short weeks, and perhaps in every year thereafter, the first heralds of spring would appear in the water meadow. The purest, whitest snowdrops they, or anyone else, would ever see!

The End.

Susan's Friend

Susan’s friend.

My latest piece for the writers group inspired by some children who had just buried their pet cat Pedro.

It was Susan who saw the kitten. It was sitting under the ‘fairy hedge’ watching her. Her younger sisters Lorraine and Mona had christened that part of the garden the ‘fairy hedge’ because they claimed they could see fairies dancing through it. They’d even managed to convince their sceptical parents not to cut back those particular straggling branches for fear that the hedge trimmer might damage the fairies glittering wings.
“ And without their wings,” Lorraine had patiently explained to their father, “ Fairies can neither dance nor fly!”
Lorraine and Mona were inseparable five year old twins, and both were very protective of their friends in the hedge. Their older brother Thomas, who was seven and liked dogs, thought that fairies were a ‘girly’ thing, but claimed that he could hear a puppy barking under the hedge.
Susan, who was nine and therefore a lot older and wiser than either of her sisters or her brother had never actually seen any fairies dancing in the hedge, or ever heard any puppies barking, but she was still young enough to realise that didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t there. She had noticed that the older people became, the more difficulty they had believing in anything they couldn’t actually see …. and now she definitely could see the kitten.
It was tabby coloured with short almost stumpy ears, and it was sitting watching her as if it had always been there, and had just been waiting for her to recognise its existence. She noticed that unlike her other cats, this one did not watch her with an unblinking stare. In fact its eyes kept closing and opening in a quite regular but inviting way as if it were already conversing with her.
“ Oh, what’s your name?” she exclaimed bending forwards and reaching out her fingers towards its flat little head.
“ I have no name,” the kitten replied dismissively; rather surprising Susan because she heard no sound, not even a purr. The voice seemed to be inside her own head. “ It’s humans like you who insist on calling me something when in fact I’m just…. well …. me!”
“ Who is …. you?” Susan persisted.
“ Well that’s rather up to you isn’t it? I’m whatever you want to make me.”
“ I need you to have a name so that I know what to call you.”
The kitten, who Susan already realised was obviously an animal with a mind very much of its own, raised one of its rear paws, leaned sideways, and began to scratch feverishly behind its ear; scratched so furiously in fact, that it fell over onto its side.
Susan, who knew how offended cats can become when humans laugh at them rather than with them, managed to maintain a serious expression until the kitten had reassumed a dignified sitting posture. Then she remembered that kittens are much more playful than grown up cats so she risked a short laugh,
“Oooh you are quite funny,” she observed.
“ Well that’s probably because you’re quite funny too. Now, what are you going to call me? You’d better tell me and then I’ll know when it’s me you’re talking too.”
It was obviously intended as a serious question by the kitten, and Susan thought it only right that she would think about it for a long time. In fact she thought about it for so long that the kitten almost lost interest in the answer, and gave an enormous yawn instead.
“ I thought I might call you Coco after the clown because you made me laugh, but instead I’m going to call you what you are, “ Susan finally announced. “For now I’ll call you ‘Kittycat’, and then… when you’re a lot older, and much bigger, I’ll just call you ‘Cat.’”
The kitten too thought about this for a while and then stood up, arched it’s back upwards and then stretched forwards each of its front paws in turn.
“ Well I certainly think ‘ Kitty’s’ preferable to ‘Coco,’” it murmured.
“How long have you been here?” Susan wondered aloud.
“I’ve been here as long as you have,” Kittycat stated.
It seemed to be trying to decide if all humans were this stupid? But went on to explain in a noticeably patient tone, “ You sisters have their fairies, Tommy has his puppy dog,…. and you have me! It isn’t my fault you’ve taken so long to notice me. You just haven’t been looking properly. Far too busy being the older and cleverer sister I suppose.”
“ And will you stay?” Susan asked. Now she too had a friend under the fairy hedge she didn’t want to lose it.
Kittycat sighed. Some humans obviously were this stupid!
“ I have to stay as long as you want me to.”
“Until I’m grown up?”
“ I have to grow up with you.”
“ And when I’m really, really old?”
“ Then I’ll be really, really old too wont I?”
Kittycat who was getting a little tired of all these silly questions turned and made as if to disappear back into the tangled undergrowth, but Susan asked it one more question.
“ Will you ever grow wings like the fairies, or bark like a puppy dog?”
Her new friend stared at her, but this time with unblinking eyes…. and this time Susan did hear a purr.
“ Certainly not. That would make me ridiculous!”

THE END.

Regret can hurt.

I was given the opening sentence at my writers group, and this is the finished story. Enjoy.

Regret can hurt.

She was sorry now that she hadn’t told him from the very beginning. Standing at her apartment window, drinking her umpteenth bacardi and coke of the evening, Hilary watched a group of young girls, obviously a hen party, but all too scantily clad for a cold night like this, tumble out from the hotel across the street below, and gather in noisy, but shivering groups, to await the arrival of whatever transport home they had arranged.

‘Do they,’ she wondered, ‘Have things they regret not having said?’

She wanted desperately to turn back the clock, make things clear from the beginning; from that first night when he approached her after her talk to the Rotary Club.

“ Inter-personal relations in business,” she snorted into the half empty glass in her hand. “What the hell right have I to be lecturing anyone on inter personal relations,… either in business. or life for that matter?”

Two months ago it had been. Two months during which she’d not only begun to feel more alive than she could ever remember feeling, but two months during which for the first time in her forty one years, she’d learned both the joy and the pain of sharing who she was with another person; and rendered herself vulnerable by admitting him into her carefully guarded privacy, and space. Yet still she hadn’t told him what he had the right to know. So now it was her feeling of regret that was impelling her to drink, and to drink like this alone, perched in her fourth floor luxury apartment overlooking tottering young revellers below.

“I really enjoyed your talk,” he’d said placing himself, as if deliberately, between herself and Jason. “ You made your points very well. I’m sure everyone has learned a lot this evening.”

She’d thanked him, and taken his hand into her own, but found herself fascinated, even held, by his smiling blue eyes. In his early fifties he was well built but without any evidence of fat or middle age slouch. His hair was greying slightly at the temples, but not receding, and his impact was immediate.

‘Oh my god,’ she’d thought, ‘ Whatever charisma is, you have it in spades! You certainly didn’t need my talk tonight….”

“How many of your suggestions will be acted on of course,” he was saying, “ Isn’t for me to judge, but there were a couple of your answers at the end of the talk which left me with even more questions of my own. I’d appreciate the opportunity to explore them further with you over dinner sometime….unless you think I’m being too forward? My name’s David by the way, David Harrison. I attended a talk you gave a few months ago, and it was I who proposed you as tonight’s speaker.”

He was still holding her right hand, but then pointed towards her ringless left hand. “ I had noticed that you aren’t married.”

She remembered glancing quickly past his shoulder to where Jason was lifting the overhead projector she’d been using from the table. He was already frowning and seemed ready to say something.

“ I should have told him then,” she murmured into the almost empty glass. “Got it into the open then….”

Instead she’d enthused like a love struck adolescent how much she would enjoy answering his questions over dinner… how he wasn’t being at all forward, and then… retrieving her hand from his, had rooted feverishly into the folder under her arm for a business card.

“Ring me,” she’d said, “We’ll arrange something.”

Then, as he walked away, shed reflected that those old chestnuts about ‘ heartbeat racing,’ and ‘knees turning to water,’ were apparently true!

They had arranged something, and in no time at all it seemed their dates and arrangements became the single focal points of her everyday existence. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this way about any man before, and she had always intended to tell him the truth… but never ‘right now’. Always she’d waited, just wanting one more time when only she and him in the present moment mattered. As those times became a week, then a month, her fear of what he might do when she did tell him, made the telling more difficult. Turned an uncertain prospect into a possible crisis to be postponed for as long as possible; and now, it seemed, she was forever recalling that awful evening when further procrastination became impossible.

************************************

She’d realised as soon as he told her that he’d booked their table at the Royal George that he intended the evening to be one neither of them would ever forget; so she made a special effort to look her most beautiful. She’d even taken the afternoon off, and gone up to town to have her hair done, and buy a new outfit.

He’d picked her up in the new car he’d just bought, and if he was uncharacteristically subdued during the drive to the hotel, she’d put it down to nerves he might be feeling about the night ahead. It was when he seated her at the table that she noticed how his features in the candlelight betrayed a harshness she’d never seen before. Despite the restaurants soothing ambience and background music she’d become suddenly fearful.

Apart from giving their order to the hovering waiter he’d barely spoken until the main course was on the table. She for her part, had chattered incessantly; silly. stupid things she knew in her heart he’d no interest in.

Finally he’d glared across the table and interrupted her with a curt, “ I had a telephone call today from somebody called Jason. I believe you know him?”

She’d nodded and tried to gather her racing thoughts into a manageable sequence.

David was doing the talking now, but in slow deliberate words as if he’d rehearsed them all in his head beforehand. No racing unmanageable sequence there!

“I remember him of course from the evening you gave the talk at the Rotary Club. I’d assumed, because he resembled you so much, that he was your younger brother. But then he started asking me…. No, not just asking, … demanding, as if by right to know what were my intentions towards you? It was almost Victorian!”

She’d thought, for a moment, that humour might help, and tried to smile.

“Well yes… Jason does tend to be a little possessive of me….”

“Possessive is putting it mildly. Fixated would be a better word.”

Her smile had wilted. “Did you ask him why?” she’d enquired.

“I did not. I was so astonished I simply told him to mind his own bloody business, and put the phone down on him. I don’t care if he is your brother… or even one of your former boyfriends. Anyone talking to me like that… I put the phone down on them!”

He spiked a piece of beef onto his fork, and raised it towards his mouth.

She remembered now that he never swallowed it as she finally did what she should have done from the very beginning. Even the white tablecloth seemed to be glaring up at her reproachfully as she whispered,

“Jason’s neither my brother, nor a former boy friend…. He’s my son.”

She could recall clearly the way his expression changed from one of anger to one of pain… even betrayal. She’d wanted to reach for his hand, explain that it had all been a terrible mistake. Not the fact of Jason’s existence, but the circumstances surrounding his creation. That it had been a one night stand… she’d drunk far too much…. she’d been taken advantage of…

“And the father?” David had asked replacing his fork onto his plate. She couldn’t meet his eye. That had been the worst part, the part that, in her heart, she’d always dreaded telling him.

“ I can’t even remember who he was, “ she’d murmured. “ I was drunk… and later on, when I realised I was pregnant… Well I didn’t want to know who he was.”

She remembered how, at that point, she had felt a sudden surge of maternal defiance, and been able to raise her head, look at him directly.

“ But I did want the baby. I know I’d been very stupid, even irresponsible in not taking proper precautions, but I wouldn‘t… no I couldn’t deny Jason his life…. And I’ve never regretted having him… not once. I know sometimes he can be difficult, and overreach himself particularly with men he thinks I’m involved with. He hasn’t had the advantage of growing up sharing me with another man; but I wont regret having him…. not now… not ever… not even for your sake!”

She’d stopped; hoping, that her words might prompt him to understand and forgive her, but suddenly he’d stood up.

“ I have to go,” he’d stated, and put enough cash onto the table to settle not only the bill, but her taxi fare home as well. “ I need time to think…. You should have told me sooner…”

Well, now, she’d given him the time… two awful weeks of it!

For the first few days she’d been sick with confusion. On the one hand she’d wanted to telephone him, tell him how sorry she was, and plead with him not to end their relationship. But, equally, she was afraid that he’d simply put the phone down the way he had with Jason, or even worse, tell her bluntly not to contact him again. Then, when he didn’t telephone or make contact with her, her confusion had turned into anger. Clearly he wasn’t even prepared to let her explain further, so she rehearsed what she would say when he finally did contact her… as he surely would, wouldn’t he?

When, after two weeks, he’d still neither rung nor turned up at her apartment, she went into a downward spiral of self recrimination, self pity, and endless bacardi and coke’s which should have alleviated her pain, but only made it worse.

‘And now,’ she thought, ‘ Here I am at the window hallucinating that his car’s among the revellers transport in the car park below!’ She turned back into the empty room. ‘I really must stop drinking like this… I must put something solid into my stomach, …. get my life back again!’

On impulse she decided to get changed, telephone Jason and offer to buy him a late supper … at the Royal George!

“ I’ll wait until the food’s served before I tell him what I think of him interfering in my life, it has to stop. I’m his mother not his senile grandmother in need of protection from unscrupulous suitors!”

As she went towards the bathroom her mobile on the coffee table rang. The screen flashed ‘David’, and her heart rose.

“ Oh god David,” she gasped into it, “ Oh I’m so glad… I mean I’m so sorry… I should have told you everything at the very beginning…. Please forgive me… let me make it up….”

The silence on the line was deafening, and her heart sank. What was he doing playing with her feelings like this?

“David,” she demanded fiercely, “ Are you still with me?”

She registered the irony of her words and her feelings went into free fall. She wanted to lie down; but then his voice, strong and full of tenderness, penetrated her mental fog. She closed her eyes, and could almost feel his arms closing around her, and his lips press close into her ear.

“ Hilary… where else would I ever want to be?”

Suddenly, an exhilarating realisation prompted her to rush across the room. It had been his car in the car park….. and it was then that her doorbell rang!

The End.

Your Portrait.

I painted Alicia's portrait and have it on my bedroom wall. She liked 'tee lights' so I have one burning underneath it sometimes. This poem, written for the writers group refers to something which actually happened shortly after I hung her portrait.

Your portrait.

Your portrait hangs on my bedroom wall,

It glows in the light from a candle below,

But I’m under the covers unable to pray,

Or even to think. Why do I hurt this way?

The candelight flickers as if preparing to die

As you did that once, with barely a sigh.

“ Oh Alicia,” I exclaim, “Leave me some light,

Don’t leave me alone, nor fade from my sight.”

I start to rise up, some matches to find,

When the flame re-ignites, and the candle burns bright.

Cold darkness disperses, as do sadness and pain.

In my heart, your image, glows warm once again.

I slide under the covers, I’m now able to pray;

But a prayer without thoughts, or even words I can say.

For your heart and mine are now lit from above,

In the prayer we two share… the prayer we call ‘Love!’

Before next Tuesday,

I was sitting in the cafe in Easons bookshop in Dublin some months ago, listening in to two elderly ladies who had just met after many years apart. They provided the seed for the following story though I hasten to add... what follows in no way reflects their conversation. It is also set in my imaginary town, Ashleigh.

Before next Tuesday.

There are 3 people involved in this relationship; my wife Alison, her friend from years ago, Pat, and myself. Because I’m the deceased one, only I am aware not just of the relationships past and present truths; but its future realities as well, and it’s those aspects of the relationship I’m precluded from revealing.

********************************

Alison and Pat are sitting at a table in Murray’s restaurant on Ashleigh’s High Street. Alison is trying to decide whether to order any food from the menu and barely listening as Pat fills her in with all her news. In fact Alison is already beginning to doubt the wisdom of having agreed to meet her old friend for coffee and a chat at all. It is almost 40 years since they sat together like this. There are just so many memories on both sides to be recalled and Alison never was either as quick, or as accurate as Pat at remembering things.

Pat’s phone call had been a total surprise.

“ I’m back,” she had exclaimed, “ Back in England for good… We must meet…. Same place as always, Murray’s on the High Street… It is still there isn’t it? … Now don’t be late!”

Typically her tone had been so firm, so intolerant of refusal that even after such a long separation, Alison had felt the easiest course was just to accept. It had been that way right through grammar school and university. Pat had always been the one who proposed and decided, usually at one and the same time, and Alison had always,…. well, always found it simplest to agree.

Suddenly she forgets the menu and remembers the day, shortly after they both graduated, when she told Pat that she would not be accompanying her across the Atlantic to accept the two teaching posts they had been offered near New York. Pat had stared at her in disbelief.

“ But we always agreed that we would go together, use our qualifications to travel and see the world.”

“ No,” Alison had said, “You decided and agreed for both of us. You never actually asked me whether I wanted to go, and I’ve decided I’m happy where I am teaching here in Ashleigh.”

Initially Pat ascribed Alison’s change of heart to nerves, timidity, and an unwillingness to face the prospect of leaving her mother.

“You can’t live your whole life tied to your mothers apron strings,” she commented, “ No matter how wonderful a mother you think she is. It’s not natural.”

Pat had never pretended that her own mother was anything but a hindrance, but eventually Alison found the courage to admit the truth.

“I’m not tied to my mothers apron strings. I’ve met somebody … and I don’t want to leave him.”

“ A man?” Pat was not just astonished but shocked. Her own father had left her mother when she was in infant school; consequently men never figured in Pat’s calculations of anything. “ You want to give up your independence to stay with a man?”

“ Not just stay with him, … marry him!”

Pat had thrown a farewell party some nights before she flew to New York but she didn’t invite Alison who, in any case, had already decided she wouldn’t attend even if asked. Instead she spent he night with me…

“ Do you remember Jacinta? … Jacinta Whelan? “ Pat is asking.

Alison replaces the menu onto the table having decided not to prolong things by ordering food, and readjusts her spectacles onto the bridge of her nose. The two gestures buy her a few seconds while she decides how to respond. She remembers Jacinta very well, but frowns as if trying to recall somebody she has forgotten so Pat decides to prompt her memory.

“ She was at St. Elizabeth’s with us, and went on to University with us as well. … Her main subject was Drama. …. Well she was very good at it. She had beautiful eyes…. very expressive. … She graduated with us…. “

Alison nods and interrupts, “ And she dated Shamir for a while.”

Pat had always intended to bring me into the conversation at some point, but my arrival courtesy of Alison, prompts her to hesitate and wonder how far she dare go with her recollections. She even wonders how much I might have told Alison in the twenty odd years we were together in life but, in fact, I never told Alison anything about the night after the farewell party.

Pat arrived at my door obviously the worse for drink, and accuse me of stealing the only thing that meant anything in her life.

“ Alison isn’t a thing,” I told her, “ She’s a person with feelings and a life of her own.”

“And you’ve bloody well stolen both,” she sobbed.

I could have invited her in, given her coffee, and tried to sober her up, but Alison was out at a school function, so I decided that wasn’t the wisest course of action. Pat was already somewhat dishevelled, and using the door jam to keep herself upright. Her car, out in the roadway, was parked up onto the pavement, it’s front door wide open, it’s radio on full blast, and it’s headlights illuminating my front garden and porch like a stage set. So I offered to drive her home in my car, suggesting she collect her own the following day.

“ When you’re more fit to drive,” I explained.

She spat an obscenity at me, but let me take her keys, bring her car off the road and lock it, then almost fell headlong into the front seat of my car.

As I drove her to the pther side of Ashleigh her mood changed. She stopped crying, dropped the foul language, and even started to smile a little. When we reached her apartment block she turned to face me.

“You don’t love her Shamir do you? Not really…. It’s just the prospect of having an obedient, malleable little woman in you bed that attracts you isn’t it?”

I shook my head, told her she was wrong, and told her I didn’t want to hear her talking like that, but she began to fumble with the buttons of her blouse, tearing and pulling them open. Her speech was becoming more slurred and I wondered if she had taken drugs with whatever alcohol she had swallowed.

“ What you really want Shamir is a woman like me isn’t it? Jacinta’s told me all about what you really like…. What men like you want. You’re an Arab, and underneath this ohhhh sooo sophisticated solicitors façade you’re just like all Arab men…..”

I had to laugh.

“I’m not an Arab,” I corrected, “ I’m from Birmingham, and whatever it is that Jacinta has told you I like… it’s a lie. Jacinta Whelan lives in a fantasy world of her own, and she wouldn’t recognise the truth if it stepped up onto a stage somewhere and slapped her in the face! That’s why I stopped going out with her. Now Pat, for heaven’s sake just leave the car, go up to your falt, … and go to bed. You’re making a fool of yourself.”

She asked me why men were always attracted to Alison, but not to her, and I made the mistake of telling her it was because she obviously didn’t find men attractive. I shouldn’t have said that of course, it was cruel; but I was angry with her for coming on to me like that, imagining she could ever take me away from Alison. For a few moments she sat in silence staring at me and then, without even rebuttoning her blouse, she scrambled out of the car.

“ The trouble with you Shamir bloody Hassan,” she screamed from the footpath, “ Is that you’re a waste of space… a useless bit of arab shit…. I hope you and Alison rot in whatever hell it is you believe in!”

Well, I’m certainly not in any ‘sort of a hell,’ although, at present, I am at an unwelcome distance from Alison.

“ I was sorry to hear Shamir had died,” Pat is saying. “ Was he ill for very long?”

Alison shakes her head. She’s never been comfortable sharing her memories of me with anyone. Yet, every morning when she wakes up, she faces my photograph on her bedside table and wonders aloud how long it will be until we are together again? My pain, of course, is that I’m precluded from letting her know!

“ He was ill only a short time. Once diagnosed, lung cancer can be very quick.”

“ And you just have the one child, a daughter?”

“ Yes, Elisha. It means ‘ God is gracious.’ It was Shamirs mothers name. It is in the Bible.”

Pat is surprised. “ Shamir was a Christian? I thought…. Well I assumed…”

“That he was a Muslim?”

Pat nods. “ Well his name… his appearance… everything really!”

Alison suddenly decides to set the record straight, once and for all, irrespective of the consequences.

“ I have a grandson called Charles. You can’t get any more English and Christian than ‘Charles’ can you? …. And why did you mention Jacinta Whelan? Is it because you think I didn’t know that she and Shamir slept together before he met me?”

“ No… oh no, nothing like that, though I did think you might not know. No, it’s because I met up with her again in New York just after you and Shamir got married. In fact it was she who told me. I hadn’t seen her since my farewell party and she was a little surprised you had managed to hook him at all. She always maintained that he would jump into any skirt that was offered. In fact, at the party, she even suggested I do you a favour and put him to a little test…. Anyway she was working in a theatre out in Long Island and, eventually, we became good friends, …. and I mean ‘good friends’”

She waits for Alison to react. “ You mean….?”

“Yes, I do mean. I understand ‘partners’ is the current euphemism over here for a lesbian relationship. Well, I’m gay and I see no point in denying it. Did you never guess?”

Alison genuinely hadn’t guessed, and I never told her. I just hoped, with the passing years, that she would accept that Pat’s failure to answer any of her letters was because Pat too was making a life for herself.

“ What happened?” Alison finally asks.

“ Oh, we were together until a couple of years ago… very happy I thought… but then she moved to the west coast with a model half her age… somebody I couldn’t possible compete with.”

“ I meant what happened with the little test?”

“ I didn’t go through with it,” Pat lies.

After a few moments of awkward silence Pat suddenly blurts,

“ I‘m thinking of throwing a party on Tuesday night.” Then, recalling a conversation from years ago, adds “ Will you come?”

Alison pretends to consider the request but, in her heart, already knows what her answer must be.

“ I’m sorry but I baby sit my grandson on Tuesday nights.”

“ Friday then? I can easily arrange it for Friday night.”

“I’m sorry…. I can’t do Friday nights either. In fact, at the moment, most of my evenings are spoken for.”

Pat tries to keep the disappointment out of her voice, but can’t help remarking,

“ Still tied to the families apron strings then?”

Alison stands up suddenly and prepares to leave.

“ I’m very happy tied to them, and Ill never allow anyone to untie me. Now Pat, I’m sorry, but I simply must be going… there is somebody I have to meet…. It’s been lovely seeing you again….”

Then, because she doesn’t want the relationship to end on a sour note, she adds, “ Look, I’ll see what I can do about next Tuesday, but please don’t be annoyed with me if I can’t make it.”

Pat watches her friend move away and realises with a shock that they are no longer ‘friends.’

‘In fact,’ she thinks, ‘ I no longer have any real friends.’

She pays the bill at the till and, turning, watches Alison leave the restaurant, cross the pavement and stand at the kerb. But she does not see Alison cross the High Street because what she is seeing is no longer reality…. at least not yet.

Instead she see’s Alison pause and become distracted by a push chair on the opposite pavement containing a child who is waving to her. There is a young woman with middle eastern features standing beside the push chair. Pat see’s Alison’s face light up with recognition and watches horrified as, looking neither right nor left, Alison steps out into the busy roadway.

Pat also see’s, as if in a dream, the white truck approaching at full speed trying to beat the changing traffic lights. She tries to cry out … “ Alison, the traffic…. for God’s sake look out!….”, but the warning is pointless because it isn’t ‘now’.

She is aware of the sound of screeching tyres, the dreadful sickening thud, but she’s powerless to prevent the horror she is witnessing because.. again, it isn’t ‘now’

It is before next Tuesday…., but it isn’t ‘NOW!’

*****************************

As I said earlier, I’m precluded from revealing the future myself; but premonitions? … Oh, they’re something else entirely. They aren’t within my realm of competence to control. I’m simply not responsible for any future realities that premonitions may reveal!

THE END.

Two Players.

I wrote the following piece in two parts. Two chapters as it were; separate but linked, and intended to be read sequentially.

TWO PLAYERS. PART ONE,

DAVID.

“It’s over!”

There, I’ve said it; admitted the truth. They say it’s easier when you face up to it, stop trying to kid yourself that, in the end, it will all work out, that if you want something badly enough, anything is possible.

Well they’re wrong. Nothing’s easier, and some things remain impossible no matter how badly you want them. Nothing, in my life so far, has prepared me for this pain, this feeling of emptiness,…. and admitting that ‘it’s over‘, ….only makes it harder to bear!

***************************************

I’ve always had a facility for pretence, a preference for the world of make believe. Perhaps that’s really part of my problem. Sometimes what I imagine to be the truth is more real than what is the truth. Even as a young child I was at my happiest alone, pretending to be somebody else in an imaginary drama of my own making. Play acting was as natural to me as breathing and eating. It was something I did because it made life enjoyable, made sense of the world around me.

“The lad talks to himself!” my dad protested, and my mum agreed, but made excuses for me.

“ He’s just play acting. All children do it, but David just has a more vivid imagination than other children…..these people he imagines are as real to him as you and me.”

Dad, who, I think, hoped his only son would be a soccer playing bundle of male testosterone, stared at me as if I was a creature visited on him from another planet, and snorted,

“You mean he’s a mental case!”

I remember the first time mum took me to a theatre. I was six years old and it was a Christmas pantomime. I sensed, without understanding why that, on a stage, even grown ups could play act, and not feel embarrassed if caught out doing it.

The blond Prince Charming fascinated me. Bathed in floodlights, in her principal boys costume, and singing her heart out, she was no longer the rather plain, if friendly, young assistant in Nelson’s Cake Stall on Ashleigh market; but a creature of beauty and magic, and I decided that I would love her forever! I mentally hugged every word she spoke to me whenever we bought cakes at the stall, but I never dared to reply in case she no longer sounded like ‘Prince Charming‘, and the spell would be broken.

At primary school I was too shy to push myself forward whenever parts were being cast in class or school plays, but I always knew that I would have been far better than any of those who were chosen. I was once cast as the innkeeper in the annual Nativity play but blotted my thespian copybook by displaying unchristian belligerence towards the weary Joseph and Mary seeking shelter for the night.

“We’ve no room ‘ere for ye,” I bellowed in case any deaf person might be sitting at the back of the school hall. “Ye’ll ‘ave te go inter the stable wiv the cows and sheep!”

Hardly the most auspicious start to a thespian career, but I was only nine years old and, for the few minutes I was onstage, I wasn’t just in Bethlehem, I was in heaven!

I hated secondary school, the way most shy, introverted lads do. For one thing although I liked girls, even fancied some of them, I found making friends with them difficult. I would blush, become tongue tied in their presence and end up making a real fool of myself. I was your archetypal loner, a monumental square peg in a round hole. In addition I’d very little interest in the majority of the subjects we were being taught.

The exception was English, especially the creative writing projects where I could lose myself in a world of my own creation. I also enjoyed the books and plays we studied in English Literature. Then, in my third year. we had Miss Slater for English, and I liked Miss Slater. In fact I liked her a lot, probably because I knew she liked me. Judging by the grades she gave my anything I wrote, she certainly liked my written work!

She was just out of training college, young, dark haired and, even wearing her horn rimmed spectacles, to my mind, beautiful. She was also full of enthusiasm. From the start of her time at Ashleigh Comprehensive she organised regular trips to local theatres, trips I always made a point of joining. She also took over producing, almost single handed, the annual school play. The year after she came, my fourth year, I took my courage in both hands and auditioned for the Artful Dodgers role in that years production of the musical ‘Oliver’.

I was sick with nerves beforehand, and my throat almost dried up when I opened my mouth to read the lines she had given me but, funnily enough, I found the singing bit the least stressful. I’d never sung in public before but I’d determined to pretend I was alone in the assembly hall and just let myself go. It clearly worked because Miss Slater clapped her hands when I‘d finished. She gone to the end of the hall to listen to me and walking back towards me, her high heels clacking on the wooden floor, she exclaimed,

“ David, that was really good. I can almost imagine you as a London street urchin already!”

Nonetheless she gave the part to Neil Bradshaw who was in the year ahead of me!

I was disappointed of course but appreciated that she probably had little choice; Neil’s father being one of the schools governors. As if realising how I felt she asked me to understudy Neill, while playing one of Fagin’s apprentices.

“ You’re as talented a performer as you are a writer!” she had whispered admiringly as we left the hall.

I attended every single rehearsal after that, and memorised the part even while Neil was still struggling to remember his lines, let alone his moves, Whenever he failed to turn up for rehearsal, which happened quite often, as his understudy, I filled in for him. Then, back home, and alone in my bedroom, I would act out every one of his scenes until I knew the part perfectly, and almost felt as if Neil Bradshaw no longer existed. Then, the day before the dress rehearsal, in the best theatrical tradition, my diligence was rewarded.

Neil, who was also in the schools Under 16 rugby team, dislocated his shoulder in a practise match, and Miss Slater called me out of a technical drawing class to tell me. At first she had a worried expression on her face, but then she smiled and placed her hand on my shoulder.

“I just know,” she murmured encouragingly, “That you’ll make the perfect replacement. I mean you haven’t missed a rehearsal have you?”

I thought, ‘I’ll be better than any replacement!…. I’ll be the best Artful Dodger you’ve ever seen!’

Once mum knew I’d taken over the part she bought herself tickets for every one of the productions four nights, and even managed, on the last night, to drag my father away from his Saturday night snooker game. On that night, funnily enough, I was more nervous about what he would think than anyone else, ….even Miss Slater.

As I emerged from the schools front door, at the end of that final performance, she was at my elbow walking beside me, and still on a high with the shows success. My parents were ahead of us, waiting at the school gates.

“Well Mister Lewis,” she exclaimed, “What do you think of our Artful Dodger here? Wasn’t he just absolutely wonderful?”

She suddenly gave me a fierce, almost possessive hug, and the feel of her arm around my shoulder, the sudden pressure of her body against my own both surprised and excited me. My dad though gave both of us what, at first was a startled look, then turned into a frown.

“Yeah,” he muttered, “It just goes to show what ‘e can do when ‘e puts ‘is mind to it. It’s just a pity the only thing ‘e ever put‘s ‘is mind to is this play actin’ nonsense.”

Miss Slater looked startled by his outburst and stared at him for a moment as if uncertain how to react. Finally, removing her arm from around my shoulder, she stated quite seriously,

“Actually Mister Lewis…. David has a real talent for this ‘play acting nonsense’ as you put it. Rather than rubbishing it you should encourage him to develop that talent.”

She turned and walked away without waiting for his response. If I didn’t have a crush on her before that, I certainly developed one then!

**************************************

She left at the end of that school year for a better position in a bigger school in nearby Granchester…. and also to get married. This last detail, when I learned of it, left me feeling miserable for almost a week, but. in their nature. adolescent crushes, though intense while they last, dissipate quickly once the object of the crush is removed.

Her replacement at the school, a much older woman in her 40’s, organised nothing outside school hours, and only seemed interested in our final examination results. In my case her interest from the outset was non existent. She didn’t even rate my written work all that highly and my grades dropped. Dad made it clear that because I no longer showed ability in any subject I would be removed from school, and put into ‘the real world’ as soon as regulations allowed. That was at the end of the following school year.

My first job, which he arranged for me at the furniture factory where he worked, only lasted a year. For one thing I resented the fact that he was forever claiming that I owed my employment to his good offices. The job, which involved me stacking endless parts of kitchen furniture, was monotonous, and I couldn’t relate to the interests, and coarse humour of the other men on the factory floor. Consequently I only ever did what I absolutely had to, and when a downturn in the business occurred I was let go.

“’e’ll never be any good at anythin’,” Dad complained the night I handed him my wage packet and my cards. “ A perfectly good job and ‘e’s thrown it away.”

My mum again tried to find me an excuse.

“He hasn’t thrown it away, they’ve just let him go because of the downturn,”

“ ’e’d ’ave bin kept on if ’e’d shown any initiative instead of just moonin’ about the place like someone on drugs!”

“He just needs to find something that engages his mind as well as his muscle,” she murmured.

My next job, working in a garden centre run by one of dads snooker friends should have done that. I’ve always liked flowers, admired the way they will struggle to grow and bloom no matter how unfavourable their situation, but it turned out I was allergic to something in the compost they were using. I got on quite well with the rest of the garden staff and struggled on as long as I could, but my hands, and any part of my face or arms that came into contact with the compost, blistered and peeled painfully. Clearly, either the compost, or I, had to go, and so, with expressions of genuine regret on both sides, I went. Dad, of course, still took my leaving yet another job he had arranged personally.

“ So now he’s physically handicapped, What in ‘ells name can ‘e do?”

For once mum had no answer, simply bent her head and applied the skin cream to my hands and face. I could feel my heart beating but suddenly I decided it was time I stood up for myself, rather than hide behind her skirt.

“This time,” I announced through cracked lips, “ I’ll find my own job thank you.”

He stared at me with a surprised expression on his face and, if I had only realised a hint of genuine admiration…. but still he growled,

“Well think on lad while you’re still under eighteen, and livin’ in this ‘ouse. it’d better be a proper job you get for yerself, an’ not some bloody nonsense that doesn’t even pay for yer keep !”

I remember thinking ‘Well, in another few months I’ll be eighteen, and then I wont have to live here unless I want to.’

I did find myself the next job and, this time, it was one I really liked, working in a bookshop on Ashleigh High Street.

It was one of those old fashioned book shops you see less and less of these days. It occupied a former terrace of Georgian houses now painted magnolia and brown. It had mullioned windows, and a front entrance up some steps from street level. Inside the shelving was all dark wood illuminated with recessed lighting; and the mysterious, inviting smell of unopened books permeated everything.

The owner Mister Hutchinson was, as far as I could tell, in his early sixties, with shoulder length grey hair, a line in tweed jackets and corduroy trousers that even I knew had long gone out of fashion, and. as I learned later, an obstinate refusal to computerise either his stock lists, or his cash register.

The wages were a little less than I had been earning in the two previous jobs, which made dad frown, but mum was much more positive.

“This could be right up David’s street!” she suggested thankfully.

Mr Hutchinson was unmarried and insisted from the outset that I call him Jerome.

“We don’t stand on ceremony here David,“ he informed me on the first morning, “ The only thing I insist on is that you have a love of the printed word, and that you treat not only the books on the shelves with respect, but also every person coming through that door.”

“Can I read them?” I asked gazing around the shelves stacked from floor to ceiling.

He smiled and nodded, “David…. I expect you to read them!”

The only other person working in the shop was his sister Hazel, also in her sixties, but not quite as old fashioned in her dress, manner, or attitude. In the first week she informed me ‘sotto voce’, but with some pride, that she had recently persuaded her brother to carry paperbacks in the shop.

“ I mean, “ she whispered as if disclosing a book selling secret only recently recognised by the trade, “ Not everyone can afford to buy hard back editions! I told Jerome, by not carrying paperbacks we are denying our clientele access to good literature. Mind you, Hutchinson’s will never lead people to read trashy fiction whether it’s hardback, or paperback.”

In the event what Hutchinson’s did do was lead me back to ‘play acting.’

I’d been working in the shop only a month, when Jerome displayed a playbill one of the windows. It was for a production by the local drama group being staged in Ashleigh Institute. I’d been to one of their plays with Miss Slater’s school trips, but hadn’t been to any since. Once or twice I had thought of joining the group but, with the situation at home, and my continuing painful shyness, I had never taken the ambition any further.

Seeing me watching him sellotape the poster the shops glass, Jerome asked me if I was interested in plays and the theatre? I nodded my head, but then, on an impulse, I went on to explain that I didn’t get much chance to see them any longer. He stared at me in genuine disbelief.

“Why ever not?” he asked.

“My dad thinks that sort of thing is a waste of time and money,” I replied.

What prompted me to such honesty I’ve no idea but, after a few moments of stunned silence, he looked across at his sister who was standing at the cash desk listening and said,

“Well sister, we certainly can’t allow that attitude to continue can we?”

She shook her head, and smiled knowingly.

“I mean,” Jerome continued crossing to the cash desk himself, “ We’ve noticed that you’ve read almost every book on the Theatre shelves, so we knew you must be interested…”

Reaching up onto a shelf behind the counter he lifted down one of the tickets the shop was holding for sale, and held it out to me. I shook my head.

“Dad would accuse me of wasting money,” I muttered.

“How old are you David?” His tone was almost challenging.

“Seventeen… well, almost eighteen.”

“ Well it isn’t my place to come between father and son, but don’t you think you are old enough to decide for yourself what is a waste of money?”

He was right of course but I still hesitated. Finally, he shook his head with exasperation.

“For heavens sake if it’s going to cause family discord tell your father that I consider it part of your training that you attend theatre productions,…. and I will not be charging you for the ticket.”

For some reason he then looked to his sister.

“Am I correct in this Hazel?”

She nodded her head, but addressed her explanation directly to me.

“Jerome was one of the founding members of the Ashleigh Players. He still serves on their general committee, and occasionally produces one of their plays…”

“Less of the ‘occasionally’ please sister. Next season will be our thirtieth and I’ve been asked to produce the first play of the season next autumn. I haven’t decided which play yet but …” His eyes twinkled mischievously. “I have an idea which might surprise a few people and, who knows, …..David might even consider joining us himself? All as part of his training for the job here of course. We could do with some young blood joining us, What do you think Hazel?”

She again nodded her head. “ I’m membership secretary,” she explained.

So it was that a few weeks later, I entered the foyer of the Ashleigh Institute, climbed the stairs to the first floor, and purchased a programme from a young woman selling them outside the theatre entrance.

It did occur to me that the last time I had waited on this landing it had been in a group organised by Miss Slater, and for that reason alone I should have recognised her but, until she spoke my name, I didn’t.

************************************************

“ It’s David Lewis isn’t it?”

She was no longer wearing spectacles, and her dark hair was cut shorter and curled into the nape of her neck, page boy style. She was also wearing make up, which I never recalled her using and, in a dark off the shoulder evening dress, she looked even more beautiful than I remembered.

“ Miss Slater…” I mumbled, embarrassment bringing a blush to my cheeks. Then I corrected myself. “ I mean Misses…. I’m sorry I …. I don’t know your name now…”

“Preston… as in the town,” she laughed and stepped closer.“I’m Misses Preston now.” The hand wearing the wedding ring rested onto my arm,

“But David…your so grown up! … Really, I think you can call me Rita now!”

For a moment I was unable to call her anything. Suddenly I was a love sick adolescent again. Past feelings for her rushed in on me. Part of me, prompted by my habitual shyness, wanted to mumble something incoherent and then walk away; but her hand, on my arm, restrained me.

“ Have you got a numbered ticket?” she was asking. “ A ticket with a seat number on it?”

I shook my head. “ I’m a guest of Jerome Harrison,” I explained.

Her eyes widened.

“ Really? Oh my David, he‘s almost like a god around here.”

She began to lead me towards the theatre entrance.

“I’m afraid if your ticket is unnumbered it still means you’re in the unreserved seats towards the back. I am sorry.”

“ That’s okay.” We were inside the theatre now and my voice was starting to return to normal, although my heart was still thumping. I never remembered her looking this beautiful, but I certainly recalled her being this warm and friendly.

When I spoke the words seemed to tumble out of my mouth in a frantic rush.

“ He gave me the ticket from the stock he was carrying in the shop. I’m working there… with him I mean … now. ..In the bookshop…. He has this bookshop… his bookshop, here in Ashleigh… He owns it and I … I work there…”

I was desperate to keep her beside me, but she was studying my face, as if unsure what she should do next. I realised I hadn’t paid her for the programme I was holding in my hand, and began fumbling in my overcoat pocket for some change. Anything to keep her there beside me. Suddenly it was her words that seemed to come in a rush.

“ Well at least if you’re sitting in the unreserved seats here at the back that means I can come and sit with you… during the performance I mean. …Do you mind?… It’s just that Jim, that’s my husband, is the stage manager so I’m at a bit of a loose end once the performance starts…”

Somehow I managed to sound nonchalant and cool in my response.

“I’d like that very much,” I stated, and held out some money which she took.

“ I’ll keep a seat for you” I added gallantly, and she smiled the same wonderful smile I remembered from when I presented her with a piece of written work at school.

“ Thank you David, That would be wonderful. I’ll be back as soon as the curtain goes up.”

For the briefest of seconds I felt her squeeze arm, and then she was gone leaving me almost trembling with excitement, and looking for a row near the back with two vacant seats in it.

I didn’t think the play, a comedy, was up to very much. Not that, during the first act, while I waited for her to come and join me, I was able to concentrate on it very much. It certainly didn’t strike me as being very funny. Or, I wondered, was that because the cast seemed so wooden?

Inexperienced as I was I sensed that what was missing was the light touch and timing that comedy requires. Perhaps Jerome was right when he had suggested that Ashleigh Players needed an injection of new blood; and if Rita, ( how easily I slipped into thinking of her by her Christian name!), was a member, perhaps I would take him up on the implied offer?

She finally slipped onto the seat beside me at the start of the second act.

“ I’m sorry, “ she whispered, “ But I had to help Jim with a couple of things backstage during that first act.” She suddenly giggled almost girlishly, and gave my arm another squeeze. “ Did you miss me?”

I managed to shake my head, and whispered back “ No…not at all.”

She pouted playfully and suggested that a little gallantry would not go amiss. Then, more seriously she enquired if I was enjoying the play so far?

“ It’s not too bad.”

“David, that’s faint praise if ever I heard it, ….. but you’re probably right.”

Her whisper dropped so low that I had to bend my head towards her to listen and that meant I breathed in the perfume she was wearing. I was starting to blush and hoped she wouldn’t notice.

“ I’ve been talking to Jerome backstage and he tells me you might be joining us for next season?”

I told her I probably would. I wanted to add, ‘ Now I know you‘re a member,’ but instead I asked her how long she had been with the group?

“Since I married Jim. He’s been their only stage manager for years, well ten years anyway. He’s a good bit older than me. I joined them really to be a help for him. Not that I‘m much use at the hammering and nailing stuff, but I do help out with the make up and costumes when they need it.”

I wanted my blush’s to recede, but felt them growing even hotter. She was leaning so close, and I couldn’t help noticing how her dress set off her cleavage.

“Have you acted with them?” I managed to ask.

“No. Well the past few years I’ve been really busy settling into the post in Granchester. It hasn’t left me much time for anything else. Now though, …. Well, I might think about it. Especially as its such an important year for the Society, and Jerome’s agreed to take charge of the autumn production. I really would like to have a part in anything he produced. He’s just sooo brilliant, you just know that anything he does is going to be good. and who knows …”

She stopped and gazed at me intently for a moment. My burning cheeks no longer mattered. Without her spectacles her gaze seemed to envelope me, draw me into a kind of shared communion, shared between the two of us alone.

“… you might even read for a part as well? Jerome was saying he hoped you would.”

The invitation seemed obvious, and my heart leaped, but I managed to sound off hand, even nonchalant.

“ I might,” I said.

“I hope you do. I still remember the way you took on the Artful Dodger and made it so much your own. I was telling Jerome about it just now, how good you were I mean. .. He seemed very impressed.”

I wondered if she expect me to thank her? For a moment the idea irritated me. Would people never stop trying to organise my life for me?

The auditorium lights dimmed and I looked away determined to try and concentrate on the rest of the play, but it was hopeless. At least my cheeks started to cool but I couldn’t stop thinking about her sitting so close beside me. Once or twice I seemed to feel her thigh touch mine as she leaned forward, or changed her position on her seat. I wondered if the contact was deliberate on her part? I certainly hoped so. I continued to breathe in the perfume she was wearing, and ended up wishing this whole evening would last forever. I also knew that whatever else I did over the next few months, I definitely wanted to be included in any cast she was a part of.

What I didn’t know that evening, didn’t even dare to imagine over the summer months until Jerome held his auditions in the autumn, was that I would be cast opposite her!

******************************************

The play was entitled ‘ Last Summer in Rome.’ Essentially the plot was not that original. A middle aged English woman, recently widowed, rents a villa apartment outside Rome to holiday with her teenage son who has just finished public school. Coincidentally an old boyfriend of the woman has also rented an apartment in the villa, and when they meet, their romance is rekindled. Meanwhile the son, Simon, meets Sophia an Italian servant girl at the villa and, with her, starts a torrid affair which, put simply, completes those parts of his ‘education’ not covered at public school!

It had been written, but never given a stage performance, by an old friend of Jerome’s, Francis Wellman. who lived in London. Jerome had been promising for years to premier the piece with the Ashleigh Players, but his difficulty was finding somebody to play the young son. Until he encouraged me to join the group they had no teenage male players, so my reading for the part at the casting was something of a formality.

There were a couple of the female members prepared to read for the Sophia part but when Jerome gave Rita the part he justified his choice by saying that he felt she would more easily portray a girl close to Simons age. Then with the twinkle in his eye that I now knew was essentially mischievous, he added

“I also think Rita might be more comfortable playing the love scenes. I intend them to be rather more realistic than we have been accustomed to heretofore.”

“Have you read the whole play?” Rita asked me after the casting was finished. She looked a little flushed which, at first, I put down to her excitement at landing such an important part at her first reading; but then I wondered if it was because of his reference to the scenes we were to play together.

“Jerome gave it me to read in the shop.. He said it wouldn’t matter me reading it beforehand because there was nobody else could realistically read for the Simon part.”

“Oh I have to say, you read it really well David! You seemed to slip into the character even as you were reading it. Honestly… you were making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck you were so good…I just hope I can play my part as well, but….”

She stopped, and eyed me quizzically. “We do have some really big scenes together…. love scenes I mean. Are you alright with that? I mean with me having been your teacher and all that?….”

I nodded my head.

“Of course. It’s just part of the play isn’t it? It’s the parts we will be playing, And anyway… I’m not at school any more am I?”

To be honest I already suspected that, for me at least, it was going to be more than ‘just a part I was playing’. Thinking about the love scenes we were going to play together was already starting to excite me, but Rita continued to stare at me and bite her lip nervously. Then she looked away and remarked quietly, as if to herself,

“ No, you aren’t are you?”

Ashleigh Players met for castings, readings, and rehearsals not at the Institute, but in a room they hired in the Kings Arms Hotel beside the Market Square. We were standing outside the hotel’s front door.

“Jim’s away working on a contract job in Scotland on a contract job at the moment,’ Rita explained as she waitined for a lift home in another female members car. I was waiting… well I’m not sure what I was waiting for… other then wanting to wait with her!

During the casting we had not been sitting together. I had been near the front, while she had been sitting at the back with the friend she was now waiting for, but I had noticed her and let on. She was wearing a black woollen jumper, black trousers, and a white raincoat which she was now clutching around her against the cold and the rain.

“Can we wait inside David?” she asked her teeth chattering with the cold. “Angela parked in the multi storey, and it will take her a few minutes to bring the car around.”

She stepped back inside the hotel foyer and I followed her. Other members of the group were milling around us but she seemed more anxious to seek further reassurance for wh been troubling her outside.

“ Most of our scenes are together.” she stated. “ In fact almost all my scenes with you are with you alone.”

“I know,” I replied trying not to sound too pleased by the prospect.

“And you’re sure you are okay with that? I mean, they are quite strong scenes …. certainly towards the end.” Her voice dropped to a whisper; but a whisper, I could swear, that trembled with excitement.

I nodded my head and tried to look as if the prospect of playing torrid love scenes with her was no great deal. I must have pulled it off because she suddenly relaxed, gave a relieved little chuckle, and murmured,

“ Well it should be fun! I just hope I can manage the Italian accent. I’ll get some tapes out of the library and then practise it on Jim… make it sound really seductive.”

I’d already had a tendency to forget that she was married, but I found this sudden repeat of her husbands name, and the image of her sharing our love scenes with him irritating. I wanted to walk away at that point, but her friends car pulled up outside the hotels front door, and the horn blew.

“Can we give you a lift home?” she asked.

Of course I wanted to share a lift home with her but the image of arriving at my front gate with her, and possibly being met by my dad prompted me to shake my head. She frowned and stared at me.

“But David, it’s raining quite heavily. You’ll get soaked trying to catch a bus.”

I shrugged my shoulders, and pulled a woollen deer hunter with flaps onto my head.

“ I’ll not bother with the bus,” I stated. “ I feel like the walk and I don’t live that far away. In any case, a bit of rain never hurt anyone did it”

I nursed the memory, and possible implication of her disappointed expression all the way home!

******************************************

We rehearsed in the Kings Arms every Tuesday and Thursday evenings from eight until ten o’clock. The hotel sent some refreshments up to the room halfway through each evening; but Jerome was a bit of a stickler for us rehearsing without any interruptions.

“ We need to maintain our dramatic rhythm,” he asserted rather pompously, “ Constantly breaking off for tea and biscuits does nothing to help in that regard.”

I was surprised at how different his manner changed at rehearsal. In the shop I was accustomed to him being relaxed to the point of being laid back, but once he put on his producers hat he became almost dictatorial.

He quickly ‘shushed’ into silence anyone who started chatting by shaking his script in the air, and going very red in the face. The word ‘ Svengali’ was murmured more than once. At the second, or third rehearsal, ( I can’t remember which,) Rita whispered into my ear,

“I would never have imagined he could be like this. Normally he comes across as such a soft old pussy cat…” She had her arm resting across the back of the chair I was sitting on.

“ You should see him in the shop,” I whispered back, “ When lads come in, and ask him what ‘top shelf’ magazines we carry!”

Her expression was one of genuine astonishment.“ And do you carry any?”

“Of course not. They just do it to take a rise out of him.”

We had thought, sitting to one side of the room, that we would not be heard, but he turned around glared at us.

“ Please… please, …. I realise you younger ones may be new to the rituals of rehearsal, but do have some respect for the efforts of your fellow players, and remain silent until your cue!”

Rita just smiled, but after a few moments I felt her fingers begin to stroke and fondle the hairs at the back of my neck. I looked at her but there was nothing in her expression to indicate that she even knew what she was doing.

After that particular rehearsal some of the cast went down into the hotel lounge for a drink before setting off for home. As if she realised I wouldn’t have enough money to stand a full round of my own, Rita drew me to one side, and pushed a note into my hand.

“I think we need to talk, just the two of us,” she murmured urgently, “ Get me a gin and tonic, and whatever you want for yourself, and I’ll wait at a table out in the foyer.”

When I returned to the foyer with our drinks she was sitting in one of the irritation and tension he had earlier displayed dissipated .

“David, my dear boy, I was just telling Rita here how pleased and satisfied I am with your efforts this evening, and if I may say so your commitment. So early in rehearsals and you already have committed your lines to memory. That is most admirable David, I am very impressed. If only the rest of the cast were as committed!”

Rita glanced up at him as if she thought he was criticising her for still carrying her script, and I hurriedly, perhaps too hurriedly rushed to her defence by remarking that I always found it easy to recall things I had read.

He nodded. “ An admirable attribute David, and especially so in an actor.”

Rita took her drink from my hand, and said, “ I’ve just been suggesting to Jerome that since almost all our scenes are with each other perhaps we should rehearse them separately. If we came a little before the rehearsal begins, say at seven oclock that would give us an hour to work on our scenes before the others arrive.”

She half smiled up at me, and then added, I’m sure for Jerome’s benefit,

“ It would also enable me to learn my lines that more quickly!”

I was thrilled at the prospect of us being alone together for a full hour but explained that it didn’t give me much time after I finished work to go home, and have something to eat. Jerome held up his hand.

“Rubbish David. Of course you can leave the shop early on rehearsal nights, say at five oclock. That will give you ample time. I think that is an excellent idea. Your scenes with Rita are absolutely essential to the plays success. That’s why I cast you both in those parts. I shall clear it with the hotel staff immediately…. though it is only a formality. The room is booked to the Society from six every Tuesday and Thursday anyway.”

With that he left us both, and I sat down at the table with Rita.

“ You wanted to talk to me about something,” I said taking a sip from my glass of beer.

She nodded, and leaned closer. “That was it…. I think we need to work really closely together on the scenes we have together. Make them really work. Don’t you agree?”

I didn‘t dare to speak. It was the tone of her voice as much as the expression in her eyes and the way she was leaning towardsme which set my heart racing. I felt exactly as I had felt that night at the school gates when she had told my dad he should encourage rather than rubbish my acting talent. Then she had prompted in me an almighty crush… now, I suddenly realised,…. it was love!

**********************************

Tuesday and Thursday evenings became the highlights of my week, especially that first hour when Rita and I rehearsed alone. The rest of the week was like a dream from which I wanted to wake up. Even Jerome and Helen noticed it in the shop.

“His mind simply isn’t on his work,” Helen said when she thought I wasn‘t listening, “It’s as though he’s somewhere else entirely.”

“He’s living for his part” Jerome explained equally sotto voce, “You really should see the level of intensity and involvement he has brought to the play, it‘s most encouraging. Even if I say so myself, it confirms my perspicacity in casting him into the role in the first place. There were some on the committee who questioned my judgement because he has so little previous experience, but take it from me …our David there is going to surprise everyone!”

My dad, on the other hand was more direct. “ This play actin’ nonsense ‘is turnin’ ‘im into a pure dope!”

By then though I didn’t care any more what he thought.

Nothing really mattered anymore except those two evenings in every week when I lived out the fantasy that Rita and I really were lovers. Either alone for the first hour, or when we rehearsed in front of the rest of the cast; when we kissed I felt as if it was for real. Then, one night, it became as real as anything I had ever experienced before.

It was in that first hour when we were alone, We were in each others arms and, as I went to step away from her and continue with the scene, she suddenly drew me back, and kissed me even more passionately than the script required.

At first I was surprised, then stunned and exhilarated; but then I responded with equal passion, equal ferocity. It was a moment I had dreamed of sharing with her almost every moment since the casting, but never dared hope would actually happen.

“ David… I’m sorry, “ she gasped when we finally did separate. “ I shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong…. I don’t know what came over me!”

She turned away from me shaking her head as if in disbelief, but I was sure what had come over me and, taking hold of her arm, I drew her back towards me.

“ I know…and I don’t mind… really I don’t. Rita…Sophia I mean…. it‘s the play… don‘t let it worry you,”

For a moment she gazed up into my face, her eyes searching mine for some sort of meaning, some excuse that would remove her feelings of guilt; but then her eyes closed, and she allowed me to kiss her again. This time we kissed gently as if to convince ourselves that our only motivation was the good of the play.

That night as I walked home through the streets I was filled with a wild exhilaration. Now, I felt, we shared a secret, a relationship which, though it must remain secret, could find its legitimate expression in each of the scenes we rehearsed. then played together.

One Thursday night a week or so before rehearsals ended and the plays run started she told me she had been shopping for the different costumes she was going to wear onstage.

“I’ve got three changes to make,“ she explained and then, with a coy smile, added, “ For our last scene, when we come in from the beach, I’ve decided to be a little daring. Have you got your things together yet?”

I nodded. I knew there was no point expecting any sort of financial sub from home to buy the clothes I would need, so I had been scouring jumble sales, and charity shops. I reasoned that as a student just out of university my character would not have that many cloth’s anyway.

“I’ve got everything except the beach ware.” I explained. “At this time of year there isn’t much of that about!”

As usual I had walked her to the car park after the rehearsal, and we were standing beside her car. She lived in the opposite direction to me so after I had turned down the lift home on the casting night, she hadn’t repeated the offer. Now she opened her door and turned towards me as if having a sudden afterthought,

“Jim has some beach ware that might fit you, you’re about the same size as each other. I could bring it for you to try on if you like.”

I still hadn’t met her husband, and feeling the way I did about her I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to. What we shared was within the play, and between us two. I didn’t want him invading that space; not even his cloths. But then, I didn’t feel either able, or confident enough. to turn down her offer, so I nodded my head.

She sat for a moment in the driving seat staring ahead of her, and then looked up at me.

“It would be nice if you could see me in my costumes before the dress rehearsal. I’d really like to know what you think… whether I’ve gone too far with them. If you were free on Sunday afternoon, and could come out to the house, I could let you see me wearing them, and you could try Jims things on as well……. Mind you you‘re probably doing something else on Sunday …”

“No,” I exclaimed my excitement rising, “ I’m not doing anything. That would be fine, but where do you live?”

“Oh I’ll come and pick you up,” she said. “ Here, at two oclock?”

“Fine… yeah…. two oclock will be fine! That will be great.”

She was smiling as she drove away.

****************************************

Perhaps I should have had more sense; especially when she collected me in the car and told me that Jim was away again in Scotland for the weekend!

“ After we’ve tried on our costumes we can rehearse for the afternoon, and I’ll cook us something to eat,” she explained.

Alone in the house we rehearsed in the conservatory with the warm afternoon sun pouring in on us. The heat only added to the illusion that this was the reality, and our respective roles seemed to take us both over entirely. I found myself calling her Sophia, and thinking of her as the Italian servant girl bent on seducing me; no longer my former teacher now cast opposite me in work of theatrical fiction. With a coquettish, almost wicked smile she responded by calling me Simon and allowing our kisses to become both longer and more passionate than those roles demanded. It was wrong of course but I for one was beyond making such moral distinctions

She hadn’t been exaggerating either when she had said her costume for the scene following our characters skinny dip in the ocean was ‘daring.’ It was stunning, and when I changed into her husbands beach wear we almost lost control.

Almost…. but not quite!

“David… we’ll have to stop, before this goes too far…. I don’t know that I can go any further… not yet. Please try to understand….”

She turned away and walked towards the kitchen.

“I’ll get us something to eat.. We both need time to think…..”

In the event the break gave us more than time to think!

As she placed the food onto the table in front of me, and even as I wondered whether to take the chance of being totally rejected and admit out loud that it wasn’t food I really wanted, the extension telephone rang.

“Jim,” she exclaimed into the receiver, almost with relief and, rising from the table, gestured me to carry on eating while she moved into the living room to take the call. Pushing the food I didn’t want around the plate I could only catch snatches of what she was saying.

“Yes… I’m here with David… we’ve been rehearsing some of our scenes…. No, of course not…not like that at all…”

She laughed at whatever he said, and closed the intervening door between us. After that I could hardly pick up anything she said. It was almost as if she had dropped her voice so that I wouldn’t hear, was excluding me from what was none of my business anyway.

Suddenly, I felt like the outsider I really was, and when she came back into the kitchen I pushed the half emptied plate away from me and stood up to leave. The surprised expression on her face both pleased me, and make me ache.

“ I think the costumes are fine,” I stated. “ Will you thank your husband for loaning me the beach outfit. I’ll get it cleaned before I return it to him.”

“Yeees… if that’s what you want… but you don’t have to rush off now do you? I mean…I thought we could rehearse a little more.”

I managed to meet her gaze with my own. I thought I would like to see tears, but all I saw in her eyes was confusion, and perhaps a little anger.

“Yes… I think it’s best if I do. I mean they do say you can over rehearse don‘t they?”

It was lame and pathetic and she turned away. “ Well perhaps, but at least let me give you a lift home.”

I shook my head,

“ I’ll change back into my own clothes in the sitting room if I may, but then I can easily catch a bus home. It‘s a warm evening and I could do with the walk”

I’d used this excuse before of course, so I added, “ I need to clear my head.”

I desperately wanted to hear her protest, claim she hadn’t meant to confuse me like this, even pick an argument with me, and tell me I was being silly, but all I got when I looked at her was a shrug of her shoulders, and a soft murmur,

“Well if you must go, I suppose you must.”

“Thank you for the meal, “ I said as I left.

**********************************

I had no idea what Rita’s attitude might be at the next rehearsal on the Tuesday night, but on the Monday evening she came into the shop just before we closed. I was in the stockroom at the rear when Helen called me and, as I came towards the till I found Rita there with a smile on her face. My heart rose and I thought,

‘ Well at least she isn’t mad at me for walking out yesterday.”

“ David,” she said smiling even more warmly, “ I wont be able to get to the rehearsal tomorrow night until after eight o’clock so I thought I would just let you know. and not have you waiting around needlessly for the first hour or so.”

She went on to explain that Jim had got back from Scotland that afternoon and intended coming to the rehearsal on the Tuesday to discuss the stage settings with Jerome. She looked at Helen as if the explanation she had just given was as much for her benefit as for mine.

“ Well Jerome will certainly be there tomorrow night.” Helen stated. “ In fact he has been getting a bit anxious about when Jim would get to a rehearsal, and discuss the set with him.”

Now Rita concentrated her full attention on Helen.

“Yes I know he has, but it’s this contract Jim’s working on up in Scotland, its proving much bigger, and more complicated, than we originally anticipated. Honestly the poor man hardly knows whether he’s coming or going with it, and to be honest it hasn’t been easy for either of us. I mean we hardly seem to get any quality time together any longer.”

Helen nodded her head sympathetically. “ Yes I can imagine it must be very hard on you both, him being up there, and you down here. I’ll be sure to let Jerome know that James will be at the rehearsal tomorrow night.” Then she added with a grin, “ And you be sure to let that husband of yours know that he’s not to take any of my brothers ‘ I’m the producer and I want it done this way’ nonsense either!”

Rita laughed. “ I’ll tell him that.”

Then, as if recollecting that I was still standing there, she turned back to me. “So, David, I’ll see you tomorrow night then… but not at seven.”

When she left the shop Helen stared at me.

“I thought rehearsals started at eight oclock? Why did she say seven?”

Despite my best efforts I felt the blush creep up into my cheeks.

“We’ve been rehearsing before the others arrive.” I stated, then added quickly “ Jerome arranged it.”

She didn’t respond for a moment, as if thinking it through, and then murmured

“ Did he really? Sometimes I wonder whether my brother has even half the sense he was born with!”

*************************

To my surprise I found I actually liked Rita’s husband. He was a good deal older than her, in his late thirties, rather quiet and wearing the same sort of horn rimmed spectacles I remembered her wearing when I knew her at school. They arrived together a little after eight o’clock and, when Rita introduced us, he shook my hand with a firm friendly grip.

“Rita keeps telling me how much she is enjoying playing opposite you David.”

I glanced at her wondering just what she had told him, but she had turned away and was looking towards where Jerome was making a bee line across the room towards his errant stage manager.

“ Jim,“ he exclaimed. “ At last you’re here. I’d almost begun to believe we would be designing the set at the dress rehearsal!”

They both moved off together taking Rita with them but afterwards he came and sat next to me.

“This is her first really big part,” he explained indicating Rita who was now watching us both with what seemed to me a wary look in her eyes. “ She’s always been interested in theatre, and plays and so forth… well of course you know that yourself from when you were at school, but she’s never had the chance before to do anything for herself so this play is very important for her. She says that you are making it really easy for her to get into the role.”

He was looking directly at me as he made the last remark but I couldn’t see anything untoward in the look. Nonetheless I felt I needed to make some response of my own.

“ She’s making it very easy for me to get into my role as well.”

Then I realised I couldn‘t leave it like thateither, and added rather lamely,

“ She made it easy for me when we did Oliver at the school.”

He nodded. “ I’d only just started going out with her at that point, and I didn’t actually see the production. I remember she was quite annoyed with me for not getting to even one performance, but I was so busy starting up the business I just didn’t have the time.”

He made it sound as if he didn’t have the inclination either but then added, with a grin,

“ She told me the lad playing the Artful Dodger was a real star in the making.”

I was so relieved that he obviously didn’t suspect what his wife might have been doing with that self same lad that I even managed a jocular “ Well I wonder who that could have been!”

It was odd really the way I felt no sense of guilt being around him over the next few days while we were building the set onto the stage in Ashleigh Institute. I even shared tea and sandwiches with himself and Rita without any feeling of embarrassment. Once or twice I did catch Rita giving me speculative glances but I didn’t respond. I behaved as if I was just another member of the group doing what I enjoyed doing most, … putting on a play, a dramatic make believe.

It was during the remaining rehearsals, and especially during the four performances of the plays run, from the Wednesday to the Saturday night, that I became convinced that Rita and my relationship had undergone a fundamental change. Particularly during our love scenes together I had the feeling that ‘David’ was somebody I inhabited in another life. That here. on the stage, I really was Simon; but I was Simon in love with Rita who, for her part, was pretending to be ‘Sophia’ in order to respond without giving anyone, including her husband, any cause to suspect what might be going on.

Jerome had made it clear from the beginning that he wanted our scenes together to have what he termed ‘impact.’ Now, in those last rehearsals and the following performances, there was an almost electric energy between us which had not been there before; and it was significant that Jerome stopped giving us any direction at all. He just watched us with an almost mesmerised expression on his face and occasionally muttered

“ Excellent…. wonderful..,” and on the last rehearsal after our final scene together, “ They really are, both of them, everything I could have wished for!”

His sister, who was at that dress rehearsal, and sitting beside him, merely frowned, and bit her lip.

For that last scene we had a bucket of water offstage which we both used to wet our hair and clothes before making our entrance onto the stage. The implication in the plays plot was that our two characters had finally spent the night together on the beach. At the final performance on the Saturday night we were both filled with a sense of exhilaration; but an exhilaration, at least on my part, tinged with regret that the existence in which I had so recently found total happiness was about to end. Rita, for her part, was so excited that she made sure I was absolutely soaked from head to foot.

“Oh I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and then started a suppressed giggle that threatened to choke her.

We were standing out of everyone’s sight in semi darkness behind the rear scenery flats waiting for our cue. I was trying to wipe the water from my eyes with one hand, and felt her lean closer to me and take hold of my other hand. At first I wasn’t sure what to do so continued wiping my eyes, and staring down at the puddles spreading around my feet on the wooden floor. I hardly dared to breath, even less to hope, but impulsively squeezed her hand. Suddenly her voice, close to my ear, whispered my name, and I turned to look down at her.

“It’s almost over,” she murmured, and in the dim light her voice seemed to throb with regret.

It was then that I kissed her not as Simon kissing his Italian girl friend, but as David kissing Rita the first great love of his young life. She didn’t hold back at all. In fact she responded with equal passion pressing herself against me in the confined space, and pushing her tongue almost hungrily up into my mouth. All the emotions, all the yearning of the past few months welled up within me. I released her hand and, turning fully round, took her into my arms. We both became so excited that we almost missed our cue, and made our entrance late.

Laughing together we both stumbled onto the stage; she in her revealing beach ware, and I in my soaking wet shorts. It did occur to me that everyone in the audience must have been able to see my state of arousal, but by then I simply didn’t care.

“Simon,” she exclaimed slipping easily into the Italian accent she had learned so well,and looking around the empty set. “ We are alone you and I…”

I went through the final scene between us almost in a daze, feeling both elated by what her kisses could be implying but, realising that what she had said about it being ‘ almost over,’ could also be true. I wondered what would remain once the final curtain fell?

What remained was the double shock from which I have still not recovered!

***********************************************

It was usual at the end of a plays final performance for the producer to join the cast onstage and say a few words of thanks to all those who had made the production possible.

Jerome had been preparing his few ‘impromptu’ remarks for weeks in the shop but then, having made the obligatory references to the backstage staff, as well as those working front of house, he rather ostentatiously pocketed the notes he had prepared, and launched himself into a genuine off the cuff speech.

“ I had intended to curtail my words at this point,” he announced smiling in the direction of his cast lined up beside him, “ But I cannot let this moment pass without making a few additional remarks.”

We all waited with bated breath as he stepped further forward into the footlights, and addressed himself directly towards the audience.

“Firstly we are especially honoured this evening to have in the audience the author of this evenings play. I am pleased to acknowledge him not only as a very fine playwright but also an old and very dear friend of mine, Mister Francis Wellman.”

With a wave of his arm he indicated an man in his sixties with grey hair, rimless spectacles, and a tweed suite as dated as his own who was sitting in the front row. This person rose to his feet and, turning, bowed his head in response to the resulting round of applause from both the audience and the cast. Then Jerome stepped backwards, and faced us again.

“ It would not normally be appropriate for any producer to single out, as I am about to do, any members of his cast for especial mention, but I cannot fail to commend the performance of young David Lewis who has played the role of Simon with a maturity beyond his years, and an intensity which I for one have found quite astonishing. Particularly, I think, when one realises that, apart from a role some years ago in a school play, he has never acted in public before. Truly his performance in this play has been quite outstanding.”

He then led another round of applause.

Some other members of the cast looked startled by this but Rita, who was standing beside me, first of all applauded then slipped her arm under mine and gave it an enthusiastic hug, a gesture which prompted some members of the audience to whistle and cheer. With my parents sitting somewhere out in the darkness it seemed to me that life could not get better than this…. but Jerome wasn’t finished.

“I need also to mention Rita Preston who, as well as being the wife of Jim our stage manager, has been such a wonderful Sophia in the play. Sadly in her case, as well as being her first part for us, Sophia is to be her last. She and Jim will shortly be moving permanently to Scotland where Jim’s successful business is now mainly located. We are all sad to be losing two such valuable members of our society, but we do wish them both every happiness and success in the future.”

The applause this time was even louder and Rita was smiling and nodding. Then she seemed to notice the shocked expression on my face, and whispered almost apologetically,

“I think all the staff, and my form at school must be here tonight…”

Her arm dropped from below mine, her face reddened with embarrassment, and she glanced at Jerome as if pleading with him to just shut up.

No chance!

Jerome had the audiences full attention, and he just couldn’t help playing to the gallery. He was grinning like somebody about to reveal a state secret,

“…. Especially we wish them well because as those of you in the audience who are their friends probably know already… they are also expecting their very first child!”

There was a moment of stunned silence which could only mean that most people, like me, knew no such thing. Then both cast and audience erupted into enthusiastic applause, cheering and whistling. Rita seemed to wilt away from me with embarrassment, she certainly took a step away while I, for my part, felt sick with the shock. I felt a yawning hole open in the pit of my stomach and all I wanted to do was walk off the stage and hide away in the dressing room. What had been excitement and triumph one moment had become horror and despair the next, and all of it focused onto the woman now standing beside me, but apart from me!

*******************************************

“ David, let me introduce my friend Francis Wellman. Francis this is the young actor I have been telling you about.”

The three of us were in the corridor outside the dressing room from which I had just escaped feeling both wretched and betrayed. Rita, despite her apparent embarrassment onstage, still seemed unaware of the full effect her news was having on me; the torture it was putting me through. She had managed, among all the back slapping and congratulations, to get me to one side and whisper,

“David, I’ve really enjoyed playing with you.”

It seemed so insensitive that I had been stung into replying,

“Playing’ being the operative word!”

I had grabbed my coat and without even bothering to remove my make up practically ran from the dressing room, slamming the door behind me. Petulant I know, even childish, but perhaps that was what I was in her eyes… a silly adolescent to be played along with in order to ensure a good foil for her own performance. I certainly didn’t want her following me out to where my parents would be waiting so that she could tell them once again what a wonderful actor she thought I was.

‘ Stuff the acting,’ I even thought. ‘ It hurts too much.’

But in the corridor I ran into Jerome and his friend, Francis Wellman, and it was Jerome who was describing my acting as brilliant.

Francis reached for my hand with an admiring expression in his eyes.

“ And you haven’t been lying Jerome. I have been truly impressed with your acting young man. You have realised the character of Simon exactly as I imagined him.”

“As a fool?” I muttered distractedly, taking his hand.

Confusion creased his features, momentarily wiping away his smile.

“No, no David… not at all.”

I took a breath. “ I’m sorry…. I’m just a little…. Oh I don’t know… let down I suppose.”

Jerome, still on a personal high, patted me on the shoulder.

“ Only natural dear boy, “ he exclaimed. “The true thespian. Downcast by the final curtains fall, still not satisfied by his performance.”

Of course I had no idea what he was babbling about. I simply wanted him to get out of my way, take his friend with him, and let me escape from the building which, it now seemed, reeked of my pain and hurt. But Francis was still holding onto my hand determined to have his say.

“You have a genuine talent David. I know how much Jerome values you in the shop, but if you ever decide to stop wasting that talent out here in the sticks.. If you ever decide to move to London I would consider it an honour if you gave me a call. Jerome has my address, and my telephone number.”

My feelings though were so intense, yet muddled, that I barely registered what he was saying, I managed to mutter a ‘thank you’ before I got away from them both, but I carried Jerome’s parting remark with me into the following day.

“Didn’t I tell you how special he was….Who knows?… He may even take you up on the offer!”

**************************************************

Both my father and mother were surprisingly quiet on the drive home. That suited me fine. I didn’t really need them to tell me how good an actor I had been, but at the breakfast table the following morning Dad finally decided to have his say.

“Well,” he muttered across the table, “ No teacher I had at school ever treated me that way!”

“I’m not at school,” I exclaimed angrily, and he glared at me.

“ Don’t come the smart bugger with me lad. I know yer not at school any more. I’m not talkin’ about then… I’m talkin’ about last night… and you makin’ an exhibition of yerself!”

I looked towards mum hoping for the support she had always given me, but none was forthcoming this time. Instead she rose from the table and started frantically clearing the breakfast things away. Her eyes betrayed her worry and fear, but it was dad who did the talking, his voice rising accusingly.

“ D’ye think yer mother and I are blind an’ bloody stupid, or what? That wasn’t play actin’ last night at all was it? What ‘ave you and that so called teacher bin getting‘ up to?”

“Ted.. Please..” mum muttered, “ Just leave it will you.”

“ No I’ll not leave it. I wanna know what the bloody ‘ell’s bin goin’ on.”

“Nothing” I snapped angrily. “ Nothings been going on as you put it. Nothing is going on.”

“ Don’t give me that. Summat must ‘ave bin goin’ on. Everybody in the place could see it as soon as ye both walked onto the stage. The woman’s pregnant fer godssake…”

He muttered something else under his breath but I didn’t hear it properly because mum was exclaiming

“ Don’t Ted. Please don’t say that.”

I went suddenly cold inside. I had the feeling that everything was sliding away from me, that I needed to take a grip on events before I lost all control of my own future. I barely recognised the determined voice I heard as being my own.

“What did you say?”

Now he wasn’t glaring at me any more. His head dropped, and he stared at the empty tablecloth in front of him.

“ I said ‘ow do we know who’se kid she’s expectin’?”

“Oooh Ted..,” mum groaned, and he threw up his hands in a hopeless gesture as if appealing for her help, and support, in understanding me..

“Well ‘ow do we know wot ‘es bin doin’? ‘Ow ‘ave we ever known what’s goin’ on with the lad?”

It was the first time I had ever heard him speak to her in this way and it was that, as much as anything else, that prompted me to speak to him as calmly as I did.

“I’ve just told you that nothing has been going on. I wish it had, but it hasn’t. Believe me, or don’t believe me, as you like. The fact is I no longer care what you know, or don’t know about me, because at the end of it all…. It’s my life, not yours!”

His head came up, almost snapped up, and his face went crimson with fury.

“Don’t yer dare talk to me like that …. Not if yer want to carry on livin’ in this ‘ouse.”

“ Fine,” I announced, standing up and walking out of the room. “ I’ll leave!”

**************************************************

So now it’s over, and here I am, nearly a week later, on the train to London. Beyond the carraige window the rain is slanting across the glass, grey, cold and depressing. Inside me though the sense of movement is almost exhilarating, almost like a liberation. I’m wondering if I felt like this eighteen years ago when they cut the umbilical chord?

Mum cried a lot before I left, but I feel deep down she thinks it’s for the best. Dad behaved as if I no longer exist. At least now he’s spared the feeling of disappointment he always had whenever he looked at me.

Jerome was surprisingly understanding when I told him on Monday that I wanted to take Francis up on his offer. It was as if he had half expected it. He waived me having to work the full weeks notice and, after telephoning his friend to let him know I was coming, pressed an envelope full of money into my hand along with my national insurance card.

“ There’s a little something extra in there to help you over the first few weeks, until you get yourself set up with a job and so forth.”

As I was leaving the shop he took hold of my hand and said,

“ You need have no fears David. Francis is a man who lives up to his word…. and if things don’t work out for you in London there will always be a job for you here…isn’t that right sister?”

Helen, from her usual position beside the till, treated us both to one of her enigmatic smiles.

“We need have no fear that he will need to return…. brother.”

Despite the uncertain future that lies ahead, I am surprised at how few fears I have myself. In fact I feel really alive for the first time. So alive in fact that I could almost cry, and as the train speeds towards London and my future, it seems to me that the old adage is probably true,

‘When you abandon the comfort of pretence, ‘Life’ becomes so real it can make you cry!

END OF PART ONE.

TWO PLAYERS. PART TWO,

RITA.

I came across your story ‘Play Acting’ on the short story site, and have this uncanny feeling that I know you. The names in the story are different, but the incidents are exactly as I remember them happening. My surname, before I was married, was ‘Slater’ as in the story; but after I married, it changed to Prestwick, rather than ‘Preston’, and I remember your surname as being Lester rather then ‘Lewis.’ but the town, the hotel we rehearsed in, the theatre we used, even the school I taught at when I first knew you…. all those are accurate.

I could be wrong of course in thinking you are the David Lester I knew years ago, in which case forgive me for contacting you this way; but I really cannot imagine it is all pure coincidence!!

I enjoyed reading the piece even though you seem to have thought quite badly of me at the end, but whatever you thought of me at the time, I did really care for you, and have often wondered what became of you.

If I am right, and it is you David, I would love you to respond to this e-mail.

Rita.

****************************************

I sent the above e-mail on an impulse after reading David’s story on the internet. I said to myself, ‘I’ve had enough of second thoughts in my life! Second thoughts have led to me missing out on too much already. This time I’m going to follow my instinct, and see where it gets me.’

In this case I felt sure my instinct was right. When you teach English as I’ve done, assessing pupils writing on a daily basis, you come to recognise what might be termed a ‘distinctive voice,’ at least with some pupils…. and David was certainly one of those. It’s not just the words they use but the way they use them to convey their ideas, and as I read this particular story I could almost hear him talking even after all these years.

I did wonder what his attitude might be to me contacting him, but then I thought ‘Dammit, if you don’t want any response why invite readers to send one?’ and hit the ‘send’ button.

For a couple of days nothing happened, and I began to assume that either I was wrong and it wasn’t the David I knew, or, more likely, he’d decided to have nothing to do with me. On reflection, if it were the latter, I couldn’t really blame him. I really hadn’t meant to hurt him, far from it, but I had to admit I’d behaved badly. As a teacher I should have realised that encouraging an adolescent crush was wrong.

Then his reply dropped into my mail box.

************************************

Rita. I’m amazed! I don’t know what responses I expected to the piece, but I certainly never expected anything like this!

Where are you?

How are you keeping?

How’s Jim?

How many children have you?

So many questions. But then after …what is it?… nineteen years, there would be wouldn’t there?

I live in London now, and I have my own business. Surprise, surprise… selling books!! The theatre, plays and acting are still a big part of my life though. In fact I’ve just finished playing Jedd in ‘Oklahoma’ with my local society…. Great fun and, naturally, I got rave revues!!! (That’s a joke. I think playing immature and dysfunctional characters, even in musicals, is probably my forte!.)

I’ve helped set up a local writers group and even written a couple of plays myself that were put on locally, and did quite well.

Are you still involved with plays and such like yourself? In fact are you still in Scotland and teaching?

I was upset when you and Jim moved there. Not so much that you were going, more the way I found out…. and the announcement that you were expecting a baby probably didn’t help!! But, truly, I have never thought anything but good of you Rita. If what I wrote caused you to think otherwise… that I was blaming you for anything…am blaming you still, then I am truly sorry. Please forgive me and, if you don’t think the request too presumptuous, please respond. and let me know all your news…. David.

************************************

I sat staring at it for a moment, torn between a rush of eagerness to tell him all in the hope of ….., well I don’t know what I could, or should, hope for; and a sudden reticence in case, by revealing too much, I might frighten him off. Frighten him off from what though? Years ago his infatuation had been so sweet and unexpected, even exciting… but now what was it to me? I’d enjoyed playing along with it then but what could I expect from resurrecting this romantic echo now?

When Jim and I moved to Scotland I barely gave David a second thought. But since the divorce I’d found myself remembering him more often, and sometimes with a vague feeling of regret at an opportunity, perhaps even happiness, lost.

“ But then again,” I wondered out loud, “ Need it be lost at all?”

I have a photograph of Jackie beside the monitor. Jackie’s my daughter. More than that she’s my conscience, my ‘better part’, always trying to correct what she see‘s as her mothers faults. It was taken a few months ago before she went to university in Oxford, and it’s my favourite photo of her because it seems to capture her in correction mode ‘Oooh mum!…. really!! … you can’t be serious….’

“ Well yes. …actually I am.” I told her photograph out loud. “ I mean I’m in my middle forties, I’m single, …..and what on earth do I have to lose?”

Nonetheless I still waited a full week before replying…. and I turned her photograph to the wall when I did so!

***************************************

David, thank you so much for replying to my email. I felt sure it was you had written the story, and no I don’t believe you still blame me for the hurt I must have caused you, although I realise that you had every right to feel badly towards me at the time. It’s really me should ask forgiveness from you rather than you from me!

Though my feelings for you were genuine, it was my responsibility, as the older party, to exercise restraint and not indulge my own feelings without proper respect for yours… and ,in that respect, I have to acknowledge I let you down, and I am sorry.

I’m delighted to hear that you are doing so well, and especially that you are still ‘treading the boards.’ I’m sure your performance as Jedd in Oklahoma was just as memorable as your Artful Dodger was in Oliver. Living in London must provide you with so many opportunities in that line, and you sound really happy with your life.

You ask me for my news. and you’re quite right. After nineteen years there is an awful lot of it…and not all of it that good really.

I’m still living and teaching in Scotland, though Jim and I are no longer together. No ones to blame… it just didn’t work out for us, and we were finally divorced three years ago. We have one daughter Jacqueline who is really the reason we stayed married as long as we did.

I still see him sometimes, and I understand from Jackie that he’s about to marry again. Somebody he met through the business apparently. At least he’ll have more in common with her than he ever had with me!

Sorry if that sounds like sour grapes, I don’t mean it to. The truth is we never had that much in common. Our interests were always very different. He was wrapped up in the business all the time, and I lived my life in a completely different world. If we hadn’t had Jackie, we’d probably have broken up much sooner than we did. Funnily enough it was she who made us face up things.

When your adolescent daughter says something like, “ If I’m the only thing keeping you two together, forget it. I love both of you too much to want either of you this unhappy,”. it makes you think.

Anyway that’s it…. moan over!

I wasn‘t teaching for a while after we moved to Edinburgh but when Jackie was old enough for a creche, I got an English post in one of the bigger comprehensives. I really loved that place, both the school and Edinburgh. The staff were so enthusiastic and go ahead, and the head himself was really brilliant to work with, but after Jim and I separated I just felt that what I needed was a complete change of scene.

Jackie opted to stay with her father in Edinburgh so that her own schooling would not be too disturbed, and I sold the house and moved to near Falkirk. It’s a much smaller school I‘m in now, and the salary isn’t as good as it was in Edinburgh. To be honest I’m feeling a bit stifled in the job. I’ve been here more years than I care to recall and I don’t know whether I’ll stay that much longer. The house I’ve lived in since I came is only rented so moving will be easy. Jackie’s in Oxford now reading for an English degree and I’ve been thinking of moving nearer to her.

Did I ever tell you I grew up in Slough? In fact most of my family still lives around there and when I visit Jackie I always stay with my mother rather than trying to find accommodation in Oxford. It’s only an hour or so’s drive on the motorway. If I could find a teaching post down there I’d move tomorrow!

Is Slough anywhere near where you live? London is such a big place, but if I knew where in London you were I might even look you up sometime.

I haven’t done much in the way of acting or producing plays since I moved here, in fact I haven’t done anything of either; but when I was in Edinburgh I did both… I even did another production of ‘Oliver’ one year, though trying to get a Scottish Artful Dodger to sound like a Cockney wasn’t that easy.

Do you remember singing ‘Consider yerrself at ‘ome!!’ for the audition in Ashleigh Comp? Happy times eh?

David there is one thing that is bothering me. In your story you seem to imply that I was the cause of you leaving home, and landing on Francis Wellman‘s doorstep. Is this true? I would hate to think anything I had done caused a permanent rift between you and your parents.

David, I know this email is rather long but I was so grateful to get your reply, and I would like to stay in touch…. That’s if you want to of course!

Rita.

***************************************

Again I’d no sooner sent the e-mail than I began to wonder if I had gone too far, said too much, even hinted more than he would feel comfortable with; but his reply came back in a couple of days.

‘….. Of course I want to stay in touch. The shop’s in Richmond, the ’on the Thames’, Richmond, and I live just outside the town. Both situations are really beautiful and , yes, I am very happy with my life. I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you and Jim. I’ve never married myself so can only imagine the pain a divorce can cause, no matter what the faults are. or with who they lie..

Don’t feel responsible for me leaving home the way I did. What happened between us may have provided the catalyst, but it was always going to happen sooner or later anyway. Funnily enough once I struck out on my own relations with my parents improved no end, especially with my dad. They’re both still hale and hearty and I go back to Ashleigh quite often. Dad is coming up to his retirement shortly, and I’ve even been to football matches with him. He’s a big Aston Villa supporter.

You’d laugh to see us both on the terraces at Villa Park yelling and shouting with the best of them. We even dress the part; him in a thick overcoat and flat cap with his Brummy accent, and me in a Villa scarf and anorak sounding like a Sloane Ranger!

Yes I did land on Francis’s doorstep when I came to London. He has always been an enormous friend and help to me. He knows so many people and has got me into places and situations I would never have accessed for myself. He’s still alive thank God, but getting very old and frail now. It hurts me to see him so dependant on others for everything!

Did you know that Jerome Hutchinson had a heart attack and died last year? It was Helen who wrote to Francis and let him know. We didn’t attend the funeral. Well if Francis had been able for it, and really wanted to, I would have accompanied him, but he wasn’t and I don’t really do funerals. I know that sounds selfish but I prefer to remember people as they were alive, and I hadn’t seen either Jerome or Helen for ages. They’d sold the shop years ago and moved to Eastbourne to be near his son.

Yes Rita,… that’s right… his son!

I don’t think anybody around Ashleigh ever knew he had one. I’m not sure even he knew for a long time. Apparently he’d had a relationship years ago and Peter,… I think that’s the sons name, …was the result.

Anyway the story is that this Peter fellow just turned up on Jerome’s doorstep one day and announced ‘I’m your son and heir,’ and before anyone could say ‘boo,’ Jerome had sold the shop and moved to Eastbourne with Helen. That was all ten years ago but who would have thought it eh? Old Jerome with an unacknowledged love child!!

I’m thinking one day I might base a play on it… what do you think?

No, you never told me anything about where you grew up, but Slough isn’t too far from where I am in Richmond, and if you are ever down here it would be lovely to see you and catch up with old times over a coffee perhaps, or even a meal. Even if I say so myself, I’ve become a very good cook, and as I indicated in the story you read…I still owe you one home cooked meal!

Now who’se the one writing long e-mails?….’

Then he added both his home address and, just in case I called when he would be at what he called ‘ the day job,’ the name and location of his shop.

I hadn’t been in Richmond since my childhood but I felt sure I knew where the shop was. Dad used to take the whole family to Richmond to watch the boats during the annual regatta. However I wasn’t sure I wanted to face the pain going back there might cause me.

****************************************

Mum always claims I married Jim because I needed to replace my dad, and she’s probably right. It’s always been older, stronger men who seem to attract me. Is David the exception that proves the rule? I don’t know, but the similarities in our life experience are uncanny. Perhaps it’s those echoes that are prompting me to try and recapture with David what we had.

I was only eleven when my dad died.

He went into hospital for what everyone kept telling me was a routine procedure. I remember him walking out of the house, a huge man laughing and telling me to be ‘a good little princess’ until he got home.

What came home was a grey. cold thing in a coffin that wasn’t my dad at all, and for a long time, until I met Jim in my early twenties, I don’t think I ever really forgave him for leaving me like that. Suddenly… without a word of explanation. Or even a goodbye.

I really loved him, and I know he thought the world of me. I’ve three older brothers, and he loved them too, but I was his little princess, all dark curls and brown eyes, and his face used to light up every time he saw me.

My earliest memories are all of him lifting me up onto his shoulder and carrying me everywhere with him. Mum tells me he even took me into work with him one day when I could barely walk he was so proud of me. I don’t remember him doing it, but I certainly believe it was the sort of joyous, spontaneous thing he would have done.

And then he was gone…. and I had no idea why.

“People die,” mum told me, but I just thought,

‘Not my dad… not when he knows how much I need him!’

For the next couple of years mum had an awful time raising me. Not because I was ever deliberately rebellious or difficult, but because she was trying to be fair and even handed with all four of us, and I didn’t understand why I was getting only a quarter of the attention, and love, I’d had before.

When I think back now I realise I didn’t help her at all. Not the way, as her only daughter, I ought to have helped. I didn’t appreciate that if I was missing a much loved dad, she’d lost the one great love of her life, and must be feeling a hundred times worse. My three brothers were much more help to her than I was. Being lads, and that bit older, ( well a good few years older actually. Stephen the nearest to me in age was almost sixteen at the time,) they just seemed to take dad’s dying in their stride and get on with life. Me? I’d be really hyper one minute, charging around like a manic tomboy; and the next minute I’d be sitting around the house all weepy, clinging, and demanding attention.

Poor mum. She really didn’t know what to do with me. The fact that I started into puberty early didn’t help either. Eventually, when I started secondary level, she insisted on the school sending me for counselling, but that only made things worse.

“I’m not mad, and I’m not stupid,” I shouted at her, “So stop trying to make everyone think I am!”

Unlike David who, according to the story he wrote, didn’t enjoy secondary level, I really loved it.

Mum, and dad until he died, encouraged all of us to read, and I suppose they were unusual as parents at the time in that, by preference, they would take us to the theatre rather than the cinema, but it was when I got to secondary school that my interest in both really took off. And it was Jack Robinson, ’Jacko’ we nicknamed him, who was the spur.

Once I came under his influence my mood swings stopped abruptly. I became the model student even if I still wasn’t prepared to be the model daughter.

He was my English teacher from my third year right up to Sixth Form when he was also my Year Tutor. He was in his early fifties, though he never looked more than forty, quite good looking, but with a really strong personality. He was able to control even the rowdiest classes just by walking into the room. He never seemed to imagine he would ever receive anything from us but total respect, …..and so he never did.

Heaven’s but I developed such a crush on that man!

I mean I often thought myself in love with different men, but it only ever lasted until either they got fed up with me mooning around them and cut me dead, or they did something that upset me, and I ended up hating them. But not Jack Robinson.

I’m sure he realised how I felt about him especially once I got into the Sixth Form, but he never seemed to mind, and never rebuffed me. Even now I blush recalling some of the fantasies I entertained about him!

He only had to mention an author he thought worth reading, or a poet who’s verses he admired, and I was off scouring libraries and bookshops for anything they had written… and if he ever suggested a school trip to see some play put on locally, my name was always at the head of his list.

The phrase ‘Jacko’s pet’ was sometimes used in my hearing, but I never minded, In fact I took it as a confirmation that I was as special to him as he was to me.

The day I told him I’d got into teacher training at the University of my choice he squeezed my arm and murmured,

“ Rita, I never imagined you wouldn’t.”

On an impulse I added, “I owe it all to you,” and then, because we were alone in the classroom, I was able to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

I still remember the look he gave me and the obvious sadness in his voice, “ I’ll miss having you around the place Rita, … I really will”

The extraordinary thing is the facts that never seemed to affect our relationship; that he was happily married, had two children, and, when I began my teacher training, he already had a grandson!

*************************************

I met Jim during my final teaching practice, or rather I was pushed into his company by his younger sister Geraldine who was teaching in the school I was assigned to.

Normally the relationship between student teachers and qualified members of staff is kept at a pretty formal level, but Geraldine had only qualified herself from the same University I was attending the year before, and so we hit it off from the word go.

Despite the divorce, we are still good friends. She got married after Jim and I did, but then she emigrated to Canada and still lives there. We exchange greetings cards at Christmas and birthdays, and Jackie went to visit her in Toronto last summer. In fact she was more upset over Jim and I getting divorced than we were.

“ After all,” she told Jackie, “ It was me who brought them together in the first place.”

During the teaching practice Geraldine didn’t have a car of her own and one evening Jim drove over in his own car to collect her from the school gates. Geraldine introduced him to me as her older brother.

“ My much older brother,” she emphasised, and then added rather pointedly, “Rita needs a lift back to her digs, and it isn’t very far out of our way home.”

We were standing in the car park. Jim looked across his car bonnet at me and then, somewhat reluctantly I thought, offered to take me home as well. Hardly the most romantic introduction to the man I eventually married, and I remember we barely exchanged two words during the drive. In fact I thought he was the most ignorant, ill mannered boor I had ever met! But during the following mornings break Geraldine cornered me in the staff room, and went on about the way Jim had kept on questioning her about me after I left the car.

“ I think he really likes you,” she confided in a whisper.

“ But he barely spoke to me, or even looked at me. I thought he was annoyed at having to give me a lift at all!”

“ No, no, don’t let that put you off. He’s always like that with any girl the first time he meets her. We reckon that’s why he never gets to date anyone, We’ve almost given up hope of him ever getting to know any girl well enough to marry her, and it’s a pity really. He’s really nice when you get to know him, and he’s just started up in his own business. He has his own flat, and did you see the car he’s driving around in? He’ll make a real catch for some girl…”

I was about to observe that the girl wouldn’t be me, but Geraldine was rattling on enthusiastically.

“ He just kept on asking questions about you. He even asked if you were engaged, or going steady with anyone….”

She stopped and gave me a horrified stare.

“Oh god, you aren’t are you? Going with anyone I mean? I told him if he felt that interested in you he should just cut to the chase and go for it!”

“ No I’m not, “ I muttered. “ But I’m not sure I relish you telling him to ‘go for it’ as though I’m a prize in a raffle. Sorry Geraldine, I know he’s your brother, and he is very good looking, but he’s also a lot older than me.”

She waved her hand airily. “ Oh pooh pooh to that. You’ll love him when you get to know him!!”

And I did…. or at least I thought I did.

The following summer I qualified and applied for the job at Ashleigh Comprehensive because that was near to where Jim had his flat, and the business.

****************************************

It was half term when I was visiting Slough and staying with my mother that I decided to take the next step and visit Richmond; but first of all I spent a couple of days with Jackie in Oxford. She was settling in well and already had a circle of friends she had made.

“Lads? “ I asked, and she smiled.

“ Lots of them but none I’m likely to get really serious about. Stop trying to marry me off mum, it’s far too early.“

It was a lovely warm Saturday afternoon and we were sitting at an outside table on Broad Street having an afternoon coffee. and watching the weekend shoppers hurry by.

“I’m not trying to marry you off…. For heavens sake I know only too well where that sort of interference can lead. I’m just interested in how well you are settling away from home for the first time; away from everything you’ve been used to.”

“ I’m loving every minute of it, honestly I am. Oxford feels a lot like Edinburgh.”

She’d emphasised her accent on the ‘burgh,’ and grinned.

“ When I speak really Scottish like that the poor sassenachs start fantasising about Flora McDonald, and offer to buy me supper!”

I pointed towards the dome at the end of Broad Street.

“ Isn’t that the Sheldonian Theatre?” I asked.

She nodded.

“ I can get us a couple of tickets for tonight if you want, “ she offered. “ It’s a new experimental play about the way our past actions can affect our present, and have an influence, sometimes for the better, but sometimes for the worse, on our futures!”

She must have seen the look of surprise on my face.

“Are you alright mum? You look as if I just walked over your grave or something!”

“ No… no… it’s just that. .. Oh well you might as well know. I’ve been in touch with someone I used to know years ago, just by e mail so far but… well I’m going to meet him again.”

Her eyebrows raised perceptibly. “ A man you mean?”

I nodded. “ People described as ‘he’ usually are men.”

“ And you knew him before you knew dad?”

I could have lied of course, but I didn’t. There was no point. I think she has second sight where I’m concerned. She always seems able to look straight into my soul.

“ No. Your dad and I were already married, but it was in the first few years… and before you were born.”

It seemed important for me to emphasise the last point but we then sat there for a long time in a silence that seemed to weigh heavily between us. Jackie finally decided what her own response would be.

“ When will you see him?” she asked.

“ Before I go back to Scotland.”

“ Mum , it’s your own life now, just promise me you’ll be careful… and if it ever happens that I need to know something you’ll be the one to tell me.”

I nodded.

“ Promise,” she persisted. “ I need you to promise me. I don’t want any more of the nonsense I had with Louise and dad.”

“ I promise,” I muttered.

I knew what the problem was for her. I’d asked her earlier whether she had heard from Jim since she came back from staying with her aunt in Canada? She’d looked away from me knowing what I was really asking.

“He and Louise intend to marry early in the new year. Dad didn’t tell me himself. I learned because I telephoned Louise and asked her outright what their plans were. Honestly. I felt like a concerned parent in a Victorian melodrama chasing after one of my daughters suitors, and demanding to know what their intentions were? Whether they were honourable?”

She had sounded bitter, and I have to admit to the pleasure her pain afforded me!

**************************************

I went to Richmond the following Tuesday. Mum assumed I was driving up to Oxford again and I didn’t correct her in this. To be honest I thought I might well get halfway to Richmond and then bottle out, turn around. and do exactly that. Motor in the opposite direction, and perhaps meet up with Jackie again. But the nearer I got to Richmond the more excited I began to feel.

‘I haven’t felt like this in months’ I thought.

As I entered the town centre and began to look for somewhere to park I felt like a school girl again, someone sneaking back into school in the hope of seeing ‘Jacko’ Robinson and perhaps having a talk with him alone.

“ Act your age Rita’ I thought but knew I was enjoying myself too much to do anything of the sort.

I’d decided that rather than meeting David in the privacy of his home address, the relative anonymity of his shop was probably the better option for both of us. Driving in on the Kew road I was aware that this was how my father had always brought us, but my increasing sense of excited anticipation removed any of the pain I had been expecting to feel. The shop was in the centre, in a paved courtyard surrounded by other small specialty shops, all painted a uniform white, with mullioned windows and ‘olde worlde’ signage attached to their facias.

When I stepped inside the door I was hit by the overwhelming smell of books and old leather, and the inviting untidiness of the place. Floor to ceiling shelving ran off into the interior from a blue carpeted entrance area, and various posters and notices seemed to fill every available bit of wall space.

I instantly recalled Jerome Hutchinson’s book shop in Ashleigh on the one occasion I had visited it to tell David…. Oh, what was it I had gone to tell him?… I’d forgotten…but it was after that Sunday afternoon when we almost…. Well it was all there in the story he had written, the story that had prompted me to make this wild impulsive trip to…to what?… What was I expecting?

“ Can I help you?” he asked looking up from the computer beside his till.

****************************************

My first thought was, ‘ My god David, you’ve really not aged that well!”

He blinked at me from behind horn rimmed glasses, had a slightly flushed complexion, and his hair, already thinning, was going grey at the temples. He was wearing a fawn coloured jacket with old style leather patches at the elbows, a V neck brown sweater, and an open neck check shirt that looked frayed at the collar. For all the world he resembled an eternal college student gone early to seed.

At first his gaze was one of expectant curiosity because he simply thought of me as a prospective customer, but when I removed the sunglasses I was wearing it changed to one of dawning recognition. I broke the silence by laughing, and holding out my hand.

“Have I changed that much David?” I asked.

For a moment his expression seemed frozen, and then he exclaimed,

“Rita, is it really you?”

“ In the flesh,” I answered more loudly than I intended. I was feeling suddenly nervous and acutely aware of myself; of how I looked. He took my outstretched hand into his.

“ Rita, “ he murmured admiringly, “ You look absolutely fabulous. You haven’t changed at all… in fact if anything you look even better than I remember you looking.”

“ Thank you David, “ I murmured, “ You always knew how to flatter a woman!”

I knew I was blushing and didn’t want to. I looked at the young girl standing beside him. She was about the same age as Jackie with long dark hair. Quite pretty if a little innocent looking, and she was looking at each of us in turn and smiling as if uncertain how to react herself. I thought she must be a student supplementing her grant with some part time work.

“We’re friends, “ I explained, “ Very old friends really, but we haven’t seen each other in years.”

“Nineteen in fact,” David added.

“Before my time then” the girl stated, and I couldn’t help feeling she made the age point deliberately.

He began to laugh nervously and, I thought, was about to say something about it being too many years; but instead he put down the sheets of paper he was holding onto the counter and knocked over the Starbucks coffee cup. A pool of dark brown liquid spread everywhere, staining a pile of notices, and making him jump back involuntarily.

“ Damn,” he exclaimed as some of the coffee spilled over the counters edge, and stained the grey slacks he was wearing.

“ Perhaps,” I murmured, “ I’d better go out and come back later when you’re less busy.”

“ Oh no Rita… no, no not at all. I’m not busy at all. … Well we are actually but… oh hell what am I saying, or doing? You must think I’m a complete fool.. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you so soon… I mean really… I… why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”

His tone seemed to imply that I was responsible for him upsetting the coffee. I felt myself bridling.

“ I thought it might be a nice surprise for you, but obviously I was wrong. I’ll be in touch…”

I turned to leave, and had reached the door by the time he found his voice again.

“ Wait, …Rita please wait. I’m sorry… It’s just that you caught me by surprise, and I’m not that good at surprises. Please don’t go off like that.”

I paused holding the door handle, and he went on,

“ Let me just clear up all this mess and I’ll be right with you. Really…. I mean it.”

“I’ll look around for a moment then, “ I said and moved towards the nearest set of book shelves. The young assistants face was wreathed in what looked suspiciously like a knowing smirk, and I was almost on the point of saying something when David turned on her himself.

“ Kay,” he snapped, “Just get this lot cleaned up, and bring me a towel.”

The girls expression changed to one of shock, (obviously David was not in the habit of criticising his staff,) and she lifted a kitchen roll from beneath the counter. She began frantically mopping up the brown liquid, then tried to wipe the front of his trousers.

“No, “ I heard him whisper angrily, “ Not me, the counter… before all these invoices are ruined!”

Finally he came and stood beside me with an apologetic expression on his face. I suddenly remembered the young lad who nineteen years ago had kissed me so suddenly and so passionately when we were rehearsing together.

“ Shall we start again?” he asked with a lopsided grin.

“That would be nice.”

I turned towards him hoping my expression, as I looked into his eyes, might reveal what I was feeling. Having him stand this close to me was resurrecting feelings I had not experienced in a long time. I didn’t want the feelings to stop.

“It really is lovely to see you again Rita, “ he was murmuring, “ I meant what I said. You haven’t changed at all, still as beautiful as ever.”

“ David, I’m a good few years older than I was then…” I whispered back and he whispered back,

“So am I, but in my case I’m starting to show it.”

“You look…” I wanted to say something complimentary but finally settled for an uninspired, “ … more distinguished than I expected.”

“ You refer of course to the grey hairs and the glasses? The first are the result of worrying about how the recession is going to affect the book trade, while the second comes from spending too much time reading the books.”

“ You mean you’ve read all these.” I indicated the shelves with a wave of my hand. I remembered him telling me how much he loved reading, but this struck me as both amazing… and a little sad!

“ Good heavens no… but I do read all the publishers blurb and between you and me, that’s usually enough to put me off reading most of them. It does mean I can give the customers the impression I’ve read whatever I’m recommending though! In most cases I haven’t even read one page. Now, let me get a change of trousers from the back room, and then I’ll take you out for lunch.”

His smile widened and he added, “ I owe you that at least!”

******************************

We sat at a table overlooking the river. He ordered a smoked salmon baguette while I ordered a fish salad with cheese and croutons. He suggested a white Chablis and I nodded in agreement. I couldn’t help reflecting that the last time I had seen him he had been a young, eager, but rather gouche youth; now what was sitting across the table from me was a mature middle aged man at ease in a restaurant ordering wine and food.

It was now even warmer than it had been earlier in the morning and I needed to wear my sun glasses in order to see his face properly. Slightly fatter. but still good looking I thought.

“ Is the recession hitting your business hard then?” I asked. He looked up and shook his head.

“ No not really. The business has a long standing relationship supplying schools in the local area, and we provide not just their set books but quite a lot of their educational materials besides. Since taking it over I’ve tried to develop that by providing art and stationery material as well. When Francis owned the business it was simply books that we supplied.”

“ Francis?,” I asked. “ You mean Francis Wellman?”

He nodded again. “ He started the business many years ago. When I moved here he took me on in the shop, and I’ve worked here ever since. Then, when he retired some years ago, I bought it from him…. Well I was able to buy it with a bank loan he acted as guarantor for. That’s how I could afford it.”

“ But I thought… I mean people said you left home to take up a stage career.”

He laughed, offered me more wine which I shook my head at, ( I did have to drive home to Slough,) and pushed his plate away with the baguette only half eaten.

“ That was my idea but I’m afraid economic necessity intervened and I sensibly took up the offer of a job with Francis. Oh I did take time out occasionally to do theatre work, and even a bit of television work, but even that was down to Francis using his influence on my behalf. Finally I realised that acting was a none starter as a full time profession. I like my tummy filled at least once every twenty four hours, and Francis could guarantee me that.”

“ He’s been really good to you then?”

For a moment he hesitated eyeing me as if unsure how to answer, but then nodded, offered me the sweet menu, and murmured,

“ Yes Rita he has. I owe him a lot, ….. and not just financially either.”

I chose lemon meringue with glace cherries while he chose the trifle.

“ Does Francis live locally?” I asked, and was again surprised by the wary look he gave me.

“ Yes…. In fact we live together. He owns the house, but it’s a very big one and nowadays he only uses the ground floor rooms so I’ve moved into the upstairs part.”

Without thinking I remarked that he had certainly landed on his feet there. Suddenly he frowned at me, and responded quickly, in something approaching the severe tone he had used earlier when speaking to his assistant.

“ Francis is quite frail and I look after him. It’s an arrangement that suits us both.”

“ I’m sorry,” I murmured, “ I didn’t mean to imply you were being selfish or anything like that.”

There was a few moments of awkward silence and then he said, “ I’d like to take you out there to see it… the house I mean… and Francis of course, That’s if you have the time?”

“ I‘d like that David… I really would. I don‘t have to be back in Slough until this evening.”

“ We’ll finish our meal, have a coffee. then I’ll just let Kay know where I am. She’s well able to look after the shop for a couple of hours on her own. We can drive out to the house in my car. .”

It was while we were waiting for our sweet order to arrive that he raised the subject he must have been itching to raise ever since I walked into the shop.

“If you find it difficult to talk about the divorce I will understand, but I am told by friends that I’m a very good listener when the need arises… if you want to tell me anything.”

“ There isn’t anything really to tell,” I murmured thankful that I was wearing the sunglasses. “ Put simply, Jim and I just grew apart.”

But, as I went on to try and explain, like everything in my life, nothing ever is that simple!

*****************************************

I mean the simplest thing would have been to claim that Jim was entirely responsible for our marriage breaking up, but that wouldn’t have been fair.or honest would it? I mean I too have to take some of the responsibility. I didn’t have to play away from home did I? But then, if Jim had been a little more understanding, a little less insensitive and distant when I needed him most after Jackie was born, perhaps I wouldn’t have sought comfort elsewhere. But then again, …as Geraldine, his sister, asserted at the time,

“My brother doesn’t do understanding, least of all where women are concerned; and quite definitely not where post natal depression is involved! You have to understand. Jim’s a man who thinks weeping, crying, and losing the run of yourself because you’ve just had his child is something, feminine, irrational, and best left to cure itself; preferably without any male intervention.”

When we moved to Scotland he seemed to think it would help me cope with being pregnant if I didn’t immediately go looking for a job.

“ Just concentrate on getting the house sorted and getting ready for the baby,” he said.

Then he went off to work each day leaving me trying to sort out furnishings, curtains, and a whole lot of domestic stuff that I’ve never had that much interest in; at the same time trying to cope with having this new person growing inside me. I mean I became pregnant by accident. I never imagined myself as having a child. Silly I know, and I knew I ought to feel as happy about becoming a mother as everyone around me seemed to be….. but I didn’t.

Then, when Jackie was finally born and I held her in my arms for the first time, instead of feeling any rush of mother love, my emotions were all over the place. Poor little mite lay there all red, her face all screwed up, and everyone around me cooing and telling me how beautiful she was, and all I could think was,

‘ I really do resent the restrictions you are placing on me!’

Jim standing there accepting everyone’s congratulations as if he had done all the work didn‘t help much either!.

When she cried the nurses kept telling me to feed her, and I didn’t want to. I just wanted them to take the problem away from me.

“Does that confirm that I’m a bad mother?” I asked David out loud.

He hesitated for a moment, before asking,

“ How do you feel about her now?”

“ God, I love her to bits, I really do, but that all came later.”

“ Then that’s what matters. I’m not a woman so I don’t understand the emotional chaos some women go through giving birth, but I don’t believe you could ever be anything other than a perfect mother Rita!”

The affection in his eyes was so real I couldn’t help reaching across the table and resting my hand onto his arm.

“ Thank you David,” I murmured, “ I haven’t talked like this to anyone, least of all a man, in such a long time. I really appreciate you understanding.”

At that moment the waiter arrived with our sweet course, and for a few moments the intimacy was broken. But then I went on,

“ It was after Jackie was born that the real depression set in. God I was such a mess. Crying without reason, couldn’t settle to doing anything, forgetting things, and I looked an absolute sight. I think Jim thought I was going crazy, but he dealt with it in his usual fashion. He left me well alone. The house we were living in was on a new estate where everyone went off to work all day; everyone, that is, except me!”

“ I did manage to get Jim to come to a session with my GP, but she was a woman so that only made matters worse, confirmed in his mind that the whole thing was a put up job by neurotic females. When she suggested he might take some of the load off me at home do you know what his response was?”

David didn’t answer. He put down the spoon he was holding and rested his own hand over mine. I almost felt like crying with the relief of having somebody I could share the memories with, finally let it all out. The pain poured out of me like a flood held back for too long, and David… sweet, adorable David, now grown up, just sat there and listened…. And didn’t even bother to eat the rest of his trifle

***************************

“‘What load?’ Jim asked, ‘She’s at home all day with nothing to do except take care of the baby? I’m the one going out to work every day!’

When we came out of the surgery he glared at me and asked if I had ‘understood what all that was about?’

‘ Of course I understood it,’ I told him, ’ I’m bloody living it aren’t I?’”

“After that he basically did what he always did, ignored the problem. He did offer to make some of the meals at weekend if it didn’t interfere with his trips to the golf club with his male friends, but he made such a fuss about doing it I ended up shooing him out of the house, and feeling even more inadequate as both a wife and a mother.”

“I rang my mum once and blubbered down the phone to her for ages. Eventually she said all men were the same, and that the feelings would pass. She assured me I would make a wonderful mother, and I told her I didn’t want to be a wonderful mother. I wanted to be a wonderful wife.”

“ It did pass of course, and when Jackie was two years old, I placed her in a creche and started looking around for a teaching job. Jim was none too pleased of course. He made it very plain that he didn’t like the idea of me going out to work. I remember he said to me,

“‘We’re not short of money or anything like that. We’re not missing out on anything are we?’ I told him I was missing out on life. There are only so many times in a week, I told him, that a person can sensibly clean any house from top to bottom. I even got to the point of rationing my trips to the shops so that I would have some reason to get up each day. Jim had never had that much interest in anything I did as a teacher, but once I started back teaching near Edinburgh his interest was nil”

I stopped talking. and watched David closely for a moment. During the drive over from Slough I had wondered how much I could dare to tell him. But now I wanted to tell him everything. Hold nothing back. I realised that if we were to have any chance of rekindling our relationship onto a meaningful footing there could be no secrets. I took a deep breath, finished my sweet, and blurted out the next bit.

“ I suppose that’s why he never realised what was going on between Andrew and myself. By the time he did things had got so bad between us I don’t think he even cared. He certainly didn’t care enough to make any attempt to win me back.”

I waited. David’s gaze was fixed on my face, but I couldn’t tell from his eyes what he was thinking. Finally, he surprised me by asking,

“ Had he found somebody else?” I

I shook me head. “ No I don’t think he had… certainly not at that point. Later on he did. I mean, by then we had stopped fighting over anything. It was as if nothing was worth the effort of a fight. Does that sound sad? I don’t mean it to. It’s just that by the time my relationship with Andrew could have become an issue between us we neither of us had the energy to fight over it…. and then Jackie made her remark about us not staying married just for her sake, and we agreed to end it. The divorce was quite amicable. I see him occasionally, Jackie’s birthday and so forth, and we’re always very civil towards each other but…” I let my voice trail off into nothing and at that moment the coffee arrived.

It was almost as if the waiter was performing to a set of cue’s laid down in a script somewhere. I looked up at him and saw the smile on his lips.

‘ Gawd,’ I thought, ‘ Has he been able to hear me?’

We drank the coffee in silence, and then David went to pay the bill. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking and had almost decided to tell him I would drive straight back to Slough when he returned to the table, pocketing his mobile as he did so.

“I’ve just telephoned Kay, and told her I wont be back in the shop until later this afternoon,” he said, “ That I’m taking you out to meet Francis.”

We were in his car driving towards the outskirts of the town when he said,

“ I need you to tell me the truth about Andrew. Were you in love with him?”

“ For a while I believed I was. …. No that’s not quite the truth… Yes, I was in love with him. I even believed he was in love with me.”

“ Was he a teacher too?”

I nodded. “ At the same school. He was the Deputy Principal.”

“ Married?”

That made me laugh. “ Of course not. I’m not into stealing other women’s husbands. In any case he always maintained that he was married to the job, and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to steal him away from that. He was such a brilliant teacher.”

“ But you were in love with him?”

His repetition of the question made me realise how much he needed a fuller, and more honest answer, than I was giving him. I also realised that the half truths and pretences I had fed him nineteen years ago were no longer good enough…. not even for me. I took a deep breath.

“ I was absolutely crazy about him. If he had ever asked me to leave Jim and marry him, even just move in with him, I would have done it without a second thought. I would even have risked losing Jackie to be with him. That’s how I am once my hearts engaged… my own worst enemy. Silly, and selfish without any thought for who I might be hurting, not even if it is the person who has engaged my heart.”

I stopped and looked across at him in the driving seat. I wondered if he realised I wasn’t just talking about Andrew, or Jim for that matter; that I was also referring to a young lad I hurt deeply all those years ago?

The only sign of understanding he was displaying were the whitened knuckles gripping the steering wheel, but that was enough.

“ Anyway, he never asked me to do either and, after the divorce well…. he just lost interest in taking the relationship any further. I was hurt of course, and for quite a while absolutely miserable, but then I told myself that for all his good points, and he had many, commitment wasn’t one of them. In other words I blamed him not just for the relationship starting but also for ending it. I convinced myself that what had attracted him to me was the idea of stealing another mans wife. Once I was no longer the wife. he was no longer interested in me. …..”

“There you go again, “ David suddenly exclaimed with a frown, making my heart lurch even as he steered the car off the main road, and into a tree lined avenue.

“ There I go what?” I asked.

“Selling your own part short. Relationships that aren’t a two way affair, both for good and bad, aren’t full relationships at all. Even if you were silly and selfish looking to him for the affection you weren’t getting from Jim, wasn’t he being equally selfish taking advantage of your vulnerability? Don’t kid yourself either that the fact of you being a married woman was the only thing that attracted him. You were, and you still are, a very beautiful woman Rita; certainly beautiful enough to attract any man I know!”

Suddenly he was blushing the way he had that afternoon in my living room in Ashleigh when we almost…

“I attracted you once.” I murmured, and reached out for his hand.

“ And it wasn’t because you were married either,” he asserted; then, turning the car left into a gateway, he added, “We’re here.”

He sounded almost relieved!

***********************************

On reflection, I think it would have been better if David had warned me what I was about to meet inside the house. Yes, he had told me that Francis Wellman was very old and frail, but not that he was so completely detached from reality.

The house was a typical semi detached built in the Tudor style between the wars. It had a front garden, a side garden and as far as I could see a long rear garden. There was a detached brick garage at the side, and David parked the car on the driveway before it. He got out quickly, went around to open the passenger door, and helped me out.

As he took my arm he seemed to lean in close to me, and I hoped he might even be about to kiss me, but instead he led me towards the front door.

“Hello Francis,” he called out as we entered the dark hallway and walked through into the even darker sitting room. He sounded as if he was speaking to a very deaf and rather stupid infant. “ I’ve brought somebody to see you.”

Francis was sitting in an armchair beside an electric fire surrounded by cushions and blankets heaped over his lap. His face was thin and his skin stretched like old parchment over his head. A few untidy strands of long grey hair hung untidily over his ears, and looked, for all the world, as if the slightest movement of the rooms hot and suffocating atmosphere would blow them away.

He tuned his head to look in our direction, but his pale blue eyes revealed no immediate signs of recognition Fronds of spittle, like spiders webs, hung from the corners of his mouth, and I almost gagged with the odour of stale urine which filled the room. Not just urine either, something else, even more nauseating, hung heavy in the air.

David’s expression immediately changed to one of concern and anxiety, and he looked frantically about the room.

“Where’s Elaine?” he demanded.

Francis’s voice, when he spoke, sounded thin and hard.

“Gone.”

“ Gone where?”

“ Gone home… I sent her home.”

David walked quickly across the room to a door which obviously led into some sort of kitchen or scullery.

“ You might have sent her,” he was muttering, “ But she wont have gone.”

I had the feeling he was talking as much for my benefit as for Francis’s. He went out of the room and I heard him talking in a low urgent whisper to somebody. He seemed to be reprimanding whoever it was over something. For the most part his words were indistinct but I did catch, “ never to be left alone like that!”

For my part I remained standing just inside the sitting room door unable to decide what I should do. Finally I smiled at the old man in the armchair who was still looking in my direction, but still with an unseeing gaze which only added to my discomfort. I’ve never been comfortable around sick people, particularly when their sickness is mental, and evidence of human mortality. All I wanted to do was get out of the room, and get out fast.

“ Chocolate,” Francis’s voice suddenly cracked across the space between us. “ You promised me chocolate!”

I shook my head thinking, ‘David please come back…. I’m frightened.”

“ I’ve only just come” I managed to reply but he looked away, and stared at the fire beside him.

“ Pissin’ chocolate you promised…. Nobody brings me the bloody chocolate…. Not nobody…” and he began to sob quietly, rocking backwards and forwards and clutching at the cushions in his lap as if he had a stomach ache.

David re-entered the room with a middle aged woman following behind him. She registered my presence in the doorway and seemed to derive some satisfaction from it.

“ For heavens sake Elaine,” David was saying, still in an angry tone, “ What are we paying you for? Get him cleaned up, and put him back into his bed.” He indicated a divan bed in the window alcove. The woman was clutching a sandwich in one hand, and her complexion reddened.

“I’m very sorry Mister Lester, really I am but I assure you he was fast asleep when I left him, and I am entitled to eat my lunch in peace. You were supposed to be back here over an hour ago.”

She again looked across at me.

“ Clearly you were busy with …. other things, but I assure you, Mister Wellman was perfectly alright when I left him.”

David nodded his head, but glared at her. “Well he isn’t alright now is he? Just take a deep breath woman!”

He seemed to remember that I was still there, and came towards me.

“I’m sorry about all this Rita. I hadn’t expected to come home and find him like this. Let me show you upstairs to where my apartment is, and then I’ll be with you shortly …. after I’ve made sure he is settled and comfortable.”

The figure in the chair became suddenly agitated. He started throwing the blankets and cushions off his lap, and trying to reach the cushions behind his back, as if intending to throw them off as well.

“ Where’s the paper?… I have to go for mi paper…. Where’s mi fuckin‘ paper?”

David took hold of my arm and guided me into the hallway outside the sitting room door.

“Just wait here for me Rita” he whispered. “ I’ll be with you shortly.”

Away from the distressing scene in the sitting room I found my voice,

“ I’ll wait upstairs David,” I said and turned towards the stairs behind me. “ I can go up to your apartment, and wait there.”

*********************************************

A door, at the top of the stairs, led into David’s apartment and, using the key he had pressed into my hand, I went in there and waited. It took him a good while to settle Francis down, and, while I waited, I looked around. What struck me was how beautifully decorated all the rooms in this part of the house were; unlike the rooms on the ground floor which had seemed so dark and depressing.

What surprised me most was the emphasis on pastel shades which I would not have expected to find in a mans apartment. With the soft furnishings, which were there in abundance, they gave the whole place a distinctly homely feel. David, I realised, had a real ‘eye’ for design.

He had called after me, as I climbed the stairs, to make myself at home, even suggesting that I put some coffee on in the kitchen. I went in there and located the percolator, and the other things I needed, all neatly stored in the cupboards. Then, while I waited for David to rejoin me, I sat down at the kitchen table.

There was a newspaper cutting pinned to a notice board beside my head showing the cast of what I realised was his latest production, not the ‘Oklahoma’ he had told me about in the e-mail, but Terence Rattigan’s ‘Separate Tables.’ It’s run in the local theatre had ended the previous Saturday night, but the cutting indicated that David had played the ’double’ male leads Mister Malcolm and Major Pollack. The write up was full of praise for his performance and I even experienced a puissance of pride that not only did I know such a ‘star’, but I had given him his first part in a school production twenty three years earlier. Not that the article mentioned that important detail of course!

He came into the flat even as I was reading the cutting, and I pointed to it.

“ So you can play other roles apart from dysfunctional characters,“ I said, and the half smile he gave me was so reminiscent of the 18 year old I knew in Ashleigh, part man and part boy, that I had to look away quickly; otherwise I would have certainly reached out for him; reached out for him as I had nineteen years earlier.

“ It’s the one release I can allow myself at the moment,” he muttered crossing to the worktop, and starting to pour out the two coffees. “It’s a brilliant play but does rely heavily on dialogue rather than action to deliver it’s point. Do you know it?“

“ Only by reputation,” I replied.

“You don’t mind the coffee in mugs do you?” he asked. His back was to me, and I realised we were both talking about things we didn’t really want to talk about.

“David, I know it’s none of my business” I said, “I’ve only just seen Francis after nearly twenty years but I’m sure you can realise it for yourself,…. I mean he is very ill.”

His answer, when it came, was in a barely audible whisper.

“ I know…. Oh God Rita I do know… but I just can’t bring myself to put him into somewhere where he wont know anyone, or anything. He was so good to me … has been so good to me… really I owe him almost everything. If I put him into residential care he will just fall apart completely…. At least here…in his own place he has something familiar to cling onto… recognise when he has lucid moments…. Doesn’t he?”

The question sounded so desperate. I got up from the table and crossed to stand beside him. I shouldn’t have done that of course. I should have remained seated, and maintained some physical distance between us, but I could feel his pain as if it were my own. I desperately wanted to comfort him, make amends for the pain. Not just the pain I had caused him in the past but the pain life was inflicting on him now.

“He’s probably in a place now where nothing is familiar to him” I whispered, “Nothing remains in his memory….”

David’s head shook quite violently.

“ But sometimes he has periods when he remembers everything really well… when he’s quite lucid and even knows me…”

“ Recently? “ I asked, and waited.

His painful silence answered the question for both of us. He turned to face me, and tears welled up in his eyes. I reached out quite deliberately, and rested my hand on his arm. I can’t pretend I didn’t know what I was doing, or where it might lead.

“ Oh Rita.” He was groaning like somebody struggling to awaken from a terrible nightmare, “ It’s so awful to watch him… feel him disappearing from me… I can‘t just let him make his exit like this… It‘s too awful… It‘s a tragedy, and there’s nobody who’ll close the bloody curtain!…”

I let him take me into his arms, and I let him hug me as the sobs shook him against me, and I felt his tears on my cheek.

Oh yes, I know I shouldn’t have let him hold me like that, not then when he was hurting so much, but I did. I shouldn’t have let his lips find mine either, still less let him kiss me as he did… but I turned my mouth to find his, and held him until the sobbing ceased, and he stepped away from me with that look of hunger in his eyes that I remembered so well…. but I did!

Later when he drove me back into Richmond to collect my car I even had a premonition what he was going to say before he said it.

“This time Rita, when you go to Scotland, promise me you’ll stay in touch. Don’t leave me another nineteen years without seeing you.”

“I promise,” I whispered, and kissed him again.

**************************************

I sent him the following e-mail a couple of weeks later.

“Just a short e-mail this time David, to thank you for the meal, and the wonderful time we spent together in Richmond. I think you must realise how special that afternoon was for me. If you’ll forgive me using a theatrical analogy we can only play the part life, or God, I’m not sure which, casts us in. I do feel that we two have been handed a second chance at the roles we were originally given. I don’t want, this time, to ‘fluff’ any of my lines, but I’ve decided to move back to Slough with my mum. In the short term I can always get a supply teaching job. Mum is delighted with the idea. I’ve still got most of the money I got from the sale of the house in Edinburgh so I don’t need to worry too much about the money side of things. It means I’ll be near Jackie, at least until she graduates and, of course, it also means I will be not too far away from you, and able to visit you more easily… always assuming, of course, that you can bear me as your leading lady? Let me know what you think. Love Rita. XXX”

David’s reply, when it dropped into my ‘inbox’ filled me with the same exhilaration I experienced at the final performance of ‘Last summer in Rome.’

“Rita do you really need to ask what I think? You were always my ideal leading lady!! All my love, David. XXXX”

THE END.