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‘Letting Him Stay’
‘Caught on the Hop’
‘The Girl with No Name’
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Kate was awake but most reluctant to open her eyes. She tried to get back to sleep but her efforts were fruitless as her brain was already in fifth gear. She ought to arise and face up to life but she really didn’t want to. Today was going to be a bad day. She propped herself up onto her elbow to study the back of her husband’s head. He slept so far away from her these days it would be just as well if the kids were young again and sleeping between them. If he were to place himself any nearer to the edge of the bed he might fall out. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad. After twenty seven years of marriage he might try to be a little less obvious in his rejection of her, which had been going on for a few months now. It would appear she was still wanted in one way, as a wife who brought home a decent salary perhaps. Yet as a lover, not at all! She felt like yoghurt that had reached its sell by date.
Like a moth drawn to light she slipped quietly out of bed and made for the window. There was a recognisable white light emanating through the curtains. Shivering she collected her dressing gown on the way across to the window. It could only mean snow. Drawing back the curtain slightly she was proved right. A long beam of light blinded her for a few seconds until her eyes became accustomed to the swirling whiteness. Snow had blanketed the lane by night. It was seven days to Christmas and this arrival of snow set a dramatic backdrop to the scene which was about to out play itself. Ordinarily she would have felt happy about the change in weather, which presented a picture fit for a Christmas card. Instead she felt saddened because come Christmas Day she would no longer live here.
Downstairs in her lovely warm kitchen she popped the kettle onto the Aga to boil, and then lifted the Venetian blinds. Sipping Earl Grey tea she settled onto a kitchen stool and warmed her toes on the bottom oven. She began reminiscing about past Christmases and how much Christmas meant to her family. It was a special time, not a time to end marriages. This year the spirit of Christmas had passed her by. Ordinarily she’d have visited Harrods this week to see their new decorations and to marvel at the expansive displays of handbags, jewellery and perfumes. She felt her heart to be blackened and her mood to be flat. By this time she was usually methodically ticking off a present list, waiting for the postman to deliver on-line bargains. She would have spent hours trudging the never-ending aisles of shopping centres feeling quite certain of herself in her traditional forage for presents. This year she had felt disinclined to look at sparkling cut glassware and highly polished silver as they reflected their shards of rainbow coloured light over shoppers. Irish linen napkins, gloves, boots and scarves were all types of things she appreciated and yet they had remained unnoticed.
She hadn’t met up with her girlfriends this year either for their traditional champagne lunch. Lately she had avoided looking into mirrors as her self esteem was at zero level. Why face the terrible truth? Her reflection only self-validated that she was no longer a loved and desired wife. Despite thinking in this pessimistic way she still felt that there was nowhere else in the world today that could match the streets of Britain and how they looked at Christmas. When a saxophone player had struck up a haunting carol, echoing around the cold streets as she had made her way to the bank to set up a separate account for herself, she had found herself seated on a wet wooden bench and crying. Later still watching people passing by her she had wondered about the women scurrying so madly around. She imagined that they would be searching for glamorous outfits to wear at Christmas, which was usually a concern of her own.
The men seemed more amiable and could be witnessed hanging around lingerie shops waiting for wives or girlfriends inside purchasing their own Christmas treat. The younger men and women held no qualms today about stepping into such shops with their partners to point out which outfit in particular they would like their loved one to wear. In a bemused way she had watched white collar city gents and blue collar professionals of the day mingling with construction workers still wearing their work gear as they searched for the right kind of present for their loved ones. Christmas parties would soon be in full swing. Suit wearing men would loosen their ties and open up their jackets at the eve of the working day to join in kindred spirit with persons they might normally avoid with the aim to party! Women would carry a change of clothing to work to use to transform themselves into fabulous divas by night. Should any work colleagues think that they didn’t have a life outside work, now was the time to show them!
Work teams would surge like shoals of fish from pub to pub in a traditional habitual way of starting off Christmas and in her own case all such plans had been in place as usual this year, except for one thing. There had been no rush and excitement on her part. No anguish and anxiety about pleasing people. No indecision or queuing and she hadn’t felt like attending her weekly Salsa class. She felt deadened! None of everything she loved about life was worth it if she didn’t have Jake beside her.
Kate pined for the husband who used to pick her up in front of all the family to twirl her around madly, spinning her as though they were some kind of American Swing dancers. And he would not stop, despite all her protestations, until she had agreed to kiss him. Her skirt could have been flying, her decency at risk, yet his carefree spirit always caused her heart to burst with love for him. Where had it all gone? Why had it changed? She couldn’t be a deserted wife; she had never envisaged that for herself! She had sensed something was wrong this summer. Everyone faced the consequences of a threatened recession. For Jake it had meant dipping sales figures and having to ‘let go’ of some of his best and most trusted work colleagues.
It had been a fleeting moment when she had caught from the corner of her eye Jake making a nervous glance towards one of his female colleagues. She and Jake had attended a ‘work do’ together, which was a rare thing these days. A level of intuitive suspicion had risen in her when she perceived Jake’s lack of surety around everyone. It was as though he was apprehensive and on his guard. His best behaviour in fact. Something was going on although just what she hadn’t a clue about. It wasn’t desire she had seen in Jake’s glance towards Barbara. It was rather that he’d shot her a warning look for her to stop talking. Barbara had started to say something which was dropping him right in it because she’d mentioned the dates in August that Jake had away in Bahrain and this didn’t correspond with how many days he had actually been away from home which was for a longer period. Jake had remained nonplussed and stated quite confidently, that as usual Barbara was utterly useless about getting dates right. He’d corrected her stating that she’d made a mistake. Barbara had seemed relieved to be rescued from her blunder, which would have repercussions beyond what she could have imagined at that moment. She had agreed with Jake that she had been confused.
Jake usually kept in daily co
ntact with her whenever he was working away and she had felt that the Bahrain trip had involved him making the most haphazard and spasmodic efforts of communication with her, which he had put down to the lack of satellite signals. Initially she hadn’t questioned or felt there was anything untoward about this because until that point in their marriage there hadn’t been anything in their lives to cause her to think otherwise, nor to doubt anything Jake either said or did. In reflection it was after that trip that Jake had started to withdraw from her. Deep inside she had felt something was amiss, that things were slightly wrong between them and she had purposely pushed aside all feelings of misgiving.
The checks she began to make went against the grain of her own values and principles. It wasn’t her style to even be concerned about Jakes receipts or text messages let alone begin looking at them and at first she had found nothing obvious. They didn’t touch each others post and she held too busy a work life to