Piper Plus

This is a continuation from David and Jen. It can be read as a standalone but many of the same characters are reiterated

 

 

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely co-incidental

 

All change

March

At five and eight years old, Josh and Tilly were a great deal easier to manage than they had been when Jen had undertaken this journey with them the last time.

Then there was the bonus of their new house on the mainline, no changing trains! Any parent of young children knows the stress of navigating a busy transport nexus with little ones.

The added bonus was sitting beside her. She glowed a little inside, thinking about the wonderful Christmas they had had after they were reconciled. Then she blushed thinking how enthusiastically they’d renewed their relationship.

The landscape rushed by. Josh was asleep, head lolling. Tilly was looking out of the window in that trance-like state that a long journey can bring on. David, of course, had his head in a book and Jen listened to music on her Walkman.

She took his hand from the book, laced their fingers together and gave it a gentle squeeze. He looked sideways at her and widened his eyes, at once affectionate and knowing, always the two in one. She rested her head on his shoulder.

There was a time when she would have looked at a family like theirs and wondered what it felt like to be that unit, that little band.

Now she knew how fragile it all was. The events of the previous year had depended on a series of chances. If any of them had gone awry, then they wouldn’t be here.

The chances were so vanishingly small, it sometimes made Jen feel like she had won the lottery or been struck by lightning. But then ordinary people did win the lottery and they did get struck by lightning.

Sometimes the improbable actually happened. Briefly she wondered if anyone had ever won the lottery and been struck by lightning. Smiling, she closed her eyes to listen to the music.

***

The last time David had been in this station was when he had come to try and set things right with Jen. He looked around for the escalator that would take them up to the hall. Herding the children in the right direction while dragging the big suitcase they’d brought took all his attention.

Jen was walking along inhaling the air of her hometown which was somehow sweeter than that back at David’s house. Our house, she reminded herself; they all lived there now.

But still, that house was far inland. Here the sea was less than five miles away and you could feel it in the air, some unknown vibrancy that lifted your soul and your step.

David was trying to keep his nerves under control. This would be the first time he’d met his in-laws in nearly two years. Let alone that in that gap there was a whole parcel of things better left under cover.

Anna knew some of it of course but could be trusted to keep schtum. But Fred and Jean, Jen’s parents, must never know what had happened.

Jen had assured him that they were delighted that they were back together, but David still fretted. In the suitcase there was an extremely expensive bottle of Barolo that the Italian specialist had confidently said was excellent value for the money.

The Mollica’s house was a big Edwardian terraced affair across five floors. The front door was at the top of a set of six stone steps and presently David was at the bottom with the luggage while Jen was at the top in a group hug with her parents.

Josh and Tilly had already pushed past to run screaming through the big old pile.

Jen and her mother vanished inside leaving Fred with David. He steeled himself for the encounter with Jen’s father, but the man was already halfway down the steps, wreathed in smiles with his arms open wide.

David tried not to flinch as Fred clasped both of his shoulders and gave him a little shake.

“David! How wonderful to see you! Let me help you with those bags.”

“Hi, Mr Mollica. Thank you, they are rather heavy.”

“Did Jennifer bring the kitchen sink, eh?”

Fred winked conspiratorially and lifted the larger of the bags with enviable ease.

“She does plan for all eventualities, yes.”

Fred chuckled. “That’s my girl. Let’s leave these in the hall and we’ll go downstairs.”

David tried not to worry. He was fairly certain that there would be one of those ‘man-to-man chats’ while they were here.

The kitchen and ordinary dining room were in the basement, though properly it was a called a lower ground floor as it was not fully underground and had windows to allow some natural light.

It was the beating heart of the place, warmed in winter by the range, cool in summer with the windows open and the stone flags underfoot.

The ordinary dining room housed a big, battered oak table, and was joined to the kitchen in an L shaped layout that allowed full interplay between the two.

David was deeply envious of the arrangement as it allowed everyone to mix and be at ease.

The children were already at the table drinking the forbidden nectar that was coca cola. Tilly looked him over the rim of her glass, her eyes very serious.

David smiled, she was already starting to play those games by which women try to work out how to manipulate men, and who better to practice on than her father?

There were also four flutes on the table and Fred was busying himself retrieving a bottle of prosecco from the fridge.

Shortly there was the very welcome sound of the cork freeing itself and David was transported back to the waterside where the dragonflies darted amongst the reeds and the sun made everything pastel. For a brief moment he was engulfed in nostalgia.

Jen watched his face change. His expression was wistful, and that was very unusual for David who was a creature that lived very much in the moment. She went over and took his hand.

“Everything okay?”

He looked at her and then gathered her into a fierce hug, squeezing her tight. Taken by surprise she tried to hug him back just as tightly.

Over his shoulder she could see Tilly watching them with concern. She managed a small smile to reassure her daughter that everything was fine even as she worried that maybe everything wasn’t.

Jean Mollica watched this tableau. David was a curious young man. She worried that perhaps her daughter was more in love with the idea of him than the reality in her arms. She might be unaware, or worse, unwilling, to acknowledge his other aspects.

Jean knew that a great deal had happened while they were separated and that she had only been told a small fraction of it. Anna knew more but was frustratingly close mouthed which meant that it must be incendiary stuff.

***

“Jennifer?” her father said.

“Yes, Papa?”

“I need to talk to you.”

Jen turned to face her father. Fred Mollica was now in his late fifties, silver threading the hair that had once been jet black. He was quite the looker in the old photographs on the mantlepiece. Thank goodness she’d not inherited the nose.

“When your husband first approached me to ask for your hand, I was very doubtful. He’s a dreamer and dreams don’t put food on the table. But he made you happy and I was swayed by that. Then you went and lived so far away!”

Jen nodded, David’s job had been the excuse, but the drumbeat of ‘get married, settle down, have children’ was very strong in her community. She’d needed to put a bit of distance between them and her relatives. Fatefully, it had been too far, and she had ended up beached on a foreign shore.

“Your mother and I worried about you, and with good reason it seems. When that boy confessed his adultery, I feared it was the end; you were so upset. Then he came to see you and very quickly you were reconciled. And now here you are, and you seem happier than ever.”

Jen smiled. “Yes, it’s lots better.”

Her father leaned forward and clasped his hands. “I think there are a lot of things you haven’t told me.”

Jen shifted in her seat. Lying to her father was a waste of time. He was good at picking out inconsistencies, so it was just easier not to tell him. If he ever learned of the events of last year, David would be thrown out on to the pavement.

“Like what, Papa?”

“David’s new job.”

“It’s great. David’s so much happier.”

“I see that. I also see that he is much better dressed than he used to be. I see that you have a diamond on that chain around your neck. He must be very well paid. What is it that he does again?”

Jen stalled. “I’m not sure what his actual job title is but he’s some sort of analyst.”

“Hnh, I must tell my nephews to train as analysts. But then what was he doing before that?”

“You know, Papa! He was an office worker,” Jen protested.

“Just so. It’s a big step from office worker to analyst. He must be possessed of great qualities.”

His eyebrows arched. “I wonder where these qualities were hiding up to now?”

There was pause and Jen tried not to blush or squirm while she waited for her father to finish his enquiry. Telling herself that she was a grown woman with two children wasn’t working.

He pursed his lips. “Well, I suppose I must accept that he has them seeing as he is some months in. What I still don’t understand is how he was ever invited to interview when he has nothing to demonstrate his suitability.”

“He had the test results.”

“Yes, the test results. I must find out what the name of that test is, then I can tell my nephews to stop bothering with those tedious exams.”

His eyes glittered.

Abruptly he sat back and put his hands on the arms of the chair.

“Everyone is entitled to a little luck now and then.”

Jen stood. “Would you like a cup of tea, Papa?”

He looked up at her. “Still keeping secrets from your Papa, Jennifer? I saw your relief when I asked about his job. That tells me that there are things you would rather I did not ask.”

“Papa, I’m a grown woman with a family. I have to manage my own life. I’m sure there are things you didn’t tell your parents.”

To her surprise her father shifted in his seat and looked out of the window.

“Perhaps, perhaps. None of us are saints at the end of the day.”

***

April

Rosemary Ogilvie had known that Harold was unwell in that abstract way that anyone does when they’ve never experienced debilitating illness.

It had started as pains in his side which, given that he was twenty-five years her senior, was to be expected, no?

It was initially ascribed to cramps or muscle spasms and later to kidney stones or other obstructions. He was prescribed physiotherapy and anti-inflammatories, then sent for tests and scans.

The dense mass in his liver was quite obvious on the x-ray. Unfortunately, so were the dark spots on his lungs.

“Metastases,” observed the consultant, “where the liver cancer has spread to other parts of the body. We can see lung and there are probably bone too.”

Rosemary and Harold looked at each other. They knew that liver cancer was not good. Neither of them had ever heard of metastases but now knew it meant more cancer. The consultant was looking gloomy.

“Survival rates are not good even with all the techniques at our disposal. You’ve got a few months at most,” he said and looked down at his notes.

With the diagnosis ringing in their ears, they stumbled down the steps of the clinic and stood clinging to one another in the cruel spring sunshine.

Rosemary was reeling from the information that Harold was going to die. It sat like a rock in her brain round which her thoughts skittered.

He’d been her anchor ever since he had rescued her from the seedy bar where she had avoided prostitution by the skin of her teeth.

Harold had paid for her to finish her education and file off some of the rough edges of her upbringing and they’d been scandalously wed. He asked very little of her, other than to take his arm at some of the showier events that he attended.

However, the marriage had not been consummated, though Rosemary had been expecting to sleep with him as the quid pro quo.

They lived together perhaps as a niece might with her favourite uncle. He tolerated her parties, asking only that he be absent during proceedings.

What he was doing in that bar and why he’d chosen to rescue her out of all the other waifs and strays had gone unanswered.

They found a bar and ordered doubles. The barman raised an eyebrow, it was only just after eleven.

Sitting at the window, Harold was gazing at the trees opposite. He’d probably never see another spring. Rosemary couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind.

“What will you do?” she asked hesitantly.

“Do?” he said as if addressing the question for the first time. “Put my affairs in order I suppose. Don’t worry my dear you’ll be well taken care of.”

He smiled and patted her arm.

“Oh, sod the money, Harold! I don’t want to lose you!”

He grimaced. “It was always going to be this way though, wasn’t it? I’m in my fifties now and you’re just thirty. In twenty-five years’ time, you’ll be my age whereas I’ll be nearer eighty.”

He paused and then with grim humour said, “Well, I would have been eighty.”

Rosemary started to sob, and her husband gathered her into his arms.

***

The hospice was beautiful and well designed, no sharp angles or brash echoes. Despite that, it couldn’t quite shake off the miasma of a hospital.

Rosemary’s heels clacked on the tiles, and she was aware of the looks she was getting. She snorted and mentally raised two fingers.

Harold had made a very generous donation and his reward was the best of care from a host of smartly turned out young men and women who possessed that remarkable talent of being present when needed and absent when not.

He looked tired and drawn and old, sitting up in bed with a drip in his arm.

“I guess they’ll just keep upping the morphine dose until my system packs in.”

“Do you know how long?”

“A couple of weeks, maybe. Oh, now don’t cry, my dear. You should be used to the idea by now.”

“I can’t get used to the idea that you just won’t be there anymore!” she wept. “You’ve always been there for me! You’ve been a husband and a father to me. Who will I turn to? I’ll have no one.”

“We all come and go alone, Rosemary. When my parents died, they’d not been in my life very much but even so, I was conscious that I now had only my own judgement to steer me. Take some time to think about what you want to do with your life. Those parties can’t go on for ever.”

“They’d started to bore me anyway,” she said, only realising after she said it that it was true.

They sat in silence for a while and then Rosemary plucked up the courage to ask the two questions that had always vexed her.

“One thing I want you to tell me, Harold. Well, two things actually, but they’re sort of the same thing. I know you’re very fond of me and indulge me to a ridiculous degree, but you don’t love me and never have.

Well, that’s not true, I know you love me but not that way, I mean. I used to wonder all sorts of things. Were you gay? But as far as I can tell, Harold, you’ve never had a lover. But that’s not the most important thing.”

Aware that her mouth was running away with her, Rosemary paused and collected herself.

“If I don’t ask you now, I’ll never know, and I must know, Harold. Why me?”

He smiled avuncularly and put his hand on hers. “Do you remember the Windermere Club?”

“Your drinking den in Clarendon Street? You haven’t been there for years. Dreadful place.”

“It had its attractions for a single man about town. One Saturday I had been drinking at the club for most of the day. I was really quite three sheets to the wind when I got into an argument with a fellow, I don’t even remember his name, who accused me of being a useless libertine.

It got quite heated in the way that those things do, and he challenged me to name a single altruistic deed of my own. Failing so to do and full of drunken righteous indignation, I resolved to remedy the problem immediately, so I left the club and went walking about, looking for a cause to champion.

Initially I had some vague idea of finding a beggar, taking them to a hotel, getting them cleaned up and giving them a thousand pounds. But I couldn’t find one.”

Rosemary was incredulous. “Not find a beggar round Clarendon Street! I don’t believe you!”

“Oh no, there were plenty of beggars and they were all quite happy to take the money or to have sex with me, or both; but they got suspicious at the rest of it. Quite baffling in a way,” Harold mused.

“Happy to screw some stranger in an alley but allergic to the idea of the chance of a hot bath, a warm bed and some clean clothes. I’m probably doing them a disservice, after all what would you say to a drunk offering to clean you up?”

He looked into the middle distance, remembering.

“Anyway, I staggered on, determined to do good for once in my life. After a while I decided that what I needed was another drink and so I fell into the bar where you were working. The moment I saw you I knew you were the one.

It was pure blind chance my dear. You are my good deed. I have every expectation that you will find a just cause and apply your considerable tenacity to it.”

His voice cracked.

Rosemary was dumbfounded. She had never questioned Harold before, fearing that to do so might break something fragile, possibly even put her back on the streets.

Now it seemed that her life since that moment was the product of a chance disagreement followed by a drunken resolution to rescue an arbitrary nobody!

Reading her thoughts from her face, Harold nodded.

“This is why I never told you. I’m no saint and most definitely not a guardian angel: I didn’t set out to find you. I could have changed my mind when I sobered up.

The following morning, however, when I considered what was the best thing to do, I resolved that I would carry through with my initiative. After all, what else was my money for? No one was going to inherit it.”

He chuckled. “You did rather test my resolve in the early days. You were an abrasive little guttersnipe!”

Rosemary shook her head, shying away from the notion that randomness ruled her life.

Her other important question came to her.

“That’s the other thing, why did you have to do that, Harold? I’d have thought eligible spinsters would be beating your door down. You’re charming, funny, kind… rich!”

His face fell and he sighed. “I was never interested. Throughout my teens, as my peers obsessed over Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor or perhaps, secretly, over Rock Hudson, I waited for my own interest to spark.

It never did. I like people, Rosemary, but I’ve never been passionate about anyone. In some ways you were the perfect solution for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“For a start, the juiciest of scandals! Marrying someone half my age and, begging your pardon, a nobody at that. Don’t tell me you didn’t get a kick out of thumbing your nose at some of my relatives.”

She laughed and nodded. They were a stuffy bunch, and when her connection to her disreputable cousin was discovered there had been a great deal of talk. Usefully, his reputation had stilled many tongues.

“And it put paid to my eligibility. At last, the invitations to parties where I could be paraded in front of the assembled cast would cease. Off the market! You, though, will not be short of suitors once I am gone.”

Rosemary blanched. The idea of some of the feral types from her soirées sniffing round her was not appealing. In fact, the more she thought about her acquaintances, the less she liked the idea of any long-term relationship. She needed a David Piper, but he was very definitely out of reach.

Max and David rendezvoused in Derek’s office. Max Wellborn was the IT manager at Cross. As far as David could tell he wasn’t an employee as such. He seemed to do the work almost as a hobby.

He’d also quite taken to David, his favourite joke being his surname. “Until you came along, David, I was the only one here that wasn’t. ‘Well born’, I mean!”

It was funny the first couple of times but now David smiled to be polite. Plus, he was grateful to have at least one person that didn’t look down their nose at him, even unconsciously.

“Piper found a bug, Derek,” announced Max, without ceremony.

“What now? What’s the problem, David?”

Derek peered over his half-moons. He was reading the FT.

“It’s not a problem, exactly. At least, not for me. I gave myself a bonus.”

“You what!” Derek was on his feet. He was very tall and loomed over David.

“I gave it back.”

Derek stared at David. “Would someone please explain?”

“It’s the file transfer from the HR system to Payroll. David discovered that it’s not instantaneous. There’s a small window when you can access it,” Max explained.

“It’s just a csv, you can change any details you like with a simple text editor. ” David added, helpfully.

Derek goggled at him. “Did you steal from the firm?”

“On paper, yes. In reality, no money changed hands. I intercepted the bank order and contacted Max to help me put things back properly.”

“Great work,” said Max. “That was a serious flaw.”

“Let me get this straight,” spluttered Derek, going slightly pink in the face. “Mr Piper did a good thing?”

“Sure. A vulnerability like that might not be discovered for months, years even. Potentially cost you tens of thousands.”

Derek considered this for a moment and then beamed his enormous smile and pumped David’s hand.

“Good man! I knew hiring you was a good decision!”

He leaned in conspiratorially. “This will be remembered when we come to award the real bonuses.”

David glowed, embarrassed by Derek’s effusive manner.

As they left the office, Max leaned over and murmured, “Hope he doesn’t get around to wondering what you were doing poking around there in the first place! I’m going to have to tighten up the network permissions, thanks to you!”

“Sorry,” muttered David.

Max clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t be. It’s time I actually did something around here to earn my money. And it’s nice to have someone genuinely curious on the staff for once. Keep sticking your nose in where you’re not supposed to and tell me what you find!”

“Okay,” said David, heartened.

***

Deep into the evening, most of the lights in the offices of Cross Partners were out. One of the few that remained was in Derek Cross’ office where the two partners were enjoying a glass of Armagnac.

“So, what was the lad Piper doing sniffing around the HR system?”

Max chuckled. “I knew you’d get around to that eventually.”

They inclined their glasses to each other.

“Showing me up is what he was doing. He’s good value is David. Most of your chaps are capable enough but not many of them are truly curious. The capable ones will efficiently mine a seam but only the curious ones will find diamonds in the dirt.”

“Diamonds in the dirt, eh?” mused Derek, holding his glass up to look at how the light bounced around inside. “Hiring him was a bit of a long shot but he seems to have acquitted himself quite well.”

Max scoffed. “He’s a damn sight better than some of those pot plants you take because you have a soft spot for their parents!”

“Now, now, Max. I just induct them gently into the world of work.” Derek ignored his friend’s snort of derision. “They don’t do any harm and they move on soon enough.”

“I make sure they can’t do any harm! T’ain’t the case after they leave here. Paul Hastings got himself into a whole heap of trouble at Cato Freeman. That rubs off on us, Derek.”

Derek inspected his glass again. “Caveat emptor, Max, caveat emptor.”

Max laughed. “If the product’s stamped ‘Certified Cross Partners’ you shouldn’t have to hide the sharps!”

Derek toasted Max. They’d been together a long time. Graduating in the late fifties as the economy gathered steam, it had seemed that there was nothing they couldn’t do.

Briefly lovers in the heady days of the swinging sixties before finding that if they wanted to go on working together, they had to stop living together. Best man at Max’s wedding… Derek shook his head, there were just too many memories vying for attention.

“Now, Piper. Is he a goer, d’you think?”

“I think with a little water, a little sunshine, and room to grow, our man David could be stellar.”

***

September

Rosemary was sitting by the bedside when the end came. He’d lost consciousness the previous day and his breathing had steadily slowed. There had been several occasions when she had thought the end had come, only to find it was a false alarm.

Finally, when his chest was still, she sought out a nurse who confirmed what she already knew to be true.

She stood looking down at him for a long time, trying to understand how he could have been there only yesterday, and now there seemed to be nothing left of him.

The nurse had closed his mouth and somehow rearranged things such that he merely looked to have dozed off. Rosemary knew better.

Her heels beat a rapid tattoo on the stone tiles as she exited the hospice. There was only one person she wanted to talk to.

***

“David?”

David recognised her voice immediately and prepared himself for whatever might come next. They’d parted cordially enough after the reception in London, but he’d never expected to hear from her again.

“Hello, Rosemary. What can I do for you?”

“Can I come and see you?”

Whatever else he’d been expecting her to say, that had not been it.

“Um, I guess. What’s up?”

“I’d like your advice on something,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.

“My advice!” David responded incredulously. “When did you start needing my advice?”

“Please, David. As a favour.”

He was completely taken aback by the exchange. “Okay, when?”

“Now.”

“Now?”

“It’s important.”

“We’re about to have dinner!”

“Excellent, I’m famished. See you in a minute.” The line went dead.

David stared at the handset for a moment and then shouted, “Jen! Jen!”

His wife came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a tea towel.

“What’s the emergency?”

“You remember Rosemary Ogilvie?”

“Yes,” Jen said slowly, apprehension building in her chest. The woman was trouble.

“She’s coming to dinner!”

“What! Now?”

Jen stared at him, aghast. They weren’t geared up for visitors. There was Lego on the hall floor and dirty laundry in front of the washer. And, of course, it was Queen Bitch herself!

“Jesus Christ! When did you find out?”

“Just now. She phoned up and invited herself. I still don’t understand how she did it.”

The doorbell rang and they both stared at it.

David said, in quite a calm voice, “I believe now is the perfect time to panic.”

Jen reacted first by diving into the living room and emerging with an armful of children’s clothing.

“Take her in there, I’ll join you in a minute or two when I’ve made the place a bit more presentable.”

David steeled himself and opened the door. Rosemary was exactly as he remembered her, smartly turned out in combination of jeans, white blouse and vivid orange linen jacket. Dark hair wound up on top of her head and secured with a pin of some sort. She looked uncharacteristically diffident.

“I’m sorry to impose on you at such short notice, David.”

“Not at all, please come in.”

David concluded that the English talent for understatement had been fully deployed and showed Rosemary into the living room where she stood until he invited her to be seated.

Jen bustled in with a bottle of wine and three glasses and sat next to David on the sofa.

“Hello Rosemary, how are you?”

Rosemary gave a little half smile. “Hello Jennifer. Jen. I’ve been better.”

“What’s this all about, Rosemary?” David asked.

She took a deep breath. “My husband, Harold.” Her voice caught in her throat, and she stopped.

David and Jen looked at each other with alarm.

“Is dead.”

She’d thought she had no more tears to cry but it seemed that she was wrong.

“Oh, Rosemary, I’m so sorry!” Jen said and went to kneel beside the chair.

David marvelled at his wife’s capacity for empathy.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Cancer. He was diagnosed in April.”

“Oh wow, that was quick!”

“He’s been part of my life since I was fifteen. I scarcely know what to do without him.”

Jen had found a handkerchief from somewhere and Rosemary was dabbing her eyes with it.

David stared at her. This woman was always in control. Distraction time.

“I’m going to pour some wine and then I’m going to check on dinner.”

***

Some fifteen minutes later with the children rescued from the bath and introduced to their unexpected guest, the five of them sat down to a meal. The smell of the cooking had made its way into the living room and Rosemary had discovered that she really was hungry.

The sheer ordinariness of passing the salt and organising plates helped her to regain some of her composure and she knew that this had been a good decision. The first of many such solo decisions, she reminded herself bitterly.

She was a little out of her depth at a family meal where there were two young children present. But then Josh was, what, five? And Tilly eight? Once they’d got over being tongue-tied at having a stranger at the table, they chattered away.

Tilly had admired her hair and wished that hers was nice and straight. Rosemary told her that women were never happy, that when they had straight hair, they wanted it to be curly and when they had curly hair, they spent all their time straightening it.

Jen had laughed and nodded in agreement while Tilly looked between the two of them dubiously. Her father leaned over and murmured, “What she means is that all girls are crazy.”

“Dad! Girls aren’t crazy!” Tilly shouted.

“And there was me thinking you were some kind of modern man, David. Instead, you’re a Neanderthal, like all the rest,” Rosemary observed, as another forkful of food was en route to her mouth.

David really was a very good cook; the goulash was delicious. Yet another of his array of talents. He’d make someone an excellent husband.

The fork paused and her gaze flicked between Jen and David, the former agreeing with her daughter and David, eyes sparkling, enjoying the gestalt of an animated gathering.

He already was an excellent husband. And father. She grew wistful, knowing that given the way she was built, this would probably be denied her.

Alert to the minute pause, Jen turned and glanced at their guest.

“Earth to Rosemary. No wool gathering allowed at the meal table. This is an interactive sport!”

Rosemary smiled and nodded. “Sorry! I was miles away. This is gorgeous, by the way. David surely didn’t make this. Where are the caterers? I want their number!”

“Outrageous! I demand satisfaction!” David called from the end of the table.

Josh looked between the two of them with wide eyes, was Daddy going to have a fight?

“I don’t brawl at the dinner table, David,” Rosemary said demurely, taking a sip of her wine.

“Very well, we will settle this like gentlemen. And ladies. With cards!”

At that, thinking they were going to play a game, Josh scrambled down from the table and was halfway to the living room before being brought back to the table to finish his food.

Rosemary was slightly in awe of the calm way the two adults rode herd on the chaos of two young children.

“This is nothing,” said Jen. “Aunt Isabella had six. Every two years like clockwork.”

Rosemary’s brain did the maths.

“Then the oldest was only ten when the last one was born!”

Her horrified expression sent David and Jen into fits of laughter.

David wiped his eyes and asked for some more wine. Both Jen and Rosemary reached at the same time and their two hands met on the wine bottle. Their eyes met for the briefest of instants before Rosemary looked away; her mind lost in a maelstrom.

Jen struggled to control her hand as she passed the wine to David. She dared a glance at the other woman only to find Rosemary returning her own worried expression from under her fringe.

Fighting for composure, Rosemary was able to regain the conversation. After a short pause Jen also managed coherence. David did not appear to have noticed anything awry for which both women were extremely grateful.

After dinner, Rosemary and Jen danced a delicate waltz in order to avoid coming too close to one another. Conversation was light and Rosemary helped clear things until Jen led the two children away for their bath and bed, upon which Rosemary heaved a sigh of relief. This was a complication she did not need.

She made her excuses and started to leave only to find herself reduced to tears when David caught her hands in the hall. His expression of grave concern caught her off guard again.

“Rosemary! Are you alright? You never said what it was that you wanted to talk to me about.”

“Oh David! Why are you so nice to me when I’ve been such a bitch to you!”

He smiled gently. “I don’t know, Rosemary. I guess like you in spite of myself.”

She wept. “I don’t understand! I don’t understand why you like me! I don’t understand anything!”

“I think you’d better stay here tonight. I don’t think you’re safe to drive.”

Eventually Rosemary was conveyed to the guest bedroom, protesting weakly that ‘they really shouldn’t’ and secretly grateful that they were taking the decision out of her hands.

Jen had managed to calm herself with the routine of putting the children to bed. Seeing Rosemary’s distress, she chided herself for making too much of the incident at the dinner table, the woman was obviously at sixes and sevens.

In bed that night, as David snored gently beside her, Jen lay awake, and that brief contact was back front and centre in her thoughts.

Had she but known it, Rosemary was having similar problems along the landing and castigating herself for it with Harold not yet cold in his grave. Both of them were acutely aware of the other’s presence in the house.

***

By the time Rosemary woke the next morning Jen was already out of the house taking the children to school and to nursery. Putting on yesterday’s clothes, she went down to the kitchen where David was clearing the breakfast things. He poured her a cup of coffee and they sat at the kitchen table.

“What I was going to ask you, David, is what do I do?”

“Heavens!” he laughed. “What a question! And why ask me?”

“Because…” Rosemary struggled to articulate her thoughts. “Because you’re not connected to me, and I trust you to be straight with me.”

David inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Well then, I assume I can take it for granted that Sir Harold has left you adequately protected?”

“The will is still to be read but he gave me to understand that he’d left me everything. I don’t quite know what that is yet, but money was never an issue when he was alive, no matter how reckless I was.”

“First piece of advice: don’t make any grand plans until you see the money. If you really are now a woman of independent means, then the world is your oyster. You can do what you want, go where you like. Host the grandest parties!”

David grinned and threw his arms wide.

Rosemary looked at him in annoyance. “You hated those parties!”

“I didn’t hate them; I just didn’t feel a connection to anyone. No more than an actor playing a part. And now I don’t have to go to them anymore.” He smiled at her.

She shook her head, he was the damndest man!

“You could have made a fortune catering to the needs of no more than a dozen of those women.

Lord knows I was bombarded with enough requests for your contact details. You’re charming, intelligent, you have that mile-wide perverse streak and there’s the other… thing.”

She found herself embarrassed to even allude to it in his house, the home for his wife and children. Those two worlds did not touch.

“You’d have been handsomely rewarded just to escort them on the town!”

This time it was David shaking his head.

“That’s not me. I was amazingly lucky to hook up with Em and Ros. Not so lucky with Phyllis, though.”

He grimaced at the memory.

Rosemary found herself blushing. It had been Phyllis’ indiscretion that had led her to David. Then something he’d said came back to her. The grandest parties, eh?

***

October

The chair called the meeting to order and there was a shuffling of papers. As the minutes of the previous meeting were reviewed, Marjorie Barrett surveyed the other members. George Parker, the owner of the pub and current chair, looked exactly as you would imagine a publican to look. Tall, broad shouldered and ruddy cheeked. Used to controlling a rowdy pub, he was an ideal chair, affable and direct.

Mrs Earnshaw, the secretary, smelled of mothballs, just like the church hall. Marjorie speculated that she simply powered down between meetings, sitting silently in the darkness, waiting for the lights to be turned on.

At the far end of the table sat the witty and clever Gillian Endsleigh, an asset at these meetings and the subject of some regret for Marjorie. She knew that Gillian found her reserve baffling but sadly, as she had confessed to David, this was a matter of self-preservation. Thankfully, she was sitting far enough away that Gillian’s hideous perfume only occasionally reached her nose.

Paul Thomas, or The Trappist, as she called him, completed the quorum. He barely spoke during the meetings, usually signalling his intentions with a nod or a shake of the head.

Peter Morgan the retired policeman was sitting against the wall. He was a frequent attendee, liking to keep abreast of village affairs. He smiled and nodded when they made eye contact and Marjorie failed to keep a slight flush from her cheeks.

She knew that there had been a degree of chatter regarding her liaison with David, but nothing seemed to have broken into the open. Ros, Phyllis, and the terrible Rosemary Ogilvie had kept their counsel.

Inwardly she sighed, no matter how hard she tried, her thoughts frequently returned to David. It was more than a year since she had sent him back to his family. The last time they had seen each other had been at the Reception at the Serpentine Gallery at Christmas. He had looked so handsome in the tux and Jennifer had been a revelation, gracious and forgiving.

What would Jennifer think if she knew that Marjorie had kept the sheet from the last time she had made love with David? In moments of loneliness and weakness, she would bury her face in the fabric and inhale his essence.

“Is that okay, Marjorie?”

She realised that they were all looking at her expectantly.

“Yes, yes,” she stuttered.

Mrs Earnshaw’s eyebrows rose, and Marjorie cursed her errant thoughts. She forced her attention back to the agenda but inside she ached. She could feel it down in the core of herself, as if she had been bereaved a second time, a piece of her torn away.

The meeting ground on. There had been some vandalism at the cricket pavilion; a broken window and some graffiti. She found it hard to be judgemental. There was nothing for the local youths to do, either here or anywhere within easy reach. Many of them moved away as soon as they were able, making the community steadily older.

The clock seemed to barely move. Marjorie found herself wishing to be home by the fire, with a glass of wine and a good book, like the evenings she used to spend with David: satiated after their lovemaking, wrapped in dressing gowns and sitting opposite one another on the big sofa, with legs entwined.

“What do you think, Mrs Barrett?”

She started. They were discussing the necessary repair of the southern wall of the graveyard again.

“I’m sorry?”

“The tenders, Marjorie,” Violet Earnshaw said, irritably.

“What about them?”

“Which one, Marjorie? Do pay attention.”

Something inside her snapped.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake! We’ve talked about nothing else for months. Mr Stafford will do a perfectly good job, and you know it! Yes, he’s a rogue, but so what? Just, just…”

She threw her pencil on the table and pushed her chair back.

Peter Morgan watched her stalk out of the meeting, the astonished faces of her fellow councillors tracking her departure from the building. He sighed.

She was struggling with the lock to her bicycle when he went outside.

“Here, let me,” he said.

Startled, she looked up and he noted the tears on her cheeks.

“Don’t say a word, Peter.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He released the lock, put it into the basket in front of the handlebars and handed her the key.

She stood looking down at it where it lay in the palm of her hand.

“I miss him dreadfully.”

“And I suppose there’s nothing to be done?”

“No. He’s where he should be, with his family.”

“You did the right thing.”

Her fingers closed convulsively, and she looked up.

“The right thing be damned! What about me? When do I ever get to come first?”

***

Upsets

November

Rosemary was a little disappointed but not really surprised to discover that after the funeral she’d fallen off the social map.

There had been cards of condolence, but after that she’d been pretty much ostracised. There had been the one visit from Mrs Chalmers but after forty-five exquisitely excruciating minutes they bid each other a good day.

They were doubtless hoping she would just disappear.

She sat in the arbour, enveloped in an outsize camelhair coat, and looked out at the garden.

It seemed as though the last fifteen years had happened to someone else. Someone more confident and self-assured.

There was a terrible sense of dislocation, as though she were looking at the world through a sheet of glass. If she wasn’t Mrs Ogilvie and she wasn’t Rosemary Desai, then who was she?

One of the staff came to tell her that the caterers for the Christmas party were here and Rosemary tried to stir up the necessary will and enthusiasm.

***

Later that same week was her regular visit to the home.

She pulled into the car park and stopped in one of the bays in front of the home.

It had once been someone’s grand family house and certainly gave a good first impression. However, a closer look found signs of neglect which made her wonder how much of the considerable bill for her father’s care was actually spent on its primary objective.

Stepping out of the car she donned a coat; the chill of winter was just around the corner. The late autumn sunshine was thin and did little to warm her.

Inside she gave her name and the receptionist buzzed her through to the first anteroom. The faint smell of lilies came to her. She suppressed a shudder; she’d come to loathe the perfume they used to mask other less pleasant smells.

She found her father in a window alcove with a tartan blanket over his lower half. He’d probably been there since breakfast.

“Dad? Dad?”

Rosemary put her hand on her father’s shoulder. Gradually his eyes focussed on her.

“Hello?” he said, uncertainly. “Who are you?”

“Dad, it’s Rosie.”

A look of confusion came over his face.

“You can’t be Rosie, she’s just a girl.”

He was marooned in the past again. The man in the chair was a shadow of the one that had come and gone throughout her life. The absent father was a psychological cliché, but the visceral ache in her heart defied analysis. And now he was beyond her reach, melting away before her eyes.

Then again, sometimes he didn’t engage at all so to get a response was encouraging. She took the other chair in the alcove.

“How are you?”

“I’m looking forward to going home. Are you going to take me home?”

“Not today, Dad.”

“Why’d you call me Dad? I don’t know you. I want to go home. Where’s Joyce?”

He’d forgotten that his wife was dead. Her drinking had finally killed her the year after Rosemary married Harold.

Throughout much of her chaotic childhood she’d hated her father for not being there to shield her from her unpredictable and volatile mother and for escaping their problems by going to fight foreign wars.

She looked out of the window for a moment. When she looked back, he was vacant again. She touched his arm. “Dad?”

He focussed again and a smile spread over his face. “Rosie!”

It was hard to keep up with this, but it felt good to have made the connection. She shook her head.

“Hi Dad! How are you?”

“Not so good, girl. I don’t think I’m long for this world. I’d like to go home.”

Rosemary couldn’t tell him that there was no home to go to. After he’d been admitted to the care home the house had been returned to the local authority.

At one time she and Harold had discussed the idea of putting him up in an annex at the Grange, but then Harold’s illness had played hob with their plans.

In any case he’d deteriorated very quickly and soon needed round the clock care and so he had been placed here. Here being the best they could find when the moment had come.

Some of the care homes they had visited had been grim; dark halls inhabited by the walking dead.

“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”

Her father turned to look out of the window and was gone again. Rosemary sighed. It was one of those days where a conversation was impossible.

Suddenly the care home seemed oppressive and stuffy with the reek of those damn lilies. She got to her feet. Her father continued staring out of the window.

A dark cloud settled over her as she walked down the corridor to the secure exit. Halfway through the door she heard the sound of running feet and looked round to see her father bearing down on her.

Startled, she tried to close the door, but he was on her, and his elbow hit her in the face. Stunned, she fell to her knees. He tried to push her out of the way.

Attendants came running to the rescue. He fought them, but he was not the man he once was and he was restrained. He stopped struggling and hung between them.

“Rosie!” he cried through the glass. He looked like a man drowning.

Suddenly she was eight years old again, wondering why he was always going away.

An attendant helped her to her feet and Rosemary walked numbly back to her car, trying to process the notion that she’d imprisoned her father.

She couldn’t remember driving back to the Grange and afterward sat in the library staring out at the garden.

The visits took their toll. Harold used to console her when things went badly. Now he was gone, and she didn’t have his safety net anymore. She felt off balance.

***

December

Jen stared at the gilt-edged card and then looked up at David. “This isn’t one of those parties, is it?”

David grimaced. “With Rosemary all bets are off; although I don’t think she would have the brass neck to invite the two of us to an orgy.”

Jen’s thoughts involuntarily flicked to that wordless exchange over the dinner table in the autumn. With an effort she thrust them aside. “Are we going?”

He did that maddening thing where he widened his eyes and the side of his mouth ticked up. Chaos could break out when he did that.

“Sure, why not? If it gets out of hand, we can always leave. And when did we last go to something other than a works do?”

She uttered the lament of women down the ages. “I’ve got nothing to wear!”

***

As the cab approached the house, Jen gasped. There were white lights strung through all the trees at the front of the property.

“Oh my!” Jennifer exclaimed.

Beside her David chuckled. “She does know how to do things in style. If this is what the grounds look like I might need sunglasses for the house.”

“Looks like a bit of a do, sir,” the cabbie remarked as they crunched slowly along the gravel.

“I hope so,” David replied. “I’m in a tux and the missus is in a dress that cost so much she won’t tell me the price.”

Jen elbowed him in the ribs, she hated being referred to as ‘the missus.’

The cabbie laughed. “Will you be needing a ride later, sir?”

“Sure, although Lord knows when this shindig will end.”

“I’m on all night in this area, sir, here’s my number.” He passed a card with a mobile number on it over his shoulder. Naturally, taxis would use mobiles, David thought.

As they rounded the big cedar, there was as expected, the usual parade of automobile porn.

“Blimey!” said the cabbie. “I’ll have to watch myself. Don’t want to bump any of these beauties; my insurance would go through the roof!”

Fortunately, the space directly in front of the door was clear and a valet stepped forward to open the door for Jen. David exited the taxi after giving the cabbie the fare and waving away the change.

Jen waited for him by the front door and David paused for a moment to take in the view. Her halter neck evening dress was in deep green silk without ornamentation.

Her hair was up, showing off her long neck. The diamond studs in her earlobes flashed and winked in tandem with the solitaire on its silver chain.

He shook his head and she frowned in puzzlement. “What is it?”

“You look amazing. You should be on the arm of some movie star not this clay footed lunk.”

“Nonsense. Now give me your arm, David Piper.”

As they went through the door he leaned back slightly. The dress was backless and there was a breath-taking distance from her hairline to the material just above the base of her spine.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the valet’s eyes had drifted sideways. As he looked up the man’s gaze was firmly forward. David grinned; you’d have to be made of stone not to look.

Inside, the normally gloomy hall was brightly lit by two enormous crystal chandeliers. David couldn’t remember ever seeing them before. There were sconces around the walls that he also hadn’t previously noticed, and they were all lit.

The room was already quite full of people and Jen was relieved to find that she was neither over nor under-dressed.

Rosemary appeared out of the crowd and Jen’s stomach lurched. Classic little black dress, her hair adorned with, of all things, a tiara. She looked like she’d just come off a boat at Cannes.

“David! And Jen! How lovely of you to come. Jen, you look stunning!”

There was the tiniest tremor on the last word and their eyes met. For a moment the room didn’t matter, and it was just the two of them gazing at each other.

Jen didn’t know whether to run screaming or, impossibly, kiss her.

She came to and steeled herself to step forward and embrace Rosemary on both cheeks. Her hands trembled on the other woman’s shoulders, and she knew Rosemary felt it.

Rosemary gathered herself with a visible effort. David was looking around the room and had seen nothing untoward. There was nothing untoward to see, Rosemary determined. Jen was David’s wife and she had already caused enough trouble in their lives.

She was the master of control and was more than capable of ensuring events would proceed properly. As for that part of her mind that was still mulling over the smell of Jen’s perfume and the touch of her lips, it would be brought to heel in due course.

***

A while later, Jen was resting at a side table. She hadn’t danced so much in years. David was sitting backwards on a chair at the next table and talking animatedly with two men, his arms waving about as he talked something technical. They were smiling and nodding as they sipped their drinks. Probably unable to get a word in, she thought.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she knew Rosemary was behind her. She was thus not terribly surprised when the woman slinked past her and sat down at the table. She swallowed and stared at the back of David’s neck willing him to look round and rescue her.

“I never did thank you for your kindness after Harold died,” Rosemary said, balancing her glass on its edge with one finger on the rim.

The stones in her tiara were electric against the dark sheen of her hair.

Jen smiled. “What were we to do, turn you away into the dark?”

She relaxed inwardly, grateful that she wasn’t about to turn into a puddle.

“Besides,” she gestured at the surroundings, “we don’t get the chance to go to dos like this very often.”

Rosemary recognised the likely intentional use of the possessive pronoun. David and Jen as a unit. That was okay. They just needed to defuse this thing that was going on.

“Glad you could come! Have you met anyone interesting?”

Their eyes met and Rosemary cursed her choice of words. There was a ghastly pause and suddenly Rosemary lost patience. Enough of pussy footing around! She called up her ruthless streak.

“Look, this thing, it can’t ever be anything so let’s just try and get over it quickly and with as much grace as we can.”

Jen looked down at her hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fine,” snapped Rosemary and got to her feet.

Jen was aware of her retreating footsteps as if they were the only sound in the room.

***

They got home in the small hours. The house was dark, Jen’s sister having long since gone to bed. Unfastening the front door, they let themselves in as quietly as possible and made their way upstairs.

Jen had been uncharacteristically quiet in the taxi home. Now she sat on the edge of the bed and stared into space. David came and sat beside her.

“Did you have good time?”

She turned to him and smiled. “Yes. I haven’t danced so much in years, I’m absolutely knackered!”

“You used to love to dance. It was nice to see you enjoying yourself.”

“What about you? You’re not much for dancing. Did you enjoy yourself?”

He got up to finish undressing. “There were lots of interesting people there. I had some amazing conversations.”

“You are the cerebral one. Never happier than when discussing some idea!”

Jen’s thoughts turned to Rosemary, and she sighed. The woman had looked amazing on the few occasions where Jen had allowed herself to see her.

Each time her heart had jolted, and her mood had been ruined. Twice, their eyes had met, and Jen had felt the same sense of vertigo as when Rosemary had greeted them at the door.

“Darling?”

David looked over his shoulder. “Yes?”

“Come to bed.”

“Be right there.”

In bed Jen pulled his arm over her, taking comfort in its weight and solidity. He was asleep in moments and once upon a time that easy ability had made her cross. She had been left to lament their plight in the dark while he slept the sleep of the innocents.

Tonight, it was something quite different keeping her awake. The feel of Rosemary’s skin and her subtle scent, the flash of her teeth and sparkle of her dark, dark eyes.

Gently she eased herself out from under his arm and shuffled across the bed. Her feelings as she’d seen Rosemary for the first time that evening came back in full force: the irrational urge to simply throw herself at Rosemary and kiss her. Jen shook her head; she’d never felt anything like this for another woman.

She turned and put her hand out in the dark to David. He murmured in his sleep, and she smiled, the groundswell of warmth in her breast was reassuring. Jen resolved to try and get some sleep.

She came awake with a start to the sound of the rain beating on the window. It was still dark, and dream images swirled in the hallucinatory state betwixt sleeping and waking. Her presence loomed large in the space in and around her head.

Jen became aware of the warmth between her legs and, without thinking, slid one hand into her knickers. Memories of warm tanned skin and soft lips drove her to explore the liquid centre of her sex.

She was very aroused. Just the gentlest of caresses of her clit made her gasp. Trying her damndest to open her legs wider without disturbing David, Jen reached down to tease her opening with her fingers.

Naïve in the ways that women make love to each other, she combined David and Rosemary in her imagination. Her left hand was David, her right hand was Rosemary, making sparks in her head.

Suddenly the thought of Rosemary licking her sex came to her, looking up at her from between her legs with those big black eyes. It was the trigger for her climax. Biting her lip, she quivered, arms and legs rigid.

When she awoke again, it was light, and David was sitting up beside her reading a novel. Her earlier exploits came back to her, and she blushed. One part of her was embarrassed, one part of her was dismissive of night-time fantasies and yet another part of her was very, very aroused.

Jen slid her hand under the duvet and on to David’s thigh. He looked round the side of the book at her eyes, bright with desire.

He put the book down, closed his eyes and lay back on the pillow as Jen grasped his cock. Within seconds she brought him to stiffness, and he waited to see what she wanted to do.

Unusually for Jen, she got on to all fours and reached back to open her sex. She was very wet, and he dithered between licking her or fucking her.

After a moment’s indecision he opted for diving between the cheeks of her arse, his tongue pushing as far inside her as he could manage. The rich smell of her arousal inflamed his senses, and he sucked her sweet juice into his mouth.

“Fuck me, David!” Jen panted, “Fuck me hard!”

The words barely penetrated, overwhelmed as he was by his immersion in her sex, the liquid noise, the heat, the smooth warmth of her skin.

She grabbed his hair and pulled him away.

“David! I need you to fuck me, right now!”

Collecting himself, he aimed his erection at her opening and penetrated her in the one swift movement, then commenced to vigorously comply with her request.

Her head dropped into the pillows, and she arched her back to take even more of him inside her as her hand found her clit.

Jen’s climax was muffled by the bedding. Her cunt clamped down on David’s cock and he came with a shuddering gasp.

They lay spoon fashion, him still inside her. He was empty of thought as men often are after climax.

Jen was content, having reassured herself that whatever she might feel about Rosemary, she still loved and wanted her husband. Which left the question; what did she feel about Rosemary?

***

February

Unbeknownst to the pair of them, they were sitting in the exact same seats that Em and David had sat in on their last outing together a little over eighteen months previously.

Jen had been highly dubious about this meeting, but Rosemary had been persuasive and a little part of her wanted to see Rosemary very much.

For herself, Rosemary wanted to reset things. They had parted badly at the Christmas party and that had niggled at her. Jen was David’s wife; David was someone that Rosemary wanted to make amends to somehow. That meant putting things between the two of them on an even keel.

There was snow on the ground outside and the view through the window was that of the austere majesty of the fens in winter. The effect was to make the interior of the Pike and Eel that much cosier. There was a fire in the hearth and the light glinted off the all the polished brass-work.

“I’m glad you agreed to come, Jennifer.”

The formality grated on Jen. “Call me Jen. You always have, so don’t go all stiff on me now.”

Rosemary smiled. “Thank you! I will.”

Jen sighed. In repose, Rosemary looked almost stern but when she smiled? What a transformation! She had laugh lines at the corners of her eyes and gorgeous even white teeth…

“I believe the phrase is, ‘Earth to Jen’.”