Chapter 5

I do fear thy nature; it is too full o’ the milk of human kindness.

Macbeth Act 1 Scene 5

My visit to Robert and Helga confused me, and the ensuing few days with Alice completed my bewilderment. I had been dumped by my husband, got over that to find a new future for myself only to find that it crumbled in my hands. Take away the travelling and the posturing and my bright new career lasted less than a week. After spending several months bemoaning the lack of tranquility to think things through, I suddenly had nothing but time for contemplation for the rest of my life.

I recognised that I was in the frame of mind people expected from me immediately after Geoff dropped his bomb. At that time, I was brave and apparently untroubled while my friends waited anxiously to comfort me. After a death, a certain amount of mourning is not only proper but is expected. There is a good deal less sympathy for someone like me who has waited almost half a year to grieve. My children had made the initial adjustment.

Robert dropped everything to come to Lincoln to bring his parents together, but by the time of my visit to Frankfurt, he had turned back to contemplating the dark mass that we only know about because without it the equations governing the Universe do not balance. He left me in the care of Helga, the lovely young girl he is engaged to. She and I became instant friends during Robby’s visit, but a week together proved rather more than I could handle. Our easy understanding of the other’s point of view evaporated.

We recognised the rift in time to separate amicably but each of us ascribed the uneasiness to a different cause. I thought that it was a cultural difference – Helga was born in rural Bavaria and educated mainly in Munich. She, I am sure, thought that my age was at the heart of the problem. To be blunt, she considered that I needed one or more sexual affairs to recover from the loss of my husband. I had admitted that he and I were still active in that way, right up to the night before we went on the cruise, as a matter of fact.

Helga had me admit that there had been not so much as a kiss with anyone since then. She made it her mission to find me a partner. I had felt no interest in seeking male company except, as I was foolish enough to admit to my future daughter-in-law, a solicitor in Lincoln. I had not even missed Geoff in my bed. While Helga worried about my lack of interest in sex, I became concerned with what seemed to be her excessive interest. Would she, I wondered, remain faithful to Robby if they were separated for a prolonged time. We were both somewhat relieved when I decided that I was overdue a visit to my pregnant daughter.

Alice was tired but blooming. This second pregnancy had matured her; she worried about doing the right thing when she was carrying Leo, her first born. This time she was more assured. Leo had been a real handful entering his two’s but having a baby sister to look forward to seemed to have settled him. Or perhaps it was because he had to adjust to living with a preoccupied mum who was no longer available when he yelled for attention. Whatever it was, he was content now to play on the floor with his toys while Ali and I chatted beside him. In the past, I had been welcomed as another body to distract him giving his Mum a break. Now I found myself being warned off because I was over-stimulating him when he needed time on his own.

At first, it seemed that Alice had accepted the separation between her dad and me. It was only after a couple of days that I realised that she had simply changed her aim from reconciliation to the forging of a new relationship.

“I know Daddy hurt you terribly and that you can never recover what you once had, but...” she would start, and it was plain that she really meant ‘BUT.’ Her argument was, in fact, perfectly reasonable. Geoff and I had been friends and partners for thirty years without many serious disagreements. We were clearly compatible on many levels. His departure to seek love with another woman was only one small aspect of a large and complex relationship.

Interestingly, Ali took a diametrically opposite view to Helga, arguing that at our age, physical love had probably been rare, bordering on the non-existent. I had no difficulty confiding in Robert’s fiancée, but I found it impossible to talk about my sex life with my own daughter. We had to have done the dirty deed at least twice in our lives, but it was easier to pretend to Alice that her Dad and I limited shows of a affection to a peck on the cheek. I did admit to her that I missed Geoff’s company while insisting that my feelings were still too raw to contemplate a rapprochement.

To be honest, I was becoming weary of Alice in her new persona as Earth Mother. She believed that she was enlightening me on universal truths, and I thought she was suffering from the loss of intelligence suffered by all pregnant women. Fortunately, I received an intriguing invitation, before Ali and I descended into open hostilities. Morag, Lady Sinclair, asked me to join her in a suite in Claridges Hotel for a week of shopping.

She had already been there for a week kitting out her daughter Nicky for her new role as head of the school for ship’s stewards opening in Athens. I had met each of them once before. Nicky and I quarreled, and I later discovered that she had feelings for Captain Shaw who had, apparently, selected me for his final fling. Morag boarded the ship where I was a crew member to demolish me on her daughter’s behalf, but we finished up in a rather uneasy truce. I might have been slightly more surprised to be asked to tea with the Queen, but Morag’s invitation was almost as unexpected.

She assured me that there would be no cost, except what I chose to spend in the boutiques she intended to visit. I had no job prospects and scanty savings so I did not think there was a great chance that I would be tempted to buy. Morag began life as a decorative shop assistant on the perfume counter of a chain store, a fact she makes no attempt to conceal. She professed a liking for me because I am equally unabashed by my own origins as the typist daughter of an office cleaner. I might have turned down the invitation if Alice and I had been getting on better, but I grabbed at the excuse to get out of her house that was becoming too small for us.

I did not look too closely at the reasons for the royal command, but it soon became apparent that Morag is a ‘T’ crosser, a veritable ‘I’ dotter. For the first time in my life, I felt some sympathy for Catholic priests. The few times I thought of them previously I imagined that they got a certain naughty satisfaction from hearing lurid confessions. Morag wanted to unload everything, including random thoughts she had that would never have come close to deeds.

The story was commonplace enough. Nicky was a sweet child who became rather wild in her late teens. She dabbled or perhaps worse in drugs and she was friendly with many undesirable people. Despite Morag’s compulsion to confess, it was not totally clear how they got Nicky shipped off to Mallorca to become a steward. Reading between the lines, a senior police officer, friendly with Sir Murdoch, gave her the alternative of going abroad or facing charges.

Once she had agreed to flee, her destination was never in doubt. Callum Shaw had served under Murdoch and was something of a protégé of the older man. He was now the responsible Captain of a cruise liner, just the sort of surrogate parent Morag and her husband required. Callum was rumoured to have occasional very discreet affairs with willing crew members but the fifteen-year age gap between him and Nicky was thought to be sufficient, even if his loyalty to Murdoch was not enough to keep her out of his bed.

Morag’s source of information was William, the senior steward who had served under her husband. According to him, the captain had resisted for a couple of voyages before he admitted his attraction for the young stewardess. Even after he told her that the pair were an item, Morag dismissed the information as impossible to believe. Any possibility of a peaceful resolution was shattered when Nicky missed a period and fled home to Southampton in a panic.

Morag decided to take immediate action. Her best friend had a son who had taken Nicky to school dances and other formal dates, although the youngsters seemed to no more than tolerate each other. While she was sowing her wild oats, Henry Adams was quietly studying to become an accountant. The mothers decided that the kids were a match which would have been made in heaven if heaven had chosen to take the trouble. Nicky had lost the love of her life and did not care much what happened, and I suspect that Henry saw the marriage as his only chance to bed a desirable girl.

They remained together long enough to produce a boy and a girl, before the marriage imploded. That was hardly surprising, but Morag’s explanation was interesting.

“Of course, it was his mother that wrecked the marriage,” Morag confided over tea in the Ritz. “It was when Murdo got his knighthood, and she was insane with jealousy. Henry’s father had about as much hope of a knighthood as Jack the Ripper. The only way she could get back at me was by breaking up Nicky and Henry.

“The poor boy was distraught, crying in my arms. I almost took him to my own bed to comfort him but then I remembered that Nicky is my daughter. Not that I think she would have minded. He’s a potent little devil, I will say that for Henry. He married a chubby girl from the tennis club, and they’ve got three brats to add to the two he gave Nicky.

“I ignore his mother, of course, except to sneer at her when we meet.”

Morag, despite her compulsion to explore every nuance, ignored what had happened between Callum and her daughter. There was a certain coolness for a time, she admitted, but she and Murdoch accepted that it had been nothing more than a brief affair, more the result of proximity than anything serious. They seem to have accepted what happened as the final flourish of Nicky’s misspent youth. Nicky moved to London after the divorce to work in the company office where I met her when I arrived without a First Aid certificate.

I was sitting on the other side of her desk when she accepted the telephone call from Callum. She was wearing a headset with a microphone almost touching her lips, so I heard nothing of the conversation. I assumed that she was being given a roasting by the caller since her face became bright red and she lost her composure. What has become clear since then, is that the love between her and the captain was as strong as ever.

She had not told Callum why she suddenly left the ship to fly back home. He presumably assumed that she had realised his unsuitability, so he did the noble thing and let her go without question or closure. I guess she expected that he would follow her home demanding an explanation for her sudden departure. Whatever the truth of the matter, it took just that one call to convince them that their feelings were as strong as before they parted. Morag and Murdoch are now learning to be content that their only child has found happiness.

My position gnawed at Morag like a sore tooth. William has been her inside source since her husband relinquished his command. He has proved his worth, particularly in detecting the lasting affection between Callum and Nicky. He is the one who named me as the captain’s final fling. It is no secret that Callum’s wife Flora was finally ready to divorce her husband, nor was it news that Callum sometimes had brief affairs with crew members. The only evidence that I was in his thoughts centred around the dances we shared when I was a passenger and the subsequent offer of employment. Callum does not seduce the paying guests, but he is known to have flings with the crew. Morag would still be trying to pry information from me if she had not had to return home to host a charity dinner.

I was reminded of a few things during my week in London with Morag. The bathroom in the suite was full of mirrors and there was a spot between the bidet and the loo where you could see yourself in the round, so to speak, from neck to mid-thigh. I am about ten kilos overweight and every ounce of it showed up, detailing the result of playing so little tennis in the last year. Seeing Morag wearing almost as little in a series of changing rooms showed me how much a good dressmaker can do but I do not have the cash to fund that solution.

Tina and the other girls had prepared me for the dance on the last night of my cruise to maximise my attractiveness. It was great fun, and I would not have missed it for the world, but it is not only lack of money that stops me dressing like that all the time. Morag does and it puts her under immense strain; because her appearance is enhanced, she assumes that everyone she meets is also cheating. She has no real friends, only rivals, old bitches arguing over a handful of mouldy bones.

Her distrust, and her fervour to cling on to what she has, is at the heart of her marriage. Both she and Murdoch have had affairs, but they cling to each other for the material benefits of their union. As a result, they were unable to understand the passions that drove their only child. If Morag had been my Mum, I am sure that I would also have been a wild child. Nicky must have sensed in her early teens that there was very little love in her home.

I have only met Nicky twice and I did not know that Captain Shaw was in a loveless marriage until he was in the throes of divorce, but it is not too far-fetched to picture what happened when they met. They clearly felt a flare of passion although neither had the history or experience to recognise true love. Assuming that it was no more than the kind of affair that they had each experienced in the past, they were, I am convinced, frightened by the very intensity of their feelings. No wonder she ran away when she suspected that she was carrying his child.

She must have been utterly distraught at the thought of bringing yet another unloved infant into the world. She must have doubted her own ability to love, and she must have feared the reaction of Callum to the consequences of their coupling. That it needed no more than a single telephone call nine years later to reignite the passion is the true measure of their devotion. On the train returning to Reading, I found myself envying them.

Geoff and I never reached these awesome heights, settling for a more pedestrian love based on mutual respect. Indeed, he used to say, when we stood together looking at our sleeping children, that he did not know what love was, other than the complete contentment that filled his heart at such a moment. I was supposed to be the emotional partner but all I could do was hug his arm to my breast since I could think of no better way to describe love. Now, as so often, I was going to make a practical demonstration of my love. Even if I did not know what to do with my own life, I know the role Ali expects me to play in hers.

Alice was coping well with pregnancy and a toddler, but we agreed that I could help by staying in the area until after the birth of her daughter. When I reached Reading station, I went to an agent to see about renting a small flat for three months. That forced me into communication with the people I had left behind in Lincoln. I needed a reference from Quentin, but I could not ask without explaining myself to Sinead. That began the snowball: if I tell her, I must then tell Peggy and Connie and probably Dot in my old office. At least Alice’s pregnancy allowed me to be vague about the date of my return home.

The letting agent was most helpful, placing me in a flat close to the town centre amongst older people. I was only a bus ride away from Alice, so I quickly assumed responsibility for getting Leo to and from nursery. I took the bus to her bungalow, since Connie still had my vehicle, where I picked up her car and child; after dropping him off, I would do the heavy shopping before collecting him again. He needed a nap after his exertions, and I began taking him back to my flat to give Alice a chance to rest. I was happy enough to be of use to her and Josh, but I had too much time on my hands.

Part time jobs for ladies in their fifties are not abundant; after a somewhat desultory search I settled to volunteering in a charity shop. I would have preferred paid employment since the rent for my flat was making a hole in my savings, but any occupation was better than sitting in my flat alone or drinking endless cups of coffee in cafes. The shop manager was a dear old soul with no management skills, and I quickly took over most of her duties.

The great advantage of the shop was that they positively welcomed Leo. When he got out of nursery, we would sign in for work. Typically, I would go on the till while my grandson went to the book department. This was run by a retired primary teacher and an even longer retired librarian. One of them would read him a story until he fell asleep; when he woke, they would play games with him until it was time to close the doors. I had to be extremely firm with all the old ladies to prevent Leo blowing up like a balloon from the treats they brought for him.

I had been volunteering for less than a month when the area manager offered me a hundred and fifty pounds a week to be assistant manager. This made an enormous difference to my finances. I was having my main meal with Josh and Alice, so my grocery bill was tiny. It was a wonderful interlude. Alice was tired but otherwise healthy, I was really getting to know my only grandchild with the bonus that I became much closer to my son-in-law, a fine man and a devoted husband and father.

The few weeks until the birth of Elizabeth Anne were amongst the happiest of my life. It was an easy birth – at least from where Josh and I were standing! Alice pronounced herself tired but content, and Leo was wildly enthusiastic, especially after seeing the load of poo his little sister deposited in her nappy. Into every Eden there must come a serpent and ours was named Anne, Josh’s mother. She did not seem much of a threat to our little paradise when she first appeared the day after the birth.

Her second husband absconded earlier in the year less than eighteen months after they moved to the South Coast from their family home in a London dormitory town where Josh had been raised. Josh got on well with his Stepfather – better, it transpired, than his mother did. She was lonely and I readily agreed to put her up in my flat rather than isolate her in a hotel. I even gave up my bed, sleeping on the couch for the few days she would remain with us. I am sorry to say that I must have overdone the hospitality since she decided almost before Ali and the baby went home, that she would sell her home and move to Reading.

That would have been a happy outcome all round if it had not been for the fact that most of her money was tied up in her home. She did have a small annuity, but it would not stretch to renting a flat. Josh bought a sofa bed when I agreed that Anne could share with me until her home sold. She was a bit helpless, and I did not mind the inconvenience for a limited period of time. It turned out that her helplessness extended to estate agents, so her house was not listed until Josh had the leisure to deal with the problem.

I shrugged, accepting that I was going to be sharing my tiny flat for the foreseeable future. Just as I reluctantly accepted that, Anne grumbled about being bored so I suggested she follow my lead by volunteering in a charity shop; she chose the one I worked at. It took almost a week for me to realise that my new flat mate was seeking to outdo me in every aspect of life. Josh was calling his daughter Eliza while Alice favored Lizabeth; Anne took to calling the infant Annie.

Worse was to follow. Our shop manager announced that she was waiting for a vacancy in a retirement home close to her children and would be leaving her post. The area manager more or less promised me the job in succession. That became common gossip within minutes, of course, and I was happy that most of the volunteers were pleased that I would become manager. Everyone except Anne, that is; she set about casting doubt on my ability to everyone who would give her a hearing.

My job in the charity shop was the best I had ever had. Most of the volunteers had filled important roles in other jobs throughout their lives, so there was hardly any of the tensions to succeed that frequently sour relationships in the workplace. Leo’s special friends were a good example. The teacher had been Head of a large primary school before her retirement, while the librarian had been responsible for all library services in the county. They were delighted that I was prepared to shoulder the administrative burden, even though either of them could have done the job better.

Anne, who had not worked since the third month of her pregnancy with Josh, her thirty-year-old son, thought she deserved to be manager in my stead. The area manager was a pleasant man with a talent for compromise which worked well with the volunteers. It turned out that he was reluctant to make decisions, so he reneged on his promise to promote me, opening the vacancy to other applicants. Anne applied, setting her supporters amongst the volunteers against mine.

We were still sharing my flat, Anne in the single bedroom and me sleeping in the lounge on a fold-away bed. She complained when I sent her to bed instead of letting her watch television until late at night, and she moaned at me for my untidy habits in the bathroom. Where else can you hang your delicate items to dry, I ask you. We exchanged as few words as possible except when we were together at Alice’s home where we tried to be polite.

Josh and my daughter were oblivious to the war that was being waged between the two grandmothers. Alice did put her foot down about calling the baby Annie but otherwise she thought everything was sweetness and light between Anne and me. I was seething inside but managing to smile until Ali brought up the subject of her precious Daddy. Anne and I had cooperated to produce a family Sunday dinner, and we were sitting replete with the children asleep when Alice attacked.

“Wouldn’t it be just perfect if you and Daddy were back together.”

“He hurt me very deeply, Alice. I’m not saying we’ll never be friends, but it will take time for me to get over the pain.”

“Your trouble is that you don’t appreciate what you’ve got,” Anne interjected. “I’d give anything to have my Stanley back. It seems to me that any real woman would find it in her heart to forgive her husband a little lapse – if she really loved him.”

I am ashamed to say that I screeched at her to butt out of my life, then I strode to the door slamming it behind me. Lizabeth woke up as I left so I probably got the blame for waking her. Alice lives almost five kilometres from the flat and I set out to walk off my anger. I think I had probably gone about one kilometre when I came to my senses and called for an uber to take me home. Anne did not come home that night.

The following morning, I had a long lie, going straight to the shop when it opened. I had still been taking Leo to nursery, but I decided to let them know that I was displeased. The main fault was Anne’s, but I blamed Alice for resurrecting the question of Geoff and me getting back together. She may be my daughter, but it is none of her business how I conduct my life. I was so incensed that I almost called the area manager and withdrew my application for the post of shop manager.

It was a window Monday, so Magdalena, our manager who preferred to be called Maggie, would not be in until lunchtime. I was a small part of that reason, but the main problem was Erin, our window dresser. She had been employed by one of the prestigious shops in London until she was asked to retire at sixty-three. She spends her time wandering from department to department behind the scenes in our shop, spotting things that can be incorporated into a stunning display. She rules the windows with a rod of iron, although she sometimes needs help in finding where she left her car.

We have two windows, and her displays last a month; every other Monday the existing display is dismantled and a new one created. People make a point of passing our shop just to look at Erin’s displays. They have the artistic merit of a still life or collage. Today’s masterpiece will promote children’s clothing; Erin will be striding around pointing out items to her train of acolytes. In another hour, she will begin the process of assembling the picture. She will have raided the toy department, the book department and any other department that will help to make her vision live.

For the past week she will have been quietly looking, making notes in the ledger that never leaves her hand. It contains lists of suitable items, frequently accompanied by a sketch of where they might fit in a future display. When she finally approves today’s window, she will hand Maggie a list of suitable replacement items since the till staff are at liberty to sell from the display. When she is not plundering the storerooms, Erin is something of a raconteur. All her tales arise from her years of constructing displays in full view of passers-by.

The plate glass windows allow very little conversation to pass between the window dressers and gawping pedestrians, but sign language can be devastating. She was in overall charge of displays when a drunk persisted in tapping the window and making obscene gestures.

“So, I just dropped my joggers and showed him my bony arse. The management reacted to his complaint by sacking me – apparently the customer is right even if that guy never had and never would buy anything in the store.” Erin is certainly slim but not bony. “It’s not the first time I’ve mooned in a window I was dressing but I guess my arse just isn’t up to the job anymore.”

Maggie surprised me by bouncing in before eleven. She scuttled past the window dressers and burst into the office where I was preparing the weekly report for head office. That chore is the other reason she normally stays away until lunchtime. The till is cashed up every evening and I generally do the routine banking sometime in the morning. On Monday, we must prepare a comprehensive report that has to be posted that same evening. Maggie struggles with figures, so I took responsibility for the task.

I was teaching Pat how to complete the paperwork when Maggie joined us in her tiny office. It was obvious that she had a great secret that she did not want to share with Pat. We had almost finished, so I left Pat to close the envelope while I went to get coffee for Maggie and me. Pat left to drop the package in the post box and Maggie began before the door was properly closed.

“I’ve got my place at St. Paul’s! Peter and Lilly are coming to get me on Saturday. They’re having it redecorated throughout. Aren’t they good to me?”

My understanding was that her son Peter was buying the retirement cottage to give his mother in return for her three-bedroom semi in a good area of Reading. A quarter of a million in exchange for a hundred and fifty thousand hardly seemed like a good bargain, even if he was throwing in a paint job. Still, she is pleased, and you can’t take it with you, as they say.

I was certainly in no position to criticise other people’s children. Strangely enough, Erin, who had no kids of her own, was looked after best by the younger generation. She had six or seven nieces and nephews who visited her almost every weekend, in addition to taking her on holidays with them. Erin’s siblings were a bit stuffy, by all accounts so she became the adult most likely to intervene on behalf of their children. They are certainly proving their gratitude now in a practical way.

Maggie had wanted to talk to me first because she was concerned that her replacement had not been announced. She telephoned the area manager despite my attempts to dissuade her. An hour before, I had been ready to withdraw my application but now I wanted a little more time to think. Since Geoff told me he was finished with me, I have made a number of hasty decisions. Many of them have actually turned out well but my native caution is beginning to reassert itself.

I have no home, except for a rented flat that I am sharing with a woman I strongly dislike; the only job I have pays less than my minimum expenses; and my presence in Reading so close to my daughter is becoming a liability. At least the position as shop manager would enable me to pay my way. My time with Leo has been wonderful but, even there, Anne has been making moves to win his affection away from me. Do I stay to fight, or should I strike my colours and sneak away?

Maggie had been talking to the area manager for some minutes although I had tuned her out. Now, however, she thrust the receiver into my hand, and I had to talk to him, ready or not.

“ ... it’s protocol, Maggie, you have to understand,” he was saying.

“Is your protocol as reliable as your promise, Foxy?” I interrupted. There was a brief silence and then some spluttering before he replied. “Oh Beth! I was just explaining to Maggie why we have yet to appoint her successor. I’m sure that with your experience in business, you will comprehend our problem.”