Chapter 4

John Pollard had forgotten the visit of his old flame. His life had settled into something of a routine long before she had arrived, and after her visit it was regained. He visited his children; he visited his friends, and they visited him. The parish kept him busy visiting the sick and housebound. One day a week he helped at a shelter and hostel for the homeless, or more often if they were short staffed.

He had no time to wonder why Claire had decided to visit after so long. He had assumed it was compassion for his loss and gave it no further thought. So it came as a surprise when his phone had rung and the voice at the other end had identified himself as Peter Klinsman. John waited.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Claire’s mother has died. I’m back in the Netherlands now but she’s staying on to sort out the estate. She wants to come and see you. You’ve both suffered bereavement and she was very close to her mother. She thinks you’ll be able to help her. So if you can find a good hotel for her nearby I’m sure she’d be grateful.”

John was non-plussed. He remembered how angry Claire had been about the letter, but here Peter Klinsman was phoning him and hadn’t mentioned it. He was obviously someone who manipulated events to suit himself, John thought. Why was he asking this? John decided to let it go. If Claire got in touch, she would tell him what she wanted, but he would look up some hotels locally in any case.

“I can do that,” he responded. “I’ll make enquiries and she can choose one if she decides to come here.”

The conversation was stilted but Peter seemed satisfied with his response and rang off, whereupon John immediately forgot the conversation.

Then next call came from Claire weeks later. “John, I wonder if I could come and stay with you while I sort out my mother’s estate. Are you free?”

“Claire! Of course you can stay!” John exclaimed. “Oh bother, I forgot all about the hotel!”

“Hotel?” she asked.

“When Peter rang me, I promised him to look out some hotels for you to choose where to stay while you’re over here, and I clean forgot about it.”

Claire’s voice betrayed her anger. “He phoned you? I knew nothing of that, John. We need to talk when I get there. If you can put me up, I’d like to stay with you.”

“Of course you can,” he said. “I assumed you’d be staying with me when Peter mentioned the hotel.”

“Don’t worry about the hotel,” said Claire. “There’s a story attached to that. I’ll enlighten you when I get there.”

She arrived with two suitcases the next afternoon and John stood back to let her in. She put them down in the hallway and turned to him, and they naturally hugged as they always had, he remembered, body to body. She never held back with her hugs.

“You’re very welcome, Claire,” said John as they parted, a little out of breath, “but are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay in a hotel?”

“What I was actually hoping for, was that I could stay here with you, and that’s what I told Peter before he went back to the Netherlands. The hotel was all his idea and I know why.”

“Come through to the kitchen,” he invited, and she made straight for the kitchen and sat down at the table. John did not need to ask if she wanted tea. It was obvious.

John spoke as he busied himself with tea-making. “There’s no problem about you staying here, Claire. I would have expected to put you up here until Peter made his request. When he rang I thought you wanted to keep him happy – you did say he was jealous.”

He excused himself while he set the washing machine in motion in the utility room and then returned to sit opposite her at the table. He smiled a broad smile and immediately the angry look left her face and she smiled back. He then poured the tea.

“Later we will talk,” John said. “First we need to be practical. You will have my bedroom. I have moved out because it has its own en-suite bathroom; that will allow you to relax more. I’ll use the second largest bedroom. It’s already got my stuff in it ready for you arriving in case you stayed.”

Claire started to object.

“Listen,” John said. “We never held back what we were thinking, and I’m not going to start now. You’re married to Peter. You’re a very attractive woman. I remember vividly our more intimate times together. I need to keep you at arm’s length in a way. You understand?”

Claire looked startled for a second, but then nodded with a smile.

“John, as usual you see to the heart of things. I know now why I came to you. It’s a mixture of your integrity, love and respect.”

John looked embarrassed, and tried to cover it by finishing his tea. “Let’s get to it.”

They took her bags to his erstwhile bedroom and then settled back in the living room. There was a silence, and then John spoke.

“Claire, I’m very happy to have you here for as long as you need to be here. I want you to feel you can be alone when you need to be, and to come and talk when you want. I don’t want to get in your way. Just treat the place as your home.”

“Dear John,” Claire smiled warmly. “I’m so glad I came. I already feel as if I’m at home. Can I try to tell you why I’m here?”

John nodded and Claire began her story. She outlined her problem with Peter’s jealousy and lack of trust in her faithfulness, and how it had culminated in his reading and answering John’s letter to her.

She explained how she felt at the end of her tether and the feeling she had that this was a turning point in her life. She did not know if she could live with Peter much longer unless he was cured of his jealousy and lack of trust. Their relationship had to become more equal.

“I told him that he would have to learn to trust the hard way by putting up with my living here with you. I told him I would be living here and if he wanted our marriage to continue he’d have to accept it. He would have to trust me to be faithful and I gave him my solemn promise that I would be. That was the whole point of me being here with you. Now I find he tried to get you to hive me off to a hotel. It hasn’t helped.

“I’ll bet he hasn’t made an appointment with a psychiatrist either. That was the second string to his treatment.”

“So it’s clear you’ve not come just to teach Peter a lesson; you really want him to get over his lack of trust and his jealousy. You want to save your marriage. But there’s more, I think?”

“Yes, you’re quite right. On one level I have to finish off sorting the estate out. Not easy; the family tell me they want to keep the house as a holiday home so there’s a lot of legal to-ing and fro-ing between me, Ellen and Simon, and George. The size of the house and its valuation is going to incur a lot of inheritance tax.

“According to the will it was to be sold and the proceeds split three ways after tax, so if we want to keep it, we’ll have to sign legal affidavits that we will keep the house in equal joint ownership, and agree on what happens if and when one of us dies or wants out. That’s nearly sorted out. Then there’s probate and carrying out the stipulations in the will.”

“And?”

She smiled. He was so perceptive! He smiled warmly back and she felt heat. It shocked her.

“And.” Claire said after collecting herself, and staring at John. “I’ve been so busy I’ve not had time to think or to feel. Mum’s death is going catch up with me; I’m numb at the moment. You know what it’s like, that’s why I’ve come to you. I want to be near you when it hits. I know you’ll understand. I need your support.”

“Ah!” John sighed. “Well, I’m not out of it myself yet, so we can support each other. I’m not trying to get rid of you, stay as long as you need to or want, but how long were you thinking of staying?”

“Why? Had you something planned?”

“No, nothing all this year. I know some widows and widowers go on cruises and holidays. I think that’s an escape. I want to face it. Anyway, Elizabeth will be annoyed if I don’t look after her garden.”

They both laughed.

“I can help there,” she said. “We can do that together.”

“So? How long?”

“About four weeks. Is that too long?”

“No. As I said you can stay as long as you want, though you won’t be over it by then by a long chalk, but you should be better able to cope.”

Claire smiled with obvious relief, and in her vulnerability John once again saw the young girl he had loved so long ago.

John stood up. “Come on,” he said. “It’s getting late, and we need to do some shopping. We can get everything at the local shops.”

By the time they returned to the house it was evening. They unloaded the car and brought the shopping to the kitchen. Claire was at a loss, not knowing where anything went. John began to put things away and then realised Claire was standing looking helpless.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, stopping as he put the bottle of cooking oil into the cupboard.

“I don’t know where anything goes,” she said.

“Well, follow me around and I’ll show you.”

That is what she did. Then she made her way round the cupboards and drawers, looking carefully in each one. John laughed at her concentration as she tried to remember where everything was.

“What?” she asked, affecting exasperation.

“Nothing.” He said, smiling innocently, but she knew he was laughing at her.

“I want to know where everything is. You’re not going to wait on me hand and foot while I’m here – I’m going to pull my weight.”

“No objections there!” said John.

Claire finished her inspection and turned to John with a smile.

“I’ll soon find my way round. You won’t mind if I cook a bit?”

He shook his head.

“Good,” she said, “We can look after each other.”

John suggested they go out of a meal to save cooking on her first evening, and she readily agreed.

When they returned, she left him and went to sort out her room and unpack, then she sat in ‘her’ room for a while, soaking in the feeling that she was at home there. At nine, her mobile rang. It was Peter.

“Where are you?” he asked without preamble.

“At John’s,” she said coldly.

“Didn’t he find you a hotel?”

“Peter, you know that was never the plan. I wouldn’t have gone to a hotel if he’d booked one. He did give me the option. You know why I didn’t take it.”

“I don’t like this,” he said.

She could hear he was either angry or worried in his voice, but found she didn’t really care which.

“Peter,” she snapped, “I was angry at you because you tried to run my life with that letter to John. Now I learn that you phoned John and asked him to book me a hotel, when you knew the reason I wanted to stay here with John. You tried to manipulate my life without my consent yet again.

“You apologised at Mother’s, but you’ve learned nothing and haven’t changed at all, so that apology didn’t mean much, did it? I gave my solemn word to you I would be faithful, but that means nothing to you: you don’t trust me at all. You’ve really done it this time. I warned you about interfering. Have you made an appointment with a therapist?”

“I don’t need some quack psychologist telling me what to do.”

She sighed. “Peter, the fact you are continuing to try to manipulate my life shows that you do need that, very badly. I’m starting to think you don’t really want to beat this disability of yours.”

“Claire,” he begged seeming on the edge of tears. “Please don’t do this. It’s tearing me apart!”

“You still aren’t getting it, are you?” she said with resignation. “You have to learn that from now on I’m not going to be your tame slave, imprisoned in your castle. You’ve got to get used to the fact that from now I’m an independent woman.”

“But you’re not!” he almost shouted down the phone. “You’re dependent on me for everything – you’re my wife for God’s sake.”

“I depend on you because you deliberately made it so. You moved me to the Netherlands where I couldn’t be independent,” she replied with increased determination, “but it’s no plan of mine to be that way anymore.”

“How will you do that without my money?”

“Peter,” she growled, “Are you threatening me? You’ve always engineered my financial position to keep me dependent on you. It’s not going to work any more. In any case, I seem to remember something in our marriage vows about all your worldly goods coming my way?”

“That’s if you’re a good wife, and you’re not at the moment.”

She gasped. “I don’t remember any conditions in the marriage service – there were no ‘ifs’. And, anyway, I would still be as good a wife as I have been over all these years if you were a good, loving husband, and it’s now getting depressingly clearer that you’re not.

“Now listen. I’ve had to open a current account for myself while I deal with the estate to account for my expenses, and you’ll have noticed I’ve transferred money from our current account into it. I want you to make a regular transfer into it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Peter, you are not negotiating a business deal here. This is your wife speaking. I need a monthly transfer of about five hundred Euros.

“You ask what if you don’t give me the money? I’ll tell you: the marriage will definitely be over. I won’t remain married to a man who tries to starve or blackmail me into coming back to him.

“Make your mind up. I know you’re frightened but you’re not helping the situation by trying to manipulate me. I warn you that the exact reverse of what you want will happen. So what are you going to do?”

A pause ensued. Then he said, “Ok. Give me the sort code and account number.”