Chapter 4: Rescue!

Queen Grand Mother Urmah moved like a wraith through the Palace corridors, shape shifting and blending into the walls and tapestries as she glided to her quarters. They were locked, but you cannot keep anything closed from a determined Witch, and she melted through the door, not leaving a trace, as if it had been an open doorway.

Inside, although it was as dark as a coal mine, she ran to a wardrobe and brought forth a cloth-covered object about the size of her torso and oval in shape. She brought it to her dressing table and unwrapped it, after lighting a candle there from a tinderbox beside it. In the flickering light, the object appeared to be a mirror but unlike any mirror a mere mortal would choose to view themselves in. No, this glassy surface, framed in a beautifully fashioned gilt surround, had but a cloudy, milky image, not at all a reflection. Although the Queen Grand Mother held it at arm’s length in front of her as she sat relaxed upon a leather-skinned padded cushion on a comfortable high backed chair, her image failed to reflect from the surface of the oval mirror, it was as if the silver painted on the reverse of the glass had worn away.

She pressed the side of the frame and a small shallow drawer appeared to open at the foot of the frame. From a pocket in her vestments, wrapped in a silk handkerchief, she extracted a tiny green eyelash with silver tweezers, barely visible to the naked eye, which she deposited in the bottom of the little drawer and closed it up. The screen instantly darkened, showing what looked like a moving image over the fortified walls of the Palace, as if someone was flying high above the ground. The image appeared to move with purpose, descending down, the stones on the wall appearing to shoot upwards. Soon the image brightened considerably as the mirror reached a lighted glass window through which could be seen the back of a crouching figure of a hunch-shouldered woman warming herself by an open fire. She turned when she was alerted to the presence of the onlooker, for that is surely what the magic mirror had captured via the magic associated with the original owner of the eyelash. Now that there was light and the onlooker was hovering outside this window, it was clear that this image in the magic mirror was depicting exactly what Zyndyr the Elf was seeing, as her green hair blew in front of her face and swept in front of her eyes, and therefore in front of the scene before those emerald orbs.

Zyndyr’s hand could be seen rapping on the window but there was no sound. The window opened, showing Queen Myr, with a black eye and a split and swollen lip, but with a delighted look on her damaged face.

From where she sat at her dressing table, Queen Urmah seethed with rage at this outrage to her granddaughter, who had only just recovered from her five-year-long ordeal of abusive imprisonment with the Orcs of Blearn Mountain and the evil Sorcerer, who was both the great-grandfather of her grandchild High Queen Myr and the father of Myr’s first born, Prince Bydon.

Queen Myr was clearly delighted that the Elf had arrived at her window and threw herself into Zyndyr’s arms as soon as her rescuer entered the room. Soon the image changed, now the dark hair of Myr swept in front of the eyes as they retraced their steps back over the blocks of stones until they reached up to the tower that once housed Korwyn and Zyndyr in a grand apartment, now under siege.

Queen Urmah wrapped the oval mirror back in its silk bindings and put it away in the wardrobe. Just as she was about to slip wraith-like through the stones again, in readiness to join her daughter, she could hear the cry without of alarm and the clash of steel against steel and the screams of Dwarves being slaughtered, by a Man and four vengeful Dwarves from the Dwarf Army of Man that should have been far away marching on the Kingdom of Man.

“Glad that you’re home at last!” Carole snapped as soon as Clive walked in the front door, “Have you been deliberately avoiding me?”

It had been late on a Friday afternoon and Clive had been busy getting new bed linen and towels for his rented flat, and he hadn’t realised that the last bus left the nearest bus stop at five past five and he had just missed it. He was fortunate that someone passing by noticed him standing by the bus stop and told him, otherwise he might have stood there like a lemon waiting for a bus that was never coming. He had to walk briskly to the other end of the High Street and catch the shuttle between the station and the hospital which stopped on the opposite side of the estate in which he lived. By the time he had walked through the estate of suburban houses it was getting on for six o’clock and he thought he had probably missed the family tea by at least half an hour.

Carole had her face all made up and, wearing a skirt and stockings, she looked ready to go out for the evening, unlike the sweatshirt and sweatpants that she usually changed into on a Friday night after work.

“Oh sorry, Carole, I wasn’t aware that you were going out tonight. I missed the bus and had to walk. What’s for tea?”

“Nothing in for tea, Clive, you need to order in for you and the children.”

“Oh, right. Where are you going out to tonight?”

“Out, and because you’re running late, I’m now running late!” she snapped. “I’ve called and got Mum coming round and there’s a taxi collecting me in two minutes, ah, there is the taxi now.”

Clive turned, to see a taxi cab just turned up at the kerb outside their house. And only moments behind the taxi’s arrival, Clive recognised the yellow Ford Ka of her mother’s pull up immediately behind it.

“I’ll go tell her she’s not needed then, Carole, as it looks like I’m babysitting tonight,” Clive said, not relishing spending any of this evening’s time with Carole’s Mum, so he walked down the driveway to send her off.

“Hey, Mum,” he said, as she opened her car door, “sorry to have put you out, but I’m home now and will look after the kids tonight.”

“Not the best day to leave your timing so late, Clive,” her Mum was just as snappy as Carole was, perhaps it runs in the family, Clive thought, “Carole’s been planning this for weeks.”

“Oh, has she? Well she never tells me anything, nowadays.”

“Really? I thought...” Carole’s mum looked incredulous. “Well, Clive, give me a call if you need help with the kids any time this weekend and next week.”

“This weekend and week? Why this weekend and next week?”

“It’s half-term week, Clive, no school. Just give me a ring if you need my help, OK?”

“Sure, if any interviews I need to attend come up, I will do. Bye Mum.”

His mother-in-law drove off. He turned to find the taxi driver closing the boot of his taxi and walking round to the driver’s door. Clive looked around to see where Carole had got to. The front door of the house was left wide open. He had barely turned towards the path leading to the front door before the taxi pulled away from the kerb. Carole must’ve been sat inside it covered by the darkened rear windows and she was off out wherever she was off to. No doubt going to be drinking, which is why she didn’t take her own car.

Inside, the children were clearly already bathed and in their pyjamas but Michael piped up as soon as he saw his father, “What’s for dinner, Dad, I’m starving. Can we have pizza, can we, please?”

“I want chicken, Daddy, not pizza again for me,” said Chloë.

“And I want chips with tomato sauce,” Katie said emphatically, not to be denied her favourite choice.

Clive called a restaurant that delivered the varied range of food required and ordered what had been requested, using Carole’s credit card number. That was easy even without the card, he had all her details written down on his iPad. When he set the table and got the plates out to warm in the oven, he noticed a note magnetised to the fridge door. He peered at it. It appeared to be a timetable of activities the children were booked into throughout the week, one or two were their normal activities like scouts and guides’ nights, but there were extra children’s holiday club activities for which he would have to use Carole’s car to deliver them and collect.

‘What’s going on?’ he thought, ‘Has she jumped the gun and is leaving me first, lumbering me with the kids?’

He phoned his mother in law who had just got home, “Hi, June, when you said you were prepared to help with the kids this week, what exactly did you mean?”

“Well, the children are at home all week, plus an inset day on the following Monday, so if you have to go down the labour exchange or you have a job interview, just let me know and I can watch the kids. But I’m not covering evenings just so you can go out while the cat’s away.”

“So, where’s Carole the Cat going to be next week?”

“Er ... you mean you don’t know?”

“I’m clueless, June, so tell me, where did she go—” he remembered the boot of the taxi being closed,” — with her suitcase?”

“Er off to Spain ... with some girlfriends from school, she said.”

“All weekend or all week?”

“For the whole week, seven nights, eight days, due back Saturday week.”

“Thank you.” Clive hung up the phone. This was the final straw.

He got online to the divorce solicitors and launched the paperwork, the email confirming that the action was in hand came back within seconds. Before the food arrived he started to look online for something that he could do with the kids, but found that most short breaks were sold out. As a last resort, he checked the ‘first class’ option and found he could get the whole week at Disneyland in Paris for the four of them, leaving first thing in the morning, for less than four thousand pounds. He entered Carole’s credit card number with his fingers crossed that the balance was sufficient but it cleared without delay.

The food arrived and they all tucked in. When they tidied up afterwards, Clive told them that they were getting up very early in the morning but he was going to have to pack their bags tonight, so if they wanted any particular toys or clothes for the rest of the week, they needed to get them now. They asked where they were going but Clive told them it was a surprise. Clive packed everything he thought they would need for the week away before he went to bed, but not before he checked Carole’s credit card account online to find out how much leeway he had; it wasn’t much, so he got online again and ordered a few books and some music, leaving Carole just enough of a balance for a cup of tea and a biscuit in Spain. He noticed from the list of transactions that an online travel company had registered £792 for her holiday with ‘the girls’. He transferred a few pounds from the joint bank account to his new cash account, so that he had enough spending money for the week as well as ensure that Carole would also find she couldn’t use her cash card in Spain either.

The week they spent in Paris was fantastic, exhausting yes, but a brilliant experience for the children, staying in the best hotel right in the middle of the resort. Clive made sure they didn’t miss out on any rides, he took hundreds of photographs and was happy that the children were storing away lots of memories of this holiday of a lifetime and furthermore that none of these brilliant childhood and single adult memories included Carole. As you could imagine, this holiday beat their Caribbean holiday into a cocked hat. He put nothing on social media about where they were or what they were doing, thinking he would let Carole wonder where the hell they were.

His mobile phone went off halfway through Saturday evening when Clive was relaxing in the comfortable twin-bed suite he had rented. The children were already in their shared bedroom, totally and happily exhausted from activities and excitement during the day. Clive was also in his bed relaxing with a nice ready-mixed gin and tonic from the bar in the suite’s lounge.

“Hello?” he answered, tentatively, although only too aware that it was Carole at the end of the line.

“What the fuck have you done, Clive?” his loving wife spluttered, “My fucking credit card has been declined and when I tried to use the cash card from the family account that was also declined.”

“Oh dear, perhaps we’ve both been hacked into,” Clive replied, trying to sound sympathetic but realising he only managed to sound rather sad. “You relax enjoy your holiday and I’ll look into it, OK?”

“Can you do that soonest?” She sounded desperate, “or transfer some money from the deposit account? I can’t seem to access that account from abroad.”

“Sure.” He knew the reason she couldn’t access the deposit savings account is because he had transferred all the funds to his own account and closed the joint one down.

“Anyway, Mum popped round home to check on you a short while ago and said that you were all out. Where were you?”

“I expect we were out, then.”

“Are you home now, or are you still out?”

“No and Yes.”

“‘No and Yes’ what?”

“No, we are not at home now. And yes, we are still out.”

“But where are you?”

“We’re out.”

“But you didn’t say you were going out, and then staying out.”

“Well. If I remember the last time we spoke, on Friday, you just said you were going out. So, where are you?”

“Er, on the Costa del Sol.”

“What are you doing on the Costa del Sol, wife of mine?”

“Well, we were sunning ourselves and swimming this morning, just a lazy day after all the weeks working in school. Now I am out getting something to eat for the evening. I charged this afternoon’s snack and drinks to our room and I’ve not got any cash left.”

“So who’s money are you spending on another holiday, less than two months after our big supposedly ‘holiday of a lifetime’ in the West Indies?”

“My money, I’m spending my money, remember, Clive? My money is the only money coming in at the moment and I needed a holiday to get away from you being under my feet all the bloody time with no employment to go to.”

“So you are so desperate for a holiday, only eight weeks after having six weeks of school holiday time, at the start of which we spent a week in the Caribbean, costing half of my redundancy pay, which was the equivalent of a quarter of a year’s salary, with the rest of my redundancy going on a refurbished toilet which none of us are using at the moment.”

“So, if you are not using your toilet, where are you and the kids?”

“Paris.”

“Paris?”

“Yes, Gay Parreee! That Paris.”

“Why Paris?”

“Well, it’s the once in a lifetime dream of any kid, to go to Disneyland, Carole, so I took them, we’re here, now, in the Disneyland Hotel. It’s absolutely brilliant and the kids are having a simply wonderful time!”

“But I wanted to go there, one day,” she whined.

“We could have both gone, but you wanted go somewhere with ‘the girls from work’ through the whole of half-term without me knowing you were even going, which was pretty sneaky of you. Disneyland Paris was a lovely surprise for the kids, they were over the moon when we arrived.”

“Can I speak to them?”

“No. They’re fast asleep, tired after the long journey, the excellent entertainment and excess of candy floss, sugary pop and genuinely French French fries, they are totally zonked out. Me too, I’m even in bed myself, it’s been a long first day of our holiday. Are you in bed yet?”

“No, not yet,” she said hesitatingly, “although now I don’t have any money, I might just as well be.”

“Can’t ‘the girls’ sub you?” he asked, “just for tonight or ‘til the card is sorted out?”

“The girls?”

“Your Mum said you went to Spain with ‘the girls from work’, at least that’s what she said you told her. I was at a disadvantage in my conversation with June because she was surprised that you told me absolutely fuck-all about your trip. I assumed that what you told your mother was the truth, so I made a further assumption that they were some of the teachers or teaching assistants from school.”

“Oh, yes. The girls. Of course. Yes.” She hesitated, “I, well, I don’t really know them well enough to beg—”

“But you know them well enough to bugger off with them for a week and abandon your family without a single word to your nearest and dearest.”

“Well, if you must know, it was only you I was abandoning, Clive!” She raised her voice now, “It’s you that’s dragging this family down, out of work for three months, on Universal benefits and with no job prospects in sight.”

“Carole, as for no job prospects, I have been applying for jobs virtually every day since being made redundant. And I’ve still been paid my full monthly salary for the last three months, my contracted notice period. I had my last salary payment through only last week, I needed to take the company car back the week before that, but we did have its use and petrol paid for for eleven of the twelve weeks of gardening leave. In fact, if I had got a job straight away, I would have had to give some of that notice money back. I have since applied for the Job Seekers Allowance, because they aren’t due to introduce Universal Credit in our district until next year at the earliest, and we haven’t had the money for that in yet because it takes a couple of weeks to organise and then the Allowance is paid fortnightly in arrears. So again, whose money have you been spending on holidaying with ‘the girls from work’?”

“My money, I work and I earn it, so it’s mine to spend on what I like.”

“No, it’s OUR money, because ever since we married sixteen years ago, I have only been unpaid and needed your support for one week, this last week. Just one week in sixteen years where I have not brought any money into the house. How many weeks of those sixteen years was it only MY money going in?”

“Only because I couldn’t work for several years because you kept knocking me up, you bastard!”

“We planned all three pregnancies, Carole, together remember? We sat down and we worked out our budgets using OUR money, so I have no issue with you not working during those maternal years. I didn’t have an issue at all until you raised it, but now you are accusing me of not contributing to the family income. What about before the children, like the first two years of our marriage when I was the only one working and you were at college full time doing your maths degree?”

“You would bring that up, I said you would at the time—”

“I only brought that up because you seem to believe that I am the universal provider of our family money, while you bring in what you consider to be your personal pin money. That is unfair. All our income is OUR money. As for the fantastic holiday in the Caribbean, who paid for it? My redundancy money paid for all of it. I worked a damned long time, almost fifteen years, to earn the right to that tax-free pot of cash and you blew half of it away in a bloody fortnight. The rest you spent on tarting up the smallest room in the bloody house that you personally never use.”