Relatively Innocent Read online

  She was just deciding whether to go and get the camera and take at least one photo of the afternoon’s proceedings, when a shrill, upper-class voice disturbed the peace.

  “Well? Are you taking me home or not?”

  Caroline emerged from the house. Ali had forgotten all about her and hadn't realised she was in the house.

  “You know it’s Arabella’s party tonight. You promised to come.” She stamped her foot at the “promised” and her high heel sank into the grass so that she nearly fell over extricating it. Phil started laughing like a hyena and the others watched uncertainly.

  “Well. That’s it! I’m going to `phone for a taxi. And you can stuff your so-called “engagement”. You’re a complete pig!”

  And she stormed off, or would have if her heels hadn't fatally impeded her. In the end she bent down and removed her shoes and stalked away bare foot to the footpath while poking at her smartphone.

  Ali went over to the idlers on the bench and looked sympathetically at Phil.

  “Ah well,” he shrugged apparently philosophically, “that’s seen another one off.” As though it were a regular occurrence.

  Hugh’s mood changed in an instant and he removed his weight from Phil’s shoulder. Clearly a Phil with a fiancee was an acceptable drinking companion, whereas a single Phil was an object of deep distrust. However he was saved any observation by Phil saying:

  “I suppose I’d better be making tracks myself.”

  Andrew looked at him, the police officer in him re-asserting itself.

  “Don’t worry,” said Phil noticing, “I’ll just wait until Rita Hayworth’s got herself off the premises then I’ll call a taxi as well.”

  “But….but….” said Hugh.

  “I know. I’ll have to come and get my car tomorrow or some other time.”

  Hugh slumped down on the bench and Joshie started to make his presence heard.

  “I’d better take him in and feed him then,” said Ali looking at Hugh, knowing he always liked to be there if possible.

  He stood up, nodded to Alison and Andrew.

  “Do you mind seeing yourself out?” he said off-handedly to Phil.

  He put his arm possessively around Ali’s shoulders as they wheeled the buggy to the house together. Arsehole, he muttered under his breath as he always did about Phil.

  “What about Alison and Andrew?” said Ali as soon as they were out of earshot.

  “What about them?”

  “Well they look….you know….interested in each other. They’re both married aren't they?”

  “Actually I think he’s separated. I don't know about her. There was some suggestion of a bit of bother between her and her husband a while ago but everyone knows I don't like gossip so it all went over my head.”

  “Damn!” she said.

  “Bad girl!” he said and smacked her bum. “Ask Amanda if you’re really that interested. She’s bound to know. Looks like they’ll be `phoning for a taxi too. If they come back tomorrow, you may get roped into making brunches for them all.”

  “Alison and Andrew didn't bring cars.”

  “Oh. Well, pity about Phil and Caroline.”

  “Well she’s obviously not right for him. Far too stuck up.”

  “Yeah. Like he’s not obviously a product of an upper-class upbringing himself,” Hugh said rather bitterly.

  “Sorry you feel that way about him. He likes you. But I’d probably never have met him if you hadn't….”

  “I know! You don't have to remind me! I’ll have to have it engraved on my tombstone:

  IT WAS HIS OWN STUPID FAULT”

  ALISON LEANED FORWARD telling the taxi driver which way to go.

  She settled back into the seat. “Not far now.” She and Andrew were sharing a taxi back to Colchester. He had arrived by taxi earlier and she’d got a lift with Daniel who’d stoutly refused to stay and attend the event itself, preferring to return home and sit watching football and drink beer all afternoon.

  “Oh,” said Andrew and she looked at him. “I suppose,” he said wistfully, “that it’ll be another ten years before we meet again.”

  Alison was silent for a time. She swallowed. “Well I suppose it doesn't have to be. Though our paths aren't likely to cross by chance very regularly.”

  “No. They’re not.” He gulped too. “Er. We could meet up if you like. For a drink maybe. One evening after work? Or something.”

  Alison mentally smiled broadly to herself inside but continued to look merely friendly. “Yes. That would be nice.” She thought: If we don't fix a date now, then that’ll be it. I won't hear from him again.

  “I get off at five on Wednesday,” Andrew volunteered. “We could meet at the Sod `n` Shovel. Say about five thirty?”

  “Yeah. Fine. Oh,” she said to the driver. “This is it. You need to stop here.”

  “So five thirty on Wednesday.”

  “Great. See you then.” And she got out and hurried up the garden path in case Daniel looked out and saw someone in the taxi meaning she'd get the third degree.

  CHAPTER 1

  July

  HER AGENT’S ATTITUDE was clear. They needed more sex and more romance in the novels. And for that they needed heroines with fewer hang ups who wanted the men to shag them eventually, who didn’t lead the men on interminably and then laugh in their faces when they couldn’t get into the woman’s panties because they were jerks so far as the woman was concerned.

  Her previous offerings of twisted unbalanced central female characters wouldn’t wash forever the publisher implied. They’d gone down well to begin with but peoples’ tastes had changed. There was more realism these days and girls, while going around half naked with crazy hair styles in vibrant metallic colours and made up faces that would have put the courtesans of Versailles in the shade, demanded and received a level of respect that their counterparts a decade ago could only have dreamed of. They weren't weirdos on the edge of society. They obtained top marks in exams, achieved top jobs, commanded incredible salaries, were head hunted by huge multinational companies and made contributions to the economy. But they still wanted to be shagged, eventually.

  They didn’t harbour unbalanced desires to let a man strip down to his boxers, get him on his back and then pour freezing water over his genitals; or tie him to a bed and threaten to cut his balls off and record it while he screamed for mercy and the woman laughed because she’d scored a victory for feminism.

  It was all old hat. Girls and boys got on together as mates these days and, if they felt like it, they copulated on equal terms. Women weren’t put upon and neither should men be.

  Accordingly Sarah Jenkinson adapted her style and changed her pen name. She continued to use the surname of Jenkinson, not her real name, and formally legally changed her surname from her real name of Cranham by Deed of Change of Name. Not before time in her opinion. She changed everything after that, driving licence, passport, bank accounts, the lot. And her heroines started to have good educations and successful high flying careers. They didn’t have childhoods that haunted them, but loving supportive families. The girls’ fathers loved and cherished them and they were daddy’s little girls which set them up well for life. They slept with men when they felt like it but didn’t try to emasculate the men. And,if it happened, they fell in love.

  And so the bucks started to roll in again. Sarah was able to sell her small terraced house and move to a bigger better one in a nicer part of town which was especially good since her parents had tried to track her down again. They were on the verge of discovering where she was living. They were trying to contact her again and she was terrified they would turn up on her doorstep one day and demand a resumption of the parent-daughter relationship.

  SARAH BOUGHT HER next home in the name of a company she formed for one of her nommes de plume, hoping that that should further make the trail go cold for a time at least. It was a nice three bedroomed semi-detached house on a leafy estate backing onto Highwoods Country Park where she did
n’t have to worry about Amos having to cross roads when he wanted to go hunting for mice. Although there were other houses either side and on the other side of the tree-lined road, it was almost like living in the country.

  Colchester was a university town therefore if business got really bad and her books bombed completely, she could always take in students to make ends meet.

  It was a house in which a family could be raised. And there she was occupying it on her own. But she wasn’t going to let her innate socialist self feel guilty about that. After all times had changed hadn’t they. All that socialist self-sacrifice crap was unfashionable in today’s acquisitive society.

  The house had an open plan front drive and garden. Thus she quickly became acquainted with her immediate neighbour Cassandra who occupied the adjoining semi. A woman in her middle forties with a distinct West Midlands accent, she actually did let out her spare bedrooms to students for extra cash and was keen to moan to her new neighbour about the students. Sarah's predecessors had apparently incessantly themselves moaned to Cassandra about the students so that Cassandra was forced to defend them when there wasn’t much that was actually defensible according to her.

  She, Cassandra herself, slept and more or less lived in the garage that had been roughly and illegally converted into a small bedsit so that the “guests” could have free range of the main house. She received more rent that way. Apart from a vague concern that this free-for-all next door might have some effect on the value of her own newly acquired property, Sarah couldn’t give a toss about Cassandra’s irregular living arrangements or the absence of planning permission or building regulations consent for the garage conversion.

  Sarah took to visiting Cassandra’s bedsit for a night-cap. Cassandra, rather than having to sully her hands with honest work, lived on the rental income and didn’t get out of bed until midday. Sarah kept similar hours, more often than not staying up writing until the early hours.

  Their midnight chats ranged far and wide. Cassandra was intrigued that Sarah was a good enough author to make money out of it. She hadn't actually read any of Sarah’s books, preferring thrillers and science fiction to romances, but to be a published writer was something special.

  “So when did you start this literary outpouring?” Cassandra asked in her gravelly smoker’s voice.

  “When I was thirteen, fourteen.”

  “What as early as that?”

  “Yeah. You know some of the most productive years are those of puberty. Everything is heightened at that age. There’s a well spring of ideas. There are less barriers and inhibitions and you’re not so worried people’ll tell you your work is rubbish because if they do, well you’re only thirteen. You’ll improve. In fact most people think that anything slightly above average produced by someone in their early teens is the work of a genius so you actually get feedback an older person wouldn’t for the same quality of work. It gives you a filip at a time when it makes the most sense to get it and makes you carry on, gives you confidence.”

  “So what you’re saying is it’s easier to get on in something in your early teens than later just because of your age.”

  “Essentially yes.”

  “Oh. Wish I’d known that. Then I might be a world famous clothes designer by now. Or be running my own international shoe company or something.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” said Sarah, unable to imagine Cassandra concentrating seriously on anything for more than five minutes. “The thing, whatever it is has to be good. Mediocre won’t do. And it has to capture the spirit of the age, answer a need, tweak a nerve.”

  “Oh well.” Cassandra lit another cigarette, actually a rolly, the only thing Sarah didn’t much like about going round to the bedsit. But of course it was Cassandra's bedsit and Sarah didn’t want her smoking in her own, Sarah’s, house therefore she didn’t invite her. Perhaps she might suggest chatting outside one evening if it was warm enough.

  “Oh well,” Cassandra said again, picking a shred of tobacco out of her mouth, “at least I’ve got kids. They’re a great comfort. Even though Alice lives in Thailand. I wanted to go out there and stay with her and chill out for a bit.”

  Chill out. Such a passé expression thought Sarah the writer but didn’t say so.

  “But I can’t,” said Cassandra, “because Duncan finishes uni for good in a few days and he wants to come home and live. So that’s one bedroom’s income lost and gone forever.”

  “But he’s never come home for holidays that I’ve seen,” queried Sarah.

  “No. He always stayed on. Girlfriends, jobs, whatever. Him and his mates had to rent houses for the whole year so it was a waste not living in them.”

  “What subject did he study?”

  “Er….” Cassandra paused. “Aren’t I a terrible mother. I’m not actually sure.”

  This was no real surprise to Sarah who’d quickly summed Cassandra up as having lost quite a few of her marbles to valium, fags, booze, you name it.

  “Well that’ll be a surprise then won’t it.”

  “Actually he’s quite a good-looking boy if I do say so myself. You might even fancy him. He’s a bit young for you but I gather he’s had quite a bit of experience.”

  “I really doubt it, I mean that I’d be interested in him.”

  “You’re not a dyke are you? I’ve often wondered. I hope you’re not offended.”

  Sarah assumed the mogadon must be kicking in by now. “No. Nothing so outré. Just a bit tired of men.”

  “Join the club!”

  “So what’s your bugbear then?”

  “Too long-winded to go into.”

  “That usually means you don’t want to.”

  “Maybe.” Cassandra yawned

  “OK. I’d better go.”

  “Oh. Mike left these earlier if you want to take some home. I don’t fancy them myself.”

  Mike was one of the students. Cassandra opened one of her cupboards and removed a plateful of chocolate brownies from a rather dirty shelf.

  “Maybe I will then,” said Sarah taking the plate. They looked delicious. Cassandra was on too many mogadons to feel very hungry. Sarah didn’t like to say so, but with them and the smoking she was unhealthily thin.

  “They might be laced with something so go slowly with them,” said Cassandra.

  “Perhaps they’ll raise my consciousness,” said Sarah, “and help my writer’s block.”

  “If you’ve got writer’s block, then come round and listen to that lot discussing life and stuff in general,” Cassandra gestured towards the main house. “If you can follow their patois, which I can’t at my age, they’ll open your eyes to a different universe.”

  “Thanks. I keep up with the times you know.”

  “Impossible. One generation doesn’t accept the previous generation into its inner circle. And, like it or not, you’re starting to be the previous generation.”

  “If you're going to say things like that, I reckon it's time for me to go home. See you.”

  “Yeah. See you. Hey. Hang on. That lot have got a party at the weekend. We’re invited if you want to come. They can’t very well fail to invite me since it’s my house they’re going to trash so I said I’d have to bring you to make up numbers for the wrinklies.”

  “I’m very definitely leaving now, but a party sounds good. I’ll get the iron out.”

  Back at home Sarah had another small glass of wine and a couple of brownies. They were quite spicy but really very good.

  IT’S THAT HORRIBLE thing again. The awful black heavy stuff bearing down on me, pushing me under. It keeps coming back. At nights. It pushes my body down. My whole body. My mind. My head. It’s enormous and covers me completely. I won't be able to go to sleep until it’s finished going through me and around me and over me. It’s thick and black and I don't understand it or why it’s here.

  It’s not totally unpleasant but it’s not very comforting either. I wonder if other people experience the same thing every night before they go to sleep
. I doubt it.

  It was OK. I thought it was OK. To begin with it was OK. I was the new one. The little one. The loved one. But it didn't last. After a time my presence palled. She went into the ascendancy. Again. I’ll have to do something about it. To get back to the way it was at the beginning.

  I can't be usurped. The black stuff, it almost suffocates me. But it’s a good thing, here for a reason, to separate me from what’s happened. It’s happened. Or it’s going to happen. I can't tell. Time is a fluid thing. It has checks and balances and brakes and accelerators. Just like a vehicle. Time speeds up. Matter slows down. Time slows down. Matter speeds up. Everything’s relative. I’m trying to keep still but it doesn't work.

  I’m racing towards an end object, a conclusion. But it’s racing away from me faster than I race towards it. It’s receding, not staying the same relative to me. It’s not light because light doesn't do that. It must be a solid object. Tangible. Not waves or particles. I turn around and it gets further away. Good. It’s a real thing. I can put distance between me and it. Me and her. Me and the black stuff.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Sarah woke up much later than normal. She had a thick head and faint memories of excessively colourful and strange dreams. Too much wine coupled with Cassandra’s smoky atmosphere she supposed. Or maybe Cassandra was right about the brownies. She decided to cut down on the wine in future and try to get Cassandra to open a window or sit outside. But the writer’s block magically had disappeared and, after splashing her face with water, she sat down at her PC and bashed away for five hours before coming up for air again.

  CHAPTER 2

  July

  THE SMALL GIRL played by the fire. She wanted to read. She had started to be able to read after a lot of pestering to be taught but had no books she hadn’t read a hundred times already. She nudged her mother to play draughts or cards with her but her mother was already drifting off to sleep in the chair after lunch. She persisted, asking if she could go and play with the Newson family along the road.