Never a cross word
By Janet Baldey
Mild flavoured capsicum (5,6)
Julia chewed the
end of her pencil and squeezed her eyes closed until she saw dots but the answer
still danced a tantalising step out of reach.
Snapping the puzzle book closed, she picked up a cigarette. She was smoking too much but so what? ‘Curse this bloody lockdown’ she muttered and
drew in a lungful of smoke. She was sick of working from home. Alright for some but she missed her
colleagues’ banter and those zoom meetings just didn’t do it for her.
She got up, stretched and went over to
the window. There he was, busy as a
little beaver. She watched as Joe pottered about the garden, planting, weeding,
mowing… he was in his element, couldn’t
wait to get out there in the mornings and had to be dragged back inside come
supper time. Then, low and behold, in the evenings he’d bury himself in his
seed catalogues. It had got so bad she’d
started to hate everything green.
Stubbing out her cigarette, she stared
into space, as her mind drifted. Everything would have been so different if
she’d married Nick all those years ago. He would never have bored her. She felt
the lines on her face softening as she remembered magical evenings full of
sparkle and gaiety. She had never been so happy, or laughed so much. Nick had
been her soul mate. A perfect companion, he had a wicked sense of humour and
even when they weren’t physically together, there were the text messages. Every
time her phone chirped and a little yellow envelope appeared, her pulse raced.
For over a year they were together and
she had been sure it would never end. Then she was sent away on a course and
during that time his text messages gradually dwindled before stopping
altogether. Abruptly she got up and
began to fill the kettle, hoping the sound of rushing water would drown her
obsessive train of thought. She refused
to let herself dwell on it, it was a long time ago and she was completely over him
now. Suddenly her mobile started to
vibrate and her heart joined in although she knew it was hopeless. She looked at her ‘phone and saw it was her
boss.
“Hello. Yes, that’s fine. I’m so
pleased. It will be nice to get back to
normal again. I’ll see you next week.”
Relief washed over her. She loved her
job. She supposed she lived for it, like
Joe did for his garden. Sadness replaced
relief. She’d married Joe on the rebound and there’d always been something
missing. Not that she had anything to
grouch about; he’d been a good husband and a good father to their two sons as
well as being a superb handyman. Their
spic and span house and garden were all his work. It wasn’t his fault that he’d never thawed the
nugget of ice that had taken the place of her heart.
@@@
Flecks of granite embedded in the white
stone sparkled in the sun as she hauled her load of legal papers up the steps
of the courthouse. They were heavy this
week. It was a complicated case with several plaintiffs involved and was
expected to drag on for days. Julia paused for a moment to catch her breath,
only seven more steps to go. She saw three figures, pasted black against the
front of the imposing entrance. She
easily recognised two of them, were local lawyers; she squinted at the third,
wondering why he also seemed familiar. He took a step away from the other two
and her breath caught in her throat. It was him, she was sure of it. Her heart
hammered so fiercely that she clutched her chest, almost losing her grip on the
document case. Never in her wildest
dreams had she expected to see him again and especially not here. He must have
taken silk, she knew he was clever. She wondered which side he was on. She was almost at the top of the steps now
and could see him clearly. He was just as handsome, although he’d aged, the haggard
look suited him. A bit like Hugh Grant she
thought. She wondered whether he would recognise her but his eyes washed over
her and she was too busy swallowing the lump in her throat to speak.
Her hands were trembling as she
arranged the papers on her boss’s bench.
This was what she had yearned for all these years. A reunion - he would see her again and
realise what he had lost. All thoughts
of Joe were wiped from her mind as she made her way to her seat and waited for
the judge to arrive.
As she sat listening to the case unfold,
she grew numb from top to bottom until she could barely move. She had watched
the accused enter the dock and had gasped with horror. It was Nick. He was not a high-flying lawyer,
he was a criminal and the enormity of his crimes gradually became clear. Posing as a man looking for love, he had
milked unsuspecting women of their fortunes and then disappeared, leaving them
with hearts as empty as their wallets.
One woman had even tried to take her own life when he and his promises had
vanished like early morning mist.
Julia was forced to face the truth. Her ex, the man she had longed for all her
married life, was nothing less than a common crook. Clearly, she too had been duped and had probably only escaped his clutches
because she wasn’t rich. Without realising it, she had been lucky. She looked
at Nick one final time before he was led away. He no longer looked like a film
star but like the cringing thief he was.
As she was driving home her thoughts
were full of Joe, patient, long-suffering Joe. She’d make it up to him. This
would be a new beginning. They could have a second honeymoon and this time she
wouldn’t be thinking of another man. Afterwards,
she would take an interest in the garden and afterwards, in the evenings, they’d
do a crossword together. Maybe, she would think about taking early retirement. She
couldn’t wait to see the look on his dear, familiar face when she told him
about her plans. She pressed down hard
on the accelerator.
She turned the corner of her road and
saw her house was in darkness. Joe was obviously in the garden and had
forgotten the time. Bless him. A little smile played about her lips as she
opened the front door and groped for the light switch. Making her way into the
kitchen, she went to the back door and poked out her head.
“Joe”, she called but there was no
reply. She stepped outside and walked around the garden, it was neat and tidy
as usual, his brassicas marched in straight lines down their rows and his onion
sets paraded likewise. She peered through
the window of the shed and saw the luminous yellow handles of his fork and
trowel set hanging in their usual spot, but of Joe, there was no sign.
Turning to go back into the house, she
jumped when a shadowy figure reared up from behind the fence.
“Oh, it’s only you Paul. You gave me a
fright for a moment.” She looked more
closely at their neighbour, “Is anything wrong?”
“You saw the note then?” Paul stared at her mournfully, looking a bit
like Eeyore, she thought.
“What note?”
“Never would have believed it of
Daphne. She was such a homebody. Loved her house and garden.
Said it made up for our lack of kids.”
Julia frowned. What was he talking
about?
“What note? Paul,” she repeated, in a
slow and patient voice.
Paul blinked. Then he looked at her as if for the first
time. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. You don’t
know, do you? Go back inside and look
around, I’m sure you’ll find it somewhere.”
Backing away from him, Julia escaped
into the safety of her house. What was
all that about? She’d have to ask Joe,
when she found him, of course. In the
meantime, she’d brew some tea. She reached for the kettle and that was when she
saw it. A small white envelope, it was propped up against the tea caddy where
she had been bound to see it.
Julia sat staring at its contents, waiting
for the room to stop circling. Now she knew what Paul had meant. Joe had left
her. He had run off with the woman next
door. It sounded like a music hall joke
but she didn’t find it funny. She read the note again.
“I
think both of us realise that our marriage has not been working for a long
time. We have nothing in common but Daphne understands me and we want a chance
of happiness before it is too late. You can have the house. Daphne and I are
going away to start up a market gardening business. So sorry for any
inconvenience caused.”
In spite of everything, she couldn’t
help smiling at the last sentence. Typical Joe, stuffy to the last. She tried to remember what Daphne looked like
but couldn’t bring her face to mind. It was a bit of an insult that, she
thought. If ones husband did have to run away with ones neighbour, there would
be some slight consolation if the
neighbour were beautiful, not some dumpy little creature that nobody remembered.
Then she thought of Paul, Daphne’s
husband. Underneath the wrinkles, he wasn’t bad looking for a man of his age, a
bit like….She shook her head, no, she wasn’t going down that route. Nevertheless,
she got up and opened the back door again; perhaps he could do with some
company,
“Paul, she called into the still of the
night. ‘Fancy a cuppa?” Or, maybe even something
stronger, she thought.
Copyright Janet Baldey
