Highly commended in Cambridge Writers Short Story Competition 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And after all she was not a prying mother. She had always respected his privacy, his right to live his own life without interference. She had never so much as passed comment, had she? Well, nothing beyond a mild hint here and there, a light nudge in the ribs; and surely any mother was entitled to that. How strange if she were to show no<\/i> interest. He was her only child, for goodness sake, and now that Gordon had gone to live with that woman, almost her only family. So why didn\u2019t he see that? Why didn\u2019t he call more often, lift the lid a little? Why must he always play the dark horse?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She hauled her shopping trolley up the steps and let herself in. The cat rose from its basket, arched its back and stretched a rear leg like a ballerina. She bent to pick up the post, the cat nudging her ankles, and noticed immediately the pulsing light beside the telephone. She snapped on the machine. Hi Mum. Why are you never there when I call? Anyway, just making contact. Got some news too. Will try again later. <\/i>She shook her head and smiled. Never there! So that\u2019s the excuse. Still, a move in the right direction. Yes, speak of the devil. She was inclined to call him back on the spot. But no, be patient. Let him<\/i> make the effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You remember Roddy? The guy I met at the sailing club?\u2019 She scratched her head. \u2018Anyway, he\u2019s going to move in . . . share the flat with me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee. He\u2019d come round after work to tell her. Yes, actually made the trip across town to pay her a visit. He seemed very excited, as if announcing an engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Well, that\u2019s lovely, dear. A bit of companionship and someone to share the rent.\u2019 She hesitated and her brow creased a little. \u2018Enough room for both of you?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He shrugged and smiled. \u2018A bit intimate . . . but well . . . you know . . .\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She could recall just three names: Nerys, Pippa, Betheny. None of them had lasted long, Nerys and Pippa no more than a few weeks. In fact, Betheny had been the only one that she had properly met, having dined out with her on one occasion. But the girl was an absolute pain. Couldn\u2019t stand her. Spoke so fast you couldn\u2019t catch a word she said and every remark punctuated with shrieks of nervous laughter till you felt like cracking her over the head with a dinner plate. It had been a relief to hear that he\u2019d dropped her<\/i>. Still, that was an age ago and for the past few years no new name or girlish giggle had come along to tickle her ear or try her patience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How would they cope in that small flat, two great hulking lads? Well, okay, James was scarcely hulking at just five foot ten and slightly built, and she knew nothing about Roddy\u2019s corporeal dimensions. But they were yachtsmen, after all, and men of whatever size need space. They\u2019re naturally messy creatures. They don\u2019t use drawers and cupboards; they simply step over things, or even on<\/i> them. They have no sense of delicacy or things in their place. They spread jam like tarmac on a road and leave lids off jars. She couldn\u2019t see how it could possibly<\/i> work. The place would be a pigsty within a fortnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So she allowed rather more than a fortnight before deciding to drop in. Meanwhile, with no communication of any kind from James, her curiosity, already keen, grew avid from lack of news. Timing was crucial, she felt, so she planned her visit carefully. It had to look natural; there must be no sense that she was checking up. She therefore settled on a Saturday morning, when she could reasonably claim that she was just passing on a visit to the shops. The flat was on the third floor of a large house, and normally, on arrival, she buzzed James on his intercom. But on this occasion she dived in just behind his neighbour, the old lady from the ground floor, who was entering at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The door to the flat was opened by a tall young man with an exploding mop of spiky blond hair, whose dishevelled appearance \u2013 he was wearing nothing but a pair of jazzy boxer shorts that hung hazardously from his pelvis \u2013 suggested that he\u2019d just tumbled out of bed. He scratched his skinny white belly, gave a squeak like a chipmunk, and they stared at each other for a few moments with looks of bemused enquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Oops,\u2019 she said. \u2018Have I made a mistake? I\u2019m looking for James.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But at the same moment James appeared, holding together the flaps of his dressing gown. \u2018Oh crumbs!\u2019 he gasped. \u2018What a turn-up!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She smiled. \u2018Well, aren\u2019t you going to invite me in?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The living room was a mess, as expected. Newspapers littered the floor and a couple of plates bearing the congealed remains of a meal wallowed shamelessly on the coffee table. James, quickly snatching things up, told her to take a seat. Then both men disappeared. She gazed around. It was months since she\u2019d been here, but the place seemed no different except for a couple of additions: a mirror in a pine frame and a stylish magazine rack. Oh, and those two framed photographs standing side by side on the drinks cabinet. She got up to take a closer look. They were snaps of James and the man she\u2019d met at the door, presumably Roddy. In one, they were seated in a boat, gazing at each other and laughing wildly. In the other, they were standing on a beach, grinning at the camera and clasping each other round the neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it was only then, with what she took as the visual evidence before her, that the thought which had been growing in her mind for some time split from its pod, so to speak. She assumed that she was ignorant about this kind of thing, but in fact she knew a good deal from what she\u2019d read. She\u2019d picked up a lot, too, from Annabel, her hairdresser, whose husband had left her for a man he\u2019d met on the common. \u2018It\u2019s strange, Marian,\u2019 Annabel had said while snipping away. \u2018Sometimes it\u2019s there right under your nose and you don\u2019t spot it.\u2019 Marian studied the face in the photograph and rehearsed the name in her head \u2013 Roddy \u2013 the name she assumed she would now have to live with. But no, she just couldn\u2019t make it sound right. She disliked these diminutives; they were weak and affected. Why not Rod? She could live with the name Rod; there was something dependable and solid about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two men reappeared in jeans and T-shirts, and when James had made a pot of coffee they sprawled on the sofa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018So far, it\u2019s been hunky-dory,\u2019 said James. \u2018We\u2019re both thoroughly satisfied with the arrangement, aren\u2019t we?\u2019 He and Roddy threw warm smiles at each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marian watched their interaction keenly. With such fascination, in fact, that she spilled coffee into her saucer while lifting the cup to her lips. Every word, every look, every gesture seemed to confirm the idea that had now lodged itself in her head. And when, having absorbed the initial shock, she began to adjust to the new knowledge, she found herself quietly thrilled by it. James had been a mystery for so long: so cut off, so unknown, so untouchable. This tore down the hedge between them: the hedge that had seemed to grow higher year by year. This brought them together again. She scarcely listened as they chuntered on about their division of labour; her mind was elsewhere. She was already planning to invite them to her place for a Sunday roast or a candle-lit dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After some talk about the sailing club, the neighbours and Roddy\u2019s line of work \u2013 he was a marketing manager for a chain of hotels \u2013 there was a pause. She glanced at her watch. \u2018Look, I must go,\u2019 she said. \u2018I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve got things to do and I\u2019ve kept you long enough.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Not at all,\u2019 said James \u2018In fact, why not stay for a spot of lunch? A couple of friends are looking in.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Oh?\u2019 she said, her curiosity piqued again. Who could this be? More lads from the club?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Roddy. \u2018Caroline and Julia. They\u2019re great company. You\u2019ll like them.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a tight little pause. She glanced from Roddy to James and back again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Oh well,\u2019 she said, her face a mass of confusion. \u2018If I won\u2019t be in the way.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the women arrived they burst in with noisy excitement like children from a playground. They tossed their shoulder bags aside and kissed the men smack on the lips with a richness that sounded almost lascivious. Caroline was lanky and had long blond hair that cascaded round a radiant pink face. Blooming with health, bouncing with energy, she threw off an air of wellbeing like a figure on a box of breakfast cereal. Julia, on the other hand, was short, dark and petite. She had an elfin face, sharp brown eyes and a permanently ironic expression that seemed to say Come off it, ya wally, you can\u2019t fool me<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018This is my mum,\u2019 said James.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They beamed. \u2018Hello, Mum.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Call me Marian,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And they were<\/i> like lads from the sailing club. They had photographs on a smartphone to prove it. Snaps of themselves in a dinghy, ploughing through ruffled waters on a blustery day, clinging to the tiller in windcheaters zipped to the chin. Others showed them in a pub, lifting pints to their lips, surrounded and regaled by men in woolly hats and thick black sweaters. Marian peered at the screen on the device that Julia handed her, a bemused smile on her lips. To someone like herself, raised in Cotswold gentility, these robust outdoor girls, with their beery pleasures, seemed vaguely improper, as if the world were turning topsy-turvy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lunch was a ramshackle business. The various parts \u2013 the quiche, the salad, the French sticks, the cheeses \u2013 were fine, but everything arrived in haphazard fashion and was badly presented. Napkins were tossed out in the middle of the meal and the dressing turned up in a jug with a chip on the rim. No one seemed the least bit put out, though. Wine \u2013 white, red and pink \u2013 was sloshed into bulbous glasses and knocked back voraciously, and the women contributed with some bottles of sparkly stuff and a sherry trifle from the local supermarket. The table rocked with the wildest laughter throughout the entire meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marian studied the scene avidly. What was going on here? Caroline had a roving eye, but it always came back to James. Julia, however, seemed much more interested in Roddy. She had a glow in her cheeks, a gleam in her smile, whenever she turned to him. Yes, that was surely it; that was the picture. Marian had them paired off nicely. And the more she watched, the more convinced she became.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Towards the end of the meal James raised his glass. \u2018To the holiday.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Oh?\u2019 Marian glanced around with a smile \u2018So you\u2019re going on holiday?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes,\u2019 said Caroline. \u2018We\u2019re off to Dubrovnik . . . In just a few days, actually.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What? . . . The four of you?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was that a silly question? She didn\u2019t know where it came from. It just popped out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Oh no . . . Just me and Julia . . . We always go away together.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I see.\u2019 Marian\u2019s mental picture lurched again, but she managed to hide her lack of composure. She hesitated for a few moments, and then: \u2018So do you also\u2019 \u2013 she simply had to clear this thing up \u2013 \u2018live<\/i> together?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Oh no!\u2019 shrieked Caroline, and everyone roared with laughter. \u2018We live with our husbands.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marian said very little after that and half an hour later excused herself, saying she had an appointment with a chiropodist. Halfway down Hurley Street she turned into Goodison\u2019s Bakery. It was fairly busy, but she found a table and ordered a pot of tea. It was an old-fashioned place with check tablecloths, and its leisurely good manners always calmed her nerves. Life was a trying business; she couldn\u2019t get the hang of it. The visit had dragged her this way and that, upsetting all her notions. She couldn\u2019t decide whether James was nearer or much further off. Roddy seemed nice \u2013 well, nice enough \u2013 but quite as mysterious as James. And how did those two women fit into the picture? The whole thing was maddeningly opaque. She wanted to talk to someone about it. But who was there? She could drop in on Annabel, but Annabel would be busy with customers. In any case what could she say? She had never dropped a hint to Annabel about any of her concerns, and now they looked like the half-baked notions of a muddleheaded woman. And could Annabel be trusted not to pass on her confidences as gossip?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she got home she dropped into her easy chair. The cat leaped onto her lap, trod in a circle kneading her skirt and then curled up. She snapped on the radio. Someone was playing the piano: a slow, meditative piece that sounded like Mozart. She closed her eyes. Annabel\u2019s words kept rattling round in her head: \u2018Sometimes it\u2019s there right under your nose and you don\u2019t spot it.\u2019 But did it matter if you didn\u2019t spot things? Sometimes you could get into trouble trying to spot things. Sometimes you could just try too hard. She decided that she would<\/i> invite them to dinner. Yes, all four of them. And she would listen and watch and wait. She would hang around, serenely, for the thing \u2013 whatever it was \u2013 to reach up and paw her on the nose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"