A Twist in the Tale (12 page)

Then things
suddenly changed for Roger - for the better, was no doubt how he saw it - when
one evening in early spring a blonde named Madeleine, wearing an imitation fur
coat and drinking double gin and
its
, perched on the
stool beside him. I had never seen her in the pub before but she was obviously
known locally, and loose bar talk led me to believe it couldn’t last. You see,
word was about that she was looking for someone whose horizons stretched beyond
the Cat and Whistle.

In fact the affair
– if that’s what it ever came
to
lasted for only
twenty days. I know because I counted every one of them. Then one night voices
were raised and heads turned as she left the small stool just as suddenly as
she had come. His tired eyes watched her walk to a vacant place at the corner
of the bar, but he didn’t show any surprise at her departure and made no
attempt to pursue her.

Her exit was my
cue to enter. I almost leapt from behind the bar and, moving as quickly as
dignity allowed, was seconds later sitting on the vacant stool beside him. He
didn’t comment and certainly made no attempt to offer me a drink, but the one
glance he shot in my direction did not suggest he found me an unacceptable
replacement. I looked around to see if anyone else had plans to usurp my
position. The men standing round the dartboard didn’t seem to care. Treble
seventeen, twelve and a five kept them more than occupied. I glanced towards
the bar to check if the boss had noticed my absence, but he was busy taking
orders. I saw Madeleine was already sipping a glass of champagne from the pub’s
only bottle, purchased by a stranger whose stylish double-breasted blazer and
striped bow tie convinced me she wouldn’t be bothering with Roger any longer.
She looked well set for at least another twenty days.

I looked up at
Roger – I had known his name for some time, although I had never addressed him
as such and I couldn’t be sure that he was aware of mine. I began to flutter my
eyelashes in a rather exaggerated way. I felt a little stupid but at least it
elicited a gentle smile. He leaned over and touched my cheek, his hands
surprisingly gentle. Neither of us felt the need to speak. We were both lonely
and it seemed unnecessary to explain why. We sat in silence, he occasionally
sipping his beer, I from time to time rearranging my legs, while a few feet
from us the darts pursued their undetermined course.

When the
publican cried, “Last orders,” Roger downed the remains of his beer while the
dart players completed what had to be their final game.

No one
commented when we left together and I was surprised that Roger made no protest
as I accompanied him back to his little semi-detached. I already knew exactly
where he lived because I had seen him on several occasions standing at the bus
queue in
Dobson Street
in a silent
line of reluctant morning passengers. Once I even positioned myself on a nearby
wall in order to study his features more carefully. It was an anonymous, almost
commonplace face but he had the warmest eyes and the kindest smile I had
observed in any man.

My only anxiety
was that he didn’t seem aware of my existence, just constantly preoccupied, his
eyes each evening and his thoughts each morning only for Madeleine.

How I envied
that girl. She had everything I wanted – except a decent fur coat, the only
thing my mother had left me. In truth, I have no right to be catty about
Madeleine, as her past couldn’t have been
more murky
than mine.

All that had
taken place well over a year ago and, to prove my total devotion to Roger, I
have never entered the Cat and Whistle since. He seemed to have forgotten
Madeleine because he never once spoke of her in front of me. An unusual man, he
didn’t question me about any of my past relationships either.

Perhaps he
should have. I would have liked him to know the truth about my life before we’d
met, though it all seems irrelevant now.

You see, I had
been the youngest in a family of four so I always came last in line. I had
never known my father, and I arrived home one night to discover that my mother
had run off with another man. Tracy, one of my sisters, warned me not to expect
her back.

She turned out
to be right, for I have never seen my mother since that day. It’s awful to have
to admit, if only to oneself, that one’s mother is a tramp.

Now an orphan,
I began to drift, often trying to stay one step ahead of the law – not so easy
when you haven’t always got somewhere to put your head down. I can’t even
recall how I ended up with Derek – if that was his real name. Derek, whose dark
sensual looks would have attracted any susceptible female, told me that he had
been on a merchant steamer for the past three years. When he made love to me I
was ready to believe anything. I explained to him that all I wanted was a warm
home, regular food and perhaps in time a family of my own. He ensured that one
of my wishes was fulfilled, because a few weeks after he left me I ended up
with twins, two girls. Derek never set eyes on them: he had returned to sea
even before I could tell him I was pregnant. He hadn’t needed to promise me the
earth; he was so good-looking he must have known I would have been his just for
a night on the tiles.

I tried to
bring up the girls decently, but the authorities caught up with me this time
and I lost them both. I wonder where they are
now?
God
knows. I only hope they’ve ended up in a good home. At least they inherited
Derek’s irresistible looks, which can only help them through life. It’s just
one more thing Roger will never know about. His un-questioning trust only makes
me feel
more guilty
, and now I never seem able to find
a way of letting him know the truth.

After Derek had
gone back to sea I was on my own for almost a year before getting part-time
work at the Cat and Whistle. The publican was so mean that he wouldn’t have
even provided food and drink for me, if I hadn’t kept to my part of the
bargain.

Roger used to
come in about once, perhaps twice a week before he met the blonde with the
shabby fur coat. After that it was every night until she upped and left him.

I knew he was
perfect for me the first time I heard him order a pint of mild. A pint of mild
– I can’t think of a better description of Roger. In those early days the
barmaids used to flirt openly with him, but he didn’t show any interest. Until
Madeleine latched on to him I wasn’t even sure that it was women he preferred.
Perhaps in the end it was my an-
drogynous
looks that
appealed to him.

I think I must
have been the only one in that pub who was looking for something more
permanent.

And so Roger
allowed me to spend the night with him. I remember that he slipped into the
bathroom to undress while I rested on what I assumed would be my side of the
bed.

Since that
night he has never once asked me to leave, let alone tried to kick me out. It’s
an easy-going relationship. I’ve never known him raise his voice or scold me
unfairly. Forgive the cliché, but for once I have fallen on my feet.

Brr
.
Brr
.
Brr
.
That damned
alarm. I wished I could have buried it. The noise would go on and on until at
last Roger decided to stir
himself
. I once tried to
stretch across him and put a stop to its infernal
ringing,
only ending up knocking the contraption on to the floor, which annoyed him even
more than the ringing. Never again, I concluded. Eventually a long arm emerged
from under the blanket and a palm dropped on to the top of the clock and the
awful din subsided. I’m a light sleeper – the slightest movement stirs me. If
only he had asked me I could have woken him far more gently each morning.

After all, my
methods are every bit as reliable as any man-made contraption.

Half awake,
Roger gave me a brief cuddle before kneading my back, always guaranteed to
elicit a smile. Then he yawned, stretched and declared as he did every morning,
“Must hurry along or I’ll be late for the office.” I suppose some females would
have been annoyed by the predictability of our morning routine – but not this
lady. It was all part of a life that made me feel secure in the belief that at
last I had found something worthwhile.

Roger managed
to get his feet into the wrong slippers – always a fifty-fifty chance - before
lumbering towards the bathroom. He emerged fifteen minutes later, as he always
did, looking only slightly better than he had when he entered. I’ve learned to
live with what some would have called his foibles, while he has learned to
accept my mania for cleanliness and a need to feel secure.

“Get up,
lazy-bones,” he remonstrated but then only smiled when I re-settled myself,
refusing to leave the warm hollow that had been left by his body.

“I suppose you
expect me to get your breakfast before I go to work?” he added as he made his
way downstairs. I didn’t bother to reply. I knew that in a few moments’ time he
would be opening the front door, picking up the morning newspaper, any mail,
and our regular pint of milk. Reliable as ever, he would put on the kettle,
then head for the pantry, fill a bowl with my
favourite
breakfast food and add my portion of the milk, leaving himself just enough for
two cups of coffee.

I could
anticipate almost to the second when breakfast would be ready. First I would
hear the kettle boil, a few moments later the milk would be poured,
then
finally there would be the sound of a chair being
pulled up. That was the signal I needed to confirm it was time for me to join
him.

I stretched my
legs slowly, noticing my nails needed some attention. I had already decided
against a proper wash until after he had left for the office. I could hear the
sound of the chair being scraped along the kitchen
lino
.
I felt so happy that I literally jumped off the bed before making my way
towards the open door. A few seconds later I was downstairs. Although he had
already taken his first mouthful of cornflakes he stopped eating the moment he
saw me.

“Good of you to
join me,” he said, a grin spreading over his face.

I padded over
towards him and looked up expectantly. He bent down and pushed my bowl towards
me. I began to lap up the milk happily, my tail swishing from side to side.

It’s a myth
that we only swish our tails when we’re angry.

C
HRISTOPHER and Margaret Roberts always spent their summer holiday
as far away from England as they could possibly afford. However, as Christopher
was the classics master at St Cuthbert’s, a small preparatory school just north
of
Yeovil
, and Margaret was the school matron, their
experience of four of the five continents was largely confined to periodicals
such as the
National Geographic Magazine
and
Time
.

The Roberts’
annual holiday each August was nevertheless sacrosanct and they spent eleven
months of the year saving, planning and preparing for their one extravagant
luxury. The following eleven months were then spent passing on their
discoveries to the “offspring”: the Roberts, without children of their own,
looked on all the pupils of St Cuthbert’s as “offspring”.

During the long
evenings when the “offspring” were meant to be asleep in their dormitories, the
Roberts would pore over maps,
analyse
expert opinion
and then finally come up with a shortlist to consider. In recent expeditions
they had been as far afield as Norway, Northern Italy and Yugoslavia, ending up
the previous year ex-
ploring
Achilles’ island,
Skyros, off the east coast of Greece.

“It has to be
Turkey this year,” said Christopher after much soul-searching. A week later
Margaret came to the same conclusion, and so they were able to move on to Phase
Two. Every book on Turkey in the local library was borrowed, consulted,
re-borrowed and re-consulted. Every brochure obtainable from the Turkish
Embassy or local travel agents received the same relentless scrutiny.

By the first
day of the summer term, charter tickets had been paid for, a car hired,
accom-modation
booked and everything that could be insured
comprehensively covered. Their plans lacked only one final detail.

“So what will
be our ‘steal’ this year?” asked Christopher.

“A carpet,”
Margaret said, without hesitation. “It has to be. For over a thousand years
Turkey has produced the most sought-after carpets in the world. We’d be foolish
to consider anything else.”

“How much shall
we spend on it?”

“Five hundred
pounds,” said Margaret, feeling very extravagant.

Having agreed,
they once again swapped memories about the “steals” they had made over the
years. In Norway, it had been a whale’s tooth carved in the shape of a galleon
by a local artist who soon after had been taken up by Steuben. In Tuscany, it
had been a ceramic bowl found in a small village where they cast-and fired them
to be sold in Rome at exorbitant prices: a small blemish which only an expert
would have noticed made it a “steal”. Just outside Skopje the Roberts had
visited a local glass factory and acquired a water jug moments after it had
been blown in front of their eyes, and in Skyros they had picked up their
greatest triumph to date, a fragment of an urn they discovered near an old
excavation site. The Roberts reported their find immediately to the
authorities, but the Greek officials had not considered the fragment important
enough to prevent it being exported to St Cuthbert’s.

On returning to
England Christopher couldn’t resist just checking with the senior classics don
at his old alma mater. He confirmed the piece was probably twelfth century.
This latest “steal” now stood, carefully mounted, on their drawing room
mantelpiece.