Call Nurse Jenny (46 page)

There seemed to be a dull, flat ache in her soul as she folded Susan’s letter and put it back into its envelope.

‘I’d better hand it to him straight away,’ she said defeatedly. It went without saying what his reaction would be. A ray of hope. Jenny would be forgotten in an instant as he embraced the marvellous knowledge that Susan at the eleventh hour wanted him to take her back. He would forgive her all she had done to him and Jenny Ross would be put aside, told of his wonderful good news, thanked for all she’d done for him, and forgotten.

‘He’ll be pleased,’ she said simply as she slid the envelope into the pocket of her nurse’s dress to hand to him on her way to work. Then she would hurry off before seeing his reaction and get on with her day, get on with her own life, as she had vowed so many times before. But this time it held all the characteristics of finality.

It was Saturday night, nearly ten o’clock. Little Trevor, in his cot since eight, had waited for his father well past his bedtime, and Geoffrey’s key was only now just turning in the street door lock.

She stood waiting for him, the whole of her slight, small body quivering with fury.

‘What bloody time do you call this?’ she attacked him as he came into the cluttered living room, still innocently pocketing his keys in the jacket he’d already taken off to drop over a nearby chair.

He looked at her astonished, his jovial, ‘Hello, love,’ frozen on his lips. ‘You know I always see the boys on a Saturday.’

‘Not until this bloody hour of the evening. And you already see them twice during the week too. You never used to. So what’s so special about them now? You used to come home before eight so you could see your own son before he goes to bed.’

He glared at her now, his jacket hanging by its collar from one finger. ‘They’re my sons too, don’t forget. I owe them some of my time.’

‘Not every bloody day of the week.’

‘It’s not every bloody day of the week.’ Angered now, he flung the coat at the chair, which it missed. It slid to the floor to lie in a crumpled heap. ‘It’s twice a week and once on a Saturday.’

‘That makes three times,’ Susan stormed, standing her ground on the rug before the empty firegrate. She had no intention of moving from the spot to welcome him or go off to get him cups of tea as once she always did whenever he came in the door. This time she was going to have it out with him, one way or the other.

‘I’m not putting up with this, Geoffrey. Not for much longer. Why do you have to keep going to see them three times a week? It was four times last week.’

‘Four?’ he blazed at her.

‘Yes,
four.
What about Monday? You went there on Monday as well.’

‘For an hour, that was all. You’re begrudging me one hour with my own boys, now?’

‘It’s one hour too many, Geoffrey. What about me waiting all hours God sends for you to come home and give me a bit of your time? I mean, I’m important to you too, aren’t I? You used to think so. You used to be a lot different to what you are now. I need to have you here.’

‘You’ve got me, haven’t you? Nearly all the time.’ He went and threw himself down in one of the pair of sagging fireside chairs. It creaked under the sudden violent weight. ‘Don’t start an argument, Sue,’ he sighed. ‘I’m tired.’

‘And
I’m
tired,’ she railed on at him. ‘Tired of being a doormat for you. For you to come home any old time you please. And I suppose you expect to make love to me, as always, as if nothing’s happened.’

‘You like it.’

‘That’s got nothing to do with it. You come home from
her
and your blessed sons, and clamber on top of me and make love as if you’ve not had it for weeks. How do I know you haven’t been making love to
her
as well?’

He sat bolt-upright. ‘That’s not fair, darling. You know I don’t have nothing to do with Emma and she don’t have nothing to do with me. It’s just for me to see the boys, that’s all.’

‘What proof have I got of that?’ she continued to blaze. ‘And don’t darling me straight after you’ve seen
her.
What’s going on between you two?’

Geoffrey shot out of the chair and stalked about the room, flinging irritated, disbelieving glances at her. ‘This is getting bloody silly. I thought our row in the week was bad enough, and over the same bloody thing. But you’re going right over the top again. Nothing’s going on between Emma and me. Can’t you get that straight? She’s just the mother of my sons and they live with her. Of course I have to see her when I go there, but she don’t have nothing to do with me.’

‘But you wish she did.’

‘Of course not, darling. I love you. I left her for you and that’s not changed.’ His voice had grown softer, more persuasive. ‘It’s you I love, Sue, and no one else.’

‘Huh!’ She moved at last to the window to straighten the already moderately straight gold-patterned curtains. ‘Love me? You don’t care anything about me, only to get your oats, that’s all you care about me. It’s all I’m good for.’

‘Don’t be silly. And don’t be selfish.’

‘Selfish!’ The curtains received a tug, almost dislodging the pelmet they hung from. ‘Me? Selfish? I should think you’re the one who’s selfish, leaving me alone half the week.’

‘You
are
bloody selfish, Sue, sometimes.’

‘I’m not. I’m not selfish.’

This was how it was lately, arguments going round and round, silly and pointless, ending up unsolved unless she gave in, threw herself at him and burst into tears. Before, he would kiss her better, take her to bed to assuage his need with her. She adored being made love to in that way, the rougher the better, with her the object of his lust, the helpless recipient. But these last couple of weeks, he hadn’t made love to her after any row; he had merely extricated himself from her pleas for him to forgive her and had gone sullenly to bed; he would be asleep or apparently so by the time she came to him. Any attempts to wake him up had been met with a deep snore and a mumble of protest. Many a night she had lain awake beside him, her eyes wet with what she hated to admit were self-induced tears. Her sniffling and snuffling sounded loud enough to have disturbed the devil, but not Geoffrey, even though to her mind he must have heard but ignored the noise. The next morning he would leave for work after breakfast, through which he said little but read the morning paper that fell through the letter box at six thirty. His departing peck on the cheek seemed a condemnation of her attitude of late and left her to weep silently the rest of the morning as she got his son from his cot to feed him.

Slowly she was coming to feel that their relationship was beginning to fall apart, that he was tiring of her. But why now? In less than a couple of weeks her marriage would come to an end. She couldn’t let Geoffrey lose interest in her now, not after all that had happened. She was being silly of course. He hadn’t lost interest in her. His lovemaking said as much, or had done until lately. It was her fault. She
was
being selfish. He did need to see his sons by his wife. Soon she would be his new wife when his own divorce came through. This wouldn’t be for several months yet; Emma had only filed for it a little while ago.

Tomorrow she would have him all to herself, all day. She would make up for her foolish, groundless tantrum by being all sweetness and light, and on Monday would run to get him his evening tea, for that evening he’d be home at the proper time. Last Monday had been the exception, because of his middle son Percy’s birthday.

Sunday passed blissfully. They made love in the afternoon, with Trevor safely asleep in his cot. She bit back the cries of ecstasy Geoffrey forced from her in case she awoke the child and put an end to the unbelievable climax to which her lover was capable of bringing her. And they made love again that night with her happy cries ringing out abandoned enough to wake the neighbours.

All Monday she went about the house, content that all was well again and waited for Geoffrey to come home from work. Five thirty came and went. Six o’clock. Seven. Susan, watching the clock, the egg and bacon she’d cooked dried up in her efforts to keep it warm for him, began to seethe afresh. There was no reason for him to have been kept at work. It was obvious he had gone round again to where Emma and the boys still lived with her sister. But there was no birthday to celebrate this Monday. And hadn’t she heard from Geoffrey last week that the youngest would be at a friend’s birthday party this evening and that Percy and Malcolm were going off on a school coach trip to Southend and wouldn’t be home until after seven thirty? And didn’t Emma’s sister do evening work in some nearby pub? If Geoffrey had gone round to Emma’s tonight, he’d really blotted his copybook this time.

Sick at heart, Susan waited, put Trevor to bed and waited some more. It was nearly nine before Geoffrey came in. In the ensuing row, he ducked and dived like mad. He didn’t admit it for one second but Susan knew he had been with Emma, really been with Emma; there was something in the look of him that showed he had. When she accused him outright, his protests were too violent to be true, so she
knew
he had.

It was then she began to be really frightened, knowing just what she had done and how her life could go. Were he to go back to his wife, what would she have left? Geoffrey’s son – that was all. Suddenly she didn’t want to be left just with Geoffrey’s son. She didn’t want to be the spurned mistress saddled with a baby. She could see it all looming before her like a great yawning canyon. She thought voluntarily of Matthew, for the first time in months. It was then that she wrote a scribbled, frantic letter to Jenny Ross in the hope that she would speak for her to him. Jenny had always been a saviour of lame dogs and desperate souls. She would not fail this desperate soul – for once in her life, Susan waxed poetic as she wrote her letter, then sat back to await the results, which she knew could only be to her advantage. Matthew would have her back in the blink of an eye, still madly in love with her as he was.

Susan rather liked that word, desperate. She said it over and over again to herself as she sealed her letter and went to post it. Her heart, though, still ached for Geoffrey and she prayed he’d have a change of heart and carry on their relationship as though nothing had happened. Then of course there would be no need for Matthew and no harm done because from past knowledge of Jenny, the girl would be very careful how she worded her errand and might even delay it in rehearsing the words she would use to him. There would still be time enough to rescind her plea. After all, Matthew had recovered, hadn’t he? He was no longer the sick and ravaged person she imagined he had been after coming home. Look how he’d belted into poor Geoffrey. Geoffrey, the apparently healthier man, had been unable to defend himself. At the time she had hated Matthew, seeing a savage, embittered, degraded man. But thinking about it, his face, at the time twisted and suffused by fury, had still retained much of that which had attracted her to him that first time. Half crouched in rage as he’d been, he still looked tall and slim, a far cry from the sick wretch she had imagined. Memories of what he had been now flooded back. In time he would become that again and perhaps they would pick up the threads of those beautiful if brief months they’d had together before he’d gone away. She hoped so. That was if her and Geoffrey’s affair was over, which in her heart she hoped was untrue. All she wanted in life was a stable, loving relationship with someone, to be looked after, to be loved, to be given security.

Matthew took little notice of the ringing of the doorbell. He and Dad had not long got up; both were washed and dressed and waiting for their breakfast, the nutty fragrance of toast creeping from the kitchen. He listened idly to his mother going to answer the door. Probably the postman. A parcel perhaps?

‘Matthew. It’s Jenny, here to see you.’

He stood up, curious, as she came in with his mother. She seldom came here on a Wednesday, and never in the morning, never so early, her nurse’s coat, spattered by light, early-morning rain, showing she was in fact on her way to the hospital. She was looking a little strained.

‘Anything wrong?’ His first words showed his concern.

‘I can’t stay. I’m on my way to work.’ She sounded breathless as if she’d been running, but the breathlessness seemed to have something to do as well with the strained look on her face. She was holding an envelope, holding it out in a way that did not exactly ask for it to be taken from her. ‘This arrived for me in the post, but it has to do with you rather than me. I was going to pop it through your letter box but it needs some explanation why it was sent to me and not to you.’

‘Shall I take your coat?’ His mother eyed the rain-spotted garment with concern for her furniture lest Matthew’s visitor sit herself down. Jenny shook her head quickly.

‘I can’t stop.’ She was looking at him, her expression apologetic in a way, her high brow furrowed with concern the way it used to furrow when she had tended him in that first hospital in England.

‘What is it, Jenny?’ He ignored his father, who had also stood up sociably at Jenny’s entrance, and came round the table towards her. Perhaps being nearer she might hand him the letter she said so concerned him.

‘This isn’t possible to break to you gently, Matthew. It’s from your wife. I was supposed to explain, tell you what she wants. I suppose what she is hoping me to do is to …’ She broke off with an impatient tut. ‘Well, read it yourself. I can’t be … I don’t want to be her go-between. It’s nothing to do with me, anyway.’

Thrusting the letter into his hands, she turned and with a little nod and a thank-you to his mother, allowed herself to be conducted out.

Left holding the envelope, he instantly recognised Susan’s laboured handwriting. By the time his mother came back, eager to see what it was all about, he had the letter open, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown.

‘What is it, dear?’

‘As Jenny said,’ his father’s deep voice was deadened by the well-furnished little breakfast room, ‘it’s from Matthew’s wife.’

‘Well, what does she say? What does she want?’

‘She wants to come and see me. I shall have to see her.’