Truly I do (2 page)

The next
statement from Mr. Finnegan shook Russell. Even in this bizarre
situation he wasn't quite ready for it. "Well, I am glad you've
come to me Russell, I was going to call for you this morning but I
hadn't got around to it. I don't think you're really the right sort
of chap to be locked up in a little back-lane school like this one,
eh? You shouldn't be leading this history course in this school. We
need people with, well, with a different approach. We need to grow
this school!"

(A meaningless
expression which Russell especially hated ' . . . and syntactically
and grammatically dubious', he thought to himself).

Finnegan
continued to babble; "I want to bring in executive minded people
who can lead the business of schools to new horizons, who can push
the envelope, whilst at the same time roping in the budgets,
bolster the true potential of the school group, climb the Maslow
pyramid . . . y'know? I want this to be a shining example of a
school. I want to put it on the map Russell!"

Russell stared
at him, Finnegan looked and sounded like a man with a dream - or an
idiot with a head full of nonsensical delusions, depending on your
point of view.

Russell's face
was blank. 'Nothing to do with providing a good education then?' he
thought, 'Just mindless money saving exercises and Governmental
target mubo-jumbo!' Mindful of the need to give some kind of
response to Finnegan, he nodded - but before he could actually say
anything Finnegan continued "I happen to have a letter already
typed here somewhere, Russell. You, um, you don't seem to have put
your intentions in writing yet so let's just call it a mutual
agreement shall we?"

Russell was
now well and truly ready to get away. Muted by his astonishment he
nodded again, "Mutual agreement" he repeated vaguely.

"Good, good!"
stated Finnegan. "I think it would be best for all if you took a
leave of absence for the last three weeks of this term don't you. I
don't think anybody would benefit if I tried to force you to stay
here among our little country bumpkin students now do you?"

He had risen
from his chair and was holding out his hand as if to shake
Russell's. Russell looked blankly at it, lifted his eyes to look at
Finnigan's smug face, then he grasped the hand shake with all the
enthusiasm he could muster.

"I agree." He
heard himself say. "Will you be sending me the details of my final
salary and so-on?"

"Good, good,
yes." Finnegan smiled. "I'll have the girl type it all up for you.
No need to be churlish about it, eh?"

Finnegan let
go of Russell's hand.

Russell
watched Finnegan sit down. The objectionable man carried on with
his sheets of paper as if Russell had already left the room.

Russell left
the room.

*

It was late
afternoon. Julie-Anne was beginning to feel weak. She could feel
the bruising effect around her eyes from lack of sleep. Her stomach
hurt. How often had she eaten in the last few weeks? She couldn't
quite remember. Her head ached from weeping. Fidgeting, she
re-crossed her legs, listening to the rustle of that taffeta. She
shifted her gaze from . . . whatever it was she'd been looking at .
. . and adjusted her thoughts from deep inner imaginings to look
out at the misty white November light that hung over her cottage
garden.

There was a
man outside the gate, standing astride his bike, staring at
her.

Julie-Anne
couldn't think who he was. She didn't recognise him. In fact, she
decided, she'd never seen him before. She stared back. He was
wearing good leather shoes, baggy blue corduroy trousers and an old
looking blue tweed jacket. She could see that he had a good tan
left over from the almost forgotten summer, it looked good against
his curling blonde hair. He seemed to be about her age, maybe a
little older, and he had the traces of pretty laughter lines around
his pretty blue eyes. She liked him, she decided. But what was he
doing there? She carried on watching to see what he would do next.
Her heart began to race when he got off his bike, leaned it against
her oak tree, and made his way to her front door.

Julie-Anne
didn't know if she would get up to answer the door.

She did.

"Hello," she
said.

"Hi!" he
answered brightly.

She looked at
his face, warm and nut brown against that misty white sky.

"I hope you
don't mind, I've decided to come and see you," he was explaining,
"you see I realise that you are not all right, that you need help.
You shouldn't be left sitting all alone there. It's all very well
people saying that time will heal but, well . . . hey . . . you
know!" He beamed at her as if he'd just made a bright decision.

"What?" She
mumbled, hearing her own voice for the first time in how many days,
realising the stupor she'd been living in. "What do you mean?"

"I just mean I
think you need a friend. I thought I'd come and talk to you, get
you out of that window seat. Maybe even take you for a walk?"

Julie-Anne
frowned. "Take me for a walk? Who are you?"

He grinned
sheepishly. It made his attractive face even more endearing she
thought. He spoke and his voice was like warm honey to her
exhausted mind.

"I'm Russell.
I am . . . that is, I was a history teacher in the school up the
road. Only I've just been fired - or I resigned - or both. So you
see I thought I'd take some time to come and see you, cos' I've got
plenty of time now and you look like you need a friend."

"I see. Why
were you fired?" She looked around to see if anyone else was
lurking in the lane to come and interrupt her. The late afternoon
was still, quiet and darkening quickly. She should feel uneasy but
she didn't. "You can't come in!" She announced decisively.

"Oh. Okay
then. Well, how about if you come out?"

They both
looked down at Julie-Anne's black dress. It was looking very limp
and creased. Julie-Anne began to laugh at herself. It was an
hysterical laugh, one which ended in wretched, gasping, tears.
Suddenly feeling dreadful she stared into Russell's face, her
liquid brown eyes horrified. Quickly she clasped her hands over her
mouth and retreated inside, slamming the door behind her.

That evening,
alone, in the cool autumn gloom, in a fit of unbridled fury,
Julie-Anne vented her rage and smashed quite a lot of the more
exposed, modern crockery around her home before storming around the
place ripping down shattering and splintering every picture of her
lost . . . gone . . . stolen-from-his-life husband. Wildly she
rampaged from room to room yelling tempestuously, saying nothing
that made any sense. She hated everything. She wanted everything to
go away . . . but it felt as if everything had gone away . . . she
wanted everything back. Oh how she wanted her safe old life to just
come back. Eventually she'd exhausted herself.

In the morning
Julie-Anne awoke on the stairs feeling greasy and bruised and
beaten. It was time, she felt tentatively, time to make a fresh
start. It was time to "get on".

She took
herself to the shower, peeled away that black taffeta dress and
stepped delicately under silvery droplets of warming water that
soothed and washed her skin. Relaxing, Julie-Anne woke up to
herself; lathering scented soap over her firm belly and drawing her
palms up over the sensitive skin of her neglected inner thighs. She
found herself thinking not of her husband but of the delicious
looking blonde haired man who'd come to her front door. She noted
that she felt no guilt in allowing her thoughts to stray. She was
emotionally numb, but feeling very physical, very alive through an
alert awareness of her own body.

When she
finally stepped from the steaming bathroom, the spike of cold
morning air on her naked skin was fresh and invigorating. Feeling
sensations of raw sexual hunger was, in itself, satisfying to her.
Whilst she dressed, she felt hungry for good nourishment and wanted
new energy to take the place of her recent feelings of hollow
emptiness and fatigue. Greedily she planned an indulgent, old
fashioned, cooked English breakfast. Clothed in tight jeans and a
designer cut, pink tee-shirt, she felt free to enjoy the silkiness
of her long hair as she brushed it dry and tied it in a long
shining tail that hung down her back. For the first time in ages
Julie-Anne greeted the day with some degree of enthusiasm.

Soon all doors
and windows were open and she was immersed in the minutiae of
furniture polishing, cupboard organising and other domestic tasks.
On this new day the mundane chores did not bore her but absorbed
her and made her feel as if she was clearing away more than just
dust.

She was so
involved in what she was doing that she nearly missed lunch and the
very fact that she had an appetite made her feel better. It was two
thirty by the time she had cooked and eaten the last remnants of a
particularly good quality piece of cheddar cheese on bread that was
too stale to make anything other than toast. Then, quietly
contented, she resumed the final few chores, determined to get
everything done.

Once she had
had a good go through the cottage it seemed quite natural to take a
walk down to the village store to restock the fridge, replenish the
cleaning products and grab a newspaper to find out what was going
on in the rest of the world.

She hunched
into a camel coloured fleece duffle coat, pushed her feet into her
warm, sheepskin boots and set out to crunch-crunch down the village
lanes, stomping merrily through crisp frosted autumn leaves and
thinly iced mud puddles. She found herself childishly delighted by
the patterns she could blow with her breath as she marched along.
She relished too the earthy smell of crushed acorns and rain soaked
leaves.

When she
turned the corner at the bottom of the lane, looking up to take in
the typically pretty English county scene of frosted village green
flanked by a thatched roofed store, small red brick cottages and
rambling country pub, her heart skipped a beat . . . there was the
delectable mop of blonde curls and the intelligent tanned face that
had lingered deep in her thoughts since his visit to her home the
previous afternoon. What had he said his name was? Russell?

He was
standing outside the store with a newspaper, scrutinising some
article. A scowl of deep concentration and the need for an overdue
shave made his face look rugged and interesting. Despite the chill
in the air he was wearing no more than a close fitting cream
sweater over his tight boot-cut jeans.

The angle of
his arms, crooked to hold up his newspaper, showed off his muscles.
Hmmn, I like it, strong but not over developed! Julie-Anne mused.
Good god, I could do with finding myself a man that looked like
that! She found, as she grew closer, she was even attracted to the
fragrances of this man, breathing gently she could smell his
aftershave and a hint of coconut probably from shampoo.

She felt her
belly tighten with anticipation for the way his voice seemed to
awaken some deeply sensual urge in her. When she stopped next to
him she could barely take her eyes of his hands and fingers which
suddenly seemed so sexy to her. She was slightly jarred to find
that after shifting her gaze away from his hands, she was staring
at his mouth and flooding with a lustfully hungry desire to kiss
him. 'For goodness sake,' she thought, 'this guy is total stranger
. . . what am I thinking!' Luckily he looked up, grinned, and broke
the enchantment before she made an utter fool of herself. Seeing
her standing so close, his face coloured warm red under the bronze
remnants of his summer tan. "Oh, hello!" he spoke gently. "Good to
see you're out and about today."

She shoved her
hands deeper into the soft pockets of her duffle coat. "Erm, yeah.
Thanks! Thanks for yesterday too. I think you meant well, y'know,
coming to see me. And look - it worked, here I am!"

"Well, I'm
glad, if I helped." He stood aside to make way for her to get into
the store. She did not move.

"Hey" she said
brightly, "how about popping 'round this evening for a little light
supper? Y'know, give me someone to cook for sort-of-thing. What do
you think?"

His blue eyes
searched her face. As she looked up at him, waiting for his
response, Julie-Anne thought 'wonderful eyes!' and she smiled. But
then she thought 'What am I doing? I'm scared; I want my husband
back; I want the safety of my old life back; I feel like I'm
standing over a precipice.' A sensation like falling swam through
her, she panicked feeling as if she would faint. Helplessly she
clung to the smile that was fixed on her numbed lips.

"Okay" he
decided. "What time shall I come 'round?"

His question
jerked her back like a life-line. They agreed that six o'clock was
a sensible time. They also agreed that spaghetti bolognese, whilst
renowned for being a boring old stand-by and wholly unimaginative,
would be a good choice for her to cook. He followed her back into
the store so that he could pick up a bottle of wine. . . . Then
they agreed that he might as well carry her shopping for her and
come back up to her cottage straight away.

"After all,"
Julie-Anne chattered easily, while she finally finished selecting
everything she wanted from the shelves, "it's past four o'clock
now. And it's not as if you need to go get dressed up or anything.
Unless you need to go home first, of course?" Russell reassured her
that he had no particular reason to go home. The autumn evening was
closing in around them already, it was pretty dark by now so,
privately, they each felt glad that Julie-Anne wasn't walking home
alone.

Whilst
Julie-Anne cooked, Russell sat comfortably in her old rocking chair
beside the kitchen range. She'd poured him a big glass of red wine
and thought how naturally he fitted into this place. He seemed so
relaxed, his tousled blonde hair framed his handsome bronzed face
and curled around his head like a halo over an innocent, blue eyed
child. His arms and shoulders were settled in such a way that made
his whole demeanour look handsome and comfortable. Something about
the centuries old kitchen, its wattle and daub walls, its brown oak
beams and its flagstone floor just seemed to fit around him as if
he was a natural fixture of the room. She should know - Julie-Anne
had been born and brought up in this house. She'd moved back in
after university graduation, coming home with a first class degree
in fine arts and history of art. When her parents retired to her
aunt's place (her mother's sister) in New Zealand, she'd just
carried on living there. When she'd married a safe sensible
financier he'd just moved safely and sensibly into the cottage,
fitting his things in beside hers. While she was stirring bolognese
sauce, she thought about her marriage. They'd rubbed along
together, each unimaginatively carrying on with life pretty much as
it had been before they'd married. Inwardly Julie-Anne groaned.
'Did I actually love him? No, I don't think I did. I just took him
on because he was convenient. How awful . . . what's wrong with
me?'