Loves Me, Loves Me Not

I couldn’t remember ever being so happy. For weeks after the wedding I lived in a kind of blissful glow. But one night when I came home from work my happy little world received a jolt.

Raymond had got home before me and he was sitting at the table looking at photographs. At first I thought he was looking at his own old photographs but then I noticed that it was the shoe box of my own snaps that Mum had brought a few days before; I hadn’t got round to finding a home for it.

There was no reason why Raymond shouldn’t look at the photographs. Over his shoulder I saw myself as a baby, as a schoolgirl enjoying picnics on the beach with my parents, and a later one of me grinning and wearing Dad’s air raid warden’s tin hat. As my eyes roamed over my past I saw Raymond slide one photograph under the others.

But he looked up as if nothing had happened. ‘You should put these in an album.’

‘I might, but now let’s put these away so I can set the table.’

I gathered them up quickly and put the box back on the sideboard. Next day was half day closing and I got home early. I lifted the lid and took out the top few photographs. I knew exactly which one I would find at the bottom of the pile I’d picked up from the table.

There were just three of us. Laura, Bill and me. Their wedding day. She was holding her bouquet and clasping his arm. I stood a little apart, clutching my own bouquet. We were all smiling, just as the photographer had told us. I put the photograph back and shoved the shoe box into the bottom of the wardrobe. Out of sight, out of mind. Except I couldn’t forget the way Raymond had hidden the photograph beneath the others, as if he didn’t want me to know which one he had been staring at.

But Raymond seemed happy enough and I was content. As Christmas drew near I began to make plans to have Mum and Dad at our place. I started putting things away and spent my spare time going through recipes in magazines.

It was during a tea break at work that Pamela came looking for me. ‘I thought I’d better tell you.’

‘Tell me what?’ I said without looking up from the recipe for an economy Christmas pudding.

‘Laura’s home.’

I raised my eyes slowly. ‘What?’

‘Laura, she’s come home. She’s left Bill.’

There it was, everything that would take my wonderful world and shake it up—maybe smash it to smithereens.

‘Why has she left him?’ I asked. I wondered if someone had written and told her that Raymond had survived the war.

‘She hated it. The life out there. Miles away from the nearest town—all those sheep—and nowhere to go for a night out. Anyway, she’s home. And…well…’ Pamela paused uneasily.

‘What?’

‘She must have found out by now about Raymond.’

‘Yes.’ Suddenly I felt cold. ‘Yes, I suppose she has.’

That night Raymond and I had planned to go to the Roxy. I looked at him over the table as we ate our Welsh rarebit and wondered if I should tell him. I didn’t think he knew because he acted pretty much as usual, telling me about his day and asking me about mine.

I could have told him then. Oh, today, I could have said, nothing much happened except that Pamela told me that Laura has come home.

But I didn’t. I washed the dishes and got ready and hoped that at least she wouldn’t be coming along to the Roxy. I mean in those days a woman who had left her husband simply because she was bored attracted scandal. Surely Laura wouldn’t want to draw attention to herself?

I was wrong. The dancing hadn’t even started when she walked in. Raymond and I were sitting at a table under the balcony and he had his back to the dance floor. He heard the shocked gasps and the murmurs of surprise and he looked at me. ‘What’s happened?’

All I could do was stare.

Raymond frowned and turned his head slowly. I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to. A wave of nausea hit me as I sensed his shock.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. The words caught in my throat.

He turned to look at me. ‘Why?’

‘She’s left Bill. I should have told you.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

I didn’t have time to answer him even if I could have. Laura had seen us and she came straight across the floor. People drew back and I don’t think it would be exaggerating to say that some held their breath.

Just as if nothing had happened, just as if there had been no years in between, she smiled at Raymond and held out her hand, as he had done the first time he had asked her to dance. She didn’t even look at me.

The music began and they started to dance. People watched, just as they had before. There was no denying that together they were the most glamorous couple anyone had ever seen.

Gradually the other couples surrounded them and soon I saw only glimpses of my friend and my husband as they moved around the floor. And then I lost sight of them altogether. I stood up and searched keenly as the couples danced by, but soon there was no denying it. Raymond and Laura were no longer there.

Cold. I felt so cold. I made my way to the foyer and collected my coat from Hilda.

‘They’re up there,’ she said, nodding towards the stairs that led to the little snack bar.

I was mortified that anyone should think I was looking for them. I didn’t say anything. I put my coat on and walked out.

It was bitterly cold on the promenade. The wind gusted viciously, snatching my breath and knifing cruelly through my body. But, instead of making for home, I headed north towards the lighthouse and watched its wide beam sweep across the turbulent waters. Tears made cold tracks down my face and every now and then I tried to rub them away with my gloved hands.

I stopped when I reached the cemetery. The dead end of town, as we used to joke when we were children, and turned round to go home. There was nothing else to do.

The front door seemed to open of its own volition the moment I put my key in the lock. My mother was standing there. She must have been waiting in the tiny hallway, listening for every footstep.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ she asked, and I knew she was angry because I hardly ever heard her swear.

‘Walking,’ I said.

‘Honestly, Jeannie, if I wasn’t so pleased to see you I would smack you! Now, come upstairs and take your coat off. Sit down by the fire and I’ll make you a cup of cocoa.’

Cocoa. My mother’s remedy for all ills and upsets.

‘Your father and Raymond are out looking for you,’ she said when she came back into the room. ‘Your father’s sick with worry and Raymond’s near demented.’

‘Raymond?’

‘Yes, Raymond, your husband. Remember him? He told us you’d simply walked out on him at the Roxy and, when he realised you’d gone, he came straight home. When he found you weren’t here he thought you might have come to us.’

‘Did he tell you why he thought that?’

‘Yes, he did. Laura’s back and he…’

Before she could say any more we heard the front door open and worried voices on the stairs as Raymond and my father ascended.

‘She’s here,’ my mother said even before they had opened the door of the living room.

‘Thank God,’ Raymond said.

My father just stared. I could see his distress and it would have broken my heart if there had been anything left to break.

‘We’ll go now,’ my mother said. ‘You two need to talk.’

I watched them go. Raymond just stood and stared. He’s going to tell me now, I thought—tell me that he still loves Laura.

So his next words took me by surprise. ‘Why did you run away?’

Did he really need me to tell him?

‘Because you went with Laura,’ I said. ‘I saw the way you danced with her. I realised that you still love her. You lost her once and now she’s come back.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ he asked.

I nodded mutely.

‘Well, you were wrong!’ I don’t think I had ever seen him look so angry. ‘Completely and utterly wrong.’

‘But you left the floor together—you went up to the snack bar.’

‘And what did you imagine we were doing? Did you think we had fallen into each other’s arms?’ His face was white.

‘I…it crossed my mind.’

‘For God’s sake, Jeannie. I had to talk to her. I knew from the moment she pulled me on to the dance floor that she hoped we might get together again and I had to tell her as soon as possible that it wasn’t going to happen.’

‘Why not?’ I whispered. ‘Don’t you love her any more?’

Raymond sank down on the sofa beside me and pushed a lock of hair back wearily.

‘Of course I don’t. Don’t you know that by now? Don’t you know how much I love you? How grateful I am for every day we’ve had together?’

I turned to look into his face and saw the truth. I couldn’t help it, I began to sob.

Raymond put his arm around me and drew me close.

‘Don’t cry, my Jeannie,’ he said and those were probably the most romantic words I’ve ever heard.

Neither of us spoke after that. We lay in each other’s arms on the sofa. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked, the bars on the electric fire glowed comfortingly and we fell asleep.

In my dreams I heard the music playing but there was no one in the ballroom except Raymond and me. He walked towards me across the dance floor and held out his hand. Then he pulled me into his arms and we began to dance.

Taking Life Seriously

Jane Gordon-Cumming

Jane Gordon-Cumming began writing when she was about seven and used to make up stories about the teachers at school to entertain her friends. Making people laugh has been her main object in life ever since. She has had many short stories in magazines and on the radio, as well as in the OxPens anthologies of stories set in Oxford. Her first novel, A Proper Family Christmas, was published in 2005, and she is working on A Proper Family Holiday, set in a Gothic dower house in Gloucestershire. Jane is Deputy Treasurer of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and Secretary of the Oxford Writers’ Group. She lives in Oxford and is married to Edwin Osborn. When not writing, she enjoys trips on Worcester, their diesel-electric narrowboat, works as a volunteer in archaeology and sings in two choirs. You can read more about her on her website www.janegordoncumming.co.uk

Taking Life Seriously

It all started when I was sacked from the naughty food company—for being silly. You wouldn’t think it was possible, would you? It was the most amazingly silly job anyone could have, making marzipan penises and sugar boobs for party novelties and adult stocking-fillers all over the world. They’re particularly big in Japan, I gather—the market, that is, not the penises and boobs. The only reason anyone would have for taking a job like that would be for a laugh. And so that you could tell people what you did when they asked at parties. It made a real change from the usual run of primary school teachers and computer operators, I can tell you.

So how did I manage to get myself sacked from Edible Erotica? It’s a long story, involving a visiting dignitary from a chain of sex shops in Kiev and a packet of Durex. For such a silly company, they took themselves far too seriously. I should have stayed at the building society.

‘The trouble with you, Gina,’ said my friend Leonora, ‘is that you’re just not serious-minded enough. That’s why you can’t hold down a proper job, or why you never seem to have a boyfriend.’

Leonora is very serious. She’s a social worker for a start—or was till she decided to stay at home to look after Jacyntha and Tyrone. She has really serious hair, dark and floppy, held back by a Sloany hairband, and wears knee-length skirts and brown tights and Edinburgh Woollen Mill cardigans.

‘You were just the same at school. Yes, I know it was funny when you put a fig leaf over that nude statue in the art room, and the red dye in the showers when we were doing Macbeth. But…well…one grows out of that sort of thing, doesn’t one?’

It wasn’t exactly a question.

‘You’re pushing thirty now. Middle age isn’t so far away. And that’s when a young girl with a wacky sense of humour starts to become an eccentric old maid! You don’t want to end up alone, do you?’

‘No, I suppose not.’ On the other hand, did I want to end up like Leonora?

‘Well, if you’re ever going to find someone suitable to settle down with, you’ll simply have to get men to take you more seriously.’

Men were a bit of a sore point. As Leonora pointed out, I’d never had anything approaching a long-term partner. My relationships, assuming they survived the first few dates, tended to degenerate, as she would put it, into friendship. I have a lot of really good friends who are men. They like the way I make them laugh and that they can talk to me as an impartial member of the female sex without feeling there’s any danger of things getting heavy between us.

‘And do you have someone in mind?’

‘I have, as a matter of fact. He’s called Patrick.’ There was an unexpected gleam in Leonora’s brown eyes which, in anyone else, might have been taken for lust. ‘He’s absolutely gorgeous, Gina! As soon as I saw him, I thought how perfect he’d be for you. I met him at Mike’s Christmas party.’

‘Oh. A lawyer, then.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with having a serious job.’ She frowned at my expression. ‘Mike says he’s very highly thought of by the firm. He’s well-spoken and intelligent, and really good-looking…’

‘And still unattached? He must be gay or have some weird personal habits.’

‘Of course he’s not gay!’ Leonora flushed at the idea of anything so unconventional. ‘As a matter of fact, he’s just come out of a relationship with a woman. Oh, well—’ she sighed, relieving me of my empty mug with a resigned air ‘—I had thought of inviting you both to dinner with some of Mike’s other colleagues but I suppose it wouldn’t work. You’re not serious-minded enough to attract someone like Patrick.’

‘Huh!’ Why should I be deprived of this paragon of manhood, just because I had a naturally light-hearted attitude to life? ‘I could be serious if I wanted.’

‘I don’t think so, Gina.’ Leonora considered me sadly. ‘You’re just not that sort of girl.’

I tried looking like that sort of girl. It meant screwing one’s mouth up into a line and sitting up straight in the chair with one’s feet neatly together.

‘Well, if you’re going to make silly faces…’

‘No, honestly! It just needs a bit of practice. Why don’t you ask Patrick round in, say, a month’s time? I’m sure I could become serious in a month.’

It turned out I had a week. After that the firm were sending Patrick to deal with a complicated case in York. Maybe it was the doubtful look she gave me that led me to assure Leonora that this wasn’t a problem.

It couldn’t be that difficult, surely? I had an expert coach and, under her strict supervision, I embarked on a regime of intensive training.

‘For heaven’s sake, don’t tell him where you used to work,’ she advised. ‘If anyone asks, you’re still with the building society. And you won’t mention that awful newspaper you take, will you?’

‘I only read it for the problem page,’ I protested. ‘That three-in-a-bed picture story last week raised a serious dilemma.’

Leonora’s derisive snort suggested she didn’t think so. ‘Make a note of some of the articles in this.’ She passed me their copy of the Guardian. ‘And try to remember your favourite programme is Panorama, not Celebrity Wife Swap.‘

‘Patrick had better be damn well worth it,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘He is, believe me.’

I turned up early, as instructed, on the Saturday evening, feeling like a boxer fully prepared for the big fight. Or perhaps I should say a racehorse ready for the National, because I fell at the first hurdle.

‘Good Lord, Gina, you’re not wearing that, are you?’ My trainer greeted me with a scowl.

‘They’re my best jeans.’

‘You can’t possibly wear jeans to a dinner party! Come upstairs. I’ll see if I can find you something of mine.’

My heart sank as I followed her. Keen though I was to look as serious and grown-up as Leonora, I simply could not see myself in her clothes. She opened the wardrobe and began to fling things on the bed.

‘Try this one.’

Unwillingly I took off my jeans and pulled on a long dark skirt. She handed me a long dark jumper to match.

To my surprise, it made me look slim and rather cultured. I turned this way and that to let the skirt swish and admired myself in the mirror.

‘And we must decide what to do about your hair.’

‘What’s wrong with my hair?’ I said defensively.

No one ever thinks they have a perfect body, do they? Even if I could have an inch or two miraculously removed from my hips and added to my bust, I’d probably still moan that my nose was too big. But I do like my hair. It’s a sort of dark gold, thick and wiry, and springs out of my head in a cheerful, unruly manner that used to drive the teachers mad at school.

‘It’s so…young-looking. You need to have it back from your face.’

‘Let me try one of your hairbands.’ This surely would be the transforming touch, the insignia that would turn me into Leonora.

It looked gross—a freaky Alice in Wonderland, high on something. I whipped it off again, deeply disappointed.

‘Let me have a go.’ Leonora started pulling my hair back, twisting it round her fingers and sticking grips in. She was doing it into a bun.

‘I hate it like that…’ But the words froze in my mouth. A complete stranger was beginning to face me. Ethereal, mysterious and very, very serious.

‘Take your make-up off,’ said Leonora.

With surprising skill she applied a touch of bronze to the outside of my lids and a hint of kohl underneath.

‘Pearls!’ I breathed. ‘I must have pearls.’

Leonora had pearls.

The effect was stunning. I opened my mouth and shut it again.

‘The kids want to kiss you goodnight…Bloody hell!’ Mike halted in the doorway, a child in each hand.

Jacyntha was the first to recover. ‘Gina looks like a mummy,’ she said uncertainly.

Tyrone’s face began to crumble. ‘I don’t like her!’ he wailed.

‘It’s her new serious image. Doesn’t she look lovely?’ Leonora glared at her husband and children. I stuck out my tongue at them as I glided through the door.

Patrick was the last guest to arrive and, although my heart beat faster when the bell rang, it was more the feeling of embarking on a driving test than the prospect of meeting someone Leonora described as gorgeous. Mike is a dear, but you wouldn’t exactly call him good-looking, and I’d no reason to think our tastes coincided in that any more than in everything else.

So I was absolutely floored when Leonora brought him into the room. ‘You all know Patrick, don’t you? Except Gina, I believe.’ And he turned out to be—well, gorgeous! He had dark curly hair, a curvy kissable mouth and what I might have sworn was a twinkle in those deep blue eyes, if I hadn’t known him to be a serious-minded lawyer.

He took my hand in a warm, enclosing grasp. ‘Pleased to meet you, Gina.’ And for one mad moment I wanted to make it the real me that Patrick was meeting. But then I remembered how a man like this was never going to be attracted to someone who greeted him with a silly joke about solicitors. He’d want an earnest, solemn sort of girl who took an interest in the important matters of the day.

‘How do you do, Patrick?’ I responded politely. ‘Global warming is a terrible problem, don’t you agree?’

‘Er…yes.’ He looked a little startled.

‘Childhood obesity, too. And it’s so sad that people still hunt elephants for their tusks.’ I frowned in a concerned manner.

Leonora was frowning in just the same way, so I must have got it right. She shook her head, obviously astounded that I was doing so well, and took Patrick off to find a drink.

It’s amazing how you can play a role once you’ve got the costume. Dressed up as Leonora, I was that serious girl. During the starter I regaled them with my views on the Health Service. As we ate our terrine of duck, I canvassed opinions on the Middle East. Pudding was enlivened by a discussion on Chinese orphanages. Leonora was staring at me open-mouthed. I knew she hadn’t thought I could do it. Patrick was clearly stunned. He hardly said a word all through dinner, presumably mulling over the serious issues I had raised.

Soon after Leonora had served coffee, Patrick excused himself, saying he didn’t like to leave his elderly mother at home alone. The others seemed to find that they had to leave, too, and very shortly we had the place to ourselves.

‘That’s funny,’ said Mike, as we helped Leonora pack the dishwasher. ‘I thought Patrick’s mother lived in Brighton.’

Leonora sighed. ‘I suppose it was silly to think a sophisticated man like Patrick would ever go for someone who just can’t help playing the fool.’

It was a relief to change back into my own clothes and brush my hair into its wild and woolly self. I’d shown that I could do Serious, but it was nice to see Gina again in the mirror. It was still only about ten o’clock when I set off on the short walk home. For some reason, I felt a bit depressed. As I passed the pub on the corner, it occurred to me I could do with a drink. I’d held back on the rather serious wine that Mike had provided, wanting to keep a clear head for the task in hand, but there was no need to stay sober now.

I’d bought myself a rum and blackcurrant and was just looking round for a seat when…No, it couldn’t be! Elderly mother, indeed!

I was about to hide and then thought, why should I be the one to be embarrassed? Instead, I went over and greeted him with a bright, ‘Hello there!’

Patrick looked up from his pint and I saw puzzled panic cross his face as he desperately tried to work out where he’d met me before. Oh, this was going to be good!

‘You look pretty miserable,’ I observed, sitting down beside him in a friendly manner.

‘Do I?’ He edged away nervously.

‘Yes. Anyone would think you’d just been to a dreadful dinner party and had come in here to cheer yourself up.’

‘Ah!’ One could hear pennies dropping. He eyed my lurid drink. ‘I could say the same about you.’

‘Well, there’s a coincidence.’

‘I don’t know what yours was like, but there was this terrifying girl at mine,’ Patrick confided. ‘She seemed to have spent her life reading miserable newspaper articles and watching gloomy documentaries.’

I smirked, as one who’d got full marks in the exam. ‘A serious sort of girl, you mean?’

‘Yes, very.’ He pulled a face.

‘Oh!’ I was rather taken aback. ‘Don’t you like being serious, then?’

‘Not in the least.’ Patrick sighed. ‘Just because I’m a lawyer, everyone expects me to be solemn and stuffy but I get quite enough of that in my job. I’d much rather be with someone who can see the fun side of life. Someone who’d drink strange purple concoctions instead of dry wine, for example. Now, I can tell that you’re not serious at all.’

‘I can be, if I try.’

‘Yes, I know you can.’ That was definitely a twinkle. ‘But maybe it’s a talent you should save for when you’re with serious people.’

‘Unlike you?’

‘Unlike me. I really prefer being quite silly.’

So Leonora had got Patrick all wrong. But she had been right about one thing. And he was even more gorgeous when he smiled. I could see that my new challenge would be to make him do that as often as possible.

‘Speaking of jobs, you should hear about the place I used to work. You’ll never believe what they made…’

Hardly a challenge at all. He was laughing already.

The Malta Option

Sue Moorcroft

Sue Moorcroft has managed to wriggle out of all ‘proper jobs’ and works full-time as a writer and a creative writing tutor. As well as her novels, Uphill All the Way and Family Matters, she has sold over one hundred and thirty short stories to magazines in the UK, Norway, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and Sweden, three serials, the occasional article and has written courses for the London School of Journalism. She won the Katie Fforde Bursary Award in 2002. She likes reading, yoga and Pilates and scuba dives in a bimbly kind of way. She’s an armchair formula one addict and hates anyone trying to talk to her when she’s watching a race. Her latest book, Love Writing—How to Make Money Writing Romantic or Erotic Fiction is available in January. For more information about Sue and her writing, visit www.suemoorcroft.com