A Little Bit on the Side (31 page)

From that he drifted into a dreamy, half-sleeping reverie on Josie with the recollection that the only time they went to bed together was for sex. No, not quite, there had been that one night at Josie’s boutique hotel, but that was only because they were so shagged out after their afternoon exertions, and even then there’d been no cuddles.

As for tonight he thought, after the amount of booze I’ve shifted, and with the ghost of Kate hovering round every corner, I really wouldn’t have been of much use to her even if she’d come. A flea in your ear my love! Nothing to declare my darling! And special friend! Now what the hell did that and the antipathy to cuddles mean for any sort of long-term relationship? That was his last muddled thought before he was awakened by the clamour of Jimmy’s rooster.

He pulled back his curtains to one of those rare halcyon dawns that he remembered well from his days on the hill with Kate. A dawn when those who knew their local weather threw open their windows, forgot their coats, and went about their business secure in the knowledge that for that one day the old gods of the hill would be kind to them. An acknowledgment perhaps of those midsummer pipes and twists of tobacco left to them over the years.

Such days came only rarely, with one of those strange inversions of temperature (an ‘inversion aloft’ in technical terms, Jack had been told) that left those in the valleys shivering under a shroud of cold, grey autumnal skies, but transformed the tops of Barton and Midden hills into sun-drenched islands afloat in a drifting, swirling sea of cloud, from which the tops of trees and wooded copses on the tumps and hummocks of the valleys below appeared as ghostly, insubstantial things, briefly materialising and assuming shape and form, before slowly fading and dissolving into nothingness as wave after wave of mist and cloud rolled almost imperceptibly across the landscape, and on into the distance where, high above Barlow, the needle-point spire of St Botolph’s might be seen piercing the cloud, the only visible token of the world below, its weathervane glinting in the sun, as a wayward breath of air nudged it this way or that.

So stable was the sea of cloud that the height at which it broke against the flanks of the hill would scarcely vary throughout the day. Only at sunset, as the day darkened and the breeze freshened, did an increased restlessness disturb the surface, and give notice that overnight all would be gone, and Barton Hill would once again turn its customary, uncharitable face to the world below.

Surprisingly Jack’s head was clear, a tribute to the quality of the drink he supposed, and opening the window he leaned out, breathing deeply, and savouring the morning sunlight and crisp air. He thought again of Kate, and the delight she took in such mornings, and then cursed himself for the thought. It was being back on the hill in the old familiar surroundings he supposed. Hearing a noise below he looked down to see Jimmy stepping out into the yard, and gave him a call.

‘Morning Jim. I’ll be down with you in a moment or two.’

He got a wave in response as Jimmy wandered across the yard.

‘Jimmy’s outside,’ called Celia as he passed the kitchen. ‘Grab a mug of tea and join him. I’ve given Larry and Bob a call. Breakfast in about half-an-hour.’

He found Jimmy hanging over the empty pig sty, mug of tea in one hand, a cigarette in the other.

‘Wouldn’t think you could grieve for a pig would you Jack? But Sadie used to follow me around like a child, and when she died a year ago I hadn’t the heart to replace her, and I think that was when I finally lost my enthusiasm for this place. There was no way we could bring ourselves to send her to the kennels for the hounds of course, so I got Davey to bring his excavator in over the fields, and we buried her up below the lavender. Bloody silly isn’t it.’

‘Oh I don’t know,’ said Jack. ‘I can remember seeing my father in tears when my gran’s old parrot died. He’d known it since he was a child. He said it was like losing one of the family.’

‘Ah well,’ said Jim. ‘That’s the way it goes. They’re all in the Happy Land now though eh?’

‘The Happy Land Jim?’

‘Don’t tell me you don’t know the Happy Land Jack, you a literary man. Didn’t your daddy ever bounce you on his knee and sing it to you?’

‘Not my father’s style, knee bouncing. Singing either.’

‘Haven’t thought of it for years. Funny thing memory. How these little fragments of the past come sneaking up unbidden.’

Then he began to sing softly.

‘There is a Happy Land, far, far away.

Where little piggies run, three times a day.

Oh you ought to see them run,

When they see the butcher come,

To cut three slices of their rum tum tum,

Three times a day.’

‘Very moving Jim,’ said Jack. ‘But not a literary classic perhaps.’

They sipped their tea and smoked in silence for a while before Jimmy spoke again.

‘I didn’t want to say too much about things in front of the others last night,’ said Jimmy. ‘But when everything was settled Celia’s father cut up rather warmer than my old dad, if I can put it like that. Quite a sizeable estate, and she gets half of it as well as the house. She doesn’t quite know how to respond to that, and now willy-nilly I find that I’m a bloody capitalist. Have to make a return of her income to my local tax man. Any idea who that might be?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Jack. ‘What a dilemma. One of the idle rich now and all the angst of managing a small fortune is it? It’ll be tough alright, but one way and another I expect you’ll muddle through. Never knew a rich man who didn’t.

As far as the return goes, if you’ve already sold you’ll be long gone from here before it’s due, and I imagine Celia’s father would have had accountants to look after all that sort of thing anyway. But if you do run into any snags give me a ring. We mustn’t lose touch. As I said last night you’re my only real soulmates in the area.’

Jack paused uncertain whether to continue with what he had in mind, but then having resolved his momentary doubts, gave what Jimmy thought was a strange sort of smile, and invited him to make the most of the morning, and take a short stroll before breakfast.

‘You’ll remember Jim that you spent a few years getting to know me before you told me about your little distilling operation. A confession of sorts you called it. And then you told me about Caireen, something you’d mentioned to no one else: another confession you said, something that you wanted to get off your chest.’

‘I remember Jack, and you said you’d no need of any bloody confessor. Done nothing you couldn’t live with, you said.’

‘I did, and I think that jokingly I also referred to a professional life of perfidious venality. Well I’m going to tell you a little story, a valedictory confession if you like, that might make it easier for you to square your socialist principles with the size of Celia’s bank balance.’

And as they strolled slowly from Sadie’s empty sty to the site of her last resting place below the lavender beds, Jack gave Jimmy a blow-by-blow account of his little bit of private enterprise with Martindale.

For a few moments Jimmy stood in silence just looking at Jack: waiting for a smile perhaps, or some other suggestion that he was spinning a yarn.

‘Christ, you’re in earnest aren’t you Jack?’

‘Deadly,’ replied Jack, ‘and so it would have been for me had anything gone wrong.’

‘But I thought you always said the Revenue was watertight.’

‘It is, but this was an exceptional set of circumstances as I’ve explained, and remember I was approached. I didn’t start the ball rolling myself. That made things much easier.’

‘And no repercussions? No questions asked? No knocks on the door in the small hours of the night?’

‘None: rewarded in fact. Promotion, Barlow transfer, and to cap it all, the price of gold hit a new high this year. In fact it’s more than trebled since I made my modest investment. Krugerrands at less than ninety then were selling at two hundred and ninety plus a week or so ago. Beats the stock market any day. So sleep easy Jim, we’re all bloody plutocrats now.’

‘I must say though I never really saw you as that sort of risk-taker Jack. Did you need the money for the separation?

‘Not a bit. It was all over and done with a few months before Kate left. I never mentioned it of course, and haven’t spent any. Don’t expect to in the immediate future. In fact the more I look back on it the more I think that what I really wanted was the satisfaction of challenging the system and getting away with it.’

‘Martindale. The name sounds familiar. Is that the little shit of a junior minister who was on the box so much when the Housing Act was going through?’

‘The very same. Didn’t rate him much myself, and he’s done rather better than I expected. Learned the fine art of brown-nosing from Dad perhaps, or friends in high places.’

‘Well it certainly puts my little distilling operation into perspective, and I’m tickled pink to hear that you screwed one of the buggers into the bargain.’

They were interrupted by a call to breakfast from Celia.

‘And Celia?’ asked Jimmy.

‘No objection at all,’ said Jack. ‘If you think she’d enjoy the story.’

After breakfast Jack found himself alone in the kitchen with Celia, helping with the washing up while Larry and Bob went off for a walk to the village and church, and Jimmy was engaged in a telephone call to the solicitors concerning the sale.

‘Sorry Josie couldn’t come Jack. You’re still seeing her are you?’

‘Oh you know, on and off

He could have bitten his tongue out to recall the phrase when he realised just how very appropriately the words described the circumstances of his meetings with Josie, but happily Celia seemed preoccupied with another line of thought, and the moment passed.

‘I met up with Kate for lunch a few months ago when I was on my way down to home. I wondered whether you knew that she’d left Roger.’

‘No, I’ve heard nothing for almost a year. When was that?’

‘About eight or nine months ago. She went back to live with her parents.’

‘Is she well?’

‘Seemed to be, but not terribly happy I think. She got quite upset when I told her you still had the bears. I’d no idea of course that you’d paid for them.’

Jack made no response to this, but busied himself stowing away the dishes and cutlery.

‘She didn’t say so, but I think she misses you Jack. She sent her love.’

She might have added that she was sure that Kate would have loved to have things back the way they were, but felt that if Jack was in any way so inclined he would do something about it himself without anything further being said.

‘Not to worry about the bears Celia,’ said Jack. ‘I knew you were seeing Kate occasionally, and should have told you what I’d done. It looks as though life has got a bit complicated for both of us at the moment. Give her my love though if you see her again.’

Jimmy’s return brought the conversation to an end, and then the three of them set off for the village to find Larry and Bob, and drop in at the Shagger after making a few farewell calls.

Larry and Bob had to leave after lunch, but Jack stayed on for another drink-fuelled evening with the Gillans and a few old neighbours before returning to Barlow cursing the personal complexities that life could bring even when fortune seemed otherwise to be smiling.

Before the end of the year Jimmy and Celia had completed their sale and made the move south, and early the following summer Jack and Josie left Barlow for the holiday they had been planning for some time. Jack had initially resisted Josie’s wish to spend the week in Venice. He still looked back on his time there with Kate with much affection, and had no wish to reawaken old memories. He did not feel that this was an argument he could readily advance with Josie, however, so he said nothing, and having no other had reluctantly to agree.

Josie’s passionate desire for Venice, he soon learned, had been engendered by an evening of photographs and chat with Mandy, a friend who had been there the previous year and, said Josie, knew an absolutely fabulous hotel where they had been looked after like royalty. Jack, with his memory of Martindale’s bill in mind, was greatly relieved to learn that it was not the Danieli. Having agreed some financial guidelines with Josie, however, he was content to let her do the organising, which she seemed to enjoy.

From the airport they took a private water-taxi into the city. Expensive, but faster and more comfortable he would have had to admit than the crowded water-bus he’d taken with Kate, which had deposited them some distance from the hotel, laden with luggage and trying to make sense of the directions to the hotel. In the water-taxi they travelled via a confusing maze of narrow waterways to the very door of their canal-side hotel where a porter appeared to carry in the luggage. They were, Jack realised, just a short walk from the Campo Santa Maria Formosa

It was a location he would have been happy to avoid, as he and Kate had passed through the square regularly on the way to and from their hotel in Cannare-gio, and adopted one of its little restaurants for their evening meals. It did not seem an auspicious start, but if Jack had any fears that he would be retracing their earlier footsteps with Josie by his side they would prove to be unfounded.

Having been once to the city already, he decided that on the first day at least he would give no lead, but let Josie set the pace. It was soon evident then that Josie had her own programme for Venice, and it would not be one that troubled Jack with memories of his earlier visit. Sex played its part, but was confined to night-time encounters sometimes so cursory as to leave Jack wondering whether his novelty was wearing off, but to be honest he wasn’t unduly worried about that. Not for nothing had Kate described him as the bear who could take it or leave it alone.

Sex aside, it seemed to Jack that Josie must be taking her lead from her Barlow friend. She rose late, showered leisurely, dressed and made up with fastidious care, and then took a lingering but light breakfast on the hotel roof-terrace which had attractive views across the rooftops to San Giovanni e Paolo. Following breakfast, taking in a shop or two on the way, she strolled leisurely through to San Marco where they took a seat outside Florian’s.