CHAPTER 22
I was on my own that evening, waiting for the phone to ring, but there was nothing. No Larinda, no checking up, and certainly no second thoughts. I logged onto the internet, and before I could stop myself the latest offers from Dorothy Perkins were on the screen.

I liked the styles, though they were mostly too young for me, and some of the shoes were exquisite. What a pity that platforms had made a comeback. I had hated them the first time round, and the second, and yet here they were again, ready to be strapped to the feet of overweight women carrying counterfeit designer bags, lips welded to a cigarette.

If I couldn’t be a woman in reality, by god could I bitch like one. I was settling down into a daydream of clothes shopping when the phone finally rang.

“Hello?”

“You cutting me off, Rob?”

“Hiya, Von, how’s it going?”

“Got a buyer, love. Time is rushing on us, rushing us on, whatever. When are you going to start sorting out a move of your own?”

“When did the buyer come along?”

“Last week, love, but as I hadn’t heard from you for so long I wasn’t exactly able to tell you, aye? And answer the question…”

“Look, you know I can’t move. No job for me there, and I can’t go and sponge off your parents, I told you that. Told you that many, many times”

There was a pause. “So, what are we going to do, Rob?”

“Ach, we’ll find a way, people do”

To let you go as gently as possible. The more time I spent with the Other Woman, the more I realised how much of my relationship with Siobhan had been based on loneliness and need rather than any true meeting of souls, or even of minds. I had to find a way, a manner of leaving that would be as gentle as possible. Some way of letting her blame me rather than herself.

“What you up to at the weekend, kid?”

“Boys are with Paul…could have house to ourselves, aye?”

“I could only stop the Saturday night, pet”

“Better than nothing, isn’t it? Let me know, and we can get a Chinese in, or maybe go out to the Crown, aye? Talk you through what’s happening with the house, aye?”

“Sounds fine by me. See you Saturday?”

“Want me to pick you up from Southampton?”

“Aye, that would be good. About eleven?”

“See you then, love”

I hung up, and immediately redialled.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of so many phone calls from my eldest?”

“Hiya, Mam. Just, well, advice, like. My life is just a bit messy at the moment”

She actually laughed out loud at that. “Sorry…lass, but that’s like saying a wee bit pregnant. Let me guess: Siobhan?”

“Aye, Von. She’s got a buyer for the house, so she’s off to Taffland some time soon. At some point, I have to break up with her, and I have absolutely no idea how to go about it. I don’t want her to be hurt, Mam”

I could hear the sigh down the line. “But that’s the point, like. Whatever happens, she will be hurt. Can I be really, really blunt, Jill?”

“Aye, gan on. That’s what I was hoping for”

“You have a couple of decisions to make, and the first one is whether you want her to hate you. You can get rid of her, if that’s what you want, just by telling her about that other woman. It won’t be pretty, but it would be bloody quick, like. The alternative is to keep her hanging on from Wales, until time and miles, aye?”

“Yeah, that’s about what I thought. Trouble is, Larinda wants honesty. She says it isn’t fair to keep on, a secret, sneaking, like”

“Good girl, that one. Now, have you thought of just doing what you did with me? Telling her, outright, like? Who you are?”

“Aye, Mam, I had, but…she has the sort of background that wouldn’t help. God made the world, male and female he created them, et cetera, et cetera”

“Aye, well, your choices fall into long slow death or short term nastiness, aye? But I will tell you one thing: that lass of yours is right. It is not fair to deceive someone like this. I know it’s very different, not your usual problem, but Siobhan needs to know one thing: that it isn’t her fault. Can you do that?”

As usual, she had cut through my confusion to the core question, which was to leave Siobhan without guilt on her part. All of her personal issues seemed to stem either from her Chapel background or from the simple fact that her husband had decided to spend time in bed with someone else, and that meant that her sense of worth was very poor. If I told her outright about Larinda, it would reinforce her doubts. If, on the other hand, I told her about Jill, then all blame would land on my own shoulders.

“I think you have got it right, Mam. I have to let her go with her pride intact, like”

“Well, she has a lot more to her life than that. Sons, parents, she has her family round her, and you of all people know how important that one is. Am I right?”

I laughed, despite the subject being discussed. “Aye, Mam, you are. Are you ever wrong?”

“Never, pet. That’s what being a mam does. We get special dispensation for righteousness. Now, keep me informed, aye? If you need any help, or even just an ear and a shoulder, you seem to have remembered my number at last”

“Aye, I will. Love you, Mam”

“And I you, Jill”

One more call.

“Thought I’d ring you as I hadn’t heard…”

“And?”

“And what? Got your key, if that’s what you meant”

“And you know exactly what I meant, Carter”

“Aye, I do. Just been speaking to Mam. Had Von on the phone a little while ago. She’s got a buyer for the house”

“So she’s buggering off to Wales, yeah?”

“Indeed. Look, I did a lot of thinking, and talking with Mam, like, and that word you used…”

“Honest? Yeah, I like that word. A bit of a lack of it in my life”

“You and Rachel both…sorry, tell you some time, aye? Look, I don’t think it’s fair her hanging on from a distance, let her get on with her life, like. So…fuck it, I am seeing her on Saturday. I will tell her the whole pile of shite then”

“You sure?”

“Larinda, we made an agreement, that I do this honestly, aye?”

“Jill, there is a bit of a difference between being honest and having a death wish. If you are sure, then go ahead, but promise me that if it goes to ratshit you will ring me?”

“Of course, love”

“Yeah, the L-word, just throw it at me”

“Sorry…”

“Well, it just gets thrown back to you, yeah, love, so let me know, right?”

“Will do…look, I am off to bed, got a lot to think about, so talk tomorrow, OK?”

“Yeah, will do. Carter…”

“Aye?”

“Leave your door unlocked tonight, please”

I settled down afterwards, trying to watch some crap film on the BBC internet thing that kept stalling and freezing, until I had had enough of its irritation and found myself playing solitaire over and over again. I realised my mind was completely looped as the whole question of Siobhan threw itself at me, angle by angle.

She had saved me from the loneliness I had been drowning in, brought sunlight into some dark corners, but there had never really been a true match there. She was too conventional in an almost Victorian way, too compartmental in her world view. Right was right, wrong was wrong, and black and white made no such shade as grey. Mam was right: I had to make it as clean a break as I could, and leave her in possession of her own moral high ground.

I eventually gave up, crawling under the covers and settling as best I could. Larinda joined me at around eleven thirty. We didn’t make love.