The Reunion (6 page)

All sensible thought was blurred by exhaustion.

He tossed and turned throughout the rest of the night,
sleeping intermittently until the alarm sounded. He stretched across to the
bedside cabinet and switched it off. The dream that followed was of he and
Bridget lying on a sun soaked tropical beach, engaged in conversation that was
generating much laughter. Then a dark cloud rolled in from the sea and
deafening cracks of thunder disturbed their peace. Bang! Bang! Bang! Then
again, Bang! Bang! Bang! But it wasn’t a dream, someone was knocking at the
door.

“Coming,” he shouted as he glanced at his phone. He’d
gone back to sleep and it was now 9.30. He rushed to the door and flung it
open.

“Hello, Bridget.”

She looked startled. “David, perhaps…erm”

“Yes?”

“Perhaps you should put on trousers or something.”

David had taken off his pyjama bottoms in the night. “My
god,” he exclaimed looking down to double check Bridget’s observation. “Just a
minute,” he stammered before slamming the door shut. He immediately re-opened
it a fraction and edged his head around the small gap. “Sorry, didn’t mean to
slam it in your face, I’ll leave it ajar.” He gently pushed the door to, then
raced to the side of the bed and pulled on his jeans.

“Just another minute,” he called out as he darted into
the bathroom to clean his teeth on the off chance that Bridget would be
prepared to kiss a lunatic answering the door naked from waist down. He had
never been so embarrassed in his life, although getting drunk at the Christmas
lunch the first time he met Jane’s parents was a close call. On reflection,
even worse was fainting in the delivery room when Jane was giving birth to
Rachel.

He opened the door. “I’m ever so sorry, Bridget.”

She seemed unperturbed. “That’s OK, at least you were
partly dressed. I usually don’t wear anything when I sleep.”

This created a stirring between David’s legs and he was
grateful he now had something on to disguise the movement.

“Did you sleep well?” she enquired.

“What made you ask?”

Bridget frowned. “Well, I was being polite I suppose. I
slept like a log.”

“Me, too.”

“Anyway, I wanted to say goodbye and thank you for a fun
evening,” she continued. “Without you it would have been an absolute
nightmare.”

Bridget’s comment left room for interpretation. What she
said didn’t necessarily imply she had enjoyed their time together, merely that
it prevented the nightmare. “I had a wonderful time,” he countered.

“Your chin’s come up with a massive bruise, Bill must
have hit you pretty hard. Does it hurt?”

“It was great to see you after all these years.”

“Poor you, what a terrible few weeks you’ve had.”

“I loved the dancing.”

“I still can’t believe what you told me about Marianne
Dunnell.”

“Bridget!”

“Yes?”

“Are you married?”

“What?”

“Are you married?”

“No, why?”

“I just wondered.”

“You have children, don’t you?”

“Yes, two. Kay’s twelve and Andy’s sixteen.”

“Where do you live?”

“Lots of questions, David.”

“Well I was thinking in the night that I didn’t ask
anything about you, we only talked about me.”

“That’s not your fault. If you remember I was keen to
hear about you, there was no time to discover anything about my boring
existence.”

“Maybe we can meet again, then I can be the judge?”

“Yes, I’d like to. Got a pen and paper?”

David walked across to the table and took a sheet of the
hotel’s headed paper. He tore it in half, wrote down his name and number and
handed it to Bridget together with the pen and other half. He watched as she jotted
down her number and email address. Large swirls adorned her writing; she added
a smiley face.

“I left my name off, I’m assuming you’ll remember who I
am,” she said as she handed it over. “Well, I’d best be going home.”

“Where is home?”

“London. I live in Muswell Hill.”

“I’m London, too. Mill Hill.”

“Almost neighbours. OK, well you take care David, and I
look forward to hearing from you.” She kissed him on each cheek French style
then took a step back, lifted her hand for a small wave, picked up the lime
green canvas bag on the floor beside her, then headed off down the corridor.
David watched, hoping she would turn round for a final acknowledgment, but she
didn’t.

It was gone 9.45, barely time to get downstairs before
breakfast ended. The dining room was near deserted, the one reunion member
there was the loud-mouthed woman who had made the announcements the night
before. Her school uniform had been replaced by the much more appropriate jeans
and blouse. She gave him a watery smile of acknowledgement as he entered so he
had little choice but to join her.

“One of the few,” she commented as he sat down.

“What do you mean?”

“I think most people gave up on breakfast, too hung-over.
I’m in the hung-over category too, but since I woke up ridiculously early I
thought I might as well come down. How come you made it?”

“I probably didn’t drink as much as most.”

“You were with Bridget, weren’t you? She still upstairs?”

“No, she’s headed off home.”

“Us over-aged teenagers. You getting off with Bridget, me
with Roger. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near him when I was at school and now
I get so pissed I end up in bed with him. It was his snoring that woke me up. Panic
and guilt too, my husband would kill me if he found out. Hopefully Roger’ll be
gone by the time I get back upstairs.” She cut a piece of bacon, lifted it to
her mouth and rather ungraciously chewed. “You or Bridget married?” she asked
with her mouth still full.

“I am, though separated. I don’t know much about Bridget.
But before any rumours start to fly, we didn’t spend the night together.”

The woman took a slurp of coffee. “Why not?”

“That’s a daft question. Why should we, we were
chatting?”

“Oh,” she replied looking at David in puzzlement. “You
seemed to be getting on well enough.”

“But that doesn’t mean we end up sleeping together,”
David retorted with a degree of admiration for this woman’s black and white
decision making process. No principles, just doing what you fancy at that
moment. And of course he would have loved to have spent the night with Bridget.
“There is such a thing as morality,” he stated with false conviction.

“Sor-ree,” she replied.

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lecture. And I’m afraid
I don’t even know your name.”

“Penny Tratton. I know you’re David because I handled the
bookings, but we were in different classes in school. I don’t think our paths
crossed much.”

“Penny Tratton? No, I can’t say I remember your name.”

“The boys changed it, of course. Penny Tration they
called me.”

“Penny Tration. Why?”

“Penny Tration, penetration. I lived up to the nickname a
bit, I’m afraid. And I did it again last night so that’s going to do my
reputation a power of good.”

She burst into tears. David stood, walked to the other
side of the table and put an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, don’t be
upset. You can walk away from today and forget all about it. And you did
organise a great reunion.”

“Thank you, you’re very kind,” she said, the tears disappearing
as quickly as they had arrived. “I’m going to wake Roger up and tell him to get
to his own room if he’s still there, then I’ll pack and head off to my lovely
family.” She stood, sobbing again as she dramatically strode out the room.

David stood, too, and walked to the buffet table. A
disinterested waitress was clearing away the plates. “Sorry sir, it’s gone ten,
we’re closed for breakfast.”

“Can I at least have a coffee?”

“Fraid not, but there is a Starbucks round the corner.”

The Tuesday after Jane left had been even worse than the
Monday and David was glad he’d resisted Bridget’s wish to find out more about
the sordid events.

Rachel had come downstairs for breakfast with a new song
to insult her mother, this one based on the Queen hit ‘We Are the Champions’.

She is a fucking bitch

She is a fucking bitch

No time for losers

‘Cause she is the biggest bitch – in the world

It was a song David had always liked and he had to admit
Rachel sang the updated version perfectly, she had a lovely voice. Half-heartedly
he acted out the enraged parent, but for the rest of the day he couldn’t get
the tune or words out of his head.

He was humming it as he entered the car park underneath
the local authority offices. It had been constructed for tiny vehicles, the
concrete columns demanding preposterously tight turns. David failed to
negotiate carefully enough and the front passenger side of his car donated a
Tornado Red streak to the multi-coloured assortment of scraped paints on the
pillar. The parking bays were so small it was difficult to open a door without
knocking against a neighbour’s car. His door no more than tapped against a
Honda Civic, but it was enough to set off the alarm. He made a run for it.

Work began with a continuation of the meeting with Mary
Dyer to discuss overspend on residential care home support. Today the office
gossips had described her attire as Ms Footsie 100 CEO. She was wearing a
tailored navy pinstripe suit with a crisp white blouse buttoned to the neck and
shiny patent shoes with large black bows.

There was no welcoming smile, not even a greeting, as he
entered her office. He was on time but she made a point of looking at her watch
before gesturing for him to sit down opposite her. “I’m pushed for time this
morning, David, but we need to get this done. We’re already £350,000 over
budget and that’s with half the financial year to go. Before we start I want to
make it clear that you’re the one who should be sorting it, it’s within your
remit.”

David was prepared. At home the previous evening he had
constructed water tight counter arguments. “A couple of points before you
continue, Mary. Did you know that…?”

“Don’t interrupt David. Let me finish.” She paused and
made steely eye contact before continuing. “Some questions. Are you double
checking how many assets these old people have before we start dishing out
money? Do we ask if their children can contribute? And are we pushing them to
consider having their parents move in with them?”

“Yes to all those things. Applicants have to complete
Form F43-H27/B and attach evidence and then…” He looked up. Mary was sifting
through files and it was evident she wasn’t listening. She didn’t even notice
that he’d stopped speaking mid-sentence.

“I’ve been doing some checking and I can tell you, this
division is out of control.” She pulled out an invoice. “Even the stationery
budget is way over. You spent £286 on post-its last month. Why on earth would
you want £286-worth of post-its?”

“That was a mistake. Dorothy was asked to get 400 but she
mistook the instruction and ordered 400 packs and there are ten sets of
post-its in each pack.”

“So now you’ve got 4,000 little booklets. How many pieces
of paper in each, a hundred? That’s 400,000 post-its.”

“I don’t think there are a hundred in each booklet, I
could get Dorothy to count.”

“Hardly the point, David. David? Are you listening?”

‘No time for losers, ‘cause she is the biggest bitch –
in the world’
he was thinking, dividing his anger between Jane and Mary.

“Well, that’s an aside, I think we should get back to the
main issue, don’t you?” Mary continued, her tone implying it was he who had
raised the post-its controversy.

There was a timid knock on the door. It was Dorothy. “There’s
a phone call for you, David.”

“Not now, Dorothy. I’ll call whoever it is after this
meeting.”

“I think you should take this one.” Dorothy was frowning
and nodding intently.

“Excuse me Mary, I’ll be back very soon.”

David returned a couple of minutes later. “Mary, I’m ever
so sorry, I’m going to have to pop out. Something’s cropped up with one of my
children at school. I’m sure it won’t take long, can we meet this afternoon?”

Mary looked at him in disbelief. “I appreciate family
concerns can be important, but you can’t constantly put them ahead of work
matters.”

‘She is a fucking bitch…’
he hummed inside his
head.What a cheek, twice hardly constituted constantly. Over his many
years of service at the local authority he had rarely missed a day’s work. “Yes,
you’re quite right and I do apologise,” he said as he edged out of the door.

When he arrived at Rachel’s school the receptionist
escorted him to the Head’s office. It had a relaxed and welcoming feel to it
with the walls jam packed with children’s art work. Oriental and African
artefacts were strewn across two coffee tables, one in the middle of the room
and one by a window overlooking a neat quadrangle with sturdy wooden benches
and tables. A white dish on the nearest table caught David’s eye. Across its
centre was a brightly coloured dragon, the tail extending beyond the edge of
the plate and running on underneath. David recognised these items from the
termly school newsletters which had photos of teachers being presented with
gifts by foreign dignitaries during the annual exchange visits to an English
speaking college in China and a school in rural Madagascar.

David rather liked the Head. John Edwards was a tall lean
man with a sweep of sandy brown hair across his brow. He wore horn-rimmed
spectacles that made him look full of wisdom. He was tapping his fingers on a large
desk covered with papers. As David walked towards him, Mr Edwards sprang up and
strode across the room to greet his visitor with a firm handshake.