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Authors: Edwina J. White

Those Angstrom Men!. (8 page)

BOOK: Those Angstrom Men!.
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Nine and a half months later, Mavis Angstrom was the happiest woman on the planet. Cradled in her arms was her new granddaughter, Margrit Anne Angstrom.

The
DailyDirt.com
paid for the exclusive rights to that picture, too.

 

 

 

 

FOR THE LOVE OF SUSAN

 

Susan leaned over the railing at the stern of the cruise ship and watched the wake, white froth against the inky black sea. The moon was pallid, and the stars pinpricks in the midnight sky.

Behind her, the dance party by the pool was in full swing.

“What the hell am I doing here?” she thought. “It’s not as if I wanted to blow a couple of thousand on this holiday. I should never have let Annie talk me into this.”

Thinking about her best friend conjured Annie up at Susan’s side. She was holding her fourth or sixth cocktail, and the swaying she was doing was partly in time to the music and partly booze induced.

Annie and Susan had been friends since they were nine. They sat beside each other in school and used to get into trouble regularly for whispering and passing notes.  Nearly thirty years later, they were still each other’s closest confidant.

When Susan left work early one day just over a year ago and found her husband George in their bed with the Estate Agent who had sold them their new house three months earlier, it was Annie who kept Susan together.

Georgie and Susan had been married seventeen years
,  she believed happily married.

No children because he hadn’t wanted any. They had two good careers and a very comfortable lifestyle, lots of money in the bank.

So what if the sex was routine and not very regular anymore? George told her that’s what happened to marriages after a few years and she believed him.

He’d never been all that sexual even when they first married. 

The thought of George being unfaithful had never entered her mind. Twice a week was a good week now.  She didn’t think he was interested in sex anymore. She definitely didn’t think he was making sperm deposits elsewhere.

Walking into their bedroom and finding him in their bed with this Marianne Faithful look-alike, and that meant Marianne Faithful as she looked now, not when she was young, was a total shock.

George was humping away and never saw Susan. She backed out, tiptoed down the stairs and quietly let herself out.

Susan got back into her car and sat there, trying to make sense of what she’d just seen. To the best of her knowledge, Georgie had never done this before.

She drove down to the beach in a state of shock, parked, and sat looking out over the rocks and sand and grey blue waves until the hands on her watch said four o’clock. Annie finished teaching her last class at four.

At one minute after four, Susan dialled Annie’s mobile and as she answered, Susan burst into tears. Sobbing, Susan told her of the scene that had greeted her at home two hours previously.

“The bastard,” Annie said. “You must come to me, we’ll get drunk.”

“He isn’t worth it, Annie,” Susan told her. “I’ve called my father already. He’s meeting me at Alec Angstrom’s office at five.”

“Alec Angstrom, who’s he?”

“Our solicitor.
You‘ve met him at some of our family parties, but just as my friend Alec, not as my solicitor Alec.”

“Oh,
Alec
…Late twenties, dark blond hair, a real hunk? The one with the cousin who was Britain‘s Most Eligible Bachelor?”

“That’s right. Well, Dad asked me if I planned to stay with George or not, and when I said that I really don’t even want to think about that yet, he said we’d better
have Plan B ready, in case I decide on a divorce.”

“Your father lives for Plan B, doesn’t he?”

“He does, and this time Dad’s Plan B is preserving my money in case I decide not to forgive Georgie. And right now, I don’t feel very forgiving!” Susan sobbed. She sniffed, pulled herself together and continued.

“Honestly, Annie, the woman is at least sixty! She’s got to be almost twenty years older than him. It must be love...”

“Not necessarily, Susan. Some men go for older women. Some older women are quite beautiful.”

“Yeah, well this one looks as if she’s
lived
if you know what I mean. She’s got that smoker’s complexion and husky voice, the tiny lines all around her mouth and nicotine stains on her fingers. And you know how anti-smoking Georgie is!

“Plus she’s super skinny, and he’s always on about rail thin women and how unattractive they a
re, and she’s got jet black dyed hair and you know how he feels about that...”

Annie laughed bitter
ly. “My goodness, Susan, she sounds like a wreck.”

“She isn’t even very clever or funny. I found going around
to see houses with her like walking in treacle, but for some reason Georgie insisted we use her. I guess I know why now, don’t I?”

“I wonder how long he’s been seeing her,” said Annie.

“I’m wondering the same thing, Annie.”

“Well, go meet your Dad and your solicitor and see what your Dad’s Plan B looks like.”

Plan B was simply making sure that all Susan’s money stayed intact. Susan‘s family was very well off, and Georgie was not when they married.

Since Susan was only nineteen at the time
and George was nearly twenty six, her father had not met much opposition when he’d quietly put a pre-nuptial agreement in front of George a month before the wedding.

Mr. Shelton
had been sure that half of Susan’s attraction to George was the Shelton family fortune, and he was damned if George was ever going to get his fingers on it.

The Pre-Nuptial Agreement
said simply that what was Susan’s going into the union would be Susan’s going out, plus all the interest accrued on her money, plus any property she paid for, etc.

George would not receive any share of anything that Susan might inherit during the course of the marriage.

Anything they jointly acquired would be divided fifty-fifty.

Her father had not been overly keen on either George or on Susan getting married so young. But he gave her away at the wedding. She was his only child, after all.

He also sat her down with his accountant the week before the wedding and made sure that she kept all her banking separate from George and understood why.

Sitting in Alec Angstrom’s office, looking at the document for the first time in seventeen years, Susan was grateful to her father for his foresight.

Damned if Georgie and his floozy were going to benefit from this marriage!

Both Susan and her father had every confidence that the pre-nup was unbreakable.

Alec’s father had drawn it up, and he was a bulldog when it came to looking after his client‘s interests, especially when that client was his best friend‘s daughter…

The Angstroms had looked after the Shelton’s legal requirements for decades
and had never let them down.

Susan smiled grimly as she read over the document and saw how Georgie had been required to initial his approval to each clause.

No, she was not about to hand over half of her assets to that womanizing bastard.

Alec and Susan’s father were properly sympathetic, and
told her not to worry, that Georgie would be walking away with about a quarter of a million and that was it, plus of course, whatever was in his own bank account and pension funds.

It seemed to Susan that Alec was even angrier about the betrayal than her father was, if that was possible.

Alec was angrier even than Susan’s father, and hurt on her behalf.

What Susan didn’t realize was that Alec was in love
with her, had been for many years, and he was ready to take George into a dark alleyway and beat the stuffing out of the bastard for hurting his secret love.

Aloud he said, “What do you want to do, Susan?
Do you want a separation to sort out how you feel?”

“I want a divorce, Alec.

The words surprised Susan as she spoke them, but she knew it was what she wanted.

“Are you sure, Susan? You don’t want to try counselling?”

Alec was going through the motions, he didn’t want her to try counselling,
he wanted her to be free and over the bastard.

“No. How would you feel if you were me?”

“The same way you do, Susan.”

“He may beg you to forgive him, Susie, when he realizes how his standard of living is going to drop,” said her father.

“I just wish I’d had the wits to take a picture with my phone,” said Susan.

Alec smiled. “I wish you had, too, Susan. It would have made for a quicker divorce. Unless you have proof, we could be stuck with the bugger for the next two ye
ars, if he decides to be difficult.”

“Have him followed, Alec, and
gather the evidence. If I know George, it won’t be hard to catch them at it.” Her father had taken charge.

“I don’
t want to go back into that house, Dad,” said Susan bleakly.  

“Telephone him and say your Uncle Angus is sick and you’ve flown up to Glasgow to spend a few days with him. You need to get away for a few days, pet.”

“Yes, Dad. That’s a good idea.”

Susan dug her mobile out of her handbag and pressed the speed dial.

“Hello, you’ve reached George Preston. I’m not available at the moment, but if you’ll leave your number, I’ll call you back as soon as possible.” Beep.

She was relieved. She really didn’t want to talk to her husband.

“Hello, George. Uncle Angus is ill. I’m flying up to Glasgow and won’t be back until he’s better. I’ll call you in a day or two and let you know how long I’ll probably be away, but his housekeeper thinks at least a week. Since he’s my godfather and he’s asking for me, I really didn’t want to disappoint him. See you in a week or two...” She hung up.

Alec was looking at her with both admiration and sympathy. He
was eight years younger than Susan, and they knew each very well, the families had been friends all their lives.

He’d wanted to be an architect when he was young, but had been persuaded to study law instead, and when his father had a debilitating stroke had assumed leadership of their firm.

Alec always seemed to step up and take responsibility, seemed to look out for everyone else even when it meant giving up his dreams, thought Susan, unlike George, who had a very selfish streak.

She’d wanted to be an artist, but like Alec, had been talked
into entering the family firm. Talked into entering the family firm by George, not her father.

George had seen from day one how much she’d make,
working in the family firm.

Susan had
been studying art when she met George. He’d quietly pressured her to drop out of Art School and go into the family business. She’d eventually given in to the pressure.

“George is right,” she’d told herself sadly. “I won’t make any money as an artist, but I can draw a great salary working for Dad. We can have a better house, nicer cars, and that’s important to George.”

The Sheltons owned a large public relations firm and Susan had grown to love the business.

She painted now as a hobby, and over the years, listening to Georgie’s critiques of her pictures, was sure she would have been a starving artist.

George always told her she was only a talented amateur, not a brilliant painter. George was always right about these things. He told her so frequently.

Susan snorted, as much at her naivety as as George’s inflated opinion of his own taste
as she drove over to Annie’s and borrowed a case and some clothes, because there was no way she would set foot in that house.

Why George might be still at it with his floozy in Susan’s bed! Not that it was likely, given how fast George reached the finish line.

Annie drove her to the airport in time for Susan to catch the eight o’clock plane to Glasgow.

George called about midnight. He said he’d turned his telephone off while he was in a meeting that afternoon, and he’d forgotten to turn it on. He’d called Susan’s mobile several times, he claimed, but of course, she’d had it set to
airplane
so he hadn’t been able to reach her.


I’ll bet you just turned your mobile back on now, Georgie…I’ll be you were with your…your trollop until just now…” thought Susan
.

Aloud she said, “Oh well…”

“How is Uncle Angus?”

“He’s got a nasty case of the flu,” she improvised. “At his age, and wi
th his dicey chest, the doctor told him to stay in bed. I’ll keep an eye on him until he’s fit to be up and about...”

“If you’re going to be away for a bit, I might go fishing with a couple of the chaps from work, the salmon are running,” said George. “I‘ve still got a week‘s holiday due to me. Might as well take advantage of the salmon season…”

BOOK: Those Angstrom Men!.
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