Old Dogs, New Tricks. Linda Phillips
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time to do what?’ Philip was gazing up at the clock, not seeing any connection.
‘Find time for drinks in the pub on your way home. You’re only a few minutes later than usual.’
‘Oh … there wasn’t much going on at the office today, so I left a little early.’ He shrugged off his jacket, hung it on the back of a chair and stood looking down at it. He slipped off his tie and coiled it. When he glanced up he had a lost look about him. It seemed he had something to say and had no idea where to begin.
Suddenly remorseful, because she’d been so busy thinking about herself that she hadn’t realised quite what his firm’s closure would mean to him, she went over and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Oh, Philip! Don’t worry about how to tell me the news. I know about Spittal’s already. I heard it on the radio. And I’m so sorry that it’s had to happen to you; I know it must be a shock, but –’
‘You know?’ Alarm was plain in his eyes. ‘Good grief … I suppose it was bound to get around. Honestly, love, I meant to tell you all about it myself. I wanted to break the news gently.’
‘Well, now you’ve nothing to break. And your parents know about it as well. I went round and told your mother, and she’ll have explained everything to your father. And they’ll be here any minute, as it happens. I’ve asked them to come round so we can all have a talk about it.’
Philip pushed back his hair. It was thick, even if it was grey, and was unruly. Normally it didn’t trouble him, unless he was ill at ease. Then he would rake it with his fingers or try to smooth it down. ‘Talk?’ he repeated slowly. ‘About what?’
‘About your redundancy, of course, and what you’re going to do now that Spittal’s is closing. And about what we’ve all been thinking …’
Her voice trailed away at the sight of his grim expression. She put down the dish of coleslaw she’d been giving a quick stir, dropping the spoon with a clatter; suddenly it no longer seemed to matter that the mayonnaise dressing had collected at the bottom of the bowl.
‘Spittal’s isn’t closing,’ he said, his lips set hard in a line.
‘Yes it is, Phil. I told you, I heard it on the radio.’
‘No, Marjorie, no. It isn’t, strictly speaking, closing.’ Then he’d uttered the words that had sent a chill crawling up her spine. ‘It’s moving its premises to Bristol.’
Marjorie closed her library book and let it drop to her lap. All hell had broken loose a minute later when Eric and Sheila arrived for their meal. Phil had been horrified and angry at what they’d all been planning for him behind his back. Everything had come spilling out, even before they sat themselves down at the table – about how helpful Marjorie had been in the shops and how they’d decided she should take them over now that Eric wanted to retire – it was all laid bare.
Phil had turned an unpleasant shade of red, and had made it clear in no uncertain terms that it simply wasn’t on. Neither he nor Marjorie would be able to take over the shops, he’d told them; he had to go to Bristol in accordance with his employers’ wishes, and that was that. Redundancy? Not for him, and he couldn’t have afforded to take it anyway.
The pie was cut but no one enjoyed it. Marjorie had sat stony faced, Sheila pink and embarrassed, while Eric expressed his feelings at length and grew so agitated that he drank his wife’s glass of wine by mistake as well as his own, and then helped himself to more. In the end Phil had to run them home in his own car because his mother’s health prevented her from walking even the two blocks back to their house, and his father’s swimming head prevented him from driving them himself.
Marjorie snatched up her book once more, Phil’s return being heralded by the dull thud of a loose paving stone beneath the bedroom window. Propping the book open against her knees she tried to focus on the print. Perhaps, if she took no notice of him, he’d give the matter a rest. She’d made it clear that his plans didn’t suit her; he just needed time for the fact to sink in.
But he couldn’t leave the subject alone. He came into the room, walked round to her side of the bed and sat by her legs. She could no longer ignore him because she had to shift her balance on the mattress.
‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’ he asked after a while.
‘Tell you what?’
‘About working for Dad all this time.’ He gave an incredulous gasp as though he still couldn’t take it in. ‘What did you think you were doing?’
‘What do you think I was doing? Helping out, of course.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant, what did you think you were up to, not telling me about it? I realised you helped my mother a lot, but I had no idea you were working practically full-time for my father too. You’ve made me look such a fool.’
Marjorie bunched up a piece of frill on the edge of the duvet cover, her hands beginning to tremble with suppressed anger. Could he think of nobody but himself? And couldn’t he at least give her credit for the way she’d managed to pack so much in to each day? She’d obviously succeeded in making him feel as pampered and cosseted as he always had been – not an easy task on top of doing everything else – otherwise he’d have noticed something amiss.
‘I always meant to tell you. I would have done … but it’s your own fault, really. If you’d been more reasonable, where your father’s concerned … And anyway I was bored with being at home all day. Couldn’t you see that?’
‘You never said you were bored.’ He sounded miffed; insulted that being his wife hadn’t been fulfilment enough for her.
‘What would you have done if I had? Suggested I join the Women’s Institute? I already belonged to that. And the Housewives’ Register. And the PTA when the girls were still at school.’ She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘These things are all very well, Phil … Oh, I suppose I just outgrew them. I never meant to work for your father. It just sort of happened one day when he needed some help with his VAT.’
A weary sigh whined from him. ‘It’s made everything so much worse!’
Getting up from the bed he walked over to the window and looked out. Marjorie had been loath to close the curtains against the setting sun, but the huge orange ball had dropped behind the houses opposite some time ago and it was dark. Nevertheless, Phil still stood looking out.
‘Fancy coming up with this crazy idea of taking over the shops! Don’t you think you should have consulted me before putting impossible notions in Dad’s head?’
‘What’s crazy about it?’ She thumped her fists into the duvet. ‘And why should it be impossible?’
‘Well –’
‘You’re surely not implying that I’m incapable.’
‘I didn’t say that, now did I?’
‘You didn’t need to. It’s what you were thinking, though, wasn’t it?’
‘I hadn’t actually got that far. What I’m saying is … well … that you can’t.’
‘Well, of course I won’t be able to now. Not if you insist on taking me to Bristol. But I wasn’t to know about your plans beforehand, was I?’
‘I didn’t mean that, and you know it.’
‘No?’ Marjorie was lost. ‘Well, what do you mean, then? I don’t get it.’
But as she glared into his face she saw, to her astonishment, that he’d adopted the taut, pitying expression that she recognised all too well. It was the one that came upon him only rarely, at such times as he could not avoid the usually unmentioned subject of her parents’ demise.
Marjorie’s mother and father had died from carbon monoxide poisoning fifteen years previously. A faulty water heater had been responsible, although Marjorie had never been able to