Betrayed
A short story by Jeannie van Rompaey
Copyright 2012 Jeannie van Rompaey
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
‘Better to tell you face to face,’ Barbara says.
She’s so kind. Even though she has a husband, two sons, four grandchildren and works as a nurse, she always finds time to visit me.
My daughter, Barbara. That’s how I think of her. I know well enough she’s Queenie’s daughter, not mine. The little betrayal is only in my mind. It really doesn’t count. The identity of her father is not in question.
I can see she’s upset. Her lips are on the tremble, her eyes a little puffy. I make some tea and we sit down opposite each other at the table.
Barbara takes a sip, places the cup carefully on the chipped saucer. ‘I’m afraid I have bad news, Ellen. It’s Father. He passed away earlier today. Gently in his sleep. Just slipped away. A good way to go.’
Something twists into a knot in the pit of my stomach. A prick behind my eyes threatens tears. Gavin gone. My commonsense tells me that an ailing man in his late eighties cannot live for ever, but it’s a shock all the same.
Barbara seems to accept the fact that I’m as distressed by the news as if I were indeed her mother. I hear her voice, as if from far away, telling me something about Queenie. ‘She said she couldn’t breathe with a dead body in the house. Started ranting and raving. I had no choice but to phone the undertakers. I must say they came pretty quickly. Father is already laid out at the Tanatorio.’
I stare at her, unable to take it all in. The words go round and round in my head. Couldn’t breathe, ranting and raving, laid out, Tanatorio.
It’s all too much.
‘Once Father’s body had been removed, she sprang into action and called the vicar. He came on the trot. She’s making a list of music, hymns and readings for the funeral. I told her she doesn’t have to do that today, but there’s no stopping her.’
‘Best leave her to it,’ I find myself saying. ‘You know how she likes organising things. It’ll give her something to do, take her mind off.’
What I can do to take my mind off?
‘And you, Barbara, how about you, my dear, how are you bearing up?’
‘Oh Ellen, you know how much I loved my father, but he’d got very frail the last few weeks, slept most of the time. I’ll miss him like crazy, but he was ready to go.
Would you like me to give you a lift to see him?’
Frail, slept most of the time, ready to go, miss him like crazy.
Barbara looks at me, waiting for an answer.
For a moment I wonder what she means, then it comes to me. ‘No thank you, dear. I may go later but I need a moment to….’
Miss him like crazy.
‘Of course.’ She squeezes my hand. ‘Well, if you’re sure you’re all right, I’ll be off. Got to get tea for the grandkids.’
I stand up and she gives me a kiss on either cheek, Spanish style. She lets herself out.
Left alone, I think about going to the funeral parlour, torn between the desire to remember Gavin as he was and the feeling that I must say goodbye in private to the man who played such a large part in my life. No, not “played.” That’s the wrong word. The man who was my life.
I peep through the blinds of my ninth floor flat. Barbara has gone down in the lift and is just coming out of the communal door. She stops in her tracks, turns, looks up and waves. I wave back. A little ritual we’ve adopted. I manage some sort of smile.
Cars, buses and taxis jockey for position at the traffic lights. Spanish versions of Lowry’s matchstick men and women rush about as if there were no tomorrow. When I first came to the island, some fifty years ago, a young woman of twenty-two, I’d thought that, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Las Palmas, I’d never be lonely. How wrong I was. Quite recently I read an article that said city dwellers are some of the loneliest people in the world. I can well believe it. Seeing other people going about their lives, always in a hurry, always with a sense of purpose, only serves to remind me that I’m alone. Not that I’m the sort of person to dwell on such things.
Standing on tiptoe, I reach up and try to free the twisted strings of the blind to let in more daylight. The working of this particular blind has been faulty for some time. Not able to adjust it myself, I ought to find someone to fix it for me, but this is only one of a myriad of little jobs waiting to be done. The blocked pipe under the shower means that I have to be careful not to flood the bathroom. The answer, which I’ve discovered by trial and error, is to not turn the shower on fully, but to let the water trickle out little by little. Far from minding this, I prefer it, just as I prefer a drizzle of rain to a downpour. There are also two cupboard doors that refuse to shut, window-frames that let in water, taps that drip and several faulty sockets. None of these defects causes me any real problem. In the case of the sockets, I know which ones work and which do not, which ones to use and which to let alone.
One of the drawbacks of living alone is that every time something goes wrong you have the bother of calling someone in to help you. And bother it is. Nothing but bother. Firstly, there is the struggle to make yourself understood in a foreign language. Secondly, the repairs involved are so small that it really isn’t worth a man’s time and effort to turn out for the pittance he would earn.
As for the neighbours, I wouldn’t dream of asking them for help. I’m a very private person, keep myself to myself, a nod or a quiet Buenos Dias my only contact with the other residents in the block. It is enough.
I live with the breakdown of the facilities in my flat the same way that I live with the gradual deterioration of my body: the slight deafness, failing eyesight, recurring pains in shoulder, back and knee. All these minor ailments are little more than inconveniences only to be unexpected at my age. I can’t be doing with doctors. I’m all right as I am.
Having more or less succeeded in unravelling the strings of the blind, I hold them tightly together and give a sharp tug. Snap! One of the strings comes off in my hand. Damn! Now the blind will have to stay down all the time. Damn, damn and double damn! That bloody blind is the last bloody straw.
I double over, collapse on my chair and begin to sob. On and on I go, tears rolling down my cheeks, and all because of a bloody blind.
Gavin gone, passed away gently in his sleep, no time to say goodbye.
I must pull myself together. Not think about it. I blow my nose, take a deep breath, grip the arms of the chair and push myself up. Feeling a bit wobbly, I make my way to the bedroom, steadying myself against walls and furniture as I go. I open the top drawer of the dressing-table and take out a box. Celebrate his life, I tell myself, not dwell on his death.
‘Just trinkets,’ Gavin assured me. ‘Imitation stones. Pretty enough but not valuable.’ That’s how he persuaded me to accept the gifts he brought back from his travels.
I sit on the bed and take out the “trinkets” one by one. Valuable or not, these are my treasures: a dark topaz from Mexico on a silver chain, an Egyptian collar in copper and gold, a bright blue butterfly clip from Hong Kong, bangles in red, violet, emerald, silver and gold, from Arabia. Ah, here’s my favourite, a brooch, a smoky amethyst set in a cloud of silver filigree as delicate as lace. That came from Burma. Or was it India? I can’t remember. My geography was never that good, Gran Canaria, the only foreign place I’ve known. I came here years ago and never left. Apart from one week-end spent with Gavin in Tenerife. He was always off somewhere exotic. For work, he said, not pleasure.
I didn’t wear any of the treasures he gave me. Not in public. My entire social life was organised by Queenie. It was Queenie who was president of the Anglo Club, Queenie who was in charge of the bazaars and cheese and wine parties at the church and Queenie who drummed up support for the charity concerts. It wouldn’t have been right to parade these gifts in front of her.
In the privacy of this flat, it was a different matter.
I push up the sleeve of my blouse, slip on the multi-coloured bangles, raise my arm and let them fall along it, trying not to notice the sagging flesh falling away from the bone.
I bend over, pull out an old suitcase from under the bed and lift the lid. Here lie the gowns he gave me: a dark green caftan with gold-thread embroidery from Egypt; a scarlet carnival affair from Rio de Janeiro with a riot of sequins, frills and flounces; a sleek, black-silk flapper dress with silver tassels. I pick out a red, blue and gold kimono, wrap it round me and tie the wide cumber-band neatly under my breasts. Still the same size as when I was young. Something to be proud of. A black wig and the blue butterfly clip complete the outfit. I take a few steps of a half-remembered dance from the week-end we spent in Tenerife.
We stayed in a five star hotel. Very swish it was. The dancing didn’t start until midnight. After an early dinner we retired to our room and lay down on the double bed. ‘For a little rest,’ Gavin said, blue eyes glinting, ‘to reserve our energies for later.’ I smile as I remember just how little rest we had, but we still managed to dance the night away. That was the only time I ever danced with Gavin in public. Oh no, once, at the Anglo Club, but Queenie was there so that didn’t count. That particular night, he danced with other women too, so that no one would suspect there was anything between us.
We used to dance here in the flat. Small as it is, we coped somehow. I still have some of the old records we danced to, but I don’t play them any more. My old record-player is past it and it doesn’t seem worth investing in another. Frank Sinatra was his favourite, Tony Bennett and Dean Martin close behind. How romantic it was. He held me so close I could smell the very essence of him. Not his aftershave, but the special mixture of manliness and sweetness that was Gavin himself. I suppose that’s what’s meant by chemistry, that special aroma which makes you want to touch, merge and absorb yourself into the very being of another person.
More than once, Gavin said to me, ‘You are all women to me, my darling Ellen, all women in one delightful package. I need never go away again.’
But go away again he did, promising that he would think about me every single moment of every day and that he would write to me often. He rarely fulfilled the latter promise. If I received one postcard during his absence I counted myself lucky.
Arms placed on Gavin’s imagined shoulders, I continue to dance, whirling round and round until, a little giddy, I list to one side, put my hand out to steady myself on the dressing table and catch sight of myself in the mirror. The vivid colours of the kimono and the black of the wig mock my yellowing face, crinkled as parchment. An ageing drag queen camping it up at Carnival time in Las Palmas could not look more bizarre.
I ease the brightly coloured bangles back over my wrist, take off the kimono and wig, place them on top of the other gowns, close the lid and push the case back under the bed. I will never open it again. When I’m dead, some stranger will no doubt find the suitcase and speculate as to where these exotic clothes came from and what kind of woman wore them.
That first day in Gran Canaria. There was I, the new girl, new to the office, new to the island, far from home. There was Gavin, one of the bosses, some fifteen years older than me, yet his hair flopped soft on his forehead like a boy’s. His blue eyes gleamed as he narrowed them to study me. He treated me to his lop-sided smile. My knees quivered, as tremulous as jelly struck by a spoon.
Gavin took it on himself to be my guide, organised a series of trips to introduce me to the island.
Trip one: a perilous drive round mountainous tracks to a small café perched high up on a rock, where we shared tapas, delicious snacks of tiny fish, jamón serrano, queso tierno and sweet gold-coloured wine. We drank out of the same glass. Muy cariñoso.
Trip two: a boat trip around the island, one arm placed loosely round my shoulders, the other pointing out landmarks: barren, rocky outcrops in the West; long sandy coast with curving dunes in the South; the imposing peninsula of Las Palmas in the North and fierce waves pounding against dark rocks in the North West.
Trip four, or maybe five or six: a secluded northern beach, the breakers a challenge. Throwing my arms high above my head, I propelled myself high into the air to scale a roaring wall of water. I didn’t stand a chance. The breaker battered me into submission and I landed, reeling, on shifting sand. Another massive roller hurled me upwards and away, far out to sea. Exhilarating. Dangerous. Dragged into a downward spiral under the glittering, speckled ocean, my body loose, my head light, I sank into the cool, deep belly of the ocean. Unwinding at last from the tensions that had caused me to run away and seek a new life on this island, I spun down and down…. I rose up, laughing, free, water spluttering from my mouth. With strong, sure strokes, Gavin raced to my side, took firm hold of the back of my neck and shoulders and towed this saturated rag-doll to the shore, lay me down gently and gave me the kiss of life. And very life-giving it was, I must say….
In this manner, Gavin rescued me, appropriated me, made me his own.
Queenie appropriated me too. She made it her mission to instruct me in the ways of the world. Or at least in the ways of expatriates in Gran Canaria. She was serving tea and cakes at the church bazaar when she first caught sight of me. Handing over her post as tea lady to a somewhat intimidated fellow helper, she sat me down on a bench in the church garden and interrogated me. What was I, a single woman, doing on this island alone and why hadn’t she seen me in church?
She was a few years older than me and somewhat formidable. I felt obliged to answer. I told her about my mother’s prolonged illness and subsequent death and how I felt I had to get right away and start life afresh. An advertisement in The Times for a secretarial position in the English section of the docks in Las Palmas provided me with the ideal opportunity. Next thing I knew I was on my way to Gran Canaria. I explained that I didn’t go to church because I was angry with God for taking my mother away from me. These things I told her. Others I kept to myself.
‘The only way to get rid of your anger is to pray,’ was Queenie’s answer. ‘You should come to church with me next Sunday. Make it a habit. Apart from anything else, St. Margaret’s is a good place to meet people. If you attend regularly, chances are you’ll meet a nice young man here and get married.’
I didn’t tell her that I’d already met a nice man. Something might be spoilt if I talked about Gavin to a third party. Queenie didn’t talk about her personal life either. It wasn’t until weeks later, at the Anglo Club, that she introduced me to her husband.
Gavin, calm, in control, took my hand in his, professed himself pleased to meet me, his blue eyes intent on mine.
I don’t know how I got through the rest of that evening. I couldn’t believe it. I had given up my virginity and, more importantly, my heart, to a married man, the husband of my only friend on the island. How could I have been so naïve, so gullible? We arranged to meet in a bar, a public place, but not too public. He leant over the table and whispered in my ear. What did he tell me? That he had pursued me because I was so beautiful he couldn’t help himself….
‘You shouldn’t even think of going out with someone else when you are married,’ I told him.
‘Oh Ellen, you’re so young, so innocent. You see the world in black and white, but things aren’t as clear cut as that.’
‘I think being married and making love to someone else is very clear cut. It’s wrong.’
‘You must know that Queenie and I, well, we like each other well enough and try to be good parents to our daughter, but we are more like brother and sister than husband and wife. We’ve slept in separate rooms for years. Don’t judge me too harshly, Ellen. Don’t blame me for falling in love with you.’
‘It’s over,’ I told him.
‘How can you say that, when you know how much you love me?’ he asked.
It was true. I did love him, but I would never make love to him again.
The strange thing was that, from that moment on, my friendship with Queenie grew. Maybe I wanted to make it up to her for any damage I might have done to her marriage. I began to spend time in their big house in Palmeral Viejo, a kind of oasis of calm in the centre of the city, and there I saw a different side to Gavin. He spent hours with Barbara, taking an interest in the things that meant the most to her: her love of animals, her interest in science, her fascination with Canarian festivals. In contrast, I couldn’t help feeling that Queenie was over strict with their daughter and didn’t show her much affection.
‘One parent fussing over her is more than enough,’ Queenie said. ‘I tell Gavin he spoils her, but he takes no notice. I am left with the result. A spoilt brat. No wonder I have my work cut out trying to bring her up properly.’
I was shocked by the way Queenie grumbled about her husband. It seemed there was little he could do to please her. As Gavin had said, they slept in separate bedrooms, an arrangement that appeared to suit Queenie very well.
One day, months later, Gavin rang me. He sounded upset. There was something he had to tell me. Alone. ‘Please let me come over to the flat. Just this once.’
We sat on either side of my little living room like the stuffed toys I kept on the shelves either side of my bed. His face was grey, his eyes had lost their spark.
‘You are ill,’ I whispered.
‘How perceptive you are, Ellen. Yes, I have some sort of rare disease, as yet undiagnosed. I have to go to London for tests and possibly treatment. I’m combining it with a business trip and could be away for six months. Maybe longer. Will you keep an eye on Barbara for me while I’m away? I would like to think of you there, in my house, the place where you really belong.’
I promised. My head was spinning, my thoughts racing.
His house, the place where I really belong,
tests in London, possibly an operation,
away for six months, possibly longer.
What if the illness proves incurable? What then?
I cannot blame him for what happened next. He behaved like a perfect gentleman, keeping a distance between us while he told me his news. It was a reflex action that made me cross the space that divided us, put my arms around him and shower him with little kisses all over his face and neck. The lovemaking that followed was like nothing I had experienced before….
My affair with Gavin before I knew he was married was one thing, but this deliberate move across the room to take him in my arms was another. The former had been his sin, the latter mine. After he’d gone, I lay in the bed where we’d made love, exhilarated by what had happened, but, at the same time, filled with shame. I knew it must never happen again. Never. I told myself I was pleased he was going away. It would give us time for our passion to cool.
I spent time with Queenie and Barbara, as promised, in the house in Palmeral Viejo. Queenie liked having me around. She found me useful. I was commissioned to take Barbara shopping for new shoes, to the beach, to the fiestas, to the Carnival and to supervise her homework. I was only too pleased to help. I grew to love Gavin’s daughter and she grew fond of me. Every Sunday I went to church with Queenie and prayed that the specialists in London would find a cure for Gavin’s illness and that he would come back safe and well.
He returned at last. There was to be no operation, just carefully monitored medication. The consultant had told him that, with care, he could live a normal life.
‘Cause for celebration,’ Gavin said and, to my shame and pleasure, we celebrated in the usual manner. And I understood, perhaps for the first time, how completely my life was tied to his.
More business trips followed. They were not as much fun as I might imagine, Gavin assured me, as he showed me photographs of faraway places and related anecdotes about amusing things that had happened to him. I sat at his feet, Desdemona to his Othello, and shared his experiences at secondhand. On his return from each trip, the old passions rose again. I hated myself for my frailty but knew I would always be there for Gavin when he needed me. And for Queenie too.
As we grew older, there were fewer moments spent alone. The passion we once shared was reduced to a discreet exchange of looks at the Anglo Club or at the house in Palmeral Viejo. These subtle exchanges served to remind me that Gavin still loved me, as I did him.
No regrets. Guilt, yes, guilt I will live with for the rest of my life.
Guilt I will take with me to the grave.
But no regrets. None at all.
Gavin was my life, my love,
My Mr. Right. Even though he was spoken for long before I met him.
I change into a black skirt and blouse and wrap a black shawl around my shoulders. As an afterthought, I pin on the amethyst brooch. Looking for all the world like a Canarian widow in mourning, I catch a bus to the funeral parlour.
Gavin is not here. The figure in the coffin claiming to be Gavin is wearing his second best suit, the blue pinstripe. The hair has been scraped back, the eye-lids closed, denying me a last look at those bluer than blue eyes. His soul has flown away. Gavin would have laughed at that sentiment. He didn’t believe in a soul or an after-life. Or in God. I am not sure I do either. I go to church to keep Queenie company. The Sunday morning ritual makes a little outing and the glass of wine and bread and cheese served afterwards in the church porch provide an excuse to exchange a few words with other British residents. Acquaintances, not friends. Queenie is the only person I can truly call a friend. Gavin never went to church but he will be obliged to be there for his funeral. Queenie will make sure of that.
I want to believe that Gavin and I will be reunited in some kind of heaven for true lovers when I pass on, but if so, where will Queenie be? It is all too puzzling. No, better to let Gavin live on in my mind, rather than worry about some possible reunion in a place that may or may not exist. I put my hands together and say a little prayer for him. It seems the right thing to do.
As I’m leaving, I notice another woman arrive, dressed very much as I am, in black. Another mourner. Looking back over my shoulder, I see something familiar about the way the woman holds herself, those slightly hunched shoulders and the tentative way she trots along in her high-heeled shoes. It’s Deborah Fairbanks, one of the congregation at St. Margaret’s. Just as I am wondering if someone close to her has died, I see her slip into the sala I’ve just left. Like me, she has come to pay her last respects to Gavin. How nice of her.
Back at my flat, I rest a hand in the small of my back and lower myself into my armchair. The visit to the funeral parlour has taken it out of me. There’s a nagging thought at the back of my mind that I cannot quite make out. I can’t settle. Back on my feet, on my way to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, I glance up at the wayward blind and shake my head. I switch on the kettle but the water remains cold. The element seems to have packed up. I heat the water in a saucepan. That’s what most folk do here anyway. When I get round to it, I’ll buy a new kettle, but there is no hurry. I can manage perfectly well without it.
As I wait for the water to boil, I remember what it is that’s niggling me. Something odd about Deborah Fairbanks. She was dressed in a black coat and hat, but, as she pushed open the door of the sala, I saw a flash of colour at her wrist. Bangles. Multi-coloured bangles. Like mine. Identical. A coincidence? Must be.
Hand shaking, I drop a tea bag in a mug and pour on the boiling water. It splashes over my wrist. Damn and double damn! If it’s not one thing it’s another. First that bloody blind, now I’ve gone and scalded myself. Tears threaten. I force them back.
Bangles of red, violet, emerald, silver and gold ,
dancing in front of my eyes
catching the light,
shiny metallic rings
jangling,
mocking me,
making a nonsense of my life, of my love.
I must put this out of my mind, keep control. Damn the tea. I don’t need it. I wrap a bandage round the burn and set off for Queenie’s house.
Something to do. Something to take my mind off.
Queenie pours two large gin and tonics. Her eyes are black pinpricks, her speech a touch incoherent. This is not the first drink she’s had today.
She raises her glass. ‘Here’s to Gavin.’ I start to raise mine, but my hand stops in mid-air, as she adds, ‘May he burn in hell!’
She begins to tell me things I don’t want to hear, don’t want to know. I try not to listen, but the disjointed words shout out at me.
‘An incorrigible womaniser. Our life together a cruel joke. Always did what he damn well liked. Fine, when he was abroad. Foreign sluts don’t count. But we had an agreement - not at home, not here in Las Palmas. And now I find out that he broke that promise. He had whores here as well. An insult to me. A matter of disrespect.’
My heart is beating fast. What has she found out? She says nothing more.
My turn to confide in her, it seems. It’s tempting to relieve my conscience and confess all, but, instead, I tell her another truth, the real reason I ran away to this island.
‘I know how you must feel. The day after my mother’s funeral, my father moved his mistress into our house and into his bed. No respect for my mother or for me. I had to get right away. That’s why I applied for that job here. ’
‘You poor dear,’ she says. ‘Now listen, Ellen. I’ve been thinking. You’re to give up your flat and come and live here with me. We’ll be company for each other, now that Gavin’s gone.’
I protest a bit, but she will not take no for an answer. A bit tipsy or not, Queenie has made up her mind and will not change it. And it comes to me that, in spite of all her work for the church and the Anglo Club, not to mention her charities, Queenie has been alone for years. Just as I have been.
It seems I’m going to live in Gavin’s house in Palmeral Viejo after all.
The place where I belong.
I’m not sure if I consider it a blessing or a penance.
####
If you enjoyed this story why not discover other titles by Jeannie van Rompaey at Smashwords.com