Shame the Devil Prologue and Chapter One

The overhead bulbs cast pools of light on the meagre congregation below, their feeble glow too weak to reach into the corners of the stone-walled church. The worshipers shiver in the unseasonal chill of the June morning. Rain lashes against the stained-glass windows like an angry devil demanding admittance. The gloom punctuated by slashes of lightning illuminating the interior momentarily in blinding negatives. All this a fitting setting for the aged vicar’s sermon.

Reading from the enormous bible on the lectern, pausing occasionally to peer sternly, warningly over his wire-rimmed spectacles at the fearful faithful, he is gearing up now; on a roll, pontificating passionately on his favourite bête noire: Sin.

‘Shall we continue in sin? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead in sin, live? Let not sin reign. Obey not the lusts and urges of your mortal body. Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield thyselves unto God. Let sin have no dominion over you. Be ye made free from sin. Become a servant of God and ye shall have the fruits of holiness and the everlasting life. Be wise. Thy Lord God see-eth all. Repent thy sinful ways. For know this...

The wages of sin is Death.’

Chapter One

The early morning sun washes The Close in a pale golden glow; reflecting like carelessly scattered diamonds on the manicured striped lawns nestling protectively within well-tended flowerbeds.

The sizable detached houses sit well back in this U-shaped cul-de-sac, its wide pavement lined with ornamental cherry, their pink fluffy blossom fluttering groundward caught on a gentle breeze.

Paths artfully meander from pavement to front door flanked by displays of Dipodium Punctuatum, Lilium Candidum and Dicentra Spartabilis. No Marigolds or Bizzy Lizzies here. God forbid.

To the casual observer, The Close appears a haven of peace and respectability in the suburbs of the bustling metropolis; nothing short of Eden.

But looks can be deceptive and things are rarely what they seem to be. As the old Charlie Rich song says: no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

The problem for the residents of The Close was: someone did...

*

Of course the residents of The Close were in blissful ignorance of this fact as their morning began much like any other.

In the Trent’s kitchen, Janet tucked into her usual Full English. At thirty-eight she’d already let herself go. Her mousey brown hair has no discernable style and there was a splodge of ketchup on her wash-worn dressing gown.

She paused, laden fork half way to her eager mouth, as her husband, Russell called excitedly from the hall. Coming in, he thrust a letter under her nose. Snatching the food from the fork before replacing it on the plate, Janet munched as she read; swallowed quickly, almost choking in her haste to congratulate.

‘Oh Russell, Best Column’

Russell retrieved the letter and, tutting under his breath, licked his finger to wipe off a smear of egg yolk.

‘I didn’t know they had awards for them.’

Russell’s self-congratulatory smile faltered, evasiveness flickered momentarily across his eyes.

‘Yes, well, they do. And this year I’m up for one.’

Russell sniffed the air appreciatively unlocking his Lexus with the remote as he strode purposefully down his path. Backing out he passed the already empty driveway of Dominic Judd’s house that sat on the left hand side of the U. He’d heard the throaty exhaust of Dominic’s BMW earlier that morning as he stumbled blearily to the bathroom. Why did he always have to rev the engine – just showing off. Russell resented the fact that at the tender age of twenty-nine, financial whizz-kid, Dominic could already afford to live in The Close. I mean, The Close was somewhere one aspired to live, in middle age. Russell was forty-one when he and Janet had moved to The Close two years before. His wine merchants had a healthy bottom line and let’s face it the remuneration from his column in Weekend Review couldn’t be said to be commensurate with the effort it required: more money that toil. Even so, it had been a bit of a struggle.

Russell glanced enviously at his other neighbour’s house at the base of the U as he drove past. Ian’s Ford Ranger pick-up emblazoned with his company logo: Allwright Developments and Shirley’s Mini Cooper were parked in the drive. They weren’t exactly Russell’s sort of people, but he couldn’t help admiring Ian’s business acumen – although some would consider Ian’s talent for making money better described by the epithet: ruthlessness. Having purchased their council house he’d gone on to sell it at a huge profit and never looked back. Now Ian’s property business had a turnover of a million plus. But, Russell thought, a smug smirk twisting the corners of his mouth as the Lexus paused at the entrance of the private road awaiting a gap in which to pull out into the morning rush hour traffic, money doesn’t automatically equal taste and, let’s face it, the Allwrights epitomised the expression: all brass and no class.

Shirley, her artificially enhanced buxomness threatening to spill out of her too tight, too short summer dress, pushed her peroxide bobbed hair behind an ear as she bent over to put the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher.

Ian, (his hair wasn’t bobbed, in fact he had hardly any hair to speak of favouring the shaved head look. His hair had started receding and he was far too – and at fifty-one some would say achingly – trendy to even consider anything as naff as hair implants, or, God forbid, a comb-over) sat at the table drinking the remains of his second morning coffee. Flicking absent-mindedly through the pages of Shirley’s gossip magazine – why she bought this rubbish Christ knew, who cares what the fuck these so-called celebrities got up to? He shook his head dismissively then something caught his attention.

‘Bloody ’ell that bird off Eastenders’s shackin’ up wiv some bloke who’s...’ He calculated rapidly in his head. ‘Fuck me twen’y free years younger than ’er! She’s old enuff to be ’is muvver. What does he see in ’er?’

‘She ain’t exactly over the ‘ill she’s my age! Some young men like an older woman. They appreciate a bit of experience.’

Ian choked on his coffee, spluttering.

‘Yeah right’.

‘And she still looks good so why not? After that messy divorce she ’ad she deserves a bit a fun. Good luck to ’er I say.’

Ian studied Shirley, amused, condescending.

‘S’pose I oughta watch out in case you run off wiv a bloke ‘alf yer age eh Shirl? He laughed to himself. As if.

Dominic Judd’s neighbours in the house on the left hand side at the beginning of the U were also at breakfast.

The Goodalls were The Close’s oldest residents in that they’d lived there the longest and were the oldest in age as well. Theirs was a homely kitchen, untouched by time for several decades; a traditional heart-of-the-home. Willow pattern cups & saucers and a Brown Betty teapot sat on the formica-topped pine table alongside the bowls of bran flakes, rack of toast, sticky-rimmed jar of thick-cut marmalade and butter dish.

Aubrey tutted as he turned the pages of the trashy tabloid reading with increasing disgust.

‘Disgraceful... Outrageous... Call this a newspaper. It’s nothing but sleaze and cheap titillation.’

‘I told you not to read it. They won’t take it back now.’ Meredith said disinterestedly, well used to Aubrey’s blusterings.

‘Have you seen this? She might as well be naked.’

He thrust the paper towards Meredith open at a page with a photograph of a twenty-something girl at the Cornbury Festival, holding hands with her dreadlock-haired boyfriend, her scanty cotton top unbuttoned revealing plenty of cleavage, her form clearly outlined as the sun shone through her thin cotton shirt.

‘You’d never have been seen in public dressed like that...’

“Hey Mister Tambourine Man play a song for me...”

The lyrics of the 60s Byrds song played in her head and a smile danced at the edges of Meredith’s mouth as she remembered another long-ago summer.

“I’m not sleepy and there ain’t no place I’m goin’ to...”

A group of hippies are sitting in front of a VW Camper Van adorned with the hand painted words "Free Love" under a rainbow, smoking joints and digging the music of the Summer of Love Festival. Barnaby is blowing bubbles from a brightly coloured little plastic pot. Amelia is painting a daisy on Eleanor’s cheek. A young Meredith: eighteen, bare feet, Indian cotton skirt, white broderie anglaisse blouse, love beads round her neck and flowers in her long flowing hair dances to the music, her eyes closed and face upturned to the sun. As she spreads her arms wide her unbuttoned blouse opens to reveal her perfect, naked breasts.

‘Meredith?’

Jethro offered her his joint. Meredith smiles, shakes her head dreamily and carries on swaying to the music.

"In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you."

‘...Infidelity, cheating, lying. People are all just out for what they can get these days. There are no standards anymore.’

The Byrds disappeared as Aubrey’s moaning barged into Meredith’s memories like Dolly Messiter crashing into Alec and Laura’s last precious moments together.

Looking at the judgmental face of her husband of over forty years, Meredith wondered, not for the first time, how that carefree flower child had come to this.

Opposite the Goodalls’ resided the undoubted star of The Close; the D.G. One word sums up Helen Saunders: immaculate. Brunette, her slim, toned body defies her forty-two years; her home worthy of a four-page spread in any up-market interiors magazine; her culinary expertise legendary. Put simply: Helen Saunders oozes good taste.

She spooned a dollop of Greek yoghurt onto homemade pancakes with fresh raspberries and blueberries. Next to her on the kitchen worktop lay a copy of her recently published book: At Home with Helen, a photograph of a smiling Helen looking every bit the Domestic Goddess on the cover.

‘I saw Julia yesterday.’ Helen placed the breakfast plates on the table where her husband, Phillip sat, ready for work in his Saville Row bespoke suit, reading the Daily Telegraph.

‘She’s lining up some spots for me on daytime television. Saturday Kitchen, Something for the Weekend, This Morning.’ Helen couldn’t keep the almost childlike excitement from her voice. ‘She thinks it could even lead to my own show.’

She smiled expectantly as Phillip, his eyes never leaving the newspaper, speared a piece of pancake and a raspberry with his fork and dipped them into the yoghurt. He spoke, his mouth full.

‘Did you remember to take my grey suit to the cleaners?’

Yes, Helen may have enjoyed the status her marriage bestowed, but this proverbial ‘good woman’ was unappreciated, unfulfilled and bored.

Helen had long since suspected Phillip of having an affair. He exhibited the usual signs: their sex life, once an enthusiastic, athletic three or four times a week had dwindled to a perfunctory passionless twinning once a month at best and he had been ‘working late’ more and more. As he never saw patients after six in the evening, Helen couldn’t imagine what that ‘work’ could possibly consist of.

In desperation she had resorted to checking his pockets and scanning credit card statements for proof of purchases of flowers or gifts she never received or dinners she had never eaten. She found nothing, but this was inconclusive, merely proof of Phillip’s astuteness. Unlike other unfaithful husbands who fall at this simplest of hurdle, she knew Phillip wasn’t stupid enough to pay by card and would throw away receipts for cash.

It wasn’t so much his infidelity she minded. After the slow withdrawal of his affection over the years, Helen had become resigned to a loveless marriage. No, what really scared her was if Phillip ever felt true affection for someone else. What would happen to her if he fell in love with another?

They had met at a weekend house party of a mutual friend shortly after he had set up in practice with Hugo and Stephen. Helen had been beguiled by this confident, stylish young man. Phillip, astounded by the rampant sexuality he’d unleashed in this demure, hitherto untouched, creature, captivated. They had married six months later, both families pleased with the match. Old-fashioned, Phillip thought it unfitting for the wife of a Harley Street consultant to work. And so, Helen found herself (a warning to wives everywhere if ever there were need of one) ill equipped to provide for herself.

You could be forgiven for writing Helen off as a typical do nothing wife of a successful (i.e. wealthy) husband. And if she’s not happy with her lot, who cares? Well, in her defence, Helen is a pleaser. She was raised by a pleaser from a long line of pleasers so it was hardly surprising. Academically rather bright if she had been given the opportunity to shine, she left her expensive, but undemanding private girls’ school with little to show for her years of education. Little was expected of her so she expected little of herself. Her life was a repetition of her mother’s, her mother’s mother and so on through the ages. The Suffragettes and Women’s movement had barely made a dint.

Over the years Helen had seen Philip’s confidence turn to arrogance. Oh he could turn on the charm for his wealthy middle-aged female patients, smiling benignly, attending to their every imagined symptom, but Helen heard how he spoke about them in private.

Of course, most women thus dissatisfied would simply have got a divorce. Nervous of emotional honesty, Helen’s mother had reproved her daughter’s hesitant admission of marital disappointment with a reminder that Phillip provided for her very well thus alleviating Helen from the necessity of having to work, and the platitude that boys will be boys. She had been able to turn a blind eye to her own husband’s numerous indiscretions and simply couldn’t understand why her daughter was unable do the same.

And Helen had no proof of Phillip’s infidelity. What grounds did she have for divorce? Phillip’s emotional distance? That he came home late most evenings? Even if she had had her parents support, Phillip’s expensive lawyers would laugh her out of court and send her on her way with a minimal settlement. With no formal training or work experience how would she support herself?

She knew she was weak, that women start-over every day, but she was scared of so insecure a future and her own lack of fortitude.

*

Marcus stood in the hallway epitomising TD&H: six feet of gorgeous, highly-toned testosterone. He smiled politely as Helen closed the front door.

‘So are you ready for your workout Mrs Saunders?’

‘Yes. Although I have to admit I was a little naughty at the weekend. Phillip and I went to dinner with his partners. I had... Tiramisu.’

As the old saying goes; never judge a book by its cover. Despite her natural reserve (Helen had learned early in life to keep a tight rein on her emotions) paradoxically the one time she really let herself go was while having sex. In fact, and her acquaintances would have been surprised to know, a mass of contradictions, this was the only time Helen felt self-confident enough to take the upper hand and let the real Helen shine. In fact, she was a demon in bed. Although there were only two men who could attest to this fact.

Sitting astride him on the vast bed with its crisp freshly laundered Egyptian cotton sheets, Helen smiled wickedly at the recumbent Marcus between her legs, deftly undid her bra and flung it across the room.

‘Now, I believe you were saying something about a hard workout?’

Despite her weekly dalliances, Helen was not a woman to take her wedding vows lightly. She deplored infidelity, but sometimes one finds oneself doing the very thing one abhors most. Given sufficient provocation even the good and well-intentioned stray. And Phillip had strayed first. She may not have the evidence, but she knew it to be so. One just knew these things instinctively. And thus there was Marcus. He had seen the sadness behind Helen’s immaculate facade.

It was tempting to just up and leave her life with Phillip and be with a man who adored her, but Helen was nothing if not brutally honest with herself. She had grown accustomed to the lifestyle living with Phillip afforded her and couldn’t imagine her settling for life in Marcus’ one bedroom flat. He was building up his list of private clients, but still supplemented his income by working shifts at the local leisure centre’s gym.

And let us be honest here, our judgment of Helen (and women like her) is born out of jealousy. Which of us doesn’t long to leave behind the drudgery of our daily work, our lives of demanding or petty bosses, of eeking out our money each month until pay day and swap our lives for hers? Why else do we play the lottery every week, hoping for that fourteen million to one chance that this time it will be us?

The snatched moments, Helen and Marcus had together were one thing. Their partings may be sad, but there was an undeniable frisson of excitement about the furtiveness and secrecy of the illicitness of their relationship. Despite the assurances of enduring affection, many an affair made honest, faced with the reality of the mundane, the day-to-day, had stumbled.

Anyway, leaping from one man to another was merely out of the frying pan into the fire. Helen needed more than that. A growing conviction told her she had to do it on her terms.

And now there was her book. If her agent, Julia was to be believed, this could be her escape.

*

Helen lay in that state of half-consciousness before one is fully awake, eyes closed, dimly aware of Phillip’s movements.

‘What time is it?’ Helen asked sleepily

‘Half past eight.’

Helen’s eyes snapped open.

‘What!? Why didn’t you wake me? You know I have This Morning this morning.’

‘What?’

‘Oh never mind.

He never listens, Helen thought, slamming the door to the en-suite behind her.

*

Helen knew she projected a lie. Not her ability to cook up a storm or her talent in creating a welcoming home, that was undeniably true. The lie was her response as to the inspiration for her book. She knew it was what everyone wanted to hear. Julia had said the perfect Domestic Goddess was her ‘brand’. So an image of domestic and marital harmony was essential. But Helen had projected this image for so long it was second nature anyway and the lie slipped easily from her tongue.

‘It was my husband’s idea really. I’d never have done it without his encouragement.’

“Encouragement” wasn’t exactly the word for it. When, after another evening alone with a (now almost empty) bottle of wine for company, Phillip came home after eleven, unapologetic, unconcerned and made a crack about the aging properties of alcohol, Helen had lost her cool. She screamed at him about being sick of cooking meals he was never home to eat, sick of being taken for granted and the old chestnut of how he treated their home like a hotel. It was her description of herself as “chief skivvy” that finally produced a reaction from Phillip.

‘Skivvy?! Mrs Hall comes in three times a week. Just what do you do all day? All you know is arranging flowers and fluffing up cushions. God, you could write the book on it!’

*

Helen poured herself a celebratory glass of chilled Chablis. She couldn’t help smiling to herself. As she was being driven home, Julia had phoned to congratulate her.

‘You’re a natural’ she’d effused.

Sure the offers to appear on other shows would come thick and fast, Julia said she’d get on to it straight away. It was all going according to plan.

Helen could almost see her future. Not a future of fame and celebrity, neither ever having held any fascination for her, they were merely by-products. The future she could almost allow herself to envisage was one where she was her own woman, standing on her own two feet, supporting herself, on her terms.

She sifted through the post she’d brought in from the mat. Discounting the usual junk mail her attention was caught by a pale blue envelope; so little of her mail was personal; in this age of texting and emailing few bothered to write personal letters, especially on proper, quality writing stationery.

There was something about the typed name and address that Helen couldn't quite put her finger on. Then she realised it wasn’t the flat, perfectly formed lettering of a laser printer. This had been typed on a typewriter. Her curiosity aroused, Helen tore open the envelope.

Her elation vanished in an instant, Helen’s diaphragm contracted, a chill shiver of fear rippled rapidly down through her body leaving goosebumps in its wake, the slender wine glass slipped from her fingers shattering on the tiled floor as she read what was typed on the single page of writing paper:

“Repent your adulterous ways or you will surely regret it.”