Julie chapter 7

Valerie looked at the envelope she’d brought back from Cove House. The exterior said nothing revealing about its haunting contents and the only question in her mind was what to do about it? She felt Julia was the only other person she could trust to know what the papers contained. Her attempts at broaching the subject had failed, which left her with her dilemma. Two options now remained. The first was to confront Geoffrey, the second was to burn the papers and try to forget that she’d ever seen them. The thought of confronting Geoffrey was not an easy one and its repercussions would inevitably turn their world upside down. Even if the secret remained between them she realized that it would change their life so dramatically that even their supposedly stable relationship could be blown apart. If she didn’t confront him, if she turned a blind eye then what would happen? Her view of her husband had already changed so dramatically as a result of what she had read, that she realized she no longer knew him. He was a stranger in her husband’s skin. She was not naïve enough to think that someone with Geoffrey’s drive and ambition was ever going to be an altruist, but a thief? Valerie had accepted the ruthless streak in her husband and had ignored it whilst it'd remained within his working life. Money after all did not grow on trees, it grew from balance sheets, deals done on the golf course, and the legal documents that Geoffrey forged in his own inimitable way. It bought houses, cars, holidays, and kitchens with islands. When it was other people’s money there was no issue, but when it belonged to her mother, there was. She sighed placed the envelope back in her dressing table and left the room.

Geoffrey was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the Times. ‘Did they say when the purchase of the chalet would be complete?’ she asked him. He didn’t move as he replied. ‘Another week. The Swiss legal system is quaint, or to be more accurate, archaic.’ Valerie poured herself an Orange juice to give herself a reason to sit with him at the table. ‘Have you heard any more about the business with Brian?’  she asked tentatively.

Geoffrey looked up at her, and above the half lenses of his glasses his eyes drilled into hers.‘In what way?’ he asked sourly.

‘Well before you went abroad you told me the police had been looking into your relationship with Brian.  From a business point of view.’  Valerie felt disconcerted by his unwavering stare.   ‘I told you at the time, I will deal with that side of things.  You don’t need to think about it’ he gruffly warned her off.  ‘I just wondered how things were going that was all.  It was very uncomfortable clearing out Brian’s things from the house and I'd like to know that we're going to be able to get on with our lives and forget the man.’

‘That man won’t bother us anymore’ replied Geoffrey.  ‘I’ve sorted that out.’  ‘Oh, how….’   ‘Just drop it Valerie.  You are beginning to sound like an inquisitor. In the thirty years we've been married you've never once wanted to know what I was doing at work, other than whether we could afford a new car or a holiday, and now because of Brian you seem to want to know everything.  I’ve bought the chalet you wanted so things must be going alright mustn’t they?’  Valerie heard what he was saying but like a poker player who'd seen a reflection in a whiskey glass she knew at least some of his cards, and knew he was bluffing.

‘I’m sorry’ she said, ‘I think handling Brian’s things affected me more than I imagined it would.’  Geoffrey grunted like some kind of beast. ‘I can see that’ he replied. ‘Well it’s done now isn’t it?’   ‘Yes, it’s done.’  She got up to leave the table.  ‘By the way’   ‘Yes?’   ‘Was it just clothes he left at your mother’s?’  Valerie felt a shiver go down her spine but tried not to let it affect her voice.  ‘Er..yes, what else would there be?’  It must have been her imagination but she felt as if Geoffrey knew her secret and was testing her.   ‘You never know with a chap like that, porn hidden away in his shirt drawer, that sort of thing.’  Geoffrey chuckled.  Valerie felt sick at the suggestion.   ‘No, there was nothing else.’  With those few words she knew she'd burnt her bridges.  She could not confront her husband. There was only one option left.

As soon as Geoffrey left for the office she retrieved the packet of cigarettes and took one into the garden. It was early for her to smoke, but she felt the need more than ever. The match hissed into life, the flame kissed the end of the cigarette and burnt the paper and tobacco, whilst she drew heavily on the filter. A shot of smoke dived into her lungs and she held her breath as if holding onto the smoke would somehow nourish her and give her courage to face the rest of the day.  She exhaled, her lips rounded, almost pouting. The chemicals hit home and she felt her pulse race. Why did they say cigarettes were relaxing when the first thing they did was speed up one’s metabolism? Still, there was no need for laxatives when you took a daily gasp. 

As she sat on the cold stone capping of the wall, two geese flew over her head honking at one another. She heard the shush shush of the air under their wings and watched as they headed South.  Oh, if only she could fly away, take to the air and leave it all behind. No such luck. She must stay and face the day firmly planted on the ground.  ‘Valerie! Valerie!’  God, it was Geoffrey! She threw the cigarette into the garden pond and wafted her hand in front of her mouth as if that would do something.   ‘I’m in the garden Geoffrey, checking the birdfeeder.’  She walked briskly towards the conservatory door. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.  Geoffrey appeared in the kitchen unusually agitated.  He was looking for the newspaper as if it were the most important thing in the world. ‘Where’s the paper!?’ he demanded.  ‘You’ll miss your train Geoffrey’ said Valerie.  He didn’t seem to hear. ‘I had it before I left, have you seen it!?’   ‘What’s the matter Geoffrey?  You can buy another one at the station can’t you?’ Again he appeared not to hear her voice and continued to hunt for the elusive Times.‘Did you take it with you when you went to do the bins?’ It was the sort of comment that would usually provoke derision, but Geoffrey stopped in his tracks.  He heard her this time and realized that was what he'd done. 

‘I’ll see you tonight’ he grunted, and left, as if nothing had happened.  When you live with someone for many years, you know when things aren't right. Under normal circumstances Geoffrey would've been annoyed about mislaying his paper but he'd never have risked missing the train.  She had to get a copy of the Times, there was something about that day’s issue she needed to see.

By the time the hairdresser arrived Valerie had cleared the breakfast things, swept the floor, polished the coffee maker and returned the room to its usual pristine condition.  The woman dumped her bag on the table like a bored baggage handler, and went to fetch her portable hair drier. She wheeled it next to her. It looked like she was attached to a piece of hospital equipment without which she might not survive. 

‘Morning Mrs. Mitchell. How are we?’ The hairdresser always addressed her as if she were the Queen, the royal ‘we’ appearing in her speech more often than a stand up comedian would say ‘fuck.’

‘Do we want something off today, or is it just a wash and blow dry?’  Valerie’s attention was elsewhere but she managed to stave off the scissors by saying she'd leave it another week.

‘Lovely weather we are having, isn’t it?  It’s so nice to be able to hang your smalls out and let them have a good air.’  Valerie did not want to think of the hairdressers ‘smalls’ blowing in the breeze but they managed to invade her thoughts for a moment and she saw them inflated by the wind as though being worn by an invisible woman forming the exact shape of the hairdressers backside.  ‘Smalls’ she decided was the wrong word for them.  Her mind drifted on and she saw the rest of the washing line where the hairdresser would've had her ‘weekend’ pairs, red with black lace, designed to entice. These were smaller and when worn would have been largely lost in folds of flesh in the same way that  tight support bands get grown over by the bark of a tree. She brought her mind back under control, inwardly shuddering.

‘I saw Mr. Mitchell this morning on his way to the station. Very unusual to see him this late.’   Valerie nodded. ‘Yes, he’d forgotten some papers and had to come back for them.’  ‘Some papers’ sounded more important than saying ‘he’d forgotten the Times.’

‘I expect he has a lot of things to remember.  It’s easily done. I’ve forgotten the hairdryer before now.  Imagine that, a hairdresser without a hairdryer!’  She laughed and carried on cluttering the table with her equipment.

‘Are you alright Mrs. Mitchell, you seem a little quiet today?’  The hairdressers concern was obviously genuine and for a fleeting moment Valerie was touched. It wasn't often nowadays that anyone noticed Valerie, let alone inquired after her health.

‘Er…yes, just the usual things going through my mind, Mr. Mitchell is very busy at the moment and mother is still very demanding.  You know how it is.’     ‘Your sister ought to be doing a bit more to help out shouldn’t she, then you wouldn’t be so tired?’ 

Valerie couldn't explain to the hairdresser why Julia wasn't doing more.  She'd left large pieces of the family puzzle out when discussing things. The hairdresser didn't know that Julia'd had a breakdown as a consequence of the family’s decision to leave her out of the wedding and the sale of the house to Brian. Now of course Valerie knew exactly why Geoffrey hadn’t put forward any objection to the scheme. Why should he when he'd engineered and financed the whole thing?  Brian didn’t own a thing, it was Geoffrey’s company Lombard Machin who now owned Cove House. Brian was just a stool pigeon, a go-between in some elaborate ruse to get her mother to sell the place cheaply. Her own husband had cheated her mother out of hundreds of thousands of pounds by persuading the bigamist Brian to pretend it was his purchase. In return Brian got his cut in the shape of a lump sum in his bank account.  She could see it all now, the initial meeting in Tenerife, Geoffrey weighing up Brian’s financial state and then coming up with the plan.  Since discovering the papers she'd recalled a number of things Geoffrey'd said about mother and their inheritance. 

‘Julia doesn’t deserve a penny of your mother’s money.  She’s a spendthrift who doesn’t even like the woman.’ He'd called mother ‘the woman’ as if she was an object, and that was obviously how he saw her. Then there was the occasion when Geoffrey asked Valerie what she would do with the money she stood to inherit. She had replied, ‘Oh I'd probably give it straight to the children, I don’t need it.’  Geoffrey was incensed and Valerie was shocked at his insistence that ‘they didn’t get a penny until he and Valerie passed away.’  It all started to add up. Geoffrey had to get his hands on the cash. How best to do that - buy her out. Now, whenever mother died there'd be just a few thousand in mother’s bank account if that. She and Julia would have a share of a pittance.  Would Geoffrey ever tell her what he’d done? Would he share the profit he'd made from Cove House when it went up for sale? She knew he wouldn't. It'd all be hidden in Lombard Machin’s accounts and no one would be any the wiser. No wonder Geoffrey didn’t want to discuss his business dealings with Brian, no wonder he was so aggressive and tetchy. 

‘Mrs. Mitchell, Mrs. Mitchell.’  ‘I’m sorry’ said Valerie, roused her from her thoughts., ‘I was thinking about the things that I have to do later.’ ‘I'm just asking whether you're ready to have your hair washed?’   ‘Yes of course.’ The hairdresser’s hands were strong. Sometimes Valerie thought they were going to penetrate her skin as she rubbed the shampoo into her scalp with unnecessary vigor. She wished they could permanently rub away the thoughts that plagued her, but the pain did a temporary job.    ‘I often wonder what's going to happen with my mother when she gets old’ said the hairdresser. ‘It’s alright for me to talk about your sister Mrs. Mitchell, but I don’t expect mine'll be different. It’s always the way isn’t it, so easy to tell someone else what they should do. I do it all the time. But sometimes when the problems aren’t yours you can see what should be done even if you wouldn’t necessarily be able to do it yourself. If you know what I mean?’   Valerie did know, and for once she actually began to think that inside the air headed hairdresser there might actually be something of substance.  ‘When my sister’s husband was cheating on her she knew about it, but she didn’t say anything to him because she thought it was a passing phase. I told her, if you don’t confront him then I will, or he'll just do it again and again, and he won’t respect you.  I told her, even if it all breaks apart, you will've done the right thing because if it does break apart there was obviously nothing there in the first place. At the end of the day we have to have a bit of respect for ourselves don’t we Mrs. Mitchell?  Men can be so selfish and so hard. We women need to stick together.’ 

The hairdresser rubbed Valerie’s head with a towel like a wet dog, put curlers in, turned on the machine and left Valerie for the next fifteen minutes, thinking about everything, whilst the drier hummed.

Later that day Valerie walked to the local shop. It should've been pleasant in the sunshine and were it not for the weight in her mind she would have been able to enjoy it.  Where they lived was often referred to as commuter belt but more regularly as stockbroker belt.  Large houses set back from the road each with their own individual style, yet conforming to some unwritten law they must have a double garage, an immaculate lawn, leaded windows, and wherever possible mock Tudor beams. Despite the garages there were always two cars on the driveway, predominantly Mercedes, BMW, and Jaguar with the occasional Bentley. What she had noticed most when returning from abroad was there were never any people. The streets were empty, the gardens were empty, the windows were empty.  Whoever lived in the area was invisible. She couldn’t even say who was more than three doors away. Indeed not more than two months previously a removal van had turned up five doors away, loaded up with furniture and driven away, only for the embarrassed neighbours to discover the following week that it was burglary. The owners had been on holiday and returned to a gutted house. Such was life in the successful suburbs.   

Valerie arrived at the shop and was lucky enough to purchase the remaining copy of the Times.  Seeing the card rack she purchased one with an Impressionist painting on it, having decided that even if Julia didn’t want to talk to her, she would still keep in touch.  She walked briskly home and set about scanning the paper page by page. The first three pages contained the usual political dramas, financial crises and doom ridden forecasts, nothing obvious that Geoffrey would be so concerned about.  She scanned the pages. They contained all the news that she'd managed to avoid.  In her opinion newspapers were nothing more than fodder for endless opinionated conversations and a way of avoiding looking at your fellow passengers on a train. Several pages through and still nothing, then suddenly she saw it.  A small clip of a story tucked away in the bottom corner of page 6. ‘Mans body found on Isle of Wight beach.’ Intuitively she realized this was the reason Geoffrey was so agitated.  She read on. ‘A man’s body was discovered on a deserted beach on the Isle of Wight yesterday.  Police have not confirmed the deceased’s name but have said they believe he might have been a missing person whom they wished to interview in relation to several outstanding enquiries relating to fraud and bigamy. They have not ruled out suspicious circumstances in connection with his death'. Valerie heard the rustle of the paper in her hands.