The Three Halves of Martyn Manning-Chapter Fourteen: Resolution - Part One

The
calm atmosphere continued into the next morning. Elena did her best
to engage them but Felix and Katie were quieter, more well-behaved,
less boisterous than she was used to and was expecting. She told
herself she should have foreseen this, after all, she was a new and
highly significant central pivot in their lives, and the known and
comforting anchor of Caroline was no longer there. It wouldn’t be
that they were scared of her exactly, at least she hoped not, but
they would be understandably wary of inadvertently stepping out of
line in the still vague matrix of an unknown new normal.

She
dropped them off at school without incident then returned to the Old
Rectory where she sat in the silence at the kitchen table, silent
that is but for the low, barely discernible hum of the Aga and
occasional mid-morning birdsong. She realised she felt unsettled. She
fired up her tablet and tried to read her favourite Romanian
newspaper. This normally calmed her, grounded her, but today she
couldn’t seem to concentrate. She could just about take in some of
the headlines, “Government Accused of Pursuing ‘White
Nationalist’ Agenda”, “Street Artists Thrive as Activism
Soars”, but when she reached the end of each first paragraph she
realised her eyes had simply passed over the words and that she had
no recall of what she had supposedly just read.

She
lay the tablet on the table, face down, and stared into space. She
needed to spend some time on this. She cleared up the breakfast
things and started the dishwasher, put on a load of washing, then
returned to her seat at the table with a cup of strong green tea. She
sat upright and began to breathe deeply. She meditated for several
minutes then came back into the room and made a conscious effort to
focus on what was bothering her. Clearly the conversation with
Caroline on Friday night had been unnerving. She thought back through
the evening and concluded it had been perfectly reasonable to assume
that Caroline was employed on the same basis as herself, though she
conceded it may have been rash to verbalise it before confirming it.
But the bigger question was why? Why wasn’t Martyn fucking
Caroline? After all, she was young, pretty and clever. She was
certainly younger, probably prettier and also probably cleverer than
Elena, she was going to university after all. Was it because Caroline
was posh and English? Was she too good to be a whore? Whereas
Romanian immigrants, now they’re a different kettle of fish,
they’re not too fussy, bung ‘em a few quid to buy some beetroot
soup and they’ll drop ‘em quicker than you can say People’s
Palace. Climb on, shoot your juice and walk away, everybody happy.

 

She
paused. No, she was getting carried away. She was being unfair. She
didn’t know Martyn that well but she knew him well enough to be pretty sure he wasn’t that sort of
man.
There must be another reason. Oh
Lord, how had she got herself into this? At the beginning it had
seemed so straightforward. She’d
known all along it wasn’t going to be easy or pleasant, but she’d
been pretty sure she could handle it. But now? With the moment of
truth fast approaching? Uninvited
and unwanted sex, regularly and indefinitely. She sighed. She’d had her reasons at
the time.
The truth was that her family were in desperate need of money and
luckily
she
was in a position to provide it. Her normal nanny’s salary was
enough to avert immediate
catastrophe
but her double salary with Martyn would make things so
much easier. In
fact this job had seemed a Godsend at
the time.
But how
did she feel about it
now?
Well, she was glad she was in a position to help her family and was
perfectly willing to sacrifice herself to do so, but she wasn’t
exactly proud of herself, she wasn’t going to highlight it on her
CV in bold, underlined upper case. Was she actually a whore? Or
was she a prostitute? What was the difference in English? Was there
even a difference in English? She picked her tablet back up and
googled the definition of
whore.
One
site said “A prostitute. A person considered sexually promiscuous.
A person considered as having compromised principles for personal
gain.” She considered
this. She wasn’t sexually promiscuous, nor was she compromising her principles for personal gain. In fact, she was doing what she was
doing for noble reasons. She
looked at another site. “A
person who engages in sexual intercourse for pay. Prostitute.” So
there it was. She was a whore. And a prostitute. So?
Was
that actually
anything
to be ashamed of? Ah fuck ‘em. Who
knew about
her anyway? She
logged on to her banks and checked her accounts, first her British,
then her Romanian. Yesterday they’d shown comfortable balances, but
last night’s call had accelerated the need for an urgent cash
injection. The
cash she needed was certainly
coming,
in less than two weeks both
the fucking
and her
new super-salary would start, but until then she was only on half
pay, and anyway, even
then she’d
still have to wait until the end of the month until she was paid. She
needed the
money
now to avert possible disaster. She
thought back to her
time
as a student in Timisoara, when life had been so much simpler. All
she’d ever had to worry about was boys
and clothes and make-up. There hadn’t even been much in the way of
social media in those days in Romania. Then
she
remembered how her work desk had been plastered with post-it stickers bearing
motivational
aphorisms
she’d
picked up from teachers and lecturers and from various self-help
books, things like “Hope
Is Not A Strategy” and “If You Do Nothing, Nothing Will Happen.”
One of
these trite
maxims had
been
“The Root Cause Of Fear
Is Ignorance”. Another had been “Worry And Stress Are Solved By Decision And
Action.” She
thought about this. Of
course they were trite,
but these
tired cliches also
contained an element of truth.
From
there it didn’t take her long to decide her course of action. “No
Time
Like
The
Present”!
It was her only way forward, her only option. In
a way she felt relieved.

 

--------------------------------------

 

They
were all in the kitchen. The kids were sat at the table in their
pyjamas whilst Elena was at the cooker warming milk for them to take
to bed. Martyn was in his rocking chair engrossed in his laptop
screen. Elena kept glancing at him, trying to assess his mood but it
was difficult. Eventually she plucked up the courage to speak.

 

“Martyn,
after I’ve put the children to bed can I have a few minutes with
you, there’s something I’d like to discuss. It’s no big deal,
just admin really. Is that OK?”

 

She
tried to sound offhand and casual. Martyn looked up from his laptop
and smiled.

 

“Of
course. Just come and find me whenever you’re ready. I’ll
probably be in the upstairs study.”

 

He
went back to his laptop and Elena poured the kids’ milk. Thirty
minutes later, with
the kids in bed, she knocked softly on Martyn’s partly
open
study door. He
sat behind his desk facing the door and spoke without looking up from his screen.

 

“Hi
Elena, come in, sit down, make yourself at home, I’ll be with you
in a minute, just let me finish this mail.”

 

He
gestured to the leather armchair diagonally across from his desk. She
sat down. She took several deep breaths but tried to do it so that
Martyn wouldn’t notice. The only light came from his screen and the
desk lamp. She tried to compose herself. Then with a final flourish
at the keyboard Martyn turned to look at her. He spoke cheerfully.

 

“Right.
That will do for now. Good. So, what’s going on? How are you
settling in? From what I’m seeing you seem to be doing fine. Is it
how you imagined it? Are the kids behaving themselves?”

 

She
forced a fragile smile.

 

“Yes,
I’m settling in fine so far thanks, and the kids are great. It’s
funny how different they are. Felix is so grown-up and Katy’s such
a cheeky little monkey, but they’re both very well-behaved when I
tell them to be.” She smiled and held up a hand with the fingers
crossed. “No problems so far.”

 

“Great,
I’m glad, that’s good to hear. I’m sure there will be some
teething problems but I know you’ll be fine. So anyway what’s up?
What was it you wanted to see me about? How can I help?”

 

“Well
Martyn,” she faltered nervously, but only briefly. “As you
remember, before I started here you kindly agreed that after Caroline
left I could have a couple of weeks to … to transition, to get used
to my surroundings, to my new environment, before we…” she
faltered again, but this time it was to find the right words. “Before
we fully implemented all the terms of our contract.”

 

“Yes
of course. Of course I remember that. And it’s fine. Please don’t
worry yourself about it. Just get yourself settled in and when you’re
ready we’ll take it from there. It’s not a problem. Relax.”
(But we ain’t going past two weeks Sweet-cheeks.)

 

“But
Martyn, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I am relaxed. It
isn’t a problem for me. It really isn’t. I’ve been here over a
week now, I’m settled, I feel comfortable and safe and I’m not
sure I need the two weeks. In fact I’ve thought about it and I’m
ready to go ahead, with all the terms of the contract.”

 

Martyn
raised a hand, palm facing Elena.

 

“All
the terms of the contract?” He put the stress on “All”.

 

“Yes,
all of them.”

 

“Whoa!
Hang on a minute. Just let me make sure I understand you correctly.
Are you saying that you are ready to start sleeping in my room, in my
bed, with me?” He looked a little bemused, uncertain. “You’re
ready to have sex with me?”

 

“I’m
assuming that as soon as I start sleeping in your room I will go onto
my full salary?”

 

“Yes,
of course.”

 

“Then
I’m ready to go ahead.”

 

There
was a pause of several seconds. Martyn broke the silence.

 

“Elena,
are you sure about this?”

 

“Yes
Martyn, I’m sure.”

 

“OK
then. Fine. So when do you want to move forward.”

 

“We
can move forward now, tonight.” She tried to maintain eye contact
but failed. “Why not? Don’t you say in English, ‘No time like
the present.’?”

 

“OK,
good.”

 

His
phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen without picking it up then
reached for his diary and made a note.

 

“Fine.
Great. Well as you know I go to bed around eleven-ish and then I
normally read till around midnight. Come in any time you’re ready
between eleven and twelve.”

 

“OK.
Sounds good.” She paused. “But Martyn…there’s just one
thing.”

 

“Yes?”

 

She
took a deep breath. She reminded herself to talk calmly, slowly, in a
measured fashion and to control the pitch of her voice:

 

“It’s
just that, it’s just that I need an advance, an advance on my new
salary, I’m a bit short of money at the moment.” She looked like
she was studying the business books on the study shelves but she was
seeing nothing.

 

“Well
fine, I’m sure we can sort something out, but I must admit I’m a
little curious. Why would you need an advance? You hardly have any
expenses here, you’ve nothing to spend it on?”

 

But
before Elena could respond he spoke again.

 

“Don’t
worry. Don’t reply. It’s none of my business and I shouldn’t
have asked. How much do you need?”

 

“A
month’s salary. A month’s full salary.”

 

“A
month? Bloody hell! I wasn’t expecting that! I thought you were
going to say a couple of hundred quid!” He leaned back on his chair
and crossed his hands behind his head. A few seconds passed and
no-one spoke. “Look Elena, it’s rally important for you and me
but especially for the kids, and especially with the arrangement we
are going to have that our relationship is built on trust, we need to
trust each other implicitly, absolutely. So fine. We can start here
and now. A month’s salary. OK, I trust you. I’ve got your bank
details. Leave it with me. Please don’t let me down.”

 

“I
won’t Martyn, I promise.”

 

“Good.
Thanks. I hope not. So, are we done?”

 

“I
think so. So, I’ll see you later.” She started to get up.

 

“Oh,
just before you go...I must say this has come as a very pleasant
surprise.” He didn’t actually look very pleasantly surprised.
“Just out of curiousity, and again it’s not really any of my
business, but why the change of heart? Obviously you asked for an
advance. Is it something to do with money? I wouldn’t want you to
do anything you’re not ready for because of money. I’m sure we
could have sorted something out.” He used ‘could have’, the
past tense. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook now.

 

“It’s
nothing. Just a few unexpected expenses.”

 

“Trust
Elena. Remember? Trust?”

 

“It’s
nothing, really.”

 

“OK.”
He looked at the clock on his laptop screen. “Well I’ve got a
couple of things to do. See you later.”

 

“OK.”