Authors note. This somewhat clumsy edit to two chapters was made as a result of a well placed comment about the content of the original Chapter 15 and its title. I'll have to go back to my original file to rectify it properly.
Chapter 15/1 Keeping it together.
I made my way back to the Dene Court, and lay on my bed at half past six. I wasn't hungry. I wasn't even very tired. What the hell would I do now? The emptiness of my life once work was done hit me. This was what Ruth could not help me with. Without work I was an empty shell.
I had one task to occupy me. I sat at the desk and started programming the lap-top for Ruth and my week ends. Two and a half hours later I removed my glasses and rubbed my eyes, and poured myself a scotch. It was done. Every Friday when I booted the machine up, it would consult the last throw of the two to seven dice, and if we were lucky Ruth and I would be together again. Unfortunately there was no way I could fathom of fully concealing the result from myself. I knew the file name of the stored date. I had used Norton Utilities to hide the file, but of course I could use the same program to un-hide it. I just had to be disciplined.
I rang Ruth at nine thirty.
"It's done - the computer programme."
"Oh. Good. I think. As Mandy says, it seems so bleak to wait for an electron to find the right hole in a chip. What are you doing now, my love?"
"Having a whisky and feeling at a loose end."
"What, no corporatism a la jeune femme?"
"No, she's gone back to London."
I told Ruth about our day.
"God," she said, "and you think what I do is disreputable?"
"No, sweetheart, not disreputable; inappropriate and dangerous. I agree the Railton House set up is appalling. But Liz has to find out how far the influence has spread before we can move forward. As she said, if everyone on the main board is one of Eve's clients, she won't stand an earthly. We'll just have to pull out and leave Wolfenden to a not very comfortable fate."
"That's terrible. You'd feel dreadful. All your friends scrapped because of the venality of a board of directors."
"Yes - well, I'm hoping it won't come to that."
"How does Liz feel about it?" Ruth asked.
"Oh - she was shocked. I knew of it but hadn't given it much thought until I was faced with the reality once more. Railton House had no significance for me until we were brought under the same holding company. Liz knew nothing of it until yesterday when I described it."
"We could mount a protest."
"No thank you, Ruth. It wouldn't work and it would make things more difficult."
"But the drugs side of it. Doesn't that concern you?"
"Of course it does. But I'm not so bothered about rich middle aged men shooting drugs, as I am kids getting addicted in early life and being ruined."
Ruth said with some impatience, "Sometimes I think you leave your brains behind at work, Graham. What about the little waitress in her scanty skirt and whoever all else Eve imports to satisfy her client's fantasies? They won't be middle aged. They could be Pat and Mandy's age or younger. And they'll be encouraged to take the drugs. It'll be part of the fantasy."
"Ah - yes, I see. You're right. Well, that makes it all the more necessary to get it stopped."
"I hope you mean it. If you saw how youngsters react when they have no stable background, you would realise how vulnerable they can be."
"Point taken. But it's depressing. This isn't something I'm good at dealing with."
"Well try, dearest. That's more important than building bases for radar aerials. There's an evil destructive influence that has been corrupting people for years, and probably damaging their lives."
"Yeah - sure," I said gloomily, and without a clue as to what I could do about it.
"Oh - darling, I've depressed you. I wish I could kiss you better. Have you had anything to eat since lunch?"
"No."
"Well, get a light meal or a sandwich, and a little and I mean a little, drink, and try to sleep. It'll seem better in the morning. Where will you be?"
"In the York office. We have to sort out this estimate for the Doncaster muddle. OK, my lady, I'll do as you say. I love you."
"I love you, too. Good night. Dream of us."
It was morning. I had packed, paid my bill, and waited in the shelter of the hotel door for the car to be brought. Light rain drizzled from a dark gray sky. Across the road in a little park yellow willow catkins bobbed wetly with sparkling drops. I remembered many other Friday mornings coming out of hotels after a week's work on some remote site. The happy anticipation of meeting Claire at the end of the day. And now Ruth, perhaps, soon.
But this Friday all that was to come was the hollow, cold, silent reproach of an empty house. I shut all from my mind as the porter arrived with the Granada. I put some coin into his hand in exchange for the key and he helped me put the heavy and elegant South African leather suitcase into the boot. He saw Ruth's battered, cheap, cardboard case.
"Is that for when you go slumming at Travel Inns, sir?" he said with a grin.
God, I thought, snobbery exists in every crevice of our culture. I gave him what I hoped was a sweet smile of understanding and said, "Something like that."
In the office Ellen had the new designs up on the big CAD screens, and we were scrolling through the three dimensional representations. Frowning as she manipulated the mouse, she said, "There's an enormous amount of extra work. And the planning's going to be problematic. Getting kit around the site on trailers is going to be horrendous with all those huge trenches. Look."
She tapped the keyboard briefly, and the display showed the excavations with the shuttering up and a truckway for concrete trucks, and another section being dug with the excavator safety zone, and another haulway for removing the spoil.
"It isn't practical," I said, "We're going to be stuck every five minutes not being able to move material from one point to another. The site traffic will be a nightmare. Let's put a high capacity tower crane over it. It doesn't have to be very tall. Just fast and powerful. Did we get an answer to my query about precast units for the trenches?"
"Yes, but I'm not sure I like it. They want them bolted together with gasket seals like an underground tunnel lining. It'll be expensive, and I can't lay my hands on a supplier with the capacity. I have someone working on it.
"Oh, by the way, Graham, there's a bit 'missing from the model data here. It's only a transition from the trench as it goes up the side of the big foundation. For the estimate we can lob in a sum of money, but Steve will need a drawing to build it. When you next go to Harrogate perhaps you could see your nice friendly client and find it. I expect he made a mistake in the listing he gave us and San Antonio Consultants, so we don't have that bit."
I made a note in the lap-top, and took a file from our network of all the drawing numbers that we currently held on the contract.
"Elly, when do you think you'll have a trial building simulation up and running?"
"With tower crane and precast sections?"
"Yep."
"Tuesday morning suit you?"
I picked up a mouse and zoomed away from the detail and took a perspective of the whole site which slowly rotated as if we were on a helicopter circling the plot. "You know", I said, "I'm still puzzled. What's it for?"
Ellen wrinkled her nose, "I know what you mean, but let's just get our act together and then worry about side issues."
"OK, Elly."
I returned to my office, and Betty gave me the company post that had no obvious destination. It was mostly sales literature. I asked her to pass it to purchasing.
There was the formal letter from Carlton accepting my contractual stance on the Doncaster project.
I said to Betty, "OCR it into the system and give Liz a hardcopy. She'll need hardcopy until we allocate her an E-address on the system. Then frame the original, and give it to her. She deserves it."
"Did she do well?"
"Betty, she was something else. Had hard-man Carlton wincing as his knuckles cracked."
"I don't care about his knuckles. What about his balls?"
"Betty! I'm surprised at you."
"You didn't take that call from him the day before yesterday."
"I think Liz effectively castrated him."
"Great. Then there is some justice in this world."
There was an assessment of corporation tax from the Inland Revenue. I really didn't know what to do about it. That was a take-over matter. I put it in a file to discuss with Liz on Monday. I also made a note to discuss with Liz what to do about our bank account. We now only had one signatory to the account and if our commercial manager fell ill we were stuck for cash and paying bills and salaries. The holding company might want us to change our bank.
The more these matters, provoked by the post, crowded in on me the less comfortable I felt. These were not things I wanted to deal with any longer. I wanted to tackle Railton House, and uncover the puzzle of what we were building at Doncaster.
I could get a good brain thinking about that last. I rang Ellen. "Elly, can you transmit the new model to the Doncaster site computer for Steve - as a separate fileset. I don't want it to override their current working file until we've agreed the contract again with Uncle Sam."
"Sure. Er - bit of a traffic problem on the modems, would this afternoon do?"
"Oh, sure. It's no priority matter."
I was restless. Liz had made it very clear she wanted me to ensure Wolfenden was secure whilst her back was turned. It was only through loyalty to Liz that I surfed the company network to get a feel for the workload and contract status that day. All seemed under control. I telephoned two of the sites where data transmission seemed tardy. They gave acceptable reasons for the delay and a satisfactory recovery plan. I went to see Smedhurst but found he'd gone to visit a customer. I looked at his diary. He seemed to be doing the right things.
Betty put through a couple of calls from the MD's of clients I knew. They both said much the same thing, glad to hear you are still around; stupid mistake to remove the three directors; what's this Ms Norton like? I said I'd ensure that Liz visited them to introduce herself.
My internal tension increased as the day ground slowly to the time I could reasonably say to Betty that I would make tracks for home and I left with a cold ball of dread creating a sick feeling in my stomach.
Chapter 15/2 Offloading the Past
The easiest route to Burnley from York passed Ruth's place. To avoid the temptation to drop in on her, I took the main motorway route by the A64 to the centre of Leeds, picking up the M621, and then the M62 as it wound through the lower folds of the Pennines, partly covered with elderly and depressed housing and old mills, the remainder moorland and sheep pasture by turns. The rain still drizzled down. The traffic was sluggish. My ulcer twisted my stomach. I swallowed another Zantac.
At Elland, I left the motorway, took the twisting road around the busy rush hour outskirts of Halifax, and then shunted in traffic queues along the gloomy Calder valley, with the dark stone built towns and settlements strung almost end to end with dark three syllable names: Luddenfoot, Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, and Todmorden.
I arrived at the house and bumped up the drive in front of the double garage. It was dark, and the sodium streetlighting cast its unloving orange glow over the unlit building, the roof surfaces slick shiny from the rain. I withdrew case and lap-top from the boot, locked the car, let myself into the cold-smelling dampness of the hall, and, stepping over the accumulations of post, disarmed the burglar alarm.
I snapped the hall light on, but the bulb had gone. I'd probably left it on when I departed last time anyway.
I cut myself off from any sensation and turned lights, the heating, and the water on. I made coffee with instant granules and Coffee Mate, and a meal with instant potato and a plastic packed chile-con-carne in the microwave.
I threw the junk mail into the trash bin, this left a desperate letter from a friend of Claire's I'd not met, seeking news of her; and the inevitable bills. I tapped what I hoped was an empathetic letter into the lap-top, and printed it out on the old nine pin printer in my study bedroom. The screen of the IBM AT compatible I had possessed for eleven years looked blankly at me. I switched it on. Miraculously it had retained the location of the boot file and came to life.
The machine started in wordprocessing mode. I looked at my files. Then I realised I had a resource which I had previously neglected. Stored there was about two megabytes of creative writing. That was some 350,000 words or three novel's worth, and the electronic equivalent of a Victorian commonplace book. I recalled that Claire had lovingly and carefully preserved letters I had sent to her during my travelling days, with descriptions of places as far apart as Bolivia and Zambia, and construction and travel anecdotes. Surely I could turn that material into something?
I found the shoe box of letters in the bottom of Claire's wardrobe, in the main bedroom. I hadn't been in here since she died. Our double bed was unmade as I had left it when the hospital had called to say she was making her final exit.
The ultimate horror of that night, which my mind had up to now prevented me from remembering except in thin time slices, hit me in its totality like a rockfall blasted from a quarry face. I experienced again the heat and scents of a fine July night and the beauty of a full moon as I listened to the dread words on the phone from night sister; the rapid drive to the hospital; the trot, my heart hammering, along shiny-floored, fluorescent lit corridors to the intensive care unit; the desperate pinging of the heart monitor, and the surprising strength of the grasp of Claire's thin hard hand on mine and her gritted determined voice through the pain, as she made her final contract with me, her grey eyes now surrounded by black wells, "Keep going for me, Graham. Whatever happens, Promise me? Promise me my darling." I kissed her now bony-cheeked gaunt, sallow face, on the lips.
She grimaced with pain, lines etching on her face. I cried to the doctor, "Stop the pain for God's sake - she's had enough." The doctor, young enough to be our son, hesitated. The older nurse with tears in her eyes pushed him in the back. The hypodermic glinted in the cold light.
We waited another hour. Then Claire sighed, and I swear she smiled, as the heart monitor stopped pinging and the continuous smooth sine wave sounded, and her grip on my hand, and her life relaxed.
The faint air of her perfume still hung around the clothes. The tears came, but I daren't stop now. I left little drops of salty moisture on furniture, in dust that hadn't been disturbed for three years. I had to go right through the house marking anything that was not to be sold. Every so often I would encounter a forgotten object that would fasten to a string of memories and wind them into my consciousness like a strand of spaghetti onto a fork through the tangled heap still on the plate. I carried on with what I had to do in a fever of concentrated activity, mumbling out the memories as though I were telling someone else.
An unknown time later I had finished the house. I had several black bags of things that were rubbish, or unsaleable, or just too intimate a part of our life together to think of passing on to strangers. Most of what was to be kept was in the study. I had emptied the desk, and shunted that onto the landing. The contents I kept with the computer. My music keyboard and amplifier were now in the study.
The rest of the furniture, clothes, linen, crockery and cutlery would go. I kept the spare bed and a change of its linen. I moved Claire's jewellery box into the spare bedroom to join her wedding band that she had worn throughout the long illness, and I had left on the window ledge untouched since my return from the hospital. I lifted it and exposed the white circle in the grey dust.
I looked in the garage, the greenhouse, and garden shed. There was nothing I wanted. I rummaged through the lockers, pockets and boots of the two cars. I found nothing but parking and entrance tickets and a torn Durex case which stirred five and more year old memories of car shows we'd attended, and one frantic weekend holiday after I'd been away for a month, when we watched the summer sunrise, on a lonely stretch of sand dunes in Devon and felt the acute need for one another.
I returned to the house, and searched the cellar, bringing up a dozen or so bottles of red wine I'd laid down. There wasn't anything to keep here. The workshop I'd kitted out could be sold too.
In the kitchen I poured a tumbler of malt whisky, and gulped half of it down, the spirit vapourously invading and comfortably numbing my brain. I topped up the tumbler.
There was a banging at the front door. A police-woman who looked as though she might still be at school, looked searchingly and gravely at me from under her round black hat with a chequered band and said, "Are you the owner of this house, sir?"
I nodded.
"Might I see around?"
"Sure," I croaked, and cleared my throat, "Come in."
I led her into the hall and then the kitchen. Her radio squawked. She replied briefly into it.
"Is there anyone else here, sir?"
"No, not now."
"How do you mean - not now?"
"My wife used to live here but she died. Nearly three years ago."
"Have you proof of identity, sir?"
My jacket was hung over a kitchen chair, and I extracted my wallet from it and passed it to her.
The mobile trilled. "Wisheart."
"Oh Graham, I was so worried when you didn't ring this evening. I couldn't wait any longer. Are you alright my dear?"
"Yes. Oh Ruthie, I'm sorry I just concentrated on sorting out for tomorrow, and forgot the time. I have the police with me now, presumably checking on the unaccustomed activity at -," I looked at the turquoise-lit numbers on the cooker," - Jesus - four in the morning?"
The policewoman nodded.
"What are you doing up this late - early?" I asked, "Sweetheart you could have rung earlier if you were worried."
"I don't think I have the right to be so possessive, but I couldn't sleep and worry overcame that feeling, knowing where you are."
"You have the right, we've argued that before. But you also have the right not to be worried. I'll ring you before eleven every night unless we agree otherwise. Is that a deal?"
"It's a sweet deal. Now you'd better talk to the law. Get some sleep. Love you."
"You too. I love you. Goodbye."
"New wife, sir?"
"No - marriage isn't quite the same thing when you're our age. Let's say we are committed to each other."
"I saw that. Sorry for disturbing you Mr Wisheart," she said passing the wallet back to me, "You look as though you should go to bed, and perhaps your night cap could usefully be dispensed with."
"No, I'm afraid that's a customary need."
She picked up the glass and then looked at the bottle, and coming closer sniffed my breath, "Well sir, if we see that Granada out much before noon tomorrow we'll be giving the driver a breath test. Alright?"
"Understood er -"
"Police Constable Angela Wright, sir."
She stepped out of the door, turned back, and looked at me, no longer a police constable but a sympathetic young woman.
"Take care. It's a bad time for you. I wouldn't want to have to make it worse."
"Thank you. Goodnight."
"Good morning, now," she said gently.
I took another draught of the whisky and then poured the rest back into the bottle. Leaving everything exactly as it was I set the alarm for eight and fell onto the bed and slept.
The next morning I remembered the loft. Struggling mightily with ladders and the trap I heaved rolls of old carpet, suitcases of papers and the other bric-a-brac of the eighty combined years of Claire's and my lives, to the landing floor. I remembered Claire saying after we had attended the funeral of an old gentleman she had looked after in a Nursing Home, "It was strange. He had lived such a full life but all he brought to the Home was a tatty photograph album, some ornaments and half a dozen framed photo's. We put them up for him, but he never referred to them. It was as if, now that part of his life was behind him, they were no longer relevant. 'I have my memories' was all he would say."
I now understood what he felt.
The chaos on the landing was now unbelievable. I stepped over piles of cardboard boxes, files, old suitcases, a guitar, three keyboards of varying antiquity, the collapsed components of a harmonium, bundles of paper, twenty years of Christmas cards, Christmas decorations, and empty cartons and packaging for electronic kit. I was hoarse from the dust and sweaty with effort.
I tidied the landing so that I could get around without leaping piles of bric a brac. I felt nauseous, and sat down on a roll of carpet. The dusty canvas smell enveloped me.
Realising that I felt bad because I hadn't eaten that day I Went downstairs. There was a limited choice. I washed my hands at the kitchen sink and made a sort of risotto with savoury rice, prawns, white fish, and brocolli florets and opened one of the bottles of red wine.
I was about half way through the meal. The bell rang, and the car auctioneer was at the front door. He was smartly dressed in a suit, young, blue eyed, had dark floppy hair, was clean shaven and irrepressibly cheerful.
"Hello Mr Wisheart. Joe Mingan. I'm from ECA Classics. You have a couple of cars you want to place."
"Come in. Look I'm finishing a late lunch. Do you mind?"
"No - no. Carry on." He regarded me slightly suspiciously.
"Glass of wine?"
"Mmm, that'd be nice."
"There's some more of this whatever-it-is I've made, if you'd like some?"
"Er - no. That looks a bit - um - special."
I laughed, "It's odds and ends from the freezer. It's really pretty good -"
Together we said "Considering."
"Even so," he said with a smile, "I think the wine would best stand on its own without the fish. Looking at the label."
"Yes, it's something I found in the cellar."
"Tell you what, while you're eating, can you show me any documentation on the cars?"
I handed him two thick files of bills, MOT's, insurance certificates, manuals and books.
He happily looked through the files, and I finished the food.
He took another mouthful of the wine. "This is good."
I held the bottle over his glass. He said, "Yes please, but regretfully, this must be the last, thank you." He still had that speculative look in his eyes.
I refilled my glass, and now the fish taste had been absorbed it was good.
"Well you've a fair history and back up for the cars but no servicing receipts. Presumably because you did it yourself. Unfortunately these days it detracts from the value. Still, depends on the current condition. The office told me they were your wife's, and you lost her three years ago. I'm sorry."
"Thank you. Would you like to see them?"
The fluorescent lighting illuminated the heavy but graceful lines of the Jaguar Mark IX, huge by today's standards, and the more lithe small body of the MGA coupe with the bulbous hood erected. I opened the garage door to give more light.
"Nice," said Joe after ten minutes on each car, "Will they run?"
"They haven't for three years, but they did up to then and they've been here ever since."
"OK, I'd set a reserve of nine k on the Jag and four and a half on the MG. If you can get the engines running, and take them off their blocks, and they run reasonably well add a k to each. I've seen enough."
Back in the kitchen he said, "Could you get them running by Sunday next? I'll pop in to see, and agree the reserve at say three. OK?"
I nodded, "Yes, I'll see what I can do. What happens if the reserve isn't reached at auction?"
"Well you have the option of taking them back, or leaving them with us and we'll discuss a new reserve price. If you leave them with us for more than two auctions we start to charge storage. Remember under our classic scheme the cars are under cover. The run of the mill stuff is in the yard."
"That seems fair. OK Joe. I'll look forward to seeing you Sunday next."
"Sure. Um - perhaps I shouldn't say this since you're obviously going through the wringer, but you'd look a little less distressed if you cleaned yourself up. Keep strong."
He shook my hand warmly.
In the bathroom I saw myself in the mirrored wall. The explanation of his speculative looks was in my dirty grey face streaked where the tears had run. My white shirt over the suit trousers all grey and covered in brown strands from carpet backing. I should have changed before embarking on this lot. So much for being the professional manager.