Simon Brett - The Stabbing in the Stables

“I do four to eight every weekday except Wednesday. This is my day off.”

“Not a very nice one. Freezing out there, isn’t it?”

“Certainly is. Handsome-looking dog. Labrador?”

“Mm. Called Gulliver. Extremely good-natured, but not very bright.”

“Oh, they’re good family dogs. We had one…in happier times.” Hilary sighed rather dramatically. She indicated the plastic seat opposite her. “If you’d like to join me…?”

It went against Carole’s every instinct to start fraternising with people she didn’t know. But this was different. She had been trying to find out more about Hilary Potton, she had made the initial contact, and now she was being offered a second opportunity on a plate. “Well, if you don’t mind,” said Carole, moving her tray across to the other table.

“I’m just here waiting for my daughter. She’s at the house with her father. Things are easier at the moment if we don’t meet.”

“Yes, I gathered from what you said at Allinstore that all was not well.”

Hilary Potton snorted at the inadequacy of this description. “All not well? What we’re actually talking about here is a state of total war. I’m afraid my husband and I just do not communicate. I’ve tried to build bridges, but he’s tried even harder to destroy them. Are you married?”

“I’m not wearing a wedding ring.”

“Doesn’t mean anything these days.”

“All right. I’m not married. I’m divorced.” Carole still had difficulty in saying the words.

“So will I be soon-thank God!”

“Oh yes,” said Carole, casually probing, “you implied when we spoke in Allinstore that all wasn’t well with your marriage.”

“You have a gift for understatement…I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

They quickly established their identities and addresses. Carole was cautious not to reveal that she already knew Hilary’s details. She thought further prompting might be needed to get back to the subject of the Pottons’ failing marriage, but it proved unnecessary.

“So was your story the same as mine? Husband couldn’t keep his hand out of other women’s knickers?”

“No. No.” David may have had many shortcomings, but that wasn’t one of them.

“Well, in my case, Alec-that’s my husband-so far as I can gather, he’d been at it with various women virtually from the moment we got married. And I, trusting little domestic idiot that I was, never suspected a thing. He’s always travelled a lot-he’s a salesman, so I believed all his stories about having to work late, having to stay over for conferences…and all the time…” She seethed like a kettle boiling dry. “Let me tell you, it’s going to be along time before I ever trust a man again. I think most women would be a darned sight better off without a man in their life.”

“I agree.” Carole nodded towards Gulliver, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “Dogs are much more reliable.”

“What really humiliates me is the sense that everyone else probably knew about it. All the fine folks of Fethering sniggering at me behind their hands and saying, ‘Oh, Hilary’s such a meek little fool. She hasn’t a clue what’s going on.’”

“They always say the wife’s the last one to know.”

“That’s not much comfort!” This outburst prompted a ripple of geriatric interest in the Seaview Cafe. In a lower voice, Hilary Potton apologised. “Sorry. As you may have observed, it still rather gets to me.”

The geriatrics returned to contemplating their cooling and dwindling cups of tea.

“I’m not surprised, Hilary. If it’s any comfort-and I know ‘Time is a great healer’ is a peculiarly unhelpful comment-but things do get better eventually.”

“Thanks for the ‘eventually’-that’s really cheered me up.”

“Sorry.”

“No, Carole. I do appreciate it. I’m sorry. At the moment I’m still just so…blindingly angry.”

“Maybe part of that never does go away.” Carole thought of the way David’s voice, his constant “erms” could drive her into unreasoning fury.

“It’s the selfishness of it that really gets to me. The money, apart from anything else. I mean, I’ve supported Alec all the way in his career. When I first knew him, he worked in a shop. Then I backed his decision to get a marketing training and become a salesman, which meant ‘good-bye, regular salary and hello, commission.’ And I’ve stood by him when times were hard, been prepared to tighten my belt a bit, put Imogen into the state system, dig into my own savings for her orthodontic work, forgo family holidays, that kind of thing. And now I discover that all the time Alec was spending our money-our money! — on squiring various tarts out for meals and booking them into hotels for sleazy sexual encounters. Ooh, it makes me so furious!”

Carole managed to interject a “Yes,” but that was all she was allowed.

“And the effect it’s had on Imogen-that’s our daughter-well, I just daren’t begin to imagine the harm he’s done to her by his selfish and appalling behaviour. I mean, she’s at a very difficult stage of any girl’s life, and Alec’s just adding to the pressure. This is the time when she should be forming her own ideas about the adult world, about how relationships work. What kind of an example is she getting from her father?

“And she’s feeling our change of economic circumstances. Imogen’s absolutely mad on horses, and we were getting near the point of buying her her own pony. But now, oh no, we haven’t got any money for that kind of luxury. We haven’t got any money for anything. We’ve still only got the one car and Alec has first call on that because he has to use it for his work. So that’s extremely inconvenient. And now I’m reduced to the indignity of sitting like a dumb teenager behind the till at Allinstore, simply to pay the grocery bills.”

Hilary Potton had to stop, simply to regain her breath, so Carole managed to ask, “And is Imogen as angry with her father as you are?”

“Huh. No. Isn’t that bloody typical? In a show of classic adolescent perverseness, she’s actually taking Alec’s side. She blames me for some reason. Well, I know what the reason is. It’s because I’m there all the time. I’m the one who does all the day-to-day looking after Imogen. I’m the one who sees she gets fed, that her washing gets done. I’m the one who tidies up after her and has to listen to her whinging about everything all the time. And Alec-as he always has done-just swans in every now and then, and buys her affection with treats. Even now-even when our financial circumstances are so dire-Alec keeps taking her out for meals. And, of course, because she hardly ever sees him, Imogen worships the ground he walks on. Ooh,” she seethed, “until the last eight months I hadn’t realised just how much of a disadvantage it is to be born a woman. We think we’ve all got liberated, we keep being told we have equal opportunities, but when it comes to the crunch, everything is skewed in favour of men. And we’re so powerless to do anything about it. You hear these stories of spurned wives cutting up their husband’s suits or spilling all their vintage wines or smashing up their BMWs, and until recently I’ve thought, Oh, for heaven’s sake, how petty! Recent events have changed my mind, though. I’d do anything I could to get revenge on that bastard Alec.”

Carole’s wish to find out more about Hilary Potton was certainly being fulfilled. In spades. But she reflected that, to unleash such an outburst on a virtual stranger, the woman must have very few close friends. Or maybe her fury against her husband was just so strong that anyone unwary enough to come within range was liable to get caught in the crossfire.

“You say your daughter’s interested in horses…”