Ken McClure: Lost causes

There was a knock on the door and the waiter entered.

‘So we’re all agreed about the changes to the fourteenth hole and the ladies’ tee on the fifteenth?’ said Black.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Would you like some menus now, Mr Black?’ asked the waiter.

‘You know, I think we would.’

Melissa Carlisle arrived back at Markham House, the wedding present from her father where she and John had lived all the years of their marriage, the last ten of them in complete misery as far as Melissa was concerned. She watched the taxi crunch off down the gravel drive to be let out by the two policemen on the gates — there to keep the small posse of cold, miserable press photographers at bay. If they were expecting tea, they could swivel.

She felt very low. She had spent the last few days being lectured by her father, who insisted that women like her did not leave their husbands at times like this. It mattered not one jot that John was a useless waste of space. She hadn’t taken his advice at the time, and now it was far too late. It was her duty to stand beside her husband in his hour of need. That’s what people of her sort did. Argument had proved useless. Times might have changed but core values hadn’t, her father had pronounced before packing her off back home as if she were a rebellious teenager not wanting to return to school after the holidays. Her mother had kept quiet throughout.

Melissa unlocked the front door, thought about announcing that she was back, then changed her mind and flung her keys down on the hall table. The noise echoed upwards. She walked through to the kitchen where she switched on the kettle and stood looking out of the window at the grounds while she waited for the expected Is that you? to come. It didn’t.

Melissa wondered whether he was out but his car was there, a grey Range Rover sitting in front of the garage. She made her tea and took it through to the drawing room where she picked up the morning paper and sat down to read it. She found she couldn’t concentrate: she certainly didn’t want to but she kept wondering where he was. In the end she threw down the paper and walked out into the hall. ‘John,’ she called, trying to make it sound as flat and uncaring as possible. God, it was awful what so much loathing did to you, she thought. ‘John?’ There was no reply.

She went upstairs and checked his study before knocking on the door of his bedroom — they’d had separate rooms since the business involving his secretary some years before. There was no response but she looked in anyway, considering he might have climbed into the bottle and passed out as he often did when problems came to call. The room was empty. The bed was made… but it was made properly, the way Mrs Allan, their cleaner, did it. But this wasn’t her day… and neither was yesterday.

Melissa walked slowly up to it and smoothed the top cover unnecessarily. The bed hadn’t been slept in for the past two nights. Just what the hell was he up to? What parliamentary ‘researcher’ was he pouring his heart out to this time, before pulling her pants down? But his car was there. Where the hell was he?

Melissa cursed as she opened the back door and saw it had started to rain heavily. She pushed it to while she put on wellington boots and a Barbour jacket before stepping outside and hurrying over to the garage and stable block. ‘John, are you there?’

She found John in the stables. He was hanging from a roof beam.

Melissa felt her heart miss a beat as she stood there transfixed by the sight of his face. It was blotchy purple and white, and his swollen tongue was lolling out of the side of his mouth, making him look like some hideous gargoyle on the wall of a medieval cathedral. His body was turning slowly in response to the draught coming in from the open door. Above him the rain battered mercilessly on a small skylight.

‘Oh, Christ,’ she murmured as she moved in closer to remove the envelope pinned to a rail. It was addressed to her. In it, John apologised for all the pain and distress he had caused, not only to her but to his constituents as well. He understood their anger but hoped that in time they would come to see that it had been a genuine error of judgement.

Melissa looked up at the body, her eyes showing a mixture of frustration and anger. ‘A suicide note…’ she murmured, ‘and you bloody typed it.’

Steven was sitting with his feet up, reading the paper, when Tally got home at six thirty. ‘Here as promised,’ she announced. She was slightly flushed from hurrying.

‘Well done,’ said Steven. He got up and gave her a hug. ‘A whole evening to ourselves. What takes your fancy, dinner or a movie?’

‘Why don’t you choose? I’ve been the one working late all the time.’

‘Dinner,’ said Steven. ‘We haven’t had the chance to sit down and talk for ages.’

‘Okay, I’ll shower and make myself smell nice while you decide where we’re going.’

Steven’s suggestion of Italian was warmly received by Tally. ‘Any particular reason?’ she asked.

‘I thought we might go to Bar Firenze. We enjoyed it last time: noisy, cheerful, chaotic, and Italians make great sweets.’

‘And I can flirt with the waiters.’

‘While I have a second sweet.’

‘As if I would,’ said Tally, sidling over and putting her hands on Steven’s shoulders, ‘when I’ve already got the best.’

‘Madam is too kind,’ said Steven, kissing her lightly on the lips. ‘Come on, hurry up. Time and pasta wait for no man.’

‘So how was your day?’ he asked as they sipped an aperitif. He thought he saw a questioning look appear briefly in Tally’s eyes. ‘Isn’t that what people like us say?’

‘Yes,’ she conceded, disappointed at the implication that he might be playing a part. ‘I suppose it is. My day was hectic, stressful, frustrating and thoroughly unsatisfying as they all are these days in a health service that’s falling to bits. I spend half my time dealing with management demands that I tick boxes and meet targets stipulated by politicians who don’t actually give a damn about anyone but themselves but are determined to create the impression that they do. It’s all about image. Substance doesn’t matter as long as things look right on the surface.’

‘I wish I hadn’t asked. But if that’s the case, it does leave a rather obvious question begging to be asked, doctor…’

Tally looked thoughtful for a moment, as if considering a slap-down, but then decided that the question did merit an answer. ‘Because… there comes a time, through all the shit and management crap, when it’s just me and a sick kid and I’m the one who can make the difference… and when I’ve made it and the kid walks off the ward, trailing his little Thomas the Tank Engine suitcase behind him and Mum and Dad have that look in their eyes — that special look — there’s just no feeling like it.’

Steven swallowed and nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

‘How was your day, doctor?’

Steven gave an apologetic shrug, trying to avoid giving an answer after what had gone before, but Tally’s expression made it plain she was waiting for one. ‘I attended a management meeting this morning. The company knew about the agreement over vaccine production we heard about this morning on the radio. It’s considering a big change in emphasis.’

‘You mean it’s going to tender for the manufacturing contract?’ asked Tally.

Steven nodded.

‘You’re right; that is a big change in emphasis. I hope they’ve thought it through.’

‘Although it’s not a party political thing, they seem to think that the fact it was a Conservative initiative might well help the party’s cause in the election. They see that as a good thing.’