Cathy Glass - Run, Mummy, Run

At five past two, when Aisha had almost given up hope, the phone rang and she snatched it up. ‘Aisha Hussein,’ she said.

‘Aisha, it’s Mark.’ Thank goodness , she thought. His voice was exactly as she remembered it – as she had continuously recalled it since Friday. ‘I’m sorry I’ve left it so late,’ he said. ‘I got held up. Is it still OK to talk?’

‘Yes, but I might get interrupted.’

‘Me too. Sorry,’ he said again. ‘We’ll have to have a code word to alert each other when we’re not alone. Something we wouldn’t normally use like “sausages” or “wellington boot”.’

Aisha laughed. ‘Wellington boot. We could have done with them on Friday.’

‘Too right,’ he said, then paused and lowered his voice in intimacy. ‘It was a lovely evening, Aisha. I’ve thought about nothing else all weekend. I hope you didn’t mind Belinda calling?’

‘Not at all. The go-between.’

‘Yes. But it’s no longer necessary now, I hope. I just needed the reassurance, after everything I’ve been through. You do understand, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘I was beginning to think I was having an early mid-life crisis,’ Mark said. ‘I took work home and brought it back again, untouched, I couldn’t concentrate on anything. Aisha, it really was a lovely evening. Damn,’ he said and stopped. She heard a noise at his end that sounded like a door opening and closing. ‘Wellington boot coming soon,’ he laughed. ‘Let’s arrange to meet quickly before I get interrupted again. Are you free tomorrow?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Great. I could pick up some tickets for the theatre. We could eat first, if you’re coming straight from work.’

‘That would be lovely.’ She paused as Grace knocked on the door; then poked her head round, signalling her two o’clock appointment had arrived. ‘I have a wellington boot here too,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘It must be very muddy out there. Look, I’ll collect you from work at six. Is that all right with you?’

‘Yes, fine. I’ll wait outside the office.’

‘Until tomorrow then. Take care. You’re already very special, Aisha. I can’t believe how lucky I am – an old geezer like me.’

And so it began, his courtship, her romance. Whirlwind, yes, but given their ages and circumstances that wasn’t so very strange. For, as Mark said and Aisha agreed, they had both lost too much time already in going down the wrong path, and had a lot of catching up to do. Mark always managed to say and do the right thing; he was always the perfect gentleman, and wholly attentive to her needs.

In the six months that followed, they spent every available minute together and Aisha felt that all her dreams had come true. She and Mark talked endlessly about anything and everything – the myriad of little incidents that shape us and make us who we are. Mark met her parents and, although he still wasn’t close to them, she met his. He introduced her to his work colleagues and friends, of which there were many, for with his sympathetic ear and ready wit Mark attracted people like bees around a honeypot. By the time Aisha told her parents that Mark was divorced, carefully explaining the circumstances – how he had worked hard and had been badly deceived – they were so impressed with him, and he had become so much a part of their family that other than a couple of questions from her father about his children, it wasn’t an issue.

* * *

‘So did I miss something?’ she asked herself later, when she sat night after night, alone in her armchair, answering the inspector’s questions, trying to get it right in her mind. ‘Did I miss something in the headiness of it all, when Mark literally swept me off my feet? Something that a different person might have seen? A seed of doubt, borne on the wind of chance that should have been harvested and grown to fruition? Would a different person have said, Now stop, wait a minute, that doesn’t quite add up. Would they? Was there a clue?’

And looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, she could see that there might have been: one clue, one crack in the otherwise unblemished china. A fine line of repair where the glue had been applied too liberally, and had set prominent over the join. So had she been more worldly-wise, she might have looked more closely, and then asked how it had been broken in the first place. But the clue, if it was one, came immediately before Mark proposed, and you don’t question the man who’s just asked you to marry him. Of course you don’t, not if you’re as much in love as Aisha was.

Chapter Eight

It was a clear, cold day in late October, when the autumn sun shone through the trees and sent little shafts of sunlight onto the hard earth. Hand in hand, Aisha and Mark made their way along the edge of the field, stopping every so often to pick up pine cones. They examined them, discarded the mildewed ones and, keeping only the best, dropped them into the carrier bag that swung from Aisha’s arm. A little childish rivalry had developed between them, a competition to see who could discover the biggest, the most perfect pine cone: the one that would be used in the centrepiece on their dinner table on Christmas Day.

Aisha had collected pine cones every year for as long as she could remember, spending an afternoon foraging in the countryside with her parents. Once they had collected enough cones, they would return home for her mother’s piping hot dhal , which she’d prepared the night before and said would ‘warm their bones’. After they’d eaten, Aisha would carefully wash the pine cones and spread them on newspaper to dry in the airing cupboard. Once dry, they were put away until December, when she painted them silver and gold, and used them as Christmas decorations, fresh ones every year.

Only this year, Aisha wasn’t doing it with her parents. She was doing it with Mark, who had fitted so perfectly and completely into her life, it was as though he had always been there.

‘Your house must look beautiful at Christmas,’ Mark said, brushing off the dirt from yet another find. ‘I confess, I haven’t put up decorations in recent years, there didn’t seem much point.’

‘And is there one now?’ Aisha teased, sure of his response.

‘Oh, without doubt. But I’m glad I’m coming to your house just the same. It will be a proper family Christmas. My first in ages.’

He put his arm around her shoulders, and drawing her to him, kissed her lightly on the cheek. He often did this – in the street, out shopping, meeting her from work, and when they were alone. It was a little statement of affection that said they were together, a couple, and she was his.

‘Our Christmases are very quiet,’ Aisha said, glancing up, a little concerned. ‘I hope it’s not too quiet for you. There’s just my parents and a few friends who drop by. I’ll make sure we have some decent wine in for you though. No one else drinks.’

Mark laughed good-humouredly and gently squeezed her shoulder. ‘Never mind the wine. I’ll be with you, that’s what counts. It will be my best Christmas ever, decent wine or not.’

He dropped his arm from her shoulders as they left the edge of the field, and then climbed over the stile into the wood. Mark led the way along the narrow, untrodden path, for only he knew where they were going. It had been his suggestion that they came here, when Aisha had told him of her proposed outing, and had asked him if he would like to join her.

‘I know just the place,’ he said, matching her enthusiasm. ‘Plenty of pine trees and very few people. It’s quite a walk as I remember, you can only take the car so far. It’s well off the beaten track.’

Aisha said she didn’t mind a walk, in fact she enjoyed one. And going somewhere different would make it all the more exciting, particularly as this year it was with him.