| Patching
Up
by Angela Petch
Dorothea chips away at the oak shelves, removing layers of gloss to reveal
beautiful wood beneath. To see the piece of furniture in its original
state feels uncomfortably symbolic. Once upon a time, years ago, her marriage
had also been beautiful, before ‘life’ took over. She sighs,
peels off her rubber gloves and chucks the scraping knife into the corner
of her workshop. She snaps off the radio. The afternoon play has rubbed
salt into the wound, with its saccharine love story. She moves outside
to the patio. The watery sun is unsatisfying and gloomy. She hasn’t
smoked for a couple of years but suddenly feels the need for nicotine.
Patrick will be home soon, with his city-grey complexion and weary footsteps
trudging down the garden path. She hasn’t even thought about preparations
for their evening meal. She would like to eat out but it’s only
Tuesday and Patrick needs quiet evenings and early nights to get through
to Fridays.
On the train, Patrick struggles to keep awake. He fights the rocking rhythm
of the 18.15 carrying him away from the city to the manicured suburbs.
He flips his newspaper to the back page and attempts 9 down. 10 letters:
three( muddled Italian); men tire- anag.
Tire – yes, a man can tire of this existence, he thinks as he stares
at the ribbons of tatty back-gardens along the track. Still, only another
two years until…
‘Retirement!’ he exclaims, to the surprise of his fellow passengers
who smile at the balding man in the corner of the carriage. Patrick smiles
too and starts the crossword.
Dorothea has found a stray packet of cigarettes in her workshop. She inhales
and sips her wine. It is only 5.30 but she needs this drink. She needs
to dilute the news she received earlier in the day at the hospital. Usually
she waits for Patrick and they take their pre-dinner drinks listening
to the 7 o’clock news. Dorothea puffs away and then succumbs to
a coughing fit. She grimaces and grinds the cigarette with her heel. She
returns to the summer-house which has become her work-shop since the children
left home. A Victorian hoop-backed bedroom chair hangs from the ceiling.
By the window stands an Edwardian dress-maker’s dummy clothed in
antique lace.
Dorothea likes to turn it towards the panes so it resembles a woman waiting.
On the floor is a pile of mildewed volumes of Shakespeare, too worn and
tatty for sale. She picks one from the top, finds her scissors and spends
a pleasant half hour selecting the correct letters for her purpose, her
tongue resting on her upper lip as she concentrates on the task. Then
she glues the shapes onto a torn sheet of music from an old song-book.
The letters dance their message between the crotchets and quavers:
YOUR WIFE IS HAVING AN AFFAIR.
Dorothea drops the sheet into a brown envelope. On the outside she pastes
more letters:
Mr Patrick Swilland
On a whim she adds esquire. She likes the importance as she reads it aloud.
She pops the envelope into her handbag and then goes to the kitchen to
peel potatoes for supper.
The next morning is Wednesday, auction day. Dorothea creeps from the house
while Patrick sleeps. Before she pulls the front-door to, she slips the
brown envelope under the post on the mat.
By 7 o’clock Patrick has showered, shaved and donned his dark suit.
He descends the stairs to retrieve the morning post. He flicks on the
kettle and glances at the bills and unwanted circulars. He opens the interesting,
brown envelope, a puzzled frown adding to the deep lines on his face.
On deciphering the message, his heart does not miss a beat; neither does
he screw up the paper and throw it into the bin in disgust. He simply
emits a single laugh, like a bark. Then he files the letter into his brief-case,
along with all the others. Patrick laughs because he cannot imagine his
wife having an affair, with her flat, grey curls and her thickened waist
and sensible brown shoes. It is too fanciful a notion.
At the sale Dorothea bids for a Georgian chest-of -drawers. It has been
painted cream but she knows she can strip it down to reveal rich, dark
mahogany. That evening she waits for Patrick to tell her about his letter
but he is absorbed in a television documentary. Aggrieved, she flicks
through Antiques Quarterly and yawns.
‘You don’t mind if I go up?’ she asks and Patrick waves
her vaguely out of the living-room. She wonders why she asks. He would
never say ‘Well, yes actually, I do mind and I want to ravage you
here and now on our floral carpet and whisper sweet nothings in your ear…’
It is not that Dorothea wants to be ravaged. She simply wants him to acknowledge
her from time to time as the woman he chose as his lover. Dorothea thinks
wistfully of their early days together: love-making in the fresh air,
on a picnic blanket, with the skylarks soaring high above in the Suffolk
sky. Of a Devon beach, with the waves crashing to the shore as they watched
out for shooting stars and made plans for the future. When money was tight,
they’d gone on ‘week-end breaks’ in their back garden.
They’d erected two tents – one for themselves and one for
the twins. They’d cooked sausages over the bonfire and Patrick had
told gruesome ghost stories so the children were too terrified to sleep
alone and all four of them had squeezed in together. Now they could afford
to go away and spoil themselves, they never do.
One week later in Patrick’s office in the city centre, there is
a lull between projects and he is sorting his paper-work. He intends to
throw out the file with the collection of strange letters. The latest
still brings a wry smile to his lips. Dorothea having an affair! He knows
she adores him – she has told him so often in the past and it is
just not in the old girl’s character to stray. What a catch she’d
been all those years ago, with her gorgeous, laughing eyes. His pals had
envied him and thumped him on his back, congratulating him on their engagement.
‘Well, well Patrick! You’re a dark horse – fancy you
landing Dorothea…well, well, well…’
In truth it was Dorothea who had done the running and coaxed him from
his shyness. They’d spent lunch-breaks together doing crosswords
and talking about everything and anything. Then he’d received an
invitation to spend a weekend with her on the Norfolk Broads. She’d
sent him an anonymous note with directions to a pub, all in crossword
clues, even down to the room number. Something along the lines of Dodie’s
canine friends. It was 101 of course. And that had been that.
Patrick decides to keep the battered file of letters.
On the train journey home, he feels unusually awake. Recently, work has
been less frantic and rumours of redundancies have materialised. He plans
how he will tell Dorothea about his early retirement. His crossword remains
untouched as he thinks happily to the future.
‘I’m home,’ he calls as he lets himself in. The paint
is blistered on the front-door but soon he will have plenty of time for
repairs. If they are to sell the house first impressions will matter and
a lick or two of fresh paint will tickle things up nicely.
Dorothea is not in the kitchen preparing supper to the sounds of Radio
4. The summer-house is locked. Then he remembers it is Wednesday. She
is probably delayed at the auction. He settles down with a glass of stout
and starts on 1 across.
At 10.30 when she still hasn’t returned, Patrick experiences a first
flutter of concern. He considers the latest letter. An affair, it said…But
Dorothea loves me, he thinks. He’d read somewhere that true love
is when you are selfless and put your lover before everything. And that
is surely what Dorothea has done, giving up her career and accepting the
moves that went along with his profession. And though he knows he doesn’t
tell her, he loves her too. So how could she possibly have an affair?
Patrick brushes his teeth and stares at the reflection of the old man
in the mirror. Where have all the years gone? Where has Dorothea gone?
In the bedroom he reaches for his pyjamas and something drops to the floor
from under the pillow. Another piece of sheet music. The name in the title
– ‘Who is Sylvia?’ - has been replaced with Dorothea.
Pasted underneath are more letters. Patrick puts on the light to decipher:
‘a tad past a century.’
Deep down, something connects in Patrick’s soul. He knows without
the slightest doubt that he must act on impulse.
He hurries downstairs, grabs his raincoat and, still wearing his pyjamas
and slippers, drives north through the dawn. As he pulls into the car-park
the thin, morning light silvers on the water next to the old pub.
In Room 101 Dorothea is drowsing. She smiles when she hears Patrick enter.
As he slips into bed beside her and snuggles into her warmth, she murmurs,
‘Thought you’d never come.’
‘I’m so sorry my love…lately I just seem to have forgotten
about us….is it too late to be your affair?’
‘We’ll talk about it in the morning you silly man. Go to sleep
now.’
She lies awake and listens to his breathing. Tomorrow they will talk.
She’ll choose her moment to gently tell him her cancer has returned.
There will be no more ‘anonymous letters’, for she needs him
to take control now.
As the sun rises, her mind still whirls with random thoughts: about what
she will do with her antiques in the summer-house, how she will leave
her latest chest-of-drawers painted. How she has read somewhere that the
distressed look is quite the thing nowadays. How they will break the news
to the twins. She stares at her husband sleeping beside her and her heart
sings because he finally understood. Better late than never she thinks
and then she falls asleep.
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