Life Less Lived

JESSICA Lovage-Martin was bitterly cold and miserable as she wiped her dripping nose again. There were days, she thought, when the glamour of being on the telly, as a roving BBC regional news reporter, was not all it was cracked up to be. This was definitely one of those days. With just six shopping days to Christmas, she was standing in the middle of rural Sussex in an exposed muddy meadow.

The leafless woodland backdrop did nothing to shelter her from the freezing wind and the drizzle driving in directly from the coast, some dozen or so miles away, was insinuating every minute gap in her stylish but apparently ineffectual showerproofs.

The cameraman and director were both extremely well wrapped up, somewhat less fashionably and measurably cosier than she was, all three sheltered from the excesses of the weather behind an enormous golfing umbrella. Dave the cameraman insisted this shelter was essential for his equipment rather than any personal comfort.

The director shared the umbrella on one side of Dave with Jessica on the other but, despite the shelter covering their backs, all three were shivering. The other two were a senior team that worked together regularly, based out of the Brighton Studios. Jessica was many years their junior, usually based at the somewhat larger, more distant, Southampton Studios. Unfortunately this local news subject, the proposed route for the extension to a motorway, was in the no-man’s land mid-way between the two main population centres.

Before today Jessica had never met either of her new colleagues, although she had heard of the experienced and well-respected director by reputation alone. All afternoon the other two had been exchanging knowing glances at her growing discomfort and chipping away at her fragile self-confidence.

Even at the outset Jessica had not been made welcome, such was the only now apparent to her rivalry between the two studios. The Brighton pair seemed to think this site was in their patch and they should have been working with one of their own, more experienced, presenter colleagues. Not that Jessica was that inexperienced, although at 24 she was by far the youngest member of this temporary team. She had been working on outside broadcasts for 18 months and was hoping to get an inside anchor job over the next year or so. This afternoon, Jessica determined, that a move inside really couldn’t come soon enough.

She also decided that she hated with a vengeance both of her temporary colleagues, simply for making this day much more miserable than it could otherwise have been.

The afternoon had not started off too well at the outset, soon after Jessica introduced herself. Dave gruffly replied “Dave” and pointedly referred to her all afternoon as “Jessie”, which had always been exclusively reserved as a pet name by her parents ever since she was a little girl.

As for the director, it was a case of “you can call me ‘producer-stroke-director’, sweetheart” and had been condescendingly calling her “Sweetheart” or “Sweetie” at every opportunity since.

Now, some three hours and more after they had started filming this report, the young reporter was reluctantly preparing to emerge from sharing her companions’ meagre cover to interview the next in a seemingly inexhaustible line of mad conservationists. They were protesting against the route for an extension of the South Coast motorway scheduled to bulldoze its inexorable passage through another bunch of gloomy woods in some daft old biddy’s rural backyard.

Already, during this interminably long, grey, mid-winter afternoon, she had recorded on film some very dull interviews with half a dozen anoraked doddery old do-gooders, a couple of scruffy unwashed protesters and an enthusiastic but totally inarticulate newt-obsessed professor from Worthing University. None of them so far worth broadcasting at any time before about three o’clock in the morning. However, the mean producer/director once more passed over the shared clipboard, insisting to Jessica,

“Keep going through this repeating ritual, Sweetie, in the hope of us getting at least something barely usable by the fast approaching deadline for the six o’clock local news, otherwise, we’re fucked Sweetheart, but we techies won’t the ones who get the blame.”

In the gathering early twilight, by the camera’s harsh white light, Jessica spent a moment and checked the now soggy list of names and notes which had entries made in the producer/director’s barely-legible scrawl before moving.

“Daniel Medcalf, 54, county councillor: spec planning, rec & environment, ex MEP, local,” Jessica read.

‘Another old fogey specialising in saving the Environment,’ she surmised, he was twice her age plus another six years. ‘Oh no, another oddbod in tweed and wellies, what a fucking waste of my time.’

She emerged from the shelter of the umbrella into the freezing rain, gripping the furry sound microphone in her right hand and the clipboard in her left.

“Right, where is this paragon of Nimbyism?” she addressed the producer/director through the comms mike pinned to her coat lapel.

“Another fuckwit, no doubt,” she whispered, more to herself than the producer/director in particular, “This is going to be another waste of everybody’s time.”

“Walking towards you now, three o’clock” rasped the distorted voice through Jessica’s earpiece. “And, Sweetheart, I see we’ve saved the best for last, trust me,” said the producer/director, adding mischievously “He’s the most photogenic of the bunch so far, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind giving him some quality interviewing time. If you can’t, then this assignment is finally fucked, Sweetie.”

The cameraman’s circular pool of light panned round to Jessica’s right and a tall, slim, well-dressed man emerged from the gloom into the stark white light, blinking for a few moments as his eyes adjusted to the sudden glare, before stopping at the regulation interview distance in front of her, perfectly framed for the camera. Jessica looked him over while he approached as these slight adjustments on his part were being made.

‘Mmmm,’ Jessica thought, ‘nicely cut and fitted tan overcoat, with a glimpse of dark grey or court-coloured suit, smart cream or white shirt and neat double-Windsor knotted necktie appearing at the neck.’

Jessica was slim and relatively tall at 5ft 8ins but this Councillor Medcalf towered above her by another five or six inches. His face was handsome, Jessica thought, very handsome in fact, with a long face, strong chin, straight nose and, highlighted by the rapidly shrinking pupils, irises of deep photogenic blue. He wore a wide-brimmed tweed hat, which complemented his coat and brown leather gloves. While everyone else, including Jessica, felt chilled to the bone, he just looked, well ... cool.

The newcomer had stopped about 18 inches away from Jessica and he carefully removed his hat and gloves, tucking the gloves inside the hat and casually dropping the neat bundle by his large sensibly booted feet. He languidly brushed a long-fingered hand through his short thick hair which, in the camera lights, Jessica thought must’ve originally been a dark brown or possibly black colour but by Dave’s lamps was now delightfully decorated with flecks of steel highlights.

The councillor was ready for his interview in a matter of seconds. He had settled his frame comfortably, composed his features and was relaxed enough to smile serenely at Jessica. His smile was warm, and his lively intelligent eyes had already given her a complete once over and twinkled in the glare of Dave’s artificial light. Just for a second Jessica went ever so slightly weak at the knees.

At that moment, a sudden gust of wind and sleety rain whipped across the field, strong enough to dislodge a sizeable lock of Jessica’s damp auburn hair across her face, directly in front of her eyes. Encumbered as she was with a large furry microphone, which she was keeping out of camera shot in one hand and her clipboard in the other, she was resigned to leave the rogue tress where it lay, thankful that at least it happened while her back was to the camera.

Then Councillor Medcalf slowly lifted his left hand to her face and, with a single sweeping motion, gently swept the offending wand of hair away and smoothly tucked it behind her right ear. He removed his hand, his longest finger tip almost accidentally lightly stroking the line of her jaw and he smiled gently at her, the light dancing, she thought, in those delightful blue eyes.

Jessica’s thoughts were spontaneously filled with the words, ‘You’re absolutely gorgeous!’ and suddenly, she wasn’t entirely sure whether she had merely thought this phrase, silently mouthed it or even, to her horror, actually verbalised it. To hide the embarrassment of both his kind gentle gesture and her gushing thoughts, she rushed headlong into the interview, hoping that Dave behind her was rolling with the camera.

“Councillor Medcalf, what is so important to you and local residents about these woods behind us?...” she launched as professionally as her flustered consciousness could muster.

Medcalf’s features moulded themselves into those reminiscent of a concerned physician about to deliver your worst fears, whilst tempered with sincere encouragement for an eventual full recovery.

“Well,” he began....

{{{

Aunt Marina, as she was universally known to all her family, even somewhat condescendingly by her own siblings, had covered the 15-minute walk home from her former workplace in record time. She had ripped down the High Street and along the narrow terraced streets, turning left and right until she reached the block of flats which screamed ‘welcome home’ to her, comforted that she hadn’t been accosted by anyone she knew on her desperate homeward dash. Although her stature was quite short, barely 5ft 3in in her stockinged feet, she was spare of frame and surprisingly fit.

Marina ran without pause up the three flights of concrete stairs, 39 steps in all, and rushed down the open-air pathway to the outer door of her tiny flat on the top floor of the anonymous block of ex-council flats. Fumbling deep within her large shoulder bag, she searched for her elusive keys with watery eyes that had absolutely nothing to do with the near freezing temperatures. She eventually located them in a corner of the bag, shook out the front door key from the bunch and thrust it to the hilt into the mortice lock. She twisted the key a turn to the left, extracted the key, followed by another jangling fumble, located the Yale key and used that with another sharp twist to release the final lock. She pushed to open, squeezed inside and leaned against the door, shutting out that nasty cruel world beyond.

Only when the sprung lock clicked shut and she was alone at last did she allow her watery eyes to release their potent torrent. Then she slowly slid down the door, ending with a slight bump to sit on the floor and sob her heart out for a full quarter hour.

Once she had released that pent-up tension, she reasoned that, actually, her boss, Mr Patel had been very reasonable and kind after he had asked her to step into the office for a private conflab. This had happened as soon as the part-time afternoon staff for the small convenience store he owned had arrived for work. Normally Mr Patel maintained a bluff disinterest in staff and customers alike. However, all who knew him well understood that it was an act and mockingly rolled their eyes every time he feigned his usual rude unappreciation of their custom or support.

In his private office, it was clear that this time he took no pleasure in informing Marina that he was selling up the old shop. Now that his family had all left home and had found themselves excellent jobs away from this rather rundown district of the overcrowded city port, he was finally retiring and selling the store. He would move away from the area to enjoy his declining years with a daughter’s family in a quieter part of the country.

The transition process had reached an advanced stage and had been a well-maintained secret. The business was sold and the buyers, a young Indian family new to the area, would not require any non-family staff once they took possession. This meant that everyone in the employ of Mr Patel was about to lose their job. This was all happening with immediate effect, the new owners were bringing in contractors to refit the store between Christmas and New Year.

Mr Patel had said that he wanted Marina, as his longest-serving and undoubtedly best worker, to know how the land lay before it was announced to the rest of the staff.

Marina had stopped sobbing by now. She picked up her cavernous bag from where she had dropped it by her side and searched around inside it before pulling out a couple of tissues from a handy pack, dabbed them under both eyes and blew her nose.

She got up then, and kicked off her winter boots before slipping her feet into her carpet slippers, where they had lain abandoned since the most recent changeover earlier that morning. She walked into the narrow galley kitchen at the right of the hallway, put her bag on the table and stepped the single step over to the kettle in its place on the counter. Hefting it, she judged it contained sufficient water from the early morning boil for her immediate requirements, set it down again and pressed the “on” switch. She moved back to the table, dragged out one of the two chairs and sat down. She pulled her bag towards her and searched it once more. She soon found the DL envelope she sought, extracted the letter and reopened it with slightly shaky hands.

Setting the letter to one side, after she had reread it through two or three times just to make sure she fully understood it, Marina opened the enclosed folded cheque and read that again, too. It was made out for twenty thousand pounds. She had never had so much money at any one time, of that she was certain. The letter explained, in more formal terms than Mr Patel had earlier outlined, that the sum was made up of 36 weeks’ redundancy entitlement, free of tax, three months’ severance, her last month’s wage arrears and three-and-a-bit weeks’ holiday pay which was also owed to her. The letter explained that the relevant printed wage slips and P45 notice would follow in a few days, no doubt once the wages clerk had been given her own severance notice.

Even with the tax and insurance deductions against part of the overall pay, she still had in excess of a year’s earnings at her disposal, all in one go. She would have to get this paid into her account, but she really didn’t feel up to facing the world again right at this moment. She knew it would now be after Christmas before the money would be available to draw against. At least the three months’ severance gave her a period of grace while she found another job without having to resort to the dole office. Although with the current unrest over Brexit going on, she thought, would she easily pick up another job in that time? She had no formal qualifications and the job at Mr Patel’s had been the best job she had ever had to date. She had passed a Tesco Express store and a Marks & Spencer busy with shoppers on her flight home without even giving them a second thought.

Marina considered how she would manage if she struggled to get another full-time job at minimum wage. Her biggest outlay each month was the mortgage repayments on the flat. She would have to find out how much debt was outstanding and see if she had enough, along with most of her accumulated savings, to pay off the balance. Savings accounts since the banks collapsed at the start of this recession were paying a fraction of a percent interest, but she was paying, she thought, about five or six percent on her mortgage loan. If she could reduce that, it would certainly give her piece of mind, which was at least a comfort.

This situation had at a single stroke knocked her sideways out of her comfort zone. Completely out of the blue she was being forced by circumstances to reassess her situation and make decisions to determine how she wanted to occupy her life from this point on. She felt she was at a crossroads in her life.

It dawned on her that for the very first time she was at a point where she could actually consider her options with very little consideration for anyone else.

Never before had she had this luxury, the freedom to make any choices herself. Just for once she could afford to be selfish, considering only her benefits, without having to worry about how any of her lifestyle changes would affect others who depended on her. OK, there was still her niece Tracey, who was Marina’s lodger in the two-bed flat, to consider. Tracey was also at a defining moment in her life and Marina was sure that any decision made about her own future would make little difference to Tracey and her unborn child.

Behind her the water in the kettle boiled, and the switch clicked off automatically. In conditioned reflex to this event, she arose and, moving on auto pilot, warmed the pot, popped in two spoonfuls of tea from the caddy and stirred the leaves before replacing the top.

Marina unhooked a bright red Poole Pottery mug from the hooked row of dissimilar mugs and poured into it a measure of semi-skimmed milk released from a two-pint plastic container taken from the fridge. The mug was the only survivor of the souvenirs of a family holiday, a long time ago. Absent-mindedly swirling the teapot for a few moments to aid extraction into the infusion, she grabbed the nylon strainer from the cutlery drawer, balanced it on the mug rim and poured from the pot that proverbial cup that cheers. She really needed this cuppa, she thought.

She sat at the little table and sipped her hot tea. As she relaxed, perhaps because she became aware of the warmth of the mug seeping into her chilled hands, she realised that the body heat generated by her desperate flight home had completely evaporated and the coldness of the unheated flat had started to bite and she shivered. Of course, there was normally no-one in the place at this time of the day, so the time switch had turned off the central heating some four or five hours ago. It was, she thought, decidedly chilly even though she still had her outside coat on. She had often reflected that the jerry-built ex-council flat usually felt colder inside than it was outside. At least now she would have no trouble settling the gas and electric bill, for this quarter at any rate.

She went out into the hallway and adjusted the thermostat from its customary minimum 15 degrees to a more comfortable 20. She listened for a few seconds, waiting for the gas boiler to react to the new setting and kick in. Satisfied that it had, she sat down again to finish her tea and continue her ruminations. Eventually she felt warm enough to remove her coat and replaced it with her fluffy dressing gown, which she fetched from behind her bedroom door further down the hallway corridor.

By general opinion among the younger of her close relatives, although she would be loath to believe it herself, Aunt Marina was, in a single word, adorable. Naturally small and neat, with a slim figure, even the reasonably-priced everyday clothes that she usually wore hung well from her spare frame and looked good on her. She had rich chestnut brown hair, which inclined to be thick and frizzy, so she wore it comfortably short, not quite shoulder-length but not excessively cropped either. She was actually overdue a visit to the hairdressers, perhaps now she thought she would have time to do so at her convenience, perhaps this time splash out and maybe go for a colour. She smiled at the thought. She was naturally self-deprecating and would describe her hair colour as brown or ‘mousy’ and she wondered if going darker or even lighter with blond highlights would give her more of a lift, perhaps a younger appearance might boost her chances in the job market.

Marina would certainly own up to the feeling that she possessed a plain round and open face, usually completely bereft of any cosmetic enhancements. Her nose was on the small size but not quite neat enough, she thought, to be regarded as cute. Her eyes were her best feature, everyone said so, dark brown with pale flecks of amber and green; warm eyes which were both trusting and trustworthy. Above the eyes, the brown unplucked eyebrows were thicker than was fashionable nowadays, but it was an unfussy look with which she was comfortable. Her lips were quite pouty and, following this morning’s exertions were full of blood and a healthy red colour. She had suffered in the past from chaffed lips and cold sores, so she was meticulous in applying moisturisers and lip salve to keep them supple and protected from the ravages of a coastal winter or summer. Her skin was clear and her cheeks rosy, again presently tinted by her recent exposure to the rather chilly elements without enhancement by pigmented compounds. If she wore scent at all it was usually light and flowery in preference to heavily sensual. Overall, she felt her face was anonymous, she was everywoman and she really did not seek to be noticed in a crowd.

It was only when she smiled that her true beauty was revealed. In a group of acquaintances, such as her workmates or customers in the shop, she was happy to smile frequently if she was amused but would modestly dip her head slightly as she did so, or lift a hand to obscure her partially parted lips. This had the effect of masking the full effect of her infectious sparkling eyes and the upturned corners of her full lips, with even white teeth between. She was even more reserved in mixed company and her natural tinkling laugh would be modestly muted to a barely audible level.

Whenever she was alone, or surrounded by strangers, she felt anonymous, drab, invisible and unnoticed by all who chanced to look in her direction. Why would anyone want to look in her direction anyway, she thought? It seemed to her that the rest of humanity hardly registered her existence and she felt somehow safer all the while she was unnoticed. Marina wanted and had created for herself an uncomplicated existence. It was one in which she felt safe and secure.

Within herself though, quite frankly, she felt a general disappointment with the way her own life had panned out; especially at this time of year as the Christmas and New Year holidays were approaching. The occasion reminded her that, next birthday, she would be 50 and the world, she thought, had definitely passed her by, leaving her in life’s wake with barely a backwards glance.

Currently there was no man in her life, in fact there never had been one, ever. She had survived this long without a man that she felt she had never really needed one. But having no family of her own, no children of her own; that left a huge hole that she knew could never, would never be filled.

There were times though, when she was surrounded by family, in company with her younger brothers and sisters and – particularly – their beautiful children, her nieces and nephews, only then did she feel herself become alive. From their vantage point, Aunt Marina was the loveliest, most generous and unprepossessing person that they knew.

Perhaps to some degree her siblings rather took her for granted. Without parents or other close older relatives, Marina had become mother and father to them all from a young age, when she was still a child herself and had to grow up fast. There was always a sense of permanent reliability about her. She was ever readily available for sensible advice, comfort and reassurance, whether as a babysitter or a shoulder to cry on. All her siblings had become well-formed and independent adults, who were able to step into the world full of confidence in their own abilities and equipped to make informed choices of the opportunities available to them. All had achieved successful careers and marriages or partnerships and, while they appreciated the role their dear Big Sis had played during their upbringing, they felt in some way that it was partly her own fault that she had not made more of her own opportunities.

But then none of them knew the whole story about their eldest sister. Nobody in the whole wide world knew what had happened to her, what exactly shaped her particular outlook on the world, so how could they possibly be aware of what lay behind her lifestyle choices?

Only in their deep subconsciouses would her brothers and sisters discover an understanding that they had only been able to achieve their choices because Marina had allowed absolutely nothing for herself. Her family had always come first, every time, all the time. Her life was lived less full by herself because she ensured that they were able to live their lives absolutely to the full. It was a sacrifice made out of love and she wouldn’t have wanted to change that. Marina didn’t lack abilities, but in the absence of choices her full potential was largely unrealised.

While being taken for granted and generally ignored by her brothers and sisters, on the other hand Marina’s nieces and nephews absolutely worshiped her. Aunt Marina was their favourite of all their aunts and uncles. In turn she adored each and every one of them and, when relaxed and comfortable in their company, she opened up and truly revealed her smile, her self-imposed mask of grey anonymity completely evaporated and she glowed like an apparition of perfection, revealing the true angel that she really was. But, naturally, none of this occurred to her as she accepted her recent redundancy from her career and aware that she would soon be free of caring for her niece, Tracey Baker.

Other than her recently imposed unemployment, another contributing factor to this present veil of melancholy which enveloped her could be laid at the door of her niece Tracey, who was lodging with her while attending university.

Tracey had only a couple of days earlier announced to her Aunt that she was pregnant, premiering Marina’s entrance into the sobering domain of the Great Aunt, although this thought alone wasn’t the cause of Marina’s agony. Nor was the fact that the boyfriend responsible was Darren, a pretty useless individual who was unlikely to be of much help for the baby’s future, and appeared to be already out of the picture at the very first hurdle of parenthood. Tracey had decided that she didn’t want a termination and was resigned to move back with her mother, or if unwelcome back home, she would be forced to impose on Marina’s reliable hospitality.

On the other hand, Marina was certain that her sister would easily be able to cope with a new baby at home. Now that Marina was out of work in the current economic meltdown, the fallback option of Tracey staying in Portsmouth was likely a non-starter.

Tracey was presently occupied in working up the courage to inform her parents of her life-changing news. She planned to do this during the time she was expected to spend Christmas at home, departing once the college term was over in just a days’ time. She had persuaded her dear Aunt Marina to accompany her as a sorely needed ally when she made her announcement to her mother. For Marina, this circumstance brought back a whole raft of deeply-buried memories from over 30 years ago.

That almost-forgotten past, when Marina was just 16, she remembered how at first she hadn’t even realised that she had been raped. That alone indicated that she must have been completely out of her head at the time of conception. Even when Marina first missed her period, it didn’t immediately register that there was any problem. Her periods at that time had always been inconsistent due to her long working hours and the stress brought on by her father’s long and determined tumble into alcoholism. Also, just 16 at the time, a couple of years younger than Tracey was now, she was, as certain as she could possibly be at the time, still a virgin. Cursed with puppy fat since puberty she’d always felt dumpy and uncomfortable in public during those formative early teen years. At the age of sweet sixteen, Marina had never even been asked out on a date, let alone had any intimate relations with boys.

When the doctor had confirmed that Marina was indeed pregnant, she was completely dumfounded. It only dawned on her later at home, counting back the weeks, when she realised it coincided with the Hotel autumn staff party to celebrate the end of the holiday season. Unused to alcohol, she recalled having awoken from a stupor, alone in one of the spare hotel rooms early the next morning. It was only in remembering that event she realised that must have been the only opportunity for her to be in a position where she could be raped without her knowledge and certainly without her conscious consent. Marina was sure of one thing, whatever it was, it was certainly not consensual sex that had resulted in her pregnancy. She had been raped, not only without her connivance, but without even her knowledge of the act.

Along with that recollection came a hazy impression of kissing Daniel, a handsome older boy she had developed quite a crush on at that time. The kiss was quite a chaste goodbye one and happened in a corridor between conference rooms, well away from the prying eyes of the other partygoers.

After the kiss, she remembered drinking a glass of some slightly alcoholic drink that Daniel had given her. She trusted him, why wouldn’t she? Daniel was a friendly boy, a student working at the hotel during the summer vacation, and all they had done up to that point was talk, in fact for those two months they talked incessantly.

This party was his last time at the hotel until his next break from university and it was by no means certain that he would return to the hotel at the next college break.

Marina had been a little upset that this might be the last time she would see Daniel and had just sought refuge in the corridor to prevent him seeing her tears. He must have followed her. Even with someone she fancied quite strongly, more intensely than anyone before or since, it would have taken a considerable step for her to have willingly had sex for her first time with someone who, other than longing for romance in her innocent imagination, she’d had no previous intimate experience with.

Marina admired this young man, Daniel, and they had become friendly workmates, but he had scarcely given her a second glance romantically in the few short weeks he had known her. She had always enjoyed working with Daniel. He was funny and interesting without being condescending about her lack of education. He was smart, a college boy with bright prospects. He was friendly and kind and had a knack of making her feel at ease for the first time with a member of the opposite sex, an unusual condition in her experience before and since. So she had opened up to him and described all the funny little details of her complicated domestic life, that he appeared to enjoy sharing and laughing along with her.

From what Marina could remember, Daniel hadn’t had much of a family life himself. He had no siblings at all as his parents were quite old when he was born and, like Marina, he had lost a parent when he was young. His mother had remarried twice since then and Daniel hadn’t got on well with either of his stepfathers. He even actively avoided the current one, hence finding employment with accommodation in the hotel was preferred, rather than find work close to his mother’s home. They had a lot of laughs during those few weeks of the long academic holiday. Not once, though, had Daniel had ever encouraged her to believe she meant more to him than just a friend to chat with.

At the time Marina could accept that there would never be a loving relationship between the two friends, he was smart, tall, slim and handsome, she was, in her opinion, dumb, short, fat and ugly.

On her part, though, Marina couldn’t help falling head over heels in love with him, knowing that her love would be unrequited but she was unable or unwilling to abandon her natural feelings. They were friends all too briefly as he left the area to return to college the very morning after that fateful party.

Marina remembered that it had been close to Christmas when she had received the doctor’s diagnosis. The festive season had scarcely begun when she had to break the news of her condition to her alcohol-ravaged father. Now, over 30 plus years on, history was repeating itself. Marina was charged with breaking similar news to her sister Alexandra, Tracey’s mother. Alex was a comfortable stay-at-home mum, and Marina didn’t think the news would be as devastating as Tracey herself feared.

Marina hated leaving home for any length of time and in some respects wasn’t looking forward to the trip up to North London, even though she would be glad enough to see both Alex and Marina’s younger nephew Andy and niece Jenny again. Other than facing the journey by train and underground, Marina had little trepidation with her role as Aunt, supplying soothing oil to pour on troubled waters; she had been performing this role for her family all her life.

Right now though she felt she needed to keep herself occupied during this unplanned interruption to her established daily routine. Once she had finished her leisurely tea break, she bustled about her cold and drab little flat, located between the crowded centre of the south coast city and the sprawling suburbs, and gathered up all her washing.

The growing pile included various articles belonging to Tracey that had been left strewn on the cramped second bedroom’s carpet and brought by several armfuls into the kitchen. She sorted them into a couple of separate piles and started loading the darker clothing into the machine, before topping up the washing powder and fabric softener compartments and setting the machine in motion on an appropriate washing cycle.

Next she shovelled her mug, a few breakfast dishes and a deeply encrusted long-lost cup, she found buried under discarded clothing in Tracey’s room, into the sink and washed these up by hand, before restoring them to their resting places in the cupboards.

It was only after she had changed all the bed sheets and duvet covers on both the beds, vacuum-cleaned the place throughout, transferred the first batch of washing to the drying rack out on the back balcony of the flat and loaded the washing machine for a light and white wash, did she feel she could relax.

Even then she fetched the mop bucket and mopped the kitchen and bathroom floor tiles, before she finally conceded that she had done enough for one day.

In between these chores, she had browned off some chicken pieces, soaked and simmered the rice, chopped onions which she browned in the chicken juices, opened a tin of chopped tomatoes, and mixed it all together in the largest pot she had. She chopped and added some vegetables, a dash or three of Worcestershire sauce and a small handful of dried herbs before setting it to simmer on a low gas.

At last she ran a welcome hot bath and soaked in it for much of what remained of the afternoon, periodically topping up with more hot water. Eventually the bulk of the water got too cold to top up successfully and her fingertips turned uncomfortably wrinkly. With a sigh she emerged, dried and talced, dressing herself in comforting PJs, fresh and warm from the airing cupboard, and her aged but comfortably warm dressing gown.

By then her niece Tracey had come in from college and, after a yelled “Hello”, flopped herself on the sofa in the lounge with a can of low-cal ginger beer and had switched on the box.

Marina made herself a cup of tea and sat down with a couple of digestive biscuits to watch the early evening news. She really had no appetite for the supper that was bubbling away in the kitchen. She thought that she would serve up what Tracey wanted and freeze the rest once it had cooled, for a future meal.

She had already decided that she would say nothing to Tracey about her redundancy. Tracey’s last day of college was tomorrow with only a couple of lectures in the morning and would catch the first afternoon train home via Waterloo straight from college.

Marina wasn’t interested in any of the children’s entertainment presaging the Christmas countdown and the news was only of limited interest to her. She was still thinking about her job prospects, determined to get a local paper in the morning and scan through the situations vacant.

Marina heard rather than watched most of the national news, which washed over her distraction as it really contained little to excite her interest. The station was in that pre-festive silly season mode that the broadcasters seemed to think so entertaining. She barely heard the weather forecast, promising the cold and wet conditions likely to last another few days yet, with colder temperatures likely for a day or two, with a strong possibility of a White Christmas to come.

When the channel switched viewers from the national picture to the local regional news, however, Marina suddenly sat bolt upright.

There, on the screen, as large as life and as bold as brass, was her unrequited beau of old. The very fellow! Daniel ... Daniel Medcalf.

She had actually forgotten his surname over the passage of time, but recalled it as soon as the full name was broadcast. She may have momentarily misplaced the surname but there was no denying that face, that undeniably beautiful and disarming smile was the same as it ever was. He was older, granted, but unmistakably the Daniel she once knew.

Marina must have let out a gasp at that moment, as Tracey looked up from the gossip magazine she sat reading, being not one bit interested in the boring parochial news, until now, that is. Tracey had never seen her aunt look so animated and was intrigued by the subject shown on screen.

‘Okay,’ thought Marina, ‘calm down, he can’t possibly touch you here.’ She took a breath.

‘You are safe,’ she tried to assure herself.

It took a handful of seconds to quell the rising panic which threatened to overwhelm her but now she found she could breathe in and out and take stock. She thought that he was a different person, now that she could clear her mind and compare the vivid image burned in her memory, from real life and the apparition rendered by her flat and relatively poor quality cathode ray tube. Daniel’s jet-black hair was now flecked with iron-grey and not as thick or anywhere near as long as she remembered him wearing it in his early twenties, but he was still instantly recognisable.

His face was much thinner than he used to be in his youth, his cheeks slightly hollow as if he had recently lost weight but was healthily rosy-cheeked in the cold of the outside broadcast. She had to admit that he looked pretty good in his smart clothes. It seemed incredible to her that he had disappeared from her notice for so many years, but there he was, apparently involved in some local protest over a road or by-pass about to flatten an ancient parcel of precious woodland not very far, no doubt, from his own backyard.

It occurred to her that it was so strange that he had resurfaced at a time in her life where circumstances had caused her memories of him to come to the fore once again after being suppressed so deep for so long.

This event, which had brought him to regional notice, was happening on the edge of her local station’s coverage, some 30 miles or so to the east of Portsmouth, the city where Marina had lived for over 30 years. Her breathing took on a large intake of air as the camera zoomed into a close-up of his face as he appeared to put a particularly pertinent point in his argument in favour of preserving the ancient woodland. His voice was deep and cultured without being condescending, emphasising its warmth and understated passion for a subject evidently dear to his heart. Clear and confident, he calmly and persuasively voiced the concerns of the local community, of the undesirability of this road scheme and the relative merits of the alternatives, in a few impressively succinct sentences. The camera then panned to follow his out-swept left hand in the direction of the woodland referred to, and there, glinting in the camera’s brilliant white light for all the world, and Marina in particular, to see, was a thin band of gold on his outstretched ring finger.

The first thought that went through her head was why was life so unfair to her? Why had she lived a life so hard and dull that it had turned her into a physical and emotional mess, while this man Daniel was, from all appearances, barely the worse for wear after almost half a lifetime.

Closing her eyes, she played back the recent vivid images in her mind. Yes, he had looked well groomed, despite the wind and rain, his hair was short and under control, his face looked concerned and serious, but youthfully enthusiastic with this current worthy project. He was positive in putting his message across that this environment needed to be preserved. He even managed to flash that captivating little boy smile that he had been blessed with and clearly never lost. As for his eyes, they had a magnetic quality of their own, clear blue eyes that sparkled with vitality, intelligence and, dare she say it, ... humanity.

Yes, Marina had especially noticed that the attractive female redheaded interviewer was practically mewing and fawning all over him, having no doubt gone weak at the knees under the charming onslaught of that beautiful, slow, warm, caring and confident smile of his. Marina further recalled that he was dressed in a smart tailored overcoat with a glimpse of a worsted suit topped off with a formal collared shirt and silk tie. Daniel had always been handsome as a casually dressed young man, now he looked absolutely amazing in his sophisticated middle years.

It was obvious to Marina that Daniel had achieved everything he’d ever desired; no doubt a beautiful wife, an expensive home – they were all expensive houses in the area being discussed in the news item. The interviewer had introduced him as a Councillor. He was involved in politics, which was the main subject of his conversation all those years ago and clearly he was accustomed to, and comfortably in his element, in front of an audience.

He probably had children as well, her heart ached at that thought, and he almost certainly had beautiful children. He was smooth and sophisticated, had cultured good taste, in possession of a wonderful life and no doubt had everything he had ever wanted; while she was depressed, down-trodden and worn out; she felt old before her time.

And now, to cap it all, she had been made redundant from the corner convenience store she had worked in for the past 18 years, considered surplus to requirements and on the scrap heap even at her mundane level.

Daniel, on the other hand, was apparently still in demand, a spokesman for a group defending ancient woodland from the curse of overdevelopment, a respectable and trusted member of his community. He was at the top of his game on a regional political level. How little those fawning supporters suspected how morally corrupt their hero had been in his youth.

It really wasn’t fair! Part of the reason that Marina led the purposeless existence that she endured, a life that had hardly achieved anything, and was even now collapsing about her ears, could be laid directly at Daniel Medcalf’s door.

{{{

Tracey looked at her aunt after the short news transmission ended. Marina still sat stunned, as the television moved onto other subjects. First it was droning on about the latest test tour cricket scores in which a local boy had performed well, despite the mauling dished out by the home side; now tomorrow’s local weather, none of which registered with Marina.

Marina’s thoughts were lost in a whirlwind of freshly vivid memories from 33 years before. The timespan that was suddenly so tangible was just a few months of her life. For a while though she had thought that she was in love and her double loss was devastating. She was raped and left pregnant without, it seems, a second thought by someone she was in a way emotionally attached to. Then to lose the baby at the very end of her pregnancy was totally heartbreaking.

Like Tracey had herself determined so recently, Marina had immediately made the decision to keep her baby, and not just because it was only one more tiny mouth to feed in addition to the eight already at home. Once she knew the baby was coming, she actually wanted it, and grew to love the tiny life growing inside her more than anything else in her life. Termination was simply not an option that was even remotely acceptable to her.

Tragically, completely out of the blue, her unborn baby died in the womb just days before the due date. This was due to complications which were explained to her by the doctor at the time but which she never completely comprehended, either then or since.

The doctor tried to explain that she was not at fault and there was nothing she could have done about it, but Marina could not be convinced. She still carried the scars both of guilt and loss through to the present day. The hospital induced her in the same way as a normal confinement, knowing all the time that she was birthing a stillborn child. It was a boy, which she had registered as Daniel Shaw, who was buried without even being baptised properly in church. Marina hadn’t attended the funeral, she was still sedated in her hospital bed, sick, shocked and depressed, submerged in her own misery and unaware of anything that was going on around her.

Emotionally, Marina had been devastated by her loss. As a consequence she generally avoided men and had never married or even had a date. All her life she was surrounded by her younger siblings and later their children and soon to be the first of no doubt a handful of their grandchildren, yet Marina never had a live baby of her own to cherish and now she never would. Nor did she have a husband or partner to help her through those depressing days, which would no doubt stretch into months and years until the end of her days.

For a very short period back then she had followed her father’s propensity for using whatever drink was in the house to cure her sorrows, neglecting her family, and was forced to give up her jobs. She even nearly lost her family coming close to losing their home and guardianship of the children. Fortunately, her father had managed to sort himself out quickly and summoned the strength to move the family back to his Portsmouth hometown into a small council flat. He was able to get part-time work until Marina had worked through her own depression, which took her a year or so. Since then she hadn’t touched a drop of spirits.

Marina now realised that she had bottled up all of that emotional pain over the years. Now those repressed feelings were bubbling to the surface and she started trembling. A faint sob escaped her lips as she closed her eyes and cast her mind back through those long-suppressed memories.

Tracey came up to her and sat beside her Aunt Marina and held her hand, frightened and puzzled by this sudden change in her aunt, who was always so reliably stable and dependable.

{{{

When Tracey eventually let go of her hand and left the lounge to make some more tea, Marina’s thoughts tumbled around in her head. What could she do about this injustice? What action could she take? What could she do to ease the ache welling up deep in her heart?

What would she like to do? What was there that was within her limited power to do?

Well, what she would really like to do is – and this was a much easier thing to say than do – she would like to kill him. She would definitely like to kill Daniel Medcalf for what he did.

Kill Daniel for destroying her life.

Kill Daniel for making her fall in love with him and using it to take advantage of her innocence for his selfish pleasures.

Kill Daniel for raping her.

Kill Daniel for making her pregnant.

Kill Daniel for leaving her to go full-term throughout her pregnancy alone.

Kill Daniel for not caring enough to find out that his own baby died a week before his birth was due.

Kill Daniel because Marina had to cry her way alone all through the natural birthing even though she knew what the outcome would be.

Kill Daniel for not supporting her through the deep depression which followed.

Kill Daniel for leaving her to suffer the guilt of failure alone.

Kill Daniel for taking away any chance of a future relationship.

Kill Daniel for killing her slowly until she had ended up as this empty unwanted shell.

Yes, kill him, that would be the revenge she needed to repay Daniel.

Even killing Daniel was too good for him, she thought. He deserved to be utterly destroyed like one of those fighting dogs that morons keep that’s been found guilty of attacking children.

But, she couldn’t really do that now could she? Could she kill? No, she couldn’t possibly kill anyone, even a deceitful creep who had so wronged her like Daniel had. No matter how angry or upset she was, revenge was an option for people accustomed to action, not a humble downtrodden little shop assistant mouse like her. Oh, she would love to do a “Wayne Bobbit” on Daniel, but that was impossible, wasn’t it? No, she felt like one of those many battered wives or partners who found themselves absolutely powerless against a bigger, stronger man who wouldn’t hesitate to use violence to impose his will on a woman.

Marina was under no illusions, she would have to do what she always did, swallow what little dignity she was left with and accept whatever shit was dished out to her. That did not mean that she had to be happy about it. That did not stop her thinking about the possibilities.

{{{

Marina’s niece came into the lounge with her laptop and sat on the sofa, interrupting her aunt’s thoughts. Tracey had earlier made another pot of tea, and brought it into the lounge, before she had left Marina alone with her refreshment and her thoughts.

In the privacy of her bedroom, away from the oppressive silence of her aunt’s lounge, Tracey had eaten the meal Marina had cooked, while also looking up the website of the woodland preservation group on her laptop. This had links to a shaky YouTube copy of the news clip they had seen an hour or so before. This in turn led Tracey to check the local councils in the area, as there was no direct mention of Medcalf in the original woodland preservation group website.

She soon found him listed under both the county councillors of West Sussex County Council and Arun District, giving his address and contact details. His residence even sounded very nice too, Underhill Grange, Lindon. Tracey looked it up on Google Maps and whistled when the beautiful ivy-covered old thatched farmhouse, with its sweeping gravel drive popped up on her screen, surrounded by parkland, fields and trees, seen over the top of a neatly-trimmed hedge. Tracey had to show Aunt Marina this. Tracey’s heightened curiosity meant that she had to know more about this man and his involvement with her aunt! Perhaps, she mused, a romance had been involved!

“Your Daniel’s not married,” Tracey triumphantly announced to her aunt, “Well, not any more. He may still wear a wedding ring, but his wife died a couple of years ago, of cancer. Your Daniel was a European MP but didn’t stand for re-election during her illness. She was a hospital doctor too, so you would have thought she would have paid more attention to her own health, wouldn’t you?”

Marina raised her eyebrows and looked over at her niece, who was curled up on the sofa with her laptop balanced on the sofa arm. She tried to keep her voice flat, not to give away too much by any betrayal of eagerness, “What else does it say about him?”

“Oh, you are interested now?” teased Tracey. “So, tell me, what’s the story with you and this handsome hunk then?” she probed.

“Oh, I knew him when I was about 16. I suppose he was in his early twenties at the time, a college student.” Marina owned up, believing it was better to give Tracey the part of the story that was safe to talk about, it was easier than lying. She could possibly deflect Tracey’s concerns and curiosity. With a forced smile she added, “We worked at the same hotel, only for about six or eight weeks, during his summer break from University. I fancied him of course. I mean everybody did, but he wasn’t interested in me. He was way out of my league then. He is even more so now.”

“So why do you want to know more then?” Tracey probed, her own interest not yet sated.

“Just out of interest,” Marina replied as casually as she could, even though she was screaming with every fibre on the inside. Quite honestly, she just wanted to be left alone in her misery, but she also wanted to know more, know everything as much as possible. “I’d like to know how he got on after passing me by without a second look.” She forced another smile for her niece’s benefit.

Tracey grinned, put the laptop to one side, unwrapped her legs from under herself and padded across to kiss her aunt on the top of her head.

“He really doesn’t know what he is missing, Aunt Marina,” she said.

Marina smiled wanly, saying “Thanks, sweetheart”, while Tracey returned to her seat and reopened her laptop.

Tracey turned her attention back to the screen and read on for a few moments before replying, “He has a couple of daughters, but the website doesn’t give any names or ages. He’s been a county councillor for nearly thirty years and stood for Parliament four times, but always in local seats that his party had no chance of winning.” Another pause. “Lots of photos of him, he really looks good from any angle you care to mention. I’m sorry about that.” She looked up and smiled at her aunt, “If you still don’t fancy him, I wouldn’t mind having a go at him myself, he may be old enough to be my father, but he’s still gorgeous!”

One thing Aunt Marina had always been blessed with was a sense of humour and it survived even this shock to her system.

“If he didn’t fancy me at 16,” she retorted, managing a forced laugh, “Maybe he wouldn’t go for you, either. On the other hand if he prefers older women I might still be in with a chance!”

Tracey replied by poking out her tongue and they both laughed at the incongruity of playing love rivals to someone who had only been on screen for about 90 seconds.

This time Marina actually saw the humour and joined in more naturally without have to force herself. It was good having someone around her after all, and she had always loved Tracey and her youthful zest for life. She admired too, how the young woman was coping with her pregnancy and her totally ineffectual boyfriend, who already seemed to have been totally eased out of the picture. Tracey had known about the pregnancy nearly a month before she told Marina, and the boy hadn’t been seen at the flat for a couple of weeks at least. Tracey didn’t seem concerned at all about the lad’s disappearing act. Other than the doubts she still harboured about her mother’s reaction, Tracey was taking this whole process on board so much better than Marina had when it had been her turn to do so.

Later that night Marina, left to sit alone after Tracey had retired, thought about all the other information that Tracey had discovered. Apparently Medcalf was to be the main speaker at a townswomen’s guild meeting, probably giving a talk about the road extension, at a village hall deep in rural West Sussex on the very next night.

Marina folded away all the dry washing ready to iron the next morning. Then she washed up the last couple of cups and thought more about “her” Daniel. Perhaps killing him wasn’t possible, but she felt that she would like to try. At the very least, she could see him in the flesh while she checked out the environment in which he lived and look for possible opportunities she could exploit for her revenge.

{{{

Jessica had just had her second orgasm of the evening. It was her new lover’s tongue that was the main contributor to this unusual reaction. She had never before had a single orgasm from oral sex so this was pretty exciting new territory for her. A day which had been disastrous until late afternoon was now turning into the most momentous night of her young life so far.

Jessica had been invited completely unexpectedly by her new friend-now-lover to warm up with a hot toddy and a very acceptable meal, immediately after the outside broadcast shoot was wrapped and sent off to the studio for broadcasting as the top story on the local evening news. The early evening hot beverage turned out to be the first of several alcoholic drinks, along with a very palatable meal and a long night of bonhomie and subtle seduction between the pair of them.

At the end of this delicious evening, it was much too far, and she had drunk far too much, for Jessica to even consider the drive home. Unfortunately, her host was unable to offer the alternative home venue for the continuation of their lively little courting games, honestly admitting to Jessica of having “someone at home”. Therefore they both left their vehicles in the pub car park and caught a cab to a hotel in Brighton, one particularly recommended by the cabbie, and managed to secure a room for the remainder of the night.

The porter who manned the night desk didn’t flinch at the couple’s lack of luggage although he did insist on payment for the room and breakfast up front by cash. No doubt he would pocket the money and have the room cleaned in the morning with no-one in charge of the books being any the wiser.

If Jessica had been ‘a proper newshound instead of a bit of fluff who fannied around in front of the news cameras’, she reflected, she might have thought the occurrence worthwhile investigating.

In the sparsely-furnished hotel room they had hit the drinks bar hard and watched the late night screening of the local news item that they had created together, while the newly-acquainted lovers canoodled on the sofa.

They both declared that the interview had come out surprisingly well. The producer/director had been right beforehand, of course, the best interview was definitely saved until last. They both laughed about this, drank a toast to the eventual downfall of the road designers and developers before grabbing each other to tear off their clothes in unconfined passion.

Jessica had enjoyed her first orgasm while still half-undressed on that lumpy sofa and now they had retired to the rather soft and saggy hotel bed for more of the same action.

“Mmmm” she moaned, after that last delightful wave of pleasure washed over and through her. She had been on the oral receiving side for long enough, time for her to dish out some of the same pleasure herself.

Jessica pulled at the shortcut, lightly-grey-haired head that was lapping away between her legs, to be greeted by an enquiring “Sweetheart?” to which Jessica replied, “My turn, come on and get your arse up here, honey”.

What then? ... Well, it may have been late, but the night was still young where fresh new love was concerned....

{{{

Other interested people had also watched the same television broadcast following the late night news.

The young goth girl, Lauren Taylor, white of face with heavy black eye make-up, switched the set on using the remote. She sat down next to her boyfriend, Mark Clark, who even Lauren admitted was an ugly, blue-dyed spiky-haired individual with personal hygiene problems. The goth girl ignored this minor defect. Lauren felt insecure enough to imagine that she had more than enough defects of her own to worry about without concerning herself with any of his. Besides, in the last few months she had become somewhat accustomed to his general aroma; she now only protested at the state of his socks. Since she’d moved in with him she could at least do something about that, simply by taking over the task of doing his laundry.

Lauren picked up a can of diet coke from the coffee table in front of the sofa and opened it with a hiss from the ring pull and swigged a mouthful of the cold beverage. She heard the toilet flush in the bathroom and the door opened almost immediately after, to herald Tina’s rejoining of the group in the lounge.

Tina was a big girl with bleached blonde hair overlying dark red roots. She stomped into the room and dropped heavily into one of the secondhand armchairs next to Lauren’s end of the sofa, her massive gold earrings swinging wildly, threatening to tear themselves off her bulbous earlobes. She reached onto the table, grabbed one of the beer cans and a large serving dish filled with potato crisps.

Lauren made herself a mental note to avoid eating any crisps, remembering that Tina clearly hadn’t bothered to wash her hands after completing her ablutions. Instead, Lauren reached across and grabbed the plate of green seedless grapes that she’d purchased and put out purely for Tina’s benefit. Tina had announced earlier that day that she had just started a diet. That was before the McDonalds cheeseburger and fries she’d consumed at lunchtime and the second one from the drive-in on the way back to the Brighton flat in the beat-up old van, which was all Mark could afford from his student loan after paying his half of the rent on their tiny, sparsely-furnished flat.

At the other end of the sofa, Andy Robertson, the self-appointed leader of the little group, entitled the Wicket Wood Action Group or WWAG for short, sat leaning forward impatiently waiting for the tedious news items, like the state of the economy, life and death struggles for freedom in north Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan, until the real stuff of revolutionaries came on, namely the genteel tiff between the exploitative land developers and the selfless defenders of the environment, which manifested itself into the battle over the South Coast Motorway Extension Scheme.

Andy nervously pulled short puffs from his thin hand-rolled cigarette, scattering grey-white ash on the edge of the glass coffee table and onto the clean but threadbare carpet in front of him, exhaling a shadowy cloud of blue smoke as the captioned image of “Jessica Lovage-Martin for the BBC” filled the screen.

“Shit!” exploded Andy, once the 90-second news item had played and the local news moved onto the coverage of a fire in a flat above a shop in Southampton. “What a let-down! That was such a crap report!” continued Andy, seething with indignation.

Lauren sympathised, “They didn’t use your interview at all, Andy, and I thought it was really rather good,” she soothed.

“The buggers only showed that old bastard, who didn’t even turn up until the demonstration was virtually over,” spat Andy, a tall, painfully thin young man, with greasy long ginger hair and extremely smelly breath, caused by bad teeth that didn’t appear to have brushed, ever.

Tina piped in with, “Who was that old geezer anyway?” showering the coffee table with a fine spray of masticated potato crisps.

Mark contributed with, “He sounds like a right bleedin’ ponce if you ask me,” but then Andy rarely asked Mark for his opinion, only for the use of his old van.

“That toffee-nosed Jessica was all over him like a bitch on heat,” observed Andy. “She called him ‘Councillor’ this and ‘Councillor’ that, but I don’t remember seeing him at the Court of Enquiry last March or any of the planning meetings and demonstrations that I been to. He’s come out of bleedin’ nowhere to nick our thunder, an’ the publicity what we was fighting for!”

“Well,” chipped in Lauren, “He does speak quite nicely, and was very passionate about those woods. And he did make quite a good point about how choked with traffic the rest of that motorway is and why it would all be a waste of money. Plus that suggestion about improving the train and bus services to take the commuter traffic was....”

“Yeah, right,” cut in Tina, not wanting to be left out of the conversation, “But he looked a bit too bloody smooth to be true.”

“Yeah, he’s deffo too bloody smooth, by half,” sneered Andy, “An’ I bet that snooty pub in the village let him in, probably in company with that stuck up Jessica bitch in tow. He’s probably givin’ ‘er wot for right now.” He gestured graphically with upward thrusts of his boney fist.

“That pub was very nice and the food smelt really lovely from the doorway,” sighed Lauren, “It would’ve been nice to have sat by that roaring fire, having got really wet and cold after being chained to those trees all day.”

“We were protesting to save the woods on their bleedin’ doorstep an’ them local yokels looked down their long hairy bloody noses at us like we wus dirt,” snarled Andy, absently picking a scab of woodland mud off his trouser leg and casually flicking it onto Mark’s carpet. “An’ that toff Metcalf certainly wants takin’ down a peg or two, he’s as bad as those bloody developers.”

“His name isn’t ‘Metcalf’, I think the name caption on the broadcast was wrong,” observed Lauren, “The presenter clearly said his name was ‘Medcalf’. If he’s a county or district councillor perhaps we can find out more about him online?”

{{{

Chief among the other interested parties was Sir Philip Sands, the CEO of his family firm SandRock Construction PLC, who happened to be the main contractor charged with designing and constructing the proposed extension of the South Coast motorway. They had done all the feasibility studies and the costs submitted by Highways England to the Treasury were very much their figures. In these times of recession, when the company was having to mothball civil engineering projects all over Europe, the motorway extension was a significant player. This contract needed to be started within a two-year window, any longer delay and it was likely that all the capital needed would have dried up, the line of credit from the banks exhausted, and the company would have to declare bankruptcy.

At the end of the broadcast featuring Dan Medcalf, Sir Philip was straight on his iPhone to his personal assistant, Patience, who answered the call on the first ring, as usual, even though it was 17 minutes past 10pm.

Of course, Patience Page-Turner was ready for his call, she had already teed him up after the news was first screened following the six o’clock news. Then she’d checked the app she’d fitted to his iPhone, which told her he’d dined at his club before being chauffeured back to the office in time to watch the news. It was important for her to know where he was at all times, she’d explained long ago, and he’d accepted that, but only after he had the same app, able to check when she was having her nails done when she should have been in the office!

She’d had early intel when and where the demonstration would take place and she knew there would bound to be a television crew there. Although this was the local news and not generally broadcast in London, where the main offices of SandRock were, the company naturally had a satellite on the roof which picked up stations from all over the world. Patience was expected to ensure she had reports from everywhere which tipped her off if anything occurred that Sir Philip needed to be aware of. Her own iPhone had been sent a recording of the first broadcast, so she already had everything at her fingertips.

“Yes, Sir Philip,” she said smartly as soon as the call came through. “Our Daniel was very smooth and reasonable in his interview,” she continued, matter-of-factly.

“Well, what are we going to do about him, then?” Sir Philip’s rasping voice sounded strident through the mobile’s tinny speaker. He wasn’t accustomed to anyone else’s opinions, only sets of alternative solutions set out for him to make the final informed decision. He also knew that Patience was supremely good at her job and that she delighted in teasing him when the opportunity presented, but presently he was in too foul a mood to appreciate her calm report.

“We can’t use the usual options that we rely on,” Patience replied soothingly, “We cannot buy him off, nor can we bury him in Europe any more. We need to be subtle and work on him from several fronts. I have a number of irons in the fire and sending details of each plan by email to you now.”

“I expect you to keep me up to date,” said Sir Philip, calmer now. “I don’t need to say that we must ensure that Lady Barbara is kept completely out of the picture.”

“Top of my list,” came the immediate reply.

{{{

Sophie Medcalf saw both editions of the local news, the first at six and the repeat at ten. Her father had collected the stuff she couldn’t fit in her Mini, from her Cambridge halls of residence only that morning, before leading the small convoy of two cars home. Sophie was hoping to spend a few days having her Daddy all to herself, before they joined her sister on Christmas Eve. But damned Tom Russell had put paid to her best laid plans. He was lying in wait for her father in the drive when they got back home from her college.

Apparently, a peaceful protest at Heatheridge Wicket Woods at dawn that morning had turned sour after some yobbish and unofficial hooligans had turned up. It looked like they were going to steal all the headlines, possibly losing the goodwill of the silent majority who were in favour of saving those woods. So the cavalry, in the shape of Sophie’s father, needed to be sent in to save the day.

Tom Russell had been Daddy’s political agent for as long as Sophie could remember. During her mother’s illness and since she had died, even though Daddy had withdrawn from most of his public commitments, Tom was still his most regular visitor. He kept her father abreast of what was happening.

At the time of her mother’s initial cancer diagnosis, Daddy was a European Member of Parliament, a county councillor, district councillor and parish councillor. He had resigned almost immediately from the European Parliament, and tried to resign from all his other seats, but no candidate was prepared to stand against him for those seats, due in part to his unrivalled local popularity and the balance in sympathy for his unenviable situation. So he retained all his council seats, with his party agents holding regular surgeries for him and putting any issues raised by residents through the voluntary services of other council members until he was ready to resume his duties. It was a measure of the man that he was so highly regarded in his local circles colleagues and opposition alike.

Now that Daddy had finished his period of grieving and had completed the book about Sophie and Ginny’s mother, which he had self-published in just the last few weeks, he had intended to return full-time to public life sometime in the New Year anyway.

Now it was late at night on her first day back home and Daddy still wasn’t back, nor had he rang her to say what time he would be in. She was loath to call him, he was likely to be in a meeting with Tom on catch-up and her anxious calling for him would be an embarrassment to them both. She thought he looked so thin and gaunt since she last saw him in early November.

Sophie had prepared a casserole for him this evening and now it was approaching 11 at night she had turned off the oven before the meal became too dried out and ruined completely. Now Daddy would have to microwave it if he came in any later and still wanted something to eat.

Sophie decided not to stay up any longer, she was tired after bundling up her stuff from college this morning and unpacking at home. She’d also been busy washing, drying and ironing all the laundry she had saved up, using the machine at home rather than the expensive coin-op laundry in Cambridge.

The house felt so empty. She shivered despite the roaring log fire in the cosy parlour. Outside was a clear night following the wet day and a heavy frost was already settling in. There will be hoar frost covering everything long before the morning, she thought. She missed her Daddy and wanted him home, just for the comfort of knowing he was there and safe, he was all she had left. She really missed her Mummy too, but there was nothing she could do about that. Sophie now more than ever wanted to see her sister Ginny as soon as possible. Naturally, the early death of their mother had strengthened their sisterly bonds. Ginny was living in London with her long-time partner Giles, but Sophie consoled herself, knowing would see them once more in a matter of days. Again, she hadn’t seen them for a while, since she had last stayed with them for a weekend in November.