isn’t one.’
‘And I see you’ve forgotten your glasses. Again.’ She shook her head in wonder. ‘The vanity of some men.’ In truth, that was one of the foibles she liked very much about him: that secretly, buried somewhere beneath all that reserve, he still knew what a formidable, virile, attractive man he was. On the other hand, perhaps he had inadvertently revealed the source of her dilemma as well. Why did he overlook the obvious solution she offered to his loneliness? How could he fail to take any notice of the signals she was sending him constantly? Perhaps he was simply blind, literally as well as figuratively.
‘What?’ he asked absent-mindedly, engrossed in the papers instead of in her.
The door to the office rattled as if struck by something heavy. Surmising that it was probably a certain 16-year-old paraplegic in his wheelchair, Stella opened the door.
‘Simon! You’re just in time,’ she smiled at him.
Framed in the doorway, the wheelchair didn’t move. Simon confronted his father with a hard stare, open mockery on his face.
‘Hello son … We were …’
Abruptly, out of the corner of his eye, he must have caught sight of himself in the wall mirror with the police cap still at a rakish angle on his head. Immediately he stiffened, removed his cap and returned it to the cupboard with the rest of the uniform.
Worried the fun might be spoiled for John, who had surely earned his moment of harmless celebration, Stella looked from father to son, desperately wanting to strike the right note between them and keep the party going.
‘Simon? A glass of bubbly. To toast your Dad.’ She had poured a glass for him, but he rejected it.
‘Sorry. I thought you wanted me to fix your database programme,’ he reminded her, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘I didn’t know it was party-time.’
In all the excitement of getting ready for the homecoming celebration she had totally forgotten the peace proposal she had negotiated with Simon. She felt awful.
‘All right, Simon,’ his father stepped in. ‘I think you’ve made your point. But Stella doesn’t deserve that kind of remark.’
‘No, it’s just as much my fault,’ she conceded. ‘Simon has a physio appointment at half four. I thought he might save me making a hash of things. You know – crashing the computer.’
Silence was closing in around them when there was a ring from outside. Saved by the bell.
‘That’ll be Mr Dawson.’
With a quizzical expression, he asked who Mr Dawson might be. She indicated the document he was holding.
‘15 Sydney Street.’
With a tender smile at the man who needed her, she went to answer the door, hoping he wouldn’t notice the tear in her eye. Yet why would he notice that and nothing else about her? And, as she stepped lightly around Simon’s wheelchair, she recognized that although his father might not notice her feelings, Simon hardly noticed her at all, other than as the woman who worked as his father’s secretary.
Freddy Calder drove his ‘classic’ blue Sierra into the Cougar Coaches yard and parked next to Noreen’s Renault 25 in the spot usually reserved for her husband’s white Jag. Before heading for the office, he picked a few of the pulverized bugs off the body of his beloved Sierra, spat on his finger and rubbed the hardened insect entrails from the smooth polished surface.
Sure enough, when Freddy entered Noreen was the only one in the office. She didn’t bother looking up from her work to see who it was. ‘Must be four o’clock. I’ll give you one thing, Freddy, I can set my watch by you.’
He went to the coffee dispenser and poured himself a cup. ‘Part of my charm.’
‘Really? Why haven’t I noticed the rest of it?’
Freddy rewarded her with a thin laugh. ‘Where’s Bob? Didn’t see his feet poking out under a bus out there?’
This time she did look up at him. ‘With a woman. Where else?’ Then, looking straight at Freddy, she suddenly remembered something, and started hunting through her bag.
‘Really! Anyone I know?… intimately?’
‘Sandra Gibson.’
‘Ah! The Mother of all Specials. She who clasps us Hobby Bobbies to her warm bosom.’
‘Hmm?’ She looked up again. ‘Is that why Bob was in such a hurry?’
Noreen seemed so hypersensitive lately. ‘Figuratively, Noreen. I was talking figuratively.’
She had apparently found what she had been searching for in her bag, and proffered what seemed to be a tissue to Freddy. ‘I knew I had it somewhere.’
He swallowed the rest of his coffee and put the cup down. Gently and humbly accepting the tissue from her hand, still he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do with it, other than blow his nose or clean his ears or something else perhaps.
‘You asked me if I knew of any flats going. Somewhere that would suit you … Somewhere cheap?’
He clapped a hand to his forehead, unable to fathom the depths of his sudden good fortune. ‘Sorry. Wasn’t thinking. A flat? Right.’
The public sleuth brought the object up to his private eye for closer investigation. There, bleeding through the tissue because it was written in eyebrow pencil, was a barely discernible address. Straining to focus, he tried to read the number.
‘“Forty-Three Gladstone Way.” Right.’
Turning the tissue over, he found the red-imprinted cultural icon of a pair of woman’s lips. Noreen noticed, and blushed, as they exchanged glances. Suddenly hearing someone coming, she spoke to Freddy in a lower voice. ‘Sorry. It was the only thing I had.’
Freddy stuffed the tissue into his breast pocket just as Loach entered the office and caught him in the act.
‘What’s this then? Love notes?’
‘My lips are sealed,’ Freddy smirked. He kissed the back of Noreen’s hand, then flicked MacFoxy the glove puppet from an inside pocket to bid her farewell.
‘See you at the compost convention, dear lady,’ waved Foxy on his way out, leading Freddy by the hand.
Satisfied he had gone, Loach turned his attention to his wife.
‘What was that all about?’
‘Freddy being Freddy,’ she quipped.
‘No … The piece of paper.’
Noreen studied her husband through veiled eyes. What was he really saying? ‘It can’t be jealousy. And you can’t
