have no other choice now, will he? No one will give him another job at his age. So you see, it’s an answer to all our prayers – and not a minute before time. Just what we’ve always wanted.’
‘Oh, I see what you mean.’ Marjorie’s voice was faint.
‘It’s what he should have done long ago,’ Sheila went on, ‘when his father reached retirement age. In fact he should have done it right from the start, the minute he got his degree. But what he should do and what he wants to do, are two different things to Phil.’ She gathered up some loose ends of wool, took off her glasses and chewed on one of the arms. Absorbed in her thoughts she failed to notice the dismay in Marjorie’s expression.
‘What makes you think,’ Marjorie said, trying to keep her voice calm, ‘what makes you think that Phil will agree to take over the business even now? Maybe he’ll have other plans.’
‘Well, I can’t think what they would be. This must have come as a shock to him; he won’t have had time to plan anything. My feeling is that he’ll be only too glad he has this to fall back on. Ha!’ She let out a chuckle, still oblivious to Marjorie’s agony. ‘Life’s full of nice little surprises, isn’t it? There you were, thinking you’d have to soldier on alone with all the shops, and what happens? Suddenly there’s Phil beside you, free to help after all. And Eric will be so thrilled when he hears the news.’
‘But – but I thought we had it all planned …’
Marjorie watched helplessly as Sheila wrapped her tapestry frame in an old pillow case and stowed it with her wools inside a hinged footstool. Something in Marjorie’s tone must have penetrated at last; she paused before shutting the lid, then put it down at half-speed.
‘You don’t sound very happy about this,’ she exclaimed with concern and surprise.
Marjorie looked away, embarrassed, hardly trusting herself to speak. Well, she silently scolded herself, what else could she have expected? Phil was Sheila’s son after all. It was perfectly understandable that she should be more pleased at the prospect of having him run the shops than anyone else on this earth. Certainly more than a mere daughter-in-law, no matter how much they loved her.
And perfectly right it was, too. The way it should really be. Yes, really. Who could deny it? Blood was thicker than water, when all was said and done.
Right or not, though, it was cruel. A ‘nice little surprise’ it was not. How easily she had dismissed the possibility of such a thing happening! How silly to have assumed that Philip would go more or less straight into another job. For of course Sheila was right, wasn’t she? No one would take him on in another firm now, not at his age. There was nothing else he could do but kow-tow at last to his parents.
But where did this leave her? She had never for one moment pictured Phil working alongside her in her new venture. Not that that would be the case; if they attempted to run the shops together she was sure he would immediately assume control of everything – see himself as her superior.
He wasn’t as bossy as his father could be at times, but he undoubtedly had that streak in him. He wouldn’t have got where he was today without strength and determination. Which meant that she wouldn’t get a look-in. In no time at all she would find herself relegated to the more menial tasks; not even allowed a say. As they were in their marriage, so it would be at work. How could she expect it to be different?
Oh, the idea was quite intolerable. She had wanted so much for herself. Had wanted to prove her capabilities and show Phil that she was no longer the dependent appendage that he had always seen her as; she was a person in her own right.
Glancing at Sheila she forced a smile. ‘Events are moving too quickly for me. I need to get used to the idea. And perhaps, before we speculate any further, we’d better see what Phil has to say. He doesn’t even know what we’ve been planning yet.’
‘No.’ Sheila gave a little shudder to emphasise her disapproval of this fact; she didn’t like secrets between spouses. They were unhealthy.
Twiddling her wedding ring round her finger Marjorie could only agree with her. She glanced down at the gold band that had once had a pattern on it but had now worn smooth; both it and the diamond engagement ring had channelled grooves in her flesh. Married all those years, she thought with a pang of conscience, and she’d been keeping secrets from Phil because he wouldn’t have liked what she was doing. Whatever would that old vicar who’d married them have to say about that?
Of course he was probably pushing up daisies by now, but recently, for some strange reason, his words had been coming back to her. Not so much about being honest with each other – presumably he’d thought that went without saying – but all manner of other unasked-for advice that he’d seen fit to offer them on the run-up to their wedding day. For example, it was his view that in all their future life-decisions the final word should be Philip’s. He should be the one to wear the trousers and Marjorie should defer to him.
Sitting side by side on the musty vicarage sofa as he delivered this instruction, they had stared at him in silence, hardly able to believe their ears, for even in those days such notions were so out of date as to be laughable.
Marjorie had sensed Phil’s suppressed mirth bubbling up, his hand tightening round hers as they solemnly nodded their heads, and she’d found it hard to keep a straight face. They had escaped from the interview as soon as they could, running hard to get well away from the vicarage before their laughter came spluttering out.
Nevertheless, a few days later Marjorie had found herself promising to obey her husband for ever more until they were parted by death. And she had largely adhered to the vicar’s words throughout her marriage; she had let Philip wear the trousers and had always deferred to him, even if at times he had jokingly had to threaten her with hell-fire and brimstone.
At least it had had the advantage that Phil had no one to blame but himself whenever things turned out badly – a neat cop-out for her, to be true, but it didn’t always suit. It certainly wasn’t going to suit her now if his plans clashed with her own …
‘Come and have dinner with us this evening,’ she urged Sheila. ‘I’m going to tell Philip everything. It’s time to sort all this out.’
Philip Benson hurried out of the lift and crossed the glossy foyer of Spittal’s admin. building in ten easy strides. He was far from being a vain man and would have been surprised had he been told that at least a dozen female heads turned to follow his progress before he disappeared through the revolving doors.
This owed nothing to the fact that he was the sales director; the MD himself could have stripped naked on top of the reception desk and no one would have batted an eye. But Philip Benson was ‘something else’, according to most of the women who worked at Spittal’s; he was generally considered by young and old, fat and thin, married and single, to be more than ‘a bit of all right’. Even though he was hitting fifty. Even though he’d gone grey. Even though he would soon be a grandfather. None of that mattered a jot. As for Mrs Benson, well, wasn’t she the lucky one?
Many a time had the phenomenon that was Philip Benson been thoroughly analysed, but no satisfactory conclusions had ever been reached. He was not conventionally handsome – whatever that might mean. Some said it was his slow, shy smile that did it; some his affable nature. Others considered his selflessness was the charm, for
