Emotions

by Claire Lorrimer

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Emotions is a delightful collection of short stories by Claire Lorrimer. Each in its way covers an emotion all women will recognize, and many of which are true reflections of women's experiences past and present. Indeed, First Love is a true story from Claire's own childhood. Her love of children and understanding of the elderly have enabled her to write these charming vignettes, all of which will touch the hearts of readers.

Release date: May 15, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 98

Sample

Beneath my towelling beach robe my body was greasy with oil and I was looking forward to the fresh water shower I intended to take in my room after two sweltering hours on the sun terrace by my Madeira hotel swimming pool.

The lobby of the hotel was cool, dark, and nearly empty as I waited for the lift that was on its way down to collect me. It, too, was cool and dimly lit in contrast to the brilliance of the September sun. Thankfully I pressed the button and sped silently towards my floor.

As happened quite often, I had forgotten to take my room key down to the pool and I had to make my usual search along the corridor to find one of the Portuguese chambermaids who would oblige, as always, by letting me into my corner bedroom with a master key.

I muttered my customary ‘obrigado’—the only Portuguese word I knew, as the door was opened for me. Drunk with sunshine and late afternoon torpor, I walked into my room.

My heart missed a beat. The fitted wardrobe that opened on to the right of the tiny hallway leading to my bedroom was full of clothes—not my own few pairs of slacks and solitary lounge suit, but soft, colourful feminine dresses, T-shirts, and a diaphanous white blouse. So my wife had arrived after all!

We had originally planned this two-week holiday as a last attempt to make a go of our five-year marriage—a kind of reconciliation honeymoon. At the eleventh hour, Barbara’s daughter by her first marriage had developed one of her imaginary ‘attacks’ which, as my plump twelve-year-old thoroughly spoilt stepdaughter knew very well, would prevent her devoted mama from leaving her.

‘I’ll join you in a day or two, Grant!’ Barbara had said, looking vaguely embarrassed but utterly determined. Seeing my expression, she added, ‘I promise.’

I don’t know whether I really wanted her to come with me or not. In more honest moments of self-searching, I was prepared to admit Barbara had married me on the rebound when her first husband Colin left her. If she really knew the meaning of the word love, physical or mental, she certainly had never proved it to me. But stubbornly I, who had loved her so much, hated the idea of defeat; of having to write off the five years of our marriage as pointless, wasted weeks and months of life, of effort, of trying, of the love given. And they were wasted.

Now, despite everything, I felt a moment of triumph. Barbara had joined me on this beautiful island and we might yet find a way to make our marriage work.

I was in our bedroom, my eyes searching for her. No Barbara, but a surprising scatter of her garments everywhere—nylon tights and pink briefs on the floor, white sandals lying at angles where they’d been kicked off at random—the dressing table a clutter of make-up, powder, perfume, bottles. Total disorder—and Barbara the tidiest, neatest, most careful woman I’d ever known!

I was intrigued. Had my wife suddenly changed—discovered she loved me, wanted me, missed me and rushed out to be with me?

I stopped my search of the room as I heard water running into the bath. Now I knew where she was—bathing after the journey, hurriedly changing her clothes to be ready to meet me, looking her usual cool impeccable self, but inside, eager, anticipating, too excited to fold her underwear, place her shoes side by side. And her dresses were new, too. I didn’t recognise any of them.

My heart was now beating furiously. The cautious cynicism which had shadowed everything connected with Barbara these last few years was swept away by a youthful excitement I’d not known since the days before our marriage—before I knew she could be so cold, so destructive. She had always looked incredibly exotic, sensuous, inviting. It had taken me years to admit that this was a complete anomaly and that I’d married a sexless, insensitive prude. Now, when I’d been on the point of giving up, Barbara, it seemed, was about to prove me wrong.

Quickly, I opened the bathroom door. Her back was towards me, only her dark hair and shoulders visible above the white foam of the scented bubble bath in which she was indulging. The noise of the water cascading from both taps must have drowned the noise I’d made opening the door because she did not turn but lifted one long tapering white arm to sponge water over her shoulder. It was, to me anyway, an unconsciously sexual movement as her breast rose above the foam.

I stepped forward and bent my head to kiss the back of her neck.

That was when the shot rang out which killed her.

* * *

Two hours later, I was still at the local police station in Funchal, still trying to make myself understood, still trying to understand. This much I did know. The woman in the bath was dead. It was not Barbara. The man who had shot her was her husband who had his own key to their room. He told the police he’d thought I was her lover.

You’ll probably be wondering, as I did, what this strange woman—and her husband—was doing in my room. For a long while I tried to keep my sanity whilst I listened to the police, and my English interpreter, trying to convince me that it was not my room at all. Eventually they took me back to the hotel and proved it to me, and I realised what had happened—I’d pressed the wrong button in the lift and got out on the 13th instead of the 12th floor. As the layout of the rooms was identical on each floor, I’d automatically gone to the corner room believing it to be mine.

But it couldn’t end there. Since it was not my room, the police said, and the door was locked, how had I got in? The lady was in the bath but must earlier have opened the door to me—or, as her husband had supposed, she’d given me a key.

Over and over again, I insisted they question the chambermaid who’d let me in. Unfortunately, she’d gone off duty and as she lived up the mountain in a poor home without a telephone, could not be questioned until next day.

By then, Barbara really did arrive. She was quite wonderful, telling the police I was an upright, utterly reliable husband who would not dream of having a mistress; finding an English lawyer who’d retired to live in Madeira and knew Portuguese and, more important, the law. By evening, my passport had been returned to me, my good name restored and I was free. Neat, tidy, unflustered, self-possessed and utterly efficient, my wife coped with every contingency. I don’t think it crossed her mind I might really have been involved. She believed me without question.

So did we become reconciled? No! You see, although I know she believed me innocent, the whole crazy incident gave her the opportunity she’d been looking for to end our marriage. It was typical of me to have been so careless, she said, before she took the next flight home, to be so carried away by stupid romantic notions. Any right-minded husband would have known at once she never left her clothes in such abandoned disorder, let alone take a bath in the middle of the afternoon. She had given up now the hope that I’d grow up and out of my irrational sentimental ideas.

I don’t think of her often—but when I do remember her, I like to think of that other room on the 13th floor with its feminine disorder, its perfume and the white shoulder in the foam bath, and how happy we might have been.

It was the first Wednesday of the month. Mrs Paley had been studying the calendar and now she said:

‘It’s Diana’s afternoon!’

I think she was trying to hide even from me the fact that she wasn’t much looking forward to her eldest daughter’s duty visit. Diana came on the first Wednesday of every month, no matter what the weather and despite any domestic crisis at home. Nobody would ever be able to accuse Diana of neglecting her mother, of being unreliable or undutiful. This was one of the reasons why Mrs Paley really didn’t enjoy the occasion—and it was An Occasion since she seldom saw anyone from one day’s end to the next. Except for me, of course. She knew it wasn’t really love which brought Diana out on a gusty rainy day to spend an hour or so with her old mother.

‘But then Diana never was very affectionate, even as a little girl,’ Mrs Paley said aloud, her thoughts running parallel with mine. ‘Oh, well, Delia, I suppose I’d better tidy up the room a bit.’

But she remained seated in her favourite chair by the fire, an old crocheted shawl across her knees. I was curled up on the window seat staring through the blurred wet glass across the chimney tops of the houses on the opposite side of the street. It was grey, damp and depressing outside, but the room was comparatively warm and cosy. It was made to seem even smaller than it was by the endless pieces of bric-á-brac and innumerable photos and mementos dear to old people.

‘Dear Delia!’ said Mrs Paley suddenly, smiling at me. ‘Where would I be without you?’

Or I without you! I thought.

We might have begun one of our luxurious reminiscences of the old days but for the arrival of Diana. The years had filled out her figure to a plump matronliness. Her hair was already grey though she could not yet be fifty. Her face, wet from the rain, was red and shiny.

‘Well, Mother, how ar. . .