Short story

A story designed for the women’s magazine market. It was never submitted due to its length (2,500 words). Women’s magazines have very specific requirements as to length, style and content.

Hannah

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Martin gave a nod and smile to Hannah as he drove slowly away and stole a brief glance at her house. God, it was a dreary place. But then, quite frankly, so was Hannah. The drive home took the usual twenty minutes and he kept the window open the entire journey allowing the wind to turn his dark, curly, thinning hair into a haystack. It cleared his thoughts as well. Before he arrived he’d made up his mind. If he wanted to ensure his brain didn’t atrophy, the end was in sight. In many ways Hannah was lovely but he could not recall one single serious opinion she had proffered in the six months he had known her. He wasn’t looking for a lecture, just a view, a point that they could mull over and come to some sort of conclusion. The sex was brilliant but the price was getting too high.

 

She owned one of those unimaginative semis that infested every suburban town in the Country, with its narrow hallway passing modestly between staircase and front room leading to a door which hid a tiny, anticlimactic kitchen. Martin had mentioned a dishwasher once but regretted it. Apart from the hint of a marriage proposal hidden somewhere inside the comment, her reaction just confirmed her inability to move out of the past.

 

‘Dishwasher?’ she’d exclaimed. ‘What would I want with a dishwasher? I’ve done very well over the years without one thank you very much.’

‘Well, it’s your house,’ said Martin, ‘but it might be nice if we could settle down sometimes without the damn washing up getting in the way.’

 

It was one of life’s mysteries that someone so dull could look so stunning. Glorious auburn hair, large laughing eyes, perfectly formed nose and lips that mouthed invitations. She’d been a widow for some years and had just got her twin boys out from under her feet as undergraduates at Oxford and Southampton. That’s how she had ticked off the days, by being a dutiful suburban mother. She was not going to let her sons down. Their father deserved nothing less. Even if he wasn’t able to see them grow up she was going to make damn sure he would not have been disappointed. Taking an easy option, like buying a dishwasher, would have brought on all the guilt.

 

The trouble was, the effort in being the mother her husband would have been proud of made her – there was no other word for it – boring. It didn’t show at first. He took her to restaurants she’d never heard of, got her to try Japanese and Korean cuisine (What’s Korean cuisine? she’d asked). He’d taken her to plays where, for the first time, she had laughed and cried at something unreal. She had been mesmerised by the new horizons he’d introduced and he had wallowed in the adulation. Everything a man could want? Some might think so but Martin was astonished to discover that he wasn’t one of them.

This evening he’d asked her what she would you like to do at the weekend.

 

‘Oh, I don’t know, anything. You decide.’

‘How about a walk along the Pilgrims Way? You were reading it about it the other day.’

‘Was I? Yes, alright. Will I need special clothes?’

‘It’s not an expedition. People have walked it for several hundred years.’

‘Goodness me! We’ll have to watch the weather forecast though.’

‘Or we could try the London Eye. I keep meaning to do that.’

‘It won’t be so good if it rains.’

‘Well, what would you like to do?’

‘Oh I don’t know, you decide.’

‘I want to know what you think, Hannah.’

‘I don’t mind, really I don’t. Anything you want is okay with me.’

 

He always drove back to his own flat on a Tuesday evening because Hannah had joined a keep fit class that started at 9.30 on Wednesday.

 

‘I’d never get ready in time if you were here,’ she said, ‘what with tidying the bedroom, getting breakfast and cleaning the kitchen. There’s so much to do before I go.’          

 

It was another occasion when protest might have looked like a desire for domesticity so, instead, he just succumbed to her need to keep things simple, straightforward and routine.

 

He drove to Hannah’s on the Friday evening, he always drove to Hannah’s on the Friday evening, and that night took his time with her body. Hannah was the submissive type, rarely took the lead but responded so lovingly, so sensually. What a bugger that he might not get to feel these breasts, these thighs, again. She got up at seven the next morning, as ever, and prepared breakfast while he took a precious last few minutes lounging in her bed. When he got downstairs breakfast had been laid in the dining room, as neatly as always.  Table cloth, place mats, selected positions for the toast and the cereals, it was all there like a mini banquet. He took a slice of toast and laid it on his plate. 

 

‘So what have you decided you want to do?’ he asked.

‘I told you. I don’t mind.’

‘That’s not good enough, Hannah.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘From now on, I want you to choose.’

‘I always leave it to you, you know that.’

‘Not any more. From today onwards, you think and decide.’

‘Don’t be horrid.’

 

Martin stared at her for a few moments. ‘You think thinking is horrid do you?’

 

‘Of course thinking isn’t horrid. Don’t be silly.’

‘So why am I being horrid asking you to think.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. You’re confusing me.’

 

 

They sat there in silence. The clink of Hannah’s spoon against the side of her cereal bowl echoed round the pristine room, past the mock Georgian cabinets and round the china ballerinas. He heard the crunch of toast against teeth inside his head.

 

‘You’ve got cornflakes again.’

 

Hannah looked at her cereal bowl. Four tablespoons of flakes lay there resting in half a cup of semi-skimmed milk.

 

‘I always have cornflakes.’

‘I know you bloody do,’ Martin’s voice boomed across the table. ‘I know you do,’ he repeated quietly.

‘Martin, what’s got into you this morning. You’re in such a bad mood. Don’t you feel well?’

‘I’m sorry Hannah. I think we’re finished.’

‘Finished? What do you mean?’

‘This isn’t working for me.’

‘Working? I don’t understand. I thought you liked seeing me.’

‘I look forward to seeing you very much. And then it doesn’t work. You’re exciting to be with.’ He stirred his coffee erratically. ‘I just wish you were exciting to talk to as well.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. We always have nice times together.’

‘I know you don’t know what I mean. That’s the whole bloody problem. You are the most unimaginative, boring, routine laden person I have ever met. If I don’t get out I shall go mad with claustrophobia.’

 

There was a silence across the room that lay thick with disbelief, that he had said it and she had heard it. The silence was broken by the gulping breaths that Hannah attempted as she placed her hands to her head and wept.

 

‘I’m sorry I said that.’ Martin put his coffee cup down and ran both hands through his hair. ‘You’re a lovely person.’ He lowered his eyes and fingered the napkin still coiled neatly in its silver ring at the side of his plate. ‘It’s just not enough.’

 

Hannah did not look up and Martin went quietly upstairs to collect his things. He felt a total bastard of course, he knew he would. But wasn’t this for the best in the long run?

 

As he returned downstairs she said, ‘I thought we were happy together. How long have you felt like this?’

 

‘Quite a while. I’m sorry Hannah, I really am, But this isn’t for me. I have to be happy as well as you.’

‘I can change.’

‘No you can’t and, even if you did, you wouldn’t be yourself.’

‘So that’s it is it? Aren’t you even going to discuss it?’

‘Discuss? What have we discussed since we met? All I get is “I don’t know. You decide.” Well, for one last time, I’ve decided.’

 

He walked up the hall and opened the front door.

‘You’re a wicked man,’ Hannah screamed as he closed it behind him.

 

Yes, perhaps he was but what had to be done was best done quickly.

 

Martin regretted choosing this particular restaurant as soon as he had sat down to wait for Abigail. ‘Sams’ was the first place he had brought Hannah to. But he knew it so well it had become a habit just to press a couple of buttons on his mobile. It combined quality food with atmosphere and waiters who were willing to give that little extra special treatment. But he could see now it was a mistake. A new relationship, if he could call it that, shouldn’t be dragged through the memories of an old one. He’d met Abigail just a week ago. He’d had to attend a computer systems demonstration, a graphic design package that the suppliers insisted, naturally enough, would ‘transform their advertising agency into a leading edge organisation within weeks’. He’d heard it all before, of course, but couldn’t deny them their moment. His firm survived on other companies selling themselves. In fact the package was slick and very professional with some neat ideas he hadn’t come across before. But then neither had he come across the demonstrator before either.

 

Abigail looked the archetypal business woman. She had a slim figure and wore a smart white top and dark tight skirt. Her light brown hair was severely tied back, the sort of style that works only if your face has its own independent beauty. Like Abigail. She was as slick, professional and neat as the package she was selling.

 

‘Where are you off to next?’ Martin had asked.

‘Paris tomorrow.’

‘You speak French?’

‘Of course. Why would they buy if you can’t be bothered to speak their language?’

‘I’d be interested in your line of work if ever there was an opening.’

 

Abigail studied him closely.

 

‘For English only speakers,’ he clarified.

‘We’re always interested in people if they’re right for us.’

‘Could we discuss it further?’

‘Give me a call.’

‘How about over dinner?’

She laughed then said, ‘Okay, why not?’

 

It had been a flippant arrangement but seriously meant for all that. But when Martin looked at his watch he saw she was ten minutes late already. He ordered a bottle of Cab Sauv. He looked across the room past the Victorian filigreed staircase and could see, by a large pot plant, the table where he and Hannah had first sat. They had walked through the tables slowly while people stopped eating to take a look at her and then at the man she was with. Martin had felt like a king.

 

She’d chosen something simple, like a steak, while he’d gone for something more Italian. She’d rarely eaten pasta apart from spaghetti so he spent some time explaining the varieties of shapes, lengths and sizes that she would be able to try under his pupillage. It wasn’t that she worshipped at his feet, he’d never wanted that. It was just that she appreciated his knowledge and experience compared to what she had gleaned from the demands of two growing boys, a house that needed maintaining and the occasional parent teachers evening.

 

Abigail was twenty minutes late now. She’d said she usually worked into the evening and would have to come straight from the office. If she’d got another meeting she would have phoned. Wouldn’t she? Martin had downed half the bottle. He was going to have to ration himself. Hannah was good at that. When he’d first met her she wouldn’t have more than a glass ‘in case I get tipsy’.  She’d learnt since but was always capable of knowing when to stop and had made sure he did. She looked after him well. Wonderful home cooking, even at his flat. She wouldn’t take over his kitchen but would ensure they became a team. He actually enjoyed cooking when that happened. It was all plain stuff, no ‘fancy foreign things’, as she put it, but the end result was always exquisite. She even ironed his shirts and cleaned his shoes. He hadn’t like that at first.

 

‘I haven’t got you here to be my servant,’ he’d said.

‘I know you haven’t. I wouldn’t do it if you had. I just like doing things for you.’

 

The bottle of Cab. Sauv. was empty. She was now forty five minutes late. Where was the stupid woman? If she’d got tied up the least she could do was phone him. He couldn’t stand unreliable women. Hannah would never have done that. He looked across once again at the table where they had first held hands and he imagined her laughing with those liquid eyes at something he’d said. And it was then he knew that the last thing he wanted was Abigail to walk through the door. He’d cocked up this time that was for sure. Martin got out his mobile and stared at it. Was he sober enough to phone Hannah and make sense? He didn’t want his apology to be too slavish. Maybe she wouldn’t want him back but, then, if he didn’t phone he’d never find out. He punched in her code and watched the entrance to the restaurant. If Abigail showed up he could get to the Men’s in seconds. There was no answer. Out enjoying herself already. A text message came through as he cancelled the call. ‘Sorry forgot. A’. So that was it. Not even ‘Maybe some other time’. Wasn’t he even interesting enough to deserve an explanation?

 

Martin fumbled in his wallet for the money to pay for the wine, left sufficient on the table and walked quickly out of the restaurant. There was a slight drizzle and the evening was getting cold and dark. It would help him to sober up. Not that he was drunk of course, he’d often downed a bottle of wine in an evening. But by the time he’d reached his car he was feeling a lot fresher and clear headed. It wouldn’t take too long to drive to Hannah’s. He’d simply wait until she turned up. And then hope for the best. But then he’d better prepare for the worst. Fancy falling in love with a woman like silly, boring, domesticated, gorgeous Hannah. There were some other names he could call himself too but he wasn’t going to think about that.