Dear Beneficiary Read online

  That and the conversation I’d had only a few days previously with the young policewoman at Epsfield station after my parking incident put an end to my interest in the legal system. After dutifully reporting as requested, I was told the officer who’d arrested me had lost all his paperwork in an altercation with some angry bus passengers and had since been signed off sick with stress.

  Anyway, apparently one isn’t allowed to express disgust at laziness and theft – or suggest to young parents they should think about contraception if they can’t afford their children. I wasn’t exactly asked to leave the magistracy but was told I might need ‘retraining’ so decided to resign. I didn’t fancy being patronised by a left-wing legal executive on the merits of social inclusion or how to work effectively with the morally challenged.

  ‘I’m retired now so it hardly matters,’ I’d said, sounding petulant even to myself. ‘So who cares what I do in my own time?’

  Jonjo looked at me as if I was some kind of stranger who had walked into the family home uninvited, and then wondered if his childhood had been a dream and he had really grown up somewhere else. He looked at me quizzically.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you had retired. When did that happen?’

  ‘I didn’t know myself until a few weeks ago,’ I said. ‘I’m getting a bit old for it all now anyway, and there is far too much training. It takes up so much time.’

  I wanted to change the subject. I sensed Jonjo thought I was going off the rails by small degrees and his reaction to my resignation suggested he was secretly rather pleased I was no longer a magistrate. We once had an argument about sentencing for drug dealing and my thoughts that in some very rare cases it should lead to capital punishment. Jonjo was horrified and said the thought of someone like me judging those who possessed cannabis for personal use filled him with horror. My own view is he was trying to cover up for his own seedy behaviour with that woman he went out with from the Hinchey Green council estate. The state of the skin around her fingernails was enough to tell you she was up to no good. At the time of his various public and usually drunken antics with the mother of four, who knew the father of none, he said he was escaping the narrow constraints of his uptight upbringing and that he took pleasure from marginal disregard for the law.

  What he doesn’t know is that Colin was the driving force of disapproval for the majority of our time as parents, and while Jonjo might have lived in fear of facing my wrath, it was his father who would have issued the harshest responses to his behaviour – had he known the full facts at the time. I couldn’t be bothered to argue any further, having decided many years ago that motherhood as a career choice was highly undervalued and mostly a task for which the sacrifices and effort are generally only appreciated posthumously.

  Jonjo piped up: ‘Oh, that’s a shame. I know you rather enjoyed it. But I suppose they have their rules.’

  ‘Mostly it was boring,’ I told him. ‘And I’ve better things to do these days.’ Like remembering my sexual antics with a black man over twenty years my junior, I thought, wickedly.

  I swear Jonjo raised his eyebrows at me but I let it go. I suppose he might have been thinking that I didn’t really have better things to do but then he didn’t know what I got up to in my own time. Thank goodness. I flushed as I thought of what Darius could do with my time (and various bits of my anatomy).

  ‘Well, maybe it’s turned out for the best, then. But I still don’t think you should go out driving when you have been drinking. You could kill someone,’ he’d said.

  I was feeling sorry for myself and didn’t want to listen to him. I wanted to do something that didn’t involve being told off by my children. I’d been waiting very patiently for a number of weeks and, in the absence of any idea what to do about my lover I needed something to take my mind off him, if only temporarily. I had finally decided it was time to go to the bridge club and find out why, since I was in possession of a sound and very viable email address, I hadn’t received any communication from them.

  I parked in the last spot in the church car park, for which I was thankful as the church seemed very busy; even for days when a funeral is taking place. Checking my jacket and smoothing my hair, I marched in what I considered to be a determined fashion to the hall’s entrance. I pushed the doors open firmly and in doing so they smashed against a small table holding leaflets for local community activities, knocking half of them to the floor. I tutted in frustration at the mess, as I’d mentioned this problem many times to the committee. I ignored the flurry of papers. Why should I pick them up when they were so obviously in a stupid position in the first place?

  When I arrived, the doors to the church hall were closed but unlocked. It was usual for the group to wait until everyone had arrived, after which they would secure the entrance against any passing murderers looking specifically for bridge club members. Most were convinced that the day they left the door open, their downfall would be guaranteed.

  I wasn’t quite of the same opinion. I told them they were paranoid and they should have sufficient confidence in their own abilities to talk themselves out of a violent death. I certainly wasn’t going to spend my life worrying about what could happen. It seems that whatever I’ve been planning falls foul of fate anyway.

  When I got into the hall I saw a few old faces. I mean old, too; used up, exhausted and lacking in the sparkle that makes youth what it is. Like a white shirt that’s been laundered so many times it never really ever looks white again, regardless of the number of bleach washes.

  Only a few of them retained any evidence of previous excitements, illicit knowledge, private reveries of days gone past; and these flashes came in the occasional surge of energy that could only be seen by looking directly through their eyes and into the core of their diminished souls.

  ‘Hello, everybody. Sorry I haven’t been for such a long time but I haven’t been getting your emails.’

  I looked accusingly at Mavis, with the sort of stare I reserved for this and any other confrontational occasion.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cynthia,’ said Mavis, who kept her eyes focused away and towards the door. ‘I didn’t think you had email. I just assumed that someone would let you know what was going on.’

  ‘Well, they haven’t. So I’ll inform you of the address and I hope you’ll be sending me details of all events in future,’ I said, somewhat haughtily.

  I sat firmly on the only available chair in the hall and wondered if this is what my life had come to. I missed having Darius and the anticipation of a thrill, however short-lived. I wondered if that was what it was like to give up a drug and started to feel for the people I’d seen in court. They were driven to do things to repeat the buzz that made them feel alive, special and above the mundanity of everyone else’s tired and tiring existences.

  Tears were rising alongside an acid indigestion brought about by repressed emotion so I busied myself with my bag and coat. It was as Mavis was giving out pens I decided to make my stand.

  ‘So, can I be assured you will now be sending me emails? I’m fully on the interweb and have my own address and hard driver. So no excuses, eh?’ I expelled a forced laugh to make sure she knew that while I was quite happy to be jovial at this stage, things could get difficult.

  ‘No excuses, Cynthia, no excuses,’ replied Mavis, looking a bit despondent. I should have noticed she hadn’t asked for the actual address.

  The games began and I lost. It was my partner’s fault. That silly Cecil D’Eath, who refused to acknowledge how his name was pronounced.

  ‘It’s Death, as in the act of being dead,’ I told him once but he insisted I’d got it wrong.

  To make out it’s some kind of French derivative was downright pretentious. If you hate your name that much, even if you have grown into it by dint of the inevitability of ageing, change it. No one cares anyway, but they do care if you make a twerp of yourself.

  Throughout the afternoon all I could think of was sex. Having been deprived of it in any meaningful way for mo
st of my adult life, until the recent enlightenment with Darius, I was hankering after a good old seeing to. Shocked by the change in my own desires, I wondered if it was Darius who’d opened up my horizons, and a fair few other things, or the onset of late middle age? After all, sixty is the new forty, or so I’m led to believe when reading Cosmopolitan magazine at the hairdresser’s.

  I don’t see anything wrong with stretching the boundaries of propriety after a lifetime of compliance. Everyone over fifty should think about throwing away the rules now and then, particularly if you have played by them for so long. I no longer cared a jot what sandwiches were available or whether everyone got their chosen filling. Let them eat bloody cake.

  At the end of the bridge session, I left the hall hurriedly and was a little surprised to find my car had been moved and a rude note left about parking in the spot reserved for the hearse. A large yellow parking ticket was stuck to the windscreen, right in front of the driver’s seat. I pulled at it but it wouldn’t budge so had to drive with my head out the window for the entire journey home.

  I raced back as quickly as possible not only because of the ticket but in case anyone wanted to mention the last hand, the one that led to a spectacular downfall. At the time I’d been looking at the ace of clubs and reminiscing about Darius and his expert tongue.

  It was about time I got in touch with him – in person.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘Will the last passengers for flight NA345 to Lagos please go to gate number 105,’ a voice boomed over the tannoy at Heathrow airport.

  I’d been in the toilet, throwing up what appeared to be the remains of my macaroni cheese from the night before. I was surprised to note the strange addition of carrots, which I couldn’t remember having eaten, but other than that felt a lot better. I don’t like being sick and haven’t been for years, so can only put it down to nerves. At least at my age I knew it wasn’t pregnancy.

  It could’ve been the bottle of wine I’d drunk by myself before going to bed. I’d been looking around for something to take my mind off the flight and found one of the good burgundies Colin had laid down for an occasion he never came to see. He was a bit like that – keeping everything for ‘best’, but then nothing was ever good enough to qualify. I decided just the simple fact a good bottle was available to me, and I was able to open it with a waiter’s friend, unaided, was good enough reason to celebrate.

  There was no doubt the decision to go and find Darius was getting a bit nerve-racking. I knew I couldn’t ignore his plight when I received his email. I just booked the journey and made a decision not to worry about the consequences. I didn’t have time to reconsider, until it was too late.

  I took a quick look in the mirror and had to adjust my hair as it had fallen out of place while I was in the unfortunate position required for vomiting.

  You don’t look too bad under the circumstances, I thought, as I applied a fresh layer of the ‘Delicate Rose’ lipstick I’ve been wearing for the last decade. The woman at the beauty counter said it matched my English rose complexion. And that if I bought three I qualified for a free make-up bag, which I’ve never used.

  ‘Would the final passengers for flight NA345 to Lagos please go to gate 105 for boarding. This is the last call for this flight, which will close in two minutes,’ the anonymous voice warned.

  They can call as much as they like, they can’t go without me, and as I was still feeling a little shaky I didn’t want to rush about. Numerous trips with Colin have taught me if the baggage is on board, the passenger has to be too or they will delay the plane. He used to delight in sauntering his way to the plane, particularly if they’d had to call for him by name. I suppose it made him feel important.

  Normally, on my own, I’d have been a good ten minutes early and waiting at the front of the queue to get settled in the plane first, as I always hated the looks of contempt from seated passengers while we made our way to the last available seats. However, I didn’t want any more stress or the embarrassment of having to find another toilet quickly so I stayed near the one I knew about for as long as possible.

  I swung my travelling bag over my right shoulder. It was brown leather and probably very expensive as Colin had bought it on one of his trips to New York. He gave it to me on his return rather than wait for a birthday or Christmas which did make me wonder what he was feeling guilty about. Probably looking at an air hostess on the way home, or accidentally tuning in to the hotel’s porn channel. He wasn’t the type you could imagine doing anything to warrant claims of cheating, on any level. He’d even refuse to put kisses on birthday or leaving cards for female colleagues in case it was construed as sexual harassment.

  I strolled towards the gate. The queue had dwindled and there were just a few people left to check in. As I got to the desk a large, black woman dressed in a myriad of colours pushed in front of me. She was wearing a swathe of thin cloth wrapped loosely in various directions, which I thought looked strangely stylish. Normally I’d have said something at the woman’s rudeness but I was fascinated by the clothing. I could never work out how anyone could wear all that material without looking like they were going about their business in a set of sheets.

  ‘I love your dress,’ I said to the woman, who was at least a foot taller and probably five stone heavier than me. ‘Did you make it yourself?’

  As I was waiting for an answer, hopefully a polite one in the interests of making conversation, the woman turned to me and sucked her teeth, ignoring my question and gliding forward as if she had rollerblades concealed under the voluminous folds of her outfit. She made it clear she wasn’t interested in any discussion.

  ‘Please yourself,’ I muttered under my breath, as I opened up my passport and tickets for inspection. I wasn’t sure where I’d be sitting on the plane, although I’d asked for a window seat.

  I was amazed at the lack of interest the Nigerian Airway’s representative had shown in my ticket or passport. I tried to make small talk, but to no avail, as she wouldn’t make eye contact. I hadn’t seen anyone look so bored since Titch was asked to play a tree in a school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Dressed in a cardboard tube, painted green, and covered in a variety of twigs from top to bottom, she was expected to remain static for a little under two hours. Her nose never recovered; she’d dropped off halfway through, waking only in time to realise she was going to hit the stage, and couldn’t get her hands free to break her fall.

  The walk down the various poorly constructed corridors was long and tedious. I wondered whether Nigerian Airways planes were kept as far away from the airport as possible. It’s a good job I’m fit or I might not have made it.

  Finally at the door I handed over my ticket to the bored stewardess who pointed me in the direction of the interior of the plane. I found it vaguely amusing as she showed me down the aisle of the plane. I’m not quite sure where else she thought I would go.

  I looked around at the seat numbers for 47C and in doing so tripped over a wayward foot which some great oaf had poked out into the path of those in the aisle.

  I landed face down in the bosom of the woman I’d tried to speak to in the queue. She sucked her teeth again, more loudly this time.

  ‘Oh, we meet again,’ I said, trying to deal with what I found to be quite an embarrassing situation.

  I pushed myself up to a standing position using the woman’s substantial knees to do so.

  ‘Will you git arf me,’ she drawled in a strong accent I didn’t recognise but assumed was African of some kind. ‘Wart is da mutter wit you?’ she said, rubbing down her thighs and blowing out her breath in big puffs, which I noticed smelled of garlic.

  Her manner was most unpleasant and I have to admit to being somewhat taken aback. I opened my mouth to say something just as one of the hostesses took my elbow and guided me to a seat some way from the woman I’d just fallen upon.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of her,’ said the willowy hostess. ‘That is Lady Buke Osolase. She was the first Afr
ican woman to get a university degree and so can be a bit strident.’

  ‘Downright rude, if you ask me,’ I said, although not without some regard for a woman who would have had to fight against an even stronger cultural prejudice than I did, one that stated women did not deserve or require education.

  I made a mental note of Lady Osolase’s name, despite the likelihood my brain would act like an Etch A Sketch drawing pad after it has been shaken, wiping out all notations once laid flat.

  I shuffled over to my seat which I was cross to note was in the aisle and not by the window as requested, took off my shoes and settled into as comfortable a position anyone can adopt on an economy flight from London to Lagos.

  It was then I noticed a strange smell emanating from the back of the plane, which I would have dismissed had it not been for the comments of my neighbouring passenger.

  ‘What the bloody hell is that awful stink?’ said the bleached blonde woman next to me. ‘Smells like burning flesh or something.’

  I looked round to get a closer look and wasn’t entirely happy with the fact I was going to have to spend eight hours on a flight with someone whose dark mouse roots were showing through permed, yellowing hair. Do these people not have mirrors in their houses?

  She also had a bright pink hairband featuring two baubles and a daisy, which only added to the general inappropriateness of her dress, particularly for someone who was probably fighting off fifty from one direction or another.

  ‘I’m sure it isn’t anything to worry about,’ I replied, hoping it would shut her up. I noticed that each finger and one thumb had a cheap ring on it, sometimes two. More offensively she also had false nails shaped into a square at the top and painted fluorescent orange, which quite frankly announce low class like an identity badge. At least she didn’t have those ones that look like you’ve had an accident with the Tippex. I looked at my own neat, pearly-painted, oval-shaped nails and gave myself an internal nod of approval.