Cat and Mouse

By Chris Marr

Adrian Kendrick, a graduate in his first job, becomes obsessed with a work colleague, Rosalind, drawn to her partly by her striking appearance and partly by her unworldly character. Rosalind is old-fashioned. Rosalind is naïve. Rosalind, unfortunately, is also married, and her husband, James, a nightclub bouncer, has violent tendencies&nbsp

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Marr
• Release date: Mar 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781909122727

Chris Marr

Chris Marr was born in 1964 and went to school in Hertfordshire. After reading history at the University of Southampton he became a qualified librarian, worked full-time as an IT system administrator at The Times, before devoting himself to bringing up two children.

Book preview

PART ONE

James and Rosalind

Prologue

Sleep was impossible. One image after another would enter his head and the thoughts would begin again. How had everything ended in a man’s death – to all intents and purposes at Adrian’s own hands?

He sat up in bed and stared into the gloom. Up until now he had not delved into the chronology of his feelings, but perhaps it would help, calmly and rationally, to go back to the point when Rosalind had entered his life. Attempting to settle once more, he cast his mind back six weeks to when he had joined the queue for the office canteen. It was surprising, really, that a medium-sized office should have its own catering arrangements, especially as most of those working in the building – either for the insurance firm, above, or the finance company, below – viewed the portions as various bacterial diseases. Of interest, too, were the acoustics. In spite of the clatter of plates and the shouts from the kitchen, Adrian could clearly hear Martina Webster ahead of him talking to a woman with large earrings and bleached blonde hair. Although not interested in what they had to say (at least at first), it was impossible not to pick up the drift, and he gathered that the sacrificial lamb under discussion was a recruit from the sales department.

‘I knew one day I’d bump into someone from work,’ said Martina. ‘And would you believe it. I’d just come out of the changing-area, and there, right in front of me, was… well, you’ll never guess who.’

‘Who?’

‘Dame Margot.’

‘Who is Dame Margot?’

‘I think the name suits her very well.’

‘Who was it!’

‘Rosalind Bryce.’

‘NO!’

‘As I live and breathe.’

‘Oh, my God!’

The blonde woman was proving to be an excellent sounding board and Martina nodded portentously. Adrian hadn’t had many dealings with Martina in the past, but her intense stare and pursed lips didn’t suggest much generosity of spirit. He had the feeling that were she to witness the Second Coming, she would complain that He could have chosen a nicer day. (And did you see the state of His hair?)

‘The funny thing is that I don’t think she recognized me – because I’m a woman, no doubt. Honest to God, though, you could hardly miss her. You won’t believe what she was wearing.’

‘What?’

As the stage directions in a Harold Pinter play might stipulate: ‘(Pause.)’

‘What? Tell me!’

‘Well…’ Martina leaned in, a seasoned battlecruiser drawing alongside HMS Vindictive. ‘She was wearing a pink… one-piece… ballerina’s costume.’

A gasp greeted this disclosure.

‘A tutu,’ Martina translated, ‘with white tights and pink trainers.’

‘NO!’

‘All the rest of us were dressed in leotards.’

‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’

The speaker was evidently impressed and, although not as bowled over, Adrian could agree that the attire in question was somewhat outré. But then, why should everyone conform? As the queue moved forward and Martina elaborated on the finer points of Rosalind’s get-up, he resolved to shut his ears, the more so since the conversation had moved onto physical appearances.

‘She took an age to leave – twiddling with her hair and deliberately stumbling to attract the attention of the fitness instructor. Oh, and she’s got this way of walking, have you noticed? On the points of her feet’ – Martina demonstrated – ‘while coyly looking out for any passing male. Anyway, on a whim, I decided to follow her into the changing-rooms to see how she looked in the shower.’

‘You didn’t!’

‘I did. And, well, I couldn’t believe it…’

‘What?’

‘She—’

It was time, Adrian felt, to step in.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, pointing to a tureen, ‘is that chicken soup?’

‘Chicken soup?’ Martina queried.

‘Yes, only I can’t stand chewing all that fat.’

Martina’s eyes narrowed.

‘I don’t think it’s chicken soup. I think it’s parsnip or something.’

‘OK, thanks.’

She advanced a couple of steps, as the queue shuffled forward, and continued to ‘chew the fat’, although this time at a more subdued level.

Not that Adrian tuned into what they were saying, which now probably included himself. That poor ‘tutu’ woman. Of course, she might not be a nice person, providing a context for Martina’s remarks, but even so…

1

Strange that when someone is on your mind, you find yourself running into them. Two days after the overheard conversation in the canteen, Adrian caught sight of Rosalind in The Pear Tree. It was strange, too, that he should know it was her. Perhaps she just looked the type – svelte and fluttering – who at a pinch might wear a tutu to a gym. The Pear Tree was one of those olde-worlde pubs that help define Englishness. Patrons were treated to an inglenook fireplace, low oak-beamed ceilings and views over the River Wey. Hovering over Rosalind was a stag’s head that bore a resemblance, which Martina and her friend would instantly have spotted, to Rosalind’s Bambi-like features.

On this occasion, surrounded by male hunters, Bambi was trapped. Perhaps there had been a mix-up over her plans and, not knowing the male–female composition of the other departments, Rosalind had found it difficult to escape. Indeed, Adrian would have liked to talk to her himself but, with a phalanx of bodies dividing them, he was left to observe her surreptitiously from a distance.

She was very striking in her appearance and somehow, to his way of thinking, carried a certain aura. She had a pointed nose, which he found more attractive than an understated button nose, and her mouth was wide and sensuous. With regard to her dress sense – which was another reason why she stood out – the white frock with pink flowers she was wearing would have suited someone half her age and put him in mind of the nursery rhyme about Little Bo Peep.

How did Blake’s Little Girl Lost go? (He had studied Blake for his dissertation.) ‘She had wandered long, hearing wild birds’ song.’ And later: ‘Leopards, tigers, play round her as she lay; while the lion old bowed his mane of gold, and her bosom lick.’

He continued to look over at her now and then. Her hair was wonderful, a burnt sienna colour with diverse tints that showed up under the light. She wore it in an airy up-do that had strands of fringe tumbling over her eyes. And – keeping to the theme of children’s stories – what lovely big eyes she had. Combined with her long lashes, the beautiful bottle green colour – which, Adrian was to learn later, was perfectly natural and not the product of special contact lenses – held a remarkable allure.

As the evening progressed, he edged nearer to her. She was hemmed in by two colleagues who worked alongside him in his department, Keith Layton and Simon Potter, the former talking incessantly, the latter, smiling at Keith’s jokes, wearing thick glasses that now and then slipped down his nose. Although Rosalind sat with an erect gait listening attentively, every so often she would glance at Adrian, or seemed to, with an ‘I need rescuing’ look.

The opportunity to talk to her didn’t arrive, however, until everyone trooped outside at pub-closing time. A fine rain was falling. He was now within hearing distance of her group.

‘Do me a favour,’ Keith scoffed. ‘Rosalind can’t go home in your old banger.’

‘The Volkswagen Beetle,’ Simon replied, flicking his glasses up to the bridge of his nose, ‘is a classic car. Besides, you live in Woking in the opposite direction.’

‘At least we’ll get to where we want to without being towed.’

Rosalind stood by in silence as her two knights discussed the merits of their steeds. The conversation evidently would have carried on for some time, but Adrian could no longer resist getting involved and, taking a step towards her, said, ‘Where do you live?’

‘Haverley,’ she replied, gazing at him with her enormous eyes.

‘How did you get here this morning?’

‘By bus. Except the last bus has gone.’

‘You don’t drive?’

‘I do. But…’

She let the sentence trail off. Maybe the explanation was too lengthy or pointless to go into.

‘Haverley’s not far. I’ll give you a lift.’

His intervention took his bickering colleagues by surprise.

Rosalind looked flustered. ‘Oh, don’t worry about me,’ she said with a blush.

But everyone was worried about her. Keith objected to an interloper as well.

‘Yes, don’t worry, Adrian. We’ll sort something out.’

‘Actually,’ he retorted, ‘I wanted a chat with Rosalind in any case.’

Two frowns and a look of bewilderment met this pronouncement.

‘What about?’ Keith demanded.

‘Heyward’s new plans.’

‘New plans?’ Rosalind queried.

‘He’s making it up. Adrian…’ Keith gestured to a point farther up the road. ‘A word, if I may, in your shell-like.’

They parked themselves ten yards away. Keith ran his hand through his grizzled hair. Although in his early forties, Keith had only just moved out of his parents’ house. He was obsessed with sex and guaranteed, in the right company, to produce one smutty joke after another.

‘OK, what’s the game?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. We didn’t interfere in your relationship with Laura.’

Adrian glanced at Rosalind. She had wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the brisk wind.

‘Look,’ Keith continued confidingly, ‘she’s dead keen on Simon and me. Me, in particular. She’s gullible, if you get my meaning.’

‘Unfortunately, I do. Sorry, Keith, I’m sure you’ve had a very nice evening together, but I’ve made up my mind. Either she goes home with me or I call for a taxi.’

‘What’s your problem? Is it because she’s married?’

‘She’s married?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, that settles it, then.’

Keith frowned, and then a revelation dawned on him.

‘Ha ha, I get it! Very clever. Look, Adrian,’ he added, suddenly turning into a crusader for women’s rights, ‘whatever you say, Rosalind’s a modern, liberated woman. I’m sure she can decide for herself.’

This remark was explained by a presence at Adrian’s side.

‘All ready?’

Her eyes were startling, coming out on stalks and wriggling about.

‘We’re calling a taxi.’

‘I want a lift from you,’ she replied. ‘I’m intrigued by this news about Heyward.’

2

Leaving two smashed egos in their wake, they made their departure. The rain glanced off their faces, providing a spritz effect, and the cold March air sustained them during the walk to his car, which he had left in the pub car park. It felt as if something primitive had occurred, as if Adrian, a dominant baboon, had scared off two rivals, neither of whose bottoms were as red as his happened to be. She appeared extremely fragile and spoke in a voice that one could barely hear.

‘You’re Adrian, aren’t you?’ She pronounced his name, ‘A–dri–anne’. ‘I’ve heard that you’re really arty.’

‘I dabble,’ he replied. ‘I think that that reputation stems from when I let an ex-girlfriend cut my hair. She was working on a section around my ear and—’

‘She cut your ear off!’

‘She nicked it. The thing was that I needed a plaster, and from that day onwards Keith and Simon started calling me Vincent.’

‘After Vincent Van Gogh?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re such jokers.’ She giggled. ‘I hope they didn’t mind me deserting them. You don’t think they did, do you?’

He assured her that he didn’t think they minded at all.

‘They’re real sweeties. I love the way that they talk about gigs and the size of their RAM.’

Was she actually being serious?

‘We work in the same room. We never stop laughing.’

‘So?’ she asked in a breathless voice. ‘Out with it, then.’

‘Pardon?’

‘The news about my department.’

He confessed that there wasn’t any news.

‘So you were lying? Keith was right?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you said that these new plans involved my department. You did say that specifically, didn’t you?’

‘I did. Were you a prosecution lawyer in your last job?’

‘But Adrian!’ She clapped her hands in delight. ‘You don’t understand. There is some news involving my department. I heard it this afternoon. A sales manager is joining us next month.’

They had reached his car. Rosalind climbed into the passenger seat and Adrian set off, passing St Andrew’s Church and the sports centre, before taking the turning for the A31 leading from Hampshire into Surrey. He didn’t know it, but three weeks later he would make another car journey with Rosalind, from the office to his flat, the atmosphere on that occasion of a completely different nature. Here, on their first meeting, the atmosphere was relaxed. He didn’t even notice what sort of coat she was wearing – something long and swishy, probably. Thankfully, she did not upbraid him for his deception over ‘Heyward’s new plans’ and they fell into a conversation about her job. She wasn’t nearly as quiet and withdrawn as he imagined, and he made sure not to bring in his own perspective unnecessarily. According to early reports, the new sales manager sounded enthusiastic in his approach. He had already stipulated that there should be more staff training and had even booked Rosalind and a couple of others on a week-long course at the end of April.

As Adrian turned onto Haverley Road, with its pleasing views over the Surrey Hills, she chastised herself for talking too much and asked about his job. Since his duties were effectively the same as Keith and Simon’s, about which she had doubtless heard enough that evening, he spoke to his own astonishment about a novel he had written. He usually never mentioned the subject and yet felt, intuitively, that Rosalind would be sensitive in her response.

‘Is it a love story?’

‘There is a love interest,’ he replied, omitting to mention that the woman with whom his protagonist was besotted was a serial killer.

‘Gosh, you must have so much imagination.’

‘Not according to the publishing industry,’ he said dryly.

‘That’s probably because you’re ahead of your time. These publishers are expecting something run-of-the-mill and your manuscript blows apart the conventions.’

‘Perhaps I could take another look at the fonts,’ he conceded.

She apparently thought he was serious. She leaned forward, adopting the pose of Rodin’s The Thinker. It was amusing to witness such concern over his creative writing.

‘All you need is the right contacts,’ she said at length. ‘My family have been in the publishing business for generations. Uncle Alf was the last to get involved. Deputy chairman of… I forget the name of the company, but it’s huge.’

‘You couldn’t send him a copy of my manuscript?’ Adrian asked, the faintest of hopes dawning.

‘He’s dead now,’ she said sadly. ‘Shame, really. He would have been ideal.’

In spite of Uncle Alf’s withdrawal from his potential fan base, her belief in his ability, based on the short time she had known him, was strangely touching. They journeyed on, the rain teeming down and the wipers speeding up with every flurry. Adrian, in fact, was going a little out of his way. He lived in Guildford and it would take another twenty minutes to drive back along the A3. He recalled the words he had used in his novel to describe the surrounding scenery:

In Britain’s geographical tapestry, it was not the silkiest or frilliest frou-frou. Nevertheless, it was a beautifully designed pocket on a dress that had been perfectly cut and stitched. The overlapping folds of greenery produced a ‘nature at oneness’ quality that anyone, Andrew fancied, could admire.

They were nearly at their journey’s end. Following her directions – ‘Right here’, ‘Left here’ – they turned into a well-heeled neighbourhood with wide roads and trees.

She indicated a turning.

‘This is my road. You can drop me off here.’

‘You live on this corner?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll take you to your door.’

He was dimly aware of the huge detached shapes on either side, all of them vast compared to his own little flat.

‘I can walk the rest of the way. You don’t have to—’

‘No, no. It’s the least I can do,’ he responded, wondering if she was embarrassed about the size of her house. ‘Where shall I stop?’

‘Here, by that lamppost.’

‘This is your house?’

‘It’s a bit farther on.’

He laughed.

‘I don’t mind, honestly. What’s another minute to my journey?’

He carried on for another hundred yards before she said, ‘This is it. Number eighteen.’

He pulled over, and they turned to face each other.

‘Thanks for the lift, Adrian. I’ve had a great evening. You, Keith and Simon are all so funny.’

He smiled in self-deprecation. With the wind blowing noisily and the rain pattering on the roof, he later reflected that they had experienced ‘a moment’. A strand of her hair had fallen across her eye and the desire to brush it aside was all but irresistible.

‘I’d better be going. It must be ten o’clock.’

‘It’s nearly twelve,’ he said, checking his watch.

‘Twelve o’clock?’

‘To be exact, eleven forty-three.’

‘Oh, my gosh.’ Her face had paled. ‘I promised James I’d be home by ten-thirty.’

‘Will it bother him?’

‘Yes! Terribly! He doesn’t trust me out on my own.’

‘He doesn’t trust you?’

‘It’s not so much me. It’s whoever I’m with. Any man.’

Adrian blinked.

‘He wouldn’t have a problem, though, with me giving you a lift?’

‘What? No, no… Mind you, there was this incident in my last job. Poor Jack. Nice boy. Avoided me like the plague after that. You see, James gets these ideas into his head and a sort of red mist descends.’

Adrian’s interest in his surroundings had grown over the last few seconds. He could see no number on the house opposite and so, in theory, they could be some way from number 18.

‘He’s got such a temper. He can flare up over nothing. And he’s really good with his fists. It’s a gift, apparently.’

Adrian wasn’t sure if he was meant to pass a compliment over her husband’s supposed talent. Doubtless there were specialists in beating people up as well as fields like chess and piano-playing.

‘I don’t know why he’s so jealous. I think that he sees it as protecting my honour.’

‘Yes, well…’ he replied, hoping to engineer a pause from which she would take her cue to head off.

‘Anger management, that’s what he needs.’

‘I’m sure.’

Her reverie continued for five more seconds.

‘Oh, I’m sorry! I’m wasting more time, aren’t I?’

She let herself out and then stuck her head back in for a moment. Her hair, borne by the wind, was everywhere – in her eyes, on the roof of the car – fighting, apparently, to get back to Adrian.

‘Thanks for the lift, Vinnie,’ she said, referring to the conversation about Vincent Van Gogh.

She walked off down the road, skipping onto the kerb.

Memory is a funny thing. Back in his bed six weeks later, Adrian could see the swishy coat that he had half-remembered earlier. Pink, it was, and typically Rosalind-like. It transpired that her house was about 30 yards away. Without the too obvious loss of footwear, he was reminded of Cinderella fleeing on the stroke of midnight. Strange that he should think once again of fairy tales, but Rosalind had a childlike enthusiasm for life. The current cynical age might mock such a trait but, to put it in its simplest terms, she made him feel happy.

3

‘Do you see much of Laura these days?’ his mum asked.

Adrian’s love life was not his own. He shared it with his mum who was keener than he was to find the cherry (the ideal woman) to plonk on the fabulous cake (himself) that she had baked. He could, of course, refuse to discuss the issue. Strangely enough, though, he had never felt the desire to rebel. ‘We did excellently in our exams,’ she would say. Then, after university, which ‘we’ had managed to get into, the next mission had been to land a good job and find a nice girlfriend (who, unless she could read his mum’s mind and second-guess every criticism, did not exist).

‘Not much,’ he replied.