Honeycote (20 page)

His world was too far removed from the Liddiards’ for him to be able to glide effortlessly from his into something resembling theirs. His was a domain of remote-control garage doors, underfloor heating and self-cleaning ovens, without a speck of spontaneity. Everything was regulated, programmed, timetabled… how could he break the habits of a lifetime?

Depressed, he walked into the spotless kitchen and looked around the sterile environment, where every appliance was discreetly hidden behind a bespoke, hand-built cabinet, as if it was shameful to admit that your dishes needed washing or your food needed chilling. He took a little bottle of French beer out of the refrigerator and reached into a cupboard for a glass. With distaste, he noticed a trace of Sandra’s frosted cappuccino lipstick on the rim. Somehow, this jerked him out of his depression, and he marched over to the bin (also cunningly disguised) and dropped the glass in, listening with satisfaction as it smashed against the stainless steel at the bottom. Then he flipped the cap of the bottle, raised it to his lips and drank defiantly.

Mandy appeared in the doorway. She looked upset, almost on the verge of tears.

‘What is it, love?’

‘Look what she left in my bedroom.’

She thrust an envelope at him, covered in Sandra’s scrawl: ‘I hope you’ll understand one day, darling. In the meantime, buy yourself something nice for Christmas.’ Inside was a cheque for five hundred pounds.

‘What, exactly, am I supposed to get? To make up for the fact my mother’s gone off with someone half her age?’

Mandy’s tone was uncharacteristically vicious, and Keith was perturbed to see her blinking back tears.

‘I’m sorry, love.’

‘I don’t care that she’s gone. I just care that she doesn’t care.’

‘I know.’

Keith was surprised to find that comforting a sobbing eighteen-year-old wasn’t as disconcerting as he thought it might be. Sandra’s desertion had created an unspoken bond between them. They were united. But they had decisions to make. Choices.

‘I’m thinking of selling the business.’

The words popped out before he’d even realized that was what he’d been thinking. Mandy stopped mid wail and looked at him in surprise.

‘Since when?’

‘Since two seconds ago. I don’t need to put myself through it any more, now your mother’s gone.’ He paused briefly. ‘Why should I carry on doing something I hate?’

‘I didn’t know you hated it.’ To Mandy, his words sounded almost sacrilegious. Her father had always seemed devoted to his work, spending evenings and weekends tying up deals, unable to tear himself away in order to spend time with his family.

‘Once you’ve got on to the treadmill, it’s very hard to get off. And I had to keep your mother in the style she thought she was accustomed to. All this doesn’t come cheap, you know.’ He waved a hand round the room, but the gesture was further-reaching. ‘It was all totally pointless, wasn’t it? Slogging my guts out to make her happy.’

‘So if you’re going to sell up – then what?’

‘I don’t know. Something that makes
me
happy.’

Keith knew that his tone was bitter and cynical, and that Mandy shouldn’t have to cope with her father’s problems on top of her mother’s departure. He stroked her hair and he was gratified that she nuzzled into him. For the first time in years he felt a flicker of warmth from human contact. He felt a surge of anger, too, that he had missed out on so much; that he didn’t really know his daughter, nor she him. He was going to explain everything to her, as best he understood it.

Together they made a pot of tea and a pile of cheese on toast – they were both surprisingly hungry, even after their huge lunch – and took it into what Sandra had always called the snug, although that was a grave misnomer. The room positively stood to attention. Clutter, that was what the room needed, decided Keith, and resolved to leave the Sunday papers lying around for the next week in a gesture of defiance.

When they’d eaten, Keith began to talk, trying to paint as unbiased a picture of what had brought the Sherwyns to this point as he could. And Mandy listened in wonder, sitting on the floor with her arms hugging her knees, round-eyed, as her father, the man she’d always considered remote and disinterested, emerged as sensitive and grossly misunderstood.

He supposed that most people ended up in circumstances far removed from their own burning ambition. It had been his father who had pushed him into plumbing, had insisted he get a trade when he failed to get into grammar school and had got him an apprenticeship. It was a good choice on his father’s part, for Keith was meticulously neat and tidy in his work, which made him popular with clients. And it didn’t take him long to work out that he was a natural salesman; that he could talk someone into having something ten times more elaborate than they had originally conceived when he went to price up a job. Not that he ever tried to rip them off. He was just so enthusiastic about what he had to offer, painting a vision of the bathroom that would change lives, that people invariably forked out for that little bit extra, the appliance that was going to turn a necessity into a luxury. Only trouble was, he was making the money for his boss, not himself. He was never going to make himself a million on the flat weekly wage he was paid. He gave himself two years to learn as much as he could on the job at someone else’s expense, while saving up enough cash to give him the courage to go out on his own.

His boss was furious when he left two years to the day he’d been taken on, and swore Keith would never work in that town again. But Keith had gained himself such a reputation that customers swapped allegiance in droves. Soon he had more work than he could manage alone and had to recruit his own team, training them up himself and ensuring they maintained his own exacting standards and targets. He did deals with local building firms to fit bathrooms in all the estates that were springing up around Solihull, and as the en suite was the new must-have it proved more than lucrative. He was ahead of the game with every fashion: jacuzzis, whirlpool baths, bidets, power showers, saunas. It seemed there was no end to what his customers could be seduced into buying.

The day his accountant told him that unless he went out and bought himself a new car, he was going to be in for a hefty tax bill, Keith realized he was on his way to becoming a successful businessman. He’d never even contemplated a new car. His parents had a deal with a friend of theirs who worked at Longbridge, who bought a new Rover every two years with his staff discount. Keith’s parents always bought his old one from him, selling their old one on to Keith. Which meant he had a four-year-old Rover every two years, a deal he was quite happy with as it always had full service history and low mileage.

Now he felt it was time to be reckless. He spent a week perusing all the garages in the area, inspecting what was on offer and seeing what sort of a deal he could get, before settling on the most frivolous vehicle he’d seen: a white Scimitar SSi sports car that was hugely impractical but brought a smile to his face the minute he put his foot down. And it seemed that it came with an added bonus. The salesman had jokingly referred to it as a tart’s trap, and it certainly did attract the attention of women. No sooner was the ink dry on the paperwork than the young, immaculately dressed receptionist handed him his keys, wistfully mentioning that she’d have loved a go in it, and now would never have the chance. Keith fell for her hook, line and sinker. It was a beautiful spring day and he was desperate to take his new acquisition for a spin. He offered to pick her up after work and take her for a drink. The girl blushed, accepted his offer and introduced herself as Sandra. Her father owned the dealership: she was working there to get some experience, as her father felt it was important for a woman to be able to stand on her own two feet these days.

Nine months later they married, and Keith felt the first twinges of unease as Sandra lorded it over his relations at the wedding, which they held at one of the larger hotels in Solihull. He was most uncomfortable with the airs and graces she bestowed upon herself in front of them; her father’s success had obviously gone to her head. Keith tried to compensate for her rudeness, but it was obvious to him that Sandra felt she had somehow married beneath her, even though her father had only made his fortune in the past twenty years. He banished it to the back of his mind. She was certainly nice enough to him. She was supportive, encouraging, always looking for ways he could improve his business. She was a shrewd little cookie – she’d picked up quite a few tips from her father on how to do deals, attract new customers and get repeat business. Not that Keith needed teaching – he was a natural – but it was nice to have someone to chew over ideas with at the end of the day.

But as he became more and more successful, so Sandra became less attentive and more demanding, not just wanting to keep up with the Joneses, but the Smiths, the Browns – the entire telephone directory. As fast as he made it, she spent it, and at first he had felt proud that he could provide in this way. In the space of seven years, they moved from a modest three-bedroomed box to a grand, five-bedroomed luxury home built to their own specification. Or rather, Sandra’s. He replaced her Mini Metro with a black Mercedes with personalized number plates. She had become unrecognizable from the seemingly artless, carefree creature he’d whizzed off in his car that spring evening. She spent her time driving between the gym, the hairdresser and the beautician, being sun-bedded, frosted and manicured, burning up his cash.

And it was a one-way deal. It seemed the more he showered upon her, the more Sandra withdrew from him and withheld any sort of affection. It was amazing that Mandy was conceived at all. And Sandra made it quite clear that being pregnant and giving birth had utterly revolted her, so Keith could forget trying for the son he secretly so desperately wanted. Just like Midas, everything Keith touched had turned to gold, but he was far from happy. To compensate for Sandra’s perpetual tight-lipped frostiness, he buried himself in his work, where at least he commanded respect, if not affection. And in the back of his mind he always wondered how Sandra would treat him if the money stopped coming in. It was all she’d ever wanted him for, he now realized. But it didn’t bear too much reflection.

He didn’t know when the affairs had started, but he knew they existed and felt it best to ignore them. He’d tried his very best to please Sandra in bed, even sneakily ordering
The Joy of Sex
from his book club to see if it would give him any clues. But she was obviously looking for something he couldn’t give her. The affairs never lasted long – it was as if once she had conquered someone she lost interest – and so Keith didn’t really find them a threat. In fact, he found them something of a relief, for while she was embarking upon an encounter she was remarkably good-natured at home. They gave her something to think about, stopped her from dwelling on what was wrong with her life and what material possession she might want Keith to strive for next.

So here they were. She’d left him, despite all his efforts and his total tolerance. He’d spent half a lifetime working his fingers to the bone for someone who had little or no regard for him. What a waste. He wondered what would have happened if his father hadn’t marched him into the plumbers’ merchants thirty years ago. His dream until then had been to draw cartoons for comics, to create his own superhero. Admittedly that ambition had long since faded. But he knew he’d be quite happy if he never saw a tap or a washer or a plughole again.

Keith outlined all of this to his daughter, missing out the little details he considered too sordid to share, though why he should feel any loyalty to Sandra he didn’t know. And what was most gratifying was that Mandy had come and given him a huge hug at the end of his story, a gesture of love and reassurance that almost made his heart burst.

He surveyed Mandy, and wondered what she wanted to do with her life. How well equipped was he to set her on the path she wanted to travel? Was it responsible parenting to encourage your children in whatever they wanted to do, however unfeasible it seemed? Or, just as his own father had done, was it better to take matters into your own hands and steer them down the path you felt was most suitable?

After all, perhaps his father had been right. Keith had been incredibly successful in the career that had been chosen for him. The fact he was miserable was down to his marriage. Perhaps if he had chosen a different woman to share in his success…

Either way, Keith had no idea what Mandy wanted to do, whether she wanted to be a weather girl or an archaeologist. She’d hinted at a career in interior design, which Keith approved of, as everyone seemed to be into it these days – thanks to all those programmes where people came and painted your kitchen bright pink and suggested you keep your fruit and veg in galvanized buckets. Perhaps they could set up their own company together – he could buy a little shop somewhere in the Cotswolds, somewhere fashionably wealthy. There was no way it wouldn’t be a success, what with his business acumen –

Hang on a minute! He was doing just what his father had done. Projecting his own ideas and ambitions on to Mandy. And no young girl in her right mind would want to go into business with her father. He made up his mind to get to know her over the next few days, find out what made her tick, what she wanted to do.

In the meantime, he had a more pressing question.

‘What do you want for Christmas?’

Mandy grinned. ‘A horse?’ Mandy had asked for a horse every Christmas since she was three. It was the nearest the Sherwyns had ever got to a family joke.

Keith rolled his eyes tolerantly. ‘Not that old chestnut again. We’ve got nowhere to keep it.’

‘Loads of places round here do livery. And if we get one that lives out, it wouldn’t cost too much’.

‘But you’re away at school most of the time.’

‘Maybe I could weekly board? I could come home every weekend. Then you wouldn’t get lonely.’

Keith had to get up and walk over to the drinks cabinet, so that Mandy couldn’t see the tears threatening to spring up in his eyes. He was more touched than he’d ever been. And increasingly furious with himself that he’d given his daughter so little time.