Time Once More for Marilyn: Captivated & Rekindled Romance (3 page)

              In all this time I made certain that I would be back in the UK in order to see my daughter on my weekends. It was a delight to see Sarah on this regular basis and watch her grow up. She had been five years old when her mother and I divorced, as she changed from a little girl to the cusp of her teen years she developed a character of her own, not just a reflection of her family. She was a younger version of her mother, which was good as Jane was a lovely looking woman, however Sarah exhibited one trait that pleased me immensely; she didn't like her grandmother, calling her 'the old scroat'.  She was always interested in my travels and listened spellbound as I told her of the places I had been, and hearing about the people I met. I obviously didn't mention the sexual liaisons I had, although she did ask occasionally some quite pointed questions. As if I was going to discuss my sex life with my eleven year old daughter? No, not at all.

              The travelling stopped when the company took onto the Board a new Marketing Director, Martin Clarke. He decided that he would visit our suppliers, ensuring that the quality of product we bought was up to scratch. I realised quite quickly that while he knew about marketing strategies he didn't understand the first thing about textile technology. That understanding came after a brief conversation with him when I mentioned the problem of tight selvedge's. He looked blank. Great, I thought, does he really know what to look for?  It was obvious that he wished to enjoy the jollies of the travel, whether or not he was qualified to do so. The M.D. was also dubious, but had been overruled by the Board. Instead, he told me in confidence that my position would undoubtedly become more important as our suppliers came to understand that they could get all sorts of rubbish past the Marketing Director. So he gave me carte blanche to examine any delivery of fabric from wherever and the right to reject any that I deemed not to standard. I now had my own department and a laboratory equipped to scientifically test the fabric weave, checking its tensile strength and the fastness of colour in the dyes. I envisaged battles royal with Clarke. I still went out to investigate complaints though.

              It was one day in April that we received a complaint from a retailer in Torquay. I spoke to the proprietor of the business, an Adrian Moore. He told me that the job was for a customer who had a large property and for whom he hoped to do a lot more work. This was a usual tactic to put pressure on me to accept the complaint. He was wasting his time as he should have known by now that we would be scrupulously honest in examining the problem. I got the customer's name, address and telephone number, promising to phone immediately. I did exactly that and arranged with the lady a time for the Tuesday the following week.

              I travelled down on the Monday and stayed overnight at a Travel Inn. I had over the years, collected a library of town and city street maps, but I didn't have one for Torquay, so first thing I did was to buy one. I discovered that the address was not actually in Torquay but well out of the town and appeared to be quite isolated, so I assumed that had to be a fairly upmarket property. The street map did not show the actual area, but combined with my normal road atlas I found the lane. A problem started to loom as I followed the lane winding around between high banks. There were not too many properties, but those that were there were isolated and all set well back from the lane. Apart from the entrance to a drive which vanished quite quickly between banks of foliage, none could be seen from the road. The difficulty was that few had name boards. It was getting close to my appointment time and I had a horror of arriving late, so I drove up to one of the properties to ask if they could direct me. The woman who answered the door appeared to be the cleaner, since she was local in the place, she was able to direct me. I had asked for Hatcham's Glebe.  She replied in a broad Devon accent. "Oh, it's Missus Wilman you want. It's not far me luvver. Keep going up the lane and you'll find it. Look for the bent Oak; it be there to the right."

              I thought the Bent Oak could be a pub, but when I got to the tree it was obvious. It was an oak, but bent over the lane almost forming a tunnel; I assumed it was like this because of the prevailing winds. I turned up the drive to the right, which was about four hundred yards long and parked outside a most impressive cottage conversion, although the result could no longer be described as a cottage. I rang the doorbell. I waited some time and was just considering if I should ring again, when the door was opened by a woman. "Good Morning, I am..."

              "Hello Dalzeil." The shock I felt showed on my face and the woman smiled. Then a distant memory of a girl with dirty blonde hair, just a little puppy fat and a rather nice smile washed like a breaking wave into my consciousness. I knew her!

              "Good grief. Marilyn!"

CHAPTER THREE

              Marilyn stood back to let me in. I walked a little like a zombie who had just been zapped by the alien's Death Ray. She giggled. "Well, I have never had that reaction before. That's a first for me." The smile left her face to be replaced with a flinty expression. "Why didn't you write to me? I sent you letter after letter and you never bothered to reply."

              What could I say? We were young. Absence makes the heart grow fonder is the old saying, but when you are young out of sight, out of mind rules your emotion. It is interesting how these aphorisms contradict. I said the only thing I could. "I... I'm sorry."

              "I should think so." Then her face softened and the smile returned. "It's nice to see you again, Dal." I was actually pleased to see her again. The baby fat was long gone, and the slim figure she presented now is very attractive. Her hair could no longer be called mousy it had become that expensive, lovely shade that they call honey blonde. The smile was still the same, and just as welcoming as before.

              "Despite the shock, and now I have got over my mini heart-attack, it's good to see you again, Marilyn." Something puzzled me though. "Did you know it was me that was coming?"

              She nodded. "Yes, well sort of. When you phoned you told me your name. Now there aren't too many men in this country called Dalzeil Gorton, so I half expected that it was you who would turn up. I was watching from upstairs, and when you got out of the car I was certain. I must say it gave me a funny feeling and butterflies in my stomach to see you after all these years."

              "Not half as much as me when you said hello Dalzeil. You could have said something on the phone."

              She grinned. "I wasn't sure at the time. Anyway, you were so business-like and there was no way you would associate Mrs. Wilman with the Marilyn you knew all those years ago. Because I wasn't certain I said nothing rather than make a fool of myself." I nodded. It would have been a confused conversation over the phone. "Would you like a coffee?" She asked.

              I certainly would. "Strong one please Marilyn, a little milk and one sugar. I need an injection of caffeine to get my heart beating again."

              I followed her through the lobby to a breakfast room that looked out over the fields towards Dartmoor.

              "Grab a seat, the coffee's made, I'll bring it through." I took a seat on one side of the table. It looked as if it was hewn out of one huge log about five hundred years ago, and those years of polishing had given it a patina that could never be reproduced with modern methods.  Marilyn came back with a cafetiere of freshly brewed coffee, cups, saucers, milk, sugar and a plate of shortbread biscuits. She poured the coffee and passed the cup over to me, then sat down on the side of the table adjacent to me. She raised her cup and looked at me over the rim. "I can't really believe that we have met again. How many years is it? It must be getting on for twenty."

              "Nineteen." I answered. "It was nineteen fifty-seven."

              "Fancy, you remembered that, but you didn't remember to write to me. You broke my heart." She was smiling.

              "I don't think so, you look too good to have a broken heart." I quipped and then changed the subject. "Does your dad still have the hotel?"

              "Oh no. He sold it when he retired years ago. Got a good price for it too, and he bought this place."

              "It's rather impressive, quite palatial." I commented.

              "I like it. He left it to me when he died. I have been here ever since."

              "And what about you?" I asked. "As Mrs. Wilman you obviously have a husband, any children?"

              "Yes, I had a husband. Richard. He died in a car crash three years ago."

              "Oh, I am sorry."

              "No. Don't be. I am well over it now, and to tell the truth, he was never much of a husband. I would have liked children, but in retrospect it was better this way. Richard would have been a terrible father. More interested in my money, than me."

              "That I find hard to believe."

              Marilyn's face lit up with a smile. "Thank you. What about you?"

              I finished my coffee before I replied. Marilyn refilled my cup. "I was married, but her mother thought I would never amount to much, so put lots of pressure on Jane to dump me, which she eventually did. I have a daughter, Sarah, she lives with her mother. She comes to me every other weekend. I have been single ever since, thankfully."

              "Oh, that's good. A girl needs her father when she is growing up, but why thankfully?"

              "My job involved a great deal of travel. Australia, India, the States and so on. It would have been difficult for a wife, being left alone to cope during the weeks when I was away."

              She looked envious. "God! That is fantastic. Lucky you."

              "Yes, it was great, but it was hard work."

              "What did you do?"

              "I visited our fabric suppliers to make sure that their quality control met our standards."

              "Are you still doing that?"

              "No. One of the directors decided that he should do that job. I run the technical side, rejecting the fabric that is not up to standard."

              "So you must know a lot about fabrics?"

              "Some. My M.D. thinks I do, but I have to wing it a little at times."

              She laughed. "And you have come here to look at my complaint. Are you sure you can decide what the problem is?"

              I laughed with her. "Well, I'll give it a try."

              We chatted for some time, catching up on what happened in our lives. It was such a good time. We fell quickly into an easy relationship, talking and laughing together. I tried to explain why I had stopped writing to her. Marilyn listened to my fumbling attempts to justify my actions with an amused smile on her face. Eventually I ground to a halt and blushed as she laughed delightedly. "Oh Dal. It happens. The probability was that we would never have met again so one or the other would have eventually stopped writing. It was you, but I was asking myself why I carried on when there was little chance of our ever being together again."

              "But we have met again, haven't we?"

              She nodded. "Yes. Now what would you call that? Serendipity? Happenstance? Coincidence?"

              "All of those things I suppose, including business. I am here in a professional capacity so I suppose I should get on with my job."

              Marilyn took me through to the Lounge. It was huge! About twenty five feet long and at least sixteen feet wide with huge windows front and back. On the one wall was an Inglenook fireplace with seats against the side walls either side of the iron cradle that would support the fire. She showed me the problem. The curtains were very full and wide. The fabric was a Jacquard weave in a medieval pattern, and in one of the widths could be seen a horizontal bar about four inches in depth where the dye was slightly darker than the surrounding. My heart sank. This was what we called a Pern Bar, where a loom operator had allowed a shuttle loaded with a pern containing yarn from a slightly different dye batch to be used. It was a manufacturing fault. The costs of taking down the drapes and re-making would be horrendous, yet that is what we faced, unless I could talk Marilyn into accepting compensation. I told her what it was, and said that ideally the faulty width should be replaced, if we still had the right batch. If we don’t have it, then the whole lot should be replaced. 

              At first she was dumbfounded. "You can just look at them and know what is wrong. Mr. Moore had no idea. You obviously know your stuff."  She went on to question my prognosis "You suggest they should be replaced?" She queried. "Is there another option?"

              "Possibly. Would you accept the curtains as they are, but with compensation."

              She thought about that. "More coffee, I think." and led the way back to the breakfast room.

              Once we were sat drinking a new brew of coffee, she asked me what amount of compensation we would consider.

              "You put me in a difficult position, Marilyn. As we have a connection going back years I really shouldn't negotiate with you. Mr. Moore should. I am likely to give away too much."

              She smiled. "That sounds good to me. Give me an idea of what you would usually offer."

              "About thirty percent of the trade price."

              "That's not much!"

              "Well Mr. Moore would be expected to contribute on top of that. He has a duty to check the fabric before cutting and make sure it is fit for the purpose."

              She shook her head. "He will be difficult. I think he has financial problems. He asked me to put down a fifty percent deposit before he would take the work." Deposits were normal, but fifty percent was over the top.

              "What if I were to offer forty percent?" 

              Marilyn sipped her coffee and thought. "I could accept that, but there is something else I would ask."

              "Yes?"

              "I would want your company's technical man to make frequent visits to check that the fabric is not wearing out too quickly."

              I grinned. "And what sort of frequency would you be looking for?"

              "At least once a month to start. Perhaps it would get more frequent after a while." I got up and went round to her side of the table, bent down and kissed her. Her arm came up and around my neck, holding me there.

              "I think that could be in order." I remarked breathlessly.

              Marilyn was smiling broadly. "I wondered when you were going to kiss me. You're better at it than when you were eighteen. Perhaps another kiss to seal the deal?" This time her lips opened and her tongue flirted softly with mine. The arm circled my neck again and the other held onto my shoulder. Doing business this way was not in the manual, but it was very pleasant. We broke away. This time Marilyn was breathless. "Definitely better. What else are you good at?"

              This was one of the longest calls I had ever made resolving a complaint. We went out to lunch at the local pub, 'The Elder'' where Marilyn was quite well known. I was introduced to the Landlord and others as a friend from years ago. They seemed to accept that I would be back as they took the time to make me feel at home. The meal was excellent and the local brew superb. I could not indulge too much as I was driving, but with the knowledge that I would be back, I could look forward happily to sampling that brew again.

              I drove away late that afternoon, sad to be leaving, yet happy anticipating that I would be back very soon and also the delights I was certain we would share.