A Love of Two Halves Read online

  About the Author

  P. J. Whiteley was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 1962, but attended schools in different parts of the UK. He has been a professional writer since summer 1988, working initially in trade magazines. Since 1997 his journalism and, latterly, non-fiction titles have been on the subject of business management, with a focus on research that supports an enlightened alternative to treating people as ‘resources’. His first novel, Close of Play (Urbane Publications, 2015), was described by the Church Times as ‘well written and above all well observed’. Marching on Together (Urbane, 2017) received a cover quote from Louis de Bernières.

  A Love of Two Halves

  P. J. Whiteley

  This edition first published in 2019

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  © P. J. Whiteley, 2019

  The right of P. J. Whiteley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-78965-054-9

  ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-78965-053-2

  Cover design by Mecob

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

  Super Patrons

  Helen Armitage

  Felicity Baker

  David Baker

  Alejandro Cendoya

  Sue Clark

  Andrew Crofts

  Sarah Crouch

  Katy Diggory

  Anne Foster

  Caroline Foster

  Rebecca Galley

  Johnnie Gallop

  Bob & Sally Garratt

  Fiona Gell

  Nigel Girling

  Jules Goddard

  Eamonn Griffin

  Sue Harrison

  Paul Harvey

  Sue Jennings

  Nicky Kemp

  Dan Kieran

  Tim Kitching

  Marilyn Lawrence

  Yvonne Lee

  Jenni Lloyd

  Ann Lyon

  Teena Lyons

  The Management Shift Consulting

  The Margate Bookie

  Ian & Anne Martin

  Chris McCoy

  John Mitchinson

  Jung Park

  Justin Pollard

  Tess Rosa Ruiz

  Katharine St John-Brooks

  Catherine Sutton

  Katrina Tolley

  Jacqui Trowsdale

  Mark Vent

  Robert Welbourn

  Roger Whiteley

  Peter Whiteley

  Philip Whiteley

  Rose Whiteley

  Marian Wilde

  Max Wiseberg

  Contents

  About the Author

  Super Patrons

  1. Waking up is like dying

  2. The hosepipe of the vanities

  3. Life’s a lottery

  4. Imperfect, tense

  5. The perfect stranger

  6. Two up, no garden: the ideal third home

  7. Everybody needs good neighbours

  8. A little drop of heaven

  9. I’m different now

  10. The joy of family

  11. Your future husband just moved in

  12. What is life?

  13. I wish I could turn down the volume on my heart

  14. Money changes everything

  15. Home alone. Just not my home…

  16. Keeping watch

  17. What will the señora have?

  18. The waiting room

  19. If your bird is broken

  20. Life in the fast lane

  21. I’m not shallow. Well maybe a little bit…

  22. An all-too-decent proposal

  23. A not-so-wild youth

  24. The age of austerity

  25. You shouldn’t marry out

  26. I just knew

  27. Everything I’m not

  28. Things are going so well it’s impossible to be optimistic

  29. Your destination is ahead

  30. Pick up the phone already

  31. The menacing silence

  32. Have your ‘space’ if you want it

  33. People want decisions

  34. Imaginary love rival

  35. We’re all an odd mix

  36. This has so not gone how I planned

  37. Don’t be naïve, George

  38. The artist’s studio

  39. The gifts

  40. Strange, the things you hope for

  41. Which direction now?

  Acknowledgements

  [unbound U logo]

  1

  Waking up is like dying

  I had the House Dream again. It was the best yet – which is to say the worst, the most vivid. I sensed, even at the most serene moments, that I was condemned to waking up. No! No! I don’t want to wake up!Waking up is like dying! I wanted to watch Bronte playing, sunlight glinting on her black, shiny hair at the top of each swing, giggling. In the dream she was seven again. She jumped off the swing, rolled in the soft, green grass and white and yellow daisies, picked up my hand and said: ‘Come on, Mum! I want to show you the rooms we’ve never been in yet.’ She led me in, up one set of stairs and then another. Nothing was like our real house and yet, in the dream, it was familiar to me, until we reached the second set of stairs. ‘Why have I never noticed this before?’ I said to her. ‘A whole extra storey that I’ve never been in!’ We were both giggling by then. ‘Come on, Mum, these are the best rooms.’ The light streamed in through elegant dormer windows, lighting up deep, soft settees and four-poster beds; Axminster carpets and oil paintings. ‘It’s like a palace,’ I said. ‘It’s our palace, and I’m the princess,’ she replied.

  I knew I was dreaming before awakening. It was too strange. I fought against waking up – fought hard. I woke up. There was no second staircase, no extra rooms, no swing, no lawn; indeed, no garden, except for a front yard so small that if I were to sit on the window ledge and stretch out my legs, I could almost rest my ankles on the front fence. The sun was shining, at least. It shines on the rich and the poor alike. Bronte is fifteen, not seven; sixteen in two weeks’ time. But she was lovely: my treasure – kind, clever, funny, artistic, with a great singing voice and good taste in music, for the most part. She was there at the breakfast table when I went down, eating cereal and listening to music on headphones. It was Danny who had wakened me and I’d helped him get washed and dressed, complaining. Him, not me. Three years old and already with a mind very much his own. I hoped he wasn’t going to turn out like Darren. Bronte, fortunately, is beginning to resemble Terry: soft in manner, artistic and kind, with high cheekbones and a beautiful face.

  Danny would be with grandma the other side of Beeston today; Bronte hanging out with some friends ’til some point in the afternoon. Then, in the evening, we’d all gather together for the telly. It was Saturday, but I didn’t have a weekend shift. I’d saved up £20 for myself, and I planned to go by buses to Headingley, shop in the charity stores there for designer brand cast-offs – my little secret, and gather some house details – my guilty obsession. As it was a nice day I didn’t even mind if the buses took a long time. I would
sit on the top deck, and watch the world as we went by.

  It was early afternoon when the number sixty-four returned to Holbeck Moor, where I got off. Don’t be fooled by the term ‘Moor’; it’s not like Brontë Country, more like a rec. But, anyway, I was well pleased with my purchases: a beautiful, green designer top for a fiver, nearly new, and a small handbag, plus half a dozen estate agent colour brochures for north-west Leeds, nice houses near the Otley Road. The brochures were all free, of course. The staff all cheerfully handed them out to me, as I was scrubbed clean, well presented and gave a warm smile. I didn’t have to confess that I was skint. I couldn’t afford any of the houses; not even a garage, probably, but that’s not the point, is it? I was the happiest I’d been for a while, and looking forward to the pizza and wine, with cola for the kids, that evening.

  Bronte wasn’t back. I texted her, and she texted straight back, which was a relief. She was still in the arcades, and would be back around five. I called Mum to check Danny was OK. He was playing with toy trucks. She’d bring him back for his tea. I had around two hours to myself. I pulled out the house details. One caught my eye immediately: a gorgeous period cottage in Headingley, nicely photographed, beautifully decorated. Just under £250,000. Only two bedrooms, mind, though they did look nice; one of them en suite. I often dreamed of just wandering in from the bathroom naked, or just a towel wrapped around me, on smooth, polished wood floors, from luxurious shower room to deluxe bedroom, natural light pouring in through skylights or dormers. Still, quarter of a million for a two-bed house in Headingley! What was the world coming to? But a nice garden, mix of patio, plants and a bit of lawn, south-facing. All handy for the shops, pubs, restaurants, bars and cafes. And the cricket and rugby ground. You’re never far from sport in this part of the world. Might be appealing to a future Mr Lucky, my imaginary Mr Right, as elusive and out of reach as a spacious semi or cottage. Dream on, I told myself, but dreams can be pleasurable, especially when they’re all you’ve got.

  I pulled out my lottery ticket. Luckiest number between one and ten; luckiest number between eleven and twenty; and so on. That should do it. I kissed it, and placed it back in my handbag. Then the sun, or rather the reflection of the sun, lit up the room, a vivid, bright yellow in a flood of light. I looked out of the window. It was shining off the large, sloping windscreen of a low sports car, parked just outside; actually, immediately outside next door, which was empty and up for sale, but all the houses are close by each other on our street. That was different. Some sporty cars are not that expensive, really, but you could sort of tell that this one was, just by the aura it gave off, and the confident air of the man who stepped out of it, looking around, like he was suspecting a thief or a mugger, before stooping back into the car, seemingly to search for something. I walked over to the window for a better look. I know car makes well, thanks to our Kevin. I recognised the circular emblem of a Mercedes Benz.

  What was he doing here? A kind, but worried, face, yet also handsome and confident. He took out a white scarf with blue and gold edgings. Rich White, I thought; Southern White, maybe. That explained it. He was probably only worried about getting to the stadium. I looked at the time on my phone. Eleven minutes to three already. He’d be missing the start, unless he were to run. Yet he didn’t run. Here was someone educated, with self-control, used to setting his own agenda. Yet even guys like that still followed a football team; something I would never understand. Curious and amused, I walked out into our front yard. Rather to my surprise, given his air of assurance, he asked me the way. There was a sense of decency about him. He was courteous; well, he was unintentionally a bit rude about the neighbourhood, but apologised immediately. He had a low, calm voice and kind manner; dark brown eyes that shone briefly as they met mine. For the first time in months, I felt the tiniest flicker of something like desire. This was absurd. I scolded myself and my body. We spoke a little. I hoped I hadn’t blushed. The accent was hard to place: not local exactly, but not cockney like EastEnders. I had glanced down at his left hand. No ring.

  After Mum brought Danny round, I watched a cartoon with him as we snuggled together on the sofa. Then he fell asleep, and I made sure he was comfortable before getting up to make myself a cup of tea. I texted Sharon, mostly chat about kids. Then I texted Bronte, worried because I hadn’t heard from her for what seemed like days but was probably only two hours. She was on her way back, and had done a bit of shopping, not too much, promise, Mum. I had saved up £50 for her to spend. It had taken weeks, without wine or anything else for myself, and I was proud. I would have my first Chardonnay in four weeks that evening.

  It was coincidence, I told myself, that I just happened to be outside in the small front yard again at ten past five, quarter of an hour after final whistle: a coincidence. It needed tidying up, a task that took all of six or seven minutes, but more if you include pulling out a weed or two. The man turned the corner, and I could almost hear his sigh of relief upon seeing his car.

  ‘You’ve got three wheels left, not bad! Only one short!’ I said, cheerfully. ‘Told you that you could trust folk round here. You got far to go?’

  ‘Surrey.’

  ‘Surrey, like, near London?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘So, you came all this way, to spend the afternoon in Beeston, for a footie match? I hope we won.’

  ‘Lost two-one.’

  ‘Oh dear, I am sorry. You could have spent your afternoon by your own swimming pool, or whatever.’

  ‘Nah, boring! Anyway, there was some funny banter from the crowd. Better than your average stand-up comedian on Channel 4.’

  He then lost me completely, making some comparison to his situation and a Spanish film, or it might have been Argentinian, or maybe Hollywood after all. He apologised again and made to leave. Just before he got in his car, Bronte came home, carrying her latest painting back from getting it framed. He noticed this and paid her a compliment. This was not unusual. Bronte was always getting praise for her paintings, and she was brilliant at not letting it go to her head. This was different, though. He seemed more than usually impressed, he was more than usually knowledgeable, and I was more than usually grateful for the interest. I quickly realised also, as he and I stood shoulder to shoulder examining the work, my thumb pressed close against his on the edge of the stretched canvas, that it was more than gratitude that I was feeling.

  2

  The hosepipe of the vanities

  Like most educated men, I have an uneasy relationship with my satnav. It pits two of my most cherished values – maximising use of technology and pride in personal autonomy – at war with one another. In favour of its use, I reflected that the time spent studying the route in advance of a car journey was time I could be earning: best to outsource and automate anything that’s not core business. On the other hand, preparing and memorising a route was mental exercise: sharpening cognition, enhancing one’s geographical awareness, and would mean avoiding taking orders, which I find irritating. What is the point of setting up your own business only to end up taking directions from a humourless automaton who thinks she has a better sense of direction than me? My satnav had a steady voice with a rather posh accent: calming when she was right, extremely irritating on the few occasions she erred, or was ambiguous. I called her Maggie, in honour of our former Prime Minister: bossy, but necessary; usually sound in judgement. I alternated between relying on my own route-planning and turning it back on: month on, month off. I did miss her, sometimes. She was, after all, the only female voice in my private world, unless you count my sister. Sometimes, I turned the voice on even when I knew the route well, just for company.

  On this occasion, running late for a Saturday 3 p.m. kick-off, she messed up – big style. It was a familiar route, and normally I would have dispensed with either map or gadget, but an accident had closed a short section of the M1, taking me into the back streets of Beeston, along with hundreds of other cars, and a few coaches from out of town. ‘East Kent Whites’ said one
of them, with an address in Deal. It was reassuring, I reflected, that some fans were mad enough to travel even further than me to a home fixture. As the traffic ground to a halt I punched in the postcode to the stadium, assuming that for the car park to be the same.

  ‘Keep to the right,’ asserted Maggie, confidently, after a right turn at the end of a block.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I replied, out loud. ‘The stadium’s more to the left.’

  ‘Keep to the right,’ she repeated. After a pause, as the traffic speeded up, she added: ‘Then keep to the left.’

  ‘What??’ I said. ‘Too late!’

  I was in the wrong lane, heading over the motorway, which had reopened leftwards, and into another suburb of red-brick terraced houses. ‘Maggie, you have completely lost it! At no point at all was the right-hand lane correct! What were you thinking of? A completely imaginary slip road?’ After a pause I muttered more quietly. ‘Maybe the map’s not up to date.’

  Talking to yourself had become less obviously a sign of creeping mental illness, I reflected, since the advent of Bluetooth. I always wore an earpiece, as cover. Where the hell was I now? The streets looked vaguely familiar, from my pedestrian route to the stadium many years earlier. I had not ventured into these streets by car before, and I had a memory of requiring a pedestrian bridge to cross the motorway. I pottered slowly along in second gear, nervously, on the lookout for car thieves, drug barons and other criminals. I reflected upon the nature of acclimatisation. When I was young and a Leeds local, these streets would have felt like home, even though they were a touch downmarket from Dad’s home. Now, after years of management conferences, five-star hotels and with a home in the stockbroker belt, they felt strange and unsettling. I also felt guilty, and worried that I had become a snob. Of more immediate concern, however, I wanted to find a parking place and arrive at the stadium on time. A U-turn looked tricky, but there was a turning to the left. I could try to go through the back streets, worm my way along, maybe with Maggie’s help, if she was full of remorse. But she kept wanting me to U-turn.