Gemma Makes Her Mark, page 12
‘Yes that would be nice, if the two of you are sure you don’t mind me staying another night. And I know you’re right, I fancy doing something different and I know I can’t stay with him as well. Basically I like him but that’s all. It’d be good to have a chat tonight and I’ll do my best to clear things up with Mark when I’m back in Petworth.’
***
Looking back, it had been a long nine months. Finalising the details of her legacy had taken most of the year so far and had been a long-winded and tedious process. Gemma’s solicitors, a well-established local Farnham practice, had assured her that there were no obvious issues and that it would be basically straightforward; on that basis she had let them take over managing the probate. Things hadn’t moved that quickly, however; it had taken a couple of months before she had even got the grant of representation, as it was called. After that there’d been a lot of organising, advertising and selling to do. It was amazing quite how much her parents had stocked up in, after all, only around twenty-five years. The house itself had attracted a fair bit of interest when they’d put it on the market in late March and there had been a sort of bidding war before it was sold by the end of May for slightly above the initial asking price of £120,000. The real bonus, though, had been the paintings and furniture. Mark had been careful to get everything properly valued and they had resisted selling the whole lot as one deal, in spite of the various offers to ‘take the lot’ from antique dealers in Guildford as well as Farnham. She had to admit that he had done a really good job and had been right to insist on selling everything individually, either through the ‘buy and sell’ adverts in local papers or at auction. The Parrish paintings had been the high spot and they’d got almost £30,000 for the two of them, along with another £3000 for the unattributed oil painting plus good prices for the various watercolours. Then the Victorian furniture and numerous other decorations and vases had got decent prices too. On top of that there were the shares and savings that her mother had been left after her own father and uncle had died. That had been the real surprise, the icing on the cake as far as Gemma was concerned. Both her grandfather and great uncle had bought substantial shares in the Cunard company between the 1930s and ’50s, which had passed to Anne and now on to Gemma herself. This gave her a few thousand shares, making her one of the larger private shareholders in the company.
Even though she wasn’t one hundred per cent sure about their motives, Gemma had taken the solicitors’ advice and decided to leave the shares untouched for the moment. As it was, after their fees and a few other expenses, she was left with well over £160,000 plus a guaranteed basic, index-linked income of twelve thousand a year from the family’s investments, without even touching the share capital.
Monday 27 September 1982
The crunching of car wheels on the gravel path at the side of the house followed by the opening and slamming of doors jolted Gemma back to life. She’d had the afternoon to herself and after a desultory bit of tidying up had spent the last hour or so with a glass of wine, which had only been refilled once so far, idly flicking through the latest edition of Cosmopolitan while waiting for Mark to get back from his latest trawl around the antique dealers in town. Maybe the wine was to give a little Dutch courage, but that, along with the tediously liberal and open-minded responses to readers’ issues and problems – Gemma was sure they must be made up by the supposed agony aunts – had helped her drift into a pleasant, late afternoon reverie.
To be fair, Mark had worked hard and been pretty successful in getting rid of virtually all her mother’s bits and pieces and for very good prices too. He had really thrown himself into planning for their future and she did feel guilty; however, today had really brought it home to her, she’d spent too long just treading water and pottering around. It was over nine months since she had given up her probation work and getting on for a couple of months since the family’s money had finally been sorted. Apart from what she had set aside for getting herself somewhere to live when she left Mark, it was all settled in the joint account they had opened after buying their own house and for the time being had decided to use for Gemma’s legacy.
She knew she had to tell Mark she’d had enough and wanted to move on; even though she hated that hackneyed expression it best described just what she wanted to do. The fact that she hadn’t actually cheated on him made Gemma feel better about it all. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had the opportunity. Apart from the occasion in London when she’d stayed with Victoria and Rebecca, she had seen Roger, her mushroom man, again, even though she was not involved in any official, probation-related, way with him anymore. She’d told Mark she was tying up a few loose ends in Littlehampton and had let him take her on a couple more foraging missions in the New Forest, this time to relieve her boredom and purely for pleasure. They’d had a really nice time; autumn in the New Forest was a special time and for a few hours the stresses of the last few months had faded. It had been about a year since their first foraging trip and it felt strangely comforting to be back. Roger had smelt good too, a nice earthy aroma; and the fact that she knew for sure there was no way he would play any part in her future gave her a sort of exoneration. She’d let him kiss her and explore her a little too; when two of his fingers slipped easily inside her she almost gave in but something had stopped her going any further. Maybe a kind of loyalty to Mark; even though she knew they had no future she didn’t feel right doing anything until she’d actually told him that. It hadn’t helped that Mark seemed absolutely incapable of taking any kind of hint.
Since getting back from London a week ago, Gemma had been putting off confronting Mark with her need to move away and on. Somewhat forlornly she had hoped he might arrive at the same decision but she needed to stop kidding herself and get on with things. It hadn’t helped that the last few months had not been too bad, and it wasn’t as if they’d had a particularly bad or awkward week either. In fact the last weekend had been quite pleasant, they’d been to the cinema in Chichester to catch Richard Gere and Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman on the Friday and had a nice meal out and a good few drinks on Saturday. Mark had been more than attentive and as usual there had been plenty of sex, but she knew she was stringing Mark along and even though she didn’t think his proposal of marriage was really serious, she knew he was waiting for an answer; something which she’d promised him would be soon.
Staying with Rebecca and Victoria had really just confirmed what Gemma had been thinking about her life and future. She wanted to live a bit, to meet different people and London seemed as good a place as any to do it; even from that brief experience she felt she’d fit in and be part of something. It wasn’t that she had any definite plan, just a feeling, a certainty really, that she deserved a good time and that she had the resources to do so, alongside a nagging and growing belief that Mark was holding her back. It wasn’t necessarily or even the case that she felt she could do better, but just that Mark was never intended to have been long-term. That provided some sort of rationale if not justification; and even without the London trip she knew for sure that she wouldn’t be short of offers either. After all, even though she wasn’t particularly interested in him, Simon, who had homed in on her at Annabel’s on her first visit, had followed up his interest and already phoned her a couple of times, luckily when Mark was out and about. Initially he’d invited her to see Genesis at the Hammersmith Odeon on this coming Thursday; apparently he had some of the best tickets in the place. When she had said she couldn’t make that he’d asked if she would ever consider letting him take her out and her ‘maybe’ had led to a second call, the next day, this time asking if she’d like to see AC/DC with him on the last of three concerts they were doing in mid-October, and again at the Hammersmith Odeon. He’d told her that he also had backstage passes for that gig and Gemma didn’t see why she should say no. Sure, he might be rather full of himself, and even a bit smarmy, but he ticked a few boxes: he was nice enough, very well off and must have some pretty decent contacts. From what she could gather he was one of a new breed of City traders, who were becoming known as ‘yuppies’, young upwardly mobile professionals or something like that, apparently after they’d been dubbed with that title by some American journalist. Anyway, why not let him be the start of her new life? And by then she intended to have tidied things up with Mark as well. Although she had resisted going any further with Roger and could hardly fault Mark as a lover, Gemma was definitely starting to fancy the idea of having sex with someone different.
Once she had made the decision to take up Simon’s offer Gemma had rung Rebecca to ask if she could stay over that weekend, for the gig on Saturday the 16 October, and was met with screams of delight. Victoria had phoned her the next day and said she’d keep an eye out for flats in their area for her to look at. Even if they were a bit full on, it felt nice to be wanted.
As Mark came in, Gemma got up and put the kettle on. She let him tell her about the day he’d had and the price he’d got for the last couple of side chairs they had to sell, then launched into it.
‘Why don’t you sit down Mark? I’ve got something to say. I know you’ve been waiting patiently and I’m really grateful for all you’ve done but I’m not ready to marry you or to stay here with you either. There’s things I want to do and I want to, I need to, do them by myself.’
Maybe it hadn’t come out exactly as planned but it had come out. It had probably taken less than ten seconds to blurt it out but by the end Mark’s whole demeanour was transformed; he had slumped back in his chair and seemed shell-shocked. She felt she owed him a proper explanation and was conscious it was in danger of coming out all wrong.
‘It was lovely of you to want to marry me and I’ve never been asked before and I have thought hard about it, I promise. And it’s been great being with you since you got out from Ford but I’ve just had enough living here. I gave up the probation job ages ago and I want to do something different now. I’ve being getting more and more bored and it’s not fair on you either. Look, I know it sounds glib but I want to move on, to do something different with my life.’
Mark went to the fridge and opened a beer. He appeared calm enough but she could sense his tenseness and knew there’d be a blow up soon. He came back into the front room but didn’t sit down again; he grabbed the top of the chair with some force, as if to keep himself in one place.
‘What is it you want to do, then, and why can’t we do it together?’
His voice sounded unnaturally strained and perhaps an octave higher than usual.
‘Well, firstly I’m going to move to London, I’ve got friends there and there’s just so much more to get involved with as well. I need a change, Mark.’
She could see Mark’s mood turning from shock to anger as he processed it all.
‘It’s those bloody upper class snobs you stayed with the other weekend isn’t it? They reckon you could do better than being with me.’
While that might not be too far off the mark, Gemma was well aware that it wouldn’t help to bring anyone else in to the explanation.
‘That’s not it Mark, I’ve been thinking about this for months now.’
She knew it sounded trite but couldn’t help herself.
‘It’s not about you, you’ve been great, it’s nothing to do with anyone, it’s about me.’
Gemma didn’t know how she had actually imagined this would play out but it seemed as if it was all going on outside of herself. It was like watching a scene from a play or even a soap opera. It was all so stereotypical, just as one would script it. She wondered if Mark was actually going to hit her. She could see his anger fighting against his panic.
Mark was trying to keep a lid on things, he knew that losing his cool wouldn’t help especially if there was any chance of rescuing things – the thing was he was bloody angry.
‘You’ve just used me, you’ve got what you wanted and that’s it. You’ve been planning this all along and now you think you can just say thanks and goodbye, well no bloody chance, that’s not going to happen.’
Gemma realised that she needed to try to calm him down.
‘That’s not the case, Mark, it’s just I don’t want the same as you, not now anyway. And I know you’ve helped me so much and I’m not going to leave you with nothing and walk away, I never would.’
Gemma wondered if it was time to offer him some sort of deal. The thing was that the way he was responding, she doubted it would make things any easier. She could almost hear his brain cranking into the next gear.
‘I can see it now, you’ve played me along. For all I know you’ve got your eye on someone else and always have had. I bloody trusted you and I love you.’
Why did it always come down to that, why did he have to believe there had to be another man involved? Okay, Simon was on the horizon, but Gemma knew that he was merely a side-effect and certainly was not the cause. She tried to explain but knew that at this stage it wouldn’t help that much.
‘Look there’s no one else, there never has been, I just want something else, something different. I’m not going to rip you off either, I wouldn’t do that after you helped avenge my father for me. For a start, I’m going to pay off the mortgage on this place and then sign it over to you one hundred per cent, and I’ll give you half the money from the furniture you’ve sold, that’ll be a good few thousand too.’
It was obvious Mark was hardly listening anymore; and certainly wasn’t interested in working out a deal or pay off. Perhaps not unexpectedly, he went on the offensive.
‘So you think you can just buy me off then? I’m not some kind of hired killer, you know; and anyway I’ve got enough on you to ruin you. It was you who wanted to get rid of your mother, after all; it was all your idea anyway.’
Gemma knew she’d have to ride things out for the time being but she was pretty certain that once he thought about the money and house he might calm down a little. After all, they weren’t married anyway and had been together for less than two years. In fact she was being more than generous when she thought about it. She decided it best not to point out that she was in a much better position to ruin him than the other way around; or that she had made absolutely sure that all the hard evidence, not to mention his impressive criminal record, would make it easy enough for her to have him put away for life again, and with little chance of an early release this time around.
She tried to pacify him.
‘Mark, we could both do that to each other, but when you’ve thought about it you’ll realise we can both do well enough from all of this. We can be sensible about things. I just don’t feel the same way about you as you do about me, but that’s life.’
At least she avoided saying that they could still be friends.
Mark grabbed another beer and went out to the garden. She heard him start his car up and reverse aggressively out on to the lane. He somehow managed to make his Escort sound in pain. That had been another source of his frustration too; an ageing Ford economy car hardly suited his self-image and didn’t match up to her sports car. Anyway, him letting off steam was probably for the best, she thought; he could think it all through by himself. Mark wasn’t the type to do anything stupid, she knew him well enough. He’d like her to think he was going to make some massive gesture but would probably just go and have a few drinks at their local and feel sorry for himself. She poured herself a glass of wine and felt an odd sense of relief, almost a glow. That was the worst of it over. No doubt he’d sulk around for ages and even come back and plead with her for them to stay together; but once that had failed she reckoned that he’d probably try and get as much as he could from her, and that might make it all the easier to handle. For a moment Gemma wondered if she really did know him quite as well as she thought; and if there was perhaps something she might not have taken account of. She couldn’t be bothered to dwell on that at the moment, though.
Gemma knew there was no going back – it had been what people called an epiphanous moment. The sense of unburdening felt quite overwhelming and a part of her wanted to tell someone, Rebecca perhaps, but she resisted calling her, out of an odd sense of loyalty almost, as if the moment was hers and shouldn’t be shared just yet at least. There’d be plenty of time to let her friends know and to get on with the practicalities of moving away.
Wednesday 20 October 1982
The last few weeks had been awkward. Mark had been in a deep sulk and Gemma had tried to be matter of fact about it. He’d had a real go the other evening, accusing her of abandoning him and, with over three million unemployed, plus his criminal record, bemoaning the fact that he would hardly be able to present himself as a top prospect to future employers. She’d done her best to convince him that he’d be fine by himself, he’d soon find someone else and that he could sell what would soon be his house in Petworth and then have enough to start off anywhere he fancied.
Of course, she did feel a little guilty; after all, she had used him to help sort things out and to pay her mother back and help draw a line under her father’s death, but then she had made sure he had done well enough from it all too. Bloody hell, she had even let him have sex with her a couple of times over the last few days. He’d always been a bit shallow in that respect and anyway that wasn’t the reason she didn’t want to stay with him. Now she just wanted to make sure that the move to London and the start of her new life went as smoothly as possible. Things had moved pretty quickly in that respect and, with a bit of luck, she’d have the flat she was in the process of buying finalised within a few weeks and certainly by the end of November at the latest. To keep him reasonably happy and acknowledging his hubristic tendencies, she’d promised Mark they’d keep in touch, but hoped he wouldn’t be bothered to keep her to it. Much to her relief he’d not mentioned her mother again; Gemma reckoned he’d have worked out that any threats he might make to her wouldn’t match what she had on him, and she was thankful she hadn’t actually had to spell it out. Thinking about it, she was still rather surprised he’d kept quiet about the poisoning and particularly about her role in it all. She hadn’t let herself dwell on the momentary flicker of doubt, the brief thought that he might have something up his sleeve; nonetheless it was a little odd he hadn’t gone on and on about how hard done to he felt.
