Call-out

A nondescript buzz intruded harshly into the almost complete silence of the small bedroom of the equally nondescript semi-detached house that Simon Bagnall had converted into his 'office', although it might better have been described as his 'playroom', since it was the place to which he often retreated from his busy daily life to indulge himself in one of the small number of pastimes that occupied his spare time. To the visitor, it was a scene of unfathomable clutter. To Simon, it was a perfectly-ordered place, if unconventionally so, from which to manage the administrative side of his life and to enjoy his leisure time.

At 58 years of age, a widower for the previous 5 years, Simon had succeeded in constructing a reasonably agreeable lifestyle once he had finally come to terms with losing the one true love of his life, when she had been taken from him at the tragically young age of 42. Being the sort of man that he was, he had found that his demanding workload had been a great help after his bereavement, providing a structure that carried him through the dark days - and there were many of them - that seemed to roll aimlessly and tediously by. The effect of his loss had been akin to the onset of loss of taste and smell in a sommelier. He could still live, obviously, but the senses that had been dulled robbed him of the colour that had been so much a part of the life that he had shared with his beloved Helena, a vivacious and bubbly woman whose nature, in the eyes of uninformed beholders, had contrasted markedly with that of her misleadingly plain-looking bespectacled husband with his receding hair-line. Only those closest to them knew the reality and that it had, in fact, been Simon who had been the major source of inspiration behind Helena's legendary brightness.

Misfortune, as many people know, tends to emulate the anecdotal pattern of 'bus services in busy conurbations, remaining invisible for most of the time, but then arriving almost simultaneously, in multiple. Such had been the case for Simon, who had learned one damp November morning, eighteen months after his bereavement, that the company operated by his engineering employers had been bought out by a foreign venture capital firm and that, as part of a 're-structuring' exercise, the work in which he had been involved diligently for decades was to be outsourced, meaning that he could now be 'released' to 'move on in his career'.

Some men might well have regarded such news as the final straw, but Simon, the most pragmatic of engineers, adopted a more philosophical approach to his misfortune. He simply took stock of his financial situation, decided that, since he no longer needed a particularly high income - thanks to a very faint silver lining, in the form of settlement of his mortgage debt, that had surrounded his bereavement - he would simply look for something to keep him busy in as stimulating a way as possible.

One of the people who had stood out from amongst those who had rallied round him at his hour of greatest need was a 34-year old woman, Sarah Raglan or, as her birth certificate stated, to her lifelong dislike, Sarah Penelope Raglan. She could never explain why she had no liking for a perfectly normal female name, but she had only admitted to the existence of her second forename to those who had a strict need-to-know. Her contact with Simon had come about initially through what had become a deep friendship with Helena, whom she knew through their shared workplace, albeit in different roles. Each woman had always spoken very highly of the other.

Whilst Simon had always enjoyed his usually brief encounters with Sarah, whenever she and Helena had been planning to engage jointly in one of their by-no-means-infrequent social ventures, his contact with her had rarely amounted to more than offering her tea or coffee whilst she waited for Helena to finish 'putting on the slap', as Simon often, with a broad grin on his face, described her attention to make-up and attire that invariably brought out the best in his wife's pleasant, rather than dazzling, good looks. Sometimes, however, Simon and Sarah had chatted for longer periods and he had developed a very positive impression of a hard-working and determined young woman on whom fortune, so Helena had confided in him, had not always shone.

One of Sarah's greatest attributes was her calm manner, complemented by a warm and caring personality, particularly in the presence of people whom she had come to respect and like. In terms of her appearance, she did not stand out from the crowd, but any of her small number of friends would readily confirm that, as a person, she stood head and shoulders above many of her peers. It was true that she carried a few more pounds - but not that many - than the weight-obsessed media might consider 'appropriate', also that, unlike Helena, she did not spend a great deal of time 'putting on the slap', but she was, nonetheless a young woman of what might once have been described as 'comely' and comforting appearance - at least to those who did not make the mistake of crossing her path due to certain vices that had a marked effect upon her hackles.

The most prominent amongst those vices was deceit, for which Sarah had absolutely no time at all, for she had experienced the deepest of wounds that this vice could inflict.

In Sarah's case, deceit had manifested itself at its most vile in her mid-twenties, in the form of a man by the name of Alexander, a 38-year old fitness fanatic who had described himself as a consulting IT engineer. Like many healthy young females, Sarah had found herself drawn to his good looks and his very well-displayed male physique, which he made no effort to conceal at the gym where they had met.

Suffice it to say that, after a relatively brief period, Alexander had talked Sarah in to allowing him to move in with her as her lodger. His work, so he said, meant that he had to travel extensively and that he was away for lengthy periods.

It had been after a New Year's Eve party that the two of them had returned to the airy and uncluttered flat that Sarah had bought with a legacy, more Ikea than chintz, both of them showing signs of being considerably the worse for wear. For Sarah, this had been extremely unusual, since a drunken episode after her 19th birthday had led her to vow never again to become so severely inebriated that she ended up on life support for several days. Not only that, but Sarah could not recall Alexander's alcohol intake as having been abnormally high either, yet his entire demeanour had been that of a man who was entertainingly drunk, rather than worryingly so.

The extremely unusual absence of Sarah's natural caution had resulted in unintentional sharing of her bed with Alexander and that, in turn, had led to quite severe episodes of morning nausea not long afterwards.

News of her pregnancy had initially caused Sarah considerable alarm but, as she had always done in difficult situations, she had talked to her aunt, the one woman whom she could trust above all others, and shared her news. By the end of their lengthy conversation, Sarah had decided that parenthood did not, necessarily, have to be a big no-no and that she would not do anything to influence the course of nature.

Alexander had not taken the news well and had urged Sarah to re-consider her plans for the future, suggesting that he might be appointed to a high-ranking overseas posting and that having a very small child to worry about might jeopardise their chances of making a life together.

Sarah, ever loyal, began to sense clouds forming over the artificial light created in her life by her lodger-turned-lover. However, news of his reported imminent departure for Jakarta to oversee installation of IT equipment at a new site that was being developed there by his employers meant that they would both have time to think the situation over.

It was mid-way through the second week of Alexander's absence that an A4 manila envelope arrived through Sarah's letterbox. It was addressed to a Ms. Valerie Gartside, at an address in a town a couple of hundred miles away. The return address was that of the Obstetrics & Gynaecology Unit at a local NHS Trust Hospital. However, someone had drawn a line through the address and overprinted the envelope with Sarah's address, endorsed 'Forwarding instruction RG449/160912'.

Maybe it was the persistent nausea that distracted Sarah, causing her to miss the obvious option, which would have been to post the letter back to the address that had been struck through. Instead, consumed with curiosity, she opened the envelope and found a letter inside from a consultant obstetrician, inviting Ms Gartside to attend for a CT scan. The letter also contained a request for confirmation of a local telephone number as the best means of contact.

Sarah picked up her mobile 'phone and dialled the number, so that she could explain what had happened and let the intended recipient know that the letter would be posted to her that same day.

After three rings, a very young voice answered.

"Hello".

Sarah asked if she could speak to Valerie Gartside.

The child at the other end of the line paused, then called out: "Daddy, there's a lady on the 'phone wants to talk to mummy."

From the background came the sound of a vaguely familiar male voice, the volume of which increased steadily as its owner approached the very polite child and told her that he would talk to 'the lady on the 'phone.' By the time the handset had been taken from the child, Sarah was certain as to who the owner of that voice was. One problem was that he ought to have been in Jakarta. The other was that the real name of the owner of that voice was one Jason Halter, an unemployed man of an extremely workshy nature, but with a very creative mind that had enabled him to remain on generous 'disability' benefits, with the unsuspecting and unintentional connivance of his doctor.

That was the point at which Sarah's state of mind tilted suddenly and perilously into a nosedive. Initially, shortly after her terminated call to the polite and wholly innocent child, she endured a very unpleasant telephone encounter with an extremely irate female, who accused her of trying to steal her partner before disconnecting the call very abruptly. It was not until Sarah arrived at the address on that manila envelope in person, bringing the few possessions that the philanderer had left in her flat, that it became clear to both women that they had been deceived.

The final twist in that lamentable saga had been a painful miscarriage that had seen Sarah back on life support for the second time in her life.

Despite the glaringly obvious facts in the sickening saga, Sarah had felt overwhelmed by a sense of anger, not directed outwards, at the author of her misfortunes, but inwards, for having allowed herself to be so gullible. Medication simply made the horrible feelings a little fuzzier for a while, but did nothing to eliminate them. Counselling had simply made her even angrier. Such was the depth to which her depressive state had taken her that her GP had even considered referring her to the Mental Health team for support. However, in a way that seemed almost miraculous, the very diligent and thorough lady doctor began to notice a reversal in her patient's distressing symptoms, to the extent that the medication and counselling were discontinued not long afterwards and all thought of onward referral was dropped.

What the GP had not known was that Sarah had been befriended by Community Nurse Helena Bagnall, who was attached to a different practice and who worked a few additional shifts for the local out-of-hours medical service.

Helena had been deeply saddened by what had happened to Sarah and had immediately placed herself in a position from which she could readily support the younger woman, if needed, but as a personal friend, not as a healthcare professional. Sarah, for her part, was a very different woman from the girl who had mistakenly shared her bed with the peripatetic philandering two-timer. She was not exactly hardened, but she was most certainly tougher than she had been.

Few things in life had come easily to Sarah, but the upshot of that was that she had developed a degree of resilience that carried her through rough patches and enabled her to continue with her work, even whilst she was on medication and receiving counselling. All her workplace audits reflected a steady and consistently high standard of work, resulting in her appointment to the post of operational manager at the call-centre where she had been working for several years.

As Sarah had slowly opened up to Helena, a strong bond had developed between them and this had been the foundation on which Sarah had succeeded in starting to build a new life for herself, one in which men were unlikely to achieve anything more than a loose, polite, sometimes warm, purely social arm's-length relationship. However, despite the steady progress that was being made with reconstruction, there were the inevitable episodes of painful flare-ups along the deep emotional scar-line that the severe trauma of betrayal had left as a cruel memento of times memories of which Sarah simply wanted to lock away permanently in a dusty mental archive.

Whilst the unpressured but attentive care shown by Helena had been enormously beneficial, it had not been they that had helped most effectively in dealing with the painful flare-ups. What had, in fact, helped her had been something that Helena and Simon had practised often in their marriage, sometimes as a catalyst in their love-life, sometimes as a therapeutic response to troublesome stresses. It was simply called 'spanking'.

Sarah had initially been shocked to hear that Simon spanked his wife, even more so that she had, on occasions, reversed the roles, but as Helena had patiently explained to her in a totally non-hyped manner how she felt before, during and after her 'sessions' with Simon, Sarah began to see the possibility that there might be some truth in what Helena was telling her. After all, this older woman, working in an incredibly stressful environment, always seemed remarkably calm, even though she rarely stopped to take a breath during her working day. The wheels of Sarah's thought processes had turned very slowly, but the process had been extremely thorough.

It had been a short article in the local regional newspaper that had triggered a severe flare-up for Sarah, when she had read of a woman who had been subjected to deceit similar to that which she had experienced at the hands of Alexander. The problem was that this particular mother-of-two, expecting her third child, had succumbed terminally to the worst effects of the ensuing depression.

There were three features that were never present when Helena and Simon 'played', namely: anger, cruelty and self-indulgence. This had also been the case when, for the first time in her life, Sarah had taken her place, initially with hesitation, across Helena's lap. However, the soothing effect of the caresses of Helena's hands as she gently massaged Sarah's back through her T-shirt and stroked her bottom through her cotton shorts and underwear soon allowed the girl to relax. In fact, quite surprisingly to Helena, it had been Sarah who, after gesturing for a pause in the spanking, had stood up, unbuttoned her shorts, taken them off and then removed her knickers before returning to her previous position over Helena's lap for what proved to be a long, slow spanking that had left her with a warm, dusky pink bottom, with a slightly raised pulse and with unfamiliar calmness in her mind.

Over time, the pattern of 'play' had progressed, to the point at which Sarah had found that her best reward came from an introductory hand spanking over her slacks, then her knickers, followed by a fairly long session of moderately firm swats from a rubber-soled slipper with a black and white fabric top, which had thus earned the title of 'The Badger'.

Despite the fact that spanking had often been associated with strong sexual feelings in Helena and, unsurprisingly, in Simon, when it had been Sarah who was being spanked, there was only a vague comforting misty hint of sexuality surrounding the proceedings. Both Helena and Sarah loved the intimacy of the arrangement, but this, particularly once Sarah's bottom had been bared, they saw as symbolising removal of all barriers, physical and mental, to trust and understanding, with the result that their connection became truly wholesome and restorative.

There had been a 'phony war' period during the final stage in Helena's tragically curtailed life. There had been every reason to believe that the surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy had been successful in putting her into long-term remission and there had been a growing sense of optimism from attending medical and nursing staff and within Helena's family and social circles.

It had been increasingly severe and frequent focal headaches that had set alarm bells ringing again. The response was rapid and a full MRI scan was ordered. The results showed that any cause for optimism was, unfortunately, unfounded, for an inoperable metastatic tumour had developed in Helena's brain.

Sometimes, people in the past looked upon certain diseases as a blessing in disguise, bringing a less traumatic end to blighted lives than would have been the case had malignant disease run its course. Such was the scenario for Helena, for it was hospital-acquired pneumonia, during a course of in-patient radiotherapy, that was shown as the cause of death late one Sunday afternoon, with her family and closest friends surrounding her. The tragedy cast an enormous shadow over several people. Simon, obviously, was most deeply affected, but so was Sarah, who had come to love Helena as some daughters love their mothers. The tears of sadness were very real, they were copious and they were long-lasting. Nonetheless, the grieving process was allowed to follow its customary pattern without medical interference, with the result that within 12 months of Helena's untimely departure, shoots of renewed life were beginning to sprout in lives that had been affected by that loss.

At this stage, two events took place that nobody could have predicted.

Firstly, whilst it was quite normal that, as a family friend, Sarah should have been concerned for Simon's welfare as he came to terms with his new situation, she took that process further after Simon had been 'released' by his former employers. Quite casually, during a conversation that took place during an encounter resulting from the second event, Sarah had asked Simon if, since he was looking for something different but that did not need a high rate of pay, he had ever thought of putting his kind and intelligent personality to work in a health-related context. To be fair, Simon scarcely gave the idea a second thought initially, other than to acknowledge it and to promise to think about it.

The second event, which turned out to be far more surprising, even to Sarah, was that she also had a very obvious gap in her life now. The return of her painful emotional 'flare-ups' brought home the reality of this gap very plainly.

It had been shortly after Simon's appointment to a post at Sarah's call-centre that she had called him on his mobile 'phone one evening, following what was commonly described by people who work in such environments as a 'totally shitty shift'.

Simon had been taken by surprise but made no secret of his happiness that Sarah had felt free to call him. He had assumed that the reason for the call had to do with work and he instantly started to rack his brain to see if he could identify the call in which he had dropped a serious clanger.