Care in the Community Pt. 01

Gina lay awake listening to him sleep. She knew she could not keep him plied with sex morning and night if he was interested in sleeping with someone else, but what could she do? Several times in the night Gina felt like waking him up and confronting her suspicions, but she did not want to risk the consequences without having evidence of his unfaithfulness. Even if he confessed, what did she want to happen? Did she want to divorce him, or just scare him? What if he just admitted it and said he would change nothing, what would she do? She slept fitfully; so different from the erotic dreams of the night before.

***

Gina overslept and Howard had already left for work by the time she woke. There was a post-it note stuck on the clock. It just said `I own you one'. She recalled his promise from the night before. It looked like his sexual appetite had increased, but she didn't want more sex for its own sake. She wanted affirmation that he still loved her, and while he was carrying on with someone else, that could not be the case. She remembered that she was due to do another morning of visits to the old folk and then see Jack in the afternoon for the painting session. The surprise present seemed a waste of time now. She would phone him and apologise. She realised she would let him down, but she could not do it. Not now. She searched her papers for his phone number and then the phone book. Nothing there. Good manners prevented her from just not turning up. She would have to apologise in person.

Having decided that she would not go through with it, the image that stared back at her in the mirror half an hour later was a surprise. Showered and lotioned, hair shining and lightly made up, she looked ready for a social function. `I am not going on a date,' she said to her reflection. `I'm going to let Jack down gently'. She changed her first-choice dressy outfit for a floaty white linen skirt and black tank top with a blazer style jacket on top. On a whim, she took a straw hat as it looked like a sunny day.

She arrived at Jack's house in the early afternoon, geared up to make her brief apology from the doorstep and bid him goodbye. That fell apart when she saw a note on the door inviting her to come through to the garden. She pushed at the open side door and closed it behind her. Jack was not in his garden, but she saw a fence panel at the end had been removed. She could hear chopping coming from the other side. As she got closer, she saw Jack in shorts and boots swinging a heavy axe into a substantial tree. He was three quarters of the way through. She looked at the muscles flexing on his bare back and legs. His deep tanned skin was covered in a light sheen of perspiration. There was something violent and primal about the way he worked, and she watched him in the same lecherous way that men on building sites eyed up women passing by. She must have been there for a few minutes before he turned around. "Caught you," he said, giving her his lop-sided smile. She was as embarrassed at being found out as he'd been two days earlier, but she noticed his appreciative gaze and how good it made her feel. Gina changed her mind. She would do this painting for herself.

"I'll be with you in a minute, Gina". He went around the other side of the tree and gave it a few hefty chops and it creaked. "Stand back Gina, I've got wood here." She shook her head at his awful joke but retreated as he put his foot against the tree and it crashed over. He tied a rope around its foot wide base and positioned four smaller logs as rollers. Jack grunted as he lifted the deadweight of the tree trunk onto the first roller. Gina watched him strain. The muscles in his back and legs danced under his skin. He put the rope over his shoulder and pulled the tree trunk towards the gap in the fence. Grunting and flexing as he took the weight.

Gina thought he looked like a caveman dragging an animal he had just killed back to his cave. Jack broke into her thoughts. "Don't just stand there eying me up, Gina. Pick up the rollers and put them in front of me."

Gina tutted, but did as he asked. As she bent over laying new track, he was looking at her cleavage. She did not look up. "Perhaps it would be safer if you concentrated on where you were going, Mr McMillan." Jack's laugh was his confession.

Fifteen minutes later, having thanked and been thanked by Mrs Silverman for the gift of the dead tree which was now lying slain on his patio, Jack sipped the tea he'd persuaded Gina to make.

"Next time you see this it will be something artistic, but functional."

"Yes, you'll get a lot of toothpicks out of that one." Gina laughed and Jack scowled at her joke.

"I was afraid you would change your mind, Gina."

"I had."

"What happened?"

"I changed it back," said Gina with a smile.

"I'm glad. I've been looking forward to seeing you again."

How could she refuse that smile?

Gina dispensed with her jacket and was lying back in the reclining garden chair. "I love this heat." She undid several buttons on her skirt to let the sun get to her legs. She saw his appreciative gaze and this time she just smiled.

"You're not making this easy for me," said Jack.

"Looks like you're making it hard for yourself," Gina joked. Jack crossed his legs away from her.

They enjoyed a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Jacks' company and his home had a calming effect on her. She knew that the more she came here, the less she would want to go home again.

"Is this like Kenya, the heat I mean," said Gina. Jack laughed.

"Maybe on a chilly day at the coast in Mombasa. The heat inland is something else. It shimmers above the ground, making everything float like you are drunk." Jack had his eyes closed, drifting back more than half a lifetime. "The heat and the smell of Africa, is something you never forget. When I was 14, I spent my savings on an old army surplus motorbike and I travelled for a few days across country until I found I was looking for. The great trek of wilder beast and other animals making their annual migration across the Serengeti in search of water. I drove amongst them, the sound of their hooves and shrieks even drowning out the noise of the engine. I felt connected to something ancient and primal." Gina looked at him, trying to see that impetuous boy.

"Later that year, I dropped out of school and lived in the bush with a family of natives. We ate when we had food, staved when we didn't. My parents to their credit did not go mad. They understood and let me stay. When two of the family's kids were ill, I sold my motorbike to buy medicines. The little boy made it, but the girl didn't. After six months, I could not take it anymore. I walked back to my comfortable British live. I could play at what those people experienced, but I could not understand it. Not when money could have prevented their suffering." His face clouded at the memory.

Gina listened transfixed as Jack described events from over 50 years ago. She wished she had been there with him, experiencing sights and sounds far removed from her comfortable, quiet upbringing. "Did you get close to any wild animals," she asked, leaning close to him and smelling the faint fragrance of the suntan lotion she had persuaded him to put on.

"A few; lions, hypos, jackals, hyenas."

"That scar on your arm, was that from one of them?"

Jack leaned closer and removed her sunglasses. She thought he would kiss her, and she was determined to resist. "Oh, that. Yes, I got that from the most dangerous big cat I have ever seen," Jack teased. Gina's eyes opened wide, waiting for more. "It was 1964, and I went to a wedding reception in Notting Hill with my mad Greek girlfriend. I started talking to another girl and in a fit of jealousy my girlfriend picked up the knife to cut the wedding cake and tried to stab the other girl. I got in the way and got this for my trouble."

Gina was not sure if he was making it up. In her confusion it was too late to take avoiding action, and Jack kissed her on the lips. She responded as she had wanted to ever since she arrived. Then her conscience kicked in and she broke off.

"Oi, you chancer! I'm not sleeping with you, Jack." The words jumped out of her mouth without conscious thought.

"Thank you for letting me know. I'm knackered from chopping that tree and I don't think I would be at my best right now. I would hate to disappoint you."

Gina fumed as she struggled for a retort, then gave up, knowing he would make a joke of it. "It's getting too hot for me. Let's go inside painter man and you can do a couple of stick pictures of me."

***

In the cool living room with the curtains drawn, Gina sat in a leather wing-backed chair in half profile while Jack perched on a stool with a pad and charcoal.

"Did you marry the Greek girl?"

"No, I married the other one, but we got divorced three years later."

"Why was that?"

"It may surprise you Gina, but at 22 years old I was not the world's greatest husband." He ignored her smirk. "Besides, I noticed she was getting the same expression as the one who stabbed me and I thought it would be good to get out before she put thought into action."

Gina laughed." I don't suppose a man with your talents was without female company for long."

"How would you know Gina; you've refused to sample them?" Gina blushed with embarrassment. "Unless you've changed your mind again." She gave him a scolding look.

Jack had been scribbling all the while and held up his pad filled with quick cartoons of Gina's various expressions.

"Jack, stop messing about."

"I'm just getting used to your looks. I need you to relax. Forget you are being sketched. Here, look at this." He pulled out an old and well-used photo album. "As you're such as nosey parker, you will enjoy these." Gina gave him her indignant expression before turning the pages.

"Is this your wife and kids?" she asked, examining an early 1970s picture of Jack with a blond-haired youthful woman and a young boy and girl.

"Yes, my second one. You would think I'd have learned, hey? Dianne was an artist; the daughter of a client when I was working as a builder. I designed their lounge and kitchen and did the decorating on a prestige project. The customer was thrilled. She came home from college at Easter and saw my work. She encouraged me to reapply to St Martins, and I finished my Art degree 10 years after I started it. I owe any success I've had to Dianne; she encouraged me to start the business. I only wish I had been more appreciative."

Gina's ears pricked up at this. It seemed to mirror her current predicament. "What did you do?"

"It was a real partnership at the beginning, but then we had kids, and in the late 1980s everyone seemed to become interested in design. We prospered, and the business boomed. In those days I had a roving eye and a dick that following close behind. Looking back, I am ashamed of the way I screwed around, but I was younger and foolish. Thank God Dianne put an end to it when she did."

Gina's heart was thumping. It was as if he had been living in her head for the past couple of days. "What did she do?" Gina heard herself say in a croaky voice.

Jack looked up from his pad and realised the conversation was close to home. "She gave me no choice. The day after our youngest, Alan went to university, she said she'd only put up with my shagging around until the kids were off her hands. Dianne told me she was taking a sabbatical from our marriage. Taking a year off to do what she liked, see who she wanted to, stay where she liked. She would come back afterwards and tell me if she still wanted to be with me."

Gina's hand went to her mouth and Jack could see she was having trouble breathing. He left the room and got her a glass of water. When he came back, Gina was drying her eyes. He held her trembling hands as he passed her the glass. He sensed it was not the time to ask questions.

"I fell apart, Gina. Then I got angry. I tried to screw all her friends and succeeded with a couple, but it did not make me happy. I did not know where she went or what she did, and it drove me mad. She stayed away for the entire year. It took the wind out of my sails. When she returned, I bluffed. Said I would not beg her to come back, but then she stood up and I begged her not to leave. She laughed and said she was only going to the toilet. I'd surrendered without a fight, and she took me back. We had fifteen marvellous years after that."

"How did it end?" Gina asked, guilty she had to know.

"Lymph cancer. We'd were in Portugal, retired for a couple of years when Dianne went to the doctor complaining of a lump. She did not tell me. In fact, she got me looking for this place and then doing it up to get me out of the way while she had tests and treatment. She knew I would not stay in Portugal without her. By the time she told me, she was too far gone for chemotherapy to make any difference. We had three months here before she went quickly in a hospice." Jacks voice broke at the end and Gina jumped up and put her arms around him. She felt his shoulders shake as he sobbed. He seemed such a strong, resilient person, but his vulnerability now made her want to comfort him and drive his pain away.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I should not have kept asking."

"That's okay. I want you to know. There should be no surprises about me. When you come to make your decision."

She looked at him sharply, but there was no point in arguing. They both knew where things were heading and that she would need to decide at some point.

Sat on the couch looking at the sketches, they laughed at the caricatures and she sulked about how cruel they were. Of the proper studies, they both agreed it was the worried face that captured her essence. "We are not ready to paint yet," Jack pronounced. "Good," said Gina, and they both smiled.

She passed him the photo album and a loose photo slipped out of the back and she picked it up. It was a picture from the 1950s of a group of people at a social event overseas. In the corner was a handsome teenage Jack staring at someone else in the picture. Gina moved her thumb and got a shock. The young, dark-haired woman looked like a younger version of her.

"Who is she, Jack?"

"Oh, her? She was the love of my life. She was the reason I had to leave Africa."

Gina looked at Jack. How many more layers were there to this man?

"I was nineteen. Edith was the second wife of Geoffrey, the owner of one of the biggest tea plantations in my father's district. When Geoffrey's first wife died, he married Edith, who had been nanny to their two young children. Sounds like something from a film, doesn't it? But Kenya in the late 1950s was like England in the 1930s. Edith was 22, almost 20 years younger than Geoffrey, but her parents were all for the match; no doubt influenced by the size of his estate. I had wanted her since I was sixteen and pursued her full of passion. When she married Geoffrey, I got so drunk at their wedding reception I drove home in a rage, hitting a goat and almost killing myself." Gina's hand went to her mouth, even though events happened decades ago.

"I was in a coma for two days and when I came out of it, the first person I saw was Edith. She told Geoffrey she would not go on honeymoon until she knew I was safe. We tried to keep away from each other, but before their marriage was a year-old, we were secret lovers." Gina made a disapproving murmur.

"We thought we were being clever covering our tracks, but one afternoon Geoffrey caught us in bed at the house of a friend we confided in. There was a fight which became brutal. I was fit but Geoffrey was a sizeable man and I am sure he would have killed me had the neighbours not been alerted by the noise. The police arrived and carted him off to jail and me to hospital with a broken arm and three cracked ribs. It was one scandal too many for the British colonial set. The Mau Mau uprising throughout the 1950s has already damaged the British reputation, and Geoffrey had been cruel putting down insurrection amongst his workers. Losing face because of his wife's infidelity undermined his power. By the time I left hospital, Edith had been sent back to England and my father told me to drop the assault charges, for the good of British interests in Kenya... pompous arse. I left within a month, coming to England to find Edith. But I never did." Jack sighed.

Gina looked at him. 'He sees me as the love he lost,' she thought. She sat on her hands to stop herself from embracing him.

"That's it, Gina. No more surprises. That's the story of Jack McMillan. Everything you need to know to make a choice. Oh, there's just one more thing." Jack pulled her toward him and kissed her. She responded to his passion, running her hands through his hair. She was not thinking, but this was not the time for thinking.

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Care in the Community concludes in part 2.