The Leaf Blower - Part 4

 

On the bathroom shelf, a shabby box of Shobna’s migraine pills caught his eye, the blister pack had slid halfway out and there were only a couple of tablets left. He clutched them to his chest and his heart thumped with regret. It was a stupid thing he’d done, letting that Jenny woman into his life. That was the thing though, his artificial state of youth had been lulled into the relationship security state of a much younger man, a man with unlimited options.

 

He looked down at the pills, knowing perfectly well she had more of them at home but also seeing an opportunity. Surely the decent thing to do would be to take them to her workplace in person, that way, even if she didn’t want to talk to him, he could at least see her and present himself as a caring person. The balance might shift a bit; now he was making an effort, trying to look after her and if she didn’t want to speak to him then that was on her. 

 

The dentist wasn’t too far from his home and close to a supermarket, he needed some chilli jam so it didn’t look like he was going completely out of his way. It was paramount that he didn’t behave like some sort of stalker, this was something he worried about. 

 

He’d been accused of stalking once before on an occasion when he wasn’t even close to stalking territory. It was very unfortunate that his love interest at the time had always wanted to be stalked and was constantly looking for reasons to loudly accuse men of stalking her. It occurred to him that he wasn’t that good at choosing women, Shobna was the most normal, sensible woman he’d ever had in his life and that was why he’d proposed to her in the first place.

 

After attempting to make himself look smart, he made his way to her place of work and waited a short distance away. Shobna came out of the dentist in a rush, clutching a bouquet of flowers which instantly caused his heart to sink. I wonder who’s given her those, he thought and he felt a stabbing sensation as he imagined a fit young dentist taking an interest in her. But all the dentists at her surgery were either old and gnarly or women. Maybe they’d hired somebody new.

 

She gasped and initially tried to push past him but as her eyes scanned the surface of his face, she stopped suddenly, her forehead creasing into an ever deeper furrow as her concern grew. ‘My god, Dennis, is that really you? You look awful. Have you been ill?

 

He winced. ‘Sort of. I had a bit of a flu thing,’ he said, rubbing his face in an attempt to blur his increasingly aging appearance. 

 

‘Cold was it, in Malta?’

 

He shook his head in defiance. ‘No, I didn’t enjoy that trip at all, not at all.’ He quickly tried to think of something to say to shift her towards feeling sorry for him. ‘I.. I’ve been quite heartbroken actually Shobna.’

 

‘Really? Oh come on. It was you who caused all this. What the hell happened? I thought we were happy.’

 

‘We were but I messed up. I’ve had stuff going on. Look, I was just rifling through my bathroom cupboard, looking for some medication for my er, my critically high stress levels and I found your migraine pills,’ he said, handing them to her.

 

She looked down at his hand and pushed it away. ‘I don’t need those anymore, I’ve been getting deep tissue massages at the gym and I feel, I don’t know,’ she smiled, ‘sort of calmer and less burdened than I’ve felt in a long time. They’re probably out of date now anyway.’

 

‘Oh, okay. I’ll just bin them then.’

 

‘You should probably drop them off at the chemist. You aren’t supposed to put medication in the bin.’

 

Dennis shifted uncomfortably. He wanted to argue with her but he had no bandwidth for negative come backs, he had to roll over and agree with everything she said. ‘I’ll probably just take them home for now then..’

 

‘Hey, your colleague, Peter came into the surgery this morning, he’s a nice guy. He’d broken his tooth on a date.’

 

‘A date? Who was he on a date with?

 

No! A date, it had a stone in it. He told me he’s taking his wife to see Alfie Boe tonight at The Hippodrome, it’s their anniversary.’ She gave Dennis a long unblinking stare which said something, he wasn’t sure what though.’

 

‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

 

‘We were supposed to be getting married, Dennis. We could have had..celebrations, anniversaries.’

 

‘I know…and I still want to.’

 

‘But you got tempted away so easily. All it took was a bit of interest from that deranged lady who wears wet-look leggings and eats boiled eggs in the gym carpark.’

 

‘I know. I don’t know what came over me. It was like I’d been hynotised.’

 

She laughed, ‘You weren’t the first and you won’t be the last. She reeled you in like a pathetic little fish. I suppose she told you about all the dramas in her life.’

 

‘Yes, she did have quite a few stories.’

 

‘She loves chaos and she’s done it before, many times. There’s a list of her conquests up on the noticeboard in the gym. I think it’s called the cycling club.’

 

‘I shouldn’t have joined,’ Dennis said, looking sad all of a sudden and also decades older.

 

Shobna pitied him but only in a detached way. ‘Oh well. You had your bit of fun. I’ve got to go, my mum needs help with Dad, he’s got so much worse.’

 

‘I’m sorry, I…’ Dennis tried to think of something helpful to say but she’d gone, clutching her flowers as the wind blew her long hair and whipped the audibly around the cellophane wrapping.

 

Dennis spent the remainder of the evening going over his conversation with Shobna. There was so much more he wanted to say but how to express his feelings articulately, he wasn’t sure. And then there were the things she’d said, particularly the way she’d claimed that she was calmer, less burdened. This was a bad sign.

 

In the morning, he returned to work with a feeling of dread. It was unlikely he’d be able to get his hands on that leaf blower any time soon and he could feel himself ageing fast. The first person he saw was Peter and he remembered what Shobna had told him.

 

‘How was Alfie Boe?’

 

Peter didn’t look at him. He simply said, ‘Tripe.’

 

‘Shobna told me. She saw you at the dentist.’

 

Peter stopped. ‘I’m surprised she still speaks to you, Dennis, after what you did to her. You must be mad, abandoning a quality lady like Shobna.’

 

Andy was putting cups onto the table in the staffroom, together with a coffee pot and some cheap biscuits. ‘Come and sit down guys. The big man will be here any moment.’

 

He was a big man, Mac, both in stature and status. The others were all scared of him and it wasn’t just because he was the Course Manager, there was more to it. He had an intimidating way of speaking and holding himself, a look in his eye which somehow communicated a cold, silent threat, even when he was smiling.

 

Mac came in and the others shuffled into a position which made them look keen to listen to whatever he was about to tell them. He leant his thick torso against the wall and folded his arms, biceps bulging under green fleece covered in little white hairs, a golden retriever? 

 

He let out a cough to clear the air. Dennis noticed how, now in his early sixties, Mac had developed a bit of a paunch and his stubble was turning white and patchy. He didn’t look old though, he had that smooth complexion that some folk have, sort of greasy and immune to the radiation from the sun and from the physiological span of all life’s stressful events.

 

‘‘I suspect some of you might have heard on the grapevine that we’re under pressure to sell one of our courses. The golden age of recreational golf is over and we can’t afford to keep both of them going. There’s an increasing amount of pressure in this area for housing.’

 

 

‘It’s a good sight for it,’ said Dennis, nodding enthusiastically, ‘perfectly positioned for transport links and services.’

 

The others looked at him blankly. ‘Sound like that’s what he wants,’ said Andy.

 

‘No more house building.’ said Luke, ‘over my dead body will we lose more trees in this area.’

 

‘Personally I think the other site at Glaudy Lakes would be better and we keep operating as a golf course but it’s going to take a lot of work to get our site up to standard so that they favour us and we get to keep our jobs.’