Sandra

SECOND ONLY TO HERSELF

She had fat hair heavily tonged and set hard by a cheap hair spray
bulk-bought at Super drug. The spray left tiny opaque flakes at the
ends of her hair like mobile scurf. The colour was described as
"strawberry blonde," by the salon but the ginger failed to cover the
grey which revealed itself in uneven patches.

Sandra's body was shaped like a foreshortened Blackpool skittle,
slightly chipped and tawdry, despite the amount of money spent on
refurbishment. Sandra intermittently attended Weight Watchers and gave
weekly bulletins to her colleagues, she having predictably lost more
weight than those others on diets. It was difficult to imagine from
where the purported three stones had been shed. Modern mirrors tended
to distort she decided. Being slightly rounded was feminine, not
fat.

Above her work station she map-pinned pictures of her children and her
husband to remind others of her marital success and possibly to cover
over her previous infidelities with mutual friend's husbands and a need
to show she loved her family.

Sandra was proud of her husband's lineage; he had his own tartan and a
doctorate. She had, however never liked him but enjoyed the esteem of
being married to an academic. if not his violent temper and inherent
meanness. She felt obliged to appear happy, especially at the Lodge. It
was expected.

All her men had achieved academically. Her sons had expensive weddings
and she had been proud of their choice of partners. One the daughter of
a Harley Street physician, the other had links with the film industry,
however tenuous. Her cousin had once been invited to a film
premiere.

For her son's marriages, she had bought expensive two pieces hoping
that the fabric and "cut" would belie her rotund shape and lack of
urban sophistication, photographs never flattered her, but the three
hundred pound hat enhanced her complexion and matched exactly with the
blue in the men's kilts. The labels were partly exposed, because of
deliberate carelessness, to show the expenditure and stature of the
marriage. The video was a constant museum to their social
standing.

The Masonic dinners were a way of preserving their standards and it was
where the couples had originally met, they had families of a similar
age and similar social pretensions. They spent time together,
holidaying on French and Italian campsites, sharing their love of
culture.

On Friday evenings, after the operetta rehearsals, the friend's usually
met up in Sandra's house. They all shared a liking for whisky and
talking about themselves. They never listened but there was a mutual
understanding of the need to express your own values. That was what
true artists did. Burdening yourself with other's difficulties or
problems was the way to kill creativity.

There was a small pebble filled frontage with a stray dandelion or
couch-grass clumped untidily by the side of the car space, roughly
spread by itinerant navies who offered left -over tarmac from a local
road improvement. It had places for three cars.

The home they lived in, Sandra always referred to as bijoux, although
she would have preferred a house with more status.

Her sons' houses were of an upper-middle class proportion and in areas
that she aspired to. Until she received her belated inheritance, she
would be unable to achieve the location or type of property she longed
for, something elegant or at least noticeable.

Their house was a semi-detached property which she described as compact
but it did not lend itself to accommodating an additional co-habitant,
especially an elderly father. Sandra had agreed to look after him,
agreed to their co-habitation, because she was led to believe it would
be short term and lucrative. His health was failing. The doctor
speculated, two to three months. The inconvenience was likely to be
short lived. He was not well and her brother had already borrowed
enough from him for a large extension. She took charge of her father's
finances to protect him and the future of her own family.

The day he arrived, it was drizzling; dampness always caused problems
with the arthritis. From day one he had proved difficult. A Zimmer
frame over uneven surfaces proved an annoyance; it slowed down the
shopping trips...

When the Draylon the three piece suite from her childhood arrived,
their sixties, wicker seating was consigned to the garage. They had
wanted to replace it with something more appropriate but agreed to
house his furniture because his stay was likely to be, relatively
temporary.

Her brother telephoned. He alerted her to the problems. He explained
that they had brought in a cleaner and "plated meals." for their
father, he needed company during the day. Although she gave lip service
to his concerns, the wasted money on the old man's welfare would
depleted her expectations, for herself and her sons and was only
pandering to his selfishness.

Her father was frail, she knew that, but his breathing, in short
laboured snorts annoyed her. When she had first taken her father in,
she had been assured that the angina and other complications would be
terminal. She had not expected twelve years to elapse with no sign of
terminology.

His longevity was a constant source of annoyance, a physical and
financial drain. Their family holidays relied on available health care.
He was not actually ill, she reassured herself. Angina, emphysema and a
suspected embolism, at his age, could not be thought of as anything
unusual, He was old, not ill. A reluctance to stay by himself for even
one week was proof of his inability to allow her to enjoy a social
life. He did it to annoy her.

He was awkward, insisting his clothes were washed and ironed every
week. Once when he was short of underwear, he had used the kitchen sink
to wash out his vests and left trails of congealed soap powder on the
new linoleum, like a residue of his incompetence.

She did not initially discuss it, but became increasingly blunt about
her wish for his demise, so she could enjoy, "A real holiday."

Sandra wished her father dead, not because he had been a bad father,
but he had become a burden. The five years of adjusting her holidays to
fit into what she believed to be her father's intransigence had made
her exasperated. He had not physically or medically behaved as she had
been lead to believe. He had outlived the doctor's predictions and her
patience.

The Friday before the operetta's first night, Ben's wife had complained
of the lack of Italian bread in Safeway's and the unattractiveness of
the local population. Her mouth straightened to a horizontal puckered
line as she described them. They were the sort of people she would have
expected to see in Summerfield's. Common, underdressed, shabby
people.

"May be if they had a Booths or Sainsbury's, it would be more
acceptable," she suggested.

Sandra explained, "If one shopped, even in Tesco's, provided you waited
for late night shopping, and you ignored the occasional drunk, the
other customers were usually quite personable, or at least didn't
bother you."

They women discussed the intimacies of food shopping and the most
effective washing powders and their husband's virility. They shared
sexual fantasies, mostly about men but occasionally they digressed.
They appeared to have a rapport. They both disliked their respective
husbands and detailed the reasons in the white, Melamine kitchen, over
cooled coffee and full ashtrays, most Friday evenings.

Sandra's house was cluttered by the presence of her late mother's
taste. The Baby Grand dominated her dining room leaving no space for a
table, and the walls were punctuated by watercolours gifted by friends
of varying talents and family portraits commissioned from the local
photographer, giving the house an aura of a cheap sea-side bed and
breakfast, the trinkets probably had sentimental value but no aesthetic
value or coherence, nestled dustily on all the window sills. The
aspidistra had yellowed.

The rest of the small semi-detached had cupboards filled by
Capo-Demotte figures bought in foreign airports, ornaments which showed
a taste for fairground memorabilia and gilding. The brocade three-piece
was slightly frayed; the colours had smudged with age. The arms of the
chairs had a glassy appearance, oiled her father's habit of stroking
his hands over them. That was something else which irritated her, apart
from the fact that he was her father and as a "Christian" it was her
duty to care for him.

Two years earlier her mother had died. , At least her mother had the
manners to die before she needed incontinence pads. Her mother's death
she had found liberating and lucrative. She spoke warmly after the
funeral.

Subsequently, Sandra invited him to live with them. It would be short
term, and they would all benefit. She did at that point care about him.
He was her father.

His survival, after of twelve years of his continued life, she found
difficult to forgive. He should have followed the doctor's
prognosis.

Her son, who was by now a qualified doctor, explained that his
grandfather's symptoms were normal after a stroke and quite slight,
considering his age.

Sandra felt that her father had no right to display text book symptoms
in her home. She had saved her from the disrespect of her brother and
hoped to keep most of the family inheritance. Sandra's father would
bequest his belongings relatively quickly, now her brother was no
longer in contention.

Her brother had bled their father dry of what rightfully belonged to
her own family, or so Sandra believed. The extension they had built for
him, had probably now been turned into a conservatory, to boost their
house price. He had never loved their father as she did.

The father was demanding, asked for a Dunlop-pillow to raise the seat
of his favourite chair to a height where he could stand easily, after
being seated. Sandra suggested he bought leather; Queen Anne Chair was
because it was more aesthetic. He refused.

Even her father's breathing annoyed her. It was laboured. An enlarged
heart and chest problems did not excuse him, the arduous breath and
irritating cough spoiled the television programmes Sandra normally
watched. The lack of systematic inhalation was probably a calculated
old man's way of annoying her. Sometimes her father cried. She knew it
to be attention-seeking, so ignored it. As he became more frail and
inarticulate, he was an embarrassment to her. She had been proud of him
before, being in business and the chosen leader of the The Licensed
Victualler's Society.

If he had been more rational and less moneyed it would have been
easier. The primeval scream could have been forgiven in child birth but
for an eighty six year was unacceptable, especially to a family which
belonged to her. He became a responsibility for which she had never
wished for, certainly not in the long term.

Her father was taken to bed at eight, which she reasoned, gave him time
for his own interests. The small black and white television had proved
some comfort to him.

The father had not liked to complain. He knew he had to be grateful.
Sandra's father was proud of his daughter's musical prowess and
grateful for her hospitality.

Sandra and Ben, her friend's husband, had a shared love of popular
classical music, Gershwin and Viennese composers being special
favourites. They were both performers in the local musical society.
Their partners encouraged mutual involvement.

Ben's wife because she was reluctant to be part of such a parochial
group, she had trained as an opera singer and had auditioned for
Glyndebourne. The move to a small town reduced her potential and Ben's
local acclaim as a conductor further increased her annoyance but she
didn't wish to express her disinterest. Robert, Sandra's wife was
pleased for the social inclusion his wife's piano playing gained them.
In Morecambe, the operatic society held twice yearly productions which
were often quite well attended.

Ben's wife was dutiful, sex however she found an additional chore. She
was quite prepared for a perfunctory coupling on a reasonably regular
basis and to fake orgasms on birthdays and other special occasions. He
paid for their children' schooling and was relatively well thought of.
She had a debt to repay or at least a financial need to please him
occasionally. Sandra had been sympathetic when he had explained his
wife's lack of libido. He explained she had always had a problem, and
that he had tried to be understanding. He described his wife's
increasing, deterioration in terms of warmth;

Sandra played for the rehearsals for three months. The opening night
had been particularly successful. The local mayor had praised their
artistry.

The first night after-show drinks made Sandra especially mellow. She
tottered to the car, the gold and silver shoes pinching her feet and
the long evening gown making it particularly difficult to negotiate the
iced pavement even when he leant his arm...

The journey was unexpectedly long and Ben described the coldness in his
marriage and disappointments in detail. She was not surprised and
slightly encouraged by his disclosure.

His wife had always seemed thin, severe in all aspects of her body and
personality. Her bones protruded through what should have been a
softness that she seemed unable to recover; her depression had robbed
of all femininity. Ben felt undervalued. Sandra instinctively knew
that. She was intuitive.

She knocked the ash from her cigarette and moved it to her left hand.
As a way of easing his distress, she placed her hand on his knee and
stroked it, moving her fingers a little higher, in order to give more
support.

"Thanks, you don't know how much I need to talk. It makes it easier .We
know each other so well. I can trust you," he assured her.

Sandra shrugged, "That's what friends are for?"

Increasing the pressure on his thigh, she rubbed rhythmically,
gradually easing her palm to cup his crotch, squeezing gently.

"This could spoil our relationship," she said with no sense of
sincerity, licking his ear as she spoke.

He touched her, leaving the gear leaver ungoverned.

Neither spoke again. He pulled over. They knew each other and the car
park at the back of the council building.

The folds of the flesh around her middle enveloped his thin skinned
hand. It was a comfort, reminding him of the thick woollen blankets of
his childhood.

He kneaded her excesses, played with them like a master baker enjoying
the sensuality of warmed dough, its elasticity and denseness was a
direct contrast to the sharpness of his wife's form. He could mould
her.

Sandra opened her legs to a right angle and gulped her readiness with a
little girl voice which belied her age and proportion.

"We really shouldn't," she said.

She stroked the nape of his creped neck, grateful that she was still
worthy of seduction. She thrust forward; within the constraints of a
small car and her bulk, she was almost alluring. Ben was indebted by
the attention.

They experimented, tried new ideas.

Sandra worried about the musty almost malty flavour in her mouth and
decided she would brush her teeth before greeting her husband.

After a few weeks and almost as a convenient excuse, Ben's angina grew
worse.

Sandra visited.

Ben was propped in the corner of a high backed chair, a triangular
cushion supporting him and a woollen plaid blanket wrapped round his
knees. The tea slopped into the saucer and he didn't appear to have
total control of his bladder. He reminded her of her father

The two women bonded. They shared a dislike of dependence.