Peggy studied her reflection in the mirror, her gaze calmer than the mood that she had settled into, her tall and broad-hipped figure clothed in a grey and black flocked dress that she had chosen to wear for her work. It was worn with black fishnet stockings and grey low-heeled ankle boots. She never applied much makeup, just a brush of fuchsia lipstick and the lightest application of mascara so that no one could say that she had overdone it.
She had been seen in these clothes the night before when she and her son Noah had gone out for the evening, to a theatre night in Birmingham. A short train ride had saved Noah the hassle of driving and then parking her car and they had taken the opportunity to make a night of it, finding a place for a late-night supper and still in time to catch one of the last trains to the stop that was needed. Then, a short car journey brought them back to her home where she lived alone now and with Noah visiting as often as he could.
With him, she could talk about anything and everything, and a month or so ago she had told him that her divorce was finally settled. "Your father's finally paid up. I'm through the bad times in every way."
"Poor you," he had consoled on hearing the story. "It's another reason why I have talked to him about how he treats you and that you always seem to have to chase him for the money that he owes you."
"That he owed me, darling. And now, I am over that and everything's settled between us. I can move on with my life."
"You can count on me to help you with that," he had then said in reply to that hope that she had expressed so certainly. "I may soon be starting a new job but I'll not be so far away, unlike those sisters of mine. Do you ever see them?"
It was a thorny subject but, with him, she could be honest. "No, not as much as I see you. And I'm glad, our bond's so very different. It was before the divorce happened, but ever since that time I'm not sure how I'd have gotten through."
"Well, you're there in a new place and you still have me."
The bond that she had with him had always been close but recent events in her life had turned everything upside down, including all that she thought was settled in her relationship with Noah.
Her iPhone trembled on the hall table and she knew who it would be straight away. She had time to answer his call, although doing so would only send her tumbling back into the memories of all that happened the night before and with him.
β₯
"Hello Peggy," he said on seeing her face fill his iPhone's screen. "I just wanted to see and hear how you are."
"You're looking at her, son."
"And you're okay?"
"With what we did, you mean?"
"Yes, with what we did and after some time. I didn't rush you, remember?" He gave voice to his deep infatuation with her. It was something that she had struggled with and to accept, even before she had succumbed to soft words and his persuasive caresses that had breached every defence she had struggled to put up.
"No darling, you didn't rush me." She couldn't help but sigh as she looked at her watch, the elegant strap keeping it from sliding down her arm until the sleeve of her dress stopped its progress. "All I'm thinking of is how to get through what I am feeling now, and about what we did."
"I cared for the woman I was with last night and regret that I had to leave you, but I had an early start to my working day. At any other time, I would have stayed with you."
"Yes, I know that, darling. Sorry, but I have to go to work. It will help me take my mind off things until I see you again."
"I'll be there tonight if...if it's not too soon for you?"
"No, just be here. I need that more than ever now."
Noah closed the call. He had a few spare minutes before he had to go into the office and used them to look at some pictures that he kept of her, of Kathleen, Peggy, Saunders. At Uni he'd had his lovers, women of a certain age who had been flattered by the attention that he paid them. There had been no future in any of those liaisons, only the pleasure of taking them and being wrecked by their demands in return. Would it be any different with Peggy? The destructive reality of what they had done would soon prevent any repetitions or limit them.
And so, it had been with Peggy, a buxom and broad-hipped woman who stood up to his shoulder and he was nearly six foot tall. He had loved to feel her fleshy warmth after patiently waiting for the moment to seduce her and to offer some comfort for what had befallen her, the discovery that his father had 'legged it' and taken up again with a woman who had been his mistress. He had heard the rows, then seen Peggy's tearful face when he was still a youngster but learning the ways of the world only too quickly.
And, even in the years when he had been at uni and came home for the vacations and earned some cash doing odd jobs, he had been of special company and comfort to her, 'my rock in the storms' Peggy had once said and when it was becoming clearer by the day that Tony's mind and prick were elsewhere.
Thoughts and hopes, wayward and promiscuous as they were, had become real last night and the woman who had always been 'mother' had become someone else entirely.