The Fowler and His Net – Chapter 6

It had transpired that Samantha’s few days was to be a week and they would be back in time for her “event”. A week of, well, who would know?

His father had been more that happy to give him the time off. ‘Aye, lad.’ He had said. ‘You’ve been looking peeky for a bit, get yer ‘sen off somewhere.’ He had been impressed when Gary said he was going to Portugal. He had expected Skegness. ‘Aye, we’ll get the lads swarmin’ all over t’job on Thursday,’ He added. ‘We’re ahead on’t town job, n’t lads ‘ll be ‘appy to see what all’t fuss is about eh?’

So, his work at the Barton residence would be coming to an end and his brain was split on the subject. Tracey was less that pleased when he told her of his forthcoming holiday, albeit with a few important details redacted, in the Plough that evening.

‘But Darren’s coming back on’t Wednesday! He’s using up his last leave! Oh, Gary, it would have been so nice to have had you here.‘

‘Aye, I didn’t know that did I?’ Garry responded defensively. ‘Ah, sorry lass, I didn’t mean to snap like, but I’ve been right edgy lately.’

‘You’re tellin’ me.’

‘But, yous’ his wife. I’d fit in like grit.’

‘I though we’d all go out. Darren were lookin’ forward to it.’

Gary was beginning to convince himself of the preferability of his new plan. ‘I reckon it’d be better for yous’ if I weren’t there like.’

The discussion went on and became less animated. The topic changed. ‘Why Portugal?’ asked Tracey.

‘Were in’t travel agent window.’ Gary lied.

‘Oh aye. And you. You Gary, thought you’d just go.’ Tracey understood the conservative nature of Gary. He rarely took action when he was left to his own devices.

‘It were a good deal.’ Gary replied sheepishly.

‘Well, it’s either a miracle or your telling me fibs Gary Fowler.’ She continued to look at him suspiciously. ‘It’s that Barton woman in’t it.’ She guessed.

Gary squirmed and replied uncomfortably. ‘Might be,’ he confirmed. ‘ And I’m not fibbing because I did see Portugal in the travel agents.’

‘You bloody nob! What have I teld yer ‘bout her. She’s trouble I tell yer.’ Tracey was determined to get her penny’s worth. ‘God, she’s got her hooks in to you han’t she.”

Gary sat there and took of the humiliation quietly, recognising the validity of all of Tracey’s arguments.

‘And what, she’s going to introduce you to all of her nobby mates. “Oh, this is Gary, he is a recreational architect don’t you know!”’

Gary slumped his elbows to the table, head in hands. ‘Don’t. Tracey, please!’

His sister in law realized she was being merciless and reached over to grasp his hands. ‘Gary, you know we will be there, Darren and me, when it all goes tits up.’

——————-

Wednesday was the day to get his temporary passport from the Post Office and lunchtime, when he could extract himself from the gang, was the time. He was nervous about the process of queuing in some place of authority, which the Post Office, as the fount of all official documents for the town’s inhabitants, seemed. Being there reminded him of being on charges.

The line that was being served by overworked cashiers wound its way around the large hall; he had unfortunately chosen the busiest time of the week. One of the cashiers there was more than familiar and his nerves jolted again. It was Jane, the first of his youthful conquests, won, when he on leave from his basic training and in his dashing new uniform, and at an age for a young girl when a soldier seemed romantic. The events in Gary’s life in the past week had led him to now regret the fact that he was not this dashing knight, and in a turn unknown to him, Jane had never really found someone more to her liking, though he had pressed her through an ordeal. It was the disappointment of being dispensed with, perfunctorily, rather than the actual act, that had affected her most.

Both of their eyes met simultaneously and both presented the same amount of shock. Only one month before, Gary would have brazened away this meeting, showing that self control that the armed services instils. Now he stared and looked away self consciously.

Their eyes met whenever the line curved and snaked and finally after a quarter of an hour of queuing, Gary was faced with the lottery of “next please”. It was inevitable in the broad-spanning scheme of life that he heard the soft lyrical voice of Jane when his turn was due.

She had aged a little, but not as much as Gary, and remained pretty and except for a few unexceptional men, no one had entered her life.

‘Can I help you, Gary.’ She asked professionally.

‘Aye, I’d like a,’ he searched in his pocket for the note he had written earlier, ‘BVP’.

‘A British visitors passport’, she elaborated, with shaky voice.

‘Aye, one of them.’ Gary confirmed.

“Do you have your birth certificate and one form of proof of address?’

‘Aye, I’ve got them.’

‘Could you please fill in this form and include photocopies of the documents with two photos from the machine in the booth over there…how’s Trace?’

The additional question caught him by surprise. He panicked, thinking she may have heard something of their affair, but, after all, he thought after betraying nothing very much, she was his sister in law so the question was quite natural. And the two girls had been friends. ‘Oh, err, aye, yeah, she’s great. Lives next door now, and she’s got a kid on’t way. Aye.’

The news spread over Jane’s face in a cloud of happiness and wistful longing, a sign that, for once in his life, did not go over Gary’s head. Jane identified the feelings too, and rather allow them to play too great a part in her current demeanour, nodded to Gary and returned to her professional attitude.

‘You can come to the front of the queue when you are done and I can issue your BVP.’ Her customer was rather put out by her return to the refuge of procedure. But, he was brave if he was anything and there was something he wanted to say.

‘Jane, I, I…’

‘’Yes, Gary?’

‘There’s summat I’m ‘avin to do this week, like, but when I…’ the young woman looked on at his feeble attempts to talk and, blankly willed him on. ‘…finish, I just wondered…”

’Miss Turnbull do you have a spare sheet of second class stamps for cashier four?’

‘Yes, Mr. Bayliss.’ Jane answered a short balding disembodied head, obviously belonging to her superior who had introduced it around her partition. She looked apologetically at Gary.

‘And you are needed in accounts when you have finished with this customer.’ The irritating pate added.

‘Yes.’ Jane replied, and as Gary slunk away to the photo booth, and Jane closed up her counter, he couldn’t decide whether he had just listened to an answer to his half finished question or to an answer for the shiny Mr.