Short Story: What Goes Round..............

Short Story: What Goes Round..............

Jane was sitting at their usual table near the window when Kathryn stepped into the busy pub. She waved her dripping brolly to catch her friend’s attention and then had to apologise to a passing waiter whom she’d just spattered with raindrops. She deposited the umbrella and her equally soaked raincoat on the coat stand and made her way between the tables filled with the lunchtime city office workers.

‘Making and entrance as per usual,’ remarked Jane.

Kathryn laughed, ‘Sarky cow, have you ordered yet?’

‘Tuna salad croissants with no lettuce for you as requested. I told the waitress that you were on a diet but her face didn’t crack a light,’ replied Jane.

‘No one has a sense of humour anymore,’ Kathryn sounded wistful. ‘Look around you – is there anybody in here with a smile on their face – I doubt it.’

Jane casually glanced around and then suddenly she grabbed Kathryn’s arm.

‘Ow – let go - what’s the matter?’

‘Sorry,’ said Jane, ‘but you really don’t want to see who I’ve just seen – No, don’t look round, she’ll see you. My, my, that hair is definitely out of a bottle – an expensive bottle mind you, and that coat – some poor baby seals have been battered to death for that – the Animal Rights people would be very interested.’

Rubbing her arm where Jane had grabbed it, Kathryn was getting quite cross, ‘For goodness sake tell me who it is’.

Jane silently mouthed ‘Paula Fleming’.

Kathryn was incredulous. ‘No – it must be twenty years since I last saw her, not since school anyway,’ and she gave an involuntary shudder at the memories this Paula Fleming invoked.

‘And she’s with Geoffrey Armour, the divorce lawyer who has the office next door to mine,’ said Jane raising her remarkably expressive eyebrows. ‘I’d heard she was on her third husband, a rich American, according to my mother who heard it from somebody who has a sister in the Women’s Guild where Paula’s mother reigns as queen do-gooder.’

‘Oh then it must be true,’ Kathryn laughed nervously.

‘Don’t tell me she still gets to you?’ said Jane anxiously scanning her best friend’s face.

‘Don’t be silly,’ but Kathryn couldn’t meet Jane’s eyes. She tried to look nonchalant as she casually looked over her shoulder, ‘That coat must have cost a small fortune – I take it the other two husbands were well off too?’

‘You bet,’ said Jane. ‘If Poison Paula’s back in town she’s probably wining and dining Geoffrey to get another huge settlement to keep her in the manner to which she has always been accustomed.’ Hey! Didn’t she always make you give her your dinner money at school?’

Kathryn looked uncomfortable, ‘You didn’t know the half of it. If she met me coming back from the shops she made me give her my mother’s change and I had to tell Mum I’d lost it’.

‘Why didn’t you tell your mum what really happened?’ Jane was puzzled.

‘Oh I don’t know. I knew Paula would hurt me if I did. She had this vicious way of nipping, I used to be covered in bruises,’ said Kathryn.

‘Oh Kath, you were such a mouse, I’d have punched her lights out if I’d known,’ said Jane with genuine sympathy.

Now that she’d started, Kathryn found herself pouring it all out. Things which she had buried for years came flooding into her memory.

‘Remember Mrs Wilson our neighbour used to ask me to take Jack out in the pram when he was a baby? Well one day Paula and her pals took the pram away from me and ran away. I searched all afternoon for the baby and eventually I had to go back to Mrs Wilson and confess I had lost him. The first thing I saw when the door opened was Jack’s pram and Mrs Wilson was furious. She said some girls had found the baby in his pram abandoned in the park and recognised him – they also said that they’d seen me running away from the pram and Mrs Wilson never let me take him out again. She told my Mum and she stopped my pocket money for a month and poison Paula got a reward from the Wilsons.’

‘God, these days she’d be locked up for doing that,’ Jane shook her head in disbelief.

‘Yes it would be classed as abduction,’ said Kathryn seriously.

‘No, I meant she’d be locked up for taking the baby back – he was an ugly little brute.’

They both laughed.

Their croissants arrived and they munched in silence

‘Remember she was first in our year to get blonde highlights?’ said Jane.

‘Yeah but they turned green when we had a swimming lesson and everybody laughed at her. She made me suffer for that. The next day on the way home from school she walloped me with her hockey stick and broke my front tooth,’ Kathryn said, remembering the incident.

‘Is that what happened to you? You told me you walked into a lamp post,’ accused Jane.

Shaking her head Kathryn looked pained, ‘I just couldn’t tell anybody – she terrified me – she really did’.

‘You poor old thing – I had no idea it was so bad for you,’ said Jane darting murderous glances at the back of Paula’s beautifully styled hairdo.

‘I don’t know why she was so evil, she was very pretty and she could have had any boy in the school at that time,’ said Kathryn.

‘And probably did,’ sniggered Jane. ‘As I remember, she got the most use out of the new gym - especially the mats. She was caught in the act in there with Eric Grant and the only reason she wasn’t expelled was because of all the money her Dad gave to the school for sports equipment.’

‘She even had to take away the only boy who had ever fancied me,’ said Kathryn mournfully.

‘You don’t mean fat spotty Simon? You had a lucky escape there,’ smirked Jane. He’s a very fat chef now and believe it or not he has seven kids who are all in the roly-poly tradition’.

‘Nevertheless, he was the only boy who ever asked me out at school. We were supposed to be going to the pictures but he didn’t show up and he crossed the street to avoid me whenever I saw him after that. I found out weeks later that Paula had told him I had the clap. For years I used to lie in bed sobbing and wondering how I was going to get through the next day – she made my life hell. I used to fantasise about tying her up and shaving off her long blonde hair and her eyebrows.’

‘You were always too gentle Kathryn. I’d have been praying that she’d fall off the platform just as an express train came rushing through or that she’d meet an axe murderer who’d chop her into little bits and throw her to the birds’.

Kathryn laughed, ‘Let’s hope you stay as a solicitor and never become a high court judge then.’

‘Look on the cheery side. She may have been pretty but she wasn’t bright enough to go to University like you and now you’ve got a gorgeous husband and two beautiful kids,’ as well.

‘Mmm, that’s true enough,’ Kathryn smiled. ‘Well they say that which doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger.’

‘Character building my dear, maybe in another life you’ll meet her and she’ll be the mouse and you’ll be the cat.’

‘I’m glad in a way that she came here today. It’s funny but I didn’t realise all that was still festering inside me,’ said Kathryn. I feel a lot lighter now that I’ve unloaded myself on you.’

‘You should have told me years ago kid,’ remarked Jane.

The two friends prepared to leave.

‘’Oh she’s gone,’ said Jane as they passed the empty table where the subject of their lunchtime conversation had been.

‘Pity, it would have been quite nice to ignore her,’ replied Kathryn tartly.

Umbrellas straining in the wind and rain, they made arrangements to meet as usual the following week and went off in opposite directions back to their respective jobs.

Kathryn was still smiling as she changed into her white coat. Jane was good for her, she gave her strength and made her see the funny side of life.

Her smile was wide and welcoming especially when she saw her first customer of the afternoon waiting for her.

‘Good afternoon, it is Paula isn’t it?’

Paula’s eyes widened with recognition and horror.

Kathryn lifted one of the shining instruments, her foot pressed the lever and the chair went back. ‘Now mouth open wide – this won’t hurt a bit.’