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After church, Louise and Kezia chatted for a few moments with some of the parishioners. It was comforting in a way but scary in another because Louise kept imagining they could somehow see what had happened to her at the party. Suddenly she was a teen again, with a terrible secret and a huge load of guilt, a double load because she was committing the sin of adultery and not cleansing her soul before God.
Kezia had found some young friends and had wandered off to look at something in the Youth Centre. Louise took her opportunity.
“Excuse me,” Louise said to Mrs Johnston. “I just need to remind Father Larkin of something.”
Father Larkin freed himself to talk to Louise, towards whom he had much sympathy.
“Father, I could not go to Confession, and yet I am sorely troubled and seek guidance,” said Louise, while wondering how much she could tell the priest, who was younger than her. She need not have worried. There was a small conference room at the front of the Church Hall where they could talk in private. Once started, Louise bared her soul.
When Louise had finished Father Larkin advised her to go to the police while things were fresh in her mind and to settle her conscience before God and seek His guidance. As far as Father Larkin was concerned, she was sinned against and not a sinner.
Kezia did not mind her mother’s silence as they walked slowly home. There was something big on her mother’s mind otherwise why would you want to go to church when you had been out all night?
Louise was silent because she wanted to ponder the priest’s advice, that she should resolve the guilt her drunken or drugged action had generated, and she should tell the police what had happened to her.
When they got home, Frank was in the living room watching a recording of a game of cricket from the night before. Although Kezia went to her room to give her parents some space, neither Frank nor Louise addressed the big question of ‘Where were you?’
“Good party?” asked Frank.
“Met some nice people,” answered Louise as she sat on the sofa beside him. “Strange time for a party, in the week after New Year’s Eve. What about you. Enjoy it?”
“Always enjoy free booze,” Frank answered. “As much as you want. On the house.”
“Who organised it? Nigel?” Louise chose not to mention Stuart Larcombe.
“Yeah. Nah. Nigel did most of the running. He’s a good organiser. Larcombe. I do a lot of work for him. He wants me to take on a supermarket. All pre-cast concrete panels. Just do the founds, then it’s just like Lego.”
Frank had not spoken so freely about his work for a long time.
“How many permanent men will you need?” asked Louise.
“I think I can get away with five,” said Frank. “That will be a crew of six counting me. The rest I’ll pick up as I need them. Larcombe is financing everything. That’s what the party was about, Nigel getting us planning permission and consents for the work.”
Louise knew that Nigel was the Chief Planning Officer for the Council. Her friend Charlotte, Nigel’s wife, had spoken of the bonus payments Nigel got every time consents were approved.
“I’ve got to get special steel from Germany,” said Frank, who seldom spoke about his work and what his concerns were.
“Larcombe wants to go with the unspecified Chinese steel. That stuff’s rubbish,” Frank continued. “The special steel is a condition of the building permits. That, and the special foundation. Earthquake precaution. Need a raft floor now. Ring foundation. Rubber blocks and all that carry on.”
Louise had no idea what those terms meant. She was happy snuggling into his large comfortable body. She was distracted because she could smell ‘other woman’, even though Frank had shaved and showered. She was appalled but confused because of her own situation. She was not sure what to do and so did nothing, carrying on as if nothing had happened.
But it had happened. Frank had been with another woman, and to make it worse, Louise had been at the party. To make it ten times worse, Frank had not been there to protect her. She suddenly knew that things were over between them even as she suppressed the thought.
Frank seemed pleasant this morning, so it was not the time for a row. ‘Go with the flow,’ she thought as she put her arms around Frank.
He was a large man, with a big beer belly. He had been distant and critical lately, as if he had the world on his shoulders. Her feelings turned upside down again as she thought of her children and how painful separation had been for Kezia when she left Julian Ricciardello for the same reason. Could she manage to stay for another ten years?
Probably. Really, Frank wasn’t too bad. A bit of a hard man but if you did as you were told, you were fine. She could do that until the kids left home. Kezia would go soon, and Alexander in about ten years. She could do it. She snuggled into him just as the front door banged open and Mr Eight came charging in.
“Hi Alec,” said Frank. Louise always called him Alexander. Frank used Alec quite a lot of the time. “What have you been up to?”
Alexander crashed on top of Louise and Frank and put his arms around them both. After a time, Louise broke from the cuddle and went to make a pot of tea. She felt Alexander’s arrival had interrupted something Frank and she had not known for a long time. Perhaps it wasn’t all over for them after all.
‘Maybe tonight,’ she thought as she began preparing lunch for everyone.