Loves Me, Loves Me Not. Romantic Association Novelist's
before. There was no denying that together they were the most glamorous couple anyone had ever seen.
Gradually the other couples surrounded them and soon I saw only glimpses of my friend and my husband as they moved around the floor. And then I lost sight of them altogether. I stood up and searched keenly as the couples danced by, but soon there was no denying it. Raymond and Laura were no longer there.
Cold. I felt so cold. I made my way to the foyer and collected my coat from Hilda.
‘They’re up there,’ she said, nodding towards the stairs that led to the little snack bar.
I was mortified that anyone should think I was looking for them. I didn’t say anything. I put my coat on and walked out.
It was bitterly cold on the promenade. The wind gusted viciously, snatching my breath and knifing cruelly through my body. But, instead of making for home, I headed north towards the lighthouse and watched its wide beam sweep across the turbulent waters. Tears made cold tracks down my face and every now and then I tried to rub them away with my gloved hands.
I stopped when I reached the cemetery. The dead end of town, as we used to joke when we were children, and turned round to go home. There was nothing else to do.
The front door seemed to open of its own volition the moment I put my key in the lock. My mother was standing there. She must have been waiting in the tiny hallway, listening for every footstep.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ she asked, and I knew she was angry because I hardly ever heard her swear.
‘Walking,’ I said.
‘Honestly, Jeannie, if I wasn’t so pleased to see you I would smack you! Now, come upstairs and take your coat off. Sit down by the fire and I’ll make you a cup of cocoa.’
Cocoa. My mother’s remedy for all ills and upsets.
‘Your father and Raymond are out looking for you,’ she said when she came back into the room. ‘Your father’s sick with worry and Raymond’s near demented.’
‘Raymond?’
‘Yes, Raymond, your husband. Remember him? He told us you’d simply walked out on him at the Roxy and, when he realised you’d gone, he came straight home. When he found you weren’t here he thought you might have come to us.’
‘Did he tell you why he thought that?’
‘Yes, he did. Laura’s back and he…’
Before she could say any more we heard the front door open and worried voices on the stairs as Raymond and my father ascended.
‘She’s here,’ my mother said even before they had opened the door of the living room.
‘Thank God,’ Raymond said.
My father just stared. I could see his distress and it would have broken my heart if there had been anything left to break.
‘We’ll go now,’ my mother said. ‘You two need to talk.’
I watched them go. Raymond just stood and stared. He’s going to tell me now, I thought—tell me that he still loves Laura.
So his next words took me by surprise. ‘Why did you run away?’
Did he really need me to tell him?
‘Because you went with Laura,’ I said. ‘I saw the way you danced with her. I realised that you still love her. You lost her once and now she’s come back.’
‘Do you really believe that?’ he asked.
I nodded mutely.
‘Well, you were wrong!’ I don’t think I had ever seen him look so angry. ‘Completely and utterly wrong.’
‘But you left the floor together—you went up to the snack bar.’
‘And what did you imagine we were doing? Did you think we had fallen into each other’s arms?’ His face was white.
‘I…it crossed my mind.’
‘For God’s sake, Jeannie. I had to talk to her. I knew from the moment she pulled me on to the dance floor that she hoped we might get together again and I had to tell her as soon as possible that it wasn’t going to happen.’
‘Why not?’ I whispered. ‘Don’t you love her any more?’
Raymond sank down on the sofa beside me and pushed a lock of hair back wearily.
‘Of course I don’t. Don’t you know that by now? Don’t you know how much I love you? How grateful I am for every day we’ve had together?’
I turned to look into his face and saw the truth. I couldn’t help it, I began to sob.
Raymond put his arm around me and drew me close.
‘Don’t cry, my Jeannie,’ he said and those were probably the most romantic words I’ve ever heard.
Neither of us spoke after that. We lay in each other’s arms on the sofa. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked, the bars on the electric fire glowed comfortingly and we fell asleep.
In my dreams I heard the music playing but there was no one in the ballroom except Raymond and me. He walked towards me across the dance floor and held out his hand. Then he pulled me into his arms and we began to dance.
Jane Gordon-Cumming
Jane Gordon-Cumming began writing when she was about seven and used to make up stories about the teachers at school to entertain her friends. Making people laugh has been her main object in life ever since. She has had many short stories in magazines and on the radio, as well as in the OxPens anthologies of stories set in Oxford. Her first novel, A Proper Family Christmas, was published in 2005, and she is working on A Proper Family Holiday, set in a Gothic dower house in Gloucestershire. Jane is Deputy Treasurer of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and Secretary of the Oxford Writers’ Group. She lives in Oxford and is married to Edwin Osborn. When not writing, she enjoys trips on Worcester, their diesel-electric narrowboat, works as a volunteer in archaeology and sings in two choirs. You can read more about her on her website www.janegordoncumming.co.uk
Taking Life Seriously
It all started when I was sacked from the naughty food company—for being silly. You wouldn’t think it was possible, would you? It was the most amazingly silly job anyone could have, making marzipan penises and sugar boobs for party novelties and adult stocking-fillers all over the world. They’re particularly big in Japan, I gather—the market, that is, not the penises and boobs. The only reason anyone would have for taking a job like that would be for a laugh. And so that you could tell people what you did when they asked at parties. It made a real change from the usual run of primary school teachers and computer operators, I can tell you.
So how did I manage to get myself sacked from Edible Erotica? It’s a long story, involving a visiting dignitary from a chain of sex shops in Kiev and a packet of Durex. For such a silly company, they took themselves far too seriously. I should have stayed at the building society.
‘The trouble with you, Gina,’ said my friend Leonora, ‘is that you’re just not serious-minded enough. That’s why you can’t hold down a proper job, or why you never seem to have a boyfriend.’
Leonora is very serious. She’s a social worker for a start—or was till she decided to stay at home to look after Jacyntha and Tyrone. She has really serious hair, dark and floppy, held back by a Sloany hairband, and wears knee-length skirts and brown tights and Edinburgh Woollen Mill cardigans.
‘You were just the same at school. Yes, I know it was funny when you put a fig leaf over that nude statue in the art room, and the red dye in the showers when we were doing Macbeth. But…well…one grows out of that sort of thing, doesn’t one?’
It wasn’t exactly