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Getting Organised
Carolyn Caterer
Copyright 2014 Carolyn Caterer,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2205-3
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Chapter 1
Abigail Morrison had never been an organised person. This revelation had occurred early in her life courtesy of her paternal grandmother, who had testily informed her (on her sixth birthday) that her dolls’ house demonstrated all the signs of being owned by a person with a disorganised mind ‘and we all know that these people never amount to much.’
Little surprise therefore that Abigail took this as Gospel, so afraid was she of her Grandmother, and went on to score average marks in her ‘O’ Levels thereby ensuring a place on a secretarial course rather than go on to her ‘A’ Levels and University, of which she was more than capable. She spent her early twenties in a series of uninspiring jobs until she met her new boss David Simpson who, intrigued by both her innocence and malleability, bedded and wedded her (in that order), before she had time to offer much in the form of protest.
Ten years later, she was somewhat bored with married life, frustrated that David had never shown any desire with regard to starting a family and, when pushed, said he had no interest in children whatsoever and hadn’t he made that clear when he married her?
Not being one to doubt the testimony of her superiors, she concurred with this and carried on the drudge of her daily life as her brain seemed to atrophy in a way that tends to happen in women whose whole existence is centred on their selfish husbands. Meanwhile, her life continued in an endless orbit of WI meetings, ladies’ lunches and work dinners.
On her thirty fifth birthday, just as she wondered if things could get any worse, they promptly did when David announced he was leaving her for his secretary (how predictable) who was pregnant with his child; probably the first time in his life he had done anything to surprise her.
At this point you would imagine that Abigail would have been finally spurred out of her complacency and sue him for every penny she could in the divorce court, but David managed to persuade her that discretion would be a preferable option, given the circumstances and the potential damage to his reputation. Consequently she agreed a settlement that, despite his insistence he was putting her needs first, felt as if she was being somewhat short-changed.
The amount of money she was left with made it impossible to continue living in the favoured commuting town which formed part of north Surrey, and so she moved out back towards her old haunts in Hampshire and found a small cottage which suited her nicely. She had an average size house with an above average size garden that had evidently seen better days. She spent the first few weeks in her new home decorating it from top to toe and stamping her character on it; pleased not to have to get approval from anyone when she painted the bathroom a beautiful shade of turquoise and one wall of her bedroom in purple.
Abigail was already proud of what she had managed to achieve in her new life; one that was so different from her old life that it was barely recognisable, but she felt that something was missing. She couldn’t put her finger on it but she knew that it was there, lurking in the recesses of her mind and telling her that she wasn’t good enough. Her own personal gremlin bounced around in her head at the most inopportune moments, mainly when she was feeling particularly pleased with herself and, it had the voice of her Grandmother, which didn’t come as much of a surprise to her given her upbringing.
Abigail often wondered what drove her Grandmother to being the kind of woman she was; maybe it was living through the war or losing her fiancé and perhaps having to marry out of necessity from a pool of men that was particularly small following the loss of so many lives in just six years. Abigail had never known her Grandfather, owing to the fact that he was twenty-five years older than her Grandmother and had died when Abigail’s mother was only fourteen years of age. This meant that her schooling was interrupted by the immediate need for her to go out and earn a living to support herself and Abigail’s Grandmother in the days before a welfare state had been introduced. Mrs Whitemead was a proud woman and had never expected to do a days work in her life once she was married, but the war had seen her learning skills she had never imagined would be needed, but which enabled her to take over the running of the grocery shop that had been owned by her husband and to offer her only child a job where she could keep an eye on her.
However, it turned out that Mrs Whitemead needed eyes in the back of her head to keep track of Anastasia’s flirting with the young men that came into the shop on errands for their own mothers. Anastasia was the kind of girl who was attractive to men simply because of her naivety about her attractiveness. This lack of self-awareness made her an easy catch, or so they thought. Mrs Whitemead was therefore more than a little surprised that Anastasia married the owner of the shoe shop just a short walk up the street. Whilst Eric Morrison may have been a man with a steady job and the makings of an excellent and loyal husband, he was not an ambitious man and Mrs Whitemead viewed this as a particularly serious fault. However as the nineteen sixties turned out to be the decade of free love and an era where far too much flesh was easily exposed, Mrs Whitemead had to acknowledge that Eric was perhaps an acceptable choice after all.
Anastasia meanwhile saw Eric as her passport to leaving a home dominated by the views and demands of one woman, namely her overbearing mother, and she had chosen Eric simply because he offered her a quiet and undemanding existence, which was something she had craved her entire life.
Anastasia had also hoped that her marriage to Eric would shield her from the domineering personality of her mother, but Mrs Whitemead was having none of it and had made it her business to comment on all aspects of Anastasia’s existence. Even the birth of Abigail, which could have been the perfect catalyst for a more harmonious relationship between the two women, failed to unite them into a closer relationship than one based on cautious civility by Anastasia, and self-importance from her mother. Anastasia seemed to shrink in the presence of her mother and bow to all her demands. Thus it wasn’t surprising that Mrs Whitemead was to have such a profound impact on the life of her only grandchild.
It was more surprising that a woman who had led a life of hard work and independence, not enjoyed by generations of women before her, could prove to be such a formidable obstacle in terms of Abigail’s self-esteem and happiness. From a very early age she learnt that her grandmother was a woman not to be argued or reasoned with and that her word was the last word. With her own mother unable or unwilling to set an example to Abigail, she soon fell into the familiar pattern of deferment that had dominated Anastasia’s life.
While it may have been in Abigail’s ability to rebel and forge her own way in life, it had never even occurred to her that this was an option. Instead she meekly followed her mother’s example and remained largely out of view, as to be noticed was usually an invitation for a big dose of criticism from her grandmother, which was seemingly impossible to avoid.
So it wasn’t surprising that, with a lack of a role model from her mother, a father who spent most of his time in his shop, (having never quite understood what exactly he was supposed to do with a daughter who wasn’t interested in football or cricket) and stayed in the background as a mildly interesting presence in her life, Abigail looked to her grandmother as the person to whom she had to answer in all matters of her life.
Mrs Whitemead of course made it absolutely clear that Abigail was a disappointment in every single aspect. She was neither pretty enough to marry well (remember Mrs Whitemead was a child of the twenties) nor intelligent enough to be an independent and successful businesswoman. She had of course decided this long before Abigail had even started school. Thus the seeds