This story was first published in a slightly shorter form in ‘Ouse Valley Poetry’ in 2009, where it won 3^rd prize in a contest. Sadly, the journal is no longer in publication.

CHANGES IN THE WIND

‘I’m cold.  I want to go back home now,’ Kerry told her mother.

Dawn lowered her gaze from the distant, uninhabited hilltops to the pinched face of her daughter. ‘In a few minutes,’ she said. ‘We both need some fresh air.  That’s why we came, remember?’

Kerry was about to argue but her mother’s tense expression stopped her. ‘Push me, Mummy.’ She sat down, facing her.

Dawn pursed her lips and stepped around the swing and behind the little girl. Gripping the seat, she gave it a hefty shove. Kerry leant back and stuck out her red wellingtons as she reached the high point of the swing. Two more pushes and she was almost flying.

‘Keep yourself going, the way I showed you.’ 

In the corner, where a gap in the drystone wall gave entry from the street, a couple of lads, eight or nine years old, played noisily around the outcrop of rocks.  They were truants whose mere presence and occasional swearing added to her irritation.

She stared at grass in need of its first cut.  Rain had kept the mowers off.  Fallen curls from birch and ash still lay brown and damp among the green blades, as if autumn and winter had passed without the winds that should have taken them to pile high against the walls. Yellowed leaves of sycamore, dead on the curled grass, waited for spring winds to dry and lift them.

Dawn looked to the far hills as she tried again to make up her mind. It was impossible. Every choice she made ended up at the same point of indecision. Her loyalty was at war with her feeling of betrayal. Love and affection had fled the scene whilst the court was still in session. She’d predicted the guilty verdict long before the jury declared it.

Kerry brought her back to the present. ‘Push me again, Mummy.’

Dawn pushed absently, irritation and frustration overlaying her love and concern.

A man with a little girl of about Kerry’s age entered through the gap where the boys were playing.  One of them swore loudly as he leapt from a rock towards his friend.  The man spoke with them, quietly. Perhaps he’d told them to go to school. In any case, they left the park.

A wry smile played on her lips.  He’d removed a source of irritation, but she and Kerry would have to leave now anyway.  Once he recognized her, he’d make it impossible for them to stay.

The little girl, released from his hand, ran over and climbed onto the swing next to Kerry’s. ‘Hello. I’m Zoë, I’m nearly four.’

‘I’m four already,’ Kerry told her.

‘Time to go.’ Dawn brought the swing to a halt.

The man arrived and smiled pleasantly at her.

‘I don’t want to go, Mummy,’ the little girl protested.

‘I thought you were cold?’ Dawn reminded her.

‘I’m not now,’ said Kerry

The man grinned and shook his head. ‘Funny how quickly the temperature can change when you’re four. Must you leave?’

Dawn took in his dark hair ruffled by the wind, his kind brown eyes troubled by something deep inside him, his careworn stance at odds with his ready smile. ‘New round here, aren’t you?

‘That obvious?’ 

She hesitated, wondering if it was worth saying nothing so she might enjoy adult company for a few moments. Common sense and honesty squashed that dream almost as it formed. ‘When you know who I am, you’ll not want your little girl playing with mine.’ Dawn turned to Kerry. ‘Come on, love, home.’

They left, despite protests from both girls and the man.

Two days later, when the rain had stopped for long enough for the wind to dry the swings, if not the slide, she took Kerry back.

The man was there again; his trousers stuffed inside black wellingtons and his head covered by a woolly hat that had all the sartorial elegance of a tea cosy. He was chasing Zoë and pretending he couldn’t catch her, as she dodged around the climbing frame. Intent on the chase, he ran smack into one of the horizontal bars. Zoë stopped laughing at once and ran to him as he crouched with his head in his hands.

Dawn, about to retreat until the park was deserted, allowed concern to get the better of her. ‘You alright?’

He looked up at her and tried to smile. ‘Silly of me. I should look where I’m going.’

Rising too fast, he swayed unsteadily.

Instinctively, Dawn reached out and held his arm to stop him falling. ‘Let’s have a look.’

Zoë and Kerry had lost interest since there was no blood and the man hadn’t actually fallen over. They ran to the slide and began a game of chase.

‘Nasty bump.’

He touched it ruefully. 

She searched his face, looking for signs of recognition and finding them. ‘I’ll be off, then, seeing as you’re all right.’

‘You can’t spend your life running away from it, you know.’

‘I don’t need a complete stranger, a man at that, to tell me what I can and can’t do!’ Her ferocity surprised her as much as it did him.

‘No, sorry.’

They were silent, embarrassed and uncertain.

‘Your little girl…’ he tried.

‘Kerry.’

‘… she’ll be starting school next year?’

Dawn nodded, willing to take up the safe subject of children and hoping against hope that this man wasn’t going to condemn her, as everyone else must. ‘If we decide to stay.’

‘Yes. It must be difficult.’ He seemed to be considering something as he spoke. ‘I’m sorry, how rude of me. I know who you are, of course, Mrs Woodley. I’m Paul Dersingham. Zoë and I moved in two weeks ago.’

To her amazement, he offered his hand. She took it hesitantly, as if he might withdraw this offer of contact. Ungloved, it was a warm, dry hand that gripped hers with gentle firm pressure born of hidden strength.

‘I make my judgements on facts, Mrs Woodley, not on hearsay and the scratchings of tabloid journalist’s.’

‘Dawn, please.’ She longed to ask him how much he thought he knew of the facts, but she wanted even more to retain this faint hope of companionship. Any probing might turn him away from her and loneliness warned her to avoid that.

The girls played well together. Paul gestured at one of the wooden benches and they walked over the long grass and sat on the cold, damp slats.

She wanted to turn and study him. His was the first show of kindness in what seemed like months. A quick count told her it was four months and three weeks since the court had passed sentence and ruined her life; it seemed, forever.

‘I wonder if they really despise you as you seem to think.’ Genuine concern troubled his handsome face.

‘How else would they feel? How would you feel?’ she really wanted to know.

He shrugged. ‘I understand your suspicions. Maybe you should give them a chance?’

She was minded to demand what he could possibly know about it. A stranger, a newcomer with no experience of the people of this small market town. He couldn’t know how she’d been ostracized and scorned.  But he meant what he said and wasn’t simply mouthing platitudes.

‘What do you do for a living?’ She changed the subject and discovered that she really wanted to know more about him.

‘Oh, I’m also a leper. A single parent.’ He spoke with such irony and exaggerated emphasis on the label that she felt she had to laugh.

‘You should do that more often,’ he said. ‘It reclaims your youth, brightens your eyes and declares your courage.’

If that was a chat up line, she thought, it was one of the more original she’d come across. She shook her head; as if anyone was likely to chat her up.

The girls ran to them, hand in hand, expectancy written on their faces. Zoë cocked her head on one side and smiled sweetly at her father.

‘All right.’ He took a paper bag from the pocket of his waterproof jacket. ‘Is it OK for Kerry to have one?’

The bag held a mixture of those sweets that make adults grimace and children rave. Dawn nodded. 

‘Two each. You’ll spoil your tea.’ He glanced at Dawn and she nodded her approval.

When the time came for them to go their separate ways, she discovered Paul lived a couple of streets from the park. They walked together to his gate and then Dawn ploughed on up the steeper part of the hill towards her semi in the newer part of town. At the crossroads, she looked back to find him watching her from his front door.  He waved.

Kerry was full of her new friend over tea and still talking excitedly about Zoë at bath time. Dawn recognized the symptoms of loneliness and chided herself for not thinking about it before. All her concern seemed to have been for her own situation.

‘Will Daddy come home soon?’ the little girl asked, for what seemed like the thousandth time.

Caught off guard, Dawn scolded. ‘I’ve told you and told you, Kerry, Daddy won’t be home for a very long time; if ever.’ That last was said with such venom it surprised even Dawn. ‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to shout at you.’

With Kerry safely tucked in bed and the house silent, she considered her position in light of Paul’s comments. He’d given her hope that she might not be isolated and shunned forever. If there was hope of human contact, hope of acquaintanceship, even, then her plans to stick by her undeserving husband, for Kerry’s sake, might need revising.

It was him they all condemned; she was merely tarred with the same brush by association. He was the one who’d cheated, lied and robbed.  She’d known nothing about it. But she felt guilty because she’d benefited from his crimes. The holidays overseas, the new car, the beautiful house and furniture had all been purchased out of his cheating and fraud. True enough, she’d sold the car and house to pay back some of his victims. But the guilt had lingered.

She gazed around the small space that served as kitchen, diner and sitting room in her tiny flat, the upper story of a modern semi. Tears trickled unheeded as she recalled the detached house in its large gardens, now home to someone else. It was hard to live like this, but she was glad to be free of the fruits of his crimes. She’d never have wanted them in the first place had she known.

The tears were for herself as well as his victims as she lay in her lonely bed that night. It broke her heart to think of the way he’d cheated their friends in the same way he had all those strangers. Lying to them and to her all the time. It hurt her so much to think of the way he’d betrayed her.

Paul was sitting on the bench when she came through the gap in the wall and he seemed unaware of her arrival. Leaning forward, his head supported on his hands, his whole body declared his deep sadness. 

Kerry ran straight to Zoë, and they began a game of hide and seek in which neither of them hid very well.

Dawn stood a little way off, wondering whether she should make her presence known or leave him to his thoughts. Kerry solved her dilemma, shouting out to her to join in their game.

Paul snapped out of his private place at once and looked up at her, sorrow etched into his face. ‘Sorry about that, sometimes gets the better of me.’

Dawn felt sorry for him. She knew it was presumptuous and ill-advised, but she felt the need to support and help this kind and lonely man. ‘Perhaps, if you miss her that much, it’s worth trying again?’

He shook his head at her, and she knew, at once, her guess was wrong. 

In spite of her feelings of loyalty and duty to her husband, she felt a great desire to comfort this man and ease his pain. ‘I’m so sorry.’

He was quiet for some minutes, controlling his grief. When the girls came across begging sweets, she wanted to send them back to play but he dredged up a smile and proffered the bag of sweets. They ran off, chewing and laughing together.

‘It’s a year today since her funeral.’ he told her.

She understood the grief, if not the actual loss caused by death. ‘The longest time imaginable and no time at all.’

He looked at her and nodded. His expression changed. ‘You didn’t know, did you?’ his question was more a statement. 

It astounded her that he was so perceptive and could switch so quickly from his own grief to her situation. She shook her head. ‘Never even suspected. I thought he was so successful. What a fool.’

He took her ungloved hand and held it gently, the lowering of his own defences allowing the small intimacy. ‘You’re as much a victim as the people he cheated, then.’

She squeezed his hand so hard it must have hurt, but he said nothing. ‘Of course I am.’ It was as if that thought hadn’t occurred to her, which in a real way it had not. She’d seen herself as she expected others must see her, an accomplice, an accessory before, during and after the fact. 

She hadn’t been aware, at any stage, of his activities. Only during the trial, as the details emerged and he was unable to answer the many questions, did she begin to realise what he’d done.

‘Thank you.’ She considered him, taking in his features and the gentle strength that dwelt behind his eyes, then turned to the children playing happily together, and beyond to them to the hills.

The sky, grey and cheerless earlier that morning, was sporting patches of brilliant blue between dark clouds of grey. On the distant slopes, a shaft of sunlight threw the grey stone walls and dotted sheep into stark relief.

Paul, watching the swiftly moving clouds, turned and caught her studying him.  ‘I wonder if you’d come home with me for a cup of tea. Zoë’s dying to show Kerry her new bedroom; I’ve painted a farm scene on the walls and a rainbow across the sky-blue ceiling.’

If he’d asked her before, when rain still threatened, she’d have refused, hanging on to her sense of duty and loyalty for man she could no longer love. ‘Thank you, Paul; I’d love a cup of tea.’

 They stood and discovered they were still holding hands. He smiled and she allowed their fingers to remain linked for a brief time, unwilling to make an issue of this innocent contact.

He called to the children. ‘Come on, let’s go and look at Zoë’s bedroom.’

The pair ran excitedly toward them. Paul gathered both girls in his arms and swung them round before setting them back on their feet.

He turned back to Dawn. ‘Shall we?’

She looked up at the clearing sky and then back at him. ‘Yes, please,’ she said.