The Mystery of Men by Guy Bellamy

Author:Guy Bellamy [Bellamy, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2021-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

12

It was some time before Gaynor Jones was able to unravel the events of the day and assemble them in an order that made sense to her. Her husband had arrived home white-faced, looking as if wild dogs were at his heels, tripped over the step and, after a prolonged visit to the lavatory, collapsed groaning into an armchair from which he looked as if he might never rise again.

The shock, or the walk home, or the regurgitant stopover in the bathroom, had sobered him sufficiently for a degree of coherence to appear, but he was now suffering from memory gaps that required both patience and interrogative skills from his wife.

She sat on the sofa opposite him, appraising the wreckage that he had become, and slowly put together a picture of his day. He had been suspended after a girl had falsely accused him of an act of indecency, had a few drinks in an understandable state of agitation, and accidentally knocked Oscar Mansfield over when he tried to leave in his car. Oscar, alive but unconscious, had been taken to hospital with head injuries and a suspected broken leg, and Vernon had stumbled home, distraught and demoralised. Gaynor Jones didn’t know where to start.

‘Didn’t the police breathalyse you?’ she asked.

‘They couldn’t,’ said Jones. ‘By the time they got there I’d gone back into the bar and had a few more.’

‘Will they prosecute?’

‘Who knows? They made notes. Can they prosecute for something that happens in a car park? It wasn’t on the public highway, was it?’

‘This girl,’ said Gaynor. ‘Is she mad?’

‘Evidently,’ said Jones.

The possibility that Jones had had intercourse with anybody, let alone one of his own students, did not enter his wife’s mind. In her opinion, rampant sexuality was the only fault he didn’t have, and the only one which in rare moments she might have welcomed. She hugged her knees on the sofa and stared at her disconsolate husband.

‘What about the National Union of Teachers, or whatever your militant fundamentalists are called. Won’t they stand up for you?’

‘A few token gestures, I expect. The power of the unions these days is sadly over-estimated.’

Jones sat back in the armchair wondering whether to go to bed or throw up. Of the day’s various disasters, it was the sanguinary joust in the car park that lingered with him now. He didn’t like Oscar Mansfield’s appearance when he was stretched out beneath the Vauxhall Viva. He looked like a man already dead, and it was hard to believe that if he survived he would ever be his normal, robust self again. Just picturing his death-like face made Jones feel queasy, and he struggled to direct his thoughts elsewhere. Unfortunately his brain was not amenable to suggestion, and he sat there glassy-eyed with a dry tongue that felt slightly larger than his foot.

Examining his torpid condition Gaynor Jones experienced feelings of bewilderment that she had never known before. For a man whose uneventful progress through life had been a dismally reliable source

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