Element of Chance

‘Yes, that’s all right.’ Andrew signalled the waiter. Another ten minutes or so before he need take the road for his interview.

‘Would you plan to move from Barbourne?’ Celia asked. He appreciated the way she didn’t add ‘if you get the job’, seeming to accept without question that he would be successful.

He raised his shoulders. ‘I couldn’t say at this stage. I’d have to see how it worked out.’ Kain Engineering was only twenty miles away, just over the border of the next county. Near enough to let him keep his present house if he wished, but far enough removed both in actual distance and psychologically – by virtue of that county border – to provide a liberating sense of making a completely fresh start, if he did decide to move.

He steered the conversation back to impersonal topics; he had grown skilled at this in the years he had known Celia. Not that he had any particular desire to choke off her questions about this new job; it was simply that he wanted to forget the whole thing until he found himself walking in through the wide swing doors at Kain. He had been pleased when she had turned up and suggested lunch; he hadn’t in the least been looking forward to a jittery meal on his own.

His nerves were agreeably steady, he noted with satisfaction as he paid the bill and saw Celia to her car. The pleasant, calm feeling lasted throughout the drive. The traffic was a good deal lighter than he had expected and he realized as he approached the main gates that he was faced with a nasty stretch of time that he hadn’t bargained for.

He didn’t turn in through the gates but drove a little further on to a lay-by. The feeling of serenity had drained away. He leaned back against the upholstery, closed his eyes and tried to relax. At once a host of disturbing thoughts besieged his brain. He did his best to obliterate them, but it was useless. After a couple of minutes he opened his eyes and sat up. He stepped out of the car and looked round.

A hundred yards away on the left he could see the painted sign of a pub. He bit his lip, staring at the sign. He had managed to keep off drink at lunch, he certainly wasn’t going to have any now; it would be kissing goodbye to any chance of the job. He turned his head. A short distance off, on the right, stood a phone kiosk. At once his spirits lightened.

I’ll ring Alison, he thought with relief, I’ll tell her where I am and what I’m doing, she’s bound to be interested, after all it concerns her very closely. He dug in his pocket for the coins, crossed the road and went rapidly towards the kiosk.

Alison had only a few minutes to spare before her next appointment when the phone rang on her desk. Her smooth professional manner underwent an alteration as soon as she recognized Andrew’s voice. Surprise, followed instantly by wariness, entered her tone.

‘What prompts this call?’ she asked across his opening civilities. ‘I’m very busy just now.’

He gave a nervous laugh. ‘I have an interview at three o’clock.’ He sketched in brief details. ‘I thought you might care to wish me luck.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said crisply. ‘If this job is what you want, then I certainly hope you get it.’

‘I’m speaking from a box outside the Works.’ He was desperate now to keep her on the other end of the line. ‘It’s a pleasant situation. Open country not far away. You’d like it.’

‘Oh yes?’ she said, now only half listening. With her free hand she drew towards her a file of papers. She opened it and began to scan the pages.

‘And it’s not much more than twenty miles from Barbourne.’ His tone grew warmer. ‘It wouldn’t necessarily mean moving house.’ She said nothing, he abandoned caution. ‘It could be exactly as you pleased. We could move or not, just as you chose.’

As she turned a page his words suddenly got through to her. She withdrew her fingers abruptly from the file.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked sharply. ‘What has your moving to do with me?’

He was at once invaded by panic that she might force him out into the open, might make him spell out his wish to mend the marriage, the terms he had in mind. And if she then rejected those proposals, leaving him to get through the next few minutes as best he could, he would face the interview in the total certainty of failure.

He gave another laugh. ‘I seem to have caught you at an inconvenient moment. I’m sorry, I’ll ring off.’ He put down the receiver without giving her time to reply. He let out a long trembling breath, stood for a few seconds with his eyes closed, steadying himself, wiping the conversation from his mind, summoning up what remained to him of poise and assurance.

When the phone clicked and buzzed in Alison’s ear she raised her shoulders, pulled a face of momentary irritation and then dropped the instrument back on to its hook.

She glanced at her watch. She was on the verge of dismissing Andrew from her mind when some of the implications of his call began to filter into the forefront of her brain. He seemed very anxious to get this new job; he talked as if it meant quite a bit more money. It would suit him very well if she were to return to him. And he was prepared to go to some lengths to entice her back.

‘Mm,’ she said aloud. She tapped her fingers on the desk. When she married Andrew he had seemed to her to represent security. She thought him well-off, successful, destined before long to become even more successful. She had overvalued his ability – and undervalued her own. But her ideas had altered. She’d learned a thing or two since she’d left him.

In the corridor outside she heard footsteps. Her client, no doubt. All thought of Andrew’s call vanished from her mind.

So far the interview was going well. The four men facing Andrew across the table were sitting upright, still wearing expressions of concentrated interest. He felt alert and stimulated. He knew he had done himself justice up to this point but he daren’t relax yet. The tricky bit was still to come, might raise its head at any moment.

‘And your family,’ the Chairman said genially, glancing down at the application form. ‘I see that you’re married. No children.’ He looked up. ‘I take it your wife is in full agreement with your application. I’m sure I needn’t tell you how important that is.’ He smiled. ‘We like the wives to come willingly.’

Andrew gave an answering smile, indicating with a nod his general agreement with the Chairman’s remarks.

‘She hasn’t a career of her own, or anything of that sort?’ the Chairman said. ‘Nothing to prevent her playing her full part here as your wife?’

Andrew hesitated, moved his head fractionally sideways, stared at the surface of the table.

‘She has a job,’ he said. ‘But it’s scarcely a career. I don’t think it’s all that important to her. I’m sure she’d be prepared to give it up if I was appointed.’

The Chairman gave him a long considering look. ‘We like to meet the wife,’ he said pleasantly, ‘before we reach any firm decision.’ He spread his hands. ‘I take it your wife would be able to come along very soon?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

‘Good. Then perhaps we could fix a time now?’

Andrew shifted in his chair. ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ he said with a half-smiling, deprecating air. ‘It would have to be fitted in with her job commitments. I’d have to speak to her first.’

‘We’ve another couple of candidates to see,’ the Chairman said. ‘You can use the phone here.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the outer office. ‘Speak to your wife about it, arrange a day to suit her. Then we can have another word with you, settle it all before you go.’

Andrew said nothing, his face expressed no more than a general wish to be co-operative. ‘We want to finalize this appointment as soon as possible,’ the Chairman said. ‘We’d like to eliminate unnecessary delays.’ There was another slight pause.

‘Actually,’ Andrew said on a high, light note, ‘my wife and I—’ To his horror he found he couldn’t complete the sentence, his mind was a total blank.

‘Yes?’ the Chairman said. ‘Some difficulty there?’

Andrew’s mind cleared. He nodded in relief. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘We’re living apart. Just temporarily, of course.’

There was a slight stir round the table. ‘I would prefer to speak to her in person,’ Andrew said. ‘It would be far better than the phone. I could call to see her this evening.’

‘How long have you lived apart?’ The Chairman’s tone was polite and neutral, like a doctor enquiring about symptoms.

‘Two and a half years.’

‘A longish time,’ the Chairman said. Long enough to get a divorce, his manner suggested. Or to patch things up if they were ever going to be patched up.

Andrew glanced round the table, knowing even before he did so that it was no good, they’d written him off. Men of decision were what they liked, men of regular life. His glance demolished the last vestige of hope. They were all sitting back in their chairs, relaxed, switched off, no longer bothering even to look at him, simply waiting till the next man took his place.

‘Right then,’ the Chairman said suddenly. He looked across at Andrew, gave him a brief impersonal smile. ‘You’ll be hearing from us within the next day or two.’ No longer any mention of urgent phone calls to Mrs Rolt from the next room. ‘Thank you for coming along.’

That is it, Andrew said to himself with fierce emphasis as he came out into the car park. Finally and irreversibly it. I have finished with Alison. My mind is irrevocably made up. I will not try to hang on to her a moment longer. I’ll get a divorce and marry Celia. She’d back me up in any job, any activity. She’d resign from Sugdens if he asked her to, she’d devote herself with pleasure to being his full-time wife.

He got into his car and eased it out towards the gates. He tried to conjure up a joyful vision of domestic warmth and intimacy such as he had never experienced even in his childhood. He did his best to whip up a feeling of ardour as he contemplated the idea of Celia waiting to greet him at the end of a busy day. She’s had plenty of experience of the hard world of business, he told himself, she’d understand the pressures.

But the prospect remained obstinately bleak, vaguely depressing. It seemed to him that marriage to Celia would signal the end of his youth, would rush him headlong into middle age.

He drove slowly up the road, past the pub, now locked and shuttered. It would be hours yet before they opened again. And he wanted a drink very much indeed. No reason now to resist the idea. And he did after all have something to celebrate – his very decisively settled future.

He would drive on into the town, find an off-licence, have his own little private party in some secluded spot.

On the edge of the town he came to a vast supermarket with a sign that mentioned among the varied delights within a section devoted to wines and spirits. He parked the car and went inside. He bought a nice little selection of conveniently-sized bottles. On his way out again he paused and looked round the long aisles, at the female assistants, the young housewives, the adolescent girls, trying to visualize himself striking up an acquaintance with such fashionably dressed and coiffured creatures, progressing through the ritual stages of intimacy to marriage and children.