Robert's Obsession , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Brian Threlfall

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245 pages

English

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Life isn't going well for Robert Ormondson. A once successful owner of an Arts and Education Centre, situated on a coastal hill overlooking the seaside resort of Carlesbeach, his business is sinking as rapidly as his marriage to his wife, Mary.His part-time assistant, Jane Summerfield provides the ultimate distraction. Robert quickly becomes infatuated with her, and as sparks start to fly, it's as if he is a twenty-something again with all of his ambitions and idealism.As Robert's life begins to take off once again, the reappearance of a lost love causes complications which Robert himself could never have foreseen.Will he be able to save his marriage to Mary, or will he be consumed by his ultimate obsession- his desire to be successful?

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Historical romance

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 janvier 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838598266
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Copyright © 2019 Brian Threlfall

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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To my wife,
without whose support this novel would not have been written.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter One
My name is Robert Ormondson, owner of an arts/adult education centre on a coastal hill overlooking the seaside resort of Carlesbeach. My wife Mary had just made a suggestion which I did not want to have to think about.
‘The alternative is not to have any celebration at all,’ I said.
Mary looked up. She seemed a little uncertain as to how to interpret my remark.
‘Well, I’m not at all sure what exactly it is we’d be celebrating.’ I made no effort to soften the tone of my voice.
Mary stood in front of our sideboard dusting one of the ornaments – a Victorian statuette of an idealised hero and heroine, in pewter. The figures stand on a black pedestal onto which is fixed a chrome label bearing the word “Harmony”. I inherited the piece from my maternal grandparents. Mary appeared to handle it with so me distaste. She has on more than one occasion over the years referred to it as hideous. After replacing it, she moved on to the next object, a wood-encased pendulum clock, similarly inherited.
‘If only you hadn’t been so stubborn, there’d be plenty,’ she said, a familiar abrasiveness creeping along the quiet voice. I ignored the jibe as she went on to dust the only other object on the sideboard, a vase she brought back from Spain on what had been our last holiday, three years ago.
The sideboard had been Mary’s choice, bought during the first years of our marriage. A smooth-talking young man in Square Deal Antiques had informed her it was ‘inlaid mahogany, serpentine-fronted in the manner of Sheraton.’ That had been impressive enough for Mary.
I felt unable to focus my mind on the celebration suggestion and not only because I questioned the idea of there being something to celebrate. There were more pressing matters on my mind. Two groups of people enrolled for three-week-long residential courses were due to arrive. And more significantly perhaps, given my present uneasy state of mind, so were their tutors: Alexander Linkston and Ben Ross – both friends from my younger days.
What had just occurred to me was that I might have forgotten, yesterday evening, to switch the reception office telephone over to our apartment. If so, it was inevitable there would be at least one student trying to telephone to say they’d missed a train or some other reason they were going to be late for lunch. However, given the listless mood I was in, the two flights of stairs down to the ground floor seemed one too many, and I had more or less convinced myself that I was worrying unnecessarily. Of course I’d switched the line over. You do these things automatically. It was of no significance that I didn’t have any recollection of having done it.
As Mary moved away from the sideboard, having completed her dusting operation there, the chimes of the wood-encased clock struck seven times – pleasant, sonorous sounds, but for some days now the chimes have borne no relation to actual time. It is not the only clock in the room. However, synchronising the two is such a tedious business I have not regarded it as high on my list of priorities. One day soon, Mary will nag me into doing something about it. The next moment, as if rounding out my brief thought, there followed the distant, more hostile sound of Carlesbeach’s town hall clock, striking ten.
‘People always celebrate twenty years of anything.’ The tone suggested that Mary regarded the remark as answering every possible objection. After a pause, she added, ‘And besides, every one who knows the Centre will expect it.’
Especially her friends in Carlesbeach, I thought. I felt increasingly irritated. Did she have to keep going on about it? Just when there were more important matters. For instance, another thought had crossed my mind. What if Connie was late? Connie, my one secretary, who has run the reception office for so many years and without whom I would, on very many occasions, have been unable to cope. It was essential she should arrive on time. Not that she had ever been late, not once in nineteen years, but there was always a first time. Not on this occasion, please. Especially given the doubt about the telephone. And the possibility that Alexander will arrive early and be, well, a little difficult.
Mary was now in front of the what-not (also mahogany), dusting one of the two photographs which sit on the top shelf. The photograph is one of my maternal grandfather, Grandad Lovell, alongside a man wearing a large gold chain hanging from his neck. The Mayor of Carlesbeach at that time. The occasion had been the inauguration of the resort’s Illuminations Week, two years before the outbreak of the First World War. The mayor laughs jovially as he raises a glass of champagne in salutation. To the left of the two men, a corner of a building, partly covered in ivy, is visible. It is this building. At that time, it was my grandfather’s hotel, or rather, as the old man had always insisted, superior guest house. The mayor had just made, in the words of Grandad’s diary, a “triumphal drive” along the three miles of promenade, which had been completed only a year earlier. It was a new promenade, the old one having existed since the eighteen sixties, the decade when Carlesbeach saw its dramatically rapid modernisation. On the right of the picture, a horse’s head can just be made out, and behind the two men is a nebulous blur of light from the Promenade, which runs past the bottom of the hill on which this building stands. My grandfather stares boldly out at the photographer. I remember him as a man who looked everyone straight in the eyes. The thought occurred to me that I was unlikely ever to be photographed with the present mayor and I smiled to myself.
Mary held the photograph up to dust it. There must have been a smudge on the glass as she spat at it slightly before rubbing it with the duster. She replaced the photograph and picked up the other one, holding it towards the nearby window to catch what light there was. That photograph is of Daniel, our grandson (actually my step-grandson), wearing an outfit Mary chose for him on his first birthday, six months ago. Mary has a closer relationship with the child than I do, even talking to him over the telephone in, to my way of thinking, a quite inane fashion. But then, I would be the first to acknowledge I am not as affectionate a grandparent as she, although I do sometimes wonder if her attitude is more one of possessiveness than of affection.
After replacing the photograph, Mary said, ‘I don’t care what you say. There has to be a celebration, an event of some kind, call it what you want.’
I didn’t answer, yet felt uneasy at the ensuing silence. There is often silence between us these days. I wondered how much to say, how much she would really understand of whatever I did say. The silence seemed to freeze the words that were on the tip of my tongue. I experienced quite a few moments of silence before becoming aware that it wasn’t pure silence. There was the ticking of the clock, the lashing of rain against the window, the muffled sound of waves buffeting the rocks at the base of the hill, the hum of distant traffic.
I stood at the window looking out. Nothing could be seen distinctly – at least not from our apartment which is at the top of the building, in the large square tower which forms a second storey. There is a steep drop down to the courtyard below, beyond which a rock face plunges down to the shore. Raindrops running down the pane of glass splintered my vision of the courtyard and the beach. Through the fragmented glass, the ground below seemed unrelated to the building, the whole effect one of insubstantiality. I shuddered, remembering a day two years ago when I had stood in the same position, but on a bright, sunny morning, with the casement window open, the courtyard below seemingly magnetic.
‘Anyway,’ I found myself saying, ‘no doubt the Centre will be closed down by then and I’ll be on the dole.’
‘A trifle melodramatic,’ Mary said. I wondered at first whether she referred to my stance at the window but quickly realised she must be referring to my remark. I knew she was right and regretted my little outburst.
I stared out towards the sea and imagined how the great cliff-lik