Writing for Fun
September 2017
Letting Go - The Saga Of Henry - Anne Wilson
Henry was asked to close the door behind him, so he knew it was serious. Innocuous discussions took place within the hearing of everyone in the outer office and pay reviews were not due for another six months, so it looked ominous.
Despite his forebodings he was amused to see that his superior, body writhing in embarrassment, had consciously set his face to reflect what might be a mutual sadness. It was intended to indicate that he in some way was also going to suffer, although it was doubtful.
‘It’s not good news, I’m afraid,’ he explained somewhat superfluously. ‘We’re having to let people go . . .’ His voice trailed away to nothing as if he was somehow waiting for his bewildered employee to finish the sentence for him. When silence ensued he tried another tack. ‘It’s out of my hands,’ he continued in a feeble voice, in a less than convincing effort to side-step any of the blame. ‘You will be eligible for statutory redundancy, though.’
Henry pondered on the expression ‘letting go.’ It implied capture or imprisonment followed by a pardon being granted. Instead, he faced an uncertain future, a minimal pay-off and little prospect of finding another job in middle age, lacking sufficient drive to disprove the probability.
‘Send Andrew in, will you,’ said the man in charge, now considerably less tense and giving Henry pause for thought that he might be the only casualty from the fall-out. Andrew’s future seemed assured and his requested presence unrelated, Henry suspected, as the door did not close behind him upon entering.
Henry had never been a man for sweeping anyone of the opposite sex off their feet. Nevertheless, he possessed a diffidence that had made him curiously attractive in his youth. It therefore often a came as a very pleasant surprise to those meeting Mrs. Henry for the first time that he had been able to persuade her to become his partner in life and their marriage was therefore the subject of some speculation.
A diffident man with a good salary is, however, a more attractive prospect than one living on a dwindling statutory redundancy payment with no job in the pipeline. Henry’s constant presence around the house during the working week resulted in his wife becoming short-tempered and dissatisfied with her lot. Against her better judgement she was forced to apply for gainful employment and, because of her easiness on the eye she was fortunate enough to acquire a job without too much difficulty. Henry found his life gradually becoming emptier as his wife’s requested presence at the office out of hours escalated. He confronted her one evening, vacuum cleaner in one hand and duster in his other.
‘I wanted to talk to you too,’ she countered ominously. ‘Sit down a minute.’
He did as he was told, half expecting her to ask him to close the living room door behind him as confirmation of prospective bad news, but it remained ajar. What she had to impart was, however, something he did not want to hear.
‘We’re not working any more, are we?’ she reasoned.
‘Well, you are at any rate,’ he retorted with some humorous irony.
She ignored him.
‘There’s no real point in beating about the bush’ she continued. ‘You deserve something better than me and I’m letting you go. It’s only fair that I do.’
‘I don’t want to be “let go,” he pleaded. ‘I want to stay with you.’
All his protestations failed and Mrs. Henry packed a commodious suitcase without delay, leaving an address where she could be contacted in an emergency. Henry guessed there would be a man involved somewhere in the background. It was a not unreasonable assumption. He consoled himself with the thought that she had told him she was letting him go for his own good.
It’s sometimes said that a boy’s best friend is his mother and, having no friends to speak of, Henry had hoped this statement would hold true with his own, despite their emotionally distant relationship indicating everything to the contrary. Low on funds and in poor spirits he found himself knocking at her door sometime after Mrs. Henry’s hurried departure.
Surprised at his arrival, his mother ushered him with some bemusement into her immaculate living room and made him a cup of tea, which she poured into a bone china cup. She was not a woman imbued with great warmth so he did not feel particularly welcome. Nevertheless she was all he had and he threw himself on her mercy, recounting his problems with candour.
‘Can I come back here for a time?’ he pleaded. ‘It’s lonely in the house all day.’
Her reaction was not encouraging.
‘You should find yourself a job,’ she remonstrated. ‘You’ve got nothing to occupy your mind.’
‘They let me go,’ he retorted. ‘That’s not going to encourage anyone else to take me on at my age.’
‘Nevertheless . . .’ she pursed her lips and shuddered. ‘A grown man moving in with his mother.’ She hesitated. ‘I must let you go too. It’s for your own good. Most men would be pleased to have a mother who doesn’t make any demands on them.’
‘You certainly don’t make any demands on me, mother,’ countered her son bitterly.
‘One of these days you’ll thank me for it,’ she retorted without conviction. She reconsidered her maternal position slightly. ‘You know you’re welcome to visit me at any time.’ She paused – instantly regretting the open invitation. ‘Just give me a ring first.’
The subject was closed and they finished their tea in silence.
Henry did not realise he would miss Mrs. Henry so much. His pride had been dented and that was understandable but on a personal level he also craved her company and in the absence of a job or any outside distractions, his general lack of interaction with others was marked. Twice he had caught sight of her in the street. On the first occasion she had been with a group of other women, presumably connected by working within the same office and all of them chatting and laughing with an easy camaraderie which resulted in him feeling a pang of envy. On the second occasion that envy had turned to anger when he saw her in the early evening stand on tiptoe and plant a furtive kiss on the lips of a tall, well-built man, in a manner suggesting their relationship was anything but platonic.
They parted company ostentatiously and it was not difficult for Henry to follow him, undetected in the dimly lit streets. After a few minutes he saw the man was slowing down and then stopping outside a two-storey Victorian house. Walking up the pathway he then turned his key in the front door and disappeared from sight. Half an hour later a woman decidedly less attractive than Mrs. Henry in her estranged husband’s view, walked briskly up to the same front door, turned her key purposefully in the same lock and disappeared into the house. It was clear that Mrs. Henry’s love was a married man, or at least spoken for.
Over the next few days Henry found himself compelled to keep vigil over the building from a discreet distance and his curiosity was eventually rewarded when he sighted Mrs. Henry emerging through the front door early one evening looking like the cat who’d got the cream. He was not amused – although she clearly recently had been. The loss of his job, the infidelity of Mrs. Henry and the rejection by his mother merged together like some awful black cloud that would not dissolve and he became increasingly despondent.
The bloom of romance eventually made Mrs. Henry and her lover indiscreet and, caution thrown to the wind, they had ceased pretending they were going their separate ways when seen together in the street and took to wandering through leafy, tree-lined avenues foolishly close to the house, heads close together and as tactile as two hormonal teenagers. They seemed blissfully unaware that they were being watched and seemingly defiant about any consequences of being discovered together.
Henry spent a good amount of his time spying on them – although he often returned home without a sighting as the lovers’ own time spent together was obviously dictated by the man’s circumstances and working schedule.
The park had become a popular trysting place for them and Henry had taken to regularly to hovering surreptitiously, from their arrival to their departure. Summer turned to Autumn and Autumn to Winter, the latter bringing with it a chill that could not dampen the ardour of the two lovers. Henry began to find himself feeling tired and lethargic as the nights drew in and the weather turned colder and put his symptoms down to the ‘winter blues,’ but his voyeuristic obsession remained unquenched.
One frost-ridden morning and with a desire to remain in bed with the duvet firmly tucked underneath his chin, it reached 11 a.m. before Henry forced himself to rise from his bed and prepare to embark on what had become almost a daily ritual – sometimes with a successful outcome and sometimes with a ‘no show’ from the couple. He noticed he felt giddy when he stood and slightly breathless as he dressed but banished it from his mind. He was running late and would barely make their possible arrival time - as early as midday onwards from past experience, a time he presumed coincided with lunch breaks from their respective jobs.
The park was a quarter of a mile away from his house and felt every inch of it. He made a vain attempt to run but it took too much out of him and he slowed down to what amounted to fitful lurching, inhaling the bitter air as he did so. He arrived in a dishevelled state to see his rival pacing up and down like an expectant father by one of the benches. Obviously Mrs. Henry was keeping him waiting – timekeeping not ever having been her strong point. The park was empty, probably the result of the forecasted threat of snow and Henry took up a favoured position behind a large oak tree, confident of being unobserved. He began to feel worse now he had stopped moving; sweat drenching his body despite the cold and pain manifesting itself in his arm, which he clutched in a vain, unrealistic hope that it might then lessen. He started to crumple – any attempt to control his body beyond him. Falling to the ground with a slow, soft thud, his eyelids flickered open to reveal the figure of a tall man striding towards him. On reaching the stricken body the man glanced to his left and to his right before bending down.
‘Help me,’ said Henry. ‘Please. Fetch an ambulance.’
To his surprise, the man just stared at him. The reaction was as unnerving to Henry as his sudden ill health . . . ‘I know who you are,’ said the man. ‘Do you honestly think you haven’t been noticed before? We’ve both been laughing at you.’
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ protested Henry. ‘Please just help me.’
The man stood up slowly and deliberately, still staring.
‘Why aren’t you doing anything?’ whimpered Henry.
‘I’m letting you go’, said the man softly. ‘I’m letting you go.’