He walked to the door and eased his key into the cylinder. The latch stuck when he tried to turn it - another one of those jobs he'd been going to do for so long it was laughable. He jiggled the key until it finally worked. He was good at that - jiggling - except, he was far better with mechanical things than he was with situations and people.
The front entrance led straight into the lounge. He closed the door quietly behind him and glanced habitually at the time on the illuminated panel of the VCR. She would be asleep. He stood in the dark, acclimatising himself, noticing how the shadows had changed since he was here last - she'd been re-arranging the furniture again. He tried not to groan out loud. Suddenly, his jaw was set and he was grinding his teeth. There was an unfamiliar smell about the place. It took him a moment or two to track it down and recognise stale pipe tobacco. Perhaps it meant nothing, but he had a nagging suspicion that he was no longer the only jiggler in Sally's life.
He tried to tell himself it didn't matter, that it was to be expected. A woman with a bastard for a husband who was only there one month in two needed more than a kid and a framed 8 x 10, to remind her that she was still a woman. Then he started to think about his needs and he stopped making excuses for her. He could feel his anger rising and the answer seemed to be a beer. It was 3.30 in the morning, he was freezing his nuts off and he couldn't think further than a cold beer! Presswood, he said to himself, you really are pathetic!
Accepting the self-analysis with a shrug, he trudged through to the kitchen. As he was pulling a can of Fosters from the fridge, he noticed a jar of mustard pickle on the shelf. Del hated the stuff and Danny lived on tomato sauce, so unless Sally was pregnant again, it had been bought for someone else. The jiggler smokes a pipe and likes mustard pickle, thought Del. He only hoped his rival was a pretty-boy because he'd be able to fix that, unlike everything else.
He started to slam the fridge door; then stopped himself - let Godzilla sleep. Maybe she'd fall into a coma and he could sell her for medical research! He stood in the darkness, sipping beer from the can. It was too cold to taste of much and each gulp that went down caused shivers, but he continued to drink because he was a hard-as-nails oil man who could take whatever life threw at him. Well, almost. He put the beer on the draining-board and went across to switch on the light.
There was mail on the table. He sat down and began flicking through the envelopes. They were mainly bills. It was significant she hadn't opened them, the same way she had no intention of paying them either. Del pushed them to one side and picked up the airmail letter. Failing to recognise the writing, he flipped it over to read the sender's name.
He frowned. Who in hell was Agnes MacFarlane? It had a certain ring to it, but he couldn't think why, so he re-checked the front. It was definitely addressed to him. He opened it. The paper was ruled both sides and had apparently been neatly removed from a school exercise book. This Agnes must be careful with her money, not like some people he knew. There was also something about the script which was flowing and decorative, beautiful, in fact. The writer had used a broad-nibbed fountain pen. So, there was still pride in communication after the ball-point!
It only took a paragraph for him to discover who Agnes MacFarlane was. He'd never met the woman, only her son, Eddie. They'd been together on a rig off India, just after he and Sally.... well, some time ago, anyway. He looked up from the letter and stared at the fridge, trying to remember Eddie. He could picture freckles and masses of ginger hair, and the boy's peculiar, guttural Scottish accent, but little else. He couldn't even recall his face. Wasn't that awful? He'd worked with someone for nine months and couldn't put a face to their name!
By the end of the second paragraph, he was beginning to wish they'd never met. The woman was paranoid. She was insisting that something terrible was going to happen to her boy; that she'd had premonitions, that she'd phoned the Company, and they wouldn't listen and now she was asking for his help!
It was ridiculous! Del was in charge of the drilling crew, sure, but Eddie was a diver. He used them to help keep the show on the road, no more. They were the responsibility of the diving supervisor. Why didn't she pester him instead?
Agnes mentioned her reasons next - Eddie had talked a lot about Presswood. By the sounds of it, the youngster had set him on some kind of pedestal. Wasn't it always the way? You tried to keep a low profile, do the right thing by people, and they tied you to a pole and held you up for the world to chuck rocks at you!
He was tempted to throw the letter straight in the garbage, but he read through to the end, just in case there was something else she had tacked on that might change his opinion. There was just more of the bleeding-heart routine and: "Please help me. Signed, Agnes MacFarlane." That was it.
He left the letter on the kitchen table and returned to the lounge, switching off the light as he passed. He'd already made up his mind to spend the rest of the night on the couch, so he turned on the gas heater. Sure, it was wasteful, but he paid the bills, and he wasn't game to risk making a noise getting the spare blankets from the cupboard outside Sally's room.
There! - He'd even stopped thinking of it as their room. Now it was Sally's. Next he'd lose claim to the hallway and the kitchen. Wouldn't it be a bastard if he had to walk all the way down to the park to use the public toilets and maybe wash in the duck pond!
Kicking off his shoes, he curled up on the couch and fidgeted for a while as he waited for the room to warm up. He felt like a bum reduced to sleeping under bridges and would most likely end up as one when her solicitor got through with him. There wasn't much doubt that she'd already considered that option, had probably exercised it the day he'd left for the rig. From what he'd heard - and that was considerable since at least half of the guys on any one shift were experts in being taken to the cleaners by ex-wives - he'd be better handing over the lot without a struggle and hope she'd toss some back out of sheer cussedness.
It was a sickening thought and now that reconciliation was out of the question, he couldn't make it go away. He guessed he'd have to take the whipping; then touch his forelock and say: "Thank you, Ma'am. It was a pleasure being crucified by you." All he could do to soften the blow was make a few moves of his own before her legal wheels really started to roll.
He'd already made that decision - he hadn't altogether wasted his entire shift. He intended to see John Stanley about it today, as soon as the Company office opened. In the meantime, he'd go through the motions of a man trying to see the woman's side of it. He wondered if he ought to pay a hire fee for using her couch, maybe leave five bucks on the coffee table. She'd probably take that as an insult - better make it ten.
2
The light woke him, that and Sally going off her head at him for leaving the heater on full-bore. The phone was also ringing and had apparently disturbed her, but he - male chauvinist pig that he was - hadn't heard it. Godzilla – 2: Toolpusher - 0. She answered it while he was still gathering his senses. There was a sharp clack as she placed the receiver none-too-gently beside the phone and said: "It's for you." Then she swept out.
Pardon me for breathing! Del got up and shuffled across the room, barely conscious. The VCR clock said it was still only 5.41 in the morning. He fumbled the receiver up to his ear, "Hello." A woman's voice began to gabble excitedly. Strewth, now they were ganging up on him! "Sorry, I didn't catch that." He noticed how her voice cut off in mid-sentence as soon as he began to speak, typical of a long-distance call. He hated them. Half the time he felt like an amateur comedian waiting in silence for the audience to laugh.
"Am I speaking to Mister Derek Presswood?"
"That's me," he confirmed once he was sure she wasn't going to carry on and say something else.
"This is Agnes MacFarlane telephoning from Glasgow, Scotland."
Where else? "Yes, Mrs. MacFarlane. I read your letter, but I don't see what I can do?"
"....sswood. You have to help...."
"Mrs. MacFarlane."