CHAPTER 1
Glancing out the kitchen window Annie Williams shrieked "You Big Idiot" and raced out yelling at Tony.
"What's wrong now?"
"You're piled those lawn clippings on to my spring bulbs that are just emerging."
"Aw lay off. It will only delay their emergence having to push through rotting grass and they'll be all the better for it."
"No they won't. I want them emerging naturally as nature intended and wish to pick the flowers early."
"Why."
"Because I do that's why."
Annie now had hands on hips and Tony, receding hairline caught in a frown, knew what that meant. Muttering he trudged off for the barrow and leaf rake and worked under supervision until the job was done.
"Okay?"
Annie, in one of those dresses Tony believed were way too short and too low, inspected the end of the plot, head cocked like a bird prospecting for worms.
"I suppose so."
Tony grunted knowing that meant he'd done a good patch up job.
"Come in and wash up while I pour you a beer. The lawns look great."
"Christ a compliment," he muttered, loud enough for Annie to hear.
That night Annie lay awake staring at the ceiling. She didn't enter the same old spin, but knew she would eventually. She thought about the two girls and their marriages and both were still without babies, Janice needed her but Robyn retained her aloofness she'd developed in her late teens and made it quite clear any offer of assistance was viewed as interference. She thought about what was in the biscuit and cake tins and when would the winter clearance sales start, that they hadn't received much mail lately, real mail that is, and she'd luckily saved her best spring bulbs from being smothered. Then she fell into the familiar rut, her mind spinning into the old niggled that if she'd stayed in England and married a more suitable man she would have enjoyed a much more fulfilling life.
* * *
Annie had grown up in a small village outside Derby in East Midlands, England, 2½ hour's plus drive from London. Her father was a bricklayer contractor and his small business supported his non-working wife, a former schoolteacher, and six children, Annie being the oldest. Annie completed an education degree in early childhood development and just before graduation met a young engineer Anthony Williams. Until meeting Tony Annie had been rather prim. Big Tony as his friends called him was big into sex and was soon screwing Annie and practically making her eyes pop. She loved it, adored Tony and they were so happy until one day he was called into the operations manager's office and given the opportunity to join a team to go to New South Wales, Australia. The company had won a contract to build a coal-fired power station out from Sydney.
It was a defining moment for Annie when told that if they married the company would pay for both of them to go to Australia. The choice was the promise of sex and an exciting new life or a future around Derby where possibly she could build a career and find a solid or stolid husband her parents would adore. Her parents didn't like Tony, unable to accept him pounding their daughter within earshot.
Annie chose sex, er, Tony. The wedding was rushed and they departed from England, Annie unaware she was already pregnant with Robyn.
The contract was completed ahead of time and Tony received a job offer that he and Annie knew they couldn't refuse. Because of his skills Tony's new employer was able to get Tony and Annie on the rapid route to attaining Australian citizenship.
Robyn came along and before Annie knew it she knew more people in Australia than she did in England and in time she found her two children considered themselves Australians and considered themselves different from the children of new emigrant families arriving from the UK.
The problem was, whenever anything went wrong for Annie, her mind twisted her to think how much better off she would have been had she stayed in England.
Tears seeped. Annie thought sex, the one big thing between Tony and her, was now more often than not on the backburner, although with adult children one should have expected that. Too often for comfort Tony wanted it and she didn't and she'd feel the urged and he'd radiate a lack of interest.
Annie eventually began to think of having an affair to find out if another man could fire her and her interest in sex. For fuck sake, she thought, she was only fifty-one, three years younger than Tony. Woman of that stage should still be getting off every night – and enjoying it. Tony was now supervising the work of other engineers, assessing their output and reinforcing their thinking. God, how boring and little wonder his one big break-out of the day was to throw lawn clippings over an apparent bared patch of garden to mulch it.
Oh god she'd denied him that release, thought Annie. What had happened to them? Why was their marriage withering?
An affair, that's what she'd have thought Annie, although not committing to make it happen. On that positive note she fell asleep.
* * *
Dark-haired Annie with her arresting green eyes now worked as a receptionist in an early childhood support center. She had no desire to attend a six-month refresher course that would allow her, if completing with high grading, to seek registration and become a higher paid consultant. Actually, because of her training she's been observed filtering incoming calls with considerable expertise, turning away the over-reacting mothers and callers more interested in reclaiming their children's interest in them rather than wanting their children to fly, thereby reducing the workload of the office with uncommitted clients. So her salary was boosted considerably, giving Annie even less reason to upgrade her qualifications.
An advertising agency shared the building with the childhood support center and although agency personal tended to be young hotshots, Annie noticed a graying guy from the agency often staring at her in the shared café. Exasperated at being mentally undressed with no emotional exchange, Annie fired up one day and marched over and said to the guy, "Well?"
People at his table stopped talking in surprise, as if expecting fireworks.
"Er," he said.
"I thought so," Annie stormed. She turned and was walking off when he yelled, "Stop!"
Conversations throughout the café stopped and people looked and saw Annie looking back at the chief executive of the Emotion in Advertising Agency, now on his feet and declaring he had an apology to make.
"And what is that?" quavered the well-dressed mature woman from childhood support than everyone from both companies knew as Annie.
"I have been staring at you for some weeks, staring excessively."
"Oh god, what is this," screamed a young woman in advertising. "High Noon over unrequited passion?"
The tension in the café deepened. Even the women and guys serving meals had stopped working and were watching, hoping for drama.
"You are free to stare at my face, my breasts, to mentally undress me. But to do so without speaking to me is insulting, arrogant and humiliating."
In an unexpected outcome the more than fifty women in the café screamed words like 'Bravo', 'Good for you Annie', 'Fucking male assholes'.
All eyes were now on Mick Savage, an advertising guru whose reputation was in slow descent.
"I apologize Annie. Perhaps we should have dinner?"
"I'm married."
"So and I."
The roomed hushed apart from one guy calling 'Where's my meal' and being severely hushed by irritable women hissing at him or calling shut up.
Annie, visibly swaying, did not reply.
