SERIAL STORY - Episode One

CONFLICT OF INTEREST                                               by Collette Johnson

The reception room in Martin’s Hotel was lively with talk and laughter. John Campbell, a tall dark-haired young man with brown eyes and a good-humoured smile, edged his way through the crowd towards where his mother stood talking to Carol Martin. Carol was smiling, and her pale, blond hair gleamed under the lights.
Someone pulled John’s sleeve. ‘John!’
He recognized his Aunt Alison’s sharp, precise voice. For a moment he considered pretending he hadn’t heard her, but then he realized that she had his sleeve in a firm grip. He looked down at her, trying to smile kindly. Her thin features were grim with disapproval.
‘I’m surprised at your mother wasting money on this party,’ she snapped. John wondered how a lovely man like his father could have had a sister like this.
‘We’re celebrating Joe’s twenty-first birthday and my qualifying as a vet with the one party. That’s saving money, isn’t it?’ He felt like adding. ‘My mother works hard for her money, so what has it got to do with you anyway?’
He eased his arm away, releasing his sleeve from her grip, but her accusing eyes held him just as firmly.
‘If she was determined to give a party, why couldn’t she have given it at home?’
With difficulty John kept his impatience out of his voice. ‘Because all of us wouldn’t have fitted into our living-room and dining-room together.’
‘Isn’t that girl your mother was talking to just now the one you’re interested in –James Martin’s daughter?’

If Carol was no longer talking to his mother, where was she now? John looked over the heads of the crowd again. His mother was still where he had last seen her, but he couldn’t see Carol.
‘Yes. That was Carol Martin.’
He turned and continued on his way towards where his mother was standing.
She was wearing an elegantly fashionable dress, and her dark hair, now greying, was smartly styled. She smiled when she saw John approaching. John wasn’t smiling.
‘What came over you to invite Aunt Alison tonight?’ he asked.
His mother’s smile faded.
‘I’ve invited all your father’s family. But if I could only have invited one of them, it would have been Alison.’
‘But she’s always so disagreeable,’ said John.
‘Exactly. She’s the one I most want to impress. And whatever she may say she is impressed by how well our family has got on: all your brothers in good professions, even if they have to work abroad for a while, yourself a vet now, and Joe doing well in his science course.’
John looked at her uneasily. As he’d grown older, he’d realized that she was always anxious to impress people, especially his father's family. His father used to laugh it off, and try to make her see how foolish it was. But his father had died six years ago, and no one else had the same influence on her.
‘You don’t have to impress anyone, Mom. It’s...’ He broke off as he saw the colour drain from her face. She was looking past him, and her gaze became fixed and staring.
John caught her by both arms. ‘Mom! What’s the matter? Do you feel faint?’
She did not answer for a moment. Then the fixed look left her face, and her colour began to return. ‘I’m perfectly all right,’ she whispered.
There was a faint tremor in her voice, and as John released her arms he watched her anxiously.
‘Would you come and sit down for a while?’
‘No, I would not. And you’d better get over there and cut in on that conversation between Carol and Gerald O’Rourke. I’ve noticed this while back that he’s been paying her greater attention.’
Momentarily distracted, John looked around for Carol and Gerald, and his mother took advantage of the moment to leave him and make her way towards the door.

Should he go after her? Perhaps she was ill, in spite of her protestation that she was all right. She was now standing just inside the door, talking to a tall, lean, middle-aged man whom John did not know. He was rather handsome, but had a dispirited air.
John’s mother did not look ill now. She was speaking with emphasis, and the man was listening to her dejectedly. Perhaps he was a gate-crasher who had heard that the party was in ‘progress and had hoped to join in. John considered going to the door and inviting him to join the party, but he glanced again at Carol and Gerald O’Rourke, and frowned as he noticed Gerald’s attentive air and Carol’s friendly response.
Gerald was tall, blond, self-confident, the eldest son of the wealthiest farmer in the district. John had never been particularly friendly with him because he found him boringly opinionated. He knew, nevertheless, that Gerald could be agreeable and interesting when he wished, and it was clear that just now he was at his most charming for Carol’s benefit. Determinedly John walked across the room to join them.

Carol turned to greet him with a smile, but Gerald ignored him. John gave no indication that he noticed Gerald’s rudeness. He hadn’t invited Gerald to this party, and it seemed unlikely that either Joe or his mother had invited him either. If he was a gate-crasher, then he was more unwelcome than that sad-looking man his mother had spoken to at the door.
John glanced again towards the door, and saw his mother walking back to the tables where a buffet meal had been set out. She was smiling now, and chatting to friends as she passed them. There was no sign of the man she had been talking to at the door.
John turned to Carol. ‘I see the meal is ready. As it’s a buffet, we’d better go now and get something to eat, or there may be nothing left for us.’
Carol laughed. ‘In my father’s well organized hotel that wouldn’t be possible.’
However, she walked with him in the direction of the laden tables. Frowning, Gerald followed them.
John’s mother saw them approaching, and turned to speak to Carol. Her expression was good-humoured, as always. Yet John detected a tension in her face and voice that had not been there earlier in the evening. What had upset her on this evening that she’d looked forward to so much?
John himself was uneasy because Gerald O’Rourke was standing at Carol’s other side, evidently determined to remain with her. Would James Martin, Carol’s father, regard Gerald more favourably than himself as a prospective son-in-law? Financially he could not compete with Gerald, who would inherit several large farms, as well as shares in a number of agricultural businesses. Carol was not interested in money, but her father’s opinion carried weight with her. If her father carried on a subtle campaign in Gerald’s favour, would that influence her in choosing between Gerald and himself?
Aunt Alison’s piercing voice sounded beside him again. ‘What’s your mother so upset about?’ she asked abruptly.
Instantly John saw that Gerald, too, had heard her question, and had turned to stare at John’s mother with his keen, cold, blue eyes, waiting for John’s reply.

To be continued