Now I’m old I sleep a lot, like everyone else in this place, this fusty living mausoleum for the almost dead. And even when I’m not fully asleep, I daydream; always about the past, almost always about Paddy. While he haunts too many of my dreams for one known to me for such a short period I can still see him- his dark, laughing eyes, swarthy, tanned skin and the curly black tendrils of hair adhering to his neck as he climbed the ladder, a pile of bricks on his shoulder, whistling some old, Irish tune. He’d wear a singlet in all weathers, better to display the rippling muscles of his arms, covered in a fine sheen of sweat, because he knew the effect he had on women. Oh yes, he knew, He drew women like a magnet.

My status as a newly married woman should have been enough to stop me, but I couldn’t help myself. It was all innocence at the start, taking a tray of teas round and flirting, until one day he pulled me into a doorway in the alley between our yard and the building site and we began kissing. I became infatuated, an addict needing the next fix. A small, scruffy outhouse in our neighbour’s yard became the venue for our afternoon assignations, a grubby mattress dragged from the end of the alley where it had been dumped. Nevertheless, I was transported from the tawdry surroundings, mad for him.

I’ll never know what made Paddy think we had money. He must have watched my husband from his lofty perch, carrying a briefcase and wearing a smart suit as he came out of our house, offered me a peck on the cheek and walked briskly away to the station. He must have assumed he had a good job, a position in a company, in finance or commodities. He couldn’t have known he was a humble bank clerk, So when he demanded two hundred pounds to keep our trysts secret I panicked. There was no way I could get that kind of money.

I was meant to meet him in the alley. After dark, I said would be best because no one would see us. But I nipped out early with the envelope I’d prepared. I went over the fence into the site and climbed all three ladders. I was shivering when I got to the top and not just from the cold. When I spotted him, I hummed his Irish tune so he’d spot me, waving the padded envelope. I looked over as he began to climb, his upturned face a pale oval in the dark night. By the time he’d started on the third ladder I was ready, lying with my feet braced against the two ends, then I gathered all my strength and pushed the ladder until it shifted away from the scaffolding. There was a moment’s suspension like eternity while the ladder wavered and I prayed it wouldn’t come back in to rest on the scaffold. But then he was cast out like a fishing hook out and down. I heard the dull thud and looked over. His limbs were arranged at unnatural angles like a demonic marionette’s, his eyes open in surprise, not laughing any more. I thought that nobody would ever know this wasn’t a tragic accident.

I had a wonderful marriage. It lasted fifty three years, until my husband died of a stroke. But it’s Paddy’s face I see and Paddy I dream about, always.

Novels by Jane Deans [Grace]: The Year of Familiar Strangers and The Conways at Earthsend. Visit my website: janedeans.com