All the Lonely People

by Mike Gayle

  Although it was only a little after seven o’clock as Hubert and Joyce descended the steps into the club, once inside it seemed more like midnight. The place was packed full of young people, dancing shoulder to shoulder to the band playing on the stage. Most of the crowd was Black, with a few white faces here and there, but here race didn’t seem to matter, you just were. The music the band was playing—covers of all the latest rhythm and blues hits—was so infectious that Hubert immediately started dancing and Joyce, although a little unsure at first, joined in too.

  As they swayed in time to the music, she mirrored his actions, swinging her arms and bending at the waist. Within a few songs, however, she was so confident that she was improvising moves of her own, a side step here, a little knee bend there. He closed his eyes, imagining for a moment that he was back home in Jamaica enjoying a night out with friends. Here he wasn’t an oddity or an exception, here he was just one of the crowd, a young person just like any other out for a good time.

  They remained on the dance floor for a good hour, enjoying themselves so much that they didn’t even bother getting a drink, and they only stopped when Hubert felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to see Gus’s grinning face looking back at him.

  “Smiler, man!” exclaimed Gus loudly over the music. He wrapped his friend in a massive bear hug. “You’re looking sharp!”

  Hubert glowed with pride. He’d made an even greater effort with his appearance than usual and was wearing not only his Sunday-best suit and freshly polished shoes but also a brand-new trilby hat, a dove-gray number with a wide black grosgrain ribbon, that he’d purchased from a gentlemen’s outfitters that very afternoon.

  “Thanks, man!” Hubert bellowed. “You’re not looking so bad yourself! Let me introduce you to my girl, Joyce.” He turned and grabbed Joyce’s hand and led her forward.

  “So lovely to meet you, Gus!” she called over the music. “Hubert has told me all about you!”

  She held out her hand for Gus to shake, but instead he flashed her one of his hundred-watt smiles and before she knew what was happening he had whisked her up into his arms in a hug that quite took her breath away. “This is how we say hello to friends in the West Indies!” he joked, before returning her to the floor. He planted a kiss on Joyce’s cheek. “Any friend of Smiler’s is a friend of mine!”

  Imagining they were done with introductions, Hubert began moving toward the bar so that he could get them all drinks, but Gus stopped him. “Where you going?” he said, placing one of his huge hands on Hubert’s shoulder. “There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

  Hubert followed his friend’s gaze to a young woman standing behind him. She was tall and well dressed in a cream short-sleeved blouse and navy swing skirt, a frothy white petticoat just showing beneath. She had beautiful flawless brown skin and eyes that seemed to smile even when she didn’t. She looked like a fashion model, or a film star, and Hubert instinctively felt that he ought to bow before speaking to her and only just stopped himself.

  “Smiler.” Gus beamed at his friend. “This is Lois. Lois, this is Smiler, my best friend in the whole wide world, and his girl, Joyce.”

  They tried to talk for a little while but it soon became clear that a decent conversation was going to be difficult over the music and so instead they moved away from the dance floor, found an empty table to sit at, and then the men took drinks orders and headed to the bar.

  “Well, Smiler,” said Gus as they stood waiting to be served, “what do you think of her? She sure is something, isn’t she? I know it’s early days but I think she might be the one, you know?”

  Hubert was used to hearing Gus eulogizing over women. He’d been exactly the same back home. Every week it was one girl or another who was the object of Gus’s affections, only for him to move on when the next “prettiest girl ever” came along. But Gus had been talking about Lois for a long time now, and the fact that she had appeared impervious to his charms had only stoked the fires of his desire.

  “So when did this happen? Me thought she wasn’t interested.”

  “She wasn’t. But you know,” Gus added slyly, “I always gets what I want in the end.” He laughed that deep laugh of his again. “I was here last weekend with some of the guys from work and who should walk in but Lois. We got talking, I gave her a bit of the old Gus magic, added in a few lines of Shakespeare, showed her my moves on the dance floor, and, well…” He paused and gave a little flourish. “She couldn’t resist!”

  As they both burst out laughing the barmaid came to take their order and while she prepared their drinks, the two friends continued their conversation.

  “And what about you, Smiler?” Gus slapped his friend on the back in a congratulatory manner. “You’ve done well there, friend, your Joyce is a cracker.”

  “Me know,” said Hubert. He couldn’t help but smile to himself. “Me the luckiest man in the world.”

  Gus glanced in the direction of Lois.

  “Second-luckiest!”

  Hubert put a hand on his old friend’s shoulder.

  “Gus, man, me pleased for you, really pleased, but can me give you some advice?”

  “If I say no will it make any difference?”

  Hubert smiled. “Don’t let this one get away. Don’t mess things up the way you always do, chasing all the girls around town, okay?”

  With mock seriousness Gus placed a hand across his heart. “Smiler, man, you have my word!”

  The next hour was a blur of drinking, chatting, and dancing. Hubert discovered that once she’d relaxed, Joyce was something of a natural when it came to dancing, quickly picking up moves that he himself had yet to master, just by watching the other girls around them on the dance floor and doing what they did. It felt good to see her so carefree and happy, not always looking over her shoulder, able to be who she wanted to be with him, and do what she wanted to do. During fast songs they danced with exuberance and energy, barely a hairbreadth between them, and during the slower songs the distance between them all but disappeared as she draped her arms about his neck while they danced, hip to hip, swaying in time with the music.

  Having danced nonstop for over an hour, Joyce gestured to Hubert that she needed some air, and leaving their friends behind, the two of them climbed the stairs and made their way outside the club. Leaning against the window of the launderette next door, they both caught their breath and cooled down in the chill of the late-spring evening.

  “Gus is so funny,” said Joyce, fanning her face with her hand, “and Lois is pretty and lovely with it. Have they been an item long?”

  Hubert shook his head.

  “Gus has been crazy about her for a while but me think she’s been wary until now.”

  “Because he’s such a charmer?”

  “Me love him like a brother, but that boy doesn’t know what’s good for him. Him always have one eye on the next thing.”

  “Well, he certainly seems happy right now,” she said, and then smiled and added, “Nowhere near as happy as us, though.” Putting her arms around Hubert’s neck, Joyce leaned in and they kissed, one long, slow, passionate kiss after another, as they both reveled in this opportunity to let themselves go. It was like nothing else existed, nothing except the two of them and the feelings they had for one another.

  Afterward they held each other close and as Hubert wondered if this might be the right time to tell Joyce that he loved her, he felt her tense, an expression of horror on her face as she turned his body toward her and hid behind him. Scanning the area, all Hubert could see was an excited group of university students, two men and two women emerging from a taxi. At first nothing about the scene seemed out of the ordinary, but then Hubert noticed that the cabdriver was looking over in their direction intently, shaking his head, his eyes narrowed in disgust. After a few moments, he wound down his window and spat onto the road and then, casting one last loathing glance at Hubert, drove off.

  “Has he gone?” asked Joyce, ashen-faced and shaking as she clung to
him.

  “Who was it?”

  “Do you think he saw us?”

  “Who?”

  “The cabbie.”

  Hubert shrugged. “He was giving me filthy looks, but what’s new about an Englishman doing that? Who was it?”

  Joyce leaned forward, her hands on her knees. She seemed as if she was about to pass out or be sick.

  “Who was it, Joyce? Just tell me.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “One of my dad’s friends from the Connie Club. His name’s Al; he and my dad go back a long way, they were in the same regiment together during the war. He’s got a mouth like the Mersey Tunnel, so if he did see me, that’ll be me pretty much done for.”

  It was Hubert’s turn to feel sick, not on his behalf, but on Joyce’s.

  “Me pretty sure he didn’t see you. It’s dark, he was across the road, and anyway you look so different tonight me doubt he would have recognized you.”

  Joyce looked up at Hubert, eyes full of tears.

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Absolutely certain.”

  “I suppose you might be right,” said Joyce, her voice taking on a note of relief. “Al’s not exactly backward in coming forward, if you know what I mean. If he’d been sure it was me he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from charging over, giving you a good hiding, and dragging me all the way back home to tell Dad what he’d seen.” Hubert put his arms around Joyce to comfort her but it seemed to make things worse. She started to cry. “I hate this,” she said between sobs. “I hate this so much. Why should anyone care what color your skin is, when underneath it all you’re the same as me?”

  As he held her, Hubert thought about a Charles Dickens book he had to read at school, A Tale of Two Cities. The tale of a man who gave up his own life for the woman he loved just so that she could be happy. At the time he had thought the idea nonsense—how could the man ever be happy knowing that he’d never be with his girl again?—but in this moment Hubert finally understood the character’s motivation. In this moment he knew that he too would do anything, absolutely anything to prevent his girl from enduring pain, no matter what the cost to himself.

  “Joyce,” he began as a group of jovial young men congregated at the entrance to the club, their laughter at odds with the gravity of the situation. “It’s not what me want at all, and it won’t be easy, but me can’t stand seeing you like this. Me can’t stand that you’re the one who is having to bear the load. So… if you want to stop seeing me, you can.”

  Joyce looked up at him with eyes full of love. She placed a finger on his lips and smiled. “Never,” she said. “Never.”

  11

  NOW

  With Ashleigh sitting at his kitchen table and Layla playing at her feet with a bemused Puss, Hubert took the opportunity to leave his guests, hang up his hat and coat in the hallway, and think about this new situation. Other than the man who came to read his gas and electric meters back in February, no one had crossed his threshold all year. It felt odd having someone else in his own private space, as if they had entered his mind too, free to open cupboards and riffle through drawers both real and metaphorical.

  Returning to the room, Hubert made two mugs of tea and poured pineapple juice into a third mug that he handed to Layla. The child took the heavy vessel from him solemnly and would’ve attempted to drink from it had Ashleigh not immediately plucked it from her grasp.

  “I think she probably needs something smaller,” she explained. After a few moments digging around in the basket underneath Layla’s buggy, she finally withdrew a pink plastic two-handled cup with a lid on, poured a tiny bit of the juice into the water within, gave it a swirl, and handed it to her daughter. “Toddlers can’t have too much juice. It’s bad for their teeth.”

  Shrugging, as he recalled happily giving bright orange fruit drinks to both of his children without there being any adverse effects, Hubert reached into the cupboard above the toaster, took out a biscuit barrel, shook half a dozen biscuits carefully onto a plate, and then handed Ashleigh her mug of tea.

  “Right then,” he said. “My Joyce always used to insist that guests were entertained in the front room, so let’s go in there.”

  Feeling as though he were having an out-of-body experience, Hubert led Ashleigh and Layla out of the kitchen, back along the hallway, and into the front room. Much like the rest of the house, the front room, though clean and tidy, was somewhat dated. The popcorn ceiling had been painted magnolia; the wallpaper was pale green with an embossed motif of dark green fern leaves; the overstuffed sofa and two armchairs were covered in a beige velour fabric the like of which hadn’t been manufactured in at least thirty years.

  In one corner of the room stood a small bookcase and in another a china cabinet that was crammed full of delicate cups, saucers, and plates that Hubert could only remember using a handful of times. The walls and mantelpiece were decorated with a series of family photographs, framed prints of country scenes, and decorative plates.

  Placing his mug and the biscuits on the tiled coffee table in the center of the room, Hubert took a seat in the armchair nearest the fireplace and gestured to Ashleigh and Layla to take the sofa opposite.

  “It’s a lovely home you’ve got here,” remarked Ashleigh, pulling some tiny plastic ponies with rainbow-colored hair out of her handbag and handing them to Layla. “Have you lived here long?”

  Hubert smiled. Although dates and times were hard to recall these days, the day he and Joyce moved to Park Avenue wasn’t one he would ever forget. “Since August twenty-seventh, 1964,” said Hubert proudly. “It was a proper old wreck, but though it took a lot of time and effort, my Joyce soon made it a lovely home.”

  “Is that you and Joyce there?” asked Ashleigh, gesturing toward a silver-framed wedding photo on the mantel featuring a handsome suited Black man standing next to a young white woman in a beautifully simple dress.

  “That’s us, all right. One of the best days of my life.”

  “Aww! That’s lovely. She looks well lush. A right catch.”

  Hubert smiled fondly. “That she was.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. How long has it been since you lost her?”

  “Coming up to thirteen years now.”

  “I bet you still miss her, don’t you?”

  Hubert smiled sadly at the picture on the mantelpiece. “Every day. Every single day.”

  There was a moment of silence that threatened to turn toward the melancholy, then Hubert said, “Me tell you now, if you’d visited when Joyce was alive you wouldn’t have to be putting up with supermarket-brand biscuits! My Joyce was a fantastic cook! She could make anything from a Victoria sponge to a beef Wellington. And she was a quick learner too. After West Indian friends of mine showed her how, she could rustle up some of the best Caribbean dishes me ever tasted! Rice and peas, ackee and saltfish—you name it, my Joyce could do the lot!”

  “She sounds amazing,” said Ashleigh. Her gaze shifted to a framed portrait on the wall above the fireplace of a young woman wearing a graduation cap and gown.

  Hubert was unable to hide the pride in his voice. “That’s my daughter, Rose. She’s a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia.” Getting to his feet, he edged around Layla playing on the floor with her toys and made his way to the bookcase next to the fireplace. Sliding back one of the glass doors, he plucked three books from the top shelf and handed them to Ashleigh.

  “My Rose wrote these. Them what they call… academic books.”

  “Political Ideology in the New Mille—” said Ashleigh, stumbling over the word “millennium” so many times that in the end she gave up. “She must be a right brainbox to write books like these. I can’t even read the titles!”

  “Me tried to read one once,” confessed Hubert, “but me didn’t get very far. Couldn’t make head nor tail of it!” As Ashleigh flicked through one of the books, Hubert pointed out the dedication inside, which read, “To Mum and Dad, who taught me how to thin
k.” Hubert laughed. “That’s the one part of this book me never get tired of reading!”

  Ashleigh returned the books to Hubert.

  “You must be so proud.”

  “Couldn’t be prouder,” said Hubert. “And me tell her so all the time.”

  “Do you FaceTime?”

  Hubert grimaced.

  “You know, on the mobile or the computer?”

  Hubert shook his head.

  “Rose is always trying to talk me into getting one of them mobile phones or computers but me can’t be bothered with all that stuff. It doesn’t interest me. Anyway, she’s coming home to visit in August. First time in a long while. She’d have come before now but she’s very busy. Still, she always calls me every week without fail. She’s a good girl, my Rose. Always looking out for her old dad.”

  “Aww, she sounds lovely. Any grandkids? Great-grandkids?”

  Hubert shrugged.

  “She never find the right man at the right time. It’s just one of those things, me suppose. You can’t win them all.”

  “Well,” said Ashleigh brightly, “I can’t wait to meet her and get some tips on how to inspire Layla. Who knows, if I play my cards right she might grow up to become a professor too!”

  Hubert considered the little girl carefully. Never mind how long it had been since he’d had visitors in the house, how long had it been since there’d been a child here?

  “Me think your daughter will be whatever she wants to be,” said Hubert as he returned the books carefully to the bookcase. “That’s the thing about kids…” He paused for a moment, remembering David. “In the end they’re going to go their own way. All you can really do is hope that whichever way they choose, it’s in the right direction.”

  Much to Hubert’s surprise Ashleigh and Layla spent the whole of the afternoon sitting in his front room. He learned about Ashleigh’s start in life growing up in a small mining village in Wales and how at the age of seventeen, using something called Facebook, she’d become friendly with a young man from London. “He was dead funny to begin with,” she said, “and so charming with it that I pretty much just fell for him. And living in London and DJing and stuff, he seemed really glamorous compared to all the boys in my little village. We did the long-distance thing for a bit but then one day I just thought, ‘Enough’s enough!’ and I quit my job and caught the train down here and that was that.”