All the Lonely People

by Mike Gayle

  “Now you will remember to eat properly, won’t you?” said Joyce, adjusting Rose’s collar.

  “Of course I will, Mum. You know me, I love my food.”

  Joyce forced a smile.

  “I know you do, love, it’s just… it just—” She burst into tears. Hubert’s heart went out to his wife as he comforted her. She’d kept such a tight lid on her emotions but was struggling at the final hurdle.

  “Oh, Mum.” Rose hugged her mum fiercely. “I promise I’ll be fine.”

  Joyce reached for the tissue she’d tucked up her sleeve in preparation for this moment.

  “Of course you will. I worry, that’s all. It’s just what mums do.”

  When Joyce eventually calmed down, Hubert took his turn to say goodbye to his daughter. He wanted to leave her with words of wisdom, something that would echo down the ages and give her comfort and certainty whenever such was required. All he could manage, however, was a bear hug and an assurance that if she ever needed anything, all she had to do was pick up the phone.

  Due to their later-than-expected departure and several patches of congestion on the return journey, it was almost midnight by the time they reached home. Joyce went to bed first, complaining of a headache, and was quickly followed by David and then finally, once he’d locked up the house, Hubert. Heading upstairs, he noticed David’s light still on and decided to check in on him.

  “You okay, son?”

  David nodded sleepily and put down the music magazine in his hands.

  “I can’t believe I’ve got football in the morning. And it’s an away match so I’ll have to be there at eight. It’ll kill me.”

  Hubert smiled.

  “You’ll be fine. I’ll give you a lift, if you like.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  David yawned and, reaching across, switched off his light and wished Hubert a good night.

  Standing in the darkness, Hubert was desperate to say more to his son. He wanted to assure him that Rose wasn’t his favorite, that he loved them both equally, that he loved him more than words could ever express, but David was already fast asleep and snoring softly.

  As Hubert left the room his gaze was drawn to Rose’s door across the landing. Before he really knew what he was doing or why, he reached for the handle but the moment he touched it was shaken by a wave of sadness so overwhelming it brought him to his knees. Sitting with his back pressed against the wall outside her room and biting down hard on the sleeve of his shirt in order to dampen the sobs erupting from him, Hubert thought of his late mother. He wondered whether she had experienced this same searing pain as she’d waved him off on the boat that would take him thousands of miles away from her to England.

  27

  NOW

  Hubert opened his front door.

  “Morning, Jan, all ready for a day of spreading the word?”

  Jan pointed down at her feet, clad in pristine white trainers.

  “I am now. I picked these babies up yesterday because I thought to myself, if I’m going to be stomping up and down Bromley High Street all day handing out leaflets, then I’m going to need something comfy. What do you think?”

  Hubert nodded admiringly, then hitched up one of his trouser legs a fraction to better display his own sporty footwear.

  “Rose bought these for me must be ten years ago now. She said me needed to do more exercise and that these would help. Me just keep them in their box on top of the wardrobe until now, but me knew they’d come in handy one day.”

  Sensing that something interesting was going on, Puss made an appearance at the door and began winding herself around Hubert’s legs, mewling loudly.

  “Come in, Jan, me almost ready but me need to put down this one’s lunch before we go, in case we back late, although knowing her, she’ll probably scoff the lot down the minute me back is turned!”

  “Ooooh!” exclaimed Jan, following Hubert along the hallway into the kitchen. “You’ve got a lovely home here.”

  “Thank you,” replied Hubert, trying his best not to feel too self-conscious that Jan was now in his home. Before now they’d always met on neutral territory and he hoped she wouldn’t take this as a signal that their relationship was somehow escalating to another level.

  “To be honest, it’s too big for me now.” He reached into a cupboard and took out a pouch of cat food for Puss. “Me probably should’ve moved somewhere smaller a long time ago, let one of these growing young families have it, but me too old to leave here now. Selfish, really.”

  Jan pulled a face. “Nonsense. Your home is where your heart is and I can see that a lot of love and care has been put into this place over the years.”

  Hubert scraped the food into Puss’s bowl and like a flash she pounced on it and began gobbling it down.

  “Well, I never,” said Hubert, scratching behind the cat’s ear as she ate. “Anyone would think me never feed you! You had your breakfast less than an hour ago!”

  Hubert gave Puss one last stroke, told her to behave herself, and then, grabbing his jacket, hat, and umbrella, set out with Jan.

  The idea to spend the morning handing out flyers and recruiting potential volunteers to help with the campaign had been one of many to come out of that first meeting at the library just over a week ago. While the attendees had been only a few in number, when it came to how they might go about ending loneliness in Bromley they were brimming over with ideas. By the end of the evening Ashleigh’s whiteboard had been crammed full of suggestions that had ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Everything from holding a welcome party for local refugees (Fiona’s idea) through to creating a saucy charity calendar featuring members of the committee in various states of undress while looking lonely (Maude’s proposal). Of the handful of viable suggestions, there emerged several favorites:

  1. The creation of a map, either physical or virtual, of existing clubs and activities within Bromley to show people what was already on offer.

  2. The formation of new groups to address gaps in provision for the lonely and to meet their needs.

  3. The holding of an Anti-loneliness Week featuring a series of events to raise awareness of issues relating to loneliness in Bromley.

  4. A party to launch the Anti-loneliness Week to be held at the community center (with invitations sent out to Ed Sheeran, Meghan Markle, and Adele).

  5. A publicity campaign to be held as soon as possible to recruit more volunteers, engage public support, and raise the campaign’s profile within Bromley.

  As meetings go, it was far more productive than either Hubert or Ashleigh had imagined it would be, and by the end of it they had unanimously decided to start with the publicity campaign. To this end, Ashleigh had persuaded the vet’s to sponsor the production of a thousand flyers and it was these that the committee was meeting to distribute in the town center.

  Alighting from the bus, Hubert and Jan made their way through town to the front entrance of Primark to meet the rest of the committee. Present was Maude, once again dressed inappropriately for the season. She wore a brown fur coat, fur-lined boots, and a baseball cap emblazoned with the legend I’M THE BOSS. Next to her, Fiona and Randip were deeply engaged in conversation while Emils helped Ashleigh separate flyers into piles as Layla looked on from her pram.

  “Morning,” said Hubert. “Lovely to see you all! We all feeling good?”

  Hubert was more than a little aware that as president it was up to him to motivate the rest of the committee and he did want today to go well. What’s more, if they managed to get more people involved, then hopefully he could hand off his role as president to someone more suitable, thus giving him the freedom to focus his attention where it was needed: Rose’s upcoming visit.

  “Right then,” said Ashleigh, “who are we waiting for?”

  “Just Tony,” said Emils. “He must be running late. I deliver parcel to the library yesterday and he said he was definitely coming.”

  “Well, if he’s not here by—”

  Hubert
stopped, distracted by a small commotion farther up the road.

  Everyone turned to see a person in a polar bear costume striding along the pavement toward them, crowds of bemused Saturday shoppers parting before him. The bear walked right up to where the committee had assembled, came to a halt in front of Hubert and Jan, and then took its head off.

  “Morning, guys,” said Tony, face flushed and hair awry. “What do you think?”

  Hubert was confused.

  “Me don’t understand. Who you meant to be?”

  “I’m a polar bear,” explained Tony. “And this is marketing.”

  “Marketing?” repeated Hubert.

  “To help us get our message across. It’s the library’s. It used to be the story-time bear but too many of the kids got scared by it, so it just ended up in a cupboard. I thought it would help draw people’s attention to us and get them talking.”

  Fiona laughed and gestured over Tony’s shoulder to where a group of giggling teenage girls were taking photos of him with their phones. “Well, it’s certainly doing that.”

  “Good thinking, Tony,” said Jan, and Hubert nodded, even though he thought the bear looked a little flea-bitten.

  “Well,” said Ashleigh, “the important thing is that we get the message out to everyone, and if this helps then I’m all for it.”

  She began handing out the piles of leaflets and clipboards.

  “As discussed at the meeting, the main thing we want to achieve today is to let people know about the campaign and get down the contact details of anyone interested in joining us. So, let’s get to it. Good luck, everyone!”

  At Ashleigh’s command the committee members paired up and went to stand in their designated positions. Randip and Fiona headed off to stand outside TK Maxx; Ashleigh and Emils to the front of the Glades shopping center; Maude and Tony outside the main entrance to Marks & Spencer; and Hubert and Jan in front of the big Sainsbury’s.

  It was only when he and Jan were in place that it occurred to Hubert just how nervous he was about facing the general public. After all, it was one thing to pass the time of day with someone, but it was quite another to attempt to recruit them into volunteering their time and commitment.

  “Is this about Brexit?”

  A silver-haired middle-aged woman dressed in flared jeans and open-toed sandals examined the leaflet Hubert had given her. Hubert swallowed hard, then cleared his throat.

  “No, it’s about loneliness.”

  She scrunched up her face.

  “What you handing out leaflets about loneliness for? If you’re going to be handing out leaflets about anything, it should be Brexit.”

  Hubert didn’t quite know what to say to that, so instead he just smiled pleasantly and hoped she would walk away, but she seemed to take his silence as an invitation to continue talking.

  “So, what about loneliness then?”

  Hubert cleared his throat again.

  “Everything you need to know is on the leaflet.”

  “I know that but I want to hear it from you.”

  “Well… it’s about loneliness,” repeated Hubert. “And what a big problem it is these days. The aim of the campaign is to put an end to loneliness in Bromley once and for—”

  The woman snorted. “You want to do what? End loneliness in Bromley? I’m not being funny but how’s that going to happen, then?”

  Hubert considered her question carefully.

  “Hard work and a lot of determination.”

  “Hmm,” said the woman. She handed the leaflet back to Hubert. “That’s what they said about Brexit and look where that’s got us!”

  Thankfully for Hubert, not every person he spoke to was as skeptical. While some just took a leaflet and smiled politely, others seemed genuinely interested and even agreed to leave their contact details. Most, however, just ignored both him and the leaflet in his outstretched hand, walking past hurriedly as if he weren’t there.

  Around one o’clock, with several piles of leaflets still left to distribute, Hubert and Jan met up with the rest of the team on some benches just down from Primark. As they all sat down, the news about that morning’s efforts was mixed. Fiona and Randip had done well, not only getting rid of a considerable number of their flyers but also collecting over two pages of contact details. Maude and Tony had been less successful, losing half their leaflets after Tony chased some boys who had thrown a milkshake at him. They’d also failed to collect any contact details, due mostly, Tony confided while Maude was out of earshot, to his partner’s habit of thrusting the clipboard under people’s noses and saying in a threatening tone, “Give me your email address!” Ashleigh and Emils’s efforts had fared better, not least because Emils had approached a group of young Latvian men and persuaded them all in their mother tongue to sign up, while Ashleigh with the help of Layla had been able to charm quite a number of pensioners who had wanted to stop and admire the little girl.

  As those who had brought their lunch with them began to eat, the others, at Hubert’s suggestion, headed toward McDonald’s. As they made their way up the street Jan pushed Layla along in her stroller, chatting to Hubert, while Ashleigh and Emils decided to make the most of the short journey by carrying on handing out flyers. While some were received gladly, others were immediately discarded, and as they walked, Hubert checked over his shoulder and was disappointed to see a trail of leaflets blowing about behind them. The truth was, most people didn’t seem to care about the campaign or the issue of loneliness. Hubert couldn’t find it in himself to get angry with them, however, because, he acknowledged, not so very long ago he too had been just the same.

  Outside McDonald’s, Jan lifted Layla out of her stroller while Hubert tried in vain to collapse it. In need of help, he glanced around for Ashleigh, only to discover that she was across the road with Emils talking to a group of homeless men sitting on some benches outside a disused bank. There were three of them in total, one with matted brown hair, wearing a stained T-shirt and ripped jeans; another with a bald head covered in tattoos; and a third with light brown skin and long black dreadlocks with touches of gray at the temples. All three were drinking strong lager straight from two-liter bottles and were in such a sorry state they could barely sit up properly, let alone hold a conversation.

  Without a word to Jan, Hubert rushed across the road and, grabbing Ashleigh by the arm, tried to pull her away.

  “Hubert!” cried Ashleigh in astonishment. “What are you doing? I’m just giving these guys some leaflets.”

  When Hubert let go of her arm he found that he was shaking. “You’re wasting your time with these kind of people. Don’t get involved!”

  Ashleigh was horrified. “What’s gotten into you? They weren’t being horrible or anything. I was just telling them about the campaign.”

  “Drunks like them! Swigging from the bottle in the middle of the day! It’s a disgrace! They don’t care about anything but themselves.”

  “Is okay,” said Emils. “Yes, they drunk, but they not hurting anybody, Mr. Hubert, I assure you. I would not let anyone hurt Ashleigh.”

  “And anyway, Hubert,” added Ashleigh, “it’s people like these guys who really need this campaign. It must be ever so lonely living on the streets.”

  There was real disgust in Hubert’s voice when he spoke.

  “Lonely? Don’t give me that! Look at them, leavings of men the lot of them! If it was up to me they would not be allowed to mess up the street like that. Me would lock up the whole bunch and throw away the key!”

  “Hubert,” said Ashleigh, “you can’t really mean that surely?”

  “Me do,” snapped Hubert. “Every last word!”

  “Hubert, I can’t believe you’re being like this,” chided Ashleigh. “These are people just like you and me, and they need our help. You can’t talk about sweeping the homeless off the streets like that, it’s horrible!”

  Hubert pointed at the man with dreadlocks, who was so intoxicated he could barely keep his eyes open.

/>   “See that one there? That one’s my son, my only son, and him dead to me! So, don’t you go telling me what me can and cannot do! That boy disgust me!”

  28

  THEN

  July 1981

  Do you think this is a bit what the royal wedding will be like?” whispered Joyce, unwrapping a mint and handing it to her husband.

  Hubert discreetly slipped the sweet into his mouth and then lifted his gaze, taking in the huge stained-glass windows and vast stone columns that held up the imposing vaulted ceiling with its intricate web of carvings.

  “To be honest,” he whispered, lodging the mint in the side of his cheek for a moment, a smile playing on his lips, “me think St. Paul’s Cathedral might be a step down after this! If Lady Di had seen this place she would have insisted on dragging the whole troop of them up here!” He pointed to the magnificent circular stained-glass window in front of them. “Just look at that thing, it really takes your breath away. Who wouldn’t want to get married here?”

  “And to think, our little Rose is having her graduation here!”

  “Congregation,” corrected Hubert, pointing to the order of service in his hand. “This place so posh them even make up them own name for things that already got names!”

  Today was Rose’s big day. After three years of essay writing, late nights in the library, and countless hours spent with her nose stuck in books, she was finally being rewarded with her degree, her ticket to a world of success and happiness. A ticket that, to Hubert’s mind, meant all the more in light of the troubles that had plagued the area they had once called home. Troubles that were now spreading across the country. Regardless of who was at fault, seeing Brixton on fire like that had broken Hubert’s heart and as far as he was concerned, the farther Rose was away from such problems the better.

  Hubert and Joyce had been overjoyed when she’d called to tell them her results, that she’d been awarded a first and had been accepted on to the master’s program to study politics and international relations. Hubert hadn’t known at the time what one might do with such a qualification, but he trusted his daughter knew what she was doing in a world that was so alien to him. All that mattered was that she had done well, that she was happy and had a bright future ahead of her.