Annie Stanley, All At Sea

by Sue Teddern

  ‘Oh, you came, then,’ she says, as I reach her. ‘Robin WhatsApped to say you might, but I thought you’d steer well clear.’

  ‘Absolutely not. I told Rob I would and here I am. I wanted to pop by and say hi, Hilary. So, yes, well, um . . . hi.’ I flush with guilt. Has she read my mind?

  ‘How did you know where to find me? Even I didn’t know I’d be here an hour ago.’

  ‘Your neighbour suggested it.’

  Hilary pats a seat beside her. ‘Sit, would you. I’d rather not talk to your chest. Which neighbour? The scratch-card queen in Flat 4, the bigot in Flat 2 or the orange nitwit in Flat 6?’

  ‘Flat 6. Toni. She seemed nice.’

  Hilary harrumphs so loudly it scares a passing spaniel. ‘Nice? Nice? The woman’s a fool. Did you see her hair? How can you have any regard for someone who takes styling tips from Donald Trump?’

  I sit alongside her and angle my seat so that we can both face the sea. ‘I thought she was really friendly actually.’

  ‘It’s all fake, all superficial. Like her “blonde” hair and her fake tan and those ridiculous false eyelashes. I bet her boobs came out of a packet.’

  ‘While you, Hilary, are the one hundred per cent genuine article. What you see is what you get.’

  She risks a half-smile. ‘I do sometimes wonder how my life might have turned out with bigger tits.’

  This catches me unawares and I let out a raucous guffaw. Hilary looks pleased.

  ‘I’m 78 in September. Do you think there’s an upper age limit for 38DD implants? I could be Bexhill’s answer to Dolly Parton. That would put the orange nitwit in her place.’

  My stomach growls. ‘I need food. Can I treat you to lunch?’

  ‘What? Here? Don’t be ridiculous.’ Hilary looks horrified. ‘Besides, I’ve brought a hummus and Marmite Ryvita sandwich. And a hard-boiled egg.’

  ‘In which case I’m doing you a favour. So . . . are you coming or what?’

  Hilary parks her mobility scooter in a corner of the cafe and commandeers a table while I order us lunch at the counter. I can’t recall whether or not she likes a tipple but if she doesn’t want her mini bottle of Chardonnay, I’ll keep it to soften the edges of the next nasty hotel room in sea area Wight or Portland. I order us two burgers and chips because that’s what I want.

  ‘How do you know I’m not a card-carrying vegan?’ she demands when I tell her what’s coming.

  ‘Because you made that amazing lamb moussaka when Rob and I came to lunch once. And you never demanded the chestnut Wellington option for Christmas dinner.’

  ‘Fair enough. Good call. People expect me to be some kind of Quorn botherer so I like to order steak tartare, just to outflank them. Could you tell the waitress I want my burger practically mooing?’

  The De La Warr cafe is full of yummy mummies and well-heeled retirees, the sort you see in the Sunday supplements, advertising stair lifts and equity release schemes. Hardly kindred spirits of Hilary. I can’t help wondering why she moved here, from her delightful detached house in Leighton Buzzard, but fear I might be opening a can of worms if I dare to ask. Fortunately, I don’t have to.

  ‘And this is why I don’t eat here,’ she exclaims, glaring at the other diners. ‘Look at them all. They should change Bexhill-on-Sea to Smughill-on-Sea. Welcome to our boring little town, where we take care of our own and bugger the rest of you.’

  ‘They seem fine to me. I like that woman’s jumper. It looks hand-knitted.’

  ‘You live here then. You have the orange nitwit and the bigot as your neighbours. And I’ll move back to Bedfordshire. I could even tolerate your poky little hovel, if I gave it a good spring clean and burnt a few joss sticks.’

  If she’s provoking me to ask the question, it’s worked. ‘So why move here in the first place? You must have known what you were letting yourself in for.’

  She puts down her burger and starts to reply but thinks better of it and takes a few deep breaths. Then a little tear escapes from the corner of her right eye and trickles slowly down her cheek. We both wait while she composes herself. I pour the last of my wine into her glass.

  ‘Why indeed?’ she finally mutters, pushing her plate away. ‘That’s the million-dollar question, if ever there was one. And yet, here I am. It’s Hotel California with ruddy great knobs on. But the only “checking out” people do at Beach View Point is toe-up in a wooden overcoat. That’s if they don’t ruddy well die before they move here and leave other people high and dry with no escape tunnel.’

  I’m trying to follow. I really am. Who died? When? What escape tunnel? Hilary sees the confusion in my eyes and laughs. ‘The mad ramblings of a daft old bat. Admit it, Annie. Isn’t that what you’re thinking?’

  ‘You’re old and you’re probably a bat but you’re not daft. Okay, I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

  She slugs back the wine and explains. ‘Do you remember my pal, Val? She was at my seventy-fifth birthday party. In that Italian restaurant with the garden. Poured with rain all day. You and Rob made me a chocolate cake.’

  I do. Hilary and Valerie. They’d been best friends since university. Valerie was widowed and lived in Reading. Hilary never married although I think she had her moments, more than once. After Val’s husband died, they holidayed together every year: Rhine cruises, Turkish resort hotels, they even toured Cuba in a mini bus. Val often spent Christmas with Hilary in Leighton Buzzard because they were good company for each other and she couldn’t stand more than an afternoon with her grandchildren.

  ‘It was Val’s idea. Selling her house in Reading and moving here. Her husband had never wanted to live by the sea but once he was gone, she could do as she pleased. Good for you, I thought. You go for it, Val. But then she said I should move here too and the more she pestered, the more I came around to the idea. What was there to keep me in Leighton Buzzard? Sweet eff all.’

  ‘With ruddy great knobs on.’

  ‘Exactly. Val found Beach Point View. And, honestly, Annie, isn’t that the most ridiculous name? She suggested we come for the weekend so that she could give it the once-over. I just fancied a few days away. I had no idea she was going to rope me into her harebrained idea. She’d told the developers I was buying too, you see.

  ‘So we came here and I saw the De La Warr Pavilion and I thought: Yes, I could live here, and I bought a flat too. I sold my lovely house and, because of space restrictions, I gave most of my furniture to a refuge for battered wives. I even parted with my beloved piano. But I thought it was worth it. It felt so cleansing, such a fresh start.

  ‘Then, two weeks before the move, Val dropped dead. She’d had a dicky heart for years but it got her across Cuba, up mountains, down tin mines. And suddenly I was financially committed to Beach Point View and my appalling neighbours and Smughill-on-Sea.

  ‘So here I am. Hell on earth minus the fire and the pitchforks. But hey-ho, I’ve made my bed and now I must ruddy well lie in it until I pop my proverbials.’

  After lunch, Hilary and I take a turn along the prom. She builds up quite a head of steam on her mobility scooter and I have to walk fast to keep up. A couple of people, also on mobility scooters or in wheelchairs, nod hello or say ‘Hi’ as we pass. Hilary acknowledges them with a swift grunt but she could be so much friendlier.

  ‘He looks fun,’ I comment about a man who has just whizzed past. He wears camouflage trousers, a deerstalker hat and has a Pokémon stuffed toy sitting in his basket.

  ‘He looks deranged,’ Hilary scoffs. ‘He keeps suggesting I enter the Bexhill Wheel and Walk mini marathon next month, from the Angling Club to the De La Warr. It’s in aid of the RNLI or I can get sponsored for a charity of my choice.’

  ‘Worth doing then. Got one in mind?’

  ‘How about Dignity in Dying? I could live with that.’ She hoots at her accidental joke. ‘Anyway, I’ve only got this scooter on a month’s trial. Thought I might fancy one but I can still get about on Shanks’s pony so it’s going back next we
ek.’

  We walk for a bit longer, then Hilary demands that I accompany her back to Beach Point View. As we pass Flat 6, Toni is taking out a bin bag of empty bottles. She looks pleased to see us.

  ‘How was bridge club?’ I ask.

  ‘Loud.’ She giggles. ‘Just as well Hilary wasn’t here to bang her fist on the bathroom wall. Ooh, I’ve got something for you.’

  As she nips into her flat, Hilary rolls her eyes. ‘You see! Not just an orange nitwit but noisy with it.’ I ssshh her; voices boom down this echoey corridor.

  Toni returns with a paper plate covered in cling film. ‘I kept you back some Yorkshire puds. Plus a few mini samosas and prawn toasts. I’ll only eat them otherwise.’

  Cranky as ever, Hilary says nothing so I take them. ‘Ooh, lovely. That’s tea sorted, then. Thank you, Toni.’

  Hilary is already unlocking her front door so I volunteer to take Toni’s empties down to the recycling skip. When I return, Hilary’s already grudgingly polished off two samosas.

  ‘Go on,’ she says, mouth full. ‘Tell me I’m rude and ungrateful and Toni was only being “nice”.’ She says it with a curl of her lip, as if it’s the worst thing in the world to be.

  ‘Someone has to be nice around here and it certainly isn’t you.’

  ‘I’m a cow. Always was, always will be. Valerie would have indulged her, invited her over for supper or a sherry. But Val’s not here, is she, because she’s dead. But I ruddy well am. And I’m a cow.’

  ‘You really are. Silly me, I thought you might have mellowed.’

  ‘Fermented, more like. If it makes you uncomfortable, you’d best be off. You can tell Robin you did your duty and checked I’ve still got a pulse.’ She scrabbles in her handbag for her purse. ‘How much do I owe you for lunch?’

  ‘My treat.’

  ‘You can bugger off then. Off you pop. Not that I even know where you’re going or why.’

  I walk to the door, relieved to be making my getaway. ‘Shame. I might have told you, if you’d bothered to ask. Always a pleasure, Hilary.’

  I’m done here. Finished. My conscience is clear. I can cross sea area Dover off my list. Next stop, sea area Wight. I stop briefly to hunt for my car keys before leaving. As I pass Flat 6, the door opens.

  ‘She’s crying in there,’ Toni tells me in a stage whisper. ‘I can hear her through my wall. I often hear her crying but she won’t open up to me. You’re her friend. You must know what she’s like.’

  I don’t know what to do. I’ve been instructed quite clearly to bugger off. But Toni’s beckoning me back to Hilary’s front door. ‘Well, go on, love. You wouldn’t just leave her like that, would you?’

  Beach Point View has guest accommodation but it’s too late to reserve it for tonight. So I’ll be dossing down on a row of Hilary’s sofa cushions, wrapped in a sheet. She insists, even though I’m happy to seek out a last-minute hotel room nearby.

  She also insists that I take advantage of the communal launderette, so I put all my clothes in the wash and borrow a pair of her pyjamas. Before tipping out the contents of my Star Wars wheelie suitcase, I carefully unpack Dad, happily intact in his travel urn, and place him by the window. Whatever Hilary says about Bexhill, she does have a breathtaking view, especially as dusk falls and a murmuration of starlings swoop past the Indian-influenced terraced houses beside the Pavilion.

  Hilary pretended she hadn’t been crying when I came back to see if she was okay. She even told me to ‘bugger off’ again. But her heart wasn’t in it. I made some tea in her tiny kitchen; CND mug for her, Greenham mug for me. She ordered me to sit while she went into the bathroom to tidy herself up. When she emerged, she looked stoic and Severe-Grey-Bob-like again. She asked if I’d care to stay the night and I said yes please.

  Her flat is actually really cosy; like mine but with clever touches . . . a walk-in wet room and lots of well-placed sockets. It could be bland and beige but Hilary has filled it with posters, Indian throws and a faded kilim rug. If something goes wrong, she has 24/7 support, whereas I can take a fortnight to find a plumber or electrician. (Note to self: stop calling Rob to come to my aid. He’s Fi’s handyman now.)

  ‘I’m sorry I lost my rag,’ Hilary says as we polish off the last of Toni’s leftovers, along with tomatoes and some slightly fizzy coleslaw from the fridge. ‘I don’t make a habit of it.’

  I decide not to tell her what Toni told me, that she often hears her in tears. Hilary wants to keep up a capable front so I let her. After my attempt to counsel Kate about the ‘Charlie thing’, I figure less is more from me on the counselling front. Besides, she’s dead keen to hear about Dad and my mad journey around the Shipping Forecast.

  So I tell her . . . starting with my spontaneous flight to Cromarty with Keith’s ashes. She loves it. Her face is suddenly free from the silent fury she carries around with her and she laughs uproariously.

  She met Dad once, when Rob insisted we have both branches of the family over for a summer barbecue. We were still in our early, couply stage and we wanted everyone to see how happy we were. Rob wore an ironic apron and burnt a succession of sausages, I flitted around with a jug of Pimm’s and Josh stayed upstairs with his mates, in Xbox heaven. Rob’s at that loved-up stage with Fi now. I give it a year.

  Hilary remembers Dad fondly. They disagreed on an awful lot but enjoyed the banter. ‘What did we argue about at that barbecue?’ she ponders. ‘Politics, I expect. Lovely man and everything but I can’t tolerate soft left Labour folk. What’s the ruddy point if you only want to change things “a bit”?’

  ‘You scared him. He said so afterwards.’

  ‘Good. I don’t think he’d hooked up with his ladyfriend yet. Or did I meet her but she made no impression?’

  ‘Bev? No. He was still getting over Mum.’

  ‘Ah,’ says Hilary knowingly.

  ‘Ah, what?’

  ‘And then he met Bev and I bet you thought he’d got over your mother’s death far too quickly and that’s when the resentment set in. Culminating in this mad road trip to establish that you were more important in your father’s life than her. Am I right or am I right?’

  It’s a fairly brutal precis of the last few years but I can’t argue with it.

  ‘And are you?’ she asks, leaning forward like a barrister in a crime drama. ‘More important than Bev? Will this trip prove it? How will you know?’

  ‘Okay, okay, taking Dad’s ashes was a ridiculous gesture but now I have to see it through. And Bev’s fine with it. She told me so herself.’

  Hilary gets up from the sofa with a painful ‘oof’ and totters to the kitchen. She returns a moment later with a bottle of Scotch and two tumblers. ‘Val’s favourite tipple. I bought it for our move. After she died, it seemed wrong to open it, but why the heck not?’

  She pours generously, chinks glasses and waits for me to take a sip. Even after my tipple in Edinburgh with Duncan and Yasmin, I still don’t like whisky, but when in Bexhill etc.

  ‘This ashes business isn’t just about your dad, though, is it.’ Hilary says this as a statement, rather than a question. So I don’t have to respond.

  ‘Robin told me you gave up teaching. That’s a shame. Not to mention a substantial loss to your profession.’

  ‘I was ill. Chest pains, a heart thing. I had lots of tests but it was just an extreme form of burnout, combined with missing Mum. I got signed off for a few months and then, well, I just resigned. I haven’t totally given up on teaching. Maybe it’s given up on me.’

  ‘And wouldn’t that suit you? So you can convince yourself it’s not your fault. Blame the job. Everything is someone else’s fault. You’re just a passive victim in all this.’

  I gulp down more whisky. I still don’t like it. I’ve committed to staying the night with Hilary but do I need to hear her cod psychologist routine?

  ‘And, if you don’t mind me being nosy, how did it end between you and Robin? I asked him, more than once, but he wouldn’t say. Ever the gent, that bo
y. I’m guessing it wasn’t his decision.’

  ‘Spot on, Hilary. So that’s hardly the action of a “passive victim”, is it?’

  Hilary gives an inscrutable smile. ‘If you say so. More whisky?’

  She tops up our glasses. Her silence is unnerving and it has the desired effect.

  ‘I was such a poor excuse for a girlfriend. I knew he could do better. You think I was wrong to end it with him?’ I’m forced to ask. Well, isn’t that what she’s implying with her raised eyebrow and tight-lipped smile?

  ‘Passive victims know how to play the game. My chap, Frank, was like that. We were together for eleven years and he ran the relationship, even when he made it look as if I did.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve heard about Frank before.’

  ‘And you’re not going to now. Water under the bridge. Que sera sera. You want to know what I think, regarding you and Robin?’

  ‘No, but go on.’

  ‘Lovely lad. Such a sunny little chap from the day he was born. Have you seen that photo of him on the donkey at Yarmouth, when he was about 6? Wearing a cowboy hat. Makes me smile every time I look at it. And he’s grown into a decent, sensible man. A real catch, my old mum would have said.’

  ‘Decent and sensible. That’s Rob all right.’

  ‘But when he introduced me to you, Annie, I thought: Hmmm. Not sure about this. Don’t get me wrong, I took to you straight away. But that’s one ruddy great stick of chalk getting together with one big fat lump of cheese. I know opposites attract but I had my doubts. I hate to say it but it looks like I was right.’

  ‘Chalk and cheese can go together really well. Except in a quiche.’

  ‘Is that regret talking? You let Robin go and now he’s with this new woman.’

  ‘Fi.’

  ‘Robin’s moved on and so should you. With someone new in your life, you might let go of all this sadness and self-doubt. It’s not good for you, Annie. I can see that with my own eyes.’

  Hilary has never held back, all the years I’ve known her. Calls a spade a spade, speaks as she finds, pulls no punches and tolerates no flim-flam. I totally hear what she’s saying.