The Wish List

by Ruby Hummingbird

  Reaching into her handbag, she could feel herself return to normal, focusing on the reason she had come. For Albie. She smoothed out the sheet of paper and handed it across the table.

  Timothy patted his mouth with a linen napkin and took it from her.

  • Find him and thank him for saving my life

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake.’ Timothy lowered the list, rolled his eyes at her. ‘Anyone would have done the same. I’m no hero.’

  ‘Well, Albie clearly thought you were,’ Maria said with a small smile.

  ‘He was terribly embarrassed about it at the time, I suppose it was rather hairy.’

  ‘So what happened?’ she asked, pouring him a top-up of tea from the pot.

  ‘We’d been drinking – a few beers at lunch, you know the way, we were students with time to kill.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Maria, fondly imagining a younger Albie, cocksure and tanned in a pub in Devon.

  ‘Well, the wind was up and Albert had recently believed himself to be quite the proficient surfer. He’d been swanning about that summer, working in the pub and going out any chance he could. Most people don’t tend to surf in Lynmouth, they head down to Croyde, Woolacombe, those places. Anyway, the waves were looking pretty dicey that day and Albert was gripped with the desire to get out there. He tried to convinced me too but I was having none of it, beer going to my head, said I’d walk with him and watch for a while...’

  A beach. Surfing. The ocean. Maria clutched the handle of her teacup as her head span and tried to focus on his words.

  ‘Well, I went along and he was doing well. It was choppy and fairly wild but he was up and looking pretty good, then before I knew it, everything changed…’

  She tried not to imagine him in the water, on a surfboard, young, unaware of the dangers, the waves crashing over him. The waitress walked by and Maria wanted to grab her and say something, stop this story in its tracks.

  ‘…One minute he was up, the next he had fallen and disappeared beneath the waves. I’d seen the board shoot up and realised it might have hit him.’

  Albie trapped under the waves, breathless, in trouble… The tea was bitter in her mouth.

  ‘Well, he didn’t surface and I didn’t think he was just messing about, and I realised then I was practically seeing double, the alcohol catching up with me, so I rushed in after him, shoes and all, didn’t want him drowning.’

  Maria felt the room swim in front of her as she lowered the cup with a shaking hand, rattling as it hit the saucer.

  ‘So you see, not so much a hero as a drunken, overconfident fool…’ Timothy seemed to notice Maria’s blanched face and stopped. ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘It’s just rather warm in here,’ she said, placing one hand over the other in a rhythm. She thought then of a way to move their talk away. ‘Albie wanted us to donate to a charity – it was on his list,’ she added in a quick rattle. ‘I was hoping you would be able to suggest one?’

  She didn’t want to think about Albie in trouble under the water – she couldn’t.

  If Timothy was surprised by the sudden shift in conversation he didn’t show it, simply screwing up his forehead as he thought. ‘Well, I know around here, the RNLI has done some excellent work and is always needing funds.’

  The Royal National Lifeboat Institution: saving lives at sea. Maria swallowed. ‘Excellent, well that’s settled,’ she said, her bright voice belying the nauseous swirling in her stomach. ‘Look, they have board games in here, do you play them?’

  Timothy glanced to where she indicated. ‘No, I haven’t tried them, but look, they’ve got Scrabble, I see. My granddaughters have got me playing it on my mobile and they swap messages with me on there, it’s rather sweet. Look…’

  He pulled out his phone and tapped in some digits. The screen was filled with a jumble of letters like a mini Scrabble board.

  ‘I’m currently winning by over 50 points. I managed to get the X onto a triple letter tile and you know what that means!’ He waggled his eyebrows, which made Maria feel lighter.

  ‘The youngest one has a pretty good vocabulary but she’s a terrible cheat…’

  He beckoned the waitress over and asked her to fetch the board, ordering them another pot of tea too. Maria felt her shoulders relax as the past topic faded away, the awful images of the sea ebbing away with it.

  ‘Got to stay hydrated if I’m going to be on my best form,’ Timothy said, tapping the side of his head.

  The game was a wonderful idea, the conversation flowing naturally, punctuated by exclamations of frustration or cryptic sentences: ‘Oh, I seem to have every vowel going!’, ‘Are you allowed “e.g.” as a two-letter word?’ Maria felt herself sink backwards into the comfortable leather seat, the room thinning out as they played on.

  Timothy was enthusiastically telling her stories from his university days with a twinkle in his eye – ‘Albert was always a terrible liar and would appear at seminars first thing, dressed in whatever he had been wearing the evening before, and would bang on and on to the tutor about car trouble when everyone knew the halls of residence were less than a five-minute walk away.’

  She laughed along, enjoying hearing about a younger Albie, an Albert who drunk ale in the daytime, took up hobbies every month, stayed up late, trying to get Timothy to appreciate jazz. He wore a burgundy beret for a time and smoked rolled-up cigarettes and that image made her clutch her sides.

  ‘He would speak in a French accent to women, it was horrifying.’

  Maria laughed at the image but couldn’t help a niggling question spilling out of her as she dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.

  ‘Did Albie ever mention anyone called Cathie?’

  Timothy sat back in his chair, brow furrowed, eyes moving left to right as if scrolling through a selection of images. Maria felt all the breath suspended in her body. Cathie who Albie had wanted to take to Paris. Was she about to have her answer? Did she want it? For a second, she wished she could cram the words back in her mouth, stop time so that she could stay in this blissful ignorance a moment longer.

  ‘I can’t recall anyone of that name,’ he said finally, throwing an apologetic look back at Maria. ‘I’m sorry, I’m pretty hopeless with names.’

  Maria felt her shoulders drop, the tension leaving her body in one breath. ‘Oh no – no, it wasn’t important.’ Perhaps Cathie wasn’t the great love she had imagined if Albie’s best friend had never heard of her? She realised she was hoping.

  ‘Your turn, Maria. Maria…?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I was somewhere else.’

  Timothy had a wonderful energy that filled the small space and she could well imagine him rabble-rousing with Albie. His voice, louder, brasher still, contained a twang of the West Country and it made her heart ache to be reminded of the connection: how she missed Albie’s voice, his infectious chuckle.

  The time flew by and suddenly they were heading back down on the Clifftop Railway, watching as Lynmouth came into view: the rooftops huddled together, the snaking river slicing through the streets, boats dotted in the harbour. The bus was a few minutes late and Maria suddenly stood self-conscious again, wondering how to say goodbye.

  But Timothy made it easy, holding out two arms so that she could give him a hug. ‘You get yourself a mobile so we can play on that Scrabble app I showed you. I absolutely insist on a re-match,’ he said, giving her a warm smile.

  ‘I will,’ she promised, knowing then that she would keep her word. She wanted to keep up this connection, this other link to Albie. ‘Although it was quite a drubbing,’ she added, gratified to hear his bellowing laugh.

  The bus sighed next to her, the doors opening with a hiss, and Maria moved away, one hand on the railing to steady herself. After showing the driver her ticket, she moved down the aisle, sliding into a seat by the window. There was only one other passenger heading back to Barnstaple too and the bus was soon moving away from the kerb. Timothy raised one hand in greeting, chin jutting out proudly once
more as he spun around and wheeled slowly back up the road.

  She put a palm up to the glass, cold on her hand, as they climbed the twisting road out of the village. Who would have thought her meetings with Albie would land her here, making new friends, seeing new places and at her age too? It was Wednesday – she should have gone to the launderette, watched her clothes spinning in the machine. She closed her eyes and rested her head back on the seat. Who cares, she thought, filled with scones, tea and spent laughter, I can do that any old time.

  I was sat in the front row, more nervous than I think I had ever been before. I’d done everything I could to be there. My boss had been a nightmare about it and I didn’t want to anger her, but I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Her first play! And there was no one else, only me, and I couldn’t let her down.

  Women like me didn’t all work but I loved my job, loved my freedom. And I wanted to show my little girl that women could be independent, driven, passionate about what they do.

  God, my little girl. The thought made my palms clammier. Would she get it right? Would she freeze? I imagined her terrified and alone somewhere nearby, filled with nerves – it made her own heart ache.

  The music started up, the clang, clang of a slightly out-of-tune upright piano, and there was a general hush in the audience. The seat next to me was free and I put my handbag on it and tried not to bite my nails.

  Oh god, would she forget her lines? Would she…? There she was!

  I felt my bottom clench tightly on the seat as my tiny daughter edged onto the stage. She was dressed as an enormous oversized pumpkin, her little green hat all squiffy, her thin arms poking out of the sides of her round orange body.

  ‘Once upon a time there was a wood…’

  There was a hush as she seemed to tail away and I realised she was staring at the front row seats, staring straight at me.

  ‘Mummmmmmeeeee, you came!’

  Laughter rippled round the room and I nodded, embarrassed, not wanting to say anything. She wasn’t quitting: ‘Did your stupid boss let you out then?’

  Louder laughter and now I was hoping the floor would open up and swallow me whole. Oh god, she must have heard me being rude about Karen on the phone to Lucy.

  ‘Mummmmmmeeeee, I’m in the play!’

  My five-year-old daughter continued to chirrup away to me from the stage, her desperate teacher standing helplessly in the wings, holding back a banana and an apple who were waiting to go onstage for their lines.

  Fifteen

  Lynmouth had been wonderful, an escape to a different world, an unexpected little bubble away from her life. Discovering more about Albie, or Albert as Timothy had known him, felt brilliant and devastating in equal measure. How could she not tease him about the things she’d been told? Not see his face break into that wide smile as she explained how she had tracked down Timothy, got back in touch. Working through this list seemed bittersweet, making her feel close to Albie and at the same time moving her further away, creating new experiences he wasn’t around for.

  Then there was this other figure from his past: Cathie. Timothy hadn’t known her, what did that mean? Maria knew she had been avoiding contacting Cathie. A large part of her could fool herself into thinking that Albie had cared only for her – what if meeting Cathie finally extinguished that hope?

  She had an address, it was part of the pack the solicitor had given her. She couldn’t avoid this moment forever. She wrote a brief letter, introducing herself and her connection to Cathie and asking to arrange a meeting. As she licked the envelope closed, the glue wasn’t the only ugly taste in her mouth: was she about to change everything?

  Suddenly exhausted, she decided to take a soothing bath. But as she lay trying to relax, the water cooling, she could barely summon the energy to hold onto the bars and get herself out. Waves of grief struck her at the strangest moments. This morning she had been thrown when she had turned the last page of her book – a book Albie had recommended, a novel set in 1940s Cornwall – and somehow the fact she had finished it, and couldn’t even discuss it with him, made her realise that life was just marching on without him. That books were being read, television shows being watched, people were moving on with their lives and Albie was one step further back in the past. Her heart ached thinking about it.

  Staring at the list again, she realised she was simply re-reading the last lines: the lines under her own name. She felt a familiar lurch in her stomach as she thought of his suggestions, knowing she wasn’t ready, might never be ready. But she knew she needed to clear out Albie’s things.

  She couldn’t shift her mood as she closed the apartment door behind her, her tote bag scrunched up in her hand.

  ‘Crap!’

  Maria’s hand froze on the door handle. Someone was huffing and swearing somewhere below.

  ‘Shit!’

  Maria bit her lip, not wanting to interact, just wanting to get out, buy some things and scuttle back to the safety and quiet of her apartment.

  ‘Oh, for…’

  A loud banging, more shuffling, a small voice speaking high and fast, a sigh.

  Her neighbour appeared, auburn hair askew, cheeks red, a baby strapped to the front of her chest, dragging an empty pushchair up the stairs, three carrier bags stuffed with food in her other hand. ‘Owen, come on, come on!’ she called to her toddler, who was clambering up behind her. ‘Hold on, be careful.’ Her voice was strained as she gave Maria a panicked look: ‘Owen, this lady needs to come down the stairs, speed up…’

  ‘I saw a spider.’

  ‘OK, not now, just come up…’

  The toddler was sat on the middle step, staring at something.

  ‘Ant spider!’ He pointed excitedly, glancing up at his mother.

  ‘Sorry,’ the woman said, red-faced, setting down the pushchair and the bags near her front door.

  Maria nodded, not knowing what to do or where to go in the small space. She had never introduced herself before. ‘It’s fine,’ she replied.

  The woman had moved back down the stairs to scoop up the distracted toddler who, once moved, started to wail, ‘Want to see spider! Ant spider!’ The tears came as Maria skirted round them both, his cries echoing off the bare walls of their apartment block. The woman sighed as she soothed him, looking almost close to tears herself. ‘I’m sorry, darling, just get in, OK? I need to make you lunch.’

  ‘Ant spider,’ the boy repeated as Maria stepped down the stairs and away from them. The baby started to cry, the woman swore again and Maria felt guilty for the relief she felt as she pushed open the double doors to outside.

  Even after all these years a child crying still made her insides ache.

  Walking quickly, head down, the wind nipping at her face, she thrust her hands inside her coat pockets, cross that she had forgotten her gloves. Moving down the road, she ran through the brief shopping list in her mind: a few essentials, nothing more. It would ensure she could hibernate for another few days. She forced down the guilt that this was not what Albie would have been doing, that he wouldn’t have hidden away.

  ‘Maria… Maria!’

  She wasn’t sure how long the voice had been calling her, but suddenly there she was: Rosie, jogging to keep up with her.

  ‘Hey,’ Rosie said, puffing a little, her breath forming clouds in the air. ‘Maria, how are you? How are you getting on?’

  Rosie seemed to appear whenever Maria was having a bad day. She half-wished she wasn’t standing there, looking at her in that open, honest way. Maria wasn’t the woman Rosie saw, the kind, elderly old lady – she shouldn’t waste her time on her.

  ‘I’ll walk with you, if that’s alright. I’m heading this way. Soooo,’ she said, barely taking a breath, mouth chewing on gum between the words. ‘Where are you off to? Something else to tick off the list?’

  Maria mumbled something into the collar of her coat.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I was just saying, not today,’ she repeated, embarrassed to ha
ve been caught out.

  ‘Oh. Well, that’s alright, how have you found it? Have you ticked a lot? Want some company with any of them?’

  ‘Oh, no, that’s alright, I’m just… making plans for one… I need to, um, sort a few things…’

  ‘Cool,’ Rosie said, blowing a large pink bubble. It popped and the gum disappeared back in her mouth. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Oh,’ Maria blustered, caught in her lie. ‘The trip to Paris, I still need to hear from the mysterious Cathie,’ she added, her voice strained. ‘He always wanted to take her there, he said,’ her tone high, trying not to betray her feelings to Rosie. ‘I wrote to her but I haven’t received a reply.’

  ‘You should try again,’ Rosie said in that carefree way of hers, clearly not realising the cause of Maria’s jittery mood. ‘I’ve been there on a school trip,’ she went on, the bubble briefly back. ‘It was awesome, we went to that glass pyramid thing and lived on crêpes and éclairs. Tess threw up on one of the Bateaux Mouches – that’s a boat – it was gross.’

  ‘Nice!’ Maria said, unable to stop herself, smiling at Rosie’s energy, lifting her out of her black mood.

  ‘Yeah, our teacher couldn’t speak French very well and he kept asking the boat person for “la bucket” – we were wetting ourselves.’

  ‘Well, I might avoid boats but it would be lovely to see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, and to walk along the Champs-Élysées people-watching sophisticated Parisians.’ Maria was surprised to find that she had thought about it, realising on one level she had been looking forward to the trip, the chance to see the city. On the other hand, meeting Cathie might unravel everything.

  ‘That sounds ideal,’ Rosie sighed, pulling her school coat tightly around herself. ‘That list is brilliant. And you deserve a treat too, he’s got you doing hard work on it!’

  ‘Hardly.’ Maria laughed, already feeling lighter, her step more confident, her shoulders rolled back.