by Ali McNamara
I shake my head. ‘Lascivious means salacious, indecent or vulgar, even. And I hardly think they’re going to get it on as you put it. Clara is obviously a very well-brought-up lady – you can tell by both her clothes and her manners.’
‘That’s always the worst sort.’ Jack winks. ‘Okay, okay!’ he says, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘I’ll stop. They all seem like good people from what we’ve seen so far. Clara reminds me a lot of you actually.’
‘She does?’ I’m not sure whether to be pleased by his comparison or not. Jack’s opinion of Clara so far seems to be as far away from mine as possible.
‘Yeah, she’s a classy lady, who holds herself in reserve, and yet I suspect there’s a much more complex side to her.’
‘Go on?’ I ask, intrigued.
‘She’s obviously very protective of her daughter, as you are of Molly, and we don’t know this for sure yet, but I suspect she might be a single mother too.’
‘Why do you think that?’ I’d wondered this too. We hadn’t seen or heard any mention of Maggie’s father thus far. ‘It would be very unusual back then, unless she was widowed in the war, of course.’
Jack smiles at me, in a kindly way this time, instead of teasingly. ‘Trust you to think of the honourable answer. What if she got pregnant accidentally, and the father abandoned her.’
Then she would be more like me than Jack knew.
‘There’s always that,’ I say briskly. ‘Who knows? We certainly won’t unless we get another set of pictures of course.’ I lift my embroidery off the easel. ‘I guess I’d better get going.’ I glance at my watch. It was only nine thirty so Molly wouldn’t be ready for another hour and a half. ‘Molly will be finished at her party soon.’
‘What eighteenth birthday party finishes before ten o’clock?’ Jack asks. ‘Not any decent one anyway.’
‘I have things to do before then,’ I lie. The truth was I’d only go back to the flat and sit there worrying about what she might be getting up to. This evening with Jack had been a pleasant distraction.
‘Stay,’ Jack says solemnly, looking up at me. ‘I don’t know about you but these flats, so noisy in the day, get quite lonely at night when the streets outside are deserted. You’ll be doing me a favour by keeping me company, and I might hazard a guess I’ll be doing the same for you by distracting you from thinking about what Molly’s doing?’
I’m surprised by the expressive nature of the first part of Jack’s request. Unsure, I hesitate for a moment. ‘All right then,’ I say. ‘But no more talk about Arty having the hots for someone or getting it on, okay?’
I blush as I realise what I’ve said.
Jack grins. ‘I’ll do my best for you, Lady Kate, but I’m not promising anything …’
Fourteen
‘Shall I walk you to the community centre to collect Molly from her party?’ Jack asks as my watch strikes 10.45 and I make a move to leave his flat.
We’ve had a lovely evening together, in particular the last hour when we’d relaxed in Jack’s comfortable living room and simply chatted about all sorts – St Felix, having teenagers, our shops. In fact, we’d covered a lot of topics since our last visit to ‘vintage’ St Felix, everything but ourselves.
‘Er …’ I’m hesitating for two reasons. Firstly, I don’t want to put Jack out by forcing him to have to descend those stairs again for no reason other than me and, secondly, I’m not quite sure why he’s offering in the first place.
‘When I say walk,’ Jack adds, grinning, ‘obviously I mean wheel!’
‘Well, yes,’ I reply, still sounding doubtful.
‘What’s wrong, Kate? Will being seen with me cramp your style?’ Jack is still smiling, but I sense that his swagger is fading somewhat. ‘I’ll put my legs on especially!’
‘Don’t be silly – it’s not that.’
‘What is it then?’ Jack’s smile has faded now.
‘I don’t want to put you out, that’s all. I mean you’ve got to get yourself all the way downstairs and change your wheelchair. It’s seems an awful faff.’
Jack looks down into his lap for a moment, then up at me. His face is solemn once more and his gaze is intense.
‘My whole life is one big faff, as you put it, Kate. Everything I do is complicated, from the moment I get up in the morning to the moment I go to bed. I rarely do anything on the spur of the moment any more. I simply can’t. Everything has to be planned so I can accommodate this thing.’ He gestures to his wheelchair. ‘So getting myself down the stairs to accompany you to the community centre, in the greater scheme of things, really isn’t that big a deal. It might not mean that much to you whether I do or whether I don’t, but perhaps you’d be kind enough to allow me that one moment of normality … allow me to at least pretend I’m being chivalrous.’
I stare at him.
I feel awful, I hadn’t thought about it like that at all – what seemed like an enormous hassle to me was normality to him. He was simply asking me to allow him to be ordinary.
I’m about to say my usual ‘sorry’ but I stop myself, remembering how Jack usually reacts when I become apologetic. Instead I simply smile at him and say: ‘No need for the sob story. If you want to come and watch a load of teenagers who’ve had too much to drink fall out of our local community centre, then this is your night!’
Jack and I make our way companionably towards the party together. He had insisted on attaching his legs before we left even though I had told him it wasn’t necessary and no one would care.
‘I will care, Kate,’ had been his answer, and that had been enough.
‘Thanks,’ Jack says now as he wheels himself along next to me, ‘for what you said before at the flat. I overreacted as usual. I often do.’
‘Not at all. I hadn’t thought about things in that way. What you said helped me understand your situation, and maybe you a little bit as well.’
‘I’m not difficult to understand,’ Jack says, his voice returning to its usual buoyant tone. ‘As black and white as a chess-board me, most of the time.’
‘You might think that, but I’ve already experienced many shades of grey since I met you – and before you say anything not those sorts of shades of grey.’
Jack grins. ‘You already know me too well. But I still take offence at the term “grey”. That suggests I’m a bit bland, and I try very hard to be anything but that.’
‘No, I didn’t mean grey as in wishy-washy, I meant grey as in you’re not always as black and white as you think. Sometimes you give out mixed messages.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as the other night when you virtually threw me out of your house for failing to turn off your shop alarm.’
‘Ah, that.’
‘You said when we were on the beach this morning you were going to explain.’
‘I did.’
‘So?’
‘Is that the community centre?’ Jack asks, expertly changing the subject as we approach a long dull-looking building that is currently vibrating with loud thumping music and excited voices.
‘It is.’
‘Seems like you’re not the only parent on collection duty tonight.’
I recognise a few of the people leaning against the wall of the centre waiting for their offspring. I want to ignore them and continue talking as I get the feeling he’s quite pleased to have a reason not to continue our previous conversation, but one of the dads waves and I feel obliged to go over with Jack and chat to him.
Eventually a few people begin to emerge from the community centre: groups of giggling girls and gangs of boisterous boys – all much older than Molly – pass us by, and then a few youngsters I recognise peer apprehensively about for their parents as they leave the booming hall and step out into the hazy lamp-lit street.
As I wait anxiously it takes all my resolve to stop myself from storming in, grabbing my precious daughter and wrapping her up until I get her to the safety of our home.
Where was she? Why wasn�
�t she coming out yet?
‘She’ll be out in a minute,’ Jack says, looking up at me as I fidget next to him. ‘Stop looking so worried.’
I can’t help it though. It only seems like minutes ago since I was waiting for her to come out from her first day at school. Now she’d spent the evening with all these … well, they looked like adults to me as they spill out of the centre. Could they really only be a few years older than my Molly?
At long last she appears at the door, blinking into the night.
‘Over here, Molly!’ I call, waving.
She glances over at me, and to my dismay looks away again back into the hall.
‘Molly!’ I call again, moving towards her. ‘I’m here.’
‘Yes, Mum,’ she sort of hisses under her breath. ‘I see you. I’ll be out in a moment. Okay?’
‘Yes, of course …’ I mumble, stepping back a bit as she disappears back inside. ‘Okay.’
‘Embarrassing mum?’ Jack enquires jokily as he wheels himself up next to me.
‘Apparently,’ I reply, my face hot. ‘Was I that bad?’
‘Nope, not at all. At that age you only have to breathe and you’re a humiliation. Ben was the same. Now he’s eighteen though it’s beginning to wane a tad. I’m assured that by the time they’re twenty-one you become a normal human being to them once more.’
‘Twenty-one?’ I exclaim, staring at him. ‘I have six years of this to look forward to?’
‘Them’s the breaks, kid!’ Jack says, winking. ‘Oh, she’s back again, and she has a friend.’
I turn expecting to see Emily, Molly’s best friend, but instead I see a lanky-looking boy. He’s wearing baggy blue jeans with a low-slung belt, a red T-shirt with some sort of band emblem on it, trainers, and he has too much product in his carefully coiffured (to look unkempt) hair.
Molly whispers something to him as they emerge from the hall and he looks in my direction. Then he kisses her quickly on the cheek and whispers something into her ear, making her giggle.
Then he holds his hand up in our direction, speaks quickly to Molly again and walks over to a group of lads who then all mooch off together down the street.
Molly watches them longingly before slowly making her way over to us.
‘All right?’ she asks, looking at me. ‘You must be Jack,’ she says, holding out her hand to him. ‘Mum’s told me a lot about you.’
‘Guilty as charged!’ Jack says, shaking her hand. ‘And you are Molly! Your mum has told me a lot about you too.’
I stare at them both. Was no one going to say anything about what had just happened?
‘What’s up, Mum?’ Molly asks. ‘You look like you’ve been slapped a few times with a wet mackerel from one of the fishing boats on the harbour.’
‘Nice evening?’ I enquire as casually as I can.
‘Yup, the best actually!’
‘Good … and who was that you were with just now?’ I look back to where Molly and the boy had been a few moments ago. ‘The boy you came out of the hall with?’
‘Oh … that’s Chesney,’ she says keenly, her eyes lighting up. ‘I met him tonight.’
‘Chesney,’ I repeat, without quite as much enthusiasm. ‘And how old is this Chesney?’
‘Erm … seventeen, I think.’
‘Seventeen …’
‘Why are you repeating everything I say?’ Molly asks. ‘She’s not normally like this, Jack. Please don’t let it put you off.’
‘Molly!’ I scold, coming to my senses at last. ‘Stop teasing Jack.’ Jack just smiles. ‘I didn’t expect you to appear from the hall with a boy, that’s all – especially not one that kisses you on the cheek.’
Molly grins. ‘Good job you didn’t see us earlier then!’
‘Enough!’ I say, holding up my hand. ‘What is it you always say to me … TMI. Yes, that’s it. Too much information, Molly, I can’t cope.’
‘Should we head back now?’ Jack suggests, ‘Everyone seems to be leaving.’
‘I’ll just say goodbye to Emily!’ Molly says, spying her friend talking to a man I recognise as Emily’s father. ‘Back in a mo!’
‘I’m sorry,’ I apologise to Jack as I watch her skip across the gravel. ‘I left a little girl at this party earlier, and now suddenly a young woman is being returned to me – what on earth happened?’
Jack smiles kindly. ‘Tell me about it. Although, it must be even worse with a girl, even more to worry about.’
I nod. ‘It only seems moments ago since she would emerge shyly from a party with a gift bag and piece of cake wrapped in a napkin. Now she’s coming out with a boy on her arm instead!’
Molly says her goodbyes and returns to us.
‘Right, let’s go,’ she says happily. ‘Now you’ve heard about my evening, I want to hear all about you guys on the way back. What did you get up to together – anything interesting?’
I glance at Jack and he smiles ruefully back at me.
‘That good, eh.’ Molly says with delight.
‘Let’s just say our evening was … revealing.’ Jack smiles knowingly at me. ‘Wouldn’t you say, Kate?’
‘Informative and possibly even illuminating!’ I reply beaming, as I remember our magical pictures coming together.
Molly looks at us. ‘You two are weird!’ she says goodnaturedly, ‘but it kind of suits you both, and if it makes you happy then I say the weirder the better!’
Fifteen
‘Have you got another picture?’ I whisper into my mobile phone while I’m downstairs in the basement sorting out some new stock. Anita is upstairs minding the shop, and I’ve taken this moment to call Jack because overnight a new embroidery has magically appeared in my sewing machine again, and I’m hoping that he too might have a new painting to share with me.
‘I have, yes,’ Jack replies. ‘Is yours of a beach?’
‘It is! Do you think it might be one of the beaches here?’
‘Well, mine looks very much like St Felix Bay. Does yours?’
‘Difficult to say … mine’s all sand and shells. I imagine your painting is, as usual, on a much larger scale.’
‘When shall we compare them? Tonight?’
‘Ah, I can’t tonight. I have a parents’ meeting at Molly’s school.’
‘How’s Molly getting on?’ Jack asks. ‘Is Chesney still in the picture?’
It was a little over two weeks since the party, and since Jack and I had last taken a trip back in time to yesteryear St Felix. We’d seen each other a couple of times in passing over that time and had waved or had a few words in the street, but nothing more than that. Now we had the excuse of some new magical pictures I was keen to see him again.
‘Yes, Chesney is still hanging around,’ I reply, sighing. ‘I can’t say I’m too happy about that, but he could be a lot worse, I suppose. He’s polite enough to me on the rare occasions Molly allows me a moment to speak with him.’
‘That’s good,’ Jack says encouragingly, ‘isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but I’m worried about how Molly’s schoolwork might suffer – she seems to spend every spare minute with him.’
‘Ah, young love!’ Jack says. ‘We’ve all been there.’
‘Yes, that’s why I’m worried! Anyway, about these pictures – I should be finished by eight at the latest. Shall I come round then?’
‘That would be great!’ Jack says, sounding pleased. ‘I’ll get the easel prepared!’
The parents’ evening finishes earlier than I expect, with Molly receiving high praise from all her teachers and the promise of amazing GCSE results if she continues to ‘apply herself diligently’ to her studies. It seems the ‘Chesney effect’ hasn’t affected her schoolwork too much after all, not for the time being anyway.
I therefore make my way towards Jack’s shop a little earlier than we’d agreed, and walking along Harbour Street towards the high street I bump into a friend of Anita walking her dog, Rosie.
‘Hi, Lou! Hi Rosie!’ I say as Lou pauses to let
Rosie sniff the ground. ‘How are you both?’ Lou would often bring her dog into the shop when she popped in to see Anita. Rosie was a slightly odd-looking dog – a cross between a Basset Hound and a Springer Spaniel. Lou had once explained to me how that had come about – her friend’s Basset Hound, Basil, had got a bit too friendly with her own dog, Suzy, and the result had been a litter of slightly odd-looking but very cute puppies. Lou had kept one of them and my friend Poppy had given a home to another. My dog Barney was as fond of Rosie as Lou was of Anita, and so they both always received a warm welcome when they came in to visit.
‘Oh, hello, Kate,’ Lou says, her gaze turning from Rosie to me. ‘We’re good, thank you. How are you?’
‘Yes, very well.’
‘Barney not with you tonight?’
‘No, I’ve just come from Molly’s parents’ evening.’
‘All good?’
‘Luckily, yes it is, very good. She’s predicted As and A stars in all her subjects.’
‘Bright girl. You must be very proud.’
‘I am, yes.’
I’m about to say goodbye and continue up the road when a thought occurs to me. ‘Lou, you’ve lived in St Felix most of your life, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, for most of it I have.’
‘Do you remember the fifties very well?’
Lou looks surprised. ‘The nineteen fifties? A little, yes. I was quite young back then though. I’m not that old!’
‘Sorry, no, I didn’t think you were, but I was wondering if you happened to remember a young girl called Maggie, and her mother who was called Clara? Maggie was in a wheelchair back then if it helps jog your memory?’
The wrinkles on Lou’s forehead deepen as she attempts to remember. ‘Yes, as it happens I think I might recall them. Didn’t they come to St Felix in the late fifties – maybe around fifty-seven or fifty-eight?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I reply, stunned that the people we’d been seeing in the pictures might actually be real.
