A Place Of Safety

by Caroline Graham

  By six o’clock both were in their bedroom getting dressed. Barnaby had on a rather stiffly starched white shirt and dark blue suit plus waistcoat. As he was pulling on his shiny black Oxfords, he watched Joyce putting on her make-up in front of a magnifying mirror, brightly illuminated by an Anglepoise. She was wearing a coffee-coloured petticoat trimmed with Viennese lace, which Cully had long ago christened Mum’s Freudian slip.

  It suddenly struck her husband that his anniversary gift, so carefully thought of, beautifully designed and lavishly wrapped, was nothing but a frivol. Luxurious but of no real use whatsoever. Where in the world, apart from illustrations in old books of fairy tales and thirties movies, did women sit holding a mirror in front of their face with one hand and combing their hair with the other? They needed both hands and an excellent light. He sighed.

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ said Joyce.

  She had bought a new suit for the occasion. Cyclamen with black braid. Chanel-ish. The colour looked harder than it had in the shop and her lipstick didn’t match. Her earrings were already pinching but they were the only ones that looked right. Bearing in mind that make-up had to last the evening through, she had put on rather more than usual and now wondered if she should take it off and start again. Everyone said the older you were, the less you needed. She only just stopped herself sighing as well. That’s all the evening needed. Two of them at it.

  Barnaby, who had been looking out of the window on and off for the past twenty minutes, said, ‘They’re here.’

  The first bottle of Mumm Cordon Rouge ’90 was opened and they all had a glass. Cully and Nicolas cried, ‘Congratulations!’ and handed their presents over. Joyce received a silver locket, engraved on the back with the date of her wedding and a tiny picture of herself and Tom inside. It was quite unfamiliar and must have been cut out of a holiday snap that Cully had taken years ago. Barnaby had some plain square silver cufflinks, likewise engraved, in a blue leather box.

  Joyce gave her husband a leather Filofax with a thin silver plate screwed into a specially reinforced front cover. It showed his name, inscribed in beautiful copperplate, and the dates 1973-1998. Barnaby said it was very handsome and at last he could get organised. Cully said it was about time. They drained their glasses, had them re-filled and Joyce opened her present.

  She gasped with surprise and pleasure, her indrawn breath an ‘ahhh’ of happiness.

  ‘Tom! It’s the most . . . beautiful thing . . . I ever . . . ever . . .’

  She kissed him. Barnaby smiled and gave his wife a hug. Watched her hold up the mirror at arm’s length, just as he had pictured her doing in his imagination. But the kitchen’s harsh fluorescent light was not flattering. A shadow passed over Joyce’s face. She had too much make-up on. She did not look in the mirror as she did in her mind. She looked older and rather hard. Haggard even. She turned to her daughter.

  ‘I don’t think this lipstick suits me.’

  ‘Mum, nothing suits anybody in this dreadful light. I look at least a hundred.’

  ‘And I,’ said Nicolas gallantly, ‘look like the creature from the black lagoon.’

  ‘Speaking of lights, shouldn’t we turn the ones in the garden on, Dad? Safety and all?’

  ‘I suppose.’ He had rigged up a series of seven lamps concealed in the greenery. They were connected to a dimmer switch which he turned slowly on to full. The effect was magically theatrical. He could have been looking at a wood outside Athens, with Oberon and Titania waiting in the wings. As he got back to the kitchen, the doorbell rang and Cully chose that moment to make a quick phone call.

  They were taking a cab to Uxbridge Tube, going into town by Underground and back by taxi. The nearest station to Monmouth Street was Tottenham Court Road and at eight o’clock Saturday night both the place and the pavements outside were jam packed with rowdy people all determined to have a good time. It was only ten minutes’ walk to Mon Plaisir but seemed longer.

  They were welcomed warmly, shown to their table and given a menu. Barnaby looked around him. He hadn’t expected the place to look the same - that would have been foolish after twenty-five years - but he was surprised at how small it seemed. He couldn’t remember where they had sat before though he did recall looking out of the window occasionally and being sorry for the people walking by because they could never, ever, if they lived to be a hundred be as happy as he was.

  He looked across at Joyce but she was reading the menu. He studied his own and saw that neither boeuf bourguignon nor raspberry tart was available. Barnaby began to feel rather resentful. They were both classic French dishes. In a French bistro you’d think they’d be on offer.

  ‘They don’t have steak au poivre, Tom.’ Joyce was smiling at him across the table. She had slipped her high heels off and was rubbing the soles of her feet against her calves to warm them up.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s what we had before,’ Joyce explained to the others. ‘And apricot tart.’

  ‘They still have that,’ said Cully.

  Barnaby said nothing. He was realising that this whole idea, put forward by Nicolas and leapt at so enthusiastically by himself, had been a mistake. Joyce had been right to hesitate, himself wrong to dissuade her. The past was indeed another country where they did things differently.

  He ordered onion and cream tart with green salad, red mullet wrapped in fennel and served with tiny potatoes and mange tout, and apples with Calvados. Joyce had the same. Cully and Nicolas had mushrooms à la Grecque, pork trotters with mustard sauce, haricots verts and pommes frites followed by pears with crème Chantilly. They drank Muscadet and Sandeman claret.

  It wasn’t until they were halfway through the main course and conversation had almost petered out that Barnaby realised why. Cully and Nicolas were not talking about themselves. Apart from pleasantries about the food, assurances about what a nice time they were having and some polite inquiries from Cully to her dad as to how the garden was keeping, they had said next to nothing. Barnaby decided to gee things up a bit.

  ‘So, Nicolas. Have you heard anything about casting yet?’

  ‘Yes!’ cried Nicolas. ‘I’m playing Dolabella in Antony and Cleo. Cough and a spit. I’m not even on till—’

  ‘Nico.’ Cully glared at him.

  ‘Mm? Oh, yes - sorry.’

  ‘What?’ said Barnaby, looking from one to the other. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We’re not talking about ourselves,’ said Cully.

  ‘Why on earth not?’ Joyce stared at her daughter, amazed.

  ‘Because it’s your special evening. Yours and Dad’s.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Nicolas, rather less firmly.

  ‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Joyce. ‘If all I was going to do was sit and talk to your father all night we might as well have stayed at home.’

  ‘You got that, Nicolas?’ asked Barnaby. ‘So let’s hear it for Dolabella.’

  ‘He’s also understudying Lepidus.’ Enthusiasm warmed Cully’s voice. ‘A much bigger part with some great lines.’

  ‘My favourite, Tom - very apropos, actually - is “’Tis not a time for private stomaching”.’

  This rather contrived witticism went down a treat. Cully laughed, Nicolas laughed. Joyce, well into her third large glass of Muscadet, laughed so much she got hiccups. Barnaby, under cover of his nicely ironed napkin, looked at his watch.

  Going home in the cab, more than a little what Jax would have called ‘swacked’, Barnaby reflected on the disappointing dullness of the day. Not that it was the day’s fault. Poor old day. What was it after all but an ordinary common or garden stretch of time that had had totally unrealistic expectations placed on it? No wonder it couldn’t come up to scratch.

  Barnaby sighed and heard the wife of his bosom growl softly. Ran his finger round his tight collar to loosen it and noticed Joyce had taken her shoes off. He wished he could take his shoes off. And everything else come to that. Get into his old gardening trousers and a comfortable sweater. S
till, look on the bright side - it would soon be Sunday morning. He was allowed bacon and egg on Sunday.

  The other three were still chatting away. Barnaby was pleased but surprised when Joyce had explained that Cully and Nicolas were coming home with them and sleeping over. They had not done that for a couple of years - the last time being when they were between flats with their stuff in storage and a six-week wait for their new place to become empty.

  It was gone midnight when the cab pulled up at 17 Arbury Crescent. Twelve fifteen on Sunday, 13 September. The actual date. A second chance, as it were, to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Perhaps because of the wine, perhaps because of a sudden rush of memory, a concentrated longing to turn the moment round and maybe even transform it, possessed Barnaby. He reached out and touched his wife’s arm.

  ‘I just wanted to say—’

  But she was talking to Nicolas. He was paying for the cab and needed extra change for the tip. Barnaby fumbled in his pocket saying, ‘I’ve got that.’

  ‘All done, darling.’

  Joyce had handed five pounds over and was getting out of the cab. Around them, silence. Barnaby’s neighbours had retired, the other five houses that made up the crescent were dark.

  As he put his key in the front door, Barnaby came to a decision. He would let the day go. He would let the whole idea of celebration go. He was a 58-year-old man, not a child to expect magic and fireworks just because he was living through a specially significant twenty-four hours. Anyway, wasn’t all of his life significant in some way or other? The very ordinariness of it was in itself cause for celebration. He had everything a person could possibly want. Cultivate your garden, he told himself sternly. Grow up. Count your blessings.

  In the kitchen the dirty glasses and champagne bottles were still on the table. Everybody took off their coats. Joyce asked if anyone wanted a cup of tea. Cully yawned and said if she didn’t lie down soon she’d fall down and Nicolas said the evening had been great and thanked Tom and Joyce for a wonderful time. Barnaby gravitated to the kitchen window and gazed out at his garden. Enjoyed the beautiful illumined plants, was impressed by the magnetic pull of dark shadows.

  He blinked, looked and looked again. Something was standing in the middle of the lawn. A very large thing, glowing with a pure dazzling radiance. He shifted his face closer to the glass, squinting. Became vaguely aware that someone was opening the kitchen door and wandered outside.

  It was a lawn mower. A silver lawn mower. Every bit of it had been painted silver. Handle, wheels, grass box - the lot. Attached to the crosspiece of the handle by shining satin ribbons were lots and lots and lots of silver balloons.

  Barnaby tilted back his head and looked at them, bobbing and moving gently against a dark sky, soft with stars. The heart shapes had writing on them which for some reason, just at this minute, he couldn’t quite read.

  And there was music flooding from the open windows of his sitting room from which his daughter and her husband leaned out, smiling. The Hollies, ‘The Air That I Breathe’.

  ‘I think I’m coming down with a cold,’ said Barnaby to his wife who was walking slowly across the grass in his direction. He produced a large white hanky and trumpeted into it.

  Joyce took his hand and murmured softly, ‘If I could make a wish, I think I’d pass . . . can’t think of anything I need . . . no cigarettes, no sleep, no . . . Oh, Tom! I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘No light . . .’

  ‘That’s it. No light, no sound, nothing to eat, no books to read . . .’

  ‘Making love with you . . .’

  He put his arms round her then and she leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. They stood quietly as more and more stars gathered, holding fast against the relentless movement of time that changes all things. And then they began to dance.

  A PLACE OF SAFETY

  CAROLINE GRAHAM

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