by Jo Verity
Her re-styling project was progressing. She had made two more shopping expeditions and was getting a better idea of the aesthetic that she was after. She was surprised that Jack hadn’t commented on her jaunts to Swansea and Bristol. To be on the safe side, she had camouflaged the former with a visit to the University Library, under the pretence of digging out additional information on Dylan Thomas for her A-level group. She had returned with sheaves of photocopied sheets, along with a very nice slubbed linen trouser-suit and a pair of mules, similar to Isabel’s. The Bristol jaunt produced the perfect jeans, a cashmere cardigan and a tiny leather rucksack. Hanging in the darkest recess of her wardrobe, they looked reassuringly classy. She’d tried on each item in the shop, but hadn’t yet found the opportunity to see what they looked like when worn together.
Jack was always home by six o’clock on Thursdays. They ate an early, light supper before he went out to dance practice. It annoyed her that this silly hobby of his disrupted their routine. Who on earth wanted supper at six o’clock? In fact most things about the Wicker Men annoyed her. The outfits. The music. The terminology. If Jack been a Morris dancer when they met, she might have allowed herself to be persuaded by Dafydd Morgan. Daffydd had made several attempts to woo her but, sexy though he was, she’d resisted, convinced that he viewed her as no more than a trophy to be snatched from the grasp of his friend. Maybe she’d misjudged him and, had things gone the other way, she might be living in a detached house in Buckinghamshire, wife of an eminent orthodontist.
‘I’m off then, love. Sure you’ll be okay?’
‘I’ll survive.’
‘Back about ten-ish.’ And off he went, whistling something rustic.
When she was sure that he’d gone, she took the new items, price-tags still dangling, from the wardrobe. She slipped off her tee-shirt and cotton skirt and studied herself in the long mirror. Not bad. When she was a child her grandmother and aunts, who were still hung-over from wartime deprivation, praised her for being ‘bonny’. And she’d remained ‘bonny’ all her life. As she grew older she preferred to think of it as feminine and curvaceous and had never – well – envied her skinny friends. Hadn’t research shown that men were programmed to choose shapely women as part of the evolutionary imperative?
The new clothes weren’t quite as stunning as she’d hoped. She still looked mumsy. Recently she’d noticed that her bust was descending towards her waist, a phenomenon most noticeable when she sat in the bath or on the sofa. Being not much more than five foot tall, these landmarks started off a lot closer together than if she’d been a beanpole like, say, Caitlin. She looped her thumbs under her bra straps and pulled upwards, raising her breasts a good three inches. If only she were a few inches taller. Maybe a new bra and a pair of high heels would sort it out.
There was nothing on the television and her library book was proving to be heavy going. She browsed their video collection for something to while away the evening.
Jack had bought ‘The Graduate’ years ago, when HMV had an offer on. ‘Great music. Great dialogue,’ he’d explained to teenaged Dylan and Kingsley as they wriggled with embarrassment, watching Mrs Robinson go into action. This evening, cup of coffee and bar of dark chocolate to hand, Fay wriggled with pleasure, calculating the age differentials. Dustin Hoffman was twenty-one. Mrs R, what, late forties? But, when Katherine Ross turned up to distract the young man, she stopped the tape, rewound and went for a long soak in the bath.
Jack pulled out of the drive and drove down the hill, passing the community centre where the Wicker Men met. During August there were no evening-classes and the building was locked up. The same applied over the Christmas and Easter breaks, but Fay hated it when he chopped and changed his routine so, for years, it had been easier to go out to dance practice, regardless of whether there was one or not.
He had started dancing by mistake. (He was beginning to think that most of the things that he did had been the result of mistakes.) One September, in nineteen-ninety-six, he’d gone along to sign up for an evening class in psychology, thinking that it might come in useful when he treated nervous patients. The class had been oversubscribed and, whilst waiting to get a cup of coffee, he’d been attracted by jingling bells and the twinkling notes of a concertina. Bucolic music had lured him to the hall, where the Morris men were in full swing. That first sighting of swirling hankies and puffing men – antithesis of the stuffiness he associated with the waltz and foxtrot – had intrigued and entranced him. Their leaping and stamping filled the room with wholesome vigour and, when the dancers had given a rousing shout to signal the end of the piece, Jack had shouted with them. Spying the enthusiastic stranger, several of the dancers had given him a run-down on the Wicker Men, explaining that they were recruiting new members. Despite Oscar Wilde’s famous caution, he’d signed up on the spot and, for the first two terms, Fay had been under the illusion that he was studying Freud and Jung. It was only when she heard jingling coming from his brief-case that he’d been forced to come clean.
In the beginning, the children were mortified by their father’s hobby. They spent weekends on pins in case someone they knew spotted him leaping about in a public place. As they grew older, and realised that dentists had the reputation of being a boring crowd, turncoats that children are, they began to boast about his off-beat hobby. It put him in a different league from golfing or philatelic fathers. In fact, at the wedding, he had overheard Dylan telling an acquaintance that ‘Dad’s a Morris dancer. And he does a bit of dentistry on the side.’
Fay, on the other hand, never changed her opinion and accused him of trying to humiliate her. ‘I think I could almost understand the attraction, if there were hordes of glamorous women involved, but the Wicker Men are just that, aren’t they? Men.’
Leaving the community centre behind, Jack headed out of the city. It crossed his mind that he could just about make it to Llangwm and back in the three hours at his disposal, but he wouldn’t be able to spend more than ten minutes at The Welcome Stranger. Never mind – he was cooking up a much more ambitious plan.
He left the dual carriageway and took the road that wound up through the grimy little town, perched on the valley side. Past the shuttered shopping parade, dowdy and disfigured by the unimaginative graffiti; past the chapel with the sagging banner that pronounced ‘Jesus said – I am the way’. He’d attended chapel as a child, like everyone else. He’d enjoyed the singing, but when he left home, he discovered that there were other places to go for a sing-song, and not once since had he considered going to chapel, apart from ‘hatchings, matchings or despatchings’, as Sheila put it.
He parked half way up the terrace, pulling hard on the handbrake and angling the wheels into the gutter. In nineteen-sixty-one, even a brick beneath the back tyre hadn’t stopped Merve Bowen’s Ford Popular rolling down the hill and demolishing itself and the telegraph pole.
His mother must have been watching from behind the net curtains that obscured the parlour window and, before he had time to knock the door, she came out, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘We wondered if you’d come, love. I kept back a bowl of trifle. Just in case.’
His mother, smaller than ever, led him down the narrow hall to the kitchen. ‘Where’s Dad?’ he asked.
‘Out the back. Watering his tomatoes. It’s a bumper year.’ His father, who had a small strip of garden as well as an allotment down near the railway line, had always weighed or measured his vegetable crops, keeping a tally in an exercise book that lived on the shelf in the kitchen. Each year he would look back and compare successes or failures. There was nothing to be gained from this, apart from confirmation that, with so many variables – variety, weather, cats and garden pests – some he won and some he lost. ‘So we’ve been having a lot of tomato sandwiches and salad.’ His mother made no further comment, simply raising her eyebrows.
He laughed. ‘Poor Mum,’ and gave her a consoling hug. Then, seated at the Formica-topped table, he ate the trifle that she brought out for him in the
familiar blue-and-white ringed bowl. This was proper trifle, made with raspberry jelly, Swiss roll and thick yellow custard, not a pale sugar-free replica or something fashionable with kiwi fruit and hard bits masquerading as trifle. With each spoonful, he tasted the Sunday afternoons of his childhood, when tea was laid in the musty front room and the bread came ready-buttered to the table. It had taken him some time, when he first left home, to master the etiquette, or understand the rationale, of transferring butter from the dish on to his bread via the rim of his plate.
‘What did she give you for tea, then?’ His mother always checked that the woman who had stolen her son was taking good care of him.
‘Salad. With smoked salmon.’
She shook her head and he felt rotten for giving her this ammunition but, if he explained the reason for the light meal, he would have to reveal a lot more. When he next visited, he must be sure to report that ‘she’d given him’ lamb chops or steak pie.
The back door opened and his father appeared, using the doorstep like a bottle-opener to push off his laceless gardening shoes. ‘Hello, John.’ He held up the pan from the weighing scales, piled high with tomatoes. ‘What d’you reckon? Three, three-and-a-half pounds?’
Harry and Vi Waterfield had christened their younger child John and that’s what they always called him. Similarly, Marion was always Marion. The ‘Jack’ business had started with his crowd from the grammar school and it had stuck, although his parents hadn’t liked it. ‘It sounds a bit…unreliable…a bit fly-by-night to me,’ his mother had said.
The tomatoes weighed in at an ounce under four pounds. ‘Mum, put a few in a bag for John to take back with him. Show the city folk what a real tomato tastes like, not that rubbish from the supermarket.’ Jack hoped that they only called each other ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’ when he was with them, but he couldn’t be sure because he had the feeling that, even now, they were marking time, waiting for Marion and him to come to their senses and settle back where they belonged.
This was the second time he’d visited his parents since the wedding, but the snaps that they’d taken with their little point-and-shoot camera had only come back from Bonus Print that day. ‘We got an extra set done. Only two-ninety-nine.’ His father wiped the table with the tea-towel and spread the prints out. Despite angled horizons, closed eyes and thumbs across the lens, these gave a better impression of a family wedding than the proofs which the professional photographer had sent. There was Fay, pointing, shouting, organising; Dylan looking handsome and uncomfortable; Nia, beautiful and untouchable. Caitlin figured in several shots, staring beyond the camera, as though looking for a latecomer. She had been – they all had been – but he hadn’t shown up. There was one particularly touching photograph of his parents, standing to attention, shoulder to shoulder, nervous but proud. ‘Who took this one?’ Jack asked his father, holding it up.
‘You did. Don’t you remember? You kept telling us to relax.’
Jack shook his head. It was odd that, in the thirty-six pictures, he couldn’t find one of himself, unless the ear in the shot of the giggling bridesmaids happened to be his. And, thinking about it, he had little recollection of the day, as if some kind of local anaesthetic was numbing that area of his memory. He shivered.
‘Take the spare set. We got them for you.’ Harry shook his head as Jack reached towards his pocket. ‘A little gift, son.’
Jack glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll love you and leave you then.’ He did truly love them, this uninspiring couple, whom it was so much easier, more comfortable, to visit on his own.
‘Don’t forget these.’ His father twisted the neck of the paper bag and offered the tomatoes to him.
‘Give her our regards. Perhaps she’ll come with you next time.’ His mother’s face was once again deadpan.
‘Or perhaps you could come down to us.’
‘We’ll see.’
They stood on the front step waving him off, and a feeling of shittiness engulfed him as he abandoned them to whatever their life had become.
He retraced his journey, this time diverting in to the community centre car park. The car was filled with the prickly scent of tomatoes and he was a six-year-old again, watching his father’s stumpy fingers nipping out the side-shoots which would, if left, ruin the Moneymakers and the Gardener’s Delights.
He got out of the car and, before dropping the damning evidence into the concrete litter bin – something which appeared to be becoming a habit – he took the largest tomato from the bag, squeezing it to test its ripeness. Perfect. He bit through the thin skin, into the yielding flesh, noisily sucking out the pips, leaning forward to let any dribbling juice splash on the tarmac. The taste of tomato burst inside his mouth – sweet and sharp, intense and exotic – and he wondered how supermarkets had the nerve to call those hard, flavourless spheres ‘tomatoes’. Finally he tucked the wallet of wedding photographs into the bottom of his holdall, covering them with his unworn dancing kit.
Fay was watching the news in their bedroom when he went upstairs. ‘How was your evening, love?’ he inquired.
‘I watched a video.’
‘Anything good?’
‘Sense and Sensibility.’ There was a clunk from downstairs. ‘What was that?’
‘The washing machine. I shoved my togs in, on a quick wash.’
He undressed and went into the bathroom, leaving the door open so he could hear the weather forecast. ‘Sounds as if the weather’s holding for the weekend. Fancy doing anything?’ He was prepared to trade this weekend off against the next.
‘I wouldn’t mind going to Bath. Or Cheltenham, maybe.’
‘You’re on. I’ll treat you to something nice.’ Mustn’t overdo it.
‘I could do with some navy heels and a pair of sunglasses,’ her answer came straight back.
If there was one thing he admired about Fay, she knew exactly what she wanted.
8
‘But I don’t understand why you have to go this evening.’ Fay stood, arms crossed, watching Jack pack his suitcase. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to get up early tomorrow? You’ll feel fresher.’
Jack shook his head. ‘Registration’s at nine a.m. I’d be cutting it a bit tight. ’Specially as I’m speaking. Don’t want to risk getting stuck in traffic. Getting flustered.’ It all made perfect sense. ‘Could you pass me my wash bag, love?’ She tossed it onto the bed and he jammed it into the vacant corner of the case.
Jack had spent the week writing his conference presentation. He was pleased with his efforts and had enjoyed digging out the information, then weaving it in with personal anecdotes. Caitlin had cast her eye over it and put him right in a few places. She was up-to-date on current trends and her input was invaluable. He’d read it out loud several times and timed his delivery, making sure that Fay was in earshot. He almost convinced himself that there was a dental conference in Llandrindod Wells and that he would be speaking at it.
‘That’s it then. Mobile. British Dental Journal. Couple of shirts. Pyjamas. And most important,’ he patted his briefcase, ‘my presentation.’
‘What time will you be home?’
‘Late Sunday afternoon, I should think. I’ll give you a ring when I’m on my way.’
‘I may be out.’
‘Fine. You don’t have to hang around for me. I’ll have had lunch so I won’t want a big meal.’
‘Good.’
She followed him as he took his things out to the car and stowed them in the boot. ‘It’s cooler now. Nice for driving.’ She said nothing. ‘Shall I give you a ring to let you know I’m there?’
‘You’re going to Llandrindod Wells, Jack, not South America. Anyway, I’ll probably be asleep.’
‘Fair enough.’ He bent to kiss her cheek. ‘See you Sunday.’
As he started the car he called back. ‘Give Cassidy my apologies. Sorry to miss him’, but she had disappeared into the house.
He could not have been more excited if had been setting off for South America. All week,
as well as writing his speech, he’d been envisaging his return to The Welcome Stranger. Longing and subterfuge, in equal measures, create an intoxicating cocktail. He became restless and lost his appetite. Several times he’d burst into song whilst treating patients.
Sheila had remarked, ‘If I didn’t know you better Jack Waterfield, I’d think you were up to something.’ She’d peered at him, giving the distinct impression that she could read his thoughts.
‘See, I’m not as boring as you all make out.’ He’d attempted the double bluff but she’d looked at him even harder, forcing him to withdraw to the safety of the lavatory.
As a child, when he was moping about, wishing the days away to Christmas, birthday or their annual holiday in Tenby, his mother had always insisted that ‘To travel hopefully is better than to arrive’.
‘Enjoy today, John,’ she’d say. ‘Nothing ever lives up to expectations.’
What was she talking about? Those jewels of celebrations shone out, bright and beautiful, in a prosaic schedule of school, chapel, homework and household chores. Days when uncles sang and drank too much; when there were mounds of presents and double helpings of chocolate cake; when they voyaged to Caldy Island in the leaky boat or, screaming, taunted the freezing waves. How could such days ever fail to keep their promise?
The saying had been with him all week as he plotted his way back to Llangwm. Maybe it should be rephrased, ‘To travel hopefully is almost as good as arriving, but not quite.’ He could go along with that. And now, as he drove away from the city, towards the round-topped hills, glowing golden in the setting sun, he wanted to catch this sweet moment and ride it, as he’d seen the youngsters ride the surf in Cornwall.
