‘You even sound like her,’ she sometimes tells me. ‘You’ve got that way of talking they only have in old films. No one sounds like that any more.’ Then she pesters me to say the line again, in just that voice, and when I do she laughs delightedly. ‘I’ll never be able to do it right,’ she says. ‘I’m just not actressy enough.’ Then, with a glance at the wall clock which marks the end of her break, she launches into a wonderful impression of Bette Davis from All About Eve: ‘Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.’ And it’s perfect; she even looks a little like Davis with her eyes narrowed and her chin tilted at just that angle, holding her Biro like an elegant cigarette (courtesy of the non-smoking policy at Tesco’s). It occurs to me that she could almost be an actress; the brashness and the short skirts and the cheap jewellery just another device to hide the woman beneath. She likes Bette and Audrey, of course, but secretly she prefers the cool blondes, Grace Kelly and Catherine Deneuve; though, like me, she dislikes Marilyn Monroe.
‘I used to think she was classy,’ she admitted to me one day. ‘Now she just looks like another victim to me.’
Today, however, Cheryl is less talkative. She is dressed differently; under her Tesco’s overalls she wears simple black trousers and a rollneck sweater. The nose stud, too, is absent. Her hair is pulled back from her face, accentuating her cheekbones. I do not comment on this; our rules, though unspoken, are strict. We both hate snoops.
‘I’ll bring your toast in a minute, Miss Golightly.’
‘Thank you, Cheryl.’
The tea is just as I like it. There is something very safe about tea; very civilized. When Polly has her bad days, swearing and screaming and crying to be let out, I bring her tea on a flowered tray she remembers from home. It always calms her. Sometimes she clings to me and calls me Mum. I feed her dipped biscuits between my fingers. She looks like a baby bird.
I sometimes wonder about the other regulars here. There are about a dozen of them, though only one ever speaks to me. I don’t know his name, but I think of him as Eleven-forty, because that’s when he arrives. Like me, he has his table, close to the play area, and he often watches the children over his meal. Scrambled eggs, four slices of crispy bacon, two rounds of toast, marmalade and English Breakfast tea, milk, no sugar. I have no way of knowing whether he comes on other days, but I don’t think he does. He always wears a hat – a Homburg in winter, a Panama in summer – and beneath it his hair is white, but still abundant. We greet each other in passing.
The toast is perfect; neither burnt nor anaemic, and she knows I like to butter it myself. The teacake is fresh, and still slightly warm. Looking down, I see that Cheryl is wearing new shoes; flat ballet pumps which make her feet look smaller and more elegant. The rings have gone from her fingers. Curiously, this makes her look younger.
‘I’ll be on my break in ten minutes,’ she tells me. ‘We can have a chat then.’
‘I’d like that, Cheryl.’
I hope nothing has changed between us. I don’t judge anyone, you know; nor do I think any the worse of her now. I hope she knows that.
Her walk, in the flat shoes, is not entirely graceful. Her back is very straight. There is a kind of fierceness in her today, something which is not quite anger. I hope she does not think I have been prying. Watching her, I realize that she reminds me of someone, though I am not sure who it is.
Eleven-forty. I could set my watch by him. He stands in line with the others – regulars, both of them; a young couple with a child – and orders his usual. He is wearing a red carnation in his buttonhole, and I wonder whether this is a special occasion for him. An anniversary, perhaps; a birthday. He moves to his usual seat, but it is already taken; a red-faced man is eating sausage, toast and fried eggs and reading the Mirror. Eleven-forty looks around briefly, and it occurs to me that there is a free place at my own table. On any other day I might have asked him to join me. The café is almost full. But there is Cheryl to think of. As I turn away, my face hot, I hear him ask a woman nearby whether the seat opposite hers is taken. She mumbles an indifferent reply through a mouthful of scone.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me this morning. Perhaps yesterday’s late night, or the surprises that came with it. I feel dull and grey, like the sky. Something is different. Usually I feel better coming here; watching the people, listening to their conversations, smelling bacon and fresh coffee and scones. There’s so much life here. Tomorrow I will visit Polly at the Meadowbank Home and breakfast time smells dead there, like sour milk and stale cereal; almost a baby smell, but an ancient, sick baby with a hand like a claw on the sleeve of my good red coat, and no hope of any future.
I couldn’t sleep last night. That isn’t unusual at my age, and when it happens I sometimes get up and make tea, or read, or go for a walk around the block. It doesn’t often help, but it makes me feel that I’m using the time rather than wasting it; almost as if I’m getting those extra hours for free.
Polly dozes too much. Maybe she makes up for my inability to sleep; but I suspect they give her something to keep her quiet. I bring her lace nightdresses and quilted bed-jackets, but everything gets stolen at the Meadowbank Home, because no one remembers what belongs to them. One woman always wears three sets of clothes at once, to make sure no one takes them from her.
I try to find Polly’s clothes when I visit. I go into every room and check under the beds. Mrs McAllister is the worst; she hides things, or wears them, which makes retrieval very awkward, but I won’t let Polly get like the others. I make her get up and dress when I visit. I bring clothes for her to wear: proper shoes and stockings and suits. I have them dry-cleaned when they need it, and I sew name-tags into the linings.
It must have been thinking about Polly that did it. In any case, I woke up at two in the morning again, and couldn’t go back to sleep. I didn’t feel like watching a film or reading, and it was still too early for tea, so I got up, dressed, and went out. It’s usually quiet by then; the pubs are closed and the streets are cool and deserted. It’s only about a mile to Tesco’s, and sometimes I like to walk there and see the lights above the car park and the people moving about inside. The café is shut at that time, of course. But the rest of the shop is open twenty-four hours a day. For some reason I like that; to know that there are still people working, stacking shelves and doing inventories and getting the baking ready for the morning rush. They can’t see me looking in, but I can see them: floor managers and shopgirls and cashiers and stackers and cleaners. Sometimes I see a customer or two: a man buying milk and toilet paper; a girl with frozen pizzas and a tub of ice cream; an elderly man with dogfood and bread. I wonder why they come here so late; perhaps, like me, they can’t sleep. Perhaps they are night workers; or perhaps they enjoy looking out from those warm yellow windows and imagining someone standing outside.
So far, I have never actually gone into Tesco’s at night – as if the magic might be broken if I did. But I do like to watch. Sometimes I wonder what might happen if I met someone I recognized – Eleven-forty, for instance – doing the same thing. At two in the morning, anything seems possible.
Last night was chilly and damp. I wore my red coat, my gloves and a hat. I’m a good walker – I keep in practice – and in any case distance seems to follow different rules at night, because it didn’t seem long before I neared the car park. The big red Tesco’s sign looked like a sunrise above it. Occasional cars passed slowly along the dual carriageway, their headlamps sweeping the wet tarmac with diamonds. I saw a young couple crossing the road at the lights opposite me: a large man in jeans and a leather jacket, and a girl in a short skirt, a cropped top in spite of the cold, and built-up trainers. They seemed to be arguing. I was in shadow; as they passed under the arc of the big lights I saw the girl’s face, dark with make-up, like a negative of herself beneath the neon-lit hair. It was Cheryl.
Neither she nor Jimmy noticed me. They were talking rapidly, their raised voices slapping against the deserted tarmac in such a way that
I could not make out the words. I saw Cheryl pull away as Jimmy grabbed her arm – I caught the words No, not again, I’m not – but the sound of an oncoming car made the rest inaudible. The car was slowing down. Cheryl shook her head at Jimmy. I could see his angry yellow face in the light of the street lamp, and his mouth working. Cheryl shook her head again, gesturing at the road. Jimmy slapped her, once, hard. The sound reached me a fraction of a second later – clap – like ironic applause. I saw the man in the car, who had slowed right down to the kerb. Cheryl put a hand to her face. The car stopped.
I don’t suppose I should have interfered. As I said, I hate snoops. But it was her face – her young, familiar face, so brave and unexpected in the light of the Tesco’s sign – it was the way she does Bette Davis with a Biro instead of a cigarette; it was her dirty laugh. Most of all it was the realization that she had regulars other than myself; that maybe that was the reason she valued my company so much, minded her manners for me, and always called me Miss Golightly.
‘No, Cheryl!’ I had started forward before I even knew it. For an instant I saw her clearly – the O of her mouth, the wideness of her eyes. Jimmy turned to see who had called out, and when he did Cheryl pulled free and got into the car. I heard the tyres squeal against the wet road. A last glimpse of her, turning away, a hand pressed against the window. Then she was gone, and I was left alone with Jimmy.
For a second I knew a moment of panic. Then rage surged through me. Jimmy stared. He looked dazed and angry, his head thrust forward like that of a big animal. I wanted to say something that would cut him, but could think of nothing. All my words had been blunted. I felt suddenly close to tears.
We watched each other for a few seconds, he and I. Then he laughed. ‘What’re you doing here?’ His voice was unsteady, and I realized he was very drunk. Seen close up, he looked less frightening somehow, like an overgrown but overtired boy. I thought I could see confusion in his reddened eyes as he struggled to focus. I thought of the car and the way it had slowed down, crawling to the kerb. I thought of poor Cheryl, who had liked Pretty Woman before she discovered Belle du Jour, and who still believed in happy endings. Some happy ending, I thought bitterly. Some prince.
The prince leered at me drunkenly. ‘So what do they call you then, dearie?’
I think it must have been that dearie that did it for me. My contempt for him made me feel suddenly light again, once more certain of who I was. Tesco’s, in the rosy false dawn of its neon sign, looked like the biggest, brightest cinema in the world. I looked Jimmy straight in the eye and wondered how Cheryl – or anyone else – could be afraid of him.
‘They call me Miss Golightly,’ I said.
‘Good morning, Miss Golightly.’
The voice takes me by surprise. Eleven-forty has finished his breakfast and moves to sit opposite me, bringing his cup of tea with him. It is the first time he has addressed me by name. I must look startled, because he smiles apologetically.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’
‘Disturbing me?’ My voice sounds odd, wooden. ‘I—’ My eyes move to where Cheryl is wiping down a table. She does not seem to notice us, but her back looks unnaturally squared against us, her eyes resolutely lowered. Of course she has no way of telling whether I recognized Eleven-forty in the car last night; no way of knowing what I have already guessed.
As for Eleven-forty, he is unperturbed. He cannot have seen me standing by the roadside, for his manner is as polite and unassuming as ever. An occasional plucking of his fingers against the red carnation in his lapel is the only possible indication of nerves.
I butter my teacake. I don’t know what to say. His hypocrisy disgusts me.
‘I’m waiting for a friend,’ I say, too late.
‘So am I,’ replies Eleven-forty.
His eyes are blue, striking against the white hair. His hands are square and well shaped. He wears a wedding ring on his left hand. Behind me, Cheryl is a little too busy with a tray of sauce bottles. I wonder how long it has been since I last had breakfast with a man.
At the Meadowbank Home there are only half a dozen men. Most of them are quiet, though Mr Bannerman can be abusive. The nurses can handle him; they pay no attention to his lewd remarks. I’m glad his room is a long way from Polly’s, though; when she sees him she sometimes gets confused and calls him Louis. I try to explain to her that Louis died years ago, but she shakes her head and won’t believe me. I suppose that’s a mercy, really.
I know I shouldn’t feel guilty. All that happened so long ago, when we were still young. Louis was only twenty-six when he died; almost a boy. I’m not certain now that I even liked him. I hope I did, that it wasn’t simply the jealousy of an older sister that made me do it. He died the same summer; in a stupid sky-diving accident near Aix-les-Bains. An accident, that’s all it was; so many young men threaten suicide when a girl walks out on them, and whatever people thought, it wasn’t that serious between us. But Polly was never the same afterwards.
She still talks about him, on her good days; makes up stories about their life. How they married; had children; grew old together. She tells the nurses that the dress I bought her last Christmas is an anniversary present from him.
‘Louis never forgets our anniversary,’ she declares, with an echo of the old vivacious Polly in her voice. ‘He’d be here today if his business wasn’t always sending him abroad.’
My toast has gone cold. Condensation sticks it to the plate. I refresh my tea with hot water and pour in the milk from my little jug, trying not to look at Eleven-forty; pretending he isn’t even there.
But now Eleven-forty takes out his wallet and pulls out a small black-and-white photograph. He pushes it across the table towards me.
In the picture Cheryl looks about fourteen; a thin, sullen-looking girl with long brown hair. The woman standing next to her is old, small, dumpy; she could be anyone. The man, smiling straight at the camera, is Eleven-forty. On the photograph, I can finally see the resemblance.
‘You’re Cheryl’s grandfather?’ My voice hiccups stupidly, and a couple at the next table turn and stare at me.
He nods. ‘She ran away from home when she was eighteen. I spent years trying to trace her. Since then I’ve been coming here every Saturday just to see her. Hoping I can get through.’
So that’s why he comes here, I tell myself. Dressed in his Sunday clothes, with a flower in his buttonhole, like a suitor.
‘We said some stupid things, both of us. Things we were sorry for later. Things we couldn’t mend.’
‘Anything can be mended,’ I tell him; then, remembering Louis, I wonder.
‘I hope so.’ He finishes his tea. In the background the tannoy is playing the muzak version of a Henry Mancini theme. ‘She’s changed since she met you, Miss Golightly. I think you’ve done her good. Connected with her, somehow, in a way I couldn’t.’
‘We just talk about films.’
‘She told me all about it. Last night.’ His face is a sorrowful map of lines. ‘So much time wasted. So much time.’ He sighs. ‘She’s still with him, you know. The lad she left us for. Jimmy.’
That surprises me. Cheryl’s man never struck me as the faithful type.
‘They’ve split up any number of times,’ explains Eleven-forty. ‘She told me so. But they keep getting back together. This time, though, I really think I’ve got through to her. Last night—’
He often drives around at night when he can’t sleep. Absurdly, I want to tell him that I do much the same.
Cheryl is watching us from behind the counter. She has taken off her Tesco’s overall. I lift my hand, hoping she will come over. But just as she seems to make a decision she halts, and her eyes move towards the far corner of the room. Her expression becomes twisted with love and sadness. I turn my head to see.
Jimmy is standing at the far end of the café. He looks better than he did last night, in clean jeans and a white T-shirt. His head is slightly lowered. There is a little boy with him, seven or eight
at the most, in shorts and a Pokémon sweater. The boy is holding the big man’s hand, like a trainer leading a bear. I expect Jimmy to move, but he does not.
I see Cheryl hesitate. She looks at Jimmy and the boy. She looks at me. She takes a step forward. Eleven-forty, who has been watching too, makes as if to stand up. His face is tensed.
‘Cheryl!’ Jimmy’s voice sounds raw across the café chatter, like someone stropping a razor. I am certain now that he will walk over to us, but he stays where he is, his eyes following Cheryl as she moves to our table without a backward glance.
As she reaches us I see that her eyes are wet. She kisses Eleven-forty on the cheek. She looks different in her black clothes, with no make-up and her hair tied back; almost a stranger.
‘I thought I could make a new start,’ she says to me. ‘I’ve got a friend in London who says she can get me a cleaning job at the Palladium, to tide me over for a while. I might even be able to get onto one of those cinema courses in the evening. Get a qualification. Make something of myself.’ She grins, and I see a little of the old brash Cheryl again in her expression. ‘I’d like to get into acting, you know; even if it’s only sweeping floors or selling popcorn.’
In the corner, Jimmy does not move. I sense rather than see him; a big, hunched man with a defeated face. In a piping voice, the small boy asks for a Coke.
‘I would have told you, Granddad,’ says Cheryl to Eleven-forty. ‘I really would. But it’s been so long since – I didn’t know how to start.’
‘What’s the lad’s name?’ asks Eleven-forty.
‘Paul.’
He nods. ‘Good name.’
She smiles a little. ‘He’s named after you.’
So, I tell myself, his name is Paul. I wonder what his surname is. In all this time I haven’t asked Cheryl. I hope it is not too late now.
‘He’s a good kid,’ continues Cheryl with determined brightness. ‘Not all screwed up like his Mum and Dad. He’ll like it in London. Lots of things for a kid to see. It’ll work out. I know it will.’
Jigs & Reels: Stories Page 14
