by Jo Verity
She fiddled with the cuff of her sweater. ‘Oh, dear. You’re embarrassing me.’
‘Nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s the way it is. Thinking of you is part of my daily ritual.’
‘Like brushing your teeth?’ The words sounded flip. ‘Sorry. I’m rather thrown by all this.’
She’d thought of him too. Every day in the beginning and again, after Sam died. But there had been weeks – months – when she’d locked Paul Crosby away in a dark corner, out of thinking distance. Had he been free to meander, she couldn’t have coped.
He jumped up. How trim he was. Unlike Sam, he showed no hint of a beer belly, or a double chin.
‘I have something for you,’ he said. ‘It’s in the car.’
She stood at the front door watching him cross the road, reluctant to take her eyes off him in case he disappeared as suddenly as he’d arrived. The neighbours had drawn their curtains and streetlights were coming on. Naomi was due back in an hour, expecting a meal and an explanation for this stranger. An old school friend. Out of the blue. True, as far as it went. It was naughty of him, turning up like this. He should have warned her. On the other hand, she’d had no time to agonise over what to wear or what to cook. How to be. The car bleeped and flashed and he was coming back with a package beneath his arm. She’d expected flowers, or a bottle of wine but this was obviously neither.
‘It must be way below freezing,’ he said, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand. It would have been the most natural thing in the world to twist her head and kiss it but she resisted.
‘Here.’ He handed her the package.
It was solid, and heavier than she’d anticipated. A book? She stripped off the silver gift-wrap to reveal an expensive-looking wooden frame. The photograph it contained showed a group of youngsters outside a café.
‘Oh my God,’ she said.
She moved her finger across the glass. Bing. Emms. Colin. Barbara. Judith and Lisa scowling in unison. Little Pete at the back, holding up two fingers. She and Frankie in the middle, arms linked, laughing.
‘Like it?’ he said.
‘I love it. We’re all there. So who took the photo?’
‘We must have asked a passer-by. I still have the negatives.’
‘I remember that camera of yours. Every time I looked round, you were pointing the wretched thing at me.’ She held the photograph at arms’ length. ‘We thought we knew it all, didn’t we?’
‘Perhaps we did,’ he said. ‘Have you kept in touch with Frankie?’
‘I see her once in a blue moon. She’s extremely elusive.’
They sat together on the sofa, studying the photograph, remembering friends and clothes and school.
‘What happened to them?’ she said. ‘All those hopes and dreams. Judith and Lisa – d’you think they were gay? And Little Pete, didn’t he go to the Royal College of Music?’
‘Easy enough to find out,’ he said. ‘A few clicks. A few feelers on Facebook.’
‘You’re very up on that stuff.’
‘It has its uses,’ he said. ‘Did you never google me?’
‘Only after the party.’
‘Were you never curious?’
‘Of course.’
‘So why didn’t you?’
‘To be honest, it was easier not knowing.’
Her phone rang, letting her off the hook. ‘It’s my daughter,’ she said. ‘Won’t be a sec.’
She went into the hall and pulled the door behind her. ‘How was the film?’
‘Soporific,’ Naomi said. ‘We’re on our way to the car. Do we need anything? I can swing by M&S.’
‘No need,’ she said. ‘There’s bolognese in the freezer and we’ve yoghurt to eat up.’ In the background, she could hear Rosa and Max singing. ‘Oh, by the way, I’ve got a visitor. An old school friend.’
‘That’s nice. Will she be staying for supper?’
‘He. His name’s Paul. And I haven’t invited him yet.’
‘Paul. Intriguing.’
‘Not at all. As I said, he’s an old friend.’
‘They’re on their way back from town,’ she said when she returned to the living room. ‘Will you stay for supper?’
‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ he said.
‘Don’t be silly. I should warn you, though, it can get messy.’
He looked confused and she laughed. ‘My grandchildren are enthusiastic spaghetti twirlers.’
The children were wired, recounting every detail of the film, their voices getting louder as they tried to outdo each other. Max shot wary glances at the outsider whilst Rosa played big sister, correcting her brother at every opportunity. Paul gave them his undivided attention, asking pertinent questions as if there were nothing in the world more natural than a panda whose aim was to become a master of kung fu.
When they’d exhausted film talk, Max turned his attention to the photograph which was standing on the window sill. ‘What’s this, Gamma?’
Miriam explained that the photograph had been taken a very long time ago when she was a schoolgirl. ‘That’s me,’ she said, ‘and Frankie. You remember Frankie, don’t you? And there’s Paul.’
‘You were pretty,’ Rosa said, ‘and your hair was brown.’
‘I like it white,’ Max said, reaching out to touch her hair.
God she loved this child.
‘Shall I tell you a secret?’ Paul said. The children nodded and drew a little closer. Dropping his voice he said, ‘Your grandmother was the most beautiful girl in the school. In fact she looked a lot like you.’ He winked at Rosa and she was eating out of his hand.
Naomi, too, was clearly charmed by the handsome stranger whom her mother had never mentioned. He’s gorgeous, she mouthed when Paul’s back was turned.
Max was sprawled on the floor, arranging his collection of miniature zoo animals into a parade. ‘What’s for tea, Gamma? I’m starving.’
Before Miriam could say anything, Paul snapped his fingers. ‘I’ve just had an idea. Why don’t we get a takeaway? My treat.’
The children’s faces lit up and they turned to Naomi, seeking approval. She laughed and shrugged and agreed – ‘If that’s okay with Paul’ – and Miriam felt a surge of pride in this ‘gorgeous’ man who had, within minutes of meeting her family, won their hearts.
He turned to the children. ‘What d’you fancy? Pizza? Fish and chips?’
A while back, when the children were staying with David, he’d ordered Chinese food. This had arrived in a cardboard box shaped like a house, complete with pitched roof, the handle forming the chimney. Rosa and Max recalled nothing about the food but the box – now in the shed – had become an object of great desire. That’s what they wanted. ‘Chinese’ in a house-box. They didn’t know which establishment the meal had come from but, loath to let them down, Miriam called David and discovered it was (of course) The Chinese House. As they were winding up the conversation, Miriam considered inviting him to join them. He and Paul would get on famously. Then, in the background, she thought she heard a woman, singing softly, and let it go.
Paul asked The Chinese House if they could possibly deliver the meal in two houses. They did, and Rosa and Max – now each the proud possessor of a new greasy, smelly cardboard box – were mightily impressed by this person who was able to fix anything.
‘You’re not driving back tonight,’ Naomi said when they were in the kitchen rinsing out the foil containers ready for recycling.
‘It only takes a couple of hours,’ Paul said. ‘I’ll be home by eleven.’
‘We won’t allow it, will we Mum?’ Naomi said. ‘The kids can double up in Rosa’s room and you can sleep in Max’s bed.’
‘It’s very comfy,’ said Max who, despite appearing to be reading, was listening.
Miriam turned the clock-radio to face away from her, not wishing to be reminded that it was two-seventeen. She was exhausted but could not let go. Hardly surprising considering all that had happened in the past twelve
hours. Was Paul asleep or was he too mulling it over? It was a little different for him. He’d made the decision to come and had had time to prepare himself. All the same he must have wondered how she would take his appearing on her doorstep. And what would he have done if she’d not been there? Or had a new partner? Turned around and gone home again?
She rolled on to her front and shoved her arms beneath the pillow. For the first few minutes it seemed sleep might finally be on its way, but her neck – twisted to one side – began to ache and she fidgeted onto her side, pulling the duvet over her head to form a soft, dark cave.
When she’d pushed the note through the surgery letterbox, she’d imagined he might email or even phone. Perhaps suggest they meet for a drink next time she visited her parents. When she’d heard nothing, she’d been disappointed but not surprised. After all they’d not parted on the best of terms. But Paul Crosby, whom she’d last seen when she was twenty, had chosen to forget or forgive and driven a hundred freezing miles on the off-chance of finding her. Now he was here, sleeping in her grandson’s bed, on the other side of her bedroom wall.
In the brief time before Naomi returned, she’d discovered that he and Eloise met at a medical conference in Geneva. She’d been part of the team organising the event. They’d married in 1973 when Eloise was four months pregnant. Two more children. A peripatetic life as a hospital doctor and then a GP.
Then it was her turn. She told him, in the broadest terms, how Sam’s death had knocked her for six and she’d been forced to give up teaching. ‘I’ve got a job at the local art college. Part-time.’ ‘Doing what?’ ‘Oh, this and that.’
How could she explain her life with Sam when it no longer made any sense to her? And the modelling job. Did she want him – or, come to that, anyone else – to know? It wasn’t that she was ashamed of it. Her reason for doing it was to have something entirely her own. A secret. Proof that she had it in her to surprise herself. Would he understand that?
Lives were way-marked by momentous days. The predictable – births, marriages and deaths – and those acts of fate that altered everything. Seeing Paul walk across the road towards her would always be a landmark. Now everything was happening so quickly. Too quickly? Naturally she wanted him to get to know her family. Maybe not quite so soon – and not quite so well. Before introducing him to them, she’d have liked to time to catch up on the missing years. To take stock. To let her feelings settle. But it was perfectly fine. In fact, considering how smoothly it had gone, it was probably a good thing that it had been taken out of her hands.
At bedtime, they’d kissed and said polite goodnights on the landing but she’d half-expected him to concoct some excuse to knock on her bedroom door. With that in mind, she’d discarded her cosy pyjamas for her sexiest nightdress and dabbed scent between her breasts. What had she been thinking? Curled up in her snug cave, she went over it for the umpteenth time. Seeing him. Touching him. Smelling him. Wanting him. She was shocked how much she wanted him. In a few hours they would be eating breakfast together and… well, she had no idea where it might go from there. One thing she knew for sure, if she didn’t get some sleep soon she would look like nothing on earth.
10
Paul left after lunch, THE whole family standing at the front gate, waving him off as if he belonged to all of them. He’d offered Miriam a lift – ‘Come with me. It’d be a chance for you to see your parents’. She could think of nothing she’d like more than to be cocooned in a car with him, talking and talking for a hundred miles. But her parents would throw a fit if she turned up unexpectedly. Besides, she had to be back in time for school drop-off. As soon as she got there, she would have to start making her way home again – not straightforward by public transport.
A couple of hours later Paul phoned to let her know he was home. And again after supper to wish her goodnight.
‘I meant to ask you,’ he said. ‘Why “Paul”? Why not “Bing”?’
‘It seemed… I don’t know… as if I were taking something for granted.’
‘Mim,’ he said, ‘it’s me. It’s us.’
‘He’s absolutely gorgeous,’ Naomi said after his second call. ‘How come you’ve never mentioned him?’
‘Why would I?’
‘It sounds like it was pretty intense.’
‘Don’t be silly. We were school kids. Everything’s intense when you’re seventeen.’
‘How long were you together?’
‘Oh, I can’t remember,’ she said. ‘We were constantly swapping and changing. Before me, he went out with Frankie.’
‘So who dumped who?’
‘Whom,’ Miriam corrected her. ‘When we left school, we went our separate ways. And can you stop the interrogation, please?’
The children went back to school, Naomi to work and Miriam prepared to settle back into term-time routine. But everything was different. Pushing her trolley down Sainsbury’s aisles, or chopping vegetables for minestrone soup, or ironing Rosa’s school blouse, she imagined herself wandering with Bing (of course he was ‘Bing’) through Montmartre or along white-sand beaches. And when no one was around to read her mind, they tumbled together between fresh cotton sheets.
His gift took pride of place on the mantelpiece and she returned to it again and again. He must have more photographs from those sixth-form days. She did. She’d not exactly hidden them from Sam but for years they’d been in the loft, at the bottom of a box of linen tablecloths which she never used. When she had a moment, she must go to the storage place and fish them out.
‘Good Christmas?’ Callum said.
‘It was,’ she said. ‘I bumped into an old friend and it’s reminded me of the person I used to be. How about you? Did Father Christmas bring the right things for the twins?’
He told her about the Robertson family’s trip to Scotland and how he’d spent best part of three days helping his sons with the Airfix kits Father Christmas had delivered. ‘Then we had to get them home in one piece. Not straightforward with two boys and an over-exuberant dog in the car.
He started to walk away then turned back. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I was with a painter friend last week. Bob Moat. He’s on the lookout for a life model. A “mature person”.’ He hooked the air with his index fingers. ‘I said I’d mention it to you.’
‘Me? Gosh.’
‘He’d pay well. Better than this place, anyway.’
She was flattered. Sitting for a professional painter was a step up from a class of students, and Callum wouldn’t have suggested it unless he thought her up to it.
Today she was standing, extended left arm supported on a tripod-affair (not to be included in the drawing). It was a demanding pose. Now, for instance, her lower back and the muscles in her arm were beginning to twitch. The heating system was struggling against the January chill and Callum had rustled up a couple of heaters which he’d stationed close to her but they weren’t quite doing the job.
She had plenty to take her mind off her aches and goosebumps as she reached out into thin air. Bing had suggested a weekend get-together. He was on call which meant her going there. Her parents would be thrilled, if somewhat bewildered, to see her so soon. She must be up front about her reunion with Paul Crosby. They might not like it but they’d have to put up with it. They’d lost the right to object. After all, their preferred candidate had turned out to be a shit. They must accept at least some responsibility for what Sam Siskin had inflicted on her. Come to think of it, why should she worry what they thought? Over the years, their outlook had grown narrower and narrower, excluding everything not directly related to their own survival.
And now there was Callum’s flattering proposition. Were she to accept, it wouldn’t be for the money. Of course that would come in handy but she could probably earn as much without taking her clothes off. The artist’s muse. Wouldn’t that be something? When Bing asked what she did at the college, she’d fudged her answer. What would he make of it? A doctor couldn’t be shocked by nudity. On the other hand, n
aked ill people weren’t at all the same thing as naked well people. He might not like the idea of her being alone, unclothed, with a man. And why was she worrying what Bing thought, anyway? It was for her to decide.
‘The Moat thing sounds interesting,’ she said when she and Callum were walking to the car park.
‘Why not have a chat with him?’ he said and scribbled Moat’s number on the back of a flier.
They arranged to meet in the museum café. She made a point of getting there early, sitting at the table in the corner, screening the customers as they trickled in. Bob Moat. The name evoked a boxing promoter but Google images showed a stout, middle-aged man, more librarian than artist. He warranted a Wikipedia page. His work was held by various galleries and he’d been awarded several commissions. His paintings (without exception, the human figure) were, from what she could make out on the screen, visceral. Energetic. Flurries of swirling brush strokes. The man was definitely not a ‘Sunday painter’.
He arrived five minutes late, wearing a fake-fur hat with ear flaps.
‘Moat,’ he said, pulling off the hat to reveal a balding head, fringed with sandy-coloured hair. ‘And you’re Miriam Siskin.’
‘That’s me. How did you—?’
He glanced around. ‘Let’s be fair, you’re the only middle-aged woman here.’
