Old Friends, New Friends

by Margaret Thornton

  Lisa admitted that there was no one special in her life. She had attended an all-girls grammar school and sixth form and had never had much contact with the opposite sex. Debbie concluded that her parents had been somewhat overprotective of her, their only child. She, Debbie, had been an only child too, and had known what it was like to be cherished and worried over. She had rebelled though, kicking over the traces from time to time, something she could not imagine Lisa doing. She felt sure that Lisa would meet someone who would be attracted by her fair prettiness and her air of fragility.

  ‘What about a visit to the pub tonight?’ suggested Karen, when they had cleared away what seemed to be a mountain of washing up. (They had already decided on beans on toast for tomorrow.)

  ‘Great idea!’ said Fran. ‘Ralph and I noticed one on the main road, not very far from here. It’s probably one of the places where the students hang out.’

  Debbie saw a look of apprehension, almost horror, on Lisa’s face. ‘What’s the matter?’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you like the idea?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve never been inside a public house. I know my parents wouldn’t approve. I don’t know what to do.’

  Karen had overheard her. ‘Your mam and dad aren’t here, are they?’ she said, not unkindly. ‘There’s nowt wrong in going to a pub, and you can drink lemonade or orange juice if you like. We’re not going to lead you astray, luv. I don’t suppose any of us are what you’d call drinkers. Can’t afford it, can we?’

  ‘I like a gin and tonic or a dry Martini,’ said Fran, ‘but it’s the ambience of the place that’s important. We won’t know what it’s like until we’ve tried it. Don’t worry, Lisa, dear; we’ll take care of you. Are we all agreed then? We’ll get on our way when everyone’s ready.’

  Debbie had decided that Fran was a kind person. She appeared a bit toffee-nosed at first, but ‘her heart was in the right place’ as her mother, Vera, might say.

  They locked the door of the flat and went downstairs, Fran offering to take charge of the key. As they reached the bottom, the door of the downstairs flat opened and three young men came out. They all stopped and looked at one another, then there was a chorus of hellos and jumbled conversations.

  ‘You must be our new neighbours …’

  ‘We only arrived today …’

  ‘We’ve been here since yesterday, haven’t we, chaps?’

  ‘What do you think of it then?’

  ‘Not so bad; could be a lot worse …’

  The young men introduced themselves as Alistair, Ben and Neil.

  ‘We’re off to the pub,’ said Alistair, the tallest of the three, and the one who seemed to be the chief spokesman. ‘Would you like to come with us?’

  ‘Great! That’s just where we’re going,’ said Fran.

  So they all set off together to the Red Lion, a popular meeting place situated on the main road leading out of the city.

  Six

  The students were granted a long weekend at the beginning of November, a half-term break midway between September and Christmas. They could, if they wished, go home each weekend, but some students had lectures on a Saturday morning, and it was not worthwhile for others who lived a good distance away.

  Debbie had not yet spent any weekends away from Leeds. On Saturday mornings she was busy, with the rest of her group, gaining practical experience in the college garden. Her parents understood that she would not be going up to Northumberland until Christmas when they had a fortnight’s break. She had been invited to Aberthwaite for the half-term weekend to stay with Fiona and Simon. It was actually Simon who had invited her. He had told her that Fiona’s depression had not improved, even though they now had someone helping with the children on a permanent basis. Speaking with him on the phone, Debbie thought he sounded tense and worried. He assured her that she would not be adding to Fiona’s problems by staying with them; rather, he hoped that her company would do Fiona a world of good. She had agreed to travel to Aberthwaite on the Thursday afternoon after lectures finished, and return on the Monday ready to start her studies on the Tuesday. There was a service bus from Leeds to the northern dales, so she would not need to trouble Simon to collect her.

  By the beginning of November they had been at college for two months, and the four young women had settled down nicely together. Debbie found that she had become the recipient of confidences from her flatmates. Not so much from Fran, who spent most weekends away from Leeds, with her fiancé, Ralph.

  Karen, though, had confided in Debbie about the significant person in her life. As Debbie had guessed, it was Charlie, her boss, the owner of the garden centre where she worked. She had also guessed correctly – or almost so – about the complication in the relationship.

  ‘One problem is that Charlie is quite a lot older than me,’ Karen told her one Saturday evening as they chatted together over their supper drink of hot chocolate; Fran was away for the weekend and Lisa had retired to bed early with a slight cold. ‘Well, p’raps not an awful lot; depends on how you look at it. He’s thirty, twelve years older than me. That’s not really the main problem, though …’

  She hesitated, looking at Debbie so anxiously that she had no qualms about asking, ‘What is it, Karen? He’s not married, is he?’

  ‘Well … he has been married,’ Karen answered. ‘He’s divorced now, and he’s got a three-year-old son. Little Alfie; he’s a real smashing kid. Charlie has to bring him into work sometimes when his mam – Charlie’s mam, I mean – can’t look after him.’

  ‘So … you’re saying that the little boy isn’t with his own mother?’ asked Debbie. ‘That Charlie has custody of him?’

  ‘Yes, he’s got custody of him. His wife ran off and left him with Alfie when he was only a year old. A right flibbertigibbet she was, that Daphne! I never could stand her. Anyroad, Charlie had no trouble getting a divorce, and the judge didn’t hesitate about letting him have the kid. His mam looks after Alfie most of the time. She lives nearby, but there’s the odd time she can’t manage it. Then Charlie leaves him with me; he helps me wi’ t’ plants, an’ he has his own little watering can, bless him!’

  ‘So you and Charlie got friendly then, did you, after the divorce?’ asked Debbie. She was thinking that the girl would be taking a lot on: a divorced man with a young child. All the same, she had come to the conclusion that Karen was a very capable girl.

  ‘Yeah … we got friendly,’ said Karen, smiling and blushing slightly. ‘He took me out for a posh meal, to say thank you for looking after Alfie. He said he didn’t know what he’d do without me. And … well … we got quite close, if you know what I mean. Nowt wrong; I don’t mean that we’ve done … that. He’s a decent sort of a bloke, is Charlie. But I think I know what he’s got in mind. That’s why he insisted I should do this course, then I’d be qualified to help him to run the place, and then … who knows?’

  ‘He’s young, isn’t he, to own a garden centre?’ enquired Debbie.

  ‘His father retired, and Charlie took it over. He’s their only son, you see, and his father’s quite elderly, a lot older than his mother. They bought a little bungalow, not far away, and Charlie lives on the premises with Alfie.’

  ‘So you’ll be looking forward to seeing him next weekend,’ said Debbie. ‘Will you be staying with him?’

  ‘Oh no; there’s nowt like that; not yet, like I told you. I’ll be staying with me mam and dad, but Charlie says he’s missed me, and he’s longing to see me again.’

  Karen certainly looked starry-eyed; a girl who was very much in love. Or, Debbie wondered, was it just the idea of being in love that made her look like that? ‘Falling in love with love …’ as the words of an old song went.

  She, Debbie, was no longer sure that she had been in love. She had imagined that Kevin was the one for her. But she had been only fifteen years old when she first met him. She wondered now, with all the wisdom of her eighteen years, how she could have been such a crazy kid. And now … well … already there were two m
ore young men for whom she was feeling rather mixed emotions.

  That first evening in the Red Lion had been a happy time when the girls from the upstairs flat became acquainted with their neighbours from the ground floor. There were three girls and four young men. Not that there had been any idea of pairing off. They all got to know one another, talking about the various courses they would be doing and their future plans.

  Debbie and Alistair, who was the oldest and most talkative member of the trio, had discovered that they were both studying landscape gardening and would be attending some of the same lectures. Debbie had felt an immediate attraction to him, but then who wouldn’t? He was the stereotypical ‘tall, dark and handsome’ man with a sparkle in his eye and a roguish grin. She had learnt that his father was a partner in a firm of landscape gardeners and that he would be joining them as a junior partner after he had finished the course. He had already been employed there since he left school, starting from the bottom as a labourer and learning the various skills attached to the work.

  Debbie had got to know him better and to like him more as they attended the study groups together. She had been wary of him at first, wondering if he might be too handsome for his own good. He seemed to be friendly with everyone, treating all the girls he met in the same cheerful, light-hearted way. There were, understandably, more men than women on many of the courses. With the men as well, he was the same friendly and good-natured bloke.

  Debbie told herself that she must face up to it; Alistair Kenyon was not interested in her as anything more than a fellow student. If he had been he would have made a move before now. Anyway, she shouldn’t be thinking about him at all. She had resumed her friendship – one that had never really got under way – with Graham Challinor. He had sought her out when she had been in Leeds for a couple of weeks. By that time the girls had filled in the card next to their door bell with their names, so that visitors would know which bell to push.

  It was just after seven thirty on a Tuesday evening when they heard the sound of the doorbell, an unusual enough occurrence to make Debbie exclaim, ‘Now, whoever can that be?’

  They didn’t get many visitors. Fran’s fiancé sometimes called unexpectedly, or, in the morning the postman might ring if he had a parcel to deliver; Debbie’s mum had sent a parcel a couple of times, containing a home-made fruitcake or gingerbread. The lads from downstairs came up now and again, usually if they ran short of something in the kitchen, but they didn’t need to ring the bell; they just ran up the stairs and knocked on the door.

  ‘We won’t know unless we go and see, will we?’ said Karen. ‘Shall I go? Or do you think it might be your Ralph giving you a surprise, Fran?’

  ‘No; I only saw him on Sunday,’ replied Fran. ‘Actually, we had a bit of a tiff and we parted on not very good terms. I’d be very surprised if he came to apologize, knowing Ralph.’

  ‘You don’t sound very upset,’ Karen remarked.

  ‘I’m not. It’s happened before and it always blows over. We’re too much alike, Ralph and I.’ Fran shrugged. ‘I’m not losing any sleep over it.’

  It was the first time she had mentioned the argument. Fran played her cards very close to her chest and, unlike the others, didn’t confide much about her personal life.

  ‘Well, whoever it is, they’ve been waiting long enough whilst we’re wasting time wondering,’ said Debbie. ‘I’ll go and see …’

  The young man on the doorstep was raising his hand to ring again when Debbie opened the door. It took her a moment – only a few seconds, though – to realize who it was, although the possibility of him coming had been on her mind since she arrived in Leeds.

  ‘Don’t you know me?’ he said, laughing at her surprised face.

  ‘Of course I do,’ she replied, recognizing the tall, dark-haired young man with the longish nose and strong features: a good-looking fellow in a rugged and rangy sort of way. ‘Graham! How lovely to see you!’

  She had not seen him, in fact, since the occasion of the triplets’ christening when the two of them, along with his brother, Greg, had been godparents to the babies. And before that they had met only once, on that momentous weekend when Fiona had given birth, so unexpectedly, to the triplets. It was not surprising, therefore, that he should appear a little different in her eyes: slightly older and with longer hair. He leaned forward, kissing her gently on the cheek.

  ‘I thought I’d come and look you up – Simon rang to tell me where you were – to see if you’d like to go for a drink and a chat?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she replied. ‘Come up and meet the others …’

  She had discovered on first meeting him that Graham was not so extrovert as his half-brother, Greg. However, he chatted quite easily with the other three girls. Lisa did not say very much, just smiled pleasantly and answered when a remark was addressed to her. She had come out of her shell quite a lot, however, since embarking on her life away from home, although she was still a little shy of someone new.

  Karen was the one with the most to say. ‘Excuse the mess, won’t you, Graham?’ she said, although the room was not really too untidy. Debbie realized that the others had had a bit of a scramble round picking up the debris – unwashed mugs, papers and books and items of clothing – from the floor and straightening the cushions before she had reappeared with Graham. ‘Four women living together; well, you can imagine, can’t you? Although Francesca here tries to keep us in order, don’t you, Fran?’

  Graham smiled. ‘Looks OK to me. You should see the state of my place sometimes, and there are only two of us. I’m sharing a flat with a friend I met at uni. We don’t work together – he’s an accountant – but we rub along all right together, and it saves on the expense. We’re only renting, of course, but I shall try to save up and get a place of my own … Now, Debbie; shall we go and catch up with all the news. It’s been nice meeting you all. See you again sometime …’

  Debbie had enjoyed herself immensely that evening. She found that the liking and the attraction she had felt for Graham when she first met him was still there. They had walked further along the main road towards Headingley. Graham’s flat was not far away, but he did not invite her there that evening. They found a little pub, one that was not overflowing with students, and talked easily together over his pint of lager and a shandy for Debbie, renewing what had started a couple of years ago as a tentative friendship.

  Graham was twenty-one, three years older than Debbie. He was enjoying his work as the junior member of a firm of architects near to the Leeds city centre. They had a significant interest in common, in that Graham’s forte was for house design, and Debbie was discovering that her talent, with regard to landscape gardening, lay more with the designing than the more practical side.

  He walked her home that first night, and kissed her gently on the lips as they said goodnight. He had invited her to go with him to a brass band concert that was being held at Leeds Town Hall in two weeks’ time. That, also, had been an enjoyable time for the two of them. Graham had learnt to play the French horn whilst at school, and had played in a band at university. He was now on the lookout for an amateur band that he could join.

  They met just once more before Debbie was due to go to Aberthwaite; a visit to the cinema in Leeds to see a re-run of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a film they had both enjoyed previously. They ended the evening with a visit to one of the many pubs in the city, then Graham walked her home. She did not invite him up to the flat, neither had he made any move so far to invite her to his place. Once more he kissed her goodnight, a little more ardently this time, and she felt herself responding to him. But it seemed to be a question of so far and no further.

  ‘Give my regards to Fiona and Simon,’ he said, knowing she would be visiting them the following weekend. ‘I hope Fiona’s feeling better by now; Greg says she’s not been feeling too well. Not surprising, though, with three – no, four – young children. And give little Mark a special hug from me!’

  Mark, the young
est by some ten minutes of the two boy triplets, was the one that Graham had held, rather gingerly, at the christening. Debbie, Greg and Graham, though, were officially godparents to all three children.

  ‘Will do,’ said Debbie. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him once more, very casually, on the cheek. ‘Bye then, Graham,’ she said in a light-hearted way. ‘Thanks for a lovely evening. See you when I come back, maybe?’

  ‘Yes … sure,’ he replied. ‘Thank you, too, Debbie. I’ve really enjoyed it. Er … next time, perhaps you could come and have a meal with me at my place … if you would like to? I’m getting to be quite an expert at this cooking lark. I think I can promise you rather more than beans on toast.’

  ‘Thanks; that’ll be great,’ she said, trying not to sound as though it was what she had been waiting for. But it was certainly a move in the right direction.

  She was not sure what the state of play was with Graham. Was she ‘going out’ with him – to use the common parlance – or not? She guessed there was no one else of significance in his life; he was not the sort of fellow to have a string of girlfriends. He was obviously the sort of young man who preferred to take things nice and slowly. And there was no harm in that. She had decided all too quickly that she was in love with Kevin, but her possessiveness had only served to annoy him. She would tell Fiona and Simon that she had seen Graham and would pass on his good wishes, without giving any suggestion that they might be ‘a couple’.

  All four of the flatmates would be away for the long weekend. Fran would be in Macclesfield, although she had not said whether she would be staying with Ralph or at her own place. She, of all of them, was the most secretive about her personal affairs.