by Gill Hornby
‘Thank you… thank you… It was a team effort…’ It took Bennett for ever to get along the High Street these days, but he wasn’t complaining. Everyone out here was a potential customer; he would treat them with respect. Even this one.
‘Well.’ Sue was trying to give the impression of casually bumping into him; Bennett suspected, though, that she had been cruising for a while, hunting up and down Bridgeford like a U-boat in the Atlantic. ‘If it isn’t our local hero…’
‘Morning, Sue. How are you?’ He kissed her cheek, felt a prickle and pulled back.
‘Very curious, as a matter of fact. Very curious to find out what next for our own… our own… our own…’
She clearly wanted to say something deeply sarcastic but she couldn’t remember the words. The new, emboldened Bennett did not see why he should come to her rescue. He stood there patiently waiting.
‘Our own…’ Sue was going quite pink.
‘Morning, Ben,’ called Judith as she passed. ‘What a night, eh? See you next week.’
‘Um… er…’ Sue went pinker.
One of his new acquaintances went past with her buggy. ‘Is that a completely different baby or is he just extraordinarily advanced?’ He did enjoy practising his chit-chat, and he was really rather good at it now–he didn’t even sound that much like a German spy any more. He could pass for a native.
Sue now had the energy reading of a thermo-nuclear disaster.
‘Why don’t we have a cup of coffee?’ he asked her gently. ‘And I can tell you all about it.’
Sue strode purposefully towards the Copper Kettle, secure in the knowledge that she was leading him back into her territory; the café was about the last bastion of Susan St John Parker’s independent power. She opened the door and ushered him in, chatting happily now. ‘I never usually come here on a Friday morning–makes a change. We normally sit in the window over there. “Menopause Corner”, I call it.’
Bennett intended to put the cakes and pastries in the window, to attract custom, so that table would be going, but he was sure that wouldn’t bother her. Who in their right mind would want to sit somewhere called Menopause Corner, for heaven’s sake?
‘Ben!’
‘Benji!’
‘Hey, Benito!’
It took Bennett a while to get across and by the time he had finished recapping and receiving, she was sitting there drumming her fingers. ‘Rosa Parks.’ She got there. ‘Our very own Rosa Parks. So are you going to run for office?’
After all that, Rosa Parks was hardly the right analogy but he let it go. ‘No.’ He sat down opposite her. ‘In fact, I’m going into the catering trade.’ He picked up the menu and studied it while she spluttered and hooted and guffawed and shrieked.
‘You… you… Sorry.’ She stopped and wiped her eyes. ‘You, catering? Oh my God, I have to tell the kids. WHERE exactly? And, more importantly, to WHOM?’ She mopped at herself again. ‘If you let me know, I can tip the poor buggers off before it’s too late.’
‘Here.’ He looked around, at the brown wood chairs and the brown wood tables and the brown and orange splodgy material everywhere. He looked at the prettiness of Jazzy, swamped in a brown and splodgy uniform with a ridiculous mob cap upon her head, and once again got the frisson of excitement he always got when he thought about how he was going to turn this around. ‘I’m buying this place.’ Bennett knew that he was only a beginner when it came to interior design, but he was really rather pleased with what he had done to Priory Lane since he’d had it to himself. And although he wasn’t entirely sure he knew what he wanted The CK to look like, he did know exactly what he didn’t want it to look like and that was what it looked like right now: something from the 1950s.
Sue was for once properly lost for words. It didn’t seem to be that she couldn’t remember them, more that the words with which she might describe this cataclysm had not yet been invented. So he carried on: ‘The finances are all sorted. I signed the deal yesterday and in case you’re worried, you will be fine. I’m going to move into the flat upstairs. If you want to go back and live at home, you can do that, or we can sell it, whichever you prefer, and—’
Jazzy was now at their table, all smiles for Bennett and a very chilly shoulder for his ex-wife. ‘You missed a great rehearsal last night round at Tracey’s. Went on for hours. I’ve got the solo.’ She pointed her pen at the menu. ‘What can I get you?’
‘Coffee for me, please. How long are you thinking of working here, Jazzy? Is it permanent for you?’
‘Did you hear that, Nan?’ she called over to the next table, where an enormous old lady sat in in her wheelchair eating a giant cream puff next to a ragged, nervous woman with colourless hair the texture of garden twine and black holes around her eyes. ‘And Mum? This is my friend Bennett and he says how long am I here for?’
They all had a good chuckle at that. ‘Oh, Mr Bennett,’ explained the grandmother. ‘She’s going to be bigger than Beyoncé by Christmas.’
‘She’s going on The X Factor, aren’t you, love?’
‘They’re going to take one look at her and say, “I’ve got goose bumps all up me arms.”’
Jazzy wrinkled her nose at them in an ‘Ah, bless’ sort of way and turned back to Bennett. ‘Well,’ she began, holding up her right hand, ‘first, it’s the auditions in the summer, so I’ll just need the one day off for that–although there might be a bit of press afterwards. Then it’s boot camp–not sure how long that lasts.’ She counted up each separate stage, pulling on a different finger, as if they were just promotional rungs on the Civil Service ladder. ‘Then I’m through to judges’ houses: I dunno–a week? But after that it’s the live shows and, you know…’ She flicked her other hand in the general direction of the stratosphere she was off to.
That was it, thought Bennett with a pang. That was Jazzy’s career plan in its carefully thought-out entirety.
‘Of course I’m SO lucky,’ Jazzy smiled at him, still with her shoulder very deliberately pointed at Sue, ‘to have such a LOVELY FAMILY. I’m so grateful to have such SUPPORT.’ She wiped Bennett’s half of the table with deliberate care. ‘I would like to thank them now for everything they’ve done for me.’ She was, as Bennett believed they said in these circumstances, ‘welling up’. ‘They taught me that I must never give up on my dreams.’
‘Down here on planet Earth,’ said Sue, ‘mine’s a cappuccino.’
‘Hey, Mum,’ laughed a brown, blond, thin but muscular god. This wasn’t the real Billy. It couldn’t be. Not her Billy, anyway. This was some idealised Billy who had just popped up on the computer screen and flickered here before her. Or the A-list actor already cast to play Billy in the multi-million-dollar hagiography Billy: The Biopic.
‘Skype, eh? Crazy. Wow.’ He looked down and peered. ‘You’ve cleaned up. Mum. So not cool. It doesn’t look anything like home.’
Although Tracey had thought of him every hour of every day, she had found it increasingly difficult to hold on to the image of him in her mind. He had come to seem quite remote to her–like a fragment of a memory of a dream; and here he was, indeed, very remote from her: a stranger set against the clatter of an internet café in Rwanda.
‘How are you, love? It is incredible to be able to look at you. Tell me every, every single thing.’
‘Christ, Mum, it’s amazing. It’s like I never lived a proper day in my whole life until I came here.’
Tracey swallowed and tried to concentrate on everything he said, memorise it to go over later, but she could only stare at him, drink in his beauty, marvel at the miracle of his continued existence.
‘… until we built the bridge, they had to walk twenty miles just to…’
Her boy: bridge builder. What a hero. They would be making the biopic at some point, she was pretty sure of that now.
‘… running the little ones’ footie team. There’s this one kid…’
But who was good enough to play him? That was the question. Brad Pitt, possibly–bit old no
w, though. And nowhere near as handsome as the real thing.
‘… soon as the materials arrive then we’ll start on the new classroom…’
She needed to get across the next generation of superstars. After all, he was still so young, her Bills–and already saving the world.
‘… she’s got AIDS and six kids and she badly needs…’
All that fuss the school made about exams and qualifications and it turned out he didn’t need any of them. Billy had qualities that could only be brought out by a good home and a fine soul–compassion, wisdom, generosity, empathy. She sighed with happy pride. So he was never any good at maths? He had emotional intelligence, and that was the most valuable thing of all.
‘… I mean, that’s a real single mother, nothing like you…’
‘Well, it sounds heartbreaking, obviously. But I am still a single—’
‘… all that money from Dad pouring in every month. And that job of yours–one long jolly…’
‘Yes. I’m very lucky.’ Tears were dripping down her face, but he seemed not to have noticed.
‘I know, right. Honestly. You don’t know you’re bor—’
His image froze, and started to break up, and as suddenly as he had appeared before her, Billy was gone. She gripped the sides of the screen, screaming. ‘No! Don’t go. Don’t leave me. It’s not true. None of it. I have to tell you. Come back, baby. Please, please. Come back.’ But the line was dead.
Somewhere nearby there was an animal in pain. Its deep, from-the-pit-of-its-belly roar filled the room, a wall of noise that came in and in, closer and closer until she feared the force of it might crush her. Tracey had heard that beast before–on a Saturday night in a dilapidated, empty maternity ward in the hours before her only child was born; those loneliest hours of her loneliest years. And now, on a Saturday night at home years later, she was hearing it again. It was back.
She flung her head on to her arms and howled.
By half past nine, Tracey was already in bed–propped up on pillows, a glass of wine in her hand and sheets of music on her bent knees. She had worked through her regular recovery programme of an ice pack on the head, a brisk walk, a lavender bath–the one she always used whenever her world ended. And now she was returned to her normal, calm, gloomily cynical, singular self, trying to decide how many solos she could cram into ‘Happy’.
When the phone beside her rang, she immediately feared some sort of disturbance to her finely calibrated equilibrium and considered not picking it up. But that was a luxury she was no longer allowed. With Billy gone she could never ignore a ringing phone ever again.
‘Oh, good evening, Tracey, this is Bennett St John Parker here? From the Bridgeford Community Choir?’ He spoke up loudly and clearly–a minor royal volunteering at the telephone exchange during the General Strike.
‘Oh, hello, Mr St John Parker,’ she clipped back, stifling her giggles. ‘This is indeed Tracey Leckford. How may I help you?’
‘Um. Oh dear. Sorry. That sounded ridiculous. Perhaps I was a little nervous at what reception I might get.’
Tracey could almost taste the muscovado. Her tongue started to tingle; she ran it around her lips. ‘Don’t blame you. I was rude to you last week. I’m sorry. And hey, well done on the superstore–fantastic.’
He blathered on about the team effort and then got to his point. ‘But it did prevent me from coming round on Thursday, as I’d wanted to do. So I wondered–you did mention about going over stuff on the phone?’
‘Mmm. Course. I’d love to.’ She twisted the hair at the nape of her neck around her middle finger and sank a little further into the pillows. ‘But you don’t need me, surely? You’re already so accomplished—’
‘Do say if this is presumptuous, but it’s been on my mind for days now and I really want to know…’
‘Yes. What? Go on.’
‘… if you think this would make a good second song.’
Tracey felt a clunk of disappointment, but only the most minor and quickest of clunks. Because she heard him sit down at the piano and a soft rustle as he tucked his phone into his neck. And then he started to play. How did he know? What was he trying to do to her?
I’m sitting in the railway station
A sensation–not new, but long forgotten–of intense warmth came in through her toes, spread up along her limbs, wrapped around her hips, pressed itself between her legs.
Got a ticket to my destination
She couldn’t hold back a moment longer. She had to be part of it. She had to come in for the chorus. They had to do it together.
Homeward bound
Like all Simon & Garfunkel, the harmonies seemed quite shockingly natural–inevitable, even. Tracey entered at a minor fifth below him, brought her voice up right next to his tune, crossed over, went down again and rolled around beneath him once more.
Home, where my music’s playing
That warmth now had her completely in its grip–her body, her mind, her musical soul. She ran a hand over herself, felt the moisture between her breasts.
Home, where my love lies waiting
And gasped as his fingers ran over the closing runs, that last tender instrumental phrase.
Silently for me.
‘What did you think?’ he asked her, his voice cracking a little.
Tracey found it hard to talk, but she had to. This was her moment. ‘I think we need to just go over that again. Properly. Don’t you? Could you come over now, say? Sort of… um, yes… right now?’
‘I’m on my way,’ he said. And she could hear that he said it with his rather shy smile.
She hung up, stayed in bed, unable to move. The warmth was running out of her body like a lowering of the tide, and panic was rushing into its place. What had she done? This was absurd. Bennett’s voice and Bennett were two completely different beings: one was utterly irresistible; the other, well, oh dear…
Whatever was about to happen, though, she needed to face it fully dressed–that was for certain. Tracey jumped out of bed, reached into her laundry basket for that day’s knickers and then–purely on a whim, not for any sound or thought-out reason–rustled around in her top drawer for the only pretty set of underwear she happened to own. It was a struggle to remember what false hope had led her to buy this in the first place. She pulled on the black lace, clipped up the balcony bra. Suffice to say it had proved as powerful as a portrait in the attic: for the years that this had been shut beguilingly in her bedroom, her own sex life had simply stopped, frozen in time. Crossing the room to grab just any old thing from the wardrobe, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. That would never do. Even the most unimportant visitor, even for example Bennett, deserved just a bit of make-up: eyeliner, a smudge of shadow, a tiny bit of brow gel, a brush of mascara and lip gloss; blusher was the one thing she didn’t seem to need tonight. But now her hair was longer, it took that bit more combing and spray and what about clips, holding it off the left side of her face? Teresa V used to use clips, she seemed to remember. And Bennett used to liked Teresa V, which was of course neither here nor there. Oh no, what a disaster, there was the bell and she still wasn’t dressed. Her heart leapt. It was too late to do anything except spray scent all over her body–behind her knees, between her thighs, beneath her breasts–fling on her old silk kimono and fly down through the house as fast as her weakened legs could carry her.
She opened the door and for a fraction of a second they could only stare at one another.
Then: ‘Say something,’ she urged him.
‘It’s surprisingly warm,’ he came in and, with some force, shut out the rest of the world, ‘for the time of night.’
She jumped into his arms, wrapped her legs around his waist, linked her hands around his neck. He closed his mouth upon hers. Their tongues met. There was no time for the bedroom. There was no time for anywhere else at all.
He pulled away for a moment, held her face in his hands, said, ‘Look at you. Oh my gorgeous love. Just look at you,’
and then laid her down and lowered himself upon her.
‘Thank God,’ whispered a narrow, disappointing part of her brain. ‘Thank God we cleared the stairs.’
She watched the morning light play on the pattern of the curtains and stroked the arm that was draped over her chest.
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked her.
‘Tsk.’ She tapped him. ‘It’s been a while, and I’m no expert, but I do believe that that’s the first law of dating: never ask what they’re thinking. But. I was thinking, how on earth did Simon and Garfunkel come into your life? How did they battle through the thickets of your requiems and your misereres and your Eurovisions and come to your notice?’
‘Ah. Good question. They came to me, actually, through my requiems and my misereres.’
‘Doh.’
‘They did. You know, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was written as a hymn… My choirmaster loved them, used the harmonies as exercises in choir practice.’
‘Ha!’ She rolled over on to his stomach and beamed a triumphant smile. ‘That’s why we have to be a pop choir, see? All music leads to pop. Like I said… So what were you thinking?’
‘Hmm? Me? Oh. I was just thinking about a clothes rail.’
‘You see! This is why you should never ask! A clothes rail? A bloody clothes rail?’
‘Yes, have you considered getting one at all?’ He stroked her hair, his eyes following his fingers as they moved. ‘They offer the simplest solution to extra storage and I couldn’t help noticing that there are clothes all over your floor.’
‘A lot of those, Bennett, are on the floor because we had pre-tty nice sex last night and ripped them off each other. Should this ever happen again, would you rather we halt proceedings for a bit while we hang everything bloody up? I mean, you know, whatever turns you on…’
He smiled and bit his bottom lip. ‘I’m pretty sure there was already a layer there before we—’
The doorbell rang.
‘Oh, no. It’s nine thirty on a Sunday morning. This is getting a bit much.’ Their bodies had been pressed together for so long that it hurt to peel them apart. Tracey had rather hoped to stay in bed all day; in fact, she wouldn’t have minded staying there for the rest of her life. Grumbling, she pulled on last night’s knickers and threw over a shift dress. ‘I’ll see them off. Be right back.’ She kissed him on the mouth and skipped down the stairs.
