by Ruth Thomas
It’s funny, the way people orbit each other without ever knowing how close they are. I’ve never fallen for Jeremy Bowes, but I do hope I bump into him in one of the hotel’s corridors. I hope he’ll be wearing that waistcoat and those boots.
*
The slope of Calton Hill looms, yellowish-green to my right. I cross the road at the pedestrian crossing and walk past five squat bronze statues in the shape of pigeons. There is a cast of some pigeon feet where the sixth statue used to stand. A long-faced busker is standing beside the pigeon statues, strumming a banjo and singing a cheery tune. ‘The First Cut is the Deepest’.
‘I would have given you all of my heart,’ he sings merrily, ‘but there’s someone who’s torn it apart …’
His banjo plinks. His dog lies beside him on a tartan rug.
My own heart feels too full, like an overstuffed filing cabinet. I think of Joe packing plants into boxes in his flat. I need to not mind that my son is going to live in San Francisco. Because I know what it is like to have anxieties pinned on you. Too many anxieties pinned upon a person can be damaging.
So I mustn’t mind my son’s departure. He is going to be a satellite son now, a phone-call son. A son living in an unimaginable suburb on the West Coast of America. Maybe he will own a hot-tub, a fast car, go jogging, get married, have an affair, drink root beer.
*
Now I can’t think which direction I should be facing. I have always had terrible bearings. And how long have I been out? What time, exactly, did I leave Joe’s flat? There are spots of rain in the air and the dampness is filtering through my coat. I stop walking to try and work out where Joe’s flat is. The busker is smiling at me as he sings. I throw a fifty-pence piece into his cap.
‘You’ve a kind heart, hen,’ the man says, and I feel ashamed.
I turn and walk on, down Leith Walk. I hope it is the right way. But after five minutes, after I have walked past a pub called the Boundary Bar, a tattoo parlour and a number of boarded-up shops, I doubt it.
I am turning back, panicking a little, when my mobile phone rings in my bag. A silly tune: ‘Bobby Shafto’s Gone to Sea’. Joe programmed it for me. Relieved, I take the phone out and answer it, at the end of ‘silver buttons on his knee’.
‘Rowena?’
‘Hi.’
‘Walking purposefully or wandering aimlessly?’
‘Walking purposefully, of course.’
‘Amazing. Because you forgot your A-to-Z. And Joe’s address. And the hotel key. You left them on the edge of the bathtub.’
Kenneth is not like a lot of men. He is practical. He carries with him useful pieces of information: addresses, phone numbers. This is not to say that he is boring. I have discovered, over the years, that the men you think are exciting sometimes turn out to be the boring ones. And vice versa.
‘So. Here’s Joe’s address,’ Kenneth says, reading it out.
‘Thanks.’
I write it down in my diary with a biro miraculously stowed in my bag. ‘Thanks. I’ll ask someone for directions.’
‘See you then,’ says Kenneth. ‘Oh – and could you get a pint of milk? Joe seems to have run out.’
‘OK. Kenneth?’
‘Hello?’
‘Shall we go out for dinner tonight? The three of us?’
‘That’d be nice.’
‘Maybe we could book something. Because we haven’t really had a posh dinner yet, have we, and he’s …’
‘Yes, I know.’
I pause.
‘Well, anyway,’ Kenneth says. ‘We’ve got to take those plants to Oxfam before it shuts.’
‘Sorry? Oh. OK.’
I had almost managed to forget about the plants –
‘Dinner’s a good idea.’
‘Yes.’
– and now I feel sad again at the thought of Joe saying goodbye to them.
Twisted Chain
On the morning of her flight, she opens her wardrobe and looks at the empty space where the green dress used to hang.
‘I’ve had a bit of a clothes clear-out,’ she says to Pearl in the kitchen. ‘Some of my old dresses and things. They were just hanging there, unworn. And I know you wouldn’t have wanted them.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ says Pearl. She is sitting at the table reading a magazine.
‘Cup of tea?’
‘Mm-hmm.’
Pearl sits so still sometimes while Sally rushes around. She looks at her monkish daughter (hood up again) and smiles and is aware of a kind of pulling-away. They are like people on small ice floes which have begun to move apart.
*
When she was younger she used to float around her parents’ house like Pearl, interminably philosophising. Life was a puzzle. What? What was life about?
Actually she still wonders.
‘Bra,’ she says as she packs her rucksack at the end of the table, ‘knickers, socks, notebook, needle cases …’
She really has no idea what to take. She has promised to take her embroidery as part of her ‘illustrated talk,’ but there is so much of it now, with so many threads and needles stuck into the canvas. ‘Mary and Martha’ will take up half her luggage allowance. And what is she really supposed to talk about? Embroidery silks? Types of canvas? Stitches? Sequins? The letter she received from the Embroiderers’ Guild mentioned ‘an informal discussion, lasting no more than twenty minutes, about your current work and what the award has meant to you.’ But now she is not sure what it means to her. How can she articulate that? It was nice, yes, it was nice to get the money and the accolade. What more can she say? She can’t stand on a stage for twenty minutes saying it was nice, like that woman – who was it? Lady Mary someone? – whose famous last words were ‘It was all very interesting.’
Pearl shifts her position at the table, away from the thud of luggage.
‘Don’t forget your gym shoes tomorrow,’ Sally says, a pair of folded socks in her hand.
‘Why do you always think I’m going to forget things?’
‘I don’t. I was just reminding you, sweetheart.’
She pauses, trying to collect her thoughts.
‘If Dad’s not about much you can always go to Nana and Grandad’s after school. If you feel like it. They’d love to see you.’
And she comes round to Pearl’s side of the table and places her cheek against her hooded head.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because –’
‘Nothing’s wrong.’
*
Before setting off for the airport she leaves Pearl a list on a Post-it note.
My mobile number
My hotel number
Nana and Grandad
Dad’s new number
‘I won’t be away long,’ she says brightly, her heart tight. She feels tearful. ‘You can always go round to Nana and Grandad’s.’
‘Yes. You did say, Mum.’
‘Because I know Dad’s quite caught up with work at the moment …’
She thinks of John, metal shavings clinging to his beard. Waiting for their daughter in his small, messy Fiat. Flux on the dashboard. Cupcake cases in the side-pockets.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
Sally clutches the yellow Post-it note. She is comforted by lists: dates, numbers, plans.
*
The bus takes the long route through town. They drive very slowly past the shops. Today some of the staff in Woolworths are arranging a Christmas display. Fibre-glass reindeer and polystyrene snow. A shop assistant is struggling with a large, plastic sledge.
Sally has never actually gone to Woolworths for any of her haberdashery requirements. She is unwilling to walk through the doors. It is, she supposes, because Woolworths was where Rowena and Colin had first spoken to each other. All in the past now, of course, all in the past.
But she still remembers how perturbed she was, how high and abnormally che
erful her voice had sounded that day.
‘Hi, Ro!’ she had chirped as she and Colin had walked in. Because there was no way to ignore her: Rowena had been standing right there in the pic’n’mix aisle. Confident, indisputable, scooping Black Jacks and Fruit Salads into a stripy paper bag.
Rowena had looked up. ‘Hi, Sal,’ she said.
‘This is Rowena,’ Sally informed Colin, frowning at the Flying Saucers dispenser, selecting her own paper bag and hurling a huge pile of them into it.
Colin looked at Rowena. ‘I’ve seen you before,’ he said, ‘hiding behind a tree.’
‘Oh,’ said Rowena.
Don’t look at me, don’t look at me.
Colin looked at Sally.
‘Hot in here isn’t it?’ he said.
‘I’ve just remembered,’ Sally replied, throwing the scoop back into the Flying Saucers. ‘I need some blank tapes.’ And she scuttled off, crab-like, to the music aisle. Hiding behind a display of Commodores albums, she skulked while her heartbeat slowed and her face cooled down. She watched Rowena and Colin talking to each other. What were they saying? Were they talking about her? And now, oh God, they were laughing! And Rowena was putting a Black Jack into her mouth in that sweet, nonchalant way she had!
Woolworths was where it began to go wrong, that’s what it is. It was where her best friend began to change.
Sally had picked up a pack of three blank tapes and stomped back to the pic’n’mix aisle. It was all too bright, too bright and glaring under the fluorescent lights, but she had to go back.
Colin did not seem to notice her return. He and Rowena were still talking: they were joking about the identical bored expressions of the women behind the tills. They are sharing something I am not a part of. I have never joked like that with him.
‘Hi, Sal,’ Rowena said.
‘Hi,’ she croaked. ‘I found some.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Blank tapes. I’m going to tape Colin’s Clash album.’
‘Oh.’
‘Are you?’ Colin asked her. He seemed rather annoyed.
Rowena looked at him, smiled and said, ‘Not my cup of tea, the Clash.’
‘Really?’ Colin smiled back. ‘You’re missing out.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Somebody should enlighten you.’
‘Should they?’
This happened on a Friday, Sally recalls: the last Friday of September 1979.
*
Colin had been waiting for her that evening in the Rialto foyer, leaning against the window ledge, looking at the leaflets advertising East Grinstead’s cultural life. The scar on his hand made him look old, experienced. Sally felt alarmed suddenly, jangled, out of her depth. She hesitated, wondering whether to let the heavy glass door swing back again.
Then Colin smiled and waved.
‘Hi,’ she warbled, her voice cracking slightly. She cleared her throat and walked towards him, a big, lip-glossed smile on her face.
‘Hi,’ he chirped, offhand. He was wearing his worn grey coat and he had not washed his hair; it was lank and dull, but that did not matter. Things like that were what she loved about him. Of course, she couldn’t get away with greasy hair. That was not the point at all.
‘Why do you wear such a long scarf?’ he asked, apropos of nothing.
She tried to think of a quickfire response.
‘They keep your neck warm,’ she blurted.
‘I can do that.’
There was a short moment of staring and silence.
‘Apocalypse Now’s sold out,’ he said.
‘Oh. That’s a shame.’
‘So. We can either watch The Black Stallion with a load of kids,’ Colin said, looking up at the billboard, ‘or we could go for a pizza.’
‘Well, seeing as you’ve painted such a tempting picture,’ Sally replied, rising to the challenge, ‘shall we go for the pizza?’
And she took his proffered hand and felt temporarily sophisticated. The thought of watching some horse-related story in the dark was vaguely comforting, whereas eating pizza with Colin Rafferty would, she knew, be a challenge. She would have to be scintillating and beautiful and mysterious all the time she was tucking cheese strands into her mouth, and the idea exhausted her. She would be constantly scared that her sophistication would slip; or that someone, some friend or relative or acquaintance of her parents – some spy – would notice them. ‘Hello, Sally,’ they would say, propelling themselves towards their table.
‘Shall we go to Caruso’s, then?’ Colin asked.
‘OK,’ she piped, hurrying in his wake, aware that she had an eyelash in her right eye and wondering if it looked bloodshot. It felt bloodshot. She shouldn’t have borrowed Rowena’s eyelash curlers.
*
Caruso’s was hot and red and white. The lights glared unromantically on the tables, around which sat groups of young men out for a night of beer and cheap food. There were very few romantic couples. None, in fact.
‘Table for two?’ asked a waiter, striding quickly towards them and looking as if he would not take no for an answer. He led them to a table near the till and drew back a chair for Sally.
‘Thanks,’ she gushed, unused to this kind of service. Male attention, with an undertow of suggestiveness.
The waiter handed them some menus as big as Bibles and retreated.
Sally inspected the cheap options: the salads and the starters. A tortellini in brodo was 95p. A mixed green salad was 60p. She looked up again to ponder her choices and to gaze around the restaurant. After a moment she realised that Colin was staring at her.
‘What?’
‘Your eyes.’
‘What about them?’ she said in alarm.
‘They’re beautiful.’
‘Thanks,’ she said gruffly, wrapping her ankles one-and-a-half times around the legs of her chair.
‘You look as if you’re going to cry,’ Colin said.
‘Do I?’
‘Yes. You often look as if you’re going to cry.’
‘Do I?’
Colin took a last, silent look into her beautiful eyes and then looked down at his menu again.
‘I’m going to have the Pizza Quattro Formaggio,’ he said, putting on an Italian accent, at which point Sally burst out laughing.
‘What?’ Colin asked, slightly tetchily, and her laugh stuck and subsided.
‘I don’t know.’
She cleared her throat, the laughter abruptly spent. You’re going to chuck me now, aren’t you?
But all through the antipasti and the bowl of olives, he didn’t. All through the pizza, he didn’t.
*
She never told Rowena about the meal in Caruso’s restaurant. She never mentioned the huge menus, the waiter, her bloodshot eye. ‘Oh God, Rowena … and we were sitting there on either side of this little table and I had this bright red eye and he said …’
But she didn’t. Something was changing.
By that time, Colin had begun to occupy about eighty per cent of her waking thoughts in any case. She thought of him every hour of every day. She thought about:
his sense of humour (surreal, sometimes slightly cruel)
his smooth skin
the scar on his left hand
his grey eyes
his off-hand manner
his reasons for loving her (she tried not to wonder about this too much).
But most of the appeal of Colin was almost indescribable. He was carefree, light, Peter Pannish, insouciant as a boy. But he was also twenty-one, which meant that he possessed mature things. He had a briefcase, cork-bottomed place mats, large, expensive wine glasses, a washing machine. And he did not live with his parents. He lived in a flat above a kebab shop on the edge of town, and Sally felt a thrill at being there. Colin would clear a space on the kitchen table and she would put two plates on it and some stainless steel cutlery. It was like being married.
‘A bean boiled is a bean spoiled,’ Colin observed one afternoon, as he
stood by the cooker, supervising a pan. He buttered a couple of slices of white toast and poured the beans over them.
‘So how was needlework today, dear?’ he asked. ‘Fascinating?’
‘OK. Except I sewed up the pocket and had to Kwik-unpick it.’
‘Kwik-unpick?’ Colin said, incredulously. Then he laughed. ‘What’s the point of needlework, exactly? It’s hardly useful is it?’
‘What makes you say that?’ Sally replied, sitting down at the table and pulling at her over-the-knee socks. Colin could sometimes be rather aggressive about the direction of her life, even though he had only been part of it for the previous two months.
‘There’s plenty you can do with needlwork,’ she said.
‘What? Make cushion covers?’
‘If you want to.’
Colin had done his A-levels in 1974, in General Studies and Economics.
‘Needlework is not a career option, Sally,’ he said, with the wisdom of a man six years her senior.
‘Why not? My mum –’
‘It just isn’t,’ he interrupted. ‘Unless you want to make bloody cushions all your life. It’s just totally useless. You failed your mocks anyway.’
‘Thanks for reminding me,’ she said, shocked by his sudden cruelty.
‘Colin,’ she said, ‘are you –?’
‘What?’
‘Do you …? I’m just … Sometimes I’m a bit worried that …’
‘Worrying’s bad for you, dear,’ Colin said flatly. ‘Stop worrying.’
