by Gemma Fox
Diana, heading up to the counter in an offie near the station, because with her hair up she looked twenty if she was a day, clutching the money from combined Saturday jobs for a bottle of vodka. Adie, arm in arm between Jan and Netty, walking down Bridge Street to catch the train to Cambridge, guitar slung across his narrow back. Everyone smoking, everybody giggling. Getting stoned at the back of the library, getting drunk at the leavers’ ball.
Carol smiled; she had loved them all so much and hadn’t known it. She took a deep breath, struggling to slow down the frantic slide show of images that filled her head. Maybe if she started to speak, her brain, with something else to think about, would throttle back and slow down the montage of memories, words like weights making the rush of thoughts and recollections into something more manageable.
‘Come on, Carol, take no notice of them,’ said Adie. ‘So, once upon a time Lady Macbeth left Belvedere High School and then…?’
‘And then, well, I worked in a bookshop in Cambridge—you remember that, Netty—we used to meet up for lunch? And I worked in a pub at weekends. I was planning on going to teacher training college when I met Jack French. He came into the shop and swept me off my feet, which sounds totally ridiculous now but it was true at the time. He kept coming in and flirting, and I said he would get me the sack. I remember that I was unpacking a whole box of sale books onto a table display when I said it—and so he bought the lot and then took me off to lunch to celebrate in his Mercedes.’
‘Wow,’ said Netty. ‘Bit flash. I don’t remember meeting him.’
‘Unfortunately it was mostly all flash and balls. But I was very impressed, which shows how shallow and how gullible I was back then. To cut a long story short, I moved in with him, we got married—he was a lot older than I was—and we had two kids, two boys called Jake and Oliver.
‘He was thirty-six when I met him, and anyone of his own age would have seen straight through him. I think he was rather hoping I’d stay nineteen for ever—he was so very disappointed when I grew up.’
At which point Netty cleared her throat as if to say or ask something but Adie raised a hand to silence her. ‘There will be time for questions at the end,’ he said officiously, and then nodded for Carol to continue. ‘Off you go, honey. We’re all listening.’
‘Sad thing was it took me a while to wake up, but by then I’d got Jake. We’d bought a house, Jack had a drink problem, was a financial disaster and had a roving eye that perfectly matched the other parts of his body that were prone to roving. He did about as much for my self-esteem and peace of mind as the Titanic did for maritime insurance. But what we did do—against the odds re ally—was have two re ally great kids and build up a good business between us, which is mine now. So it’s not all bad news. I’ve been on my own nearly eight years and I’m doing OK, more than OK—I’m doing good.’
Adie nodded appreciatively.
‘And have you got anyone on the horizon. You know—a man, a dog, a cat, a goldfish?’ asked Netty.
Behind them Carol could see two waitresses approaching with late lunches on a tray. She hesitated, hoping that the arrival of their food would break the thread. What could she possibly say that wouldn’t make them think she was a perfect cow, keeping a good man on hold while she weighed up Gareth Howard? She suddenly realised it was re ally important that they didn’t think badly of her.
‘Yes, I have,’ Carol said, after what felt like for ever. ‘His name is Raf—and he’s—he’s…’ She could see that she had everyone’s undivided attention, ‘he’s re ally nice.’
Netty groaned. ‘Bugger! Hard luck, kid,’ she said, taking the plate of steak and chips proffered by the barmaid. ‘Never mind, it could have been a lot worse.’
Adie nodded. ‘God, yes, he could have had a decent job with a pension.’
‘Or be sensible.’ Jan.
‘Or reliable.’ Netty slapped her head and groaned.
‘Or no oil painting but good with his hands,’ said Adie, shaking vinegar over his chips.
There was no answer. Carol looked down at her chicken Caesar salad, wondering how the hell she was going to be able to swallow it down past the great knotted guilty lump in her throat. She looked round the faces. ‘He re ally is nice,’ she said thickly, but there was no way back now.
‘…And how have you been keeping?’ George asked, as if there was some real chance that all the years could be condensed into a line or two, as he launched himself gamely into Callista’s silence. ‘I kept meaning to ring—I always think of you on your birthday—but well, you know how it is.’ He paused, his discomfort increasingly obvious. ‘There was always Judy to consider and you know how things were, how they still are. I just wanted you to know that I’ve missed you. Missed you a lot. It wasn’t an easy decision at the time, not easy at all.’
Callista Haze looked up from her drink, her composure totally unruffled. ‘George, please, there is re ally no need to put yourself through all this. It’s fine, I’m fine. It was all an awfully long time ago now. Life moves on, people move on, so please just relax and enjoy your lunch.’
‘I know, I know, it’s been so very many years. I’m almost afraid to work out exactly how long it is since I last saw you—and do you know what, Callista?’
‘What?’ she asked pleasantly. Surely there couldn’t be much more. George Bearman looked much the same as she remembered him, except he had a little less hair and what he had left had faded from old gold to a soft grey. He had the florid slightly purple complexion of someone with poor circulation and a bad heart. Poor George.
He took a deep breath. ‘I regretted ever letting you go,’ he said. The words spilled out.
Callista stared up at him in astonishment, she felt her heart dropping like a stone. ‘Sorry?’ she began, but George wasn’t ready to be halted.
‘Please, Callista, hear me out. Every single day since you left Belvedere I have thought what a bloody fool I was to have ever let you go. I’m so sorry, so very sorry, Callista; can you ever forgive me?’
She looked up into his eyes to see if there was some hint of jest, some cruel joke, and found none; instead she saw the bright promise of tears. Callista’s expression softened. ‘Oh, George…’ she whispered.
But he was in full swing now. ‘I felt so bad about everything, for betraying you like that, for abandoning you.’ He shook his head in total despair.
Despite his obvious distress Callista couldn’t help laughing. ‘Oh, come on. George, stop it, people are looking at us, for God’s sake. What on earth makes you think that you abandoned me?’
He was surprised. ‘Well, all those times I told you that I was going to leave my wife for you.’ He sounded slightly indignant. ‘All those times I promised you that we would have a life together—a little house, a fresh start, a cocker spaniel, be a real family.’
‘All those false promises and false hopes you trotted out to keep me hanging on?’ she said.
He visibly bristled. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Oh, don’t be so silly, George. I’m not totally stupid. I always knew that you would never leave Judy for me.’
He looked at her in astonishment. ‘re ally?’ he said. He sounded genuinely amazed.
She laughed. ‘Of course. Don’t sound so surprised. Hopeless, impossible, doomed love is a wonderfully dramatic thing—at least for a while. I was young and it all seemed terribly romantic.’
‘So what happened?’
Callista took a long pull on her drink. ‘Honestly?’
He nodded.
‘I grew up.’
‘Good God. How terribly pragmatic of you,’ he said.
Callista stroked his hand. ‘Yes, that’s right. Now eat your pie; you’ll feel a lot better.’
‘But I’ve pined for you for…’ George said. ‘If I’m honest I have pined for you for the last twenty years.’ He looked pained and sounded quite cross now.
‘You silly man,’ Callista said kindly, pulling the knife and fork from his pocket and shaking out
his napkin.
‘I’ve always suspected that Judy knew my heart wasn’t altogether in it. All those years—’ he shook his head—‘all those dreams wasted.’
Callista topped up her gin with the last of the tonic, and when it was obvious that she didn’t plan to comment, George continued, ‘And how about you? How has life been with you?’
Callista smiled. ‘Me? Oh, I’m fine. We’ve been doing a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream this year and our school has been selected for funding from Europe to improve the drama facilities, which is re ally exciting. We’ve put a bid in for a drama studio and—’
‘That isn’t what I meant and you know it,’ he said, cutting her short. ‘Didn’t you ever miss me?’ It was obvious from the tone he was hoping that she had pined for him just a little.
Callista stared at him. How could she possibly tell him that she hadn’t thought about him for years? ‘You re ally did love me, didn’t you?’ she said in a low, even voice.
George nodded.
Callista set her hand down over his, wondering what on earth she could say. ‘George, I am re ally sorry. If I’d known I might have been more determined to get you, made more of a fuss, fought a little harder, but I thought that you were just toying with me, that I was just a game. I thought maybe—maybe it was something you made a habit of. You know, new female teacher, straight out of college. Easy pickings.’
He winced.
Callista sighed. ‘Then again, if I’d known how you felt it would have been far more painful for both of us, wouldn’t it? After I left Belvedere I went up to North Yorkshire, to a lovely school. I married a solicitor called Laurence—I was made head of department five years ago. We’ve got two daughters, Emma and Charlotte, they’re fifteen and seventeen. We’ve got a nice house, a dog—a little summer place in France. We’re very happy. I’m very happy.’ She paused, seeing the pain on George’s face. ‘Oh, George, I thought that it was just an affair.’
He pursed his lips, quite obviously struggling to keep his emotions under control. ‘You were the love of my life, Callista,’ he murmured. ‘I have never forgotten you. Never a day goes past when I don’t think about you and how it might have been if I had been brave enough, strong enough, to walk away from my marriage, from Judy.’ His bottom lip had started to tremble furiously. ‘Oh, Callista, I’m so terribly sorry,’ he sniffled.
‘George, please don’t. How is Judy?’
‘Oh, she’s well. Well, I assume she is well; we barely speak at all these days. She has her friends, her interests, the choir and the reading group, and I have mine.’ He paused. ‘It’s been a lot trickier since I retired.’
The former Miss Callista Haze stared at George Bearman and wondered what on earth life might have been like if they had ended up together. How odd it was that she had had no idea how George felt about her, or was it that over the years she had become a fantasy that he had clung to, to keep him going inside a failing marriage? A magic might-have-been that had only just slipped through his fingers and helped him to sleep at nights.
‘So,’ he said with forced joviality, ‘as you say, all water under the bridge now. Why don’t you tell me all about this Laurence chap and your girls?’
Callista took a deep breath wondering how much she could tell George without breaking his already battered heart, when a woman walking past the table caught her eye and as recognition dawned she stopped and turned.
‘Miss Haze?’
‘Yes,’ said Callista, grateful for the interruption.
Carol grinned as she realised that Mr Bearman was there too, tucked up alongside Miss Haze, cradling a pint of bitter and the remains of a late lunch.
The two of them were sitting at a quiet table at the back of the Master’s Arms, apparently deep in conversation. Miss Haze had a copy of Macbeth open in front of her. Even from where she was standing, Carol could see that the margins and every available glimmer of white space had been filled with tiny pencilled annotations around the main script; some appeared to have been overwritten.
‘How very nice to see you,’ said Miss Haze, sounding very slightly uncertain who she was talking to.
‘Carol Hastings—well, at least I used to be Carol Hastings.’ Carol held out a hand in greeting. ‘I’m here for the reunion as well.’
‘Oh, of course,’ said Miss Haze. ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t recognise you, Carol, but sometimes these days the names just vanish into the ether. I was trying very hard not to call you Lady Macbeth.’ She smiled, her handshake strong and warm and confident. ‘You know I often thought that you could have gone on to a career on the stage if you had wanted to.’
Carol grinned. ‘That’s very nice of you to say so, but if I’m honest I think I prefer to eat,’ Carol said.
‘Well, there is that,’ Miss Haze laughed, while Mr Bearman, a little stiffly, added, ‘How very pragmatic.’ His handshake was cool and dry, his skin like old vellum.
Carol smiled. ‘You’re early too.’ She couldn’t help wondering if they had turned up together. Maybe they were a couple, married now; maybe they had got together after all.
Miss Haze nodded. ‘Actually I haven’t been here very long. The woman in reception at Burbeck House suggested I come down here. Apparently their kitchen doesn’t open until later.’ Her smiled broadened. ‘I did wonder whether she might be on commission.’ Miss Haze glanced down at her watch. ‘Actually, I was just about to head back when—’ she glanced towards Mr Bearman—‘when George here showed up.’
Carol smiled; it seemed odd to think of Mr Bearman as having a first name but it had solved the couple question.
Mr Bearman beamed warmly in Miss Haze’s direction. ‘Just like the good old days, back on the road again, eh, Callista?’ And catching hold of her hand he lifted it and pressed it to his lips. Miss Haze blushed scarlet.
Diplomatically Carol looked away and said hastily, ‘There are a few of us in the front bar, if you would like to come and join us?’
Even after all these years it felt very odd talking to the teachers as if they were humans. Carol, who had been on her way to the loo when she spotted the pair of them, made a concerted effort to quell the little ripples of anxiety, which included the almost overwhelming feeling that she had forgotten to hand in a vital piece of homework and that by standing so close to them in a social setting she had broken an invisible inviolable rule about the relationship between teachers and pupils.
Across the table Mr Bearman smiled. ‘Thank you, Carol, that’s very kind, but I think we’ll probably stay here and catch up, won’t we? We haven’t seen each other in…how long is it exactly, Callista?’
‘Rather more years than I care to remember,’ she said casually. Carol noticed that Miss Haze had extricated her hand from his. ‘And besides, I’m sure we’d only cramp your style. You can be a lot more raucous without us there. And, as I said, I’m just going to finish my drink and then be off up.’
Mr Bearman nodded. ‘Excellent idea.’
Callista Haze smiled coolly.
‘It is re ally nice to see you both again. Diana’s up there meeting and greeting people—presumably she’s asked you to direct the read through?’ asked Carol, pointing at Miss Haze’s script open on the table.
‘Not exactly, although we were invited to. Mind you, Diana did add that we weren’t to feel under any pressure,’ said Mr Bearman.
Miss Haze laughed. ‘I think what George is trying to say is, try stopping us.’
Mr Bearman swung round and beamed at her. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’
Alongside him Callista looked heavenwards.
‘God, you’ll never guess who I’ve just seen,’ said Carol, slipping back into her seat. Everyone looked up expectantly from the table, which was now covered with the fallout from their long late lunch. During the course of the meal there had been other people filing into the pub, saying hello and grinning madly as recognition dawned and friendships rekindled; the whole place was buzzing with conversation and half
-familiar faces.
Netty pouted before slipping a final chip, haemorrhaging tomato sauce, into her mouth, and said, deadpan, ‘I thought Diana said that Gareth wasn’t getting here until later this evening.’
Carol decided to ignore her. ‘Miss Haze and Mr Bearman, snuggled up over there in the snug.’ She toyed momentarily with the idea of sharing the hand-kissing incident and then decided to leave it out on the grounds that she was trying to maintain some air of maturity.
‘Honestly, I used to have the hots for her something dreadful,’ said Adie unexpectedly, pulling a lusty face and making smoochy sexy noises. ‘Double Drama, Friday afternoons—I’d got a permanent hard on. I had to get my mum to buy me a longer jumper. Can you remember she used to wear those little black ski pant things?’
‘Capri pants,’ corrected Netty, picking through the remains of Jan’s garlic mushrooms.
‘Very Audrey Hepburn. God, it was absolute agony,’ Adie said in a wistful voice, gazing off unfocused into the middle distance.
‘re ally?’ said Carol in amazement. ‘You had the hots for Miss Haze?’
‘Absolutely, yes,’ he groaned.
She stared at him: apparently the struggle to stop slipping back into the agonies of adolescence was hers and hers alone.
Adie blushed. ‘Well, just a little bit. Do you remember those black leather trousers she had? They were like a red rag to a bull as well. Little white angora sweater, those trousers, highheeled boots—you’d have had to have been made of stone or been dead not to have thought the whole outfit was incredibly horny. I thought it was all so cute…’
Carol didn’t say a word.
‘Maybe it was a leather thing, although you didn’t know about that then,’ Netty said.
Jan sniffed. ‘Lots of things you didn’t know then.’
Carol looked at her. ‘What’s with you two? Twenty years and you’re still bitching? How about we declare a truce this weekend?’
Jan waved her words away. ‘What, and spoil all our fun? Besides, Adie likes that kind of thing, don’t you?’
