Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon

by Linda Newbery

  This time, it wasn’t much of a contest. Mum had no fight left in her; she only cried. The victory felt hollow; there could be no sense of triumph, with such an inadequate opponent. Her father’s trump card was to arrange for Granny Skipton to come and stay at home while they went to Norfolk; Gran, on her own now, liked to help whenever she could. Dad would phone twice daily from the Blakeney Hotel, and they could set off for home at any moment, if something – the unspecified something that always hung over them – should happen.

  Holiday, they called it, but it felt more like a test they’d set for themselves. They had to endure the week away to prove that they could do something called a holiday and make at least a pretence of finding enjoyment in it. Anna thought of previous holidays – to Sussex, to Devon or Cornwall, once to North Wales. It seemed now that Rose was the only person who counted, her mood determining whether the others were happy, or purposeful, or bored. It was Rose who devised complicated beach games, the diverting of streams or the creation of artworks from shells and stones. Rose took charge of Anna, who always did what Rose wanted. Rose had never been to Blakeney, but she was a phantom fourth presence, emphasizing the charade.

  Mum behaved like someone convalescing from a long illness, taking her first shaky steps in the open. Dad stowed everything in the car and led her out to the passenger seat. She spoke in a small, wavering voice that made her seem very young or very old. In the back seat, plugged into her Walkman, Anna read a magazine and wished she’d stayed at home with Gran. A boring village in Norfolk – it wasn’t a proper holiday. Mel was in Majorca, with her parents and Jamie, and had stirred up Anna’s envy by talking about the sea-front, the heat, and the boys she was sure to meet. When she returned she’d be tanned, glossy and smug. What could Anna bring back, to compete?

  But she found, in spite of herself, that she loved Blakeney. She liked the pretty cottage, on the steep street that led up from the harbour; she liked her room, with its creaking wooden floor and blue gingham curtains; liked waking up there, with sunshine streaming in, and the big sky beyond the cluster of roof-tiles and chimneys. People said that the sky was bigger in Norfolk, which she thought must be nonsense: how could it be? But so it appeared, arcing overhead in a great bowl of cloud-flecked blue that swept away towards the promise of beach and waves. The air carried an enticing tang of sea, a faint saltiness she could taste on her lips. A strange, bubbling cry lifted over the marsh: a curlew, her dad said. Sometimes the sky was dappled with cloud that might have been dabbed there with a giant white-tipped paintbrush. Dad called it mackerel sky, and Anna imagined an artist at work, making a scene of countless pale fish that shoaled towards the eastern horizon.

  Rose had never been here, and that meant Anna could claim it for her own.

  They went for walks, they ate crab salad lunches and fish-and-chip suppers, they went on a boat trip but saw no seals; Anna did some sketching. Her mother wore at first a mulish expression, making it clear that she was here under sufferance. Morning and evening she walked to the Blakeney Hotel to phone home. Anna pretended not to notice. At first time passed slowly, with no one of her own age to be with. The next cottage was occupied by a family with two younger children, a little boy, and a spindly girl of about eleven, who looked at Anna in awe. One evening the parents invited hers to drink wine in the little cobbled garden that fronted the row of cottages. They tried hard, these neighbours, but Anna’s mother was tight-lipped and aloof, saying almost nothing for fear of saying too much.

  ‘Is Anna an only child?’ Anna heard the mother asking, and at once her own mother said ‘Yes,’ rapping the word out, forestalling further questions. Anna darted a look at her, and almost said, ‘That’s not true.’ But it was true, literally, and maybe now it was true in every way.

  Anna was discovering her own muleishness. Her mother’s attitude of mute suffering made her impatient. Anna decided that she would do as she liked, go off with Dad or on her own; if Mum chose to stay indoors and drape herself in misery, that was up to her.

  Bird-watching saved them, Anna and her father. Out on the shingle beach, or on the Cley Marshes bird reserve, where they paid to go in for the day and sit in the wooden hides full of knowledgeable people kitted out with binoculars and telescopes, she and Dad built up a list of the birds they’d seen. Oystercatchers and lapwings, Sandwich terns and greylag geese, black-tailed godwits and green sandpipers. Anna forgot that she’d rather be in Majorca with Mel, giggling over dark-eyed Spanish boys. This was absorbing; this was a world of its own. She settled into the way of it. You’d find your place, seated on a wooden bench in the hushed darkness of the hide; then you’d let down the flap in front of you – carefully, not letting it clank – and gaze out at the expanse of water and reeds in front of you. At first you might think the pool was unpopulated, except by a group of ducks dozing with heads under wings or feeding desultorily. Rewarded for patience, your eyes would pick out movement in the sedges, or a white shape would move out into view, or there’d be the thrilling flight of a small flock of waders, arrowing and swooping, wing-patterns glancing and flickering as they changed direction, then landed as lightly as windblown leaves, and became identifiable as dunlins. Anna saw them on the seashore too, small busy birds that raced along the water’s edge and darted into the waves.

  She pored over her father’s bird book, amazed that the birds and wildfowl that dropped out of the sky or blew in from nowhere should match so precisely the illustrations in the guide. These wild creatures were part of a pattern that was known and recorded. Other people had sat and watched, compared and noted, and now here were the birds, feeding, flocking, roosting. They looked and behaved exactly as the book said they would.

  On her way to Waitrose, Cassandra sees Rosanna in the street.

  She stops dead; someone behind tuts and swerves, looking sharply at her for an apology she doesn’t make. Her attention is on the young woman ahead, walking slowly along the row of shops, talking into a mobile phone. Only her back view is visible, but it is her, Rosanna – the turn of the head as she talks, the hair, the set of her shoulders. Even the way she places her feet.

  Now Cassandra is hurrying in pursuit, shoulder bag slapping her side, shoes clopping on the pavement. The young woman talks on, oblivious, until Cassandra’s hand on her arm makes her turn sharply.

  And at once it’s all wrong, she is someone different. Too old, or too young – Cassandra’s mind crashes into disappointment and confusion – with the wrong features entirely, and glasses, and too much make-up. Expectation in her glance turns to puzzlement and then annoyance.

  ‘Oh … sorry. I thought you were my – my – daughter.’ Cassandra feels herself turning hot, or pale; she’s not sure that her words have come out in the right order.

  ‘OK.’ The girl shrugs her off, sidesteps, and walks on, laughing as she continues her phone conversation. She doesn’t care; why should she?

  Cassandra finds it hard to breathe. She steps into the florist’s doorway to recover. Of course she knew Rosanna wasn’t here; what was she thinking? Everything is blurring, swimming. The sense of dread holds her rigid; if she tries to move, she’ll fall down and not know how to get up again.

  The shop door behind her has opened, releasing a waft of warm air heavy with the perfume of lilies: sweet, cloying. It fills her senses. She closes her eyes and is in the churchyard, numb with cold and disbelief. White hothouse lilies, so wrong in the chilled air; the ground gashed open to receive him. Everything wrong, everything out of joint. Then, and always.

  I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean—

  ‘Are you all right, my love?’

  A face floats in front of her. She wills herself to stand steady, to answer. ‘I’m perfectly all right, thank you.’

  ‘You don’t look all right, sweetheart.’

  It’s another young woman of Zanna’s age. Outrage makes Cassandra pull herself erect. Has it come to this, women of her daughter’s age calling her my love and sweetheart, as if she’s senile? But the
woman’s face is so full of genuine concern that she finds herself on the verge of tears.

  ‘It’s just that I keep losing them,’ she blurts. ‘They come back and then I lose them again.’

  ‘Lose what? Look, why don’t you come in and sit down for a minute or two?’

  Cassandra shakes her head; she fumbles in her shoulder bag for a tissue and her fingers meet the smooth leather of her purse, which she pulls out in triumph.

  ‘No, I’m fine, see – here it is after all.’ She holds it up. ‘Thank you. I’m perfectly all right now.’

  Unsteadily she walks away. Knowing that the kind woman is still watching from the doorway, she raises a hand in jaunty farewell. A tear courses down her cheek, and she swipes it away. Such a mess, such an utter mess she has made of her life. Roland was only the first. He set the pattern, or she did, and there’s no getting away from it.

  This is her punishment. She must wander and wonder, searching strangers’ faces in the street, catching her breath at the lift of a chin, a hunch of shoulder, a way of standing. Always hoping, always crushed with disappointment.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sandy, 1967, 1966

  It felt incongruous for spring to come as usual, for the days to lengthen and green shoots to push out of the earth, as if nothing had happened. Sandy felt like a stowaway, with no right and no choice but to be carried along with the vast indifference of the world’s turning. No way of getting off, unless she followed Roland, and she wasn’t brave enough for that.

  The ringing of the telephone had ceased long ago to be of any personal interest, but one wet evening in March she heard her mother answer downstairs, then call her name.

  Unbelievably, it was Phil.

  ‘Need to meet you,’ said his voice, husky, almost whispering.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just say yes.’

  ‘What for?’ She was jolted out of her torpor.

  ‘Can’t talk now. Meet me Saturday?’

  ‘Yes – yes. Where?’

  ‘At the station. Early, say eight. Can you make it the whole day?’

  What could he have in mind? The possibilities turned and tangled in her mind. Surely, surely, it could only be something to lift the guilt from her. Part of it, at least. He had been as close to Roland as she was, or closer; he knew things she didn’t. Where had the LSD come from? That hadn’t been ascertained, from Phil or from anyone else. Seeing him in the churchyard, pale and motionless by the graveside after everyone else had moved on, the thought rippled through her: He loved Roland. Surely Roland had been wrong. She might have spoken to Phil, or gone and stood mutely beside him, but her father had taken her arm and led her away towards the line of cars waiting beyond the lych-gate. Afterwards there was a funeral tea at a nearby hotel; Roland’s headmaster, two teachers and a few of the boys had been there, but Phil must have slipped away.

  She set out to meet him on Saturday without telling anyone. If the death of Roland hadn’t been the sole reason for the outing, she’d have thought it an impossible fantasy, setting off for a whole day with the boy she had doted on. The day when Roland had left home was too recent for her to inflict such anguish on her parents again, so she invented an alibi: a shopping trip with Delia, and tea at her house afterwards. Sandy’s mother was pitifully pleased that she was starting to go out again.

  At East Croydon station, Phil asked at the ticket office for two returns to Portsmouth. Sandy realized what she could have worked out earlier: that they were setting off on a kind of pilgrimage, following Roland.

  ‘We’re going to the Isle of Wight?’

  He nodded, handing pound notes through the ticket-office window. She rummaged in her shoulder bag for her purse; she had two half-crowns and a few pence.

  ‘I haven’t got enough,’ she told him. ‘I can’t pay you back.’

  ‘Don’t expect you to.’ Phil pocketed the tickets and his change. ‘It was my idea.’

  ‘We used to go on holiday there when we were little. We stayed at Shanklin.’

  ‘I know,’ said Phil. ‘Rolls told me.’

  What else did he know? What other memories had Roland shared with him? Everything, now, every casual remark Roland might have made, was loaded with significance, as if he’d left a trail to be followed.

  Announcements crackled over loudspeakers; they both listened. ‘That’s ours,’ Phil said. ‘We change at Clapham Junction.’

  The first train was full of people in weekend mood – families, pairs of women, other teenagers. She knew that she and Phil must look like boyfriend and girlfriend, but they hardly spoke; it didn’t seem right to chatter, and she couldn’t ask him anything important. In adjoining seats, they didn’t have to look at each other. Soon Phil took New Musical Express from his canvas shoulder bag, and studied it closely until their stop. Wishing she’d brought a book, Sandy made do with a copy of the Daily Mail someone had discarded.

  The next train, from Clapham to Portsmouth Harbour, was less crowded, and now she could only think about Roland making this same journey. The return ticket in his rucksack – along with his toothbrush, spare T-shirt, razor and notebook, and a paperback copy of On the Road, apparently just bought – gave ample indication that he hadn’t planned to kill himself. Maybe he’d have phoned, later that evening. I needed to get away. Had to be by myself for a day or two. Had he changed his mind? Deliberately let the sea take him?

  At Portsmouth it was hard not feel a little adventurous, following signs for the Isle of Wight ferry, then boarding the boat. There were only a few passengers. Sandy and Phil sat by a salt-stained window, watching as the ferry pulled out past wharves and cranes, car parks and building sites, a Victorian pub, and on into the greyness of sea and sky. Then it felt more symbolic to brave the cold wind out on deck than to shelter inside. Sandy wound her scarf twice round her neck and thrust her hands deep into her pockets; strands of hair lashed her cheeks. A hovercraft sped ahead, low on the water, throwing up spray like a snowplough. The island already filled the horizon, long, low and hazy, and as Ryde came more clearly into view she saw buildings stacked up a low hill surmounted by a church spire. She remembered the years-ago family holiday, the special feeling of being on an island, where the daily business of life couldn’t reach. She thought of Roland standing here, perhaps remembering too.

  Wouldn’t he have jumped over the side if he’d wanted to drown himself? Quicker than walking into the sea, more decisive. What would it feel like, to care so little for your own body that you could abandon it to be swirled by currents, bloated with sea-water, battered by waves? When did your body cease to be you?

  ‘Do you think he’s still somewhere?’ she asked Phil. ‘Or just – gone?’

  Phil considered it, standing very still, hair blowing across his face; then he shrugged. ‘I don’t believe in an afterlife or any of that shit. So – I guess he’s just gone. Finish.’

  She wanted to ask more, to find out if the one thing she hoped for was true – that in spite of what happened at Elaine’s he did love Roland, and that Roland had died happy, knowing that. But of course not, because if that were true, Roland wouldn’t have set out by himself. Wouldn’t have given himself to the sea.

  They looked out at the Solent, at a big cross-Channel ferry and a large tanker in the distance; then Sandy asked, ‘Are we going to the actual place? How will we find it?’

  Phil turned his back to the wind, huddled into his inadequate coat, arms tightly folded. ‘I know where. Went with Rolls.’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘Not …?’

  ‘Not that time, no. Christ – wish I had. Last summer. While you and your parents were on holiday. The weather was hot and Rolls said why not take off, the two of us, go to the sea. I thought Brighton, but he said no, let’s get a ticket to ride, like the song. I said, ride where? and he said Ryde – he felt like going to an island, leaving the mainland. So we did. This, exactly – same train, same ferry. Over there we bought fish and chips, then hitched lifts. Didn’t know wher
e, but we ended up at Freshwater Bay. Then walked along the downs.’

  Sandy was silent, sensing more; after a pause Phil continued, ‘We didn’t talk much. Rolls had gone quiet, the way he did when he was working out a song. I knew he’d show me when he was ready.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Yes. Only not then. He didn’t finish it till weeks later. That was when it all started to go—’ There was a catch in Phil’s voice; he took a moment to recover himself. ‘Anyway. That day. We sat on the grass and shared a joint. Then we went down to the beach, this long stretch of beach. We could see the white cliffs that lead round to the Needles.’

  ‘Roly didn’t say anything,’ Sandy said. ‘Not to Mum and Dad, not to me either. When we got back from Devon he said he’d been hanging around at home.’

  ‘Well, he was like that. Kept things to himself.’

  Sandy gazed at a screaming gull that seemed balanced on the wind, its wings outstretched. Roland and secrets – the gull’s cry was an accusation, memory a blunt kick of pain, familiar to her now.

  Ahead, Ryde was coming into focus, with individual buildings discernible, and people waiting on the pier, braced against the wind.

  ‘So why come back?’ Sandy asked.

  ‘Dunno really. Thought of it and just had to. That funeral bollocks – I hated it. So stiff and dry.’

  ‘Me too. It felt all wrong. Nothing to do with him.’

  Phil turned away from her to lean on the railing. ‘So – this, instead. For Rolls.’

  With less than an hour until midnight there was no sign of the Merlins, and in Elaine’s view Sandy was responsible for ruining her party. The music was loud, the room packed, the air thick with smoke; what had started out as fruit punch had been generously boosted with spirits from Elaine’s parents’ cocktail cabinet. Various boys were present, but none of them counted for much, as far as Elaine was concerned. To show that she didn’t care, she was flirting vigorously with a boy Sandy had never seen before. She was wearing a new dress, very short, in cream crochet, her enviable legs clad in turquoise tights; her hair shone conker-coloured in the glow of shaded light-bulbs.