When he returns with the mugs of tea, Maggie has put two fold-out chairs beneath the pear tree at the bottom of the garden. Sean hands her a mug of tea, places his own on the scrappy lawn, and pulls his cigarettes and matches from his pocket.
“I’m surprised you started smoking,” Maggie says.
“Yeah,” Sean agrees. “I mean, I’m only smoking two a day. But I agree. It’s a strange one.”
“Particularly…” Maggie says. Then she visibly interrupts herself. “Um, when are the pears ready?” she asks. “What time of year do they ripen?”
“Early September. And were you going to say, particularly because Catherine died of cancer?” Sean asks, blowing a jet of smoke up into the branches of the tree.
“Yes. Sorry. I was being insensitive.”
“No, it’s fine. And maybe that’s why,” Sean says. “Catherine never smoked, after all.”
“Never?”
“Well, she smoked about ten cigarettes at college, I suppose. But she didn’t go near one for thirty years.”
“So what’s this? Are you getting your own back on the cigarettes that didn’t cause Catherine’s cancer?” Maggie asks, looking confused.
Sean frowns and studies the end of his cigarette. “No,” he says, finally. “No, I think it’s a nostalgia thing, to be honest. The tapes she left, they’re all about the past. They’re all about when I was young and did smoke. And that made me want to smoke again.” He takes a drag on his cigarette, then stubs it out in the grass. “But I wouldn’t try to analyse that too deeply. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Perhaps that does make sense,” Maggie says. “I suppose only you would know. So, how’s that going – with the tapes?”
“I’m about halfway through. They’re very nostalgic, like I say. I’ve been finding myself looking up Echo And The Bunnymen on YouTube.”
“Echo And The Bunnymen? Now, what did they sing? I remember the name, but…”
“Um, The Cutter,” Sean offers. “The Back Of Love?”
“Nope,” Maggie says. “I think I must have been too mainstream for Echo And The Bunnymen. So that’s what the letters are? Memories of your college years?”
Sean nods. “Pretty much,” he says. “So far, anyway.”
“You went up north, didn’t you?” Maggie asks.
“The Midlands,” Sean corrects her. “Wolverhampton, to be precise.”
“That’s right. And you and Catherine met there as students?”
Sean laughs. “No,” he says. “Do you not know that story?”
“I don’t think so. But don’t… you know… If it’s difficult, then leave it.”
“No, it’s fine. We met in Dreamland. It’s a funfair.”
“In Margate? I think I’ve been there.”
“That’s the one. And then Catherine came to live with me. At college. But I was the student. Catherine never went to college. She never got past CSEs, and I think she failed half of those.”
“Gosh, how amazing,” Maggie says. “And I never knew. I mean, she was just so… I don’t know. So clever, I suppose. Educated, too. Cultured.”
Sean nods. “She was clever all right. I always thought that if we had done an IQ test together, she would have beaten me hands down. And she read so much. She loved to read.”
“Yes, she read loads,” Maggie says. “And that’s what the recordings are all about? Trips down memory lane? I did wonder.” She sips at her tea and looks over the edge of the cup inquiringly.
Sean sighs deeply. He’s wondering, for the nth time, how much to tell. Because the thing is that there are aspects of the tapes he would quite like to discuss with someone. But like many men his age, he simply doesn’t have the kinds of friendships where those subjects are discussable. In fact, since his wife’s death, his friends have been steering pretty much clear. “They’re not just that,” he finally says, thinking simultaneously about the fact that the men he knows don’t seem very comfortable with the concept of bereavement. “They’re not just trips down memory lane. Some of them are quite… difficult, I suppose you’d say.”
“Difficult,” Maggie repeats. “Hum.” Her neutral tone expresses that it’s entirely up to Sean how much more he wants to tell her, and he’s grateful for her discretion.
“Look,” Sean says, scratching one ear. “Can I… If I tell you something… something from the tapes… can I be sure that it will stay between us?”
“Of course!” Maggie says. “You know that.”
“It’s about April,” Sean says, after a pause. “Apparently she might not be mine.”
Maggie puts her cup down now and frowns deeply at Sean. “Really?” she says.
“Catherine got pregnant pretty quickly when I met her. Well, immediately, really. And April could have been mine. Or she might have been from Catherine’s ex, a guy called Phil.”
“This was in one of the letters?” Maggie asks, shaking her head. “I mean, on one of the tapes?”
Sean nods. “It was.”
“And you didn’t know before? God, that’s awful.”
Sean shrugs. “I wouldn’t say that it has never crossed my mind. But I certainly never dwelt on it to any degree.”
“Wow, Sean,” Maggie says, reaching out and touching his elbow. “That must have been a real shock. You haven’t told April, have you?”
Sean shakes his head. “It was a shock in a way. And in another way, it wasn’t.”
“Why would she say that?” Maggie asks. “I mean, why do that to you?”
“I don’t know. I think she just wanted to come clean about everything.”
Maggie pulls a face. “Come clean?” she says doubtfully.
Sean frowns. “You don’t think?”
“It’s not… it’s just that… well, it’s not true, is it?” Maggie splutters.
“What’s not true?”
Maggie half-laughs, half-gasps. “Well, none of it. April’s the spitting image of you, isn’t she? If she looked any more like you, Sean, she’d be you. She’s got your eyes, your nose, your everything.”
“D’you think?” Sean asks, managing to sound both doubtful and hopeful at the same time.
“Oh, absolutely,” Maggie says. “Anyone can see that.”
Snapshot #13
35mm format, colour. A thin young man in a blue suit, white shirt and blue striped tie stands before an ornate, covered, neo-gothic bridge. It’s a sunny, summer day, and beneath the bridge a number of punts can be seen on the river.
Sean frowns at this image of his younger self. It makes him feel embarrassed.
The suit, brand new from Marks & Spencer, had fitted well enough. But the shirt, which he had borrowed from Alistair, had been too big for him, and his tie, he now sees, had been badly knotted, lopsided and really, rather huge. It’s a wonder I got the job at all, he thinks.
He had been incredibly nervous, for it was the first job interview he had ever had.
Neither he, nor Catherine, had ever been to Cambridge before and, terrified of being late, they had arrived by train a full three hours early. As it had been a beautiful day, they had wandered around the town centre and then through the colleges while they waited. They had both been stunned by the prosperity of the town and the easy elegance of the people who lived there.
Finally, Sean had installed Catherine in the window seat of a French-style cafe, The Dome, and had gone to his interview with Nicholson-Wallace Architects LTD.
“You’ll be great,” Catherine had said, straightening his tie. “You’ll knock ‘em dead.”
Cassette #13
Hello Darling.
I’ve had an enforced break from recording these because I’ve been back home for a few days and you and April have been keeping a round-the-clock watch on me! But now I’m back in Addenbrooke’s and on a new chemo regime which is part of a clinical trial and which, between you and me, feels very much like a last ditch attempt. I’m not getting any side effects, which may be a good thing, or, more likely, p
robably means that I’ve ended up being in the sugar-pill half of the cohort. Still, at least I get to carry on with my tapes.
So here’s a picture of you looking outrageously skinny and scared in Cambridge, standing in front of the Bridge of Sighs. You know, I used to know why it was called that, but I’ve forgotten. Like I said before, all these drugs are doing things to my brain.
That was the first time I had ever seen you in a decent suit, I think. Oh, you had worn that striped one on our wedding day, but as far as I can remember it was pretty awful. I was so proud of you that day in Cambridge. I thought you looked so sexy. It’s a shame you never once wore it again.
We had left April with Green Donna and Alistair that day, the idea being that Alistair wouldn’t let Green Donna commit hara-kiri with April in her arms, and Donna wouldn’t let Alistair get her stoned. But I still worried all day. I kept on and on asking you if you thought she’d be all right, and you kept on and on replying that “yes” she’d be fine. Of course, we had no mobile phones back then. There wasn’t even a landline in our student house. So there were no updates until we got home.
Cambridge was such a shock to the system. I know that you were surprised by things like the prettiness of the colleges and the crowded cycle paths everywhere, but me? I was gob-smacked. Compared with Margate, compared with post-industrial Wolverhampton, Cambridge seemed outrageous, really.
The streets were spotless, the shops were pretty and full of French cheeses and stripy shirts. A cup of tea was one pound twenty or something, I remember, and we were outraged about it. We were used to paying thirty pence in Wolves.
When we walked around the colleges it all made me feel sick, to tell the truth. And I don’t mean that as a euphemism – I mean physically sick, as in queasy.
You kept saying how pretty it all was and, of course, I could only agree. All that grass everywhere, all those flowers and the river and everything… it was lovely. But I saw something else, something that I don’t think, coming from your family, you were able to see at all.
I saw privilege. Looking at the students strutting around in shirts and ties and stripy blazers, and thinking about those poor mums I’d met in Orgreave, I saw shocking inequality and outrageous privilege. Because those students looked like they owned the place, and that was for the simple reason that they did. The place had been made for the likes of them. I remember wondering what Mum would say if she ever saw Cambridge. Because most people in Margate really didn’t know that places like Cambridge even existed, back then. They probably still don’t.
You went off clutching that big folder of yours and you were gone for almost two hours, so I wandered in ever-increasing circles around the café you had left me in. I went into a bakery and saw that they had proper French baguettes that cost three times the price of a sliced loaf of Sunblest at Salman’s Mini Mart. I saw a shop selling ties that cost more than your suit and pairs of women’s shoes that cost one hundred and ninety pounds, and I thought that we would never be able to afford to live in Cambridge and that, ultimately, it was obscene that anyone could afford it.
By the time you got back, I’d decided that not only was Cambridge not for the likes of us, but that I was glad, proud even, not to fit in there. There was something self-satisfied about the place, I thought. Something smug. There were too many men wearing braces and too many women in trouser suits and brogues.
You were beaming, Sean. I can remember your exact expression when you got back. You were beaming and your eyes were all shiny like you were on the verge of crying.
You licked your lips and said, wide eyed, that they had offered you the job, straight off. Just like that. You were to start on the 1st of September, I think. And then you asked me how much I thought you were going to be earning. It took me quite a few guesses before I got the right figure, which I think I remember was seven hundred and fifty pounds a month. Does that sound about right? Whatever it was, it seemed a fortune to us.
We got back to Wolverhampton just after midnight to find April fast asleep in Donna’s bed and, even after the day that we had had, neither of us could sleep. You talked until the early hours about being terrified you’d bugger up your degree, because the job offer, of course, was dependant on you getting at least a 2:1. Though I didn’t say much, I was terrified too.
I was convinced, back then, that I would never fit in, that I would never be able to open my mouth in Cambridge without people laughing at me. I believed with all my heart that I would never make a single friend here, either. And I thought that I would never be able to walk down King’s Parade without feeling queasy.
But you got a first class honours, didn’t you? And so we had to move. And I had to get over myself, I suppose, and just get used to life in Cambridge.
Actually, I didn’t get used to it at all. That’s me being disingenuous. Is that the right word? But no, I didn’t get used to it, I came to love it here.
That’s the funny thing about privilege. When you spend enough time in a town like Cambridge, you come to realise that it’s not Cambridge that’s wrong, after all. It’s everywhere else. You come to realise that everyone should get a good education and enough money to buy a baguette and brie if they fancy it. You realise that all kids should get the chance to go to a decent school where the teachers are clever and polite, and motivated. You come to think that all towns should have green spaces and cycle paths. And you learn that when you do put human beings in such a pleasant, easy going environment, it brings out the best in them, not the worst. They don’t end up being right wing, racist dick-heads who want to protect their privilege, they end up trendy lefties instead. When people don’t have to spend every minute of the day worrying how they’re going to pay the leccy bill, they end up with enough spare brainpower to worry about the Vietnamese boat people or animal rights or global warming. They end up drinking soya- cappuccinos and wearing vegan shoes.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? Because as far as these tapes are concerned, we’re not in Cambridge, yet, are we?
We’re still just terrified in Wolverhampton: you that you might muck up your degree and miss out on the job, and I that you might succeed and get it and force me to move to snob-land.
I didn’t express my fears at the time. I had no vocabulary, back then, for any of this. But as the weeks went by, I became terrified. Really terrified. I was convinced that Cambridge would somehow show me up, that once you saw me there, you’d realise what a mistake you had made. I knew you’d see how the Margate bird stuck out like a sore thumb and you’d suddenly want some posh, clever, educated girl with a name like Camilla and a daddy who’d give you a Bentley for a wedding present.
• • •
As summer arrives, Sean finds himself waking up earlier and earlier, and on Wednesday morning, when he wakes at six, he decides to fit a site visit into his journey to work. It’s another beautiful morning: the sky is blue and the air is crisp and fresh.
On reaching the site of his next project – a plot of land where four houses have recently been demolished, a plot of land for which he’s designing twelve luxury apartments – he grabs his camera from the car boot and clambers across the remaining rubble.
He stands on the highest point of scrappy grass and looks out at the view. A racing eight and a coxed four are streaking along the river, cutting through the mirror-like surface of the Cam. One of the coxes is shrieking at his team through a megaphone. Sean thinks back to when he used to row, how fit and happy and healthy it used to make him feel. Sure, all that being shrieked at was horrible and, on cold rainy days, it had been hellish. But on days like today, it had been perfect. On days like today it had been the best possible way to start a day.
He takes a deep breath and watches the boats as they vanish around the bend. Yes, the view from the apartments is going to be stunning.
Once he has checked the measurements of the site and taken photographs from every angle, he clambers back down to the street. Attracted by the continuing ripples from the no
w distant boats, he crosses and leans on the railings. He glances at his watch. It’s still only eight, and he suddenly finds himself in no hurry to get to work, no hurry at all. So instead of heading back to the car, he climbs onto the railings where he sits and pulls his cigarettes from his jacket pocket. Hunting for the lighter, he finds the smooth lump of rose quartz that his daughter gave him. He smiles at the memory and slips it back into his pocket.
Below him, a little to the left, a young couple, late twenties, are emerging from their canal boat. They both have fabulously dishevelled bed head hair. Sean watches as the young man sets up a folding table and chairs on the roof and as the woman joins him with a metal pot of coffee and two mugs.
Sean studies the woman, who is a pretty brunette with generous curves, and wishes, suddenly, that he was her twenty-something boyfriend. He wishes he lived on a canal boat. He imagines himself spending sexy Sundays in bed as the boat rocks gently.
He feels guilty, as if he’s being unfaithful to Catherine, which is silly, of course, for so many reasons. But he feels it all the same.
He wishes above all, he realises, that he was young again. He lights his cigarette and watches geese as they take off and land, their wings whipping the water.
He’s feeling restless. Days like this have always made him want to leave.
He once read an article about Aboriginal Australians and how they would get up one morning and head off on walkabout, not returning sometimes for months, and this is exactly how Sean had felt when he was younger, specifically on summer mornings like today. Yes, despite the fact that he loved his wife and daughter and despite the fact that he enjoyed his job, there have always been days when Sean felt an almost biological urge to go walkabout.
He remembers driving to work wondering what would happen if he didn’t turn off the ring road – what would happen if he just carried on driving? If he headed south, he could drive to Dover and stick the car on a ferry across the Channel. And then, what? Would he head south to Spain, or east towards Russia? How far would he get before his credit card ran out?
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