Meeting Lydia

by Linda MacDonald

  She crept downstairs silently, not wanting to disturb Holly, using the glow from the bedroom light to show the way. Her body cooled quickly and sleepiness fell away to be replaced by concern. The living room door was half open and Johnny was sprawling in his armchair, legs stretched out in front of him, arms dangling over the sides. At first she thought he was asleep, but then she heard what sounded like a faint gurgle with intermittent sniffs. He was crying quietly. She had never seen him cry before – not properly. Of course he had been upset and watery-eyed like when Holly left, but he had never cried in front of her with sound effects and tears.

  She stood rooted to the spot, engulfed by indecision. Should she offer comfort, or go back to bed; pretend she hadn’t seen; leave his pride intact?

  She hated seeing people cry. She hadn’t become the hard-hearted woman that Johnny thought. She wanted to know what was wrong. Was it her? Them? Dylan? Or something else – his own demons wreaking havoc?

  Still she hovered, just out of sight, listening, transfixed, disturbed.

  She couldn’t decide what to do for the best and her thoughts flew around her head haphazardly like vegetables in a food processor. She seemed unable to focus and feared making things worse. She could hear the rhythmic ticking of the clock in the kitchen and her own heartbeat pulsated with the same audibility as the womb-chamber in the Natural History Museum’s old Human Biology section. A voice within said that the middle of the night was not a time to be rational and that doing nothing was safer than doing something she might regret.

  At length she turned away and crept silently back to bed.

  In the morning she woke to find Johnny fast asleep beside her, his face buried in the pillow. She saw that just like her, he was vulnerable and her heart began to thaw a little. As she lay looking at the ceiling she wondered what she would say to him. She would not apologise, but nor would she ask what time he got home or where he had been. He would expect her to; expect castigation from the nagging wife she had become. It would throw him off balance. She would try to pretend that everything was normal, no matter what he said. She would remember the strategy she had employed soon after first meeting Edward on the internet. She might even offer to cook him breakfast or suggest they went out for lunch.

  She was in the kitchen making carrot and coriander soup and giving a very good impression of not-a-care-in-the-world, humming the ‘Harry Lime Theme’, not very tunefully when Johnny appeared in the doorway, mid-morning after a very long lie in. He looked guilty and expectant of the third degree.

  “What you said last night about the Burgess Shale was very interesting,” she said, stirring her soup and giving him a casual look over her shoulder. “Would you like a cooked breakfast? A brunch? We have sausages and bacon …”

  “No ta, I feel shit,” he replied, then he looked at her expectantly as if waiting for ‘serves you right for drinking so much’; for what had these days become her usual parental-style telling-off.

  Instead she carried on stirring the soup with a nonchalance that belied what she was feeling inside. “There’s apple juice in the fridge … D’you fancy going out for a picnic lunch? Or somewhere for a bar meal?”

  “I told you, I feel shit … That soup’ll be fine.” And he poured himself a large glass of juice and sloped off. Soon she heard the front door close and she was aware of the knot in her stomach tightening and a burning feeling in her eyes.

  She sighed. Why was it suddenly so difficult holding everything together? Time was becoming increasingly precious. Dylan’s death made her feel guilty about not making the best of the time she had left. Maybe Johnny felt the same. Over a year had been spent in this unsettled state. How much more? She had always believed that things would sort themselves out as they always seemed to in the past. But with each passing month, the flotsam and jetsam were accumulating into an untidy heap of detritus lying in wait to create mayhem during unsuspected moments of weakness.

  She was reminded of a student she had once taught called Zibi. In the middle of a lesson, Marianne had remarked that she had never come across a Zibi before.

  “Nor have I,” Zibi had said with a smile that reached from ear to ear.

  “Does it mean anything in particular?” Marianne had asked casually.

  “It means Rubbish,” said Zibi, grinning as if in anticipation of the effect that this revelation would have on her teacher and the rest of the class.

  Marianne was naturally curious and probed further.

  “My grandmother was called Zibi,” said Zibi. “This was in South Africa … And her mother – my great-grandmother – had children and they died. All of them. When they were babies, yeah. When my grandmother was born, her mum also expected her to die too, so she called her Zibi … It’s short for ‘Zibi Can’ the place where the rubbish goes. I was called Zibi after her, so the name lives on,” she added proudly.

  Later Marianne had looked up zibi on the internet and discovered it had come from the Zulu word ‘izibi’ meaning rubbish. She also discovered that Zibi wasn’t the only Zibi in the world. There was a zebra called Zibi, and a cross-eyed ostrich. There had also been an anti-litter campaign called ‘Zap it in the Zibi’. When she told Zibi these things, Zibi said “Oh my God, Miss. My name is famous!”

  Izibi … Rubbish … Life …

  Dear Edward,

  A madness is enveloping me like an octopus. As soon as I remove one tentacle, another swirls around my neck and the suckers hold fast, choking the breath out of me. This madness is a multi-limbed monster with evil eyes. I want to be free of it, but it is there all the time making me do things against my nature.

  I thought when I found you I was free. And I was in a way: free from the terrible legacy from schooldays. If only I’d found you earlier I might have had a few years enjoying that freedom – before the M word and this new type of madness.

  I read about Chaos Theory once. How there are sometimes enormous consequences from the tiniest action. The Butterfly Effect, they call it: where the smallest beat of a butterfly’s wing in one part of the world may lead to some adverse weather conditions in another. How many wing-beats has it taken to create my current chaos?

  Two days later she went shopping in Bromley with Taryn. With all the Dylan stuff, they hadn’t met up or talked properly for ages.

  Taryn wanted a news update and a hat for her cousin’s wedding.

  Marianne said a hat would squash Taryn’s microfilament hair.

  Marianne wanted a dress for the reunion.

  Taryn said it mustn’t be any old dress, but a dress that might launch a thousand ships like Helen of Troy.

  They wandered in and out of shops and stores in the High Street and The Glades shopping centre, dodging rain showers and market researchers with clipboards; feeling fabrics, occasionally lifting a garment off the rail and holding it against Marianne before grimacing or shaking a head. They giggled like schoolgirls; they stood in doorways and scanned the merchandise with practised eyes, often walking straight out again.

  Too young; too frumpy; too frilly; too silly; too black. Too long; too short; too shapeless; too revealing; too demure; too glitzy; too pink.

  “All I want is a simple, summer frock. Pretty and understated; just right for a summer evening. Is that too much to ask? Something that looks great without looking like I’ve tried too hard.”

  Eventually they found just the thing in a little boutique down a side street. It was strappy and floaty and dip-dyed cotton with a handkerchief hem; it was glorious shades of deep dusky rose through to magenta, sparsely dotted with small embroidered flowers and leaves in the same colour as the fabric.

  “Drop-dead gorgeous,” said Taryn when Marianne emerged from out of the changing cubicle.

  “Hardly,” said Marianne.

  “You will be … Without the white bra-straps, and with some slap!”

  After acquiring a cream fascinator of net and feathers to sit among Taryn’s hair spikes, they sat drinking coffee in Debenhams.

  “So
dish the dirt on the latest from the Scheming Cow,” said Taryn.

  “Charmaine? She still lurks in the background – in my mind anyway. She’s devious,” said Marianne. “She convinced Johnny that she had honourable intentions – including a load of blaa about the problems she’s having with the guy she’s seeing. How could he be so fooled? I was right all along. And Johnny is such an idiot when it comes to women.”

  “You’re generalising. This is the first time he’s been like this, is it not?” Taryn took a long drink from her cup, leaving bright red lipstick on the rim.

  “I s’pose so. But with her he sees what he wants to see; hears what he wants to hear. He was completely taken in by her sob story (and her pneumatic chest) – little knowing that this was a ploy to create sympathy; to get closer. She seemed to be trying all the tricks in the book to seduce him and I’m not altogether sure whether she’s been successful in her enterprise.”

  “Johnny’s not stupid.”

  “How often have you told me that all men lose their common sense in the face of someone like her?”

  “Not Johnny … Johnny would even resist a honey trap.”

  “He’s been so weird lately. I don’t know … Things were just beginning to get better too, but when we bumped into her and this drippy bloke in Greenwich, I just lost it; told her what I thought.”

  “Imagine that!” said Taryn.

  “So Johnny thinks I’m a nutcase.”

  “I think you were wonderful to do such a thing. I also think it’s time to apply the dog-training principle,” said Taryn.

  “Which is what?” said Marianne.

  Taryn paused and scanned the cafeteria as if checking to see whether anyone might be listening. “Basically, men are like puppies … Are you quite sure I haven’t told you about this? After a while you think you trust them not to run off. So you let them off the lead and they scamper around here and there, relishing their freedom. And then they find something interesting – probably other dogs’ pee or poo – and they stop and sniff and are suddenly deaf to the calling. And what do owners typically do? They stand and wait for the puppy to finish checking out the interesting tree – or whatever, e.g., the likes of the Cow-Charmaine … and in desperation they retrace their steps and drag the puppy away. So next time, the puppy carries on ignoring the calls, knowing that mistress will always be waiting – and if she gets really fed up, then she’ll come and fetch them. Message received that it’s okay to go wandering.”

  “I should know all this,” said Marianne. “I do know all this. It’s basic psychology. But I’m too close to the problem to know what to do.”

  “The solution? You should run. Run in the opposite direction, shouting their name loudly; shouting ‘follow me!’ If you do this when they’re young enough – while they’re still insecure and scared – they’ll see you disappearing over the hill and the deafness vanishes and they come rushing towards you, terrified of being abandoned.”

  “Johnny isn’t all that young now.”

  “Don’t let him hear you say that!”

  “He’s set in his ways. I am too. We follow scripts.”

  “Didn’t you say that you were breaking the pattern? If you can do it, so can he.”

  Marianne grinned. “Did I tell you I’m trying to persuade him that we need a digital TV? Then I can watch News 24 and lust over Matthew Amroliwala! Of course I didn’t tell him that was the reason. But if your theory’s correct, maybe I should.”

  “Matthew Amroliwala?”

  “Yes, I know he’s not my type, but he’s got the most amazing come-to-bed eyes!”

  “At least you haven’t lost your sense of humour.”

  “It’s all a façade, and I’m good at those. Inside I’m a complete wreck and I don’t know if this reunion will make me feel better or worse. Johnny seems to think Holly and he will cope without me for a few days. She’s still in a terrible state, poor love. Not eating; hiding in her room. But we’ve talked until there’s nothing left to say. It won’t make much difference whether I’m here or not, and it won’t be for long.”

  “And what about ‘Lydia’?”

  “He’s in Scilly on some major excavation.” Marianne began to fiddle with her hair.

  “That’s a drag.”

  “Well, it is a bit, but I wouldn’t really like to meet under those circumstances. Too many other distractions! Maybe it’s best we don’t meet at all – though I desperately want to. It could be a disaster. Just imagine if he turned out to be a complete geek – or if he thought I was too far past my prime to be worth corresponding with.”

  “Oh for goodness-sakes! What kind of relationship is this?”

  “Yeah, I know, but men are so looksist. Even friendship requires an element of attraction – not necessarily physical. Okay, I’m contradicting myself, but you know what I mean. Even if he’s not looksist, I am – up to a point! There are certain packages that I wouldn’t want to share cyberspace with. A bearded Yeti, for example. You know what some archaeologists are like. They look as if they might be harbouring wildlife or last week’s dinner in their beards.”

  “You just have to meet,” said Taryn. “I can’t bear the suspense!”

  “Enough about me,” said Marianne. “What about you?”

  “Oh, you know …” said Taryn, looking down. “My life is dull-dull, compared to yours.” She smiled and refused to be drawn further, though Marianne suspected there was something she was not being told.

  Later she wrote in the journal: Only a few more days to go and I will be in Brocklebank again; in the place once I dreaded going to more than any other. The place that hatched the ghosts that walked with me for over thirty years; the place where hundreds of beats of butterfly wings led to a trail of chaos.

  What will I do to the ghosts from the past? What will I say to make them remember the hurt they once caused? I don’t want revenge; I just want them to know. And when they know, perhaps I’ll forgive them.

  36

  Reunion

  On the edge of Derwentbridge, perched alone on a hill, Brocklebank still stood grim, grey and imposing, a testament to a bygone era when children played chase around the grounds and the conflicting sounds of laughter and tears reverberated under the Cumbrian sky. It was so long ago, but the echoes would linger on in the hearts and minds of those who struggled with their first hesitant steps on the ladder of education.

  In the evening August sunlight Marianne tentatively turned her father’s car between the cream concrete pillars by the lodge at the bottom of the drive. She remembered that Jenky and his wife lived at the lodge. Jenky, whose teaching amused and inspired; who understood the ways that children think and feel. A fleeting vision of his checked sports jacket with leather elbow patches floated through her mind. She wondered if he had known how hard it was for her being the lone girl in the third form. Maybe that was why he always encouraged her. Attagirl!

  She drove slowly over the tiny bridge that spanned the beck, near to where the dreaded swimming pool lay with its icy waters, dead mice and noisy splashing. Everything seemed much smaller now. Even the driveway seemed shorter.

  She parked on the asphalt by the rhododendron bushes opposite the house. Already the area was filling up with cars. It had been twenty years since she had made the journey with her friend Abi and over thirty-three years since she had been there as a child. Now the house had been turned into a hotel and conference centre and the ancient woods had been partially cleared and landscaped to provide scenic pitches for a few chalets. Here and there she caught sight of one glinting between the trees.

  She sat in the car, breathing deeply, her thoughts travelling back to when she was small and frightened and the house had been so big and dark and threatening. For her there was menace in the grey walls. Did she really want to put herself through this? She recalled the smells of the different rooms: the polish in the entrance hall; the stale sweat in the boys’ locker room; the scent of pine from the tables in the dining room; the dusty classrooms in
the Hut, and the chilly corridor at the side of the house with its bare concrete floor, leading to the food store and the tuck room where sometimes they could buy sweets and lollipops. If each of these smells had been bottled, she would be able to place every one.

  She swapped her trainers for a pair of sandals and stepped out of the car, taking her mother’s pink pashmina from the back seat and draping it round her shoulders. She paused for a moment, tasting the air, savouring her emotions, wondering if coming back might be a mistake, yet already recognising with triumph that the house didn’t hold the same fears any more. She looked all around her, wanting to feel something mind-blowingly huge; something to tell Edward about when he came back from Scilly.

  Did it matter if the worst of the bullies were there? Did she want to see what had happened to Pete Glanville, Jeremy Lanigan, Timothy Hopkins and Barnaby Sproat? Of course she did! They couldn’t harm her now.

  Edward would be missing, but at least she was forewarned. How awful it would have been to circulate among those gathered, hoping he would step through the door, eyes constantly scanning lest she missed him and that dull disappointment as the minutes ticked by and he failed to show.

  No, it was best this way. When they finally met, she didn’t want to share him with a couple of dozen others; didn’t want to vie for his time, or avoid him lest he thought she was paying him an inappropriate amount of attention.

  Dear Edward … He would be far away in the Scillies among the late summer heather and the clear, turquoise waters lapping at the shoreline. How she hoped he would find his enthusiasm again.

  She walked up the two shallow concrete steps, rang the bell and waited.

  A middle-aged man, in a navy golfing sweater with a red and yellow diamond pattern, opened the door, releasing the sound of seventies rock music from somewhere within. He was slightly hunched and hollow-cheeked, with a bushy black beard and straggly black hair. At first she wondered if he could be a Brocklebank classmate, changed beyond any recognition and she hesitated, not wanting to appear rude.