Meeting Lydia

by Linda MacDonald

  “You too,” said Marianne, knowingly.

  “And me,” said Abi.

  Susannah continued: “I went to a fancy dress party a couple of weeks ago – nineteen-twenties jazz – done up to the hilt and with feathers in my hair … Walked in to this hall in Broughton and it’s all bright lights and kids everywhere – not a flapper dress in sight. Hadn’t I just gone on the wrong night! Party was the day before … Felt such a fool! … It’s either Alzheimer’s or hormones. I’m banking on the latter!”

  “Just pretend I’m not here,” said Willie. “I’ve told them I’m writing a novel inspired by my memoirs,” said Marianne, nodding in the general direction of the gang of three.

  “They keep looking over here,” said Abi.

  “Perhaps I should appear a little mad … that would really get them going! Ask them if they keep rabbits!”

  “Rabbits?” said Willie, puzzled.

  Abi and Susannah were laughing.

  “Never mind, Bro’,” said Susannah.

  “No Edward, then. Pity,” said Abi.

  “Edward’s in Scilly. Probably just as well. I couldn’t play the madwoman if he was around.”

  Abi went to the bar to get a drink and was soon in animated conversation with Barnaby Sproat. Marianne and Susannah caught up with the essentials of each other’s lives and it wasn’t long before Susannah had Marianne laughing until her face hurt.

  Then the guy who Barnaby had said was Timothy Hopkins approached them and Marianne remembered Susannah’s comment about the turkey and stifled a giggle.

  Ask me who I am, not what I do … Yes I am married. Yes I have a daughter, but that tells you nothing of me. It is mere ribbons and bows along with the packaging that you see. Of course we like to know these things because we are curious. These things allow us to make stereotypical judgements, but they are no indicator of whether we could pass an enjoyable hour conversing, or even be friends.

  Ask me what I like to eat and whether I am a morning person or am better in the afternoons. Or ask me if being left-handed has made life difficult in a right-handed world; or what it was like being a girl in a world full of boys. There are so many things you could ask me that would make me remember our conversation, but you won’t, will you? You will prattle on and on about how wonderful you are, trying to convince yourself that you haven’t wasted the last twenty-five years, and I will wonder why I travelled all the way from London to hear about nothing.

  She now understood perfectly why she preferred small gatherings to parties; one to one conversations rather than groups. It was only then that you could get beyond the weather-talk, the vying for position, the points scoring, the secondhand opinions on world events and politics.

  Timothy Hopkins was already in the middle of his life story and she realised she hadn’t been listening. Better give a few nods and a few ‘aha’s’, she thought, hoping he would carry on talking until she picked up the thread of what he was saying.

  “ … So there I was pretending to be a very good motorcyclist, and all the time I had been frightening her witless.”

  “Gosh,” said Marianne, awkwardly, struggling. “And what happened next?”

  “Took her to see Madame Butterfly at the Coliseum and the next day she agreed to marry me!”

  “Marianne,” said a rare familiar voice from behind her. A voice that she had heard often since its teenage breaking; a voice from grammar school days and later. She turned and beamed. Oh my, she thought. No more the Blond Adonis, but a genial face nonetheless; still the beard, though shorter than it was, and rather less hair. He had been Johnny’s best man at their wedding, but although Johnny had met up with him a few times after that, she hadn’t seen him for years.

  “Sam,” she said, allowing him to give her a hug and mouthing ‘rescue me’ with wide eyes while her back was turned on Timothy Hopkins. “It’s been ages. What have you been up to lately? No, don’t answer that. No more inane pleasantries, I’ve had a bellyful tonight. Tell me how you are, how you really feel about your life.”

  And Sam Rycroft also looked at her now in a way he never had when she was fifteen and so infatuated she would have given anything to see him gaze as he was doing now.

  “You sure you want to know? Not pretty. Just about to get divorced,” he said. “I feel bloody awful. Been a rough few years … Would’ve happened sooner, but there were the children … You know how it is … Poor blighters … Not their fault, but they suffer and you can see it in their eyes. Hoping Mummy and Daddy will get back together; trying every trick to make it happen. Breaks your heart … We kept trying again for their sake, but once it’s gone, it’s very hard to get it back.”

  Marianne felt a tremor go through her body. But it hasn’t gone with me and Johnny. It’s just lost … temporarily misplaced.

  “D’you hear from Sasha at all?” continued Sam.

  Oh yes, Sasha had been in touch by email only a week ago, and when she heard that Marianne was going to a Brocklebank reunion, she wrote straight back and said if Sam was there, to give him her love.

  “Sasha is in Bath. She married Graham Simpkins – but you must know that. Did you ever meet him? Some type of specialist lawyer, but I forget what, exactly. I always thought he was rather odd – fearsomely intelligent and scathing of those who weren’t. Three kids, all girls, all grown up now.” Marianne paused. Sam was listening intently, really wanting to know. Now she had got over the initial shock of his transformation, she saw how when he smiled, his blue eyes still twinkled, and the boy from long ago was somewhere under the surface. “She sends her love,” she added, as neutrally as possible, noting that for an instant Sam looked into the depths of his pint and for a fleeting moment a wistful glance flickered across his face, like a remembered pleasant memory, and she thought he was going to ask something more.

  Instead he asked about Johnny and recounted some of the times they’d had when young.

  She would never tell him that Johnny had been drinking too much; that their perfect marriage was going through the type of patch that had previously been only for others. That was for Johnny himself to say when they met again as no doubt they would. Sam and Johnny once told each other everything; pals from primary school; old friends.

  Marianne said: “Didn’t think you’d be here. Thought it probably wasn’t your scene.”

  “It isn’t, really. I was at a loose end and curious. Thought some of the Waterside crowd might be here. Susannah’s still the same Susannah. Just had a chat with Bas Sproat. Too full of himself, as always.”

  “Well if it’s any consolation, you look in much better shape than him.”

  “Thanks! D’you fancy having a nose around – as far as we can?”

  She had only had one glass of wine, but that and the nostalgia were making her light headed. It was so easy talking to Sam since she and Johnny had been together; far removed from the blushes and hesitations of teenage years.

  As they sneaked out of the room, Marianne giggled. “I feel like a naughty school kid going out of bounds.”

  The parquet floor of the hall was still the same, but all the books and magazines and school photographs had gone. Instead there was a hat stand, a reception desk and a few plush chairs. Up the wooden stairs they went. Opposite the top had been one of the dormitories. I wonder if that was where Edward slept. Now it would be a conference room or sleeping accommodation. She turned to her left, marvelling at the smallness of the spaces that had once seemed so large.

  “Are you still teaching?” she asked.

  “Yes, in Workington. But I want out before it kills me. I make wrought iron gates at the weekends and plan to turn it into a business.”

  They stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, leaning on the banister rail looking down into the hall.

  “I used to think you were wonderful when you were here,” said Marianne. “You were so charismatic; such a show-off! Brilliant at football.”

  “Not any more,” said Sam reflectively. “Did my knee in playing squ
ash about five years ago. Now yet another of the walking wounded.”

  The girls’ bathroom had been on the left with its green cast iron bath and green tiles. It said ‘Bathroom’ on the door so Marianne pushed it open and looked inside. Incredibly, the tiles seemed still the same, but along the wall where the lockers had been, were radiators and towel rails and the bathroom suite was new and luxurious. Sam sat on the edge of the bath.

  “I don’t think I ever came in here,” he said.

  Marianne bent down by the skirting board near the door.

  “One of these tiles used to be loose,” she said. “I remember writing ‘I love Sam Rycroft’ on the back. Probably the first time I had ever written such a thing. It seemed so daring at the time.” She ran her fingers over the tiles, almost wishing that she could find this evidence of her past, but they were all stuck fast.

  Sam laughed. “I guess you got over it pretty quick. Does Johnny know?”

  “Doubt it … I never talked to him much about Brocklebank … Never talked to anyone about it … I wonder why we never mentioned it when you were going out with Sasha?”

  Sam paused, leaning on the towel rail, looking down. “Didn’t want to draw attention to having gone to a posh school?”

  “Probably … I was always getting stick about my accent – or lack of … From you as well! So I learnt to drop my aitches and shorten my ‘a’s. And then I went to London and had the mickey taken out of me all over again.”

  Sam smiled and his eyes crinkled.

  Marianne continued: “I couldn’t bear to think about this place and the older I was, the more I only remembered the bad things and the less I felt like telling anyone about it. Then I found Edward Harvey on Friends Reunited last year …”

  “I knew Ted at Waterside …”

  “We wrote a few emails … Reminisced a bit … Suddenly I was able to face the past.”

  “I remember he was always so enthusiastic about everything. A decent chap. Did I hear he is in Scilly?”

  When she and Sam rejoined the gathering, she looked around the room at the rag-bag collection of people, once her classmates, once full of joy and hope and now resigned to their lot. She could tell by their expressions that most had forgotten how to dream, and as the last cobweb traces of hostility evaporated into the heady atmosphere, she felt that her own life in many ways had only just begun.

  A wave of emotion came from nowhere, making her tingle. The back of her neck was hot and she knew she was in the midst of a hormonal rush. It had been so difficult being that child in the third form; being a girl; being scared; being different. Then Edward had come with his sparkling intelligence; then Abi and Susannah had come and she had discovered friendship and joy; then The Rivals had been performed and she made people laugh and knew the power of the stage. It was all flooding back, not just vague dissociated happenings, but a myriad of vivid memories, and the girl she once was began to smile. Now she knew that those dark days were but a transient shadow in her life and it was time to move on.

  37

  Ambition

  Marianne went up to her daughter’s bedroom to announce that she was home. She hesitated after tapping on the door, waiting for Holly to invite her in. A muffled voice croaked permission to enter and she turned the handle with mixed feelings.

  Inside was typical teenage mess. Notes for the half finished holiday essays were scattered on the desk among nail varnish and eye shadow, brushes and lotions and creams. Books lay open on the floor at the same pages as when the news about Dylan came through. Posters that had started to peel from the wall in the summer heat remained unstuck and flopped dejectedly.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” said Holly raising herself up from the bed where she had apparently been lying. She was still wearing pyjamas, despite the lateness of the afternoon, and a curled embryonic shape was deeply indented on the duvet.

  Marianne rushed over to her and wrapped her in the warmest of lingering hugs that needed no words. It was a proper hug, not one of the pitiful and fleeting clasps that she had offered before the reunion. Her sense of self, of her role as mother, had altered.

  “Look at all this,” said Holly, gesturing with a wide arc of her arm. “Can’t seem to do anything; thoughts keep going round and round.”

  Marianne sat on the bed. “Maybe you shouldn’t go back. You could have a year out: a gap year.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same without Dylan. We had so planned it all.”

  “You don’t have to do the same things. But you need to do something to keep yourself occupied. A gap year would give you time to readjust.”

  “No.” Holly shook her head and her tousled hair became caught in itself and stuck out at the side. She smoothed it with her hands. “Dylan would want me to carry on. I’ve made friends in my classes. Don’t want to start again with another load of freshers. Uggh! I will get sorted. Tomorrow … Promise.”

  Marianne was doubtful. “You could get a job locally for a few months – until you feel better.”

  “I’ve thought and thought. If only … If only he hadn’t gone with Danny. Those kinda thoughts. It’s doing my head in. I’ve got to stop. I’m sick of crying. Dylan would say I was such a woos.”

  Marianne gave her daughter’s hand a squeeze.

  “Mum, I’m sorry you missed your meeting with Harry Potter.”

  “There’ll be another day for Harry, love.”

  True to her word, the next day Holly was a bundle of energy, cleaning her room, phoning her friend Thalia to arrange a weekend boat trip with her parents, circulating again in Beckenham. Perhaps Edward was right about the resilience of the young.

  Marianne mused on the fact that it was a year since the M word had begun to be a factor; a year since she had started looking for Edward Harvey on Friends Reunited. How quickly time travelled these days. Soon she would be fifty.

  Only other people were fifty and they had tight perms like Mrs Swift. But although her hair was still untouched by anything other than the occasional semi-permanent colour, she was beginning to prefer to wear sensible shoes; opting for comfort rather than crippling pain during the long days of treading the corridors at college. Bad sign! It was a surfeit of the Nearly Fifties that she had encountered at the reunion and it frightened her.

  We all seemed so old. It was as if they had aged while I had stood still. Then the awful realisation that I, like them, had aged too. They were mirrors reflecting back what I refuse to see.

  Time to get out those stilettos and see if she could still balance and strut like a catwalk model. Johnny once told her after following her down the road, that he quite understood why women wore high heels; that they forced the hips to sway seductively, like it or not. And for a while when they were in flirtatious mood, he would hang back and let her walk in front of him while he admired her exaggerated gait.

  Fifty! For God’s sake! Only three years left before the F word. Now she knew what her mother always said was true – that you felt more or less the same inside even though the casing looked older. Certainly she didn’t feel like the reflection that stared at her every day, but she was more inclined to laugh at it now; far less insecure.

  With Holly more settled, she should have been able to pay more attention to her own life; the book, perhaps. Now that she had told Sproat et al., that a novel was in the pipeline, there was no ducking out. She would have to start writing in earnest.

  And there was Johnny too …

  But almost immediately she was propelled into the new academic year at college and all thoughts of reconciliation strategies evaporated. It was a week of enrolment forms and course team meetings; of strategic planning (how she hated that word: the S word!) and briefings about the forthcoming Ofsted inspection. Then it was new classes, new tutor group, new names to learn and the beginnings of a cycle that was being played out in educational establishments up and down the land.

  And just as the term was embedding itself and she was beginning to refocus on home life again, her Head of Depar
tment announced she was pregnant and would be off on maternity leave from January until the following September.

  Pandrea Kinnear was a vast Scottish woman with wavy black curls who walked with her feet apart and resembled an oil-rig. She preferred to be called Pan and said that her full name was a compromise between Andrea and Pandora, favoured by each of her parents.

  Marianne greeted the news of the forthcoming child with mixed emotions, one of which was a twinge of jealousy. Pan was forty-two and already had twin teenage girls. She opened her mouth to say something diplomatic but Pan interjected.

  “We were grossed out at first,” continued Pan. Since she had been in the States the previous summer, she had become fond of Americanisms. “It’s a mistake as you might have guessed. Hey! Too much red wine! Och I know, I should know better! I always did want another one. It was Austen who couldn’t face the nappies and the sick again. I told him he didn’t have to, but he said that’s what I’d said last time. But that was because last time was twins. Anyway he’s got used to it and the girls rather like the idea of having someone to boss around just now. Of course this means we need an acting HOD. There’ll be a notice going up in the staffroom next week, so if you’re interested …” she nodded at Marianne and Howakhan Gadhok, the third member of the department, a young man of twenty-four who gelled his black hair into porcupine spines and was looking distinctly uncomfortable with the baby talk. “If not, we’ll advertise the HOD responsibility with the maternity leave post. Not ideal,” she added, giving Marianne a significant look.

  Ambition was something Marianne had always lacked. Climbing ladders in education or anywhere was not for her. Unlike Johnny, she couldn’t see the point of making the significantly increased effort for very little extra money. But something had changed. Howakhan Gadhok was wet-behind-the-ears and in only his second year of teaching. He certainly had ambition, but he didn’t yet have experience. Marianne didn’t fancy the prospect of working under him even if he was from a branch line of the Sioux.

  If Edward can do it, so can I, she thought, and she sent her letter of application to the Principal without telling Johnny.