by Anne Doughty
‘I’m not. I’m a handless idiot. I’ve never put up a shelf in my life. Or rather, I did once and it was a disaster, as my father hastened to point out and never let me forget. That’s partly why I took it. To find out if I really am handless, I mean.’
‘But what will you do if you find that you are,’ I asked without thinking.
‘Accept it,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Like the elderly virgin who went to bed with the postman, I don’t want to die wondering. Besides, I’ve got Bob to advise me on what I can tackle and what needs a professional. I thought I’d make you my horticultural expert. That’s if you’d be willing,’ he added hastily.
I nodded my agreement vigorously. ‘You know that rose will need a lot of pruning, don’t you?’
‘I thought you might say that when I saw you looking at it.’ He smiled broadly as he ducked his head and we went into the larger of the two small bedrooms under the steep pitched roof.
Immediately, I caught the gleam of water. I went to the window, pushed it open, and heard the plash of tiny waves on the sandy shore.
‘Oh Alan, you can even hear the sea from your bedroom,’ I said wistfully. ‘Can we go and walk along the beach? I’ve been thinking about the sea all day.’
He looked at my long skirt and high-heeled gold sandals and raised an eyebrow.
‘I can turn it over at the waist quite easily, if you’ve got any shoes or boots. Anything will do,’ I said quickly.
‘I can do better than that,’ he replied, with a look of triumph. ‘Val came down last weekend to see if it really was safe to let me spend the odd night here, before any work is done, and she left her painting clothes as an earnest of intent.’
A little while later, he pulled the front door shut behind us and we set off along a sandy path towards the sound of the waves.
‘Can I help?’ he asked as I stopped and bent over on the path.
‘No, it’s fine now,’ I said, catching him up. ‘Val’s legs are longer than mine. There’s lots of extra trouser to jump out of the boots.’
We scrunched across the storm beach and ploughed on through the very soft sand, totally absorbed in the quiet murmurings of the sea and the movements of our own thoughts.
A few moments later, I realised Alan was way ahead of me, striding out on the firm damp sand left by the retreating tide. I stopped where I was. In a moment or two, he paused, looked round and came hurrying back to me.
‘Sorry, Jenny. Another bad habit. Comes of being on one’s own rather a lot.’
‘Don’t you get lonely, Alan?’
‘Yes, I do. Sometimes.’
‘And what do you do then?’
‘Different things at different times. You can’t predict what will work because you don’t know when it’s going to happen. And you can’t guess in advance what might be around to help you.’
‘What things, for instance?’
‘Well, there’s music, of course. Sometimes you can get right inside a work and come out feeling better. And there’s poetry too. When you read what others have written, when they’ve felt like you do, it often helps. And sometimes there’s the completely unexpected. Like when I was up in the Highlands last year. I was on my own in a friend’s cottage. Lovely place. Quiet, beautiful. I had some wonderful walks, took pictures, saw ravens and sea eagles. But one night, suddenly, I felt really down. I just couldn’t cope. I tried to read. Listened to the radio. No good. Then I thought, Hamish must have a drop of whisky somewhere. I’ll have that and get him some more. I searched for ages for that whisky. Never found it. I ended up making a cup of tea. It was only when I was drinking the tea I realised I was feeling better,’ he ended, laughing.
I bent down and picked up a tiny shell, rinsed it in a pool of water and held it out on the palm of my hand.
He looked at it closely and said he hadn’t seen one like it for a very long time. And then he waited patiently while I collected some more.
How long is it, Jenny, I said to myself, since anyone waited for you to collect shells? Since we’d left Windmill Hill, I hadn’t given a single thought to the life waiting out there for me in the darkness away to the north. I looked at our footprints, two long tracks side by side on the wet sand. Soon, we should have to turn and follow them back. The thought of what I had fled from at Val’s and what lay beyond at Loughview came in upon me and sadness overwhelmed me.
‘Whatever was that sombre thought, Jenny?’
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything and we walked on in silence. Quite unexpectedly, the line of the beach changed. Beyond the dazzle of the moonlight on the wet sand, we saw the bones of an old boat poking up through the sand.
‘Look, Alan, look!’ I cried, dashing towards it over piles of seaweed and soft sand.
I got there well ahead of him and stood gazing up at the silvered surface of a curved bow timber. I put out my hand and stroked it. The same wood as the old breakwater at Ballydrumard, I was sure, the bolt holes enlarged by the continuous ebb and flow of the tides and stained with the reddish oxides of long-corroded metal, the lower parts colonised by tiny marine animals, their shells clamped firmly to the smooth surfaces that lay between the deep holes drilled by unknown creatures now long gone. I took it all in, but it was not just delight in my discovery that held me silent as Alan caught up with me.
Behind me, I heard him slither on the wet seaweed and scrunch across the soft shingle, but I did not turn towards him. I went on standing, my hands grasping the textured wood of the long-foundered wreck as I felt myself sink fathoms deep under the weight of the memories that poured over me.
‘How splendid, Jenny. Just like your breakwater at Ballydrumard,’ he said enthusiastically, as he came up to me.
I made a noise in agreement, but I couldn’t bear to turn and look at him. I went on clutching the silvery timbers as if my hands were frozen to them, and stared out across the calm, moonlit waters, seeing images I had not the smallest wish to see and not the slightest power to shut out.
I was back at Rathmore Drive. Downstairs, the phone was ringing. It had been ringing for some time, but I had been so absorbed in my work it had taken some minutes for it to impinge. I put my pen down and listened. With my bedroom door closed, I couldn’t hear the words but I could usually pick up the tone. I hoped it might be Colin. If it was, then my mother’s voice would take on that well-rounded note which only appeared when it was Harvey, or the new curate, or one or two other especially favoured individuals.
‘Jennifer. Jennifer!’
Her tone was harsh and peremptory. It was certainly not Colin. I jumped to my feet and hurried along the landing.
‘Jennifer!’ she called again, without looking up.
I arrived at the foot of the stairs as she put her hand to the kitchen door.
‘It’s for you,’ she threw over her shoulder.
I hurried to pick up the receiver. ‘Hello,’ I said breathlessly.
‘Hello, Jenny, it’s Alan,’ he said quietly. ‘Have I called at a bad moment?’
‘Oh no, no, not at all,’ I replied, flustered. ‘I’m struggling with a long essay. It’s lovely to hear you. How are things?’ I asked, my voice recovering somewhat as I heard the kitchen door bang shut.
We talked for ten minutes or so during which my mother walked along the hall and into the sitting room once and crossed over into the dining room twice. Each time, she ignored me pointedly.
‘I think I’d better be getting back to the great work,’ I said reluctantly, as the atmosphere became ever more icy with each transit.
‘Yes, of course. I just rang to see what day suited you best for our Easter expedition, the one we spoke about at the Annual General Meeting. Had you forgotten?’
‘Of course I hadn’t. I’ve been looking forward to it. I’ve done no serious picture-making since last summer.’
We made our plans for the following Tuesday.
‘Do you realise that Tuesday is April the first, All Fools’ Day,’ said Alan, laughing.
‘Oh, that’s wonderful. It will probably snow on us. You could get Val to send a St Bernard for us if we don’t arrive back.’
I was still smiling as I tore off my scribbles from the telephone pad and turned back in the direction of my essay.
‘Very nice, Jennifer. I’m sure you’re pleased with yourself. Smiling all over your face. Making dates with your gentleman friends and you an engaged girl.’ My mother was standing across the foot of the stairs, her face red with fury, her chin poked out vehemently as she began her tirade.
I had heard most of it before, her usual catalogue of my misdemeanours which ranged from reading disgusting books to wasting my time running to visit that Valerie Thompson and her boyfriend. She waxed eloquent on my lack of consideration for my family, my refusal to go to church, and my coming in at all hours from these carryings on at Dramatic Society. But these were merely preliminaries to the real object of her fury.
‘Alan Thompson,’ she spat out. ‘That blighter. Like father, like son. The father was married again before his wife was cold in her grave, and his son’s just as bad. Asking you out and you engaged to be married. And you standing there laughing away. Alan this and Alan that and “What do you think, Alan?” Well, I’ll tell you what I think. We’ll see what Colin has to say about this.’ Colin was far too good for me. I didn’t know how lucky I was. And if it hadn’t been for her wearing herself out to try to get me to look decent, there’d be no Colin.
She went on and on, till I screamed at her to shut up. And that made her ten times worse. I pushed past her and ran upstairs to my room, but there was no lock on the door so she just followed me. She was still shouting at me when Daddy arrived home and came upstairs to see what was going on.
I lay and wept all through a long Saturday afternoon. I thought about just packing a case and walking out, going to Val and Bob and asking if I could move in with them for a little, but then I thought of Daddy and couldn’t bring myself to do it. Downstairs, I could still hear her in full flight. Later, when I heard the front door bang, I went to the window and saw her drive off.
I went downstairs to find my father. He was in the dining room, lying back in his chair, his eyes closed, his face pale. I wasn’t sure if he was asleep or just exhausted. He hadn’t heard me, so I slipped away again. It was no use. If I were to leave, it would only make things ten times worse for him. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go to Val and I would have to say no to Alan. I went back to my room feeling as if the last spark of brightness in my life had gone out.
I gripped the timbers of the old wreck even harder. I blinked at the moonlit shore, so aware of Alan behind me as the memory of that awful year between graduation and wedding reran itself in clips and jerks like an amateur video.
I was working for my Diploma in Education and continuing to live at home. Colin was in London on a special surveying course and only came back once a month. My Dramatic Society friends had scattered after graduation. Val was newly married and working very hard at her first job. Worst of all, my mother, who had been sunshine itself up to our engagement, reverted to her most unlovely self the moment Colin departed.
Nothing I did was ever right. Unless I sat in my own room, working or reading, or writing long epistles to Colin, she found something to criticise. If I went out with my father, there were week-long sulks. If I visited Val and Bob, there’d be a row about my going and another when I returned. And if I dared to go out on my own, she would cross-question me as if I were a child. I began to exist for Colin’s brief visits; counting the weeks, the days, the hours till his appearance would bring me some relief from this endless bombardment.
As the flood of recollection poured over me, suddenly I saw what had happened. I had completely lost my nerve. Exhausted by the relentless pressure to do only what she wanted me to do, and the burden of a course which was tedious and boring, I just didn’t read the signs that things between Colin and me were not at all that they should have been. Neither Colin’s letters, nor his phonecalls, nor his very existence had had the slightest effect in modifying the darkness of the depressions which came upon me continually throughout that year. It was all so obvious, now I could see it, and the enormity of what I had done overwhelmed me.
Just at that moment, Alan spoke my name. ‘Jenny?’
The gentleness in his voice was the very last straw. Tears streamed down my cheeks and my shoulders shook, great gasping sobs welled up from my throat as uncontrollably as before.
‘Jenny, what is it? Whatever’s wrong, my dear? Tell me.’
I felt his arms round me. I leaned against him, not sure I could stay on my feet if he let go. I could smell the wool of his duffle coat as my tears soaked into it. He stroked my hair distractedly and tried to comfort me, but I was beyond comfort, bleakly aware at last of what I’d done. How could I have let matters take their course when it was so blindingly clear things weren’t right between Colin and me? We made love for the first time on that Easter visit to London, and it had been a disaster. But then, as ever, Colin had simply said everything would be fine when we were married. I was tense, or tired, or premenstrual. It would all be so different when we could be together in our own nice double bed. It would be fine, just fine. And I let myself believe him because I could not face the alternative.
‘Alan, do you remember the expedition we planned for Ballydrumard in April nineteen sixty-five,’ I asked quickly in a brief pause between sobs.
‘Yes, of course I do,’ he said, looking surprised. ‘You went down with a bad cold.’
I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. ‘No, Alan, I didn’t. I went down all right. All the way to the bottom. But it wasn’t a cold.’ I took the handkerchief he offered me and blew my nose. ‘That’s the second one,’ I said.
‘I’m not counting,’ he replied softly, as he gently took his arms from around me.
I straightened up, did my best to steady myself, and began to tell him all that had gone on through my Diploma year. When I got to his March phonecall, I used my mother’s voice. You don’t have to be a good mimic to do my mother, you just need a harsh, driving tone and a hectoring manner, and you throw in as many well-worn clichés as you can lay your hands on. I saw him wince, but I pressed on, unable to stop now I had begun.
‘That’s what’s so awful, Alan. It’s bad enough having married someone I shouldn’t have married, but it’s even worse having done it because I was too worn down to stop my mother setting me up for it. From the minute Colin appeared, she was charm itself. Life was just so much easier. I’m sure I thought it was all because I had Colin. But that wasn’t it at all. It was her.
‘She really was as nice as pie because she wanted Colin as a son-in-law. She was so delighted when we got engaged, but then, as soon as he went off to London, she was back to her old self. She kept all my other friends away because she wanted to be quite sure I’d have no chance for second thoughts. Especially where you were concerned, Alan,’ I croaked, my voice threatening to pack up. ‘For once in her life she got it absolutely right. She saw something I couldn’t see myself. She was afraid I’d turn to you and drop Colin, and that would be the end of all her hard work,’ I whispered, my voice breaking at last.
‘It’s my fault, my fault entirely. I know now I could see it wasn’t going to work. But I wouldn’t face up to it. What we had in Birmingham was a honeymoon, that’s all. Just an extension of student life with more freedom and no parents breathing down our necks. It was an escape, and as an escape it worked. But once we were back in the real world, with real responsibilities and a life to put together, that was the end.’
Shaking sobs overwhelmed me again and I collapsed against him. He put his arms round me and held me tight.
‘Jenny, I must take you back. You’re frozen,’ he said urgently.
‘No, I don’t want to go back. Please, Alan, no,’ I protested desperately.
‘All right, all right. Not back to the party, silly, just to the cottage. I’ll make a fire and some tea. Now, come on, or you’ll turn i
nto an icicle.’
I felt just like an icicle. Brittle and fragile. And dripping. One more blow from my own bitter memories and I’d shatter into fragments and be washed away by my own tears.
He clutched my hand firmly and turned me round towards the shore. He coaxed me to lead us back over the seaweed and sand; once we were over that, he’d carry me the rest of the way if he had to. As we set off, I caught sight of the oil lamp we’d left lit in the bedroom window. Blurred by my tears at first, it grew clearer as we moved silently towards it. Such a little light, and yet how bright it was, all that distance away. Like a beacon in the darkness, a promise of safety and comfort.
I stumbled on the storm beach and felt his grip tighten.
‘All right?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ I couldn’t quite believe it. My voice was perfectly normal again and I was beginning to feel warm.
In no time at all we were tramping up the sandy path through the low, humpy dunes. I looked up at the cottage and saw there were a few late roses still in bloom, a little way below the upstairs window.
Just as we reached the front door, an owl called. A haunting, lonely cry. Like the cry of a creature for whom there is no comfort, no companion of like kind. We stood perfectly still, hoping it might appear. But the next call was further away. A sad, desolate sound that made me long for the touch of Alan’s sheltering arms and his clumsy tenderness when my tears had overwhelmed me down by the wreck.
The moon was sinking behind cloud. For a moment, a radiance in the midnight sky. Then it was gone. The darkness enfolded us where we stood, hand in hand, in the tiny patch of lamplight spilling down through the roses.
‘I’ll make us a fire while you go and change, Jenny. Unless you’d be warmer in what you’re wearing,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘I can wrap you in the car rug,’ he offered as he opened the door.
I shook my head. We went into the tiny hallway and I put my arms round him. Reached up and kissed him.
‘You’re cold too,’ I said quietly. ‘We could warm each other.’
I held out my hand and led him up the narrow stair to the tiny bedroom where my party clothes were laid on the bed, waiting for me. He took me in his arms.
