Reasons to Be Cheerful

by Nina Stibbe

  I couldn’t relax the following day until Priti called in. And when she did, all was well, thank God. And a couple of weeks after that we had an official inspection of the socket and denture to see how it was doing.

  I double-locked the front door. Andy made conversation while Priti rinsed her mouth. He asked her about the real Koh-i-Noor.

  ‘You mean the diamond?’ said Priti.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about it,’ she shrugged.

  Andy said he was sorry but he’d assumed that if your family ran a restaurant called after a famous stolen diamond you’d know the story of it.

  ‘My family run the Raj Restaurant,’ said Priti, ‘not the Koh-i-Noor, and I was born in Uganda, not India.’

  Andy apologized and then hooked his finger under her palate and pulled the denture out. He dipped it into the glass of mouthwash and inspected it and then dropped it into the glass and looked at the socket. He asked if I’d like to look at it. I nodded and Priti swallowed and tipped her head back on to the headrest.

  I could have cried. It was healed, pink and healthy and I felt the most enormous surge of emotion. Priti looked at me, her eyeballs straining uncomfortably low to meet mine. I stood back and wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

  ‘Is it OK?’ she asked.

  I tried to say yes but nothing came out.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ said Andy.

  Priti and I reached toward each other awkwardly and brushed hands. She gave me a nod and I bowed slightly, in respect of her perfectly healed gum. Nods and bows of acknowledgement and approval are an underrated gesture I think, between men and women, and even between a cowboy and his unruly but brave horse. Priti’s nod was the best I’d had since my mother had nodded to me through a crowd when I was ten years old and we’d wordlessly communicated something secret and elaborate between us. I can’t even remember what it was.

  Priti’s nod meant the world to me and I felt a little dizzy with the sense of achievement. Andy spoke about denture care and the future. How she must always be sure to clean it over a basin of deep water so that if it dropped, it would fall into the water and be safe, and not on to the hard porcelain and crack. And that she must keep the spare (he’d made her one) in a moist cloth or tissue.

  And I’d stood there, beaming, happy, proud, looking at her, and she’d sat there beaming back.

  ‘What about the bridge?’ I said. ‘She won’t want to go to university with a denture.’

  ‘No,’ said Andy, ‘we’ll make you a bridge, a top-class porcelain bonded on gold. But you need to let that socket heal and settle for a bit longer.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A couple of months, maybe three.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, then got up from the chair and took off the bib.

  ‘Come up to the flat,’ I invited, meaning both of them.

  Andy couldn’t–he had a prior engagement–but Priti came and we ended up making animal biscuits again because she loved baking but never had the time, and anyway she was still too scared of the oven to put the baking tray in or take it out.

  She asked me about Andy.

  ‘Is he your boyfriend?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, assertively just in case she got any ideas.

  23. The Cheese Knife

  A couple of days later I drove my granny Benson to the hairdresser. We talked about the future, my future. I said I’d quite like to move to London later, and do some writing.

  ‘So what will you do?’ she asked, and I muttered about working with children or horses and getting some accommodation before starting on a proper career. She’d seemed unconvinced and said what a shame it was I’d left school at such a young age. I hadn’t expected this. Only days before I had extracted someone’s tooth and made her life bearable, righted a wrong, etc. and I’d forgotten that to my grandmother I’d still just be me.

  While my granny was in Steiner’s having her hair done I wandered around the shops, but I was waiting in the car when she reappeared, with awful neat waves, and tapped on the window with her fingernail. I was supposed to get out, open the door for her to get in, close it, and get back in myself.

  ‘Your hair looks nice,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be silly. It never looks nice on the first day,’ she said. ‘Drive on.’

  ‘Oh, well, I think it looks lovely,’ I lied, again.

  ‘That reminds me,’ she said, and then asked if I’d be good enough to return a little cheese knife she’d given me–completely unbidden–when I’d first moved into the flat.

  ‘This is a jolly useful little knife,’ she’d said. ‘Here, you may as well have it since it can’t go through the dishwasher and I never use it any more.’

  And now, she was suddenly asking for it back. It seemed to occur to her when I’d said her hair looked nice, as if to punish me for the lie. She just came out with it, saying how jolly useful it was and that she hadn’t realized how much she relied on it, for all sorts of funny little cutting jobs, until it was gone. And if I wouldn’t mind, she’d like it back.

  I told her that I found the cheese knife really useful and didn’t know how I’d manage without it as I had no other handy little knife, and that I loved it.

  ‘Well, what do you use it for?’ she asked. ‘Do you eat much cheese?’

  ‘I use it to peel potatoes and parsnips,’ I said. Another lie.

  In fact, I mostly used a small Kitchen Devil from Priti’s kitchenware stall in Leicester Market that came free with a spice rack.

  ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Well, it’s not meant for potatoes. You need a peeler for that. And why are you peeling potatoes, anyway? You should be baking them and eating them whole with all the goodness lying close to the skin, and dietary fibre. Not to mention the economics of the thing.’

  I held my nerve as we parted after the practice outside my flat.

  ‘Are you going to run up and get my little knife?’

  ‘No, I’m used to it now and want to keep it,’ I said. ‘Bye.’ And I jogged up the steps.

  In truth I hardly used the knife at all. Its wooden handle never quite dried out after the washing-up and had a slimy, unhygienic feel. That’s the thing with wood–however lovely, there’s a sense of it harbouring germs.

  I analysed the incident later. Why had she given me the knife in the first place and then asked for it back, and why at that precise moment–just after I’d complimented her hair? And then, why had I refused to return it when I didn’t even like it? It struck me that life was going to be very complicated if I had no idea why people did things, and even more so if I didn’t know why I did things back.

  I felt a Woman’s Own column coming on but decided it was too complex and stupid for the poor readers to have to put up with. It was more the kind of thing you’d see in the Observer explored by a psychologist from Edinburgh who had a book out, or Sue Arnold.

  24. Andy’s Test

  Andy’s driving test was upon us. I was glad because it gave me an excuse to make contact. I sent him a good-luck card. It was basically an L-plate ripped in half, like the advert for the Fosse School of Motoring. Inside I wrote, Good Luck! Hope you pass!!

  I couldn’t decide whether or not I did want him to pass, though. It would seem unfair when he’d stolen the lessons I might have had from my mother, and it would certainly be more satisfying if I passed first.

  Andy had arranged a couple of lessons with qualified instructor Mr Giddens of the Fosse School of Motoring for the morning of the test. He passed, of course, and according to my mother, who phoned with the news, Mr Giddens had patted him on the back and said, ‘That’s my boy.’

  ‘As if he’d been the one who’d taught him,’ she said to me. ‘Bloody cheek.’

  ‘Congratulations!’ I said to her.

  Later that day I had a lesson with Mrs Woodward and had to tell her the news.

  ‘Well, that’ll be you in a few weeks’ time.’

  ‘Yes.’ And I imagined Mrs Woodward patting me on the back a
nd saying, ‘That’s my girl.’

  After our lesson she told me I needed to concentrate on vehicles around me and read the road ahead.

  ‘Anticipate what Mr Bus over there is going to do,’ she said, ‘and make sure you’re not in his way.’ And then as we went to pull in to the tram stop outside the flat we couldn’t because there was Andy parked up in the Flying Pea.

  Mrs Woodward told me to mount the kerb just beyond and she clambered out to congratulate him.

  ‘Well done!’ she said.

  And Andy said, ‘Hopefully it’ll be her next time,’ meaning me. Then he told us about reversing around a corner and that kind of thing.

  Mrs Woodward left and I jumped in beside Andy. He wanted to drive down into the centre of town to have something to eat.

  ‘Let’s go to the Swiss Cottage,’ he said. ‘They do a lovely steak pie.’

  I found the invitation confusing. Was he just asking me because he longed to eat in cafés? Did he still not know that I would never want to go to the Swiss Cottage? And even if I did, I’d have the spring vegetable soup with a bread roll. But I said OK because it seemed as though romantic public dining was the only way our relationship was going to lead anywhere.

  ‘Great,’ said Andy, and he drove us to the Haymarket car park where he negotiated a very narrow, twisty ramp with great skill. I ran off on an errand and said I’d meet him at the café in a few minutes.

  ‘Get us a nice table,’ I said, which was one of the best things I’ve ever heard myself say to a man. And I walked briskly to Green’s the Jewellers on Church Gate. This was my mother and sister’s jeweller of choice, and my granny’s too since the horrid man at the other, better, jeweller had made lewd comments about her wearing her pearls in the bath. In Green’s the Jewellers I was approached by a helpful assistant whom I’d seen twice before. He’d helped my mother choose wedding rings and came from Galway. I remembered every detail about him that he’d shared with my mother, but was shocked to find that he also remembered me.

  ‘How was your mother’s wedding?’ he asked.

  ‘That was three years ago,’ I said. ‘It was fine and they’re still married.’

  He laughed at that, because I suppose it was funny.

  ‘I’m looking for a cheap but lovely St Christopher on a chain,’ I told him. ‘For a man.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said the assistant. ‘We have some beauties.’

  I looked at the various depictions of St Christopher on the different-sized pendants and medallions. I wasn’t entirely taken with him. I asked if there were any other saints available. The assistant laughed and told me that St Christopher was a widely popular saint–good for farmers, ferrymen, gardeners, motorists, bachelors, athletes and all sorts of others.

  ‘What does the lucky fellow do for a living?’ he asked.

  ‘He makes dentures, but he’s just passed his driving test as well.’

  ‘Oh, then St Christopher is perfect.’

  I bought the nicest I could afford, a smallish one depicting the saint’s top half, holding a tiny child on his shoulder and with the words Saint Christopher Protect Us running around the rim.

  ‘He’s sure to love it,’ said the assistant.

  In the Swiss Cottage I felt quite confident. It was a café that opened out on to the first-floor walkway of a shopping centre and Andy had chosen a table opposite the exit. Maybe the openness made it a less anxious situation, but whatever it was, I felt fine and suddenly turned to Andy and blurted out that I loved being with him. He was pleased and we hugged and he asked if that was just because he was a driver now and I said, yes, he’d shot up in my estimation.

  My plan was to present the jewellery gift (boxed) there at the café and tell him that I would ignore Willie Bevan, and that since my mother’s uterine problems, I felt less threatened by her, and that actually I might borrow a sexy camisole from Tammy’s secret cupboard, and clamber on top of him in my old bedroom, and that I’d go on the pill or the Dutch cap, or whatever that thing was that caused a mini miscarriage every month, I didn’t care, I was pining for him, I felt rampant. But, before I could even begin, Andy whipped out the Highway Code booklet and banged it down on the table.

  ‘Right, miss,’ he said, ‘let’s go through this.’

  25. The Photograph

  Mrs Woodward had become over-ambitious after Andy’s pass, and she pushed me to take the first available driving test, which in my opinion was a bit too soon. On the day, she gave me an hour-long lesson in which everything went perfectly.

  ‘You see,’ she said, ‘you didn’t put a tyre wrong.’

  She was right. I’d gone round the whole city, the underpass, past the old Vogel factory and negotiated Lee Circle like a professional driver. Mrs Woodward had been so relaxed she’d fallen asleep, and woke with a jolt when I tooted at Tammy whom I spotted walking in a daydream past Redmayne & Todd. The perfect hour’s driving didn’t cheer me though. I put it down, in part, to Andy’s St Christopher, which I’d taken to wearing having never found the right moment to hand it to him, but I couldn’t help thinking I’d used up all my driving energy and luck.

  And I was right. During the actual test I got myself sandwiched between a bus and a lorry. Firstly, I told myself to ‘buck up or fuck up’ and Mr Blick, the examiner, coughed reprimandingly, and so I’d had to apologize and he’d had to say, ‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ and then I’d had to switch lanes, which I did safely albeit annoyingly to other drivers, who sounded their horns and gesticulated at me. I hated that about other drivers. They were like competitive siblings, all too keen to point out the tiniest mistake or indiscretion, knowing full well that it could easily be them having to switch lanes, and then they’d have their hands up, gesturing, ‘Sorry, relax, for God’s sake,’ as I did on that day.

  The worst bit, the incident that must have outright failed me, was just past Leicester prison. I’d noticed a tiny sandwich shop, a place I’d forgotten, from where I’d bought a cheese-salad cob one morning when Mr Holt had dropped me early and I’d been in need of breakfast. I’d thought it miraculous that this café was not only open at 7 a.m. but also serving freshly made sandwiches. Then, to my surprise, as I ate it walking across the green, I found that as well as cheese salad, it also contained egg slices. I remembered thinking it the height of happiness and good fortune to be walking in the early-morning sunshine, eating a cheese-salad cob with egg slices in it.

  My mind had been meandering on this as I pootled along in the correct lane, in second gear just in case of the need to manoeuvre, and then, quite as though a spirit had seized the steering wheel, we veered across the lanes and if Mr Blick hadn’t reached violently across, grabbed the wheel and righted our course, I would have ploughed us straight into the side of the bus which had stopped opposite the Granby Halls.

  ‘Pull over in that lay-by ahead please,’ Mr Blick said, slightly shaken.

  ‘Sorry about that. I’m fine, though,’ I said, glancing at him.

  ‘Pull over.’

  I pulled over.

  ‘Have I failed?’ I asked.

  ‘Drive on when it’s safe to do so, please, and continue straight ahead until I tell you otherwise.’

  ‘Have I failed, though?’ I said. ‘I really want to know.’

  ‘Well, yes, of course you have, you almost killed us.’

  I was so cross with myself I told Mr Blick I was too shaken to continue driving and we swapped seats and he drove us in silence to the test centre on Saffron Lane.

  Mr Blick did the paperwork and gave me the official chit-chat. And then he got out of the car and spoke to Mrs Woodward.

  Mrs Woodward kept glancing over as they spoke. She looked crestfallen.

  She wasn’t the sort to lie or withhold information and so she’d given a full and frank report to my mother who’d shared it later at home. Andy was very kind about it for a while and then wanted to know what had happened.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Why did the examiner have to take over?’


  ‘I lost control of the vehicle,’ I said. ‘That’s the only way I can describe it.’

  ‘You’ll pass next time,’ he said, giving me a hug, ‘or the time after. What can I do to cheer you up?’

  ‘Come for a day out with me.’

  My mother joined in. She suggested London. There was no place outside of Italy better for art, the parks were divine, and if we ran out of things to do we could take the number 31 bus to Kilburn to see Aunt Josephine. I agreed.

  ‘I think you’ll love the zoo,’ I told Andy, ‘and it takes almost all day.’

  We went by train. Andy wore a most attractive cream cable sweater with a turtle neck–the sort you might see in a free knitting pattern–and dark blue jeans. I won’t tell you what I wore because it was awful but it didn’t matter because I was able to bask in the glow of Andy who looked like a young Captain Birdseye, and so I was very pleased to be seen by a handful of people I knew.

  I recognized a woman in our carriage–a friend of my mother’s. I smiled at her, and then realized it was April Jickson from Best End Boutique who’d supplied my mother with pills, sexy underthings and whatnot over the years, and whose twins (Thing One and Thing Two) I’d babysat for a few times. She got up from her seat and came over to say hello. She asked how my mother was doing and when I said she was fine but had had a prolapse, April made a lot of facial expressions and said she was sorry to hear it and to send her best wishes for a speedy recovery. I asked after the twins, who must now be at least six years old and worse than ever, I imagined. April ignored that and told us she was going to look at a retail premises with a view to expanding her fashion business into London. We wished her good luck and she went back to her seat and opened her magazine (Vogue).

  When the train pulled in at St Pancras I marched us expertly along to the taxi rank and we took one to Devonshire Place in the Marylebone area. This wasn’t because I wanted Andy to see Devonshire Place or Marylebone but because that’s where my previous London trips had always begun and I knew where I was there in relation to the places I did want to go, which were London Zoo and Regent’s Park. When the taxi pulled up I paid and gave the driver a tip of approximately ten per cent which I’d learned to do after a previous driver had called my sister and me ‘a pair of fucking bitches’ for not tipping. We’d been nine and eleven years old at the time and, not knowing the rules, couldn’t think what we’d done to deserve it. My sister asked the driver of our next taxi and he’d been appalled at our ignorance and was only too happy to put us right. I mentioned this to Andy so he’d never find himself in the same position.