An Ordinary Life

by Amanda Prowse

  She looked at her colleagues and giggled – was this actually a love letter? And why was she even giggling in this coquettish manner? She was a woman of forty-three, for heaven’s sake, not some impressionable teen!

  ‘Oh come on!’ Mr Kendall said with a nudge. ‘Don’t leave us guessing – what does he say?’

  ‘Please, Mr Kendall, a lady never tells!’ she said, fanning her face with the paper and then returning her gaze to its contents.

  But after our frank conversation, which I treasured, I have decided to reply with equal candour. The simple fact is that you are a wonderful person, truly wonderful, but I fear that your experience is too much for me. Your burden, which you carry so stoically and with such calm, is too much for me to contemplate. I barely cope with my own thoughts and memories and simply cannot imagine having to cope with yours too. I do hope you understand. It’s not a personal thing to you, but is much more about my own state of mind. I’m like a man with a small float who just about manages to keep my head above water and to let someone else hang on would sink me and possibly sink us both. I shall miss . . .

  Molly stopped reading and cleared her throat. She popped the single sheet of paper back inside the envelope and tore it once, then twice, before throwing the pieces in the wastepaper bin by the door. Janice’s hands fell to her sides and her smile faded. Molly gave her junior assistant a withering look, then glanced up at her other colleague.

  ‘I think it’s fair to say, Mr Kendall, that you will not be requiring a new hat any time soon.’

  She never mentioned Dr Rex Bradford again. And from that day on, a junior nurse always made the journey to collect and drop off files for cardiology.

  For Molly, the rest of that first day when she received the letter could not go quickly enough. Her manner was short, born out of discomfiture. She felt angry and naive to have been so open with the man. She went home that night, taking her usual train and walking from the station to her home, counting the streetlamps, as was her habit. She put her key in the door as she always did, but did not, as was usual, switch on the light in the hallway. Neither did she ease off her shoes one by one and place them side by side in the cupboard under the stairs, ready for the morning. Nor did she hang her coat on the hook inside the door of the cupboard with her scarf pushed down the arm for ease of discovery. No, instead of following her normal routine, which would otherwise include the popping on of the kettle and removing her supper from the fridge, she walked straight into the sitting room and, in the half-light, reached for the little walnut box. Taking it in both hands, Molly settled back into her armchair, the task trickier than usual with the bulk of her coat padding her seat. Gently she lifted the lid and carefully took out the little brass button nestled in the corner, first running it over her cheek and then clasping it snugly in her palm.

  ‘You . . . you’re probably right, Dr Rex,’ she whispered. ‘It is all too much . . . All too much.’

  Molly regretted giving so much of herself away quite so freely, and this was nothing to do with sex, but rather that tiny inner kernel of hurt, tightly packed with secrets, that she carried always. The things she sometimes thought about when alone . . . that was what she had shared and was now angry at herself for having done so. She would have hoped that at her age she was a little less easily impressed by a man who was handsome, with his back strong and his arms comforting, to give away that little stone on no more than a whim, and yet she had done just that. She had cast it out like a hot thing to be passed palm to palm: its contents incendiary. And now here she sat. A little let down, having got quite caught up in the whirl of it all.

  The telephone rang in the darkness and gave her a start. Molly put the little box on the table and lumbered from the chair to answer it.

  ‘Chelmsford 286.’ Molly gave her customary greeting when answering the phone.

  ‘Hey, Auntie M.’

  ‘Joe! Well, how lovely to hear your voice. How are you, darling?’ She closed her eyes and let her love for him flow down the curly wire.

  ‘I’m good – great, in fact. Have you got a minute?’

  ‘Of course!’ For you I have every minute of every day . . . I could listen to your voice for hours and hours . . . and then I would replay every word in the quiet hours in my head . . .

  ‘I just wanted to ask you, what did you think of Estelle?’ he breathed.

  ‘Well, I thought she was just lovely. She seems smart and confident. I said to Joyce it was great how she just waltzed in and chatted and sat down, drank tea. Played with the little ones. There was no awkwardness or formality. It was as if we had known her for years, and that must have been quite an ordeal for her, coming to meet your mob.’

  ‘My mother waited for him on that Sunday, waited all afternoon. She . . . she had baked a cake and he never arrived. You took that last day from her. You took it from us! And I will never, ever forgive you for that . . .’ Molly cursed the thickening of her throat and ran the edge of the brass button over her cheek.

  Joe laughed. ‘That’s kind of the thing – it’s like I’ve known her for ever and nothing seems to faze her; it’s just easy. I really . . . I like . . . It’s like . . .’

  ‘Do you love her, Joe?’

  ‘I do.’ She could tell he was smiling. ‘That’s exactly it, Auntie M – I love her.’

  ‘How exciting, darling!’ There was a flutter of joy in her gut. Her boy was in love!

  ‘It is.’ Joe took a deep breath. He sounded content. ‘It really is. I can’t stop thinking about her. All I want to do is be with her! It’s nuts! Have you ever felt like that about someone?’

  She took her time, wanting more badly than ever to tell him about the beautiful soul who had been his father. ‘I have.’

  ‘But you didn’t . . . It didn’t . . .’

  ‘He was killed in the war.’

  ‘Oh, that’s horrible. How sad.’ Joe’s mournful tone for his father quite took her breath away. Molly sat up straight and did her very best to stay composed. Just speaking to Joe diluted her hurt over Rex, a warm reminder that she was loved.

  ‘It was. It is. But you know, Joe, I wouldn’t change a thing, not for a second, because we shared something incredible and true and life-changing, and I think if you’re lucky enough for that to come along, you have to grab it with both hands and never let it go.’ Her voice cracked. You, Joe! You are the incredible life-changing thing and I give thanks for you every day!

  ‘I intend to, Auntie M.’

  ‘Good for you, darling’ – our precious, precious boy – ‘good for you.’

  NINETEEN

  Romford, Essex

  1977

  Aged 52

  Molly scanned the shelves of the toyshop, pondering what to buy an eight-year-old boy for his birthday. Estelle had said to get a book token, but that felt a bit of a cop-out. Joe had given no indication that his son, Adam, was a reader. Adam . . . her grandson, who also called her Auntie M and was sweet and curious, very much like his dad, but with his mum’s placid nature. Molly wanted to spoil the boy rotten but knew her role well enough to hold back a little and let Joyce and Albert buy his first set of football boots, pet rabbit and bike. The first time she had met the little fellow had been a glorious and difficult day. It was eight years ago now that Joe had proudly plonked his first child into her arms and placed a smacker on her cheek.

  ‘How about that then, Auntie M? Isn’t he brilliant?’

  Molly had stared at the little boy in her arms, all arms and legs, and had felt quite overcome, only able to nod because yes, he was absolutely brilliant! She might have been in her fifties, but in that moment she was taken back to that day in the bathroom of Old Gloucester Street, recalling the feel of her back against the bathtub and the smell of her blood on her hands and on her baby. The way he had cried, the umbilicus still connected, as she swaddled him in a towel and held him close . . .

  ‘Oh, Auntie M! Don’t cry, you sentimental old thing!’ Joe had put his arm over her shoulder.

&nbs
p; ‘I am, Joe – a sentimental old thing!’ she had managed through her tears, unaware that she had been crying. Joyce had walked in and stared at the three of them – Molly in the armchair holding baby Adam, and Joe, perched on the arm of the chair with his arm about Molly’s back – and her expression was one that was hard for Molly to fathom, but looked awfully like guilt. It was one of the few moments when all Molly had given up and all she herself had experienced once again reared its head and threatened to derail her. A reminder that the fragility she had succumbed to so long ago was not gone entirely.

  ‘Can I help you, madam?’

  Back in the toyshop, Molly turned now to face a young man with a name badge pinned to the lapel of his brown pinstriped suit: ‘BARRY’.

  ‘Yes, please, I’m struggling to know what to get an eight-year-old boy for his birthday.’

  ‘Ah, follow me.’

  Molly did just that until they stood in an aisle with small plastic figures on display that were the oddest things she had ever seen.

  ‘What are they? I was thinking maybe a board game or something like Uno.’

  ‘Trust me, madam. These are all the rage. They’re from a new film, Star Wars, and kids can’t get enough of them.’ He handed her three. ‘These are Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. Any eight-year-old boy would be chuffed with these.’

  ‘Well, if you say so!’ She took them to the counter to pay. Barry followed her.

  ‘Mind you, if you ask me, I suspect the whole Star Wars thing will be a bit of a flash in the pan, but as long as he likes playing with them, right?’

  ‘Mmm.’ She nodded and paid for the figurines and left the toyshop, heading for the supermarket next door to pick up a few bits and bobs.

  Molly tuned out the irritating music piped into the supermarket via a slightly crackly sound system. She couldn’t identify the tune but would have guessed at Bobby Crush, who she’d heard on the wireless, with a lively piano piece that she found quite unsuitable to aid browsing. Standing in the aisle, she stared at the array of teabags, narrowing her eyes to try and atone for her eyesight, which, since she had hit her fifties, was less than perfect. She scrutinised the display, trying and failing to see the difference in two alternative packets of her usual brand. One bore a picture of Her Majesty the Queen on the front and the other the regular logo. She reached up for one of each and studied them in her hands.

  ‘What is the difference?’ she wondered aloud, as had become her habit.

  ‘Nothing. There is no difference, except that the box with the picture feeds the nostalgia.’

  Molly felt her heart give a little skip and took a sharp breath. The voice spoke again.

  ‘I don’t think there’s a single thing available in this whole supermarket that isn’t telling us it’s Jubilee year, as if we need reminding.’

  She turned at the voice she recognised so well, the cockney accent as strong as it had always been despite the croak of age that subtly lowered the register.

  ‘Oh my goodness – oh, Marjorie!’ To say the name out loud felt odd and Molly wondered if she were real.

  ‘Hello, Molly. I saw you through the window and did a double take myself. I can’t believe it – fancy seeing you here! I was hardly going to walk past without stopping to say hello, was I?’

  ‘Goodness me!’ Molly repeated, one hand at the base of her throat as she tried to catch her breath, studying the face of her former colleague who had kindly stood outside the office while she made an illicit phone call. Her last phone call with Johan.

  ‘I can barely . . . It’s . . .’ His beautiful voice had fractured and stuttered between the silences but was as clear to her now as if she had heard it yesterday. ‘I’m going . . . for a while . . . Nothing to . . .’

  Nothing to worry about . . . Is that what you were going to say to me, Johan?

  It was almost instinctive, the way Marjorie stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug, crushing the boxes of teabags between them. Marjorie, the agent who had put her in touch with Mr Greene and Mr Malcolm . . .

  ‘Been a long time, Molly.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Words failed her as her mouth struggled to catch up with the thoughts that hurtled and spun in her head. ‘There’s so much I want to say, I don’t know where to start! How long is it since we’ve seen each other?’

  ‘Thirty-odd years,’ Marjorie confirmed.

  Molly stared at this woman, whose skin was a little sallow now; her hair was styled into a Purdey cut, but flecked through with the beginnings of grey. Her once full lips were now a little thinner and sported the tiny carved lines snaking their way up to her nose typical of a smoker.

  ‘We’ve both grown older.’ Marjorie ran her fingers over her own less than taut neck, seemingly aware of the scrutiny.

  ‘Lucky us.’ The words came out without too much thought, but Marjorie nodded.

  ‘Yes, lucky us. How’s your family?’ It felt like the most mundane of questions, but it didn’t occur to Molly that she might mean a husband, children . . .

  ‘My brother David passed away only last year, very suddenly – his heart.’ To say it out loud still caused a lump of emotion to rise in her throat. ‘I think we all thought he’d go on for ever.’ She pictured Clara at David’s wake, unnervingly quiet, subdued, and was reminded that, without him by her side, Clara was not a coper.

  ‘It’s hard, isn’t it.’ It was more of a statement than a question, suggesting, unsurprisingly, that in the intervening years Marjorie had experienced similar losses.

  ‘So there’s just my sister and me left now: Joyce and her husband and my nephew . . .’ She let this trail.

  ‘Your nephew?’ Marjorie asked, her eyebrows raised briefly.

  ‘Yes.’ Molly held her stare.

  ‘I see.’ Marjorie gave a small nod of understanding and smiled at Molly, as if she recognised the sacrifice and respected her for it.

  ‘Yes. In fact, I’ve just been shopping for his little boy who’s eight – Star Wars figures.’

  ‘What’s Star Wars?’ Marjorie asked.

  ‘Oh, some new film, apparently.’

  A girl walked past with rings through her nose and a collection of graduated studs snaking up the outside of her ear. Her make-up was heavy, dark-ringed eyes and black lips. Her hair was green and backcombed into a knotty mess. Her trousers and jacket were tartan with leather strips and zips sewn randomly that appeared to serve no purpose.

  ‘Sorry, excuse me, could I possibly just . . .’ the girl asked sweetly, reaching past Molly to select a box of Earl Grey from the shelf. ‘Thank you.’ She smiled and continued down the aisle. The women watched her walk away, taking in her attire.

  ‘To think old Mrs Templar used to keep an eye on our hemline and tut if we wore too much lipstick!’ Marjorie laughed.

  ‘Garish!’ Molly had quite forgotten the comment and the woman until that moment when it left her mouth.

  ‘Yes, garish!’ Marjorie laughed again.

  ‘Oh my word, she was such a character, that Mrs Templar, tapping her watch and walking around with her clipboard as though it was surgically attached.’ Inevitably, her thoughts turned to Geer, as, apparently, did Marjorie’s.

  ‘Did you and Geertruida ever—’

  ‘No,’ Molly said, cutting her short. ‘I never saw her again. I’ve tried to track her down, but without any luck.’ It amazed her that to say these words out loud brought a tightness to her chest and caused sadness to slip down her throat, even after all this time. It was a surreal experience, being confronted by this woman who was the only link to the people she had lost and a life she had tried to bury.

  Marjorie nodded and took her cue no doubt from Molly’s tone and the straightening of her shoulders, as she said no more about the girl with whom Molly had once been so close.

  ‘Has life been . . .?’ Molly let this trail, unsure of the right way to ask how Marjorie herself had fared, and indeed what did she expect – a run-down on the last three decades while she chose teabags?
r />   ‘Yes.’ Marjorie smiled. ‘Life’s been good, or more accurately, life became good.’

  ‘Yes.’ Molly knew what she meant, thinking of how far she herself had come from her time at Winterhill to the pleasant life she now led. It was, she realised, impossible to have lived through the war and not come away with a unique set of mental cuts and bruises. She wished that sweet Telsie had had the same realisation and not given up on life. ‘As someone once said to me, we all walk the same path. We all trip, but more often than not we are so focused on looking ahead that we don’t notice the stumbles of those around us. And we all keep plodding on, because what’s the alternative?’

  ‘It’s the truth.’ Marjorie smiled. ‘I’ve got two girls,’ she elaborated. ‘Well, hardly girls now, both grown-up, one teaching music – her dad’s a musician, or was; he doesn’t play much now, prefers crosswords. Age, eh? It happens to us all.’

  Not all . . . Molly swallowed the thought.

  ‘My other daughter is about to have her third child, if you can believe that.’ Marjorie shook her head, as if she could not.

  ‘A grandma!’ Molly clutched the bag with the plastic figures in it to her chest – for her grandson . . . Adam . . . ‘How wonderful.’

  ‘It is. They keep me on the go, mind, Nana this and Nana that – I love it. Can’t pretend I don’t.’

  There was a beat of silence while Molly gathered her thoughts. This chance meeting was, she knew, too important for her not in some way to reminisce, not to stoke the painful memories of the very worst time in her life. It was like jabbing her tongue on a rotten tooth, almost impossible to resist, with some small amount of pleasure to be taken from the hurt.

  ‘You were always very’ – she swallowed, her mouth dry – ‘you were always very kind to me, Marjorie, and it made such a difference. Thank you for that.’

  Marjorie held her gaze and took a slow, deep breath. ‘You know where he died?’

  Molly had not expected the question nor the sudden reference to her love and was surprised at how much it threw and delighted her. It was, of course, horrific to remember the details, but this was underlined with a note of pure joy that rang out in her mind. How wonderful it was to talk about him at all! To be in the company of someone with a link to her beloved Johan, no matter how tenuous.