Tess watched transfixed, as the retreating tide sucked Michael deeper and deeper into the waterlogged sand. His tiny feet had disappeared under a mass of pulverised seashells, and he was now struggling to maintain his recently acquired balance. “Mama!” he squealed, his soft bleat a mixture of both fear and delight. “There you go, little man,” said Tess, plucking her son from the water’s grip. “Safe and sound. Shall we go find your sister?” A short way along the beach, Anna was busily decorating a sandcastle with an assortment of plastic bottle tops and metal ring pulls. Two ice lolly sticks, held together in a cross shape by a pink hair bobble, had been placed prominently on the top turret. “Is this where the princess sleeps?” asked Tess, kneeling down beside her. “No!” snapped Anna, disgusted at her mother’s ignorance, “It’s Daddy’s room!” Tess closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe. She remembered suddenly her gloriously tuxedoed father, standing next to her in the archway of a country church, only moments before he would escort her to a future life. “Always count to ten, love,” he whispered, as the bridesmaids fussed behind her. “Before you bite back, always count to ten.” Then, kissing her softly on both cheeks, he added, “It worked a treat on your mum, and I’m sure it will do the same for your Adam.” Michael sneezed, pulling her back into the present. “Anna,” said Tess softly. “Your d...” “I know!” the little girl growled, refusing even to look at her mother. “You don’t have to remind me!” Tess had reached the count of eight by the time she heard the jangle of chimes. “Why don’t we get an ice cream?” “That would be lovely, Mummy,” said Anna, and although she was smiling, her grey eyes were flat. They had only walked a few metres when the little girl stopped. “Just a minute!” she cried and turning, raced back towards the castle. By now, the tide had forced its way through her carefully constructed barricade and was slowly sweeping its way up to the tiny drawbridge she had constructed out of driftwood and a piece of dental floss Tess had found in the bottom of her beach bag. “I need to double check!” Anna called, her voice breathy and verging on frantic. Lately, Anna had needed to double check a lot of things – that the front door was locked, that the cooker was turned off, that Michael was properly secured in his car seat. Each time, Tess would smile and reassure her daughter that everything was going to be all right. A creeping sense of helplessness remained, however, threatening to engulf her like a hurricane over a breakwater. Now, as she gazed out at the sun-bleached horizon, Tess forced herself to focus on the neoprene-clad surfers and pray for the panic to pass. “I just want to make sure it doesn’t blow over,” whispered Anna, gently pushing the lolly cross deeper into the sand. “But darling, the tide will…” “It’s all right, Mummy. I want the water to have it.” They walked silently to the ice cream van parked next to the lifeguard station and waited patiently in the long queue of summer holidaymakers. “Choc-o-lat, choc-o-lat,” gurgled Michael, his face alight with the prospect of ice cream twice in one day. “One chocolate cone and one Calippo, please,” said Tess to the young man serving, and turning to her daughter asked, “What flavour would you like, darling?” “I want coffee flavour, please,” said Anna, hands firmly on hips. “But you don’t like…” began Tess, but something about the way her daughter stood before her, so determined and yet so vulnerable, made her relent, even though she knew the £3 ice cream cone would go untouched. By late afternoon the wind had shifted and the children, both cold and tired, were persuaded to return to the caravan. They packed up their sand- encrusted swimming costumes and flattened juice cartons, and slowly negotiated their way across the cove just as the first fat drops of rain fell. Clouds of India ink reeled towards them and in the distance they could hear deep rumblings. “Funder!” shrieked Michael, shifting excitedly from foot to foot. “Funder, funder!” “I like thunder, I like rain,” sang Anna, grabbing her brother by the hands and swinging him around wildly. “But I hate Michael, he’s a pain!” “Macs on!” ordered Tess, quickly zipping the children into compliance. “We don’t want to get wet, do we?” “But Mummy,” said Anna, a look of bewilderment creasing her delicate features, “we’ve been swimming all day.” Blue waters changed to grey, as frothy, white-topped waves arched furiously towards the shore. Tess felt the BLACK ROCK by Louise Sharland Lately, Anna had needed to double check a lot of things. Tess would smile and reassure her daughter that everything was going to be all right
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Transcript
Tess watched transfixed, as the
retreating tide sucked Michael deeper
and deeper into the waterlogged sand.
His tiny feet had disappeared under a
mass of pulverised seashells, and he
was now struggling to maintain his
recently acquired balance.
“Mama!” he squealed, his soft bleat
a mixture of both fear and delight.
“There you go, little man,” said Tess,
plucking her son from the water’s grip.
“Safe and sound. Shall we go find your
sister?”
A short way along the beach, Anna
was busily decorating a sandcastle with
an assortment of plastic bottle tops and
metal ring pulls. Two ice lolly sticks, held
together in a cross shape by a pink hair
bobble, had been placed prominently on
the top turret.
“Is this where the princess sleeps?”
asked Tess, kneeling down beside her.
“No!” snapped Anna, disgusted at her
mother’s ignorance, “It’s Daddy’s room!”
Tess closed her eyes and forced
herself to breathe. She remembered
suddenly her gloriously tuxedoed father,
standing next to her in the archway of a
country church, only moments before he
would escort her to a future life.
“Always count to ten, love,” he
whispered, as the bridesmaids fussed
behind her. “Before you bite back,
always count to ten.” Then, kissing her
softly on both cheeks, he added, “It
worked a treat on your mum, and I’m
sure it will do the same for your Adam.”
Michael sneezed, pulling her back
into the present.
“Anna,” said Tess softly. “Your d...”
“I know!” the little girl growled,
refusing even to look at her mother. “You
don’t have to remind me!”
Tess had reached the count of eight
by the time she heard the jangle of
chimes.
“Why don’t we get an ice cream?”
“That would be lovely, Mummy,” said
Anna, and although she was smiling, her
grey eyes were flat.
They had only walked a few metres
when the little girl stopped.
“Just a minute!” she cried and turning,
raced back towards the castle. By now,
the tide had forced its way through her
carefully constructed barricade and was
slowly sweeping its way up to the tiny
drawbridge she had constructed out of
driftwood and a piece of dental floss
Tess had found in the bottom of her
beach bag.
“I need to double check!” Anna
called, her voice breathy and verging on
frantic.
Lately, Anna had needed to double
check a lot of things – that the front door
was locked, that the cooker was turned
off, that Michael was properly secured in
his car seat. Each time, Tess would smile
and reassure her daughter that
everything was going to be all right. A
creeping sense of helplessness
remained, however, threatening to
engulf her like a hurricane over a
breakwater. Now, as she gazed out at
the sun-bleached horizon, Tess forced
herself to focus on the neoprene-clad
surfers and pray for the panic to pass.
“I just want to make sure it doesn’t
blow over,” whispered Anna, gently
pushing the lolly cross deeper into the
sand.
“But darling, the tide will…”
“It’s all right, Mummy. I want the water
to have it.”
They walked silently to the ice cream
van parked next to the lifeguard station
and waited patiently in the long queue
of summer holidaymakers.
“Choc-o-lat, choc-o-lat,” gurgled
Michael, his face alight with the prospect
of ice cream twice in one day.
“One chocolate cone and one
Calippo, please,” said Tess to the young
man serving, and turning to her daughter
asked, “What flavour would you like,
darling?”
“I want coffee flavour, please,” said
Anna, hands firmly on hips.
“But you don’t like…” began Tess, but
something about the way her daughter
stood before her, so determined and yet
so vulnerable, made her relent, even
though she knew the £3 ice cream cone
would go untouched.
By late afternoon the wind had
shifted and the children, both cold and
tired, were persuaded to return to the
caravan. They packed up their sand-
encrusted swimming costumes and
flattened juice cartons, and slowly
negotiated their way across the cove
just as the first fat drops of rain fell.
Clouds of India ink reeled towards them
and in the distance they could hear
deep rumblings.
“Funder!” shrieked Michael, shifting
excitedly from foot to foot. “Funder,
funder!”
“I like thunder, I like rain,” sang Anna,
grabbing her brother by the hands and
swinging him around wildly. “But I hate
Michael, he’s a pain!”
“Macs on!” ordered Tess, quickly
zipping the children into compliance.
“We don’t want to get wet, do we?”
“But Mummy,” said Anna, a look of
bewilderment creasing her delicate
features, “we’ve been swimming all day.”
Blue waters changed to grey, as
frothy, white-topped waves arched
furiously towards the shore. Tess felt the
BLACK ROCKby Louise Sharland
Lately, Anna had needed to double check a lot of things. Tess would smile and reassure her daughter that everything was going to be all right
pull, could hear their song; reminding
her again of Adam and the time he had
playfully dared her to look over the
precipice at Beachy Head.
“Once your arms held me, they held
me so tight,” she had joked, rising to his
challenge. “But the whispering waters
will hold me tonight.”
The first crack of thunder made them
all scream and race back towards the
cove for shelter.
“We’ll just stay here a minute,”
whispered Tess, desperately trying to
decide if it would be safer to risk being
struck by lightning or falling rocks.
Across the bay, great neon streaks
sliced their way through meaty rain
clouds.
“This is brilliant!” yelled Anna, her
eyes aglow. “Absolutely brilliant!”
Rainwater coursed its way down
worried grooves of stone, bringing with
it a glistening array of tiny mineral
treasures.
“Mummy, look, look!” screamed Anna.
In her hand she held an incisor-
shaped piece of black rock; a glossy
tooth of flint spat out from the decaying
cliff face above.
“A monster’s tooth,” laughed Tess, “or
maybe a dinosaur’s!”
Anna’s eyes widened and then,
pursing her lips, she carefully placed the
artefact into the inside pocket of her
mac before casting her eyes to the
ground once again.
“Do you think there are any more?”
“Maybe, darling, but I really think it’s
time to go.” Next to her, Michael
trembled, but Anna positively hummed.
“We can come back again tomorrow…”
“No!” screamed the little girl and,
dropping to her knees, began scraping
her fingernails through the wet sand.
“I need to find another one!”
“Anna, stop it!”
Tess tried lifting her daughter with
one hand while holding on to her
terrified son with the other. Finally, in
desperation, she grabbed Anna by the
back of her mac and yanked her roughly
to her feet.
“We’re going, now!”
The trek across the open beach
seemed endless. Michael cowered in his
mother’s arms, his sodden curls
flattened against his forehead, while
Anna sulked silently behind them. By the
time they reached the caravan, the little
boys lips were blue.
“In the shower, both of you,” called
Tess, stripping the children and leaving
their soaking clothes in a pile by the
front door. “Let Michael go first, Anna,
his teeth are chattering.”
She waited until they were both in the
shower before letting the tears come.
“What would Adam have made of it all?”
she thought, resting her burning
forehead against the cool of the
windowpane.
“You’re mad as always, woman!”
It was as if the voice was beside her
and for a moment Tess forgot.
“Adam?” she whispered. “Are you
there?”
The response was silence.
She sat the children in front of the
electric fire as she applied Michael’s
eczema cream and ran a comb through
Anna’s long, fine hair.
“When you were very little you used
to scream and cry when I did your hair,”
Tess recalled. “Daddy was the only one
you’d let near you with a comb.”
“I was afraid,” Anna murmured.
“What?”
“If I screamed or cried, Daddy would
be cross with me.”
Tess put down the comb.
“He loved you very much, Anna. You
know that, don’t you?”
The little girl nodded.
“Say something,” pleaded Tess
silently, but as always, her daughter’s
anguish seemed inaccessible.
“Hungry!” cried Michael, “I have
crisps?”
“No you cannot have crisps,” replied
Tess and, getting up, kissed both
children before heading towards the
kitchenette to make tea. Removing the
half-empty bottle of Pinot from the
refrigerator, she poured herself a glass
and took a large sip.
“You two can watch Finding Nemo
again while I cook dinner,” she called
and, refilling her glass, slid the fish
fingers under the grill.
Tess hadn’t even got halfway through
We’re Going On A Bear Hunt before
both children were fast asleep. She
didn’t have the energy to carry them to
bed, so instead covered them in clean
towels and let them snooze on the
settee. Downing the last of the Pinot,
she picked up her beach bag and
headed for the door. Outside, dusk was
creeping in; the sky washed clean
except for a few jagged streaks of
fuchsia.
“Nice day tomorrow,” she mumbled.
Sitting down on the metal steps, she
began rummaging through her bag for
the secret refuge she kept hidden there;
her coveted package of menthol tipped
cigarettes. Adam had hated her
smoking, putting his foot down and
demanding she quit when she first
became pregnant with Anna. Now that
she was on her own, however, the sense
of something between her lips, between
her fingertips, was strangely comforting.
“Where are you, you little b…?” She
felt something jam under her fingernails,
and grimaced as she remembered
Michael tipping a spade full of sand into
her bag that morning. “Damn it!”
Bit by bit, Tess removed the contents
of her bag – purse, sun cream, Michael’s
inhaler – and laid them on the ground in
front of her. Finding her cigarettes at
last, she lit one, took a deep drag and
carried on – mobile, wet wipes, car keys.
Finally, she lifted the empty bag and
tipped the sand into her hand. It was
pale, speckled, unremarkable. She let it
run through her fingers and sprinkle her
toes. It smelt of seaweed and, when she
touched her tongue to the few tiny
grains that still clung to her palm, tasted
surprisingly bland. Back home in
Hereford, there was a tiny glass bottle
filled with sand. That sand was different;
dark and grimy, it tasted of musty places
and something else she couldn’t quite
identify. It had been there since last
Easter, not long after the Army Casualty
Officer had dropped off Adam’s personal
effects. Inside the plain brown box there
were no surprises – family photos,
washbag, iPod – but when she had
unrolled the sleeves of Adam’s favourite
denim shirt, the fine, dark powder had
scattered across the dining room table.
She found it everywhere – in his socks,
trainers, underpants, even between the
pages of the bestseller she had bought
him for Christmas. The combat dust, as
she began to call it, was carefully
decanted into an old perfume bottle,
wrapped in pink tissue paper and then
placed at the back of her sock drawer,
She found the fine, dark powder everywhere – in his socks, trainers, underpants – even between the pages of the bestseller she had bought him for Christmas
hidden away like some magical talisman
too dangerous for the human eye to see.
The sound of laughter made Tess
glance over to the caravan opposite,
where a lively family game of charades
was taking place. Sighing deeply, she
returned her possessions to her bag,
wiped her hands clean and went back
inside. It was dark now and she felt
numb with fatigue, but still had the
children to get to bed. Michael was easy
– small and lightweight, he even hooked
his legs around his mother’s waist as she
carried him to the tiny third bedroom.
Anna, always a troubled sleeper, flailed
and stiffened as Tess tried to hoist her
on to her shoulder. Even though she had
a room of her own, she had insisted on
sleeping with her mother and Tess,
desperate for a connection of any kind,
had relented.
“There, there,” whispered Tess, laying
her daughter on the cool sheets. “Sleep
tight now, darl…”
From beneath her daughter’s pillow
jutted something hard and angular.
Carefully, Tess slid her hand in and
removed the object. It was a picture
frame, part of a make-your-own gift set
given to Anna for her birthday. She had
thought her daughter hadn’t even
noticed it, so obsessed was the little girl
with her Malibu Barbie beach hut. At
some point over the last six months,
however, Anna had snapped it together
and decorated it with colourful sparkles
and sequins. Encased within the cheap
plastic frame was a photo of the four of
them, taken last summer on their last
holiday together in Lyme Regis. Adam,
suntanned and smiling, was kneeling on
the ground, arms around the children’s
waists, while Tess stood behind, both
hands resting on his broad shoulders.
“We went fossil hunting,” whispered
Anna. Tess looked up to see her
daughter’s eyes on her. “Daddy and I. It
was when you took Michael for his nap.”
“I remember,” nodded Tess. “You both
came back very pink and I was cross at
Daddy for not putting sun cream on
you.”
“I was only a little bit burned.”
“Yes,” smiled Tess, “only a little bit.”
“We looked and looked,” continued
Anna, “and when we couldn’t find
anything, Daddy took me to the shop
and bought me a dinosaur’s tooth.”
“A dinosaur’s tooth!”
“Yep, one for me and one for him, a
pair.” Anna smiled shyly and traced a
small heart on the back of her mother’s
hand, “He keeps his in his wallet for
good luck, but I lost mine.”
“Ah.”
By now, Anna had edged her way
across the bed towards her mother.
“Do you know?” said Tess, “I still have
Daddy’s wallet at home.”
She thought of the brown box, high
on top of the wardrobe shelf. “Instead of
looking on the beach for one, maybe
when we get home you and I can look
through his things and find that special
tooth.”
“I think that would be very nice,
Mummy.”
Climbing in beside her, Tess snuggled
in close and kissed her daughter’s warm
neck.
“I love you, sweet pea,” she
whispered.
But the little girl was already fast
asleep and dreaming. w&h
She wakes, if you can call it waking,
shuffling off the duvet along with the hot
dark dreams of the night.
Did she really dream she was in a
damp heavy snog with unlovely Greg,
inhabitant of the next desk? Could she
really have been leaning over the desk
partition, hanging into his fetid desk,
asking a question about Windows 7 and
kissing Greg’s ever-red, ever-chapped
lips?
Lord, she thinks, I must be more
in need of a holiday than I thought.
She washes, planning to use cold
water to wake herself up, but turning
the hot on out of force of habit. Even the
cornflakes seem flat and sleepy today.
She can’t rid herself of the dream, and
it annoys her to find that the job and the
office people have crept so far into her
subconscious.
She dresses without thinking, without
looking at the weather. Flat shoes, for
comfort. Holly loves the freedom of flat
shoes. It must, she reasons, be nearly
summer by now, so she puts a linen skirt
on, bare legs, T-shirt and cardigan.
It’s a 30-minute walk to the office, and
halfway there, it starts to rain.
Of course, thinks Holly, as the cold
drops bounce against her bare legs. Of
course it would bloody rain. And as she
thinks that, she feels a lurching in her
belly and realises that her period is
going to start today, four whole days
before it really should. Of course, she
thinks. Of course my bloody bloody
period would start today. She counts
herself unlucky – other women worry
about their late periods, where hers
seem to rush upon her, bloodying
unprepared knickers and making her
moody and unpredictable even to
herself.
It would be fair to say that Holly
doesn’t much care for her job. For all
kinds of reasons, none out of the
ordinary. She doesn’t like to be indoors
all day. She doesn’t like to wear office
clothes. She doesn’t like the open-plan
office with the nasty little partition walls
between desks, allowing people to
creep up to the next-door desk and
abruptly peer in.
In spite of her dream, she doesn’t
much care for Greg, who works in the
next cubicle to her right, or Soo, who
has recently had her hair permed in the
most alarming and regrettable way, and
works in the next cubicle to the left.
And she really doesn’t care at all for
Jayne, their supervisor, who works in
the cubicle opposite, who favours bright
outfits in pink, purple and red, and who
has recently become just a little more
overweight, her clothes – Marks &
Spencer’s mainly – straining against
her new fatness in a way that isn’t
entirely becoming.
At 9.30am Holly finds herself sitting,
damp with rain, aching with menstrual
cramps and bored already at her weekly
team meeting with Jayne and Soo and
Greg. As protection, she places her
iPhone on the desk. The slim silver
gadget gives her hope. Holly is more or
less in love with her iPhone. The lines
of it. The stuff you get inside. The
applications. The photos, the green
colour and conversational look of
messages. If she had to name two
objects in her life that she loved – rather
than two million that she hated – Holly
would choose the iPhone and running
shoes. Assuming a pair of running shoes
could count as one item.
At 9.35 Holly rushes for the toilet. Her
period has started in full flow and her
belly is tender and burning. She rests
her head against the tiles in the toilet.
If only the office would burn down.
Back at the table, Greg is ploughing
through a mound of biscuits that Jayne
has provided, presumably to lessen
the pain of the team meeting. Soo,
tiresomely, giggles and says, “Ooh,
I shouldn’t”, which means she will, and
also means she will talk about diets all
day. Jayne, fat and shiny, is ploughing
through the biscuits with Greg. Holly
picks her iPhone up and idly presses it
on: she’s straight into the photo album,
which is funny because that isn’t where
she left it. It’s funny too, because these
photos aren’t hers.
She realises she’s looking at the
photos on Jayne’s iPhone and at the
same time, she thinks that the photos
are not photos that Jayne would want
anyone in the office to know about.
This could be a laugh, Holly thinks.
I could blackmail Jayne. I could get her
to give me money and jewellery and
a better job. Jayne wouldn’t at all like
anyone to know about these photos
and what they mean. Holly passes the
phone across the table. “This one’s
yours, Jayne” she says casually, adding as
an afterthought, “You probably ought to
put a passcode on. It’s quite easy to do”.
A dAy AT The OffiCeby Anne-Marie Swift
She really doesn’t care at all for Jayne, their supervisor, who works in the cubicle opposite, who favours bright outfits in pink, purple and red
Jayne smiles, perfect pearly lipstick,
just a small amount caught on her front
tooth, takes the iPhone from Holly and
glances down at it. How quickly Jayne’s
face changes, polite smile gone and
replaced by cloud of shock and anger
and embarrassment, and a huge red
blush rises up her neck and into her
face, where luckily for her it is almost
completely submerged under lavishly
applied blusher.
Holly is still thinking about what it
would be like to blackmail Jayne when
the meeting ends and Jayne says, “Go
and make those objectives reality, guys!”
Holly doesn’t like being called “guys”,
especially by another woman. She wants
to shout out, “They’re the guys! We
aren’t guys, those are the guys over
there! They wear suits, get all the money
and don’t have periods!” Though this
isn’t entirely true for poor Greg, who
wears a polo shirt and chinos, and
doesn’t get all the money.
Holly’s attitude to work is not good.
She looks at her computer screen with
something approaching despair. There
is email excitement around a small but
festering argument between two groups
of workers. Greg’s head appears over
the partition.
“What do you think?” he asks,
excitedly. “I can see the engineer’s point
of view, but you can’t argue with those
guys in Marketing – they’re the ones who
know what the customers think!” A small
shard of skin hangs loose on his lip.
“Greg”, says Holly, “Let’s burn the
offices down”. He laughs like she
doesn’t mean it, and his head
disappears again. Holly lays her hot
cheek against the cool desk and wishes
the day away. She wishes her bad
attitude could be a little bit worse.
Her bad attitude was never quite
bad enough to actually make her do
anything. It was just an attitude. Other
people hated things more and got
angrier than Holly, and then the next
thing was, they had hit somebody or
walked out on their lives or got a degree
in tree surgery.
In fact, little by menstrual cramp little,
the day does drip away and lunchtime
creeps up. Lunchtime is hard too, when
you have your period, hate everyone
and don’t much care for your job. Holly
normally avoids the canteen, the local
café, the pub and even the nearby
supermarket where she might meet a
friendly colleague, and instead goes for
a run. Running clears her brain, opens
her mind and frees her body, and after
she has run for 45 minutes, showered
for ten and eaten her sandwich at her
desk for five, she’s generally able to
tackle the afternoon.
But today she’s in pain and today
she can’t face it, so she decides to take
her sanity in her hands and heads down
to the staff canteen where she quickly
buys some food. She’s the only woman
in the whole company who isn’t actively
dieting, she thinks, though nevertheless
she turns down the pie and chips in
favour of quiche and salad.
In fact, they don’t call it a canteen,
it has a much posher, company-given
name, but Holly thinks of it as a prison
canteen, especially once she has paid
for her food and finds herself looking
around the tables for somewhere not
too hostile to sit.
There’s a group of pretty and
welcoming secretaries who she always
feels uncomfortable and tomboyish with;
and a table full of technical blokes who
she always feels silly and girlish with,
and is uncomfortably aware that her
presence stops them from having the
kind of conversations they would like
to have. And then she sees Greg, who,
unsurprisingly, is having the pie and
chips and, unsurprisingly, is alone.
Greg sees Holly too and so now she
has no choice but to sit with him. She
wrestles her tray across the crowded
canteen and sits opposite Greg. They
have conversation about the weather.
Greg says, “I think Jayne was a bit upset
today”.
Holly doesn’t know what to say. She
knows, now, from seeing Jayne’s photos,
that Greg and Jayne have a closer
relationship than she’d ever thought.
She knew already that Jayne was
married. She’d thought, somehow,
that Greg had a girlfriend, but to find
that Greg’s girlfriend was actually his
married, overweight and rather shiny
boss was too much to take in. Had
Jayne told Greg that Holly had seen the
photos?? Holly feels herself to be in the
final few minutes of a midweek version
of some downmarket soap opera.
Her stomach is still hurting, however,
which adds some reality to the situation.
Nobody, ever, in any soap opera, has
a period, though it’s not uncommon
for them to miss periods and discover
that they’re pregnant.
Greg is concentrating on his food
and doesn’t seem to notice or care
that Holly still hasn’t answered him. She
watches his jaws move. He’s looking
down, seemingly his whole being, his
whole mind and body concentrated on
the rapidly diminishing plate of pie and
chips. His skin is dark; he would be kind
of Mediterranean if it weren’t for the
British winter and too many greasy
meals, so now he’s more yellow than
anything. Holly notices acne pockmarks
and his dark red lips. “How could
anyone find him attractive?”, she thinks,
and to stop thinking about how deeply
unattractive he is, and how much she
hates the whole job and office, and
being indoors all day, she tucks into
her quiche and salad.
For a few moments they eat in
silence, Greg and Holly, almost
companionable, almost as if they were
comfortable and happy in each other’s
presence.
Then Greg puts his knife and fork
down and Holly knows that it must be
something important for him to stop
eating before the pie and chips are
entirely gone.
“It’ll all come out soon anyway”, he
says, as if Holly would know what he’s
talking about, which, of course, she
does.
“She’s leaving him”, he says, as if
Holly would know who he means, and,
of course, she does.
“She’s pregnant”, he adds, and Holly
thinks “oh”. Of course, the extra weight
and the cookies and all that, and she
guesses there can’t be any more for
him to tell her, and she’d better try to
think of something to say; she’d better
try to work out what it is she actually
thinks of this whole range of information.
“We’ll both have to leave the
company”, Greg adds. “We’re going
to go into business together, making
greetings cards. We’ve got some
contracts already, in fact.”
Holly looks down at her unfinished
quiche and salad. What does it say
about her unfinished life if even fat
Other people hated things more and got angrier than holly, and then the next thing was, they had hit somebody or walked out on their lives or got a degree in tree surgery
Jayne and unlovely Greg have made
more plans for the future than she has?
“Jayne thinks you’ll make a great
head of team,” adds Greg. “She’s going
to recommend you for her position when
she goes.”
A lifetime of motivational meetings,
PowerPoint presentations and monthly
reports stretches ahead of Holly. Her
stomach hurts, her lower back has
joined in the menstrual festival and she
wants to cry. Though she recognises
that her seeing the photo hasn’t actually
changed anything, she still wishes that
things could be as they were before she
accidentally mistook Jayne’s iPhone for
her own.
As if in response to her thoughts, a
slight tremor in Holly’s pocket tells her
that a new message has arrived on
her own iPhone. She reads it. Another
evening, another drinks party. Another
meeting in the same place with the
same people. In four week’s time, she’ll
be having her period in this same office.
In four year’s time, she’ll still be having
quiche and salad for lunch. In four
hundred years she’ll probably be head
of department.
Holly thinks of the photo. The
memory of the endless expanses of
Greg and Jayne’s pale conjoined flesh
would not easily leave her and might
even dissuade her from sex forever. But
in another way, she thought, one day
she’d be able to say that the photo had
changed her life.
“Thanks,” says Holly to Greg, as
though she’s been thinking like this,
planning like this for years on end. “But
I’ll be gone too. I’ve been thinking about
doing a degree.”
And then, to Greg’s surprise and
to Holly’s own amazement, she stands
up, walks around the canteen table and
gives Greg a hug. “Good luck, you guys,”
she says, holding him tight and noting
still the dryness of his lips. w&h
As I set off to meet her there is snow
on the ground. Snow that is grimy and
shovelled and clinging in piles to the icy
pavements. I slip and choose the gutter
with its orange grit seasoning as the
safer option. Wonder if she will have
found the café I had suggested as a
meeting place, if she is there already.
Waiting. Nervously checking the faces.
The woman whose life crossed mine
eight years ago, changing it for ever.
The woman I have yet to meet.
As I set off to meet her I am
desperate, looking for a way to ease our
path. One minute certain that it will help
Mandy, help her to see that she is mine,
perhaps, and the next certain that it will
only make things worse.
I had suggested it to Dave back in
the days when he and I worked together
to do the best for our ready-made
daughter.
“This woman let her bloke batter her
and her kids over and over again, then
gave them up so she could do the same
thing over with another guy. Mandy’s
better off without her,” he said, his dark
eyes angry and certain.
“It’s not that simple,” I protested.
Continued to protest until Mandy dug
a trench between us too deep to cross.
She didn’t mean to. On second thoughts,
she did. She just couldn’t stop herself.
I take off one glove and reach down
into my bag for the photograph. My
daughter stares back at me at once,
defiant and desperate. It is a gift I have
brought with me, a peace offering.
As we set off to meet Mandy eight
years and several lifetimes ago, Dave
took my hand and squeezed it gently.
“This is it,” he smiled. “This is the day
we become parents.”
I could feel the excitement in his
smile, see the relief etched into the fine
lines at the corners of his eyes.
“What qualities do you possess that
will help you love and care for this child?
Where will you find support if you need
it?” they asked before we were
approved. And, “What is it you enjoy
about your sex life?”
“Do people who have children in the
‘normal’ way get interrogated like this?”
we asked secretly after the social
workers had gone. They put the posters
up asking for people who could foster
or adopt, we put our hands up in good
faith – how dare they!
There were voices in our families who
wondered why we would choose to take
on someone else’s problems. Doubted
whether it was possible to feel the same
about someone who isn’t your flesh and
blood. We knew they were wrong, even
tried to explain that we are all
descended from the same seven women
and therefore all related anyway.
“Love ya… Love ya…” Mandy shouted
as she raced down the road following
our car after our first meeting. She
waved and smiled through the gap
where baby front teeth once grew.
When we arrived at her foster parents’
house, she refused to come out of her
room, fear balling her tummy into an
ache. She already knew our faces, of
course, our shiny smiley photograph
faces stuck on to sheets of card with
snippets of information beside them.
She had studied us before sleep each
evening, peered deep into our eyes,
wondered what we would think of her.
Sometimes she shouted at us, “You’re
nothing to do with me! I don’t need you!
Why would I?” Sometimes she waited
endlessly for the gloss-finished lips to
whisper, “We love you, Mandy”. And in
the mornings, while they stripped her
soaking sheets, coaxed her into the
bath, she would recite what she had
learned, the names, the relationships,
the whole family tree. A new forever
family.
“How exciting”, they kept saying.
“You’re such a lucky girl, but don’t tell
anyone about your new family, will you,
sweetheart? It’s important you don’t
tell anyone their names or your new
address, we don’t want your dad finding
out where you are, do we?”
“But how will Mum find me? How
will she come and get me?” Mandy
wondered.
Outside the supermarket, the
snow has been smothered with grit,
uncovering whole patches of pavement.
Stone slabs turn to tarmac dotted with
off-white splodges, chewing gum lichen
the snow could not clean off. I am almost
there now. I search the faces of the
passers-by, struck yet again by the fact
that we could walk past each other
in the street, close enough to touch
and never realise the enormity of our
connection. I can see the café up ahead
on the other side of the road. The corner
café. Buses from the city centre pull up
on one side, cars pull up diagonally to
the row of shops on the other. The new
owners have replaced the almost-red
brick walls with floor-to-ceiling glass
between steel girders. I am suddenly
aware that this is why I have chosen
this meeting place. I am aware I am still
holding the photograph in front of me
as if it were a map.
I wonder how I will say goodbye to
this woman. I have come on the bus,
suddenly uneasy about arriving in my
shiny new Golf.
“This is all about taking kids off poor
BAmBiBy Julie Crookes
“This woman let her bloke batter her and her kids over and over again, then gave them up so she could do the same thing over with another guy”, said dave
families”, Dave used to say after Mandy
had stolen his hopes. “They give them
to the middle classes and dupe them
into believing that will sort the problem
when clearly it never will.”
I would have parked out of sight, of
course. But still. What if she stays with
me? Insists on getting on the bus with
me, coming home with me to see Mandy?
In the early days, Mandy taught me
how to survive by concentrating on the
detail. “Have you told them I haven’t had
my tea yet?” she asked her foster parents
as she trotted off with us forever. It was
the end of our third visit. Mandy was
focusing hard on the new clothes and
toys waiting for her in her next bedroom.
Then she taught me how to play again.
We made endless imaginary cups of tea
and trays of buns, rang hundreds of
items through our Early Learning Centre
till. Very occasionally she would attempt
an activity alone – she might start to play
in the sandpit while I stood at the sink
by the kitchen window. But I had to be
watching her at all times – “Look at me,
Mum.” “Look what I can do.” “Mum, look
at this,” she called continuously as if
terrified that she might just disappear
if no one was looking at her.
Walking with Mandy on the first day
at her new school, I was surprised when
mums and children emerged out of so
many of the neighbouring houses. The
day-to-day routines of family life had
simply not registered with us before
Mandy. How on earth had we spent all
our time before every minute was filled
by one seven-year-old? She wouldn’t
hold my hand for long but skipped
ahead, legs flaying slightly to the side
like Bambi, then turned and ran back
again. She did this all the way up the hill
to school.
This image makes me smile. Then
another image. I am summoned to the
head teacher’s office a few weeks into
our new life.
“All small children like to take their
clothes off but Mandy is going way over
the top in her efforts. Let’s just say she’s
trying too hard to make new friends.
There have been complaints from
parents,” she says.
Dave just smiled when he got home
from work. Smiled and shrugged his
shoulders in that way he has that says,
“What can I do? I’m doing my best”.
I saw an echo of that shrug when he
introduced me to his new partner. A
chance meeting in a cold city centre.
I had been avoiding the moment, not
going to the door when I dropped
Mandy round at theirs, hiding upstairs
when the car drew up outside with the
three of them in.
And then suddenly she was there,
unexpected, uninvited. She held Dave’s
hand and offered her other hand to me.
I shook it quickly without removing my
gloves, muttered about needing to pick
Mandy up from Guides and turned away
before they could look into my eyes.
When I got home the gloves had gone,
subconsciously discarded. I pictured
them endlessly circling the city on the
number 52 bus.
I am directly opposite the café now.
I watch as a woman gets off the bus and
walks purposefully to the café door. She
is wearing a long trench coat and snow
boots. Her hair is long and dark like
Mandy’s. She pauses to read something
stuck to the glass, then enters. Is this my
daughter’s real mum, her natural mum?
“We don’t use those terms”, our
adoption social worker had explained
kindly, “because where does that leave
the adoptive mum? We prefer the term
‘birth mum’”.
She settles herself at a table by the
window and scans the menu. Suddenly
aware that I am staring, I turn and look
intently at the bargains available at the
electrical store behind me. Too well
dressed and too calm, I think, and
when I glance back she has been
joined by a friend, their heads dancing
in conversation.
At night, Mandy’s endless flitting from
one toy to the next, one parent to the
next had to stop. Stripped of her armour
of frantic distraction, the darkness began
seeping in. Her defence was to fall into
an immediately deep sleep as soon as
we had kissed her goodnight. A sleep
so deep that sometimes her eyes were
open, sometimes she would stand up
and wander around the house until we
guided her gently back to bed. In the
early hours of the morning her birth dad
would appear at the window clawing at
the glass in his attempts to get her. She
woke screaming. I climbed in next to
her, told her but never succeeded in
convincing her that she was safe, placed
cool flannels on the swollen skin around
her lips and eyes. Her agitation erupted
in hives all over her body. She scratched
and wriggled until she accepted that
I would stay. Then we would sleep.
I can only see one side of the café
from here. I position myself on the curb,
look determined to cross at the next lull
in the traffic. If she asks me how Mandy
is will I tell her? Will I tell her that the
police call round on a regular basis –
that when she was younger and she
took our things we understood it was
to buy friends, but that we can no longer
protect her now it’s because she feels
the world owes her something? Will
I tell her how the psychologist we take
her to see says it will take years for her
to come to terms with her early
childhood experiences?
Or will I just plead with her to fill the
hole inside my daughter because she is
the only one who can? Maybe she will
understand if I tell her that I can cope
when Mandy tells me she hates me. All
teenagers do that. But not when she
screams, “You’re not my real mum,
you’re nothing to me” – that’s when
it really hurts. Maybe she will just be
relieved. I have to break into a run to
get across the road through a short gap
in the traffic. The café door is in front of
me. I can’t walk in.
Not yet. I walk past the other side of
the café. The glass walls instantly reveal
and reflect. There is an exhibition of
paintings in the centre of the café with
comfortable sofas arranged next to it.
A couple sit holding hands and a mug
of something at the same time. Around
the outside, the tables are placed close
to the glass. An old lady alone eats a
sandwich too big to fit into her delicate
mouth. A woman smiles opposite a small
child. And at the last table, facing my
way, I see the face in the photograph.
The slope of the nose, the way the hair
rises slightly before falling over the
forehead, the milky texture of the skin
around the cleavage. They are all the
same.
She holds the menu and watches the
door. I reach the point where we are
next to each other, separated only by a
sheet of glass. She looks up and our eyes
meet. I slide the photograph carefully
back into my bag and carry on. w&h
The day-to-day routines of family life hadn’t registered with us before mandy. how on earth had we spent all our time before every minute was filled with one seven-year old?
Lucien’s voice is calmer when we talk by
phone these days – obviously the move
back to France has mellowed him. But
when I tell him I’m going back to Ceann
Coile after all, it hits a decibel level
I haven’t heard since the early days
of our divorce. I put him on speaker as
I race round the room, throwing clothes
into a holdall. A funeral in the Highlands,
late September – sun, or rain? Or wind?
All three, probably.
“And by the way, don’t you watch
the news? Encore une grève, Claire –
another strike. You’ll never make it now.”
Four hundred miles away and he’s
still better informed than me. Some
things never change. I make the early
flight, the last one out before everything
shuts down. Now all I have to do is hire
a car and pray the weather hasn’t closed
the bridge again by the time we land. As
we taxi for take-off, I lean back and close
my eyes, trying to make sense of what
I’m doing. And Lucien’s parting comment
comes back to haunt me.
How do you know Isobel would even
want you there – she didn’t want to see
you or Anna when she was alive, did
she?
Just enough truth there to hurt, as
always. Lucien knows Dad and I visited
Granny Isobel every summer when I was
little. Even after he died, and I married
Lucien, I made the journey with Anna
in tow. Until five years ago, when
everything changed. I didn’t ask why
Isobel cut herself off so suddenly –
when that letter came out of nowhere,
Lucien and I had our own difficulties
to deal with, and they seemed like the
biggest thing in the world. It may be too
late to find out now. But I have to try.
***
We land on time, and I’m starting to
believe in miracles. But hiring a car
proves almost impossible – a minor
celebrity is in the area, with press and
paparazzi in hot pursuit. After 20
minutes, the unsmiling boy at the desk
hands over the keys to the only vehicle
left, a huge black MPV straight out of
some trendy American mini-series, all
teeth and perma-tans. On the single-
track road from Calmore, it looks
uncertain, diminished – maybe it
suits me, after all. But as I head down
through the strath, I realise how much
I’ve missed Rossan.
I round the final bend, and the church
looms in front of me, every bit as chill
and grey and cheerless as I remember.
The car park is full, and the overflow has
spilled down the road to the post office.
By the time I manage to wedge the tank
somewhere semi-legal, another 15
minutes have passed.
Perhaps it’s not too late. I picture
myself sprinting over the gravel
and hurtling through the door in my
cranberry coat, scarlet-faced and
hatless, the rows of sober, dark backs
stiffening in serried disapproval. Instead,
I stand here shivering, until the doors
open and the mourners file out, huddling
in mute, respectful clusters.
A little woman comes to take my arm,
steering me through the sea of grey and
black. I start to ask her name, and then
I realise where we’re going. Before we
reach the graveside, my chest is a solid
mass of pain. We lean on each other
until all the words are said, and the grief
I didn’t know I carried breaks free at last.
Ella. At last, I remember. Cathy’s
daughter – my great-aunt, the last of my
father’s cousins. Seeing her is almost
more of a shock than those last blurred
moments in the churchyard. She’s tiny
now, as if the years have worn away
at her. But Isobel was over 90, so Ella
must be in her mid-seventies. She barely
comes up to my shoulder, but her hand
on my arm as I reach for my mobile
is strong enough, and the glint of
amusement as she surveys the people
carrier is pure Ella.
“If I’d known you were bringing a
bus, we’d have cancelled the taxis. I’ll
take a lift back up to the house, then.”
I hadn’t really thought I could slip
away quietly and catch up with her
later, had I? Ella whips my coat away as
soon as we get through the door of her
bungalow, and hands me a pinny. For
the next three hours I’m pouring tea,
and dishing out soup and sandwiches
to a small host of people with names
from a barely remembered past. I get to
three Iains, two Peggys and an Alasdair
before I lose count.
Until something Ella is asking stops
me in my tracks.
“You’ll be selling Ceann Coile, I suppose?”
“What?” My brain, fuddled through
lack of caffeine, takes a moment to catch
up. “But the house belonged to Cathy.
Surely it goes to you?”
“Your Granny bought Mam out years
ago. Don’t look so shocked, we were all
fine with it – too many bad memories
here for us. No, Ceann Coile is yours.”
***
I try to reach Anna, or even Lucien.
But my battery is almost gone, I’ve left
my charger behind, and Ella’s landline
expires in a long, terminal monotone
when I dial the international code. In the
end I settle for a couple of explanatory
texts to say I’m staying on for a while to
help Ella. I get a bemused reply from
COming hOmeby Margaret Kirk
i didn’t ask why isobel cut herself off so suddenly – Lucien and i had our own difficulties to deal with. it may be too late to find out now. But i have to try
Anna, telling me not to overdo things.
We take the people carrier up to
Ceann Coile the next morning. Ella
lights the range, but the chill barely lifts.
It feels as if Isobel has been gone for
months, and I can’t imagine the house
ever being warm again. But there are
things to do now, comforting, practical
things. And answers I need to find.
We start in the kitchen, emptying the
cupboards and tidying as we go. I talk
about Anna, her passion for history
and her Oxbridge hopes. Ella sniffs
her disapproval of my letting her go
gallivanting about Europe with no family
to keep an eye on her – Lucien’s vast
clan of cousins in the Auvergne clearly
count for nothing. Then I ask what
I waited too long to ask Isobel.
“Why did she tell us not to come any
more? It really hurt Anna.”
“She wasn’t well, Claire. I wrote to you
about the stroke, didn’t I? She wanted
you to remember her as she was.”
No. There’s more, I know it. But Ella
is looking frail and weary, and I decide
it can wait until we’re away from here.
Instead, I chatter on about Anna’s
fascination with tracing our family tree.
“She’s really keen to know more
about my grandfather – Ewan, wasn’t it?
And maybe find out where Alec went,
see if she could trace him for you. You
might have relations in the States, after
all. Have you never wondered?”
Tactless, Claire – of course she’s
wondered where her father went.
A bundle of cutlery slips out of Ella’s
hand, and she bends to retrieve it.
“My mother was left with five children
to bring up. And he was a hard man,
Claire. A cruel man. Do you know what
happened to my lip?”
She points to the scar beside her
mouth. “We had to be quiet when Father
was at table – like wee mice, Mam told
us. But Katy had been telling me a funny
story, and I laughed out loud. And he
slapped me so hard I fell off my chair on
to the hearth. I was three years old.”
“Oh, Ella…” I turn to comfort her, just
in time to see her stoop to lift a crate of
dishes nearly as tall as she is.
“Ella, for goodness sake.” I start
towards her, but tiredness makes me
clumsy and I catch the dresser with my
hip. The unwrapped plates rattle, and
a dusty, faded postcard falls free of the
cranny it has rested in for years.
No, not a postcard. Ella starts to say
something, but all my attention is on the
people in the tattered photograph.
A family group – man and wife, their
scruffy, solemn children, and beside
them, a younger woman with a baby
in her arms.
“Is that Isobel with my father?” I stare,
fascinated. “Would you believe this is
the only picture I’ve seen of him as a
baby? But that’s not Ewan, is it?”
“Pass it to me, Claire – I’ll put it with
the others.”
Ella reaches for it, but it’s too late. I’m
staring at the man in the centre with his
arm clamped round Cathy’s shoulders.
At the dark, intense features I know like
my own face, because I’ve watched
them grow from babyhood. How could
Alec’s blood resurface in his sister-in-
law’s great-grandchild? Only one way.
The world fades to grey and then to
white. I’m not even aware of my temple
hitting the table on the way down.
***
When I open my eyes, Ella is on
her knees beside me, dabbing at
my forehead with a damp tea towel.
Once she’s decided I’m probably not
concussed, she helps me up before
putting two mugs on a tray and looping
her arm through mine.
“Tea. Come on, we’ll take it outside
for a wee bit of air.”
Ella’s tea could tarmac roads, but
I finish the sweet, scalding brew in a
couple of gulps as we perch on the
drystone wall. There is the faintest peaty
aftertaste I remember from years ago as
I wait for her to speak.
“You saw it, of course. It wasn’t so
obvious when Anna was a baby, with
your man being so dark, but the pictures
you sent when she turned 13 – it was too
much for Isobel. She wanted to see the
lassie again, but … she just couldn’t,
Claire. I’m sorry.”
“Did Cathy know about them? Did my
dad?”
“Know about… an ‘affair’, you mean?”
Ella’s mouth tightens. “There was
nothing like that. It was… he wasn’t a
good man, Claire. Greedy, never
satisfied – always wanting more.”
Another piece falls into place. I look
at the hands holding the baby again.
The ringless hands.
“There never was a Ewan, was there?’
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t
need to. I try not to look at the picture,
but I can’t help it, I’m transfixed by what
I see now as its wrongness. The arm
round Cathy’s shoulder, not draped
affectionately the way I’d assumed.
The fingers are curled, digging into
her flesh through the thin cotton frock.
Imprisoning her. And Isobel clutches the
baby to her like a flood victim clinging to
the last safe place in a drowning world.
Her flared skirt is wrapped around her
so that not one inch of her comes in
contact with Alec. She is trying to smile
at the baby, but her eyes are agonised.
My stomach contracts in a sick slow
somersault.
“Where did Alec go, Ella?” I picture
him slinking out of their lives after all
the misery he caused, and part of me
rejoices. But a bigger part of me knows
life rarely ends so tidily. And I can’t see
that dark, arrogant face exiting quietly.
“It was the thirties, Claire. People
were leaving every day, heading for the
cities, then Canada or America, maybe.
Men would go on ahead, make some
money and send for their families once
they could afford to. Or they made a
new life and moved on.”
“Is that what happened?”
The wind is getting up in earnest now.
The brightness has vanished and the sky
is gunmetal – a hard frost tonight, for
sure. Ella sets her cup down on the tray,
nearly missing it, but her voice is steady
enough.
“I think he tried to force her again.
And they knew it would never end.
Isobel, then maybe one of the girls?
I think they knew they had to stop him.”
“Are you sure?”
Of course she’s sure, Claire. She’s
had 70 years to think about this.
“I never saw Father again after
I heard the shouting, but that morning,
Mam padlocked the old barn. Then that
night I saw her coming back with Isobel,
and they both had snow on their boots.”
So, somewhere on the hill – one of
the corries, perhaps. Not too far – he
was a big man, and although Isobel had
my height, hardship had given both girls
a gaunt, malnourished look. They would
have hidden him as well as they were
The arm round Cathy’s shoulder isn’t draped affectionately, as i’d assumed. The fingers are curled, digging into her flesh through the thin cotton frock
able, and spent every day of their lives
waiting for him to be found.
I try to stand, but my legs simply
won’t work. My shock is like a physical
weight on my chest, pinning me here.
I have no idea how to comprehend this.
Or who to grieve for most.
Ella sees me shudder, and reaches
out to pat my shoulder.
“Not near Ceann Coile, Claire. They
would have made sure of that. Come on,
we’ll be getting a chill if we don’t get out
of this wind.”
We leave the crockery piled on the
table, the dresser drawers still half full
of yellowing linen, and turn off the lights.
Tonight, Ceann Coile belongs to its
ghosts. All of them.
Ella pulls the door closed behind us,
and puts her arm around me.
“You don’t have to sell, you know.
If you wanted to come home for a while
– I think it would please Isobel.”
“Here? With the knowledge of a
seventy year-old murder?”
What I should do is find the nearest
police station. But actually, what do I
know? Only what my elderly great-aunt
has conjectured – and the glint in her
eye tells me she’s capable of feigning all
kinds of dottiness if I try to take this any
further.
It’s still ridiculous. If I believe Ella, my
biological grandfather is still out there
somewhere. Not murdered, probably
– it would be manslaughter, I think,
these days. But my setting up home
here would feel like condoning what
happened. Time doesn’t turn old wrongs
into rights, and it doesn’t settle scores.
Isobel must have known that.
I start to say so, but the words won’t
form. Apart from one. Home. The
sudden longing I feel takes my breath
away. For years I’ve trailed after
someone else – my father, then my
husband. Would it be so wrong to make
this place a home for me? And not just
for me. I picture Anna here, tanned and
exuberant, and it feels right. More than
that, it feels just.
“Maybe for a while.”
There’s one more thing to do. I stare
at the photograph for a long time,
memorising the faces of the dead – they
deserve no less. Then I throw it into the
coals. Isobel and the baby stay frozen in
the flames as Ella and I watch together.
As the paper burns to ash, Isobel looks
as if she is smiling. w&h
“He’s a knight, you know. A Sir.”
Michael picked crumbs out of his roll,
rolling them into little grey pebbles, like
the stuff that leaks out of elderly
beanbags.
“Yes, I know”, I said. I wasn’t hungry
but nerves made me force butter-
plastered bread into my mouth.
I avoided his glance and gazed instead
at what seemed like hundreds of pairs
of eyes staring right at me from the
walls, demanding I say something more.
Anything to fill the yawning silence
between us.
We’d found this restaurant round the
corner from the eminent doctor’s office.
It was worryingly empty, the other
customers quiet, elderly, respectable,
like the area. The smoking ban made
the air clean, but the ghost of a
thousand eagerly sucked cigarettes
lingered. There was no music, no loud
chatter. Some diners ate alone, serious
hardback books open next to them.
Contently, they grazed on unfashionable
slabs of glossy, sauce-slicked meat,
chewing each mouthful thoughtfully
and sipped wine the colour of stained
glass. Drinking at lunchtime was the
norm here, abstention seen as a modern
affectation. Photographs of vaguely
familiar faces grinned down from the
walls, signed with effusive greetings to
the owner. Most were black and white;
some were sepia. All had been there
as long as minestrone had been on
the menu.
I could mark out Michael’s illness in
restaurant meals. First the starter: after
the initial diagnosis, we’d headed for
the brash expense-account splendour of
precise seafood, wine tasting of the lead
in pencils, views of the slate-grey river.
Then our feelings had been of hope, of
fighting, of victory. That’s what we’d told
each other as we sat, holding hands,
our nails biting into each other’s palms
leaving little minus-sign indentations.
Then, after the meeting with the NHS
consultant – the main course, if you like
– we went to the small French place
we’d been after we’d had the first scan
when we were expecting Sam. Then,
we’d been so happy yet nervous we’d
hardly eaten, but Michael had
extravagantly toasted me with fizzy
mineral water, joking that my drinking
days were over for a long time now.
He overtipped the waiters and we
walked home along the river, waving
at the tourists chugging along in gaily
painted boats.
The second time at the French place
we were just plain terrified. The food
tasted of cotton wool and the wine,
which we knew was excellent, might
have been water. The meeting with
the consultant had taken place in a
depressing, shabby cubbyhole, broken
blinds, wilted spider plants and free
drug company calendars on the wall.
The consultant, a woman in her fifties,
was a heavy-lidded beauty with gold
glasses on a chain around her neck.
Quiet at first, she fixed Michael with her
dark gaze and bluntly asked if he had
medical insurance.
“Do I need it?” he’d asked.
“You’d get better drugs. Ones we
can’t afford on the NHS,” she sighed.
“I know someone you should see.
He’s the best. If anyone…” She stopped,
flustered, and pulled a leaking biro
out of her pocket. It left a blue stain
spreading like a royal blood clot.
“You mean if anyone can save me,
he can,” completed Michael. His eyes
met hers and spoke volumes. He was
challenging her, hoping she’d correct
him. It was so quiet. I held my breath.
Michael reached out and picked up a
silver photo frame from her desk. A girl
– obviously her daughter, the same
bewitching eyes – laughing, wearing a
gown and mortar board. He passed it to
me.
“She’s beautiful,” he said. “You must
be so proud of her.”
The consultant looked back at him
and, almost as if she were doing
something furtive, she reached across
and grabbed his hand and squeezed it.
“That’s all I want,” he smiled. “To see
Sam graduate.”
“Go see him,” she said, pressing a
scribbled Post-it Note with a name and
number on it to him.
“You make him sound like a
superhero,” Michael says. “Does he wear
his pants over his trousers?”
She relaxes. “And spoil the creases
on his Savile Row suit?” she replies,
almost laughing.
So that brings us to today, the final
course, treading water and waiting for
the audience with the noble knight. Time
filled with indifferent food but that’s what
we need; this is the time for the embrace
of deep-frying, not clever-clever sushi.
Which brings us to my squid (calamari,
says the menu) and his whitebait. Only
their different shapes distinguish them,
hot batter crunched morsels that we
anoint with lemon – making it instantly
soggy. An elderly waiter, as comforting
as the food, pours slightly too warm
yellow wine into chunky glasses. We
drink too much, too fast, but the bulk of
the food and our terror makes the
alcohol evaporate.
And so to our meeting with Sir. A
mahogany desk, discreet, considered
SupeRmAn in A SuiT by Charlotte Westall
The diners grazed on slabs of glossy, sauce-slicked meat, chewing each mouthful thoughtfully, and sipped wine the colour of stained glass
artwork (was that really a Giacometti
stick person bronze on the side
cabinet?) and a Chinese screen for
shielding undressed patients. Sir has
gold-framed spectacles too, but a
chubby fountain pen, no doubt refilled
by the elegant secretary on guard
outside. Next to his blotter, a framed
photograph. He’s wearing a top hat,
holding his medal of honour. With him,
a brittle, frosted-hair blonde nervously
overdressed; Lady superman doctor,
accompanying him to his investiture.
“We can fight this, Michael,” says
his eminence, using his pen to beat a
triumphant tattoo on the desk “Together,
we can beat this thing.”
“Presumably with the help of some
expensive drugs,” I added.
He bestows his gaze on me. “My dear
Mrs Lindsay,” he said. “We will all fight
this thing together. We will not
surrender.”
Silenced, I sit back in my chair as they
talk of appointments, drugs and other
treatments that we trust the insurers will
cough up for.
“Blimey”, Michael added later, as we
walked to the Tube. “Never surrender,
eh? Fancy having Churchill as my
doctor.”
I laugh, and for the first time since
diagnosis I feel hopeful.
And so the pattern begins.
Treatments, tests then the nervous
meeting to find how it’s going. Before
each sojourn with Sir, we take courage
in calories. We munch through veal
Milanese, liver Veneziana, truite aux
amandes, sitting at the same table, the
smiling pictures of just-remembered
game show hosts and sportsmen
watching each mouthful. The waiters
recognise us, ask us how we are, and
of course we always say we’re fine,
because what are we meant to say? And
after all, that’s the same lie we’re telling
ourselves. Things are okay. It’s all going
well. Tentative plans for outings, holidays
are made then postponed until we’re
sure it’s all okay. We are always tense
before seeing Sir. I sit and flick through
expensive magazines, Michael chatters
nervously, making jokes about others
in the waiting room. He is on first-name
terms with the ladies on reception
and buys them a box of chocolates at
Christmas because he feels guilty that
once, when the drugs were at their
meanest, he snapped at them when he
was told Sir was running late.
Sometimes the news is good, and
Sir and Michael beam at each other,
winning team members.
“To think, all those hamsters died to
save me,” joked Michael once, when Sir
told him what the latest super drug was
made from. Sir laughed, hands clasped
across the solid ball of his starched
stomach.
Then there would be the bad times,
when sir would try to buck Michael up:
“We can win this, my boy, you mustn’t
get downhearted. Think of your little boy.”
“Don’t you think he’s all I think about?
I wouldn’t go through all this if it wasn’t
for him.”
It’s the closest Michael and Sir come
to a fight. And I just sit and observe and
think, “Well, what about me, wouldn‘t
you do this for me? Or am I just here to
be a dining companion, someone to sit
with under those fading photos while
our own picture is fading?”
Frankly, I am jealous of Sir, whose
caress when he examines Michael
is welcomed, while my attempts at
affection are ignored. Apart from
sometimes in the middle of the night
when I wake to see Michael silently
crying. Then I hold his ruined, battle-
scarred body, and we talk quietly in the
anonymity darkness gives us. We can’t
see each other’s expressions, and we
make sure there’s no risk of eye contact
by staring at the ceiling. Headlight
beams from passing cars strobe across
the Artex.
“We have to trust Sir, he’s the best,
everyone says so. I’ll beat this, I’ll be
playing football with Sam in the
summer.”
“I know you will”, I say, and I almost
believe it. Sir has me under his
bewitchment too, because if I don’t keep
the faith then what chance is there?
Then, another meal, another
appointment. The restaurant is unusually
busy so we’re given another table.
Frankly, we are pleased that it is out of
the way, unfashionably close to the
kitchen. We are partly hidden from the
other diners and that cheers Michael
up. Because he doesn’t eat so well
these days so I have to cut up his food,
butter his bread, even grind the pepper
into his minestrone. I tuck a napkin
under his chin and watch as his shaking
hand tries to convey soup to his mouth.
He spills most of the spoonful. His eyes
fill with tears.
“What a life,” he hisses. “I’m a cripple.
I can’t dress myself. When I look in the
mirror I see an old man, a scary old man.
My son will be too frightened to look at
me soon. What the hell was the point?
Why did you make me do this?”
He’s getting angry now, there’s a vein
on his forehead that’s throbbing a blue
pulse, a furious beat.
I look away and take another gulp of
wine. I know I’m drinking too much these
days but it does help take the pain away
and at least it spares me from the worst
nightmares.
“You know why we’re doing it,”
I sighed. “We were told it was the best
hope. And it has helped, hasn’t it?
You’ve had time with Sam. We’ve had
good times, haven’t we? I know it’s been
horrible and you’ve been so brave, but
you’ve done it for the family. You’ve
suffered but it’s not been in vain.”
“You made me do this”, he snarled.
“You tortured me. You gave me hope when
there really wasn’t any. It’s your fault.”
And I realise he isn’t looking at me
at all, but at the photographs on the
wall. I look and see a smiling picture
of Sir, just as Michael summons up
superhuman strength and throws his
soup over the grinning face. We pay
the bill, tip heavily and hobble off to the
appointment, knowing we’ll never come
back again. w&h
The waiters recognise us, ask us how we are, and of course we always say we’re fine, because what are we meant to say? And after all, that’s the same lie we’re telling ourselves
Three months: three months and five
days since she’d been put out to grass;
thrown on the scrapheap; put out to
pasture. Mary sipped at the hot tea in
front of her and looked at the envelopes
that lay on the kitchen table. It was her
birthday – her 55th birthday – and soon
her children would ring with their best
wishes and she would have to pretend
that everything was fine in her world.
When Marcus had first mentioned the
possibility of early retirement she’d been
horrified and had phoned Jack, her son,
straight away. He’d whistled when she’d
told him what was on offer.
“I’d bite his arm off, Mum; I can’t see
what the problem is.”
“I don’t know if I want to stop
working, that’s the problem.”
“You must be mad. You should be
thrilled – most people in your situation
would be.”
He sounded petulant. Would they,
she wondered; were they? Perhaps
she’d have felt the same way at 25, but
at 55 it all looked very different.
Hattie, her daughter, didn’t
understand either.
“You’ve worked so hard for so long.
You should be glad to have some time to
yourself to enjoy what you’ve worked for.”
Another “should”. Perhaps she was
being ungrateful. So she’d asked Nancy,
her cousin, and she showed some
understanding, at least.
“Retirement’s not easy. I found it very
hard to adjust, and I was older than you
– well past retirement age. But you
haven’t really got a choice, have you?
I mean, Marcus will decide for you in
the end so you might as well get on with
it. I know it’s sooner than you would
have liked, but that might be a good
thing. I’m quite enjoying myself now. I
wouldn’t go back to work even if I could.”
So in the end, Mary had begun to
pretend to them all that she was happier
with the idea but it was all as awful as
she’d feared. She’d tried making
routines, looked into voluntary work and
thought about a holiday. But the trouble
was, she didn’t know what she wanted.
Maybe it would have been different if
she’d still been married, but Des had
left before the children had even started
school. After that, she was so busy
working and looking after them, she
had no energy for another relationship,
nor, if she was honest with herself, the
inclination or opportunity for one.
When Jack and Hattie had left home
she’d found it hard, but Marcus had
wanted her to work extra hours and
she’d liked feeling indispensable to the
company. What a fool she’d been. Now
there was nothing.
She started opening her birthday
cards. Caught between Nancy’s and
Jack’s was a card from a local estate
agency. It said that there were a number
of buyers interested in the area and
asked if she was considering selling.
She looked around the rather tatty
kitchen and thought unenthusiastically
about whether redecorating could be
her project.
She’d hated the house at first. It had
been Des’s choice rather than Mary’s.
It was a large, late-Victorian house on
the edge of town but with no view of the
sea. She’d wanted either to live closer
to the centre or preferably on the
clifftop. She’d wanted something smaller
anyway, but, as always, his wishes
prevailed. When he’d left, her first
thought had been to move, and Nancy
had encouraged her, but in the end
she’d decided against uprooting the
children on top of everything else they
were going through. Now the thought
of moving horrified her; all the
arrangements seemed beyond her, and
the children would be against it, she
knew. They wanted their home to come
back to.
The phone rang. Here we go, she
thought, and took a deep breath before
answering.
“Happy birthday!” It was Nancy.
“Thanks. And for the card; I was just
looking at it.”
“So, are we still on for afternoon tea
up at The Crown?”
“Of course. Looking forward to it,”
she lied.
“What are you doing this morning?
I could come over.”
“Oh, that’s very kind but I’ve got
plans.”
“Oh, how grand that sounds! Where
are you off to?”
“Just for a walk into town along the
seafront. There’s an exhibition on at the
museum and I said I’d meet Jean there.”
When had lying become so easy? And
she hadn’t seen Jean in months.
“Well, have fun. See you later.”
“Lovely.”
The lie made her feel terribly guilty.
Nancy was her closest relative, apart
from the children, and her best friend.
She was loyal and kind, but bossy, and
sometimes Mary wanted to kill her.
She knew that the only way to assuage
the guilt was to do at least some of
the things she’d said she would. She
couldn’t face Jean any more than she
was looking forward to seeing Nancy,
so the museum on the front it was.
She waited until the children had
phoned and then dressed in her usual
black cotton trousers and long-sleeve
The pOSTCARdBy Josephine Tarling
mary tried to pretend that she was happy with retirement, but it was all as awful as she’d feared. The trouble was, she didn’t know what she wanted
T-shirt – and picked up a waterproof
jacket along with her handbag. It was
beginning to feel like a uniform. She’d
never been one for high heels, but had
always made an effort to wear smart
shoes and a skirt when she was working.
There didn’t seem much point now.
It was cold and damp when she set
off, but a battle against the wind coupled
with the waterproof jacket made her
hot and uncomfortable, and she wished
she’d taken the car. By the time she
reached the town she had a headache.
The museum was housed among
a small row of shops opposite the
seafront. The shops were part of a larger
development from the 1980s, aimed
at revitalising the area. For a while it
had worked, but the inevitable lack of
money meant that the town had begun to
look as rundown as it had in the 1970s.
There was a small café next door
and Mary found a table by the window,
desperate for a cup of tea and two
paracetamol. She was following Nancy’s
rule: always begin a museum or gallery
visit with a cup of tea and a visit to the
Ladies. She was grateful to sit down and
remove her coat. It was too big to fit into
her bag, so she decided that she would
tie it around her waist when she went
into the museum. The tea was good: hot
and strong, just how she liked it. She felt
cosy, sitting there looking out at the sea,
and had to force herself to leave.
She hadn’t been inside the museum
since it had reopened in the 1970s, but
it seemed that the meagre exhibits had
not improved since then. The story of
the town through the ages was not an
unusual one. It had never been a major
seaside resort, no one famous had ever
visited; nothing remarkable had ever
happened. She wandered through the
two main rooms before arriving at the
exhibition she’d mentioned to Nancy.
It was devoted to seaside postcards and
was as dull as the rest of the museum.
The display consisted of a range
of uninspiring cards from around the
country, but towards the end there
was a wall specifically devoted to local
postcards. Five postcards had been
blown up into posters and set out in
date order.
One showed early bathers, almost
fully clothed, gingerly leaving their
bathing machine, and another a 1930s
seafront fuller than she had ever seen
it. A third had a wartime couple looking
down on the out- of- bounds beach, and
the last focused on a group of young
men with Mohican haircuts smoking
cigarettes by the boating pond.
But it was the fourth that took her
breath away. It showed a group of five
teenage girls balancing on the railings
above the beach eating ice cream.
The dark-haired girl in the centre had
thrown her head back and was laughing
uncontrollably because she had
dropped some ice cream on to her blue
cotton shift dress. The other girls were
laughing too, but more demurely, slightly
embarrassed by her abandon.
“Oh my goodness.” Mary put her
hand to her neck. An elderly man
examining the wartime picture closely
removed his glasses and turned to look
at her.
“Is there anything wrong?”
“No. It’s just…” Mary looked at the
photo again. “That’s me. The girl
laughing. That’s me.”
The man replaced his glasses and
peered at the poster over her shoulder.
“Really. How lovely. I was just
wondering what became of all these
people.”
They were silent while they looked at
the photo together.
“Do you remember it being taken?”
“No. But then there were always
photographers wandering around.
I remember the day, though. It was June
1971 and we’d just finished our O levels.”
“It says here the photos were taken
by Smithson’s photographers.”
The man was reading from a card
stuck to the wall beside them.
“Do you remember them? They were
in the high street until about 15 years ago.
Apparently, these were printed as a set
of postcards in 1990 for the museum.”
“Well, I’ve lived here all that time and
never knew that.”
Mary could feel the heat of the sun as
if it were yesterday. She remembered
the stuffiness of the bus she’d taken into
town that day, and the way she’d had to
peel her legs away from the seat when
she’d reached her stop. Most of all she
could feel the excitement, the bubbling
up of possibilities.
“D’you know I’ve never thought of
that day since, but I can picture it so
vividly now.”
“You should see if they sell them. The
shop’s just through there.”
He pointed the way and went back
to studying the wartime couple.
The shop was mostly filled with bars
of soap and a few paperbacks about the
south coast. Mary thumbed through a
few books and then crossed to a stand
of postcards. Unable to find the one she
wanted, she walked over to the counter.
“Excuse me; do you sell copies of the
postcards in the exhibition?”
The young girl behind the counter
wiped her nose on a very grubby tissue
she was clutching and reluctantly placed
the book she had been reading on the
counter in front of her.
“You mean the ‘through the ages’ ones?”
“Yes.”
“If they’re not on the stand, we must
have sold them.” She picked up her
book again.
“It’s the 1970s one I want. I’m the girl,
you see, the one laughing.”
Somehow it was important to tell
her, to say, “I wasn’t always this dowdy
middle-aged woman”. The girl looked up
with interest this time.
“Were you? D’you know, that’s my
favourite picture. I often go to look at it.”
“Really? Why?”
“Well, you were having such fun and
you looked a real live wire. It’s like you
were saying: ‘look at me. I’m someone’.”
The girl looked at her again, scanning
her face for something.
“I thought you were the sort of person
who would have adventures. Did you?”
“I think I thought so too, but life sort
of got in the way.”
The girl nodded as if she already
understood about disappointment.
“Hold on a minute.”
She climbed down from her stool and
disappeared into a room at the back of
the shop, returning with a large box that
she began to rummage through.
“They never had that many of the
postcards printed in the first place, and
we probably have sold them all, but Miss
Stephens, the manager, likes to keep
one of everything as a sort of easy
archive.”
Mary swallowed hard, willing for the
girl to find it.
“Here we are.”
It was slightly crumpled and she
mary could feel the heat of the sun as if it were yesterday. most of all, she could feel the excitement, the bubbling up of possibilities
flattened it out on the counter before
passing it over.
“How much?”
“It’s on me.”
“Will you get into trouble?”
The girl shrugged. “I’ll act dim. She
thinks I’m an idiot anyway. And it’s
important to you, isn’t it?”
“More than I could have imagined.”
Once outside, Mary crossed the road
to the bus shelter and sat down to look
at it again. She had other photos of her
young self, but they had all been posed.
This was showing her as she was then.
And she’d forgotten that person. After
a while she opened her bag and placed
the postcard carefully inside.
By the time she reached The Crown,
Nancy was already seated at their table.
“Sorry I’m late; I had a few things to do.”
“You’ve had your hair cut?”
“Yes. Do you like it?”
“I do. It’s very glamorous. How was
Jean?”
“She didn’t come.”
Mary had opened her bag and took
out the postcard, passing it to Nancy.
“Oh my.”
“I’ve been looking at it on and off for
the last few hours. At first I didn’t know
whether I was happy or sad.”
“And now?”
“Mixed, but more happy than sad. I’d
forgotten that girl. She was lost.”
“Do you think you can find her
again?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve made a start
trying. I’m going to put the house on the
market and I think I might take a
holiday.”
“Good for you.”
“But first I’m going to have a large
glass of Champagne instead of tea. Will
you join me?” w&h
“Medium height, average-build lady, 45,
no real interests to speak of, dull job, no
ambition. WLTM handsome Adonis with
poor eyesight and low expectations.”
I think it might need some work,
frankly. Maybe I’m being a little too
modest. Or honest. Let’s face, it I’m so
middle of the road I could paint white
lines for a living.
I’m posting a photograph along with
the “blurb”. It isn’t the best picture of me,
but then in the best picture of me I’m
wearing a wedding dress and I’m told
that can be a little off-putting for
prospective dates. Makes you look too
married, apparently; or WAY too keen.
No, I’ve chosen my second-best picture,
the one where I don’t look anything
like me. Unfortunately, I’m not terribly
photogenic. At least I hope I’m not –
the alternative is I’m really quite ugly.
I figure if I’m, say, a 6 out of 10 in the
looks stakes (ten being Angelina Jolie,
zero being the most hideous of the Ugly
Sisters), this photograph is an 8. That
might bag me an 8-rated man (or an
ambitious 7/down-sizing 9). Unless
Mr Eight has gone through the same
process as me and knows the game,
in which case he might deduct a couple
of points, realise I’m a 6 and pass me
over for a 10 who might at least be an
8 in the flesh. Although if he’s done that
it would suggest he wasn’t an 8 in the
first place, and was probably a 6 himself
(or maybe even a 5 – men are a bit more
brazen in that respect).
I know it’s not all about looks, I’m not
that shallow. But there’s a reason why
dating sites ask for a photograph and
that’s to save the embarrassment of
a three meeting up with a nine, which
would just waste everyone’s time
(although it worked out for Woody
Allen, several times). Should I post
the second-best picture and risk
disappointing Mr Eight? I’ll just have
to hope that if I get a date out of this
we go somewhere quite dark, or better
still, he has a time machine and can
meet me in 1985.
Having second thoughts, I take down
three large, brightly coloured, if rather
dusty, boxes of photographs from the
loft. Four decade’s worth of photos
spill out. There are plenty of other, more
recent pictures saved on my laptop, but
digital cameras became popular around
the same time I became wrinkly, and so
I don’t feature in many of them. I flick
through any number of yellow-toned
70s birthday parties, 80s graduations,
engagements and weddings, and
what could be a hundred pictures of
someone’s baby, or a single picture
of a hundred different babies – it’s hard
to tell. There’s packet after packet of me
and the Ex (a firm 9 who woke up one
day, did the maths and left), but it would
be hard to extract a picture of just me
from them – in every picture we’re as
close together as two people can be,
and I’m not sure I could separate us
without it being obvious. I’m not sure
I want to, either.
One such picture shows us on a
summer’s day, standing proudly in front
of his first car, a white Ford Fiesta in
metallic “Champagne gold”, who we
christened “Freddie”. I have a Lady
Diana haircut and no sense of style. He’s
looking at me and laughing, probably
at the hairdo. I have the expression
of someone deeply in love who thinks
things will always be like that, that there
are an infinite number of sunny days
ahead.
Deciding it wouldn’t be right to use
a 28-year-old image, I delve deeper in
to the box and find something I’d forced
myself to forget a long time ago. In a
deep blue velvet album are the “glam”
shots I paid an arm and a leg for, half a
lifetime ago. Looking back I can’t recall
what inspired me to pay someone two
weeks’ wages for what was an industrial-
strength “makeover” and some serious
backcombing. After wrapping me in
what I think was gold curtain material
and telling me to “smoulder”, they
proceeded to take a number of pictures
in which, on reflection, I look rather like
Bonnie Tyler with a heavy cold. The sad
thing is that I thought I needed an inch
of make-up and a can of ultra-strong
hairspray to look good, and now I would
give pretty much anything to look like
the me I looked like after I’d wiped all
the make up off at the end of that
expensive day.
I lose count of the number of snap
shots of “the girls” on various nights out.
Some of them played the part of “the
girls” for a strictly limited period, others
for longer. A number of those appearing
in their cropped trousers and endless
bangles in “The girls after O levels” had
already disappeared by the “The girls
at college” in their skin-tight jeans and
low slung belts. Most were history by
“The girls in Majorca”, and by “The girls
at my hen do”, only one of the originals
remained. She remains to this day, and
played a role in “Engagement party”,
“Wedding day!” and “Aaarrgghh, 40!”,
in which I look, respectively, tipsy, bridal
and half-crazed. I discount them all.
I return from my trip down memory
lane with a warm feeling in my gut and
clutching the photo of me, the Ex and
Freddie the Ford. I’m inspired.
“Classic Eighties model, seen better
SOLd AS SeenBy Caroline Pritchard
i post a photo; not the best picture of me but in the best picture i’m wearing a wedding dress and i’m told that can be off-putting for prospective dates
days but still running well. Fun and
reliable, despite being left to rust for
some time. With a little care and attention
could be like new. WLTM similar. Must
have own furry dice. Sold as seen.”
I clip the photograph so it’s just me
and Freddie the Ford, scan it and upload
it on to the website with my ad, and wait.
I decide not to check my Inbox for a
few days, to avoid disappointment. Of
course that goes out the window
halfway through the second day, when
I log on and instantly regret it. Nothing.
To be frank I’m not overly surprised. I’m
not 20, I’m no supermodel and I have
too much forehead for my face. The Ex
helpfully pointed that out sometimes,
mid-argument. He wasn’t wrong, of
course, but still. Somewhat predictably
his new girlfriend (sorry, wife), Naomi, is
20-something and built like Kate Moss,
with her cute nose and perfect hair and
unfeasibly small forehead. But I’m not
bitter.
Somewhat disheartened, I keep
away from my email account until the
following weekend, when I’m thrilled to
discover three requests for dates and
one offer on Freddie (“£150 final offer
– can you deliver?”).
It is rather strange, assessing these
men by a few words and a blurred
image. This is the problem – like me
they will have spent some time choosing
just the right message and the picture
they feel best reflects them, which may
or may not be a fair resemblance. And
even if it was, can I make a judgement
on such a small amount of information?
Well, now isn’t the time to question the
whole process – I have suitors to review.
I consider Quantity Surveyor, 43,
Caretaker, 49, and a 45 year-old “pilot/
racing driver”, who is currently between
pilot/racing jobs and is working in the
warehouse at B&Q (“the superstore, not
the smaller one”).
I think I’ll discount the latter, not
because I have any problem with
someone working at B&Q (the
superstore, not the smaller one), but
because I have a problem with not being
able to believe him.
Quantity Surveyor seems nice
enough, and I consider emailing back
to find out more. Caretaker, however,
makes me smile.
“Young at heart old banger WLTM
the lady with the heart-shaped face and
beautiful smile, for trip to the seaside
(wear your flat shoes – I sometimes
need a push) and possibly more. Very
clean. OFD. Colin.”
It takes me a few minutes to work out
that OFD means Own Furry Dice.
I have a strange feeling in my stomach,
a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time.
I feel girlish, and hopeful, and a teensy
bit sick. Studying his photograph, I’m
thrilled to see a few wrinkles, what looks
like grey hair and smiling eyes. This may
come to something, or it might not, but
I feel confident enough to type my reply.
“Seaside trip sounds lovely. I should
warn you that my picture was taken 28
years ago. Please find a more recent pic
(my second-best) attached. Will need to
see furry dice before making final offer.”
I hear the ping of an incoming
message and instinctively go to my
Inbox. Another prospective date awaits:
“Dear Eighties model. A Champagne-
gold Ford Fiesta, a sunny day and a
beautiful girl. The man you cut out of
that picture was a mad fool. Ever wish
you could go back in time and do things
differently? Good to see you, and
Freddie, again. Maybe we could catch
up over a drink?”
I sit and look at the message for a
long time. I’ve waited for so long for him
to get in touch, to regret what he did,
to want me back. Now it appears to be
happening and it doesn’t seem real.
I start to type, and after a number of
false starts I reply.
“V surprised to hear from you. Didn’t
expect to meet you on a dating site –
sorry things didn’t work out with Naomi.
Hope you’re keeping well. Look forward
to catching up.”
I don’t get the instant response I was
hoping for. I sit and stare at the screen,
punctuating my staring with a few games
of Solitaire. Finally, a response.
“How about the King’s Head on
Friday night? Am still with Naomi but
she’ll be working and what she doesn’t
know won’t hurt!!”
My eyes sting a little, and I feel like a
fighter who’s finally struggled up after
a knockout blow, only to feel a fist in
his face again. I realise what a fool I’ve
been. I’ve spent too long waiting for
him to come back. I’m crying now, not
because I can’t have him but because
I’ve wasted such a lot of time, always
looking back, always believing my best
days were behind me, always thinking
I was worth less without him. No more. I
delete his message and go back to the
response I typed to Colin the Caretaker.
And I press Send. w&h
The door is slightly open.
“Knock, knock,” I say in the over-
bright tone I find myself speaking in
whenever I come to see Gran.
“How are you, today?”
I go over and plant a kiss on her
greasy cheek. She doesn’t move,
doesn’t answer, her eyes not leaving the
afternoon quiz she’s watching.
“It’s Sally, Gran,” I say, sitting down on
the bed. At the sound of my name, she
turns her head away from the TV and
looks at me, her grey eyes squinting
behind her glasses. Everything about
her has become grey, I think, these last
couple of years, since what started as
forgetfulness turned into the dementia
that now grips her. Her hair, once dyed a
chestnut brown, is now a dark grey, like
the sky before a storm. Even her face
has taken on a greyish pallor. It’s as if a
painter has come along and coloured
her in with a mixture of grey
watercolours. I put my hand up to my
own hair. It’s time I booked myself in for
a colour; Keith had pointed out only
yesterday that my roots were showing.
“You haven’t been for ages.”
“I came last week, Gran,” I say gently.
“And the week before. And the one
before that. I always visit you on a
Tuesday, don’t I?”
She tuts and turns back to the TV,
obviously not believing me.
“I never have any visitors.”
I sit on the pink-flowered duvet,
looking at her, wondering if she’s happy.
Well, if not happy, then okay. She has
everything she needs here – she’s cared
for, warm, fed, clothed, washed, has
company. Sometimes, I feel like getting
under this duvet, pulling it over my head
and letting someone look after me. How
nice it would be not to be present in the
here and now, not to have to face reality,
to have no worries, just to exist.
“You’re quiet,” she says, still not
looking at me. “Mind you, you always
were too quiet for your own good.
Always got your head in a, a…” she
stammers, looking for the right word.
“A book?”
“That’s right. Don’t know how you
ever managed to find a husband. And a
nice one like your Keith.”
I smile. “You remembered his name?”
She turns to look at me, her face
blank. “Whose name?”
***
I manage to eventually get her into
the wheelchair.
“Have fun.” Kayleigh, one of the care
assistants, holds the door open for us.
“We’re only going into the garden,”
Gran says, shaking her head.
“Sorry,” I mouth at Kayleigh.
“Hey, after last week, I can cope with
anything,” she laughs.
Last Tuesday Gran had sworn at her
when she was trying to brush her hair.
“Don’t worry about it,” Kayleigh had
said when, red-faced, I’d apologised.
“If she can’t swear at 84, then when
can she?”
Kayleigh was right. After all, there are
moments when I feel like swearing
myself. Times when I want to scream
and shout and let out a string of
expletives that would make your hair
curl. But I don’t, I keep them to myself.
Keith doesn’t like swearing, says it
makes women sound common, says
their mouths should be washed out with
soap and water if they do.
“Shall we sit here?”
I position her wheelchair next to a
wooden bench and plonk myself down
on it.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” I say, rolling up the
sleeves of my jumper as the heat of the
late April sun warms my arms. We both
stare at an expanse of freshly mown
green grass, bordered by red tulips
and hyacinths, and a few last remaining
daffodils.
“Someone’s made a good job of the
lawn.”
And they have. It looks like something
out of a magazine, all dark and light
green stripes like a newly woven carpet.
No molehills here. Unlike our garden. It
drives Keith mad. Me too, come to that. I
dread opening my curtains each
morning and seeing another mound of
freshly dug earth.
“Can you just sort out these moles,”
he’d shouted this morning, banging on
the kitchen window so that I jumped and
nearly dropped the cup of tea I was
holding.
“I will, I will,” I’d nodded encouragingly,
wishing he’d get just get in the car and
go to work before Gillian from next door
heard him. Only last week, she’d asked
me if everything was all right.
“Only they knocked these houses up
in a jiffy,” she’d said, “and the walls are
very thin.”
“It’s David.”
Nan’s voice brings me back to the
garden. Now it’s my turn to look
confused.
“Or Darren. Or Daniel. I forget now.”
I’m still looking at her blankly.
“The gardener,” she tuts, as if I’m the
one whose mind has gone.
“You’ve got a nice garden,” she
continues. I look at her, surprised. She’s
only visited us what, maybe three times,
in our new house. But she’s right, it is a
nice garden. Not as big as the one we
The ViSiTORby Mandy Rymill
i wonder if she’s happy. Well, if not happy, okay. She has everything she needs here – she’s cared for, warm, fed, clothed, washed, has company
used to have but, well, there are only the
two of us and what with Keith having to
take whatever work he could find when
he was made redundant, it was all we
could afford.
“Green beans, cabbages, potatoes,”
she says. “And one of those trees, a,
now what are they?”
“A lilac tree.” I supply for her. She’s
not thinking of our garden but the one
that she and Granddad had when I was
a girl.
“That’s right,” she laughs, her face
lighting up for the first time since I got
here. “A lilac tree.”
It suddenly goes dark. I look up. A
man is standing in front of me, blocking
out the sun.
“Your visitor been today, Beattie?” he
asks Gran.
I stare at him. His voice is familiar;
I feel as if I should know him, but I can’t
make out his features with the sun
behind him.
“Do you know she has a gentleman
caller every day?” he asks, turning to me.
“Really?”
I can’t think who he’s on about. Most
of Gran’s friends are no longer with us, and
those that are struggle to get out of their
chairs. I look at Gran for an explanation.
She’s shaking her head at the man in
front us and, I notice, blushing furiously.
It’s the first time in ages that I’ve seen
any colour in her cheeks.
“Sorry, have we met before?” I say,
holding out my hand, trying to divert
attention away from Gran. So what if she
has a gentleman caller, I think, good luck
to her. Probably just one of the old men
who lives here. It’s nice to have a friend,
someone to talk to, even someone to flirt
with, whatever your age. Not that I did
flirting. Well, come on, who would find
me attractive with the extra two stone
I couldn’t seem to shift? “But you’ve
always been on the big side,” Keith had
laughed, when I’d been moaning to him
one day about my weight.
“This is the gardener.” Gran says. “He
should be getting on with his gardening.”
She looks at him. I can tell that
she’s trying to arrange her 84-year-old
features into a menacing look.
The gardener laughs.
“It’s Daniel, Danny,” he takes hold of
my hand very gently. “Hello, Sally.”
His hand is warm, comforting to the
coldness of mine. I let it rest there for a
second and then slowly wriggle it out of
his grasp, letting it fall like a dead weight
on to my lap. I go hot, then cold; the
hand in my lap is shaking. I feel as
though someone has kicked my legs
from under me and, even though I’m
sitting on the solid wood of the bench
and know that I can’t fall, I move so that
I can grip the edge of the seat. I look
down at my knuckles. They’ve gone white.
It can’t be him. I’ve got it wrong. It just
can’t be. Not here. Not after all these years.
“It’s your granddad,” Gran suddenly
announces.
I look up. What’s she on about now?
She’s staring straight at me, looking
defiant. “It’s your Granddad,” she
repeats. “My visitor.”
I dare to look up at Danny. He’s
moved slightly, the sun no longer
directly behind him. The same jet-black
hair, the same bright blue eyes. That
same look. The look that I always felt
pierced my soul and saw all that was
there. I turned my head away from his
gaze. I didn’t want him to see my soul.
Back then, it had been light, pure; now I
was sure it would be as black as coal
and just as hard.
“But, Gran,” I say, reaching for her
hand. Her skin is feathery, her arthritic
bones jutting in all directions. “He’s not
with us any more, is he? He’s been gone
for 20 years.”
She snatches her hand away from
me. “He visits me every day,” she shouts.
There’s an awkward silence that
Danny finally breaks.
“Someone does visit,” he says.
“Really, I’ve seen him.”
“Well, that’s nice for Gran,” I reply, not
wanting to look up at him. “But it isn’t
Granddad.”
I get up and fumble with the brake on
the wheelchair.
“Here, let me do that.”
I move away and watch as he tries to
move the brake.
“Our loved ones do watch over us,”
he says, crouching down. It is him. Of
course it is. I can tell just by the shape
of his back. He turns and catches me
staring at him.
“They visit us when we need them,”
he says, his face now serious, the smile
gone.
“I thought you were in Australia,” I
say, hesitantly.
“I am. I was.”
He straightens up. “It’s a long story,”
he shrugs. “Still married to Keith.”
It’s more of a statement than a
question. He knows I am. He knows I
take my marriage vows seriously. Not
even the pleading from him all those years
ago and the love and desire I felt for him
could break them. Stupid, stupid girl.
I nod.
“Still happy?”
I nod again. The sudden urge to cry
washes over me. I take a deep breath,
look up at the sky, blink the tears away.
He gives the brake one last shove. It
clicks and releases and I push Gran
slowly back inside, Danny following me.
“This is the fella,” Danny says, picking
up the photo of Gran and Granddad on
their golden wedding anniversary. It had
been such a lovely day. They’d swirled
round the dance floor like I’m sure they
had on their wedding day, a perfect
couple, a perfect match, still in love after
50 years.
“I told you,” Gran says, giving me a
triumphant look.
I take the photo from Danny and put it
gently back on the bedside cabinet.
“It can’t be,” I say gently. “He’s dead.”
For some reason, they find that funny.
They smile at each other, Gran chortles
and Danny puts his hand over his mouth,
trying not to laugh and, before I know it,
they’re both laughing away like hyenas
and I’m joining in too, wiping the tears
away from my eyes.
***
This is how it should be, I think to
myself, my face on Danny’s chest, my
arms wrapped round his waist. He kisses
the top of my head and I snuggle in
closer to him, wanting to wrap myself
around him completely, not wanting to
let him go.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He squeezes me to him tightly.
“I should have gone with you. I made
the wrong choice. All those wasted years.”
A tear slides down the side of my
face on to his chest.
“It’s never too late to make another
choice,” he says, so quietly that I can
hardly hear him. “You’re a beautiful,
gorgeous, intelligent, sexy, kind woman.
i go hot, then cold; the hand in my lap is shaking. i look down at my knuckles. They’ve gone white. it can’t be him. i’ve got it wrong. it can’t be. not after all these years
And you’ve got the rest of your life
ahead of you, Sally,” he cups my chin
and turns my head so that I’m looking
into those gorgeous blue eyes.
“Promise me you won’t waste it,” he
breathes, kissing me lightly on the lips.
***
“You’re late,” Keith snaps as I walk
into the kitchen. No hello, no how was
Gran, no kiss.
“I met an old friend...”
“And you got chatting and you
probably went for a coffee and you
never thought about me, working all day,
starving, coming home to an empty
house and having to eat this muck.”
On the final word, he gets up, picks
up his plate and throws it at me. I duck
quickly; it clips my shoulder before
clattering to the ground. We stare at
each other. His face is red, his eyes like
two black pinholes, a look of absolute
disgust on his face.
“Clear that up,” he snarls, picking up
his wine glass. He walks through to the
living room, slamming the door behind him.
I get a cloth from under the sink and a
newspaper out of the recycling holder. I
lay it on the floor and start to pick up the
broken shards of plate. “Just leave him,”
I repeat to myself like a mantra. “Just go
upstairs, pack your things and go.”
I had once. After the soap incident.
Still gagging at the taste of the soap,
and with tears streaming down my face,
I’d packed a suitcase. He’d stopped me
at the door.
“I’m sorry, Sally, please,” he’d
pleaded. “I don’t know why I do it. I just
get so angry. Don’t go. I love you.”
So I’d gone back upstairs, unpacked
the case, brushed my teeth, splashed
my face with cold water and then gone
back down and had a glass of wine with
him. As if everything was normal.
And it had been after that. I remember
thinking that he was the Keith I’d fallen
in love with. It had lasted three weeks.
I scoop the mash and meat up with a
serving spoon and dollop it on to the
paper like I’m making a pie. And then
something catches my eye. A photo at
the bottom of the page. And a headline.
“Birmingham man...” I can’t see the rest
of it. I scrape some peas away so that
I can read it. “Dies in Australia.”
I look at the picture and I read the
headline again. It can’t be right. They
must have it wrong. And, for the second
time that day, I think, it can’t be him.
Danny smiles back at me from the
photo. The same eyes, the same lips I
kissed this afternoon. Drowned in a
fishing accident two weeks ago, it says.
His body being brought back for his
funeral. Today.
I think back to this afternoon and
what he’d said: “Our loved ones do
watch over us. They visit us when we
need them.”
I leave the mash and meat on the
floor, I squash the peas underfoot and I
go upstairs to pack my case. And this time,
I know I won’t be coming back. w&h
Sarah takes the cameo brooch out of
its box and examines it again. The mount
needs a clean and she can’t find a
hallmark, but she’s sure it’s gold. When
she spits on the hem on her T-shirt and
starts to rub at the metal, her sister Alice
looks up from the biology textbook she’s
been reading.
“Mum’s gonna go mad if she finds
out,” Alice says.
“So – it’s mine – Grandma left it to
me!” Sarah replies.
Alice puts her book down on her bed.
“But not so you could sell it – Grandma
loved that brooch.”
“I know she did – God, she wore
it often enough, but I’m never going
to wear it and I need the money.”
“For skiing! – it’s not exactly needing
it, is it? I don’t know why you want to go
skiing with those posh cows from uni
anyway.”
“Oh shut up! Will you just help me
with this?”
Alice sighs and saunters over to the
computer. She types in the address for
eBay.
“It’s easy”, she says. “Take a picture
and bung it on. Any idiot can do it.”
“I’m not really sure how much it’s
worth.”
“Jesus, Sarah, you’ve looked at
enough sites – it’s got to be worth at
least two hundred – Grandma had had it
since she was a teenager.”
She giggles. “I can’t see Grandma as
a teenager.”
Sarah thinks of her Grandmother’s
immaculate hair, neat pleated skirts and
silk blouses, and smiles.
“Me neither, but I don’t think
teenagers were the same then – she
started work when she was 12 or
something.”
“Yeah, in the jewellers… imagine
working at 12!”
Alice picks up the brooch and places
it in the hollow of Sarah’s long neck.
“Don’t sell it – It looks cool with your
curly hair – granny chic is in.”
Sarah flicks her away.
“How else am I gonna get the money?”
“You could ask Mum – she’s not
touched any of Grandma’s money.”
“Yeah, right, I can see that going well.”
Alice lies back down on her bed.
“Who the hell goes skiing when
they’re at uni, anyway?”
Sarah doesn’t attempt to explain
again. She knows that Alice, cocooned
in her state sixth-form centre, has no
comprehension of how people with
money live. Most of Sarah’s uni friends
consider skiing once a year a given.
Ignoring her sister’s scowls, Sarah
rummages through their wardrobe and
retrieves her Oxfam velvet skirt. She lays
it out on the bed, ruffles up the material
and then places the brooch among the
folds. Surprised at how good it looks
against the magenta velvet, she only has
to take five pictures before she gets one
she’s happy with. Alice takes the camera
from her and looks at the photographs.
She shrugs.
“Looks good – it’s nice.”
Sarah snatches the camera back.
“Okay, okay, I’ll ask her.”
Later that afternoon, waiting for her
mum to return from work, Sarah goes
online and for the third time that day
checks her bank balance. She has just
over £20 left. Her student loan is due to
go into her account in a week, but most
of that will be needed for her halls bill.
She jots down some numbers on a scrap
paper, re-estimating amounts needed for
food, books and entertainment for the
spring term and adds them up. Sighing,
she halves the amount earmarked for
food and then searches the website to
check on her overdraft limit. A beep
from her phone interrupts her. When she
reads the text message from her friend,
Olivia, she swears, then reads it again:
“Uncle James got us fab deal £900
including ski passes awesome chalet
with pool Meribel email later love love x.”
She can’t believe that Olivia thinks
£900 is a “fab deal”. She’d assumed,
when everyone had gone on about all
the skiing bargains, that they’d meant
£400, maybe £500 max.
Her first reaction is to text Olivia to
say she can’t go, but she doesn’t. She’s
spent much of her first term at Exeter
inventing excuses for not joining her
friends at cool nightclubs or dinner
in expensive restaurants. She’s had
enough of feeling excluded.
When she hears her mum arrive
home, she waits five minutes or so to
give her mum time to switch out of work
mode, then goes downstairs. Her mum
is already in the kitchen, chopping
onions. The remains of yesterday’s roast
pork is on the table waiting, Sarah
guesses, to be ground up and made
into something cheap and nutritious.
“Hello, love – good day?” her mum
asks.
Sarah pours herself a glass of milk
and sits down at the pine table.
“Not really.”
“Me neither – I wonder about the
public sometimes – the rubbish they
borrow from the library – you think I’d be
used to it.”
“I don’t know why you stay in that
library.”
“They’ve been good to me – when
your dad died and that. Anyway, I’ve not
An inheRiTAnCeBy Diane Simmons
Sarah can’t believe that Olivia thinks £900 is a “fab deal” for the skiing holiday. She’d assumed that she’d meant £400, maybe £500 max
long till I get my pension.”
She smiles. “Can’t wait!”
“I suppose we’ll be even poorer then!’
Her mum laughs. ‘We’re not poor –
goodness, Sarah!”
Sarah takes a sip of milk.
“Everyone in halls is going skiing at
Easter.”
“Everyone?”
“Well, all my friends. I’d like to go,
but …”
“Skiing’s expensive!”
“Olivia’s uncle’s got us a good deal
– there’s a pool and everything!”
“A pool! Goodness – what’s wrong
with a backpacker’s…? … I don’t know
– you should be studying at Easter.
You’ve exams not long after and then
there’s Sainsbury’s – they’ll be expecting
you back.”
“God, mum – I can’t work all the
time!” Sarah snaps.
Her mum picks up a chunk of pork
and pushes it through the mincer. Sarah
takes a few deep breaths. She knows
she’s no chance if her mum gets angry
with her.
“Sorry,” she says. “Only I really want
to go. I was kind of hoping you might
give – or lend me – some money.
There’s all Granny’s money and…”
Her mum plonks the pork down on to
the table.
“No, Sarah – the money’s not for
things like that.”
“What’s it for, then? Granny hoarded
her money away – she never had any
fun with it and now you’re doing the
same!”
“I’ll need some capital behind me
when I retire – you’ve the rest of your
life to go skiing. Anyway, you can’t afford
to lose that holiday job – you’re lucky to
have it what with the recession and…”
Sarah stops listening. She already
knows the rest of the speech.
***
It doesn’t take Sarah long to put the
brooch on to eBay. Once she’s sorted
it out, she surfs the site, amazed at the
variety of things that are for sale: shoes,
kimonos, food processors, all the kind of
bargains her mum would love. She looks
round her bedroom to see if there’s
anything else she could sell, but there’s
nothing obvious. She is rooting around
in her chest of drawers, picking through
her old jewellery when Alice walks in.
“Whatcha doing?” Alice asks.
“Looking for stuff to sell.”
“No luck with Mum then?”
Sarah snorts. “I knew it was a waste
of time – God, she’s tight!”
She carries on rummaging through
her drawer. “I can’t find anything – it’s
rubbish, mostly.”
Alice peers into the drawer.
“You could sell all that as a job lot
– there’s loads of stuff like that on eBay.”
“Maybe…”
“Bung it on with that costume
jewellery of Grandma’s – Mum said we
could have what we wanted of that.”
“What jewellery?”
“Stuff in a box – there’s tons of it.”
“She said we could have this
jewellery?”
“Yeah – you must’ve been at uni –
there’s nothing valuable. Lame old lady
stuff mainly. Go and look – it’s in a box in
Mum’s wardrobe.”
***
The bottom of her mum’s wardrobe is
strewn with skirts that have fallen off
their hangers, battered shoes and
ancient handbags. Sarah eventually
uncovers the metal box and lifts it out
on to the floor. It’s heavier than she’d
expected, and when she looks inside,
she’s surprised by its contents. There
are two cheap-looking brooches, but no
other jewellery. The box seems to be full
of random things – a couple of Paisley
shawls, a small china jug, a dented silver
photo frame, a brass candlestick holder
and a few other strange-looking things
she can’t identify. Among the items are
what look like tickets, maybe 20 or so,
tied together with a piece of string.
Sarah tries to read the writing on the
tickets, but the ink has faded on most
of them and the writing is that wavy
old-fashioned kind like you see old
people do and she can’t make much out.
There’s nothing in the box that looks like
anything of her grandmother’s.
She bundles everything back into
the box and takes it downstairs to the
lounge where her mother is lying on the
sofa engrossed in the ten o’clock news.
She squeezes on to the sofa and then
taps her mum’s leg to get her attention.
“Mum, I was looking for the box of
jewellery that was Grandma’s,” she says,
putting the box down on the coffee
table. “But all I could find was this – there
doesn’t seem to be much jewellery in it.”
Her mum mutes the television.
“No – it’s not in that box – it’s a
smaller one – on top of my wardrobe.”
“What’s this box, then? It’s full of very
odd things.”
“Oh, that’s from the pawnbrokers.”
“What?”
“From my grandfather’s shop.”
“He had a pawnbrokers? I thought it
was a jewellers.”
Her mum laughs. “Your grandmother
used to tell people that. It may have had
a jewellers attached, but it was a
pawnbrokers essentially.”
“Why did she say it was a jewellers?”
“Grandma was ashamed, well, not
ashamed exactly, but…”
Sarah rummages through the box.
“But what’s all this?”
“It’s things that weren’t reclaimed by
their owners – when they sold the shop
your grandma kept some things.”
She smiles. “I used to play shops with
them when I was little.”
Sarah picks out a shawl.
“But this has got no value – why
would anyone pawn a shawl?”
“People were desperate, love. It was
the late 1920s, early 30s. I suppose
Grandma and your great-grandfather
took pity on some people, lent them
money on things that didn’t have much
value.”
“So she shouldn’t have been
ashamed of it then?”
Her mum shrugs. “Maybe not, but
they made plenty of money from it as
well – enough to move out of Salford. It
used to upset your Grandma – the
people who came in desperate – she
wasn’t suited to it, really. It kind of affected
her – her attitude to money and things.”
“How?”
“Oh, debt and paying your way, always
saving for a rainy day. I’m the same, I
suppose – well, no suppose really. She
used to cry sometimes, when she got
older – about the poverty she saw.”
“It’s hard to imagine. I learnt stuff in
history, but…”
Her mum sighs. “I know – your
grandma never talked to me about it
properly until she got old. I wish she’d
done it earlier – it would have helped
Among the items in the box are what look like tickets, maybe 20 or so, tied together with a piece of string. Sarah tries to read the writing on the tickets but the ink has faded
me understand her better.”
She stretches out her right hand
and stares at the substantial solitaire
diamond ring on her middle finger.
“This ring came from the
pawnbrokers – and your brooch.”
“My brooch?”
“Yes – and Alice’s pearls.”
“So someone took my brooch in and
didn’t go back to get it. Why not?”
“Often, people couldn’t get the
money together – if the wage earner
was sick and the family needed feeding
then…”
“That’s harsh.”
“It is. Your grandmother was always
fond of that brooch. There was some
sad story attached to it – some girl, I
think, that she knew from school brought
it into the shop. The family had TB or
something ghastly, and the girl pawned
the brooch to pay for the doctor. She
never came back for it and I think your
grandma feared the worst.”
“God, but, but why did Grandma keep
something so sad?”
Her mum shrugs.
“I don’t know, love. Maybe it didn’t
sell, maybe she kept it to remember
– when her father died nobody wanted
to keep the shop and they sold up – put
the money in the bank.”
She laughs. “And there the money
stayed.”
“Is it a lot of money?”
“No, no – it’s enough, though, enough
to make a difference, give me peace of
mind, like it did your grandmother.”
Sarah carries the box upstairs and
puts it back into the wardrobe, then
wanders into her bedroom. Alice is lying
on her bed, eating chocolate buttons.
“Your phone’s been going insane,”
she says.
Sarah reads the five text messages
that are on her phone – they are all from
different uni friends, each text full of
tales of nights out in expensive clubs,
plays seen, designer clothes bought,
each text recounting tales of huge
amounts of money spent. It’s what they
do, she thinks. It seems the only way
they know how to have fun.
“Chuck us a choccie button, Alice,”
she says. “Then give me a hand will you.
I need to take something off eBay.” w&h
Jess checked the contents of her
bright-orange bucket. She had always
loved buckets. Michael used to joke that
she appreciated a good new bucket just
as much as diamonds. One year, on her
birthday, he’d given her both. She had
found the worryingly expensive earrings
wrapped in rough brown paper at
the bottom of the aluminium builder’s
bucket. A really sturdy specimen with a
wooden handle. Lovely, lovely Michael.
She missed him so much.
She hesitated for a moment and
touched her earlobe before getting back
to her task. Jess had packed the bucket
with a small fleecy blanket, wet wipes,
kitchen roll, a bin bag, a bottle of water,
a very small torch, a half-full bottle of
Michael’s mind-numbingly strong
Calvados and, most importantly, an
almost full bottle of truly serious
painkillers, also Michael’s.
She ought to have handed them in to
the hospital with all the other pills and
packets and bottles she’d given back
after Michael’s death, but something had
made her hang on to this lethal little
bottle. She had hidden it inside a fluffy
bedsock and stuffed it into a drawer
without really knowing why.
She had been so brave when Michael
had finally died. Her grief was bone dry.
Wrung out of her after the months and
years of treatment, false hope and
setbacks. She had always secretly
wondered if Michael felt a faint sense of
embarrassment to have told people he
was dying and then to take so long
about it.
Months later, it was the combined
loss of one of her precious diamond
earrings, followed much too closely by
the death of Dora, which brought forth
the torrents of unstoppable tears. The
twinkling gem and Dora the adorable;
the family pet, but Michael’s dog, really.
Hot sweet tea in the back room at the
vet’s could not console her. Jess thought
she must have appeared to the vet’s
kind nurse like someone else entirely.
Someone with a hotter temperament,
from a hotter country, in the wake of
some natural disaster. The nurse had
driven Jess home and suggested that
she could collect her own car when she
felt better.
“I’ll never feel better”, thought Jess,
but she thanked the nurse anyway. That
was when she started planning. It was
something to focus on at least. The wet
wipes and kitchen roll were for her to
clear herself up if she was sick. She was
anxious not to disgust anyone. “I don’t
want to be gross”, she’d thought,
borrowing a word from another
generation.
That was, in fact, her main concern
about the plan. Jess had spent her
whole life on guard against displaying
any ugliness. Even when she was young
and pretty, she had preferred to sweat
inside a cardigan throughout the hottest
weather rather than reveal to the world
her ever so slightly bumpy-skinned arms.
Her toes, gnarled in her teens by the
combination of ballet lessons and very
silly shoes, remained covered at all
times to prevent the possibility of
anyone glancing down and wincing.
It played on her mind, this problem.
She had deliberately chosen a very
deserted spot. She didn’t want to be
discovered halfway through the job. But
even so, she was bound to be found
soon enough. Probably by someone’s
pet dog. She wondered if wild animals
would get to her first. Being tightly
clothed might help. Anorak hood up,
trousers tucked into boots, glasses and
gloves. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad.
She tried to dismiss from her mind the
image of the poor French lady whose
face was half-eaten by her own dog.
The newspapers had reported that when
she woke up from her drug-induced
sleep, she didn’t even realise what had
happened until she tried to light a
cigarette. “For heaven’s sake. Get a
grip!” Jess had told herself out loud. She
couldn’t change her mind now. She had
decided. Things were organised.
Jess walked to the mantelpiece to
make sure the note was still there. She
had written it the day before. Two short
paragraphs had taken the entire day.
She had propped it against her favourite
photograph. She looked at the picture
again. One of the girls must have taken
it. Jess and Michael were out on the
moor in the snow with Dora the dog. So
happy. So healthy and carefree and
alive. They had been delighted to
manage to buy a house on the edge of
the moor, and they walked out there
every day, whatever the weather. They
had thought they were so lucky.
On impulse, Jess slipped the
photograph out of its frame. She slipped
it into her breast pocket with the image
facing her heart. She put the note
against the empty frame. It was time to
go. She locked the back door and put
the key in the spotty tin plant pot in the
garden shed. How many times had
Michael asked her not to do that? Ten
times certainly. Fifty times? Maybe. Jess
The diAmOnd, The dOg And The phOTOgRAphBy Wendy Tovey
She ought to have handed the painkillers in to the hospital after michael’s death, but something had made her hang on to this lethal little bottle
went through the gate and stepped out
on to the moor. She looked straight
ahead.
“Look at the path,” she told herself.
“Don’t look back. This is what you want.
This is what you want,” she repeated to
herself as she tramped up the steep
path.
Doubts crept back. Was this too cruel
for her girls? Her beautiful girls. Both
doing well. Both far away. Both busy.
Married to men and careers. Jess had
given up dropping clichéd hints about
grandchildren. In her note she had tried
to explain that they shouldn’t reproach
themselves. She just didn’t want to live
without Michael any more. And there
was only one way to sort that out.
“And I know we don’t officially believe
in heaven,” she had tried to explain, “but
won’t it be fantastic if we are wrong?”
It felt strange to walk on the moor
without a dog for company. “Keep
going,” she thought, “up the hill and
through the woods”.
It was early evening. Jess continued
upwards. Leaving behind the dog
walkers and joggers. The pine wood
was cool. Shafts of light pierced their
way through the trunks of trees. Was the
birdsong even louder than usual, Jess
wondered.
She was startled as two mountain
bikers appeared, carrying their bikes
through the bracken until they got to
easier terrain. One of them looked in her
direction as he threw an empty plastic
energy drink bottle on the ground. Jess
knew that Michael would have pursued
them and handed the bottle back,
saying, “Excuse me, but you’ve lost this,”
innocently but loudly.
She didn’t do the same. She didn’t
want to draw attention to herself. She
wondered what they thought of her. An
older lady walking alone in the fading
light carrying a bucket. Would they think
it was odd or not even notice her? She
was pleased that it seemed to be the
latter. Getting older was like being given
a cloak of invisibility. Not magic; just age.
This is what you want. Keep going.
Jess emerged from the wood and
reached a small hollow. It was like a
natural outdoor theatre, with flat-topped
rocks to sit down on. Once she’d
persuaded Michael to bring a picnic
here. He had famously loathed picnics.
The midges had quickly driven them
home and they had eaten in the kitchen
after all. He had been unbearably cocky
about being right but then he got some
Prosecco out of the fridge by way of
compensation.
Jess stopped walking, suddenly
shocked by what she saw. The hollow;
their hollow, was littered with rubbish. A
circle of blackened rocks was full of ash
and charred debris. There were bottles
and cans everywhere. Carrier bags and
paper wrappers were strewn in the
grass and hanging from the trees.
Half-eaten food was ground into the
earth and a broken camping chair, the
remains of two disposable barbecues
and a trainer – just one – lay among the
trees.
Jess was horrified. This was her
place; part of her plan. Now it was ruined
and defiled. What should she do?
“Walk on”, she told herself. “Keep
going upwards. Find a new place. This is
what you want. It’s all planned.”
She carried on walking. It was getting
darker. The birdsong more occasional,
more melancholy. Instead of feeling
calmer she found herself boiling with
rage. How could people do that? How
could they just walk away and leave
such a beautiful spot polluted and
spoilt?
She walked on for ten more minutes
and then stopped. She sat down on a
rock. Would here do? She looked down
towards the hollow. She couldn’t see the
mess any more but she still knew it was
there. She needed to get further away.
She suddenly felt exhausted and tearful.
She wanted to scream at someone but
how could she? She knew she couldn’t
carry out her plan now. The two things,
her plan and the mess, things that
should have been separate, had
somehow become connected. She
stared and stared towards the hollow.
She reached into the orange bucket
and opened the water. She drank a
mouthful. It didn’t make her feel any
better so she unstoppered the Calvados
and took a sip. It was so strong and old
and concentrated that it made her
cough. She drank some more. A gulp
this time. Michael would have cleared all
that mess up, she thought. He would
have made a fuss. Rung all the right
people. But first of all, he would have
cleared it up.
She set off down the moor back
towards the hollow. She walked briskly
but carefully. She didn’t want to twist her
ankle in this lowering light. The bin bag
was what she needed first. It was stuck
at the bottom of the bucket so,
impatiently, she tipped it upside down.
The bin bag fell out. Something glinted
against the black plastic. Something
small gleamed. A chip of glass perhaps.
Jess picked it up. It was her diamond
earring. One half of her perfect gift from
Michael. She was overjoyed.
Overwhelmed. She wanted to get home
straight away to put the stray safely with
its twin. But no. She had a job to do first.
She wrapped the earring in kitchen
roll and put it in her pocket with the
photograph. Then she got to work. She
bundled up the barbecues, the paper,
the broken bits of chair and the trainer,
and put them in the bin bag. She
gathered all the cans and the plastic and
glass bottles, and put them in the
discarded carrier bags.
She had packed up more than she
could possibly carry all the way home.
She took two of the carrier bags and her
beautiful orange bucket and set off
down the hill.
When she reached her gate, she
wondered whether she ought to go
straight back up for the rest of the
rubbish. She almost laughed out loud as
she realised that she could go back for it
tomorrow. Jess got the spare key from
its reckless hiding place and let herself
back into her house. She switched on
some lamps and glanced at herself in
the hall mirror.
“Jess. You look like a mad old bag
lady,” she told herself sternly.
She took off her anorak, got out the
earring and the photograph and laid
them down on the kitchen table. She
stroked Michael’s face in the picture.
She noticed that the answering machine
light was flashing.
“Mum! Where have you been? I have
some news. Ring me!” ordered the voice
from the machine.
Jess wasn’t quite ready to ring back
straight away. She would put everything
away first. Put everything in its proper
place. She would ring back later. Or,
better still, tomorrow. w&h
She suddenly felt exhausted and tearful. She wanted to scream at someone but how could she? She knew she couldn’t carry out her plan now. She stared and stared towards the hollow
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