All the Lonely People

by Mike Gayle

  When Joyce spoke, a new note of determination had crept into her voice.

  “No, no we won’t. I will go to the funeral. And I will see my mother off properly and then, and only then, will I wash my hands of my family once and for all.”

  Hubert studied her in silence, a thousand arguments as to why this was a terrible idea running through his brain. But his wife’s mind was made up, and really the only question that remained was whether he was going to let her go alone.

  “Fine,” said Hubert at last, “what you say goes. But know this: where you go, me follow, so if you’re going to your mother’s funeral, then me going too.”

  There was never a good time of year for a funeral, thought Hubert as he and Joyce stood outside the church in Bromley, but mid-December had to be the worst. The weather was bleak and cold, the skies dark and foreboding, and yet the joy of Christmas, with its focus on family and fun, was only just around the corner, strangely at odds with the solemnity of the occasion and the mourning clothes they both wore.

  He stared intently at Joyce’s anxious face.

  “Are you ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  She gave a little shake of her head to shift a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, then with her back straight, marched up the path toward the imposing wooden doors of the church.

  Desperate to cause as little disruption to the proceedings as possible, they waited until they heard singing before entering and slipping into an empty pew at the back, well away from the immediate family and prying eyes. The moment everyone took their seats, however, they realized that their endeavors had been futile. One head turning and noticing Hubert was quickly followed by another: a chain reaction, until finally the message reached the front pews. Much to the surprise of the vicar, who had just begun his opening remarks, Joyce’s father stood up, turned, and glared toward the back of the church, quickly joined by his sons, George and Eric. A ripple of confused whispers spread through the congregation, necks straining, heads turning this way and that to get a better look at the only Black face in the room.

  Hubert felt sick with nerves; there was no telling where this would end up but it certainly wouldn’t be anywhere good. Just as he leaned across to whisper into Joyce’s ear that they should go, she rose to her feet and stood, back straight, chin up, wearing that same look of steely determination she’d had when she’d announced her plan to attend.

  Before he knew what he was doing, Hubert was on his feet too, taking Joyce’s hand and holding it tightly in his. As he met the gaze of first Joyce’s father and then each of her brothers, Hubert told himself he was ready for whatever happened next. As far as he was concerned, his wife’s battles were his and that was just the way it was and would always be.

  The standoff felt as if it would go on forever, as the two warring parties refused to give in, even as the vicar plowed on with the eulogy, but then Joyce’s father finally turned and sat down, his two sons quickly following suit, and then and only then did Joyce and Hubert take their seats. After a short while the commotion subsided, people’s focus returned to the coffin at the front of the church, and the service continued uninterrupted.

  Hubert hadn’t been to church since leaving Jamaica, even though in every letter his mother wrote she encouraged him to go. Friends and neighbors often invited him along but Hubert always declined. He read his Bible from time to time and said his prayers every evening and that was more than enough for him. That said, he couldn’t help thinking how it was odd that his first experience of church in England wasn’t for a Sunday-morning service but rather for the funeral of a woman he’d never met.

  This vicar with his large nose and wispy white hair was unlike any preacher Hubert had ever known. The feeble attempts to render the hymns were nothing in comparison to the raise-the-roof singing back home, and the message, some vague idea about Joyce’s mother being in “a better place,” didn’t bear any resemblance at all to the impassioned fiery sermons about the urgent need for repentance and the glorious promise of salvation he’d experienced at home, which never failed to get people on their feet praising. Perhaps it was the weather, thought Hubert, made all the worse by this cold stone building, which for all its stained glass and polished brass felt empty of the love of God. Then again, he considered, as the vicar drew his thoughts to a conclusion, maybe it was the English themselves that were the problem—their reserve, their fear of emotion, as though to express any, even at a time like this, would be shameful somehow. For the first time in his life Hubert felt sorry for them, the people of the mother country, the people who didn’t know how to feel.

  They left before the final hymn had finished, Joyce leading him by the hand, oblivious to the scandalized faces she was leaving in her wake, and once outside she linked her arm through his, let out a deep sigh, and leaned her head on his shoulder as they made their way back to the train station.

  That evening, as they lay on the bed, with Rose, now two, lying between them studying the pages of a picture book, Joyce turned to Hubert, eyes brimming with tears, and out of nowhere said, “I’ve been thinking: I want another baby. I want Rose to have a brother or sister, so that when we’re gone she won’t be all alone in the world.”

  Hubert nodded thoughtfully before replying with a smile.

  “Me think that sounds like a wonderful idea.”

  19

  NOW

  It was midmorning and a smartly dressed Hubert had been just about to go out when Ashleigh had dropped by with Layla on her way to the shops to see if he needed anything.

  “You’re going on a date!” Ashleigh exclaimed, wide-eyed, when Hubert told her of his plans for the day. “Hubert Bird, you saucy old thing! You pulled the barmaid from Bromley Working Men’s Club!”

  Hubert frowned so fiercely that his eyebrows pushed together to form one long, untamed unibrow.

  “It’s not a date. We’re… we’re… just friends.”

  “Like I’d quite like to be friends with Emils, you mean?” teased Ashleigh.

  “No, not like that,” protested Hubert, who had endured constant questions from Ashleigh about Emils ever since the wedding. “Me made it plain when we made the arrangements that me not interested in anything romantic and she said that was fine.”

  “I bet she did,” said Ashleigh in a manner that made Hubert suddenly feel a lot less certain.

  “What? You think… you think she’s lying?”

  “Put it this way: When I went on my first date with Layla’s dad, the first words I said to him were ‘I’m not looking for a relationship.’ Cut to six months later and I’m moving to London to be with him! Truth is, Hubert, when a woman goes on a date and specifically says it’s not a date, it really is a date. And when she says she’s not looking for a relationship, she’s not telling the truth. She is, but doesn’t want to scare you off by being too keen too early. Plus, let’s face it, you really are quite the catch. Of course she wants to be with you.”

  “So what do you think me should do, then? Call it off?”

  “What do you want to do that for? I clocked her when I ordered a drink. She’s a right cracker!”

  Hubert pulled out his handkerchief and wiped away sweat both real and imaginary. He didn’t want a relationship. Though she might not be here anymore, Joyce was still his girl.

  “Me… me… don’t want… me don’t want anything like that.”

  “Well, if you’re really not interested in her that way, Hubert, then make sure you’re totally honest with her, because one thing you’ve got to know about us ladies is that we’re eternal optimists!”

  Despite Ashleigh’s teasing, Hubert was convinced that he had nothing to fear from spending the morning with Jan. This, he reasoned, was simply two people in need of company, nothing more, nothing less. But on the bus journey out to Ketner’s his resolve began to give way and when he saw Jan dressed up and waiting next to a tall potted palm it all but disappeared.

  She was wearing a busily patterned cerise-pink
top-and-trouser combo with cream open-toed sandals. Her hair seemed bigger somehow, more voluminous and carefully arranged. Did she think this was a date? Or were these just the kinds of clothes she wore when she wasn’t walking through parks or working behind a bar?

  “Hello, Jan,” he said stiffly. He wanted to leave it there and not mention anything about her appearance but it felt rude not complimenting a lady on her outfit.

  “You look nice,” he said, reasoning it was a suitably chaste thing to say.

  “Do I?” She sounded delighted. “I’ve had this outfit for years but haven’t ever got round to wearing it.”

  Hubert sensed the situation called for at least one more compliment before they could change topics. He thought of the most neutral thing he could say.

  “The color… it really suits you.”

  “I wasn’t sure when I picked it up in Marks’s but then I got it home and loved it. But thank you for noticing, Hubert, that’s made my day!”

  Reasoning that things would be less uncomfortable if they were looking at plants rather than one another, Hubert suggested they go inside and gestured toward the door in a “ladies first” manner, which Jan seized upon immediately.

  “Oooh, a gentleman! Such a rarity these days.”

  Desperate not to say anything that might add to his charms, Hubert clamped his mouth shut and followed after her.

  Much like Ashleigh, Jan was a talker, a fact that Hubert, who was feeling somewhat lost for words, was grateful for. As he pushed their shared shopping trolley, they trailed up and down the outdoor maze of roses and shrubs, climbing plants and ornamental grasses, bedding plants and bamboos, with Jan chatting all the way. She spoke about how lovely the bees were, dipping in and out of pale pink foxgloves, which somehow led her to comment on the stiffness of her knees during rainy weather and then, out of nowhere, she revealed that in the sixteen years she and her ex-partner had been together he had never once bought her flowers.

  “So he wasn’t the romantic type, then?” asked Hubert.

  Jan frowned.

  “He was more what you might call the punching type.”

  Hubert shook his head in disgust as they came to a halt in front of trays of lobelias: sky blues, deep purples, and snowy whites.

  “He hit you?”

  Jan slid a tray of plants onto the trolley, their baby-pink flowers just beginning to open. She met Hubert’s gaze for a moment, offering a barely perceptible nod.

  “He was a drinker. Not that it’s any excuse, mind. But it did bring the worst out in him.”

  If there was one thing Hubert deplored it was men hitting women. To him women were, and would always be, the fairer sex, and men’s role was to protect them.

  “Well, that is terrible. Where is he now?”

  “Six feet under. The drinking got him in the end.”

  “Cirrhosis?”

  Much to Hubert’s surprise, Jan giggled.

  “No, the one-eighty-two to Beckenham!”

  Hubert wasn’t sure whether she was joking.

  “Really?”

  “I know it sounds like a punch line but yes, it’s true. He was hit by a bus on his way to the pub. I know I shouldn’t laugh but it tickles me even now. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer fella!”

  As they continued past collections of outdoor shrubs and ornamental trees, Jan told Hubert more about her past. She’d left school in Bromley at fifteen to work in a car parts factory, which was where she had met her husband, Keith, who was ten years her senior. She hadn’t liked him to begin with but, having always considered herself quite plain and ordinary, had been flattered and eventually succumbed to his advances. She was seventeen when they married and by twenty had two children, a boy and a girl. Although life was hard, with money being in short supply, she’d been fairly happy until one day out of the blue she’d returned home from taking the children to school to find bailiffs waiting on their doorstep. Keith, she later discovered, had developed a significant gambling habit, running up the kind of debt that cost them their marriage and their home. Alone and with two small children, she moved back in with her parents and swore off men for good.

  “It didn’t last long, mind.”

  They were now standing near the doors leading back into the garden center, looking at some pre-potted hanging baskets.

  “I was young, I suppose, and wanted my chance at a happy ending. And that pretty much explains how, after one bad relationship after another, I finally ended up with Ray, whose idea of communication was to use his fists.”

  Hubert helped Jan lift one of the hanging baskets down onto their trolley.

  “Life can be really tough sometimes,” he said.

  Jan nodded.

  “And don’t I know it.”

  After paying for their goods they made their way to the restaurant. Hubert chose pie and chips while Jan opted for the battered fish with new potatoes and a side salad, bought with the help of a two-for-the-price-of-one voucher plucked from Jan’s purse.

  As they sat eating at a table overlooking the car park, Hubert picked up their earlier conversation.

  “And what about your children? Are they doing well?”

  Jan shrugged.

  “I think I’d be the last to know. My son, Alan, is up north near Leeds and my daughter, Lisa, got married for the third time to a bloke down Bristol way a few years back. Between them they’ve got six kids, and seven grandkids, and—this is no word of a lie—unless they want something, I don’t hear a single word from them from one year to the next.”

  Hubert tutted in disgust while Jan ripped open a sachet of salad dressing and squirted it onto the side of her plate.

  “Kids,” she said, spearing a new potato on her fork and dipping it into the salad dressing, “you raise them the best you can, make all the sacrifices in the world, give them all the love in the universe, and all they do is break your heart.”

  After lunch they called for a taxi to drop them home, and telling the driver to wait, Hubert helped Jan carry her bags to the main entrance. As they prepared to part, Hubert reflected on their time together. He’d enjoyed himself and Jan, true to her word, hadn’t seemed to want anything more than a bit of company.

  “Well, it’s time for me to say goodbye,” said Hubert. “Me had a really good time and if you’d like to, me think we should do it again sometime if you’re free.”

  “I’d love to,” said Jan. “I’ll give you a call later in the week.”

  On the journey home, Hubert was so happy that he even started humming a little tune. He couldn’t believe it. After all this time, after all this effort, it was looking highly likely he’d have at least one real friend to introduce to Rose. Of course, there’d be no escaping the fact that she’d be annoyed when she finally found out there was no Dotty, Dennis, or Harvey. But surely Jan would go some way to making up for his deception. He was sure that Jan and Rose would get on well together. Perhaps so well that Rose might forget about being angry with him.

  After dropping off his new plants at home, Hubert headed straight out to the supermarket. There were a few things he needed to tide him over for the next couple of days, and as he was feeling so positive he reasoned he might even add a few treats to his basket. As he wandered around the aisles he picked up a packet of posh chocolate biscuits here, a travel-sized bag of Glacier Mints there, and even some fancy cat food for Puss.

  Entering the wines-and-spirits aisle, Hubert spied a small bottle of Captain Morgan rum on offer and his eyes lit up. How long had it been since he’d enjoyed a tot of rum? Years. He eagerly reached out to take one off the shelf but before he could pick it up, a voice from behind him called out: “Hubert Bird! Well, I never!”

  He spun around to see a curvaceous Black woman. She was wearing a short-sleeved leopard-print blouse and tight leather trousers, but the thing that really caught his attention was her elaborate wig. It was long, swishy, and all black except for a wide blond streak running down one side.

  “Bernice Taylor!”
greeted Hubert. “How long has it been?”

  Bernice slapped her ample thigh in delighted outrage.

  “Too long, Hubert Bird, far too long!”

  Bernice was the considerably younger ex-wife of Hubert’s old drinking pal Mister Taylor. With her booming laugh and outrageous manner, most people (including Mister Taylor himself) had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Bernice. Back in Jamaica, however, Hubert had grown up with at least half a dozen aunties of a similar persuasion and therefore had something of a soft spot for her.

  “So tell me, Hubert Bird, you still live on Park Avenue?”

  “The day me leave that house it will be feetfirst.”

  She raised a painted-on eyebrow.

  “You no remarry yet? It’s not good for a man of your years not to have a wife!” She lowered her voice and added conspiratorially, “And I hear about your sad news, Mr. Hubert. Such a shame, such a shame, life can be so—”

  Hubert cut her off quickly.

  “Thank you for your concern, Bernice, but me fine.”

  “Of course, of course,” Bernice said and deftly changed the topic. “So tell me, you still keeping company with them bad breed from the Red Lion?”

  Hubert sighed.

  “Them all move on.”

  “You not even see Gus anymore? You two used to be thick as thieves.”

  “It’s my fault, really. Me didn’t keep in touch. The other day me went all the way over to Brixton to see him but me think him must have moved, taken ill, or even passed away.”

  Bernice’s eyes widened.

  “Mr. Hubert, Gus Campbell isn’t dead, he’s still in Brixton! Or at least he was two weeks ago.”

  Bernice explained that her aunt’s daughter had for a long time lived on the same street as Gus, and while visiting her to celebrate her sixtieth birthday, she had spotted him walking out of his ramshackle flat looking like a tramp.

  “I never see such a thing in all my days! Him was wearing raggedy clothes and looked like he no wash in weeks! I try to say hello, but him walk right past me as if he no hear me.” She shook her head sadly. “Such a shame to see him in that way! He was such a fine-looking man in his day.”