by Isla Dewar
And George said, ‘Oh Anna, what are we going to do with you? You’re not a slut. Never have been. See you tomorrow.’ She put down the phone.
In the living room Matthew was watching television. She sat beside him and looked at the screen. An American cop was chatting to a dog. ‘Good film?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. It’s easy. Makes me laugh.’
She touched his hand. ‘Good.’
He asked if she’d had a busy day.
‘Took old Dave Beverage to the hospital. He said he’d sprained his ankle but he’d broken it. They kept him in. He’s eighty-four.’
‘Good of you.’
‘I try to do good every day. Pay for my sins.’ She sniffed and gave a false laugh, trying to make this sound like a joke.
‘It was a long time ago. After Lola was born. I was training as a nurse and I went a bit wild.’
‘You’ve told me before. A lot of men?’
‘Boys, really. Boys and booze. Did you sleep with a lot of women before me?’
‘Some.’ He didn’t stop watching the movie. The cop and his dog were falling in love with a vet and her dog. It had its complications, George could see that, but they all seemed happy with the developments so far. She watched Matthew’s fingers move. He was counting his loves. Four, she saw. She was winning there, then. She’d been a lot naughtier than him.
It had been a time of stifled rage and heated laughter. She remembered running and running through night-time streets. She had a green feather boa and used a cigarette holder though she didn’t like smoking. Drinking vodka in pubs, dancing till she was sweaty and breathless in clubs, ears hot from the roar of music, whirling and flirting at parties in cellars and flats she didn’t know. Laughing and laughing and then, sitting in strange lavatories weeping, sobbing almost hysterically with people banging at the door screaming to get in.
‘Frank ended it?’
‘My mother gave me a talking to. She knew. I don’t think Frank would have understood. My ma did. She told me Lola needed a mum. Running about in a rage drinking and staying out nights and oh, you know, doing stuff to make me forget Alistair wasn’t how a nurse and parent behaved. She wasn’t polite about it. She was very angry with me. She was wonderful. We were in her car. She’d been driving up and down the High Street and Victoria Street looking for me. She yelled at me to get in the car. I was scared not to.’
Matthew said, ‘Were you wearing your feather boa?’
‘God, yes. And so much eye liner and mascara it was a wonder I could see.’
They sat awhile watching the cop and his dog. They were on a stake-out. The dog was enjoying it. The cop not so much.
‘My mother said my child needed me. A child craves love and warmth and safety, and it was my duty to give it to her. I was so angry, I was neglecting the one I should love and who loved me totally and uncritically. Lola. And my mother told me I was young and didn’t know the rules.’
‘Rules?’
‘Well, I had said that all I ever wanted was someone to look after me and she said the rules were that if you allowed someone to look after you, you had to look after them back.’
Matthew said he could agree with that. ‘What about we drive down the coast tomorrow and find somewhere for lunch?’
‘I’m seeing Anna.’
‘Well, the next day then?’
‘I probably have to pick up Dave from hospital and bring him home, and I have to meet Lola for coffee in the afternoon.’
‘I had thought we’d spend time together. I planned for us to go on trips and walk about looking at stuff like couples in holiday adverts. Pointing and smiling and walking hand-inhand. I thought we’d go on holiday to places like Barcelona or Paris or New York.’
‘Holiday?’ George was worried. ‘I don’t know about that.’
‘You do all this stuff for other people. What about me? Don’t I matter to you? What about us?’
She couldn’t go on holiday. She needed to be here. She had to be safe and to keep everyone in her family safe. She knew in a small part of her brain that she refused to acknowledge that this was absurd. She imagined herself sitting in a hotel bar in Barcelona wearing beautiful shoes and sipping a cocktail and was scared. She’d be a dreadful companion; she’d be on edge, waiting for the terrible phone call.
‘You went to Lucca,’ said Matthew.
‘I thought it would do me good. But I worried about my children. I loved the tiramisu, though.’
‘So you won’t go on holiday with me?’
She didn’t reply.
In the movie a masked man was holding a gun to the cop. The dog attacked and the bad guy shot him.
Matthew got up and left the room. George heard him rattling about in the kitchen. Pots and crockery were being roughly handled.
She heard James come down the stairs. He stuck his head round the door. ‘Going out. See you later.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked George.
‘Pub. Couple of beers and watch the match.’
‘I could come.’
‘No, you couldn’t. You’re my mother. Blokes don’t take their mothers to watch football at the pub.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s weird. Besides, you don’t like beer and you don’t like football. And . . .’
She stood, pointing at him. ‘Don’t you dare. Don’t you say you love me. I know it’s a game.’
He grinned. ‘I was going to say you should go talk to your husband. He’s clattering in the kitchen. When he does that, he’s hurting. You need to talk to him. You need to look after him.’
James left and George went to the kitchen. She stood by the door watching Matthew furiously chop an onion then roughly put a pot on the cooker. She thought he hadn’t noticed her but he said, ‘I see you there.’
‘I can’t go on holiday,’ she said. ‘I can’t go away. Someone here might die before I can get to them.’
15
A Strange Selection of Songs
Anna and George lunched in Leith. They ate at a fish restaurant by the shore. George had the seafood platter, Anna fish and chips. ‘I am a woman of the people,’ she said. ‘This is proper working-class food.’ The plate that was put in front of her did not meet her peasant food standards. It was classy. Chips placed upright in a white ceramic bowl and fish beside a layer of lemon slices with a flamboyant swirl of tartar sauce.
‘What did you expect?’ said George. ‘This place is quite posh. It has tablecloths.’
As they ate, they spoke about mothers, love, the difficulty of thinking logically and life as it had been before gadgetry. Though the talk was laced with fond stories and reminiscences, Anna mentioned something new in her life. ‘I’ve been noticing people around me. Things that were always there and I didn’t see them.’
‘Like?’ said George.
‘Like I look out of my window and there’s Richard walking down the street. I never knew he did that. Then there’s Mother Dainty and her garden. It’s gorgeous. I stand and look at it. The colours. I swear foxgloves shine in the dark.’
She took a huge swig of her wine and grinned. ‘Mother Dainty is so tiny and delicate and strong. I love her.’
‘You have only noticed that garden now?’ George couldn’t believe it. That garden was extraordinary. Lush in a street of muddy areas and scrubby grass. Purples and reds and soft blues suddenly there amidst old cars and rubbish bins. It had always lifted George’s heart.
‘What’s Mother Dainty’s proper name?’
‘I have no idea what she’s called. Yes, I’ve noticed the garden. Who wouldn’t? But it’s like I have had something peeled from my eyes and now I really see it. It makes me smile. It takes my breath away.’ She took another swig.
‘You’re getting drunk,’ said George.
‘I know. I’m happy. It’s not a state of being I’m used to. But I find myself smiling a lot.’
George said, ‘Maybe you’re in love. Maybe Richard never walked up and down the street before he met you
. Maybe he’s in love, too. Maybe you should go out and ask him in for a cup of tea.’
‘I couldn’t do that. He might say no. He might look at me with surprise and embarrassment. I can’t face rejection. I’d rather love from afar.’
George ate a prawn, sipped her water and waited for an explanation.
‘So there’s the garden across the road, Richard passing my window, the spice rack is coming along, and yesterday I walked to the shop for a tin of beans without my stick. I am happy. Not going to spoil it. Not going to risk a pain in my heart.’
‘Good plan,’ said George.
Anna dipped a chip in the sauce, took a bite. ‘No, I’ve accepted my lot in life. This is who I am. This is all I want to be. This woman swigging wine and eating fish and chips.’
George thought, Oh dear, this is not going to end well.
Anna lifted her empty glass to the waiter, asking for a refill. Well, why not? She wasn’t paying. ‘What makes you happy?’ she asked.
‘Kitchens,’ said George. She nodded at the refill. ‘Enjoy.’
George never did get over the delight and awe she experienced when she’d crept into Alistair’s kitchen on the first night of her runaway life. ‘Kitchens can tell you a whole lot about people and the life they lead and the things they don’t tell you. I first found that out about four miles and fifty years from here.’
‘On a night when you were young and ran away because your mother called you George,’ Anna joined in. This was one of her favourite stories.
‘That kitchen was a wonder. A shining place in a grubby flat. It taught me a lot. You never know what people really are and what they long to be till they actually tell you. The man who rescued me loved cooking. I would never have guessed it. Now when I look at someone’s kitchen I can see a slice of their life.’
‘That’s lovely,’ Anna swigged. She’d swigged past tiddly and was headed for drunk. She didn’t drink much – two large glasses would do it.
It sometimes bothered George that she so nearly had a different life. She imagined how it could have been. Perhaps she and Alistair would have opened a restaurant together. A bistro or crêpe shed somewhere that catered to a bohemian crowd. She pictured herself as a lusty soul, moving between tables laughing and making jokes and looking tenderly at her main man, the cook. Later, her longing glance would say.
She knew, of course, that this was absurd. She was not a lusty, jokey person. Waiting tables would have driven her insane. Still, at least three times a year she’d go and stand outside that flat looking up at the kitchen window. She usually kept back from the crowds by lurking in a doorway. She had been tempted to enter the building, climb the stairs, knock on the door and ask to see that room again. But no. Better not. Better leave it as it was when she first saw it and was entranced. Never go back, she told herself.
‘Perhaps coffee and a stroll in the fresh air?’ she suggested.
‘Sober me up?’ Anna knew the state she was in. ‘And we can discuss cupcakes and songs of apology for Dorothy Pringle.’
‘Yes, that,’ said George. She leaned across the table to her friend. ‘You know that by not approaching the object of your desire, by just letting things be, you are breaking your own heart.’
They passed restaurants, stood looking at the river and considered poking around shops but they weren’t in the mood. Anna said she was broke, but then she always was. ‘How can you be so wise about my life and such a fool about your own?’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’ asked George.
‘You think when people go away they won’t come back to you.’
George sighed. ‘It’s true. But it has happened and I got a pain in my heart.’
It being Marla’s Minimart day when she worked mornings, she’d picked up Marlon from school and was already home when Anna and George arrived. She sat on the armchair opposite the sofa where George and Anna sat and took notes. Marlon was on the floor in front of the television. He turned down the volume, and after giving them a small smile settled to watch his programme, back turned to them.
‘We don’t really do apologies. Birthdays, anniversaries, congratulations and so on, but not apologies,’ said Marla.
‘Surely there’s a call for it,’ said Anna. ‘People say sorry all the time.’
‘I know. But we don’t have an apology slot at Cupcakes, Balloons and a Song. Now, what flavour cupcake? Strawberry, chocolate or salted caramel?’
‘Salted caramel,’ Anna and George said together.
‘Balloon? It’ll be plain, since you don’t want happy birthday or congratulations.’
‘Plain dark red,’ said George.
Marla handed them a list of available songs. There was a thick silence as they read. ‘These are old,’ said Anna. ‘I mean “Little White Bull”, “Lollipop”, “Santa Baby”? This is a strange selection of songs.’
‘It’s the cost,’ Marla explained. ‘We have to download and play from a phone. There’s copyright. We’re starting out and being careful with money.’
‘No Leonard Cohen, then?’ said George.
‘I love Leonard Cohen,’ Anna said. She started to sing, swaying from side to side. ‘Oooh,’ she sang and launched into the first few lines of ‘The Sisters Of Mercy’.
‘Is she drunk?’ Marla addressed George.
‘A little,’ said George. ‘She was worse a while ago. She’s coming down now. Wine. It doesn’t take much.’
‘“Volare”?’ Anna wasn’t impressed. Then she saw the perfect song. She whooped with joy. ‘“The Deadwood Stage”. I love that song.’
‘Please don’t give us a rendition,’ said George.
Anna sighed. Marlon also sighed, as if it was just dawning on him that Anna wasn’t this strange, bookish, slightly aloof person he’d imagined she was. She was a woman and prone to sudden silliness like his mother. He was obviously uncomfortable with this.
‘So, salted caramel, red plain balloon and “Deadwood Stage”.’ Marla wrote in her notebook. ‘Do you want the morning cheap rate? You know, when nobody’s about and people don’t know what’s happening? It goes up in the afternoon and it is expensive in the evening. We do workplaces, some bars and people’s homes.’
‘Morning, at her workplace,’ said George. ‘I want to be there at the shop when it happens. I want to see it. I’ll be hiding, of course.’
‘Me too,’ said Anna.
Marla consulted her diary. ‘We can do next Tuesday.’
16
A Salted Caramel Cupcake, a Red Balloon and ‘The Deadwood Stage’
Years and years ago, when Anna and George had an adventure they’d go into their world holding hands. They held hands as they stood in line ready to go into school. They held hands as they watched the sky light up with whooshing colours on firework night. They might have held hands now, as they waited side-by-side in a doorway that gave a good view of the charity shop where Dorothy Pringle worked. But they’d stopped doing that long ago. Neither of them could pinpoint when. Still, they were hoping this would go well.
The weather was raw this Tuesday morning. A little annoying wind flapping round them and a merciless drizzle. They were remembering their private war against Dorothy Pringle. ‘We weren’t very nice,’ said Anna.
‘We were children and children can be horrible. We were horrible. But we’ve grown out of it now.’ George said this adamantly but she was having doubts.
‘The bike ride,’ said Anna. ‘We cheated.’
They’d agreed to let Dorothy join them on a bike ride. It was to be a short trip to the park and back. Dorothy had pedalled furiously, charging ahead, pigtails flying behind her. She never looked back. For a while Anna and George worked at keeping up with her. But it was sweaty and tiring and they fell behind. They preferred to cycle slowly, chatting as they went. They watched Dorothy speed ahead and disappear from view. ‘Let’s not bother,’ George had said. ‘Let’s just go home.’ So they did. They turned round, pedalled home and left Dorothy to charge to the park a
lone. Home, they sat on George’s front step with a glass of Vimto apiece, waiting for the cycling ace to turn up. When she did Anna said, ‘Here you are. We got here ages ago. You must’ve been going really slowly.’
‘No, I wasn’t.’ Dorothy was red-faced and angry. ‘I was going fast. You two just came home and left me.’ She wheeled her bike away from them. ‘You’re a pair of piggy farters.’
‘Piggy farters,’ said Anna, staring through the drizzle. ‘That’s a pretty good insult.’
‘Yes,’ said George. ‘I used it a lot after she said it.’
‘You put a worm in her shoe,’ said Anna.
‘You gave her laxative chocolate,’ said George.
The wind rattled Anna’s raincoat. A bus crawled past. A woman walking her dog beetled along the opposite pavement. The lights went on at the charity shop.
George sighed. ‘God. We really were a pair of piggy farters.’
Marla’s van appeared. It wasn’t the van of Anna’s imaginings. It was small and looked hand-painted. A line of black musical notes danced round the words ‘celebrations’ and ‘joy’. A multi-coloured collection of balloons tied to the back doors jiggled about in the wind. Marla got out of the van, slammed the door and swept her hands over her uniform. It was yellow and dark navy-blue stripes. There was something of the Vatican Guard about her.
George said, ‘Somehow I think this is not going to go well.’
Anna said, ‘Yes. Who thought to do this?’
‘You. I think alcohol was involved.’
Anna said, ‘Stupid. Stupid, stupid.’
Marla took a small cake box and a large red balloon from the back of the van. People passing stopped to stare. It was an extraordinary sight. To her horror George noticed a few customers going into the charity shop. There would be witnesses.
Marla arrived at the shop, stood in the doorway and shouted, ‘Dorothy Pringle, I bring you joy and apologies.’ She pressed the play button on the phone in her top pocket and ‘The Deadwood Stage’ soared out.
‘That’s not Doris Day,’ said Anna. ‘That’s a cheap cover version. It ought to be against the law for anybody other than Doris Day to sing that song.’