by Isla Dewar
*
After lunch she went to the library with Marlon to learn to go a computer, as she put it. Marlon wasn’t often the knowing one in a situation. He took his position seriously.
He was known at the library and greeted warmly. ‘Hey, Marlon. Who’s this you’ve brought today?’
‘Anna. She’s my pal.’
She was delighted. Apart from George, there hadn’t been any pals in her life. She hadn’t often felt wanted.
The computing lesson didn’t go well. Anna understood logging on. She liked Google. They put in the address of the flat and were rewarded with a map with a red flag thing showing where it was. ‘Well, I knew that,’ said Anna. She asked for a list of letting agents and was rewarded with a long list. ‘Now what?’ she asked.
Marlon had no idea. Letting agents were not part of his computing world. ‘I just do games.’
‘We’ll go. We’ll knock on doors and ask who owns the flats.’
The High Street was busy with tourists surging to and from the castle. Bagpipe music streamed out of shops. Overwhelmed by noise and movement, Marlon slipped his hand into Anna’s. She squeezed it. A little hand in hers brought her comfort too.
The building was cool and quiet inside after the bustle of the street. Here on the ground floor were two doors opposite each other. One was peeling red paint, the other shiny blue. Marlon stood before the red door looking pale and unsure. He leaned towards Anna and whispered, ‘We won’t knock on this door. Bad men live in there.’
Anna agreed – though the poet in her thought it wrong to judge people by the state of their front door. They knocked on the blue one. It was safer.
A woman answered. She was in her fifties, wearing a long scarlet skirt and black T-shirt. There was yellow paint in her hair and on her hands. She was arty. She wiped her hands on the back of her skirt and said, ‘Yes?’
‘Ah,’ said Anna, realising she hadn’t prepared a story. ‘We wondered if you could tell us about these flats?’
The woman said nothing.
‘Only we’d love to live around here. Are the flats owned by the people who live in them or are they rented?’
‘In this building, they’re all rented. Willis and Cobb are the landlords, if you want to ask about getting a place. But nothing’s available at the moment.’
‘Thank you,’ said Anna. ‘So no flats here are privately owned?’
‘No. We’re not mortgage types.’ She shut the door.
Anna and Marlon hit the street again.
‘Ice cream time. We did it. We found out who owns the flat.’ Anna was jubilant.
‘You told a lie,’ said Marlon. ‘My mum and everyone says telling lies is wrong.’
‘Yes, it’s wrong. But the lie was only to find something out. It didn’t matter. It didn’t hurt anybody.’
‘Why didn’t you tell her the truth? You want to know who owns the flat so you can find out about the kitchen?’
‘Now you mention it, I have no idea.’
They found an ice cream parlour. Ordered vanilla with salted caramel for Anna and chocolate and vanilla for Marlon with sprinkles for them both.
‘Sprinkles are the best,’ he told her.
‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘And we got the name of the landlord. Willis and Cobb.’
‘Definitely,’ he said. ‘Even if you told a lie.’
‘Detectives do that,’ Anna said. ‘Absolutely.’
‘I suppose, Definitely,’ said Marlon.
Anna raised her spoon in triumph. ‘Absolutely and Definitely – ace detectives.’
25
Another Fine Mess
George woke, sat up in bed and said, ‘I’ve just had a disturbing dream.’
Matthew stirred. He was a man with an enviable sleeping record. He went to bed, lay down, got comfortable, shut his eyes and opened them again seven or eight hours later. George wondered how he did that. ‘A remarkable feat at your age,’ she’d told him.
He turned to her and asked if she could remember what the dream was about. He never recalled his own dreams, or at least none that he shared with George. It was seven-thirty in the morning but he’d been asleep for seven and a half hours so was refreshed enough to be civil about being rudely awakened.
‘I was sweeping a big corridor,’ said George. ‘Sweeping and sweeping. It was stone flags and covered with straw. I kept sweeping, and more and more straw kept appearing. You were in a lovely sunlit room just off the corridor and never came to see how I was doing. I could hear your voice speaking to someone. You didn’t seem to care about what I was doing.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It was one of those hard bristle brushes. Very heavy.’
‘Hard work, then. Good job you were sleeping at the time.’
‘What does it mean? All that pointless sweeping?’
‘Obviously it’s about life. Life is one long, pointless corridor sweep. But there’s ice cream and wine and espresso coffee to keep us going as we work our brushes.’
‘And fish and chips and sex and Marvin Gaye singing “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”.’
Matthew got up and went to the kitchen to make coffee. George lay back and let her dream roll through her before getting up and putting on her dressing gown to join him downstairs. They ate breakfast in the garden. George wondered if they’d started eating healthily too late in life. ‘Might as well eat fried bacon and eggs and pop off early.’ Death was on her mind these days. It was funeral time in her life. She’d been through wedding time, children’s party time, empty nest time and this last one was inevitable, she supposed.
Today she planned to visit her youth. She wanted to see the places that had been part of her life when she’d been with Alistair. Had all the lunacy and adventures actually happened? The kitchen wasn’t there. Perhaps it had never been there. She’d made it up. She’d put Alistair on a pedestal, made him into a hero he wasn’t. A trip round their favourite places might trigger realistic memories.
She put on music of that distant time as she drove. She sang along to Creedence Clearwater Revival and she discovered the junk shop she and Alistair regularly visited had become a hairdresser. It was here they’d bought a turquoise parasol and a picture of a fishwife walking along a cobbled street, wicker basket on her back. The parasol had been parked in the hall. The picture had been put on the mantelpiece along with a blue stone, a perfect and delicately pink shell, a glass candlestick and an old clock that no longer worked. ‘Best clocks just look good and forget the time,’ Alistair said.
She joined Grace Slick, Simon & Garfunkel and Jimi Hendrix in song as she drove down the streets of her young days and found pubs, clubs, bookshops and old dusty junk shops gone or replaced by sports shops, wine shops, a baker’s and a gym. She sang ‘Visions Of Johanna’ as she drove past what had been a second-hand record shop they’d once haunted, and was now a sandwich outlet. They’d found childhood treasures there – ‘Sparky’s Magic Piano’ and ‘Nellie The Elephant’. They’d danced round their living room to the latter. But after that they didn’t play them much. They’d found old singles, songs they both loved – Del Shannon’s ‘Runaway’, the Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’, Tina Turner’s ‘River Deep Mountain High’. This last they played so often, so loud, the neighbours complained.
Whenever they had to meet somewhere in town, their usual place was the top of the Scott Monument. An arduous climb but Alistair said he was keeping her fit. It had all been silliness. She had thought it wild and rebellious. They would never be tamed. They would never be dull, grey, boring nine-to-five people. She’d believed this passionately until inevitably doubts crept in.
She never minded that they had no money. But she began to wonder how they managed on what little they had. Then there was the Irish jig that went wrong. After many successful jigs there was a disaster. She had thrown herself down the High Street at three in the morning. It had been raining and the pavement was damp. But the air was cool. She sang. It was a tumble of silly words. She ran. A
stitch forming in her side, her throat burning, she panted as her song came out. She stormed along and reached the end of the High Street without meeting Alistair. She started back up towards the flat, thinking she’d hurtled past him. She couldn’t find him. Her mind flooded with imagined disasters. He’d been attacked, was lying bleeding down a filthy close. He was hiding from thugs. He had been whisked to hospital. She searched closes and side streets. She called his name. It started to get light and still no sign of him. She ached. Longed to lie down but fear and anxiety possessed her. Eventually at six o’clock, when the world was stirring again – cafés opening, first buses rattling past – she went home.
Alistair was in bed. His tousled head on their red-and-yellow pillow. ‘You’re here,’ she shouted. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I thought something had happened. I thought you were in hospital.’
He raised himself on his elbow and grinned. ‘No. Just decided to come home.’
‘You didn’t tell me. I’m sore from walking and shouting.’
He said, ‘Sorry.’ Flopped back down on the pillow and shut his eyes.
Not a total hero, then, she thought as she drove.
Driving down Leith Walk she passed what once had been a junk shop where she and Alistair had bought a painting of a woman in a huge hat eating a plate of fish and chips. They’d carried it home in triumph and hung it in the hall by the kitchen door. They’d also found a signed copy of Hugh MacDiarmid’s Lucky Poet. They bought it and sold it to a second-hand bookshop for ten pounds. A fortune back then. They’d squandered the cash on wine and steaks and a Bob Dylan album. You could buy quite a lot for a tenner in those days, she remembered. The shop no longer cowered under a layer of grime, its windows littered with a scattering of strange things – a stamp album, an oily wrench, two floral teacups and an umbrella stand. Now it was painted shiny green, its window shone, and there was a handwritten blackboard outside advertising a range of coffees. There was something unnerving about seeing the hot spots of her youth gone – though she knew she’d have been surprised if they’d survived the years. Things move on, she thought, and put on Joni Mitchell.
She’d thought that seeing an old favourite shop or club would bring back more memories. That it would be a comfort to know the things she remembered had actually happened as she thought they had and she hadn’t turned them into a notion of an idyllically nonsensical time.
It was time to go and see Anna. She needed a familiar face.
*
Anna was wearing a pair of jogging pants – ‘Not that I’ve ever jogged,’ she said – and an ancient T-shirt with a heart on the front. She claimed she wasn’t quite ready for the day yet. She’d been sitting at her kitchen table listening to Maria Callas on a cassette player even older than her T-shirt. She’d also been reading recipes in a cookbook she’d had for years. ‘It’s interesting,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking of getting into cooking. If only I didn’t have to buy food.’
George said, ‘There are always snags. You should stick to reading poetry.’
‘I do sometimes read poetry. I haven’t written a poem for over forty years. I used to be ashamed of this. But no more. Who needs a new bad poem?’
George sat down and glanced at the kettle. ‘Coffee?’
Anna put on the kettle, took two mugs and a jar of Nescafé from the cupboard. ‘I don’t do posh like you,’ she said. ‘Why are you here, anyway?’
‘Just felt like a chat. I’ve been touring my past.’
‘Was it magical and mystical?’
‘Depressing. Favourite places gone.’
‘Along with your youth.’ Anna put a steaming mug on the table in front of George. ‘You didn’t expect anything to still be there?’
‘I hoped,’ said George. ‘I needed to find out if what we had was real or if I had made it up. Maybe I made it up.’ She took her coffee mug in both hands. ‘I’ve loved three men in my life – Alistair, Matthew and Paul Newman.’
‘Good choice,’ Anna congratulated her.
‘Well, obviously I wasn’t going to get anywhere with Paul. Not with him being in Hollywood and not knowing I existed. Matthew is lovely. I am lucky. I adore him. Frank was an extended infatuation. But Alistair – what was that about?’
Anna shrugged. ‘I’m new to love. I’ve had relationships, but right now I am in love with Richard. He doesn’t know about it. I have to say that while love is pleasurable, it is also inconvenient. I think about Richard when I’d rather be thinking of other things. Like what to have for tea and what is happening in the soap I watch or even if I might ever write another poem. I walk past the end of the lane several times a day, hoping to see him. I look out of the window wishing he’d be out there. I hate it. It’s time consuming. So Paul Newman, I understand. He’s so inaccessible your love can’t hurt. Also he’s dead, so no problems about him not getting in touch.’
George nodded. ‘All true. But I am bothered by my time with Alistair. Where did our money come from? I knew his grandmother left him some, but he spent that doing the kitchen. I had nothing. How did we pay rent? Did we pay rent? We must have forked out for electricity and gas, otherwise we’d have been cut off. But food? We ate salmon and steak and, I remember, we had oysters. When I got home I found out that my parents had bought all the baby stuff. But who paid for everything else? Who paid? And clothes. He was cool. Jeans, boots, and he had new shirts every week. Where did he get them? He worked as a chef but that didn’t pay much. D’you think he was a thief?’
‘No,’ said Anna. ‘Maybe he just had a big wardrobe.’
‘He came home with bags filled with stuff. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I was a kid. Things appeared – I never questioned where they came from.’
They drank their coffee and contemplated the absurdity of being naïve and trusting.
‘There could be a massive debt for the rent,’ said George.
‘It would have been written off years ago,’ Anna told her. ‘The flat wasn’t in your name. And if the clothes were stolen, you didn’t steal them.’ She leaned over, patted her friend’s hand. ‘You’re in the clear, kid.’
George said, ‘It was a lifetime ago. But still I think there’s a lot I didn’t know about the man who fathered my first child.’
‘You want to find out about him?’
‘What I don’t know about him is everything. Fun was all it was, and when the fun stopped he died. It wasn’t long after Lola came along. First few weeks with a first baby are not fun. He hated it.’ She stood. ‘I should go. I have to take Mrs Jackson to the chiropodist.’
‘Why do you do all this taking-people-places community stuff?’
‘Paying for my sins. I should have left Alistair after that first night on the sofa. I should have gone back to my parents. They must have been out of their minds with worry. I stayed because I fell in love with a kitchen. Shame on me.’
Anna offered a few words of comfort. ‘You did go back. They always loved you.’
George sighed. ‘I was selfish.’
She headed for the door. Anna followed. Feeling the need to breathe some fresh air, she walked with George to her car.
Stepping out was always a surprise to her. Air, fresher than the slightly warm stuff in her flat, would smooth over her face and fill her lungs. I must come out more often, she’d think. Today the air was cool and clear. She inhaled deeply. Looking around, she noted the street was empty. Mother Dainty’s garden was growing – the new plants flourishing. A flush of wellbeing ran through her. For a moment she did not notice Marla hanging out of her upstairs window waving to her, calling her name. ‘Hey, Anna. Wait there. I want you to do us a favour.’
George stopped rummaging in her pockets for her car keys and was obviously not going anywhere till she found out about the favour. ‘Are you going to do it?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know what she wants,’ said Anna. ‘But I’ll probably agree. She’s a person who is hard to refuse.’
George and Anna stood froze
n with curiosity, staring across the road. Marla reappeared at her front door. She hesitated, looked up and down the street, then started to run towards them. She was wearing a tattered towelling dressing gown and fluffy pink slippers. She hurried over the road, moving with her arms folded under her breasts, and stopped a few feet from them. Her face was pale, her eyes puffed and her nose so red it looked painful. ‘Flu,’ she said. ‘I’ll not come near. Don’t want to be giving it to you.’
George said, ‘Thank you.’ She took her hat off to someone with the confidence to appear in public dressed like that.
Marla came straight to the point. ‘I need you to do a couple of deliveries for me tomorrow. I’m not well. Just the two – a happy birthday and a congratulations. I’ve got the tunes on my phone. I’ll have the cupcakes and the balloons. Just pick them up and give them to the people and smile. That’s all.’
Anna said, ‘I can’t drive.’
‘She can.’ Marla pointed at George.
‘Why don’t you just phone in sick?’ George asked.
‘You can phone in sick on your planet. On mine, you don’t. Not if you want to keep your job.’
‘It is against the law to sack people for being sick.’
‘If you can prove you were employed in the first place perhaps.’ Marla unfolded her arms and crossed them again forcefully.
George shrugged. ‘Well, I could spare an hour or two.’
Anna said, ‘I’m not wearing that uniform and I’m not singing. I never sing in public.’
Marla said, ‘You don’t have to wear the uniform. No singing. Just deliver the stuff, say happy birthday and congratulations, look happy and smile and come home. No problem. I owe you one.’ Arms still crossed she ran back to her house and disappeared inside.
George opened her car and climbed behind the steering wheel. She shot Anna a disapproving look. ‘Another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.’
26
The Hallelujah Chorus
‘There are many things I do not want to do. Have root canal, go into labour, resit my driving test, sit final exams, kiss Billy Watson.’ George shivered with distaste at this last memory. ‘He stuck his tongue down my throat. I was thirteen and innocent. I’d no idea people did that. What a shock.’