by Emma Morgan
‘I expect so,’ said Sam. ‘Take care of yourself, Grace.’
‘Please …’
‘I can’t.’
‘Did you ever?’ Grace asked.
‘What?’
‘Love me?’
‘Not in the way that you want.’
And Sam kissed her head. Like you do to a child. She stood up. Grace grabbed her hand. She stroked it with her other one and then detached it. Gently. Like she planted marigolds.
‘Bye,’ she said and left the room. Grace heard the front door shut.
‘Bye,’ Grace said but no sound came out.
This is Annie and the alternative therapy
Annie was in the hairdresser’s having her lowlights done; her stylist knew better than to butt in when she was as thunderous as this. She looked at her face in the mirror. One of these days the frown lines on her forehead would fix. She wondered how she would age – like her mum who had frown lines on her forehead and lines around her lips or like her dad whose lines were around his eyes. And did it even matter? Her stylist Mark pulled too tight on her hair. ‘Don’t do that again!’ Annie growled, and Mark ducked his head. Laurence hadn’t even said the word ‘thousand’, he’d said ‘thou’ like he couldn’t be bothered to enunciate the rest. It wasn’t that she despised him so much, she realized, but that she despised herself. He was taking her for a rube, a pushover, and she was one. It was nobody’s fault but her own and she wished that she had told her mother, who at least would have put a stop to this months ago. She wished she could have told anyone. She pictured Violet’s raised eyebrows. And how would Violet age? She didn’t look a lot like the daft cow who was her mother and who knew what her dad was like? And what was the point of calling Violet’s mother a daft cow when it was she who was one. How stupid she was. ‘Another five thou, Annie?’ he’d said. ‘If you could spare it.’ And worst of all there’d been a moment, albeit a very brief one, when she had considered it. Part of the problem was an arrogance in her, she thought, of course I can bloody spare it, what do you think I am? Broke? Think about what? Going to the cash machine and taking out notes and throwing them to the winds because that, it seemed, is what she had been doing.
When she left the hairdresser’s, there was an old drunk with a face like burnt piecrust and dirty hands sitting a couple of doors down on the pavement with a Jack Russell at his feet. As she passed him she could smell the drink wafting off him. And Annie would have liked to go into the off-licence he was next to, buy a bottle of gin, preferably Bombay Sapphire, and sit down on the pavement and have a drink with him. She wondered what her mother would have to say to that. Five thou. Five thou. She was so deep in thought that when someone called out ‘Annie’ she didn’t even hear them at first. ‘Annie,’ the voice called again, and she looked up to see Manfred crossing the road. It was strange, she had never seen him out of the shop before, he looked taller, and when he reached her seemed to have grown so much in stature that he was looking down at her from a great height. Maybe she was so used to seeing him behind a counter that she had lost all perspective.
‘I need to sit down,’ Annie said to him, ‘I don’t feel right.’
The café was warm and steamy, you couldn’t see out of the windows. She had a cup of tea with two spoonfuls of sugar and he had a black coffee. His fingernails, she noticed, were nicely trimmed.
‘I don’t know where to start,’ she said.
‘Start anywhere.’
‘Violet isn’t speaking to me. And she’s turned into a lesbian, which is fine, but her girlfriend is horrible, and my boyfriend keeps borrowing money off me and I seem incapable of saying no. That do you?’
The waitress brought them a pile of warm white toast. There were individual pats of butter in little foil packets. Annie picked one up. It was squidgy. Manfred offered her the plate and she took two slices.
‘Do nothing.’
‘That’s not very useful advice.’
‘About Violet, I mean. Nobody likes being told what to do. My ex banned me from black coffee and now I drink five cups a day. Let her work it out for herself. She will, I reckon. If she has any sense, she’ll figure out the girlfriend is a waste of time without needing you to tell her that.’
‘You mean let her get out of her own mess?’
‘Exactly. And about the other thing. How much are we talking?’
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this.’
‘Possibly not. But you’re here now, aren’t you? Have some more toast. You need to keep your strength up. Shall I ask for some jam?’
‘I’d prefer honey.’
‘Then I’ll ask for honey.’
He went over to the counter and Annie, while looking at his bum in his jeans absent-mindedly, decided that she would tell him the truth. Manfred sat down opposite her again.
‘She’s bringing it now,’ he said.
‘Twenty thousand. And he’s asked for five more.’
‘Bastard,’ he said, ‘the bastard. Sorry to be rude but there’s no other word for someone like that. Well, there are other words but I won’t be saying them in your company.’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ said Annie.
‘Sounds like he’s taken you for a ride.’
The waitress put the honey on the table with a lingering look at Manfred. He didn’t notice, he was concentrating on opening the jar. He passed it to Annie and gave her a teaspoon.
‘I should be telling my therapist this, not you,’ said Annie, and she took another slice of toast.
‘I’m cheaper,’ he said.
‘You are that,’ she said, ladling honey on to her toast. ‘Honey?’
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ he said. ‘Have you said you want it back?’
‘Not in so many words.’
Annie stirred her tea and poured in milk from the little metal jug. The tea was too strong and too hot but she drank it anyway. It almost made her gag.
‘It might be best if you said yes or no,’ he said.
Manfred was on his fifth slice of toast but Annie didn’t disapprove. She was on her fourth herself now. He ate neatly while she dripped honey down her elbow.
‘No,’ she said.
Annie looked away at the waitress balancing dirty plates on her wrists.
‘Why not, if you don’t mind me asking?’
Annie didn’t say anything for about thirty seconds. He kept on with his toast.
‘I don’t come from money,’ she said.
Manfred wiped his mouth carefully.
‘We had hardly anything when I was little but then, well, my dad made money and we moved up in the world, if you’d like to put it like that. Other people said we had “ideas above our station”.’
‘And did you?’
‘My mum, yes. My dad, he wanted to make my mum happy. But I’m like my mum, I like what money can buy you, I’m naturally high upkeep. I like the best. I thought if I lent him money it meant that I was like him. Like I didn’t care about it. It proved something about me, that I was what my mum called “a better class of person”, which means in her language that you’re so rich you don’t have to worry about money at all. But it didn’t prove anything. I’m a fake. I do care. When it comes down to it, all I’ve done is stood back and let someone rob me blind. I’m disgusted with myself.’
‘Hmm,’ said Manfred. ‘Shall I tell you something?’
‘Go on then.’
‘It’s a pity you can’t smoke in here these days.’
‘Was that what you were going to tell me?’
‘I was going to offer you one, that was all.’
‘Do you smoke?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘but I keep a packet in my pocket.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I used to smoke, I gave up ages ago, but I carry the packet around with me to prove to myself that I’ve got some willpower and that I can make good decisions if I want to. You must be one of the most intelligent people I know. You know what to do about the mess you’v
e got yourself into. You don’t have to put up with rubbish from bastards who should know better. You can make a better choice. You can make it right now. Or there is the other option of course.’
‘What’s that then?’
‘I go round and sort him out.’ He looked serious.
‘Are you in the habit of sorting people out?’
‘No. But I was a fighter when I was a kid. I’m sure I’ll manage. Do you want me to?’
‘No, but thank you,’ said Annie.
‘What for?’ he asked.
‘Just thank you.’
‘You’ve nothing to thank me for. I should thank you. Buying me coffee. It’s very nice of you. I hope to be able to repay the favour some time.’
‘I’d better be going,’ said Annie.
‘Yeah, me too, the lad I’ve got on the till will be wondering where I’ve got to.’
‘I didn’t know you’d got someone with you now.’
‘Yeah, training him up so I can have the odd day off. Was thinking about what you said. Thought I’d do some courses. Brush up my German and my French. Not to do anything special. Do my brain good.’
‘That’s great.’
‘Yeah, well, I’ve got you to thank.’
‘Was I being pushy? I’m sorry if I was.’
‘I’m saying nowt.’ He laughed.
‘I’ve got to go to the ladies.’
‘I’ll see you later then.’
He wiped his mouth and his hands carefully and stood up. Annie stood up too. He put out his hand to her but instead of shaking it she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. He smelt of coffee and Imperial Leather. He coughed, stepping back.
‘You’re much too good for him,’ he said, and left the café before she could respond.
This is Grace and the aftershock
So that was the end. At first, she was mostly numb. Everybody was very kind to her after she’d told them. After she’d told them and yet again started crying. One part of her thought that she was doing well. She didn’t phone, write, email or text. There was no social media interaction. Not even while drunk. She didn’t stalk. She didn’t even go to the park. Instead she went to Manfred’s and bought a hammer because the handle had fallen off hers. ‘Doing some DIY are you, Grace?’ She didn’t reply. She walked quickly home in case she saw Dolores or someone she knew in the street. She was, she found when she came through the door, wearing a coat over her dirty pyjamas and she hadn’t even realized it. At least she wasn’t wearing slippers. She looked in the mirror next to the front door. Her hair was sticking up on one side and she had eye bags like a basset hound. She went into the sitting room and put ‘our’ clock on the floor and smashed it into bits that went all over the place and that would probably lurk in corners and end up cutting her feet. She took ‘our’ lamp and ‘our’ rugs and left them on the front doorstep in the hope that someone would remove them.
Grace wanted to be doing the stuff other women seemed to do under these circumstances: going to the gym, buying new clothes, getting their hair done, taking up a stimulating hobby and meeting someone attractive in their macramé class. Or she wanted to be like a man: go down the pub, get legless and pull whatever stranger they can find. She was a failure even at break-up.
When her clients had gone she’d empty her rucksack on to the table and try divination from the contents. An empty cigarette packet (she’d taken up smoking) and a packet of those cotton buds that she liked to stick in her ears, although she knew you weren’t supposed to. Tissues. A half empty packet of aspirin. A lidless biro that stained her hands blue.
She was once the jigsaw solver. She picked up the pieces of people’s lives and tried to fix them back together. Except they were less of a jigsaw and more of a broken plate, she had often thought. With splinters and larger pieces and bits that had been lost so that you could never fit them completely back together again. Sometimes they made something better than before. Sometimes they made something that looked so different from the original that she had no idea what would happen to that person, how they would fit back into the world. Sometimes the result seemed completely botched. But it wasn’t her job to consider that. It was her job to try. And yet she couldn’t seem to do it for herself.
‘Denise, what do you think you’ve got out of today’s session?’ said Grace by rote. They were meaningless words for her now. How could anybody get anything out of anything?
‘Not a lot,’ said Denise.
‘Perhaps we could discuss this next time.’
‘I don’t think I’m going to come another time.’
‘Right,’ said Grace. This had never happened to her before. There had been the occasional violent break of course – the clients who disappeared leaving no trace – but mostly, apart from the ones who seemed like they would never leave, it was a quiet tailing off carefully orchestrated by Grace. ‘And is there any particular reason for that?’
‘You don’t listen to me.’
‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’
‘You used to. Or I thought you used to. But now you don’t. I’m not coming any more. It’s a waste of my time and money.’
‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’
‘You already said that. It’s like a robot is here now, like you’re not here.’
‘Well, I’m sorry …’
‘Stop saying sorry!’
‘I’m …’
‘I’m up to date on my payments.’
And she got up and walked out of the office and closed the door. Everybody rejects me, Grace thought. I can’t do this job any more. It’s beyond me. It was Annie coming in next, she hadn’t been for a couple of weeks, and Grace didn’t know how she would manage to sit there quietly in front of her and not say anything about Sam and about Violet. It would be a breach of confidentiality to do so, it would drag her personal life into a client’s world and she had never done that before. No, she couldn’t face it. She would say she was sick. She would go home immediately. She stood up and her mobile rang. It was Eustacia. Grace had stopped answering her calls along with everyone else’s. But that’s sisters for you. They’re persistent. She knew that if she kept the hiding up much longer Eustacia would drive over and camp out on her doorstep until she let her in. To her own surprise, Grace answered the phone.
‘Grace?’
‘It’snogoodican’tcopeanymore!’
This is Violet and her bounce
Violet got home from France but Annie wasn’t in. She dumped her bag in her bedroom and decided, looking at the mess around her, that’s it, that’s enough. All I do is cause Annie stress, it’s not fair. If I’m going to keep living here I need to sort myself out. She threw away the bits of paper with random rubbish scribbles on them and the old bus tickets and the crumpled receipts that were strewn about everywhere. She put her dressing gown on the hook on the back of the door where it was supposed to go. All her clothes were pulled off the floor and the dirty ones put in the wicker laundry basket that Annie had bought for her and the rest of them put away. Well, thrown in the bottom of the wardrobe and stuffed into the chest of drawers, but off the floor at least. After a while she could even see the floor for the first time since she had moved in. She took her dirty plates and mugs to the kitchen and washed them up. She was pleasantly surprised to find things she had lost like hair slides and pens. She began to feel pleased with herself and looked forward to showing it all to Annie when she came in. Except she couldn’t, because of the mural. She had almost forgotten about it, she had got so used to living with it. Every day she had been doing some more. She found a pencil now and drew her father sitting on top of a chest. Her mother was there too but when she was young, that shy girl with the hare lip. And there was Annie, dressed in the tightest of dresses and the highest of heels, looking at paperwork with her reading glasses between her teeth. Violet decided that she would say sorry too. She wasn’t sure exactly for what, but at least it would clear the air. Even if she got shouted at she wouldn’t mind. She missed Annie,
she needed to tell her that, she missed her, even the arguing.
When she’d finished she looked around the room with satisfaction, everything in a place where she could find it. That could only be a good thing, it had been such a pain to always be rummaging around. She even wanted to find clean sheets, but made the rudimentary mistake of stripping her bed first and then couldn’t find any. Violet climbed up on to the bed and started to bounce. The ceiling was so high that she couldn’t, even with her hands raised, reach it. This pleased her. The bed was unlikely to break, it had been bought by Annie and was of durable construction, as was the mattress. Always the best for Annie, always the best. I miss Annie, she thought, does Annie miss me? She thought of her dad, so small in his hospital bed, and his speech about beautiful things. She felt both proud of herself for going and sad to have met him only when he was so ill. She got down from the bed and found another pencil and started to write a list. She included some of the things on the walls in it.
Annie. Too many artists to name except Francis Bacon because he’s too scary. Hydrangeas but only the blue ones. My mother’s hands. Herons landing. Gymnasts. Old ladies with the marks of rollers still in their hair. The shadows that leaves make on tarmac when the sun is directly overhead. The moors in winter. Birch trees. Short-haired dachshunds. Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing. Thick snow. Geishas. Puppet theatres.
By the time she had stopped writing half an hour had passed. She read the list out loud to herself. She went and made herself a cup of tea. She read the list again. There was something wrong with it, she couldn’t think what it was, but it was a good list anyway. Maybe she could draw a picture for each one, put them all together in one pocket-sized notebook, and that way she could carry them around with her and look at them when she felt rubbish. She liked this idea. Her father had been right, beauty was important. I shall go out and buy Annie flowers, she thought. Annie likes roses. I’ll buy her yellow roses. And when she comes home I’ll give them to her. Her phone rang and for once Violet could find it and answered it right away. It was Sam.