‘They all happened quite early, around thirteen weeks, actually one was at sixteen,’ he said. I nodded, but this didn’t mean much to me. I remained clueless on the subject. ‘It has been quite tough, and men are not supposed to open up on these sorts of things, are they? We have to be strong.’ He looked so downcast, so vulnerable, it made me want to leap on him, which I knew wasn’t the right call at this particular juncture. ‘But I know, however I’ve felt about it, it has been a lot worse for Helen.’
Helen, Helen. I rolled the word around my brain with distaste. I wish I’d never conjured her up again, like a witch.
‘I’m very sorry, Mac,’ I said and I tried to say it properly this time. He lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling.
‘I feel I have lost children out there,’ he said unhappily, ‘somewhere – just out of reach. I wanted to have loads of them. A whole brood.’ He turned and raised himself up on one elbow, looked at me. ‘Have you ever read The Water Babies?’
‘No, thank God. Well, I tried to, as a kid – I couldn’t get on with it.’
‘The ultimate Victorian didactic fable,’ said Mac, looking at me with those pale eyes. ‘I read it as a boy. Cover to cover, it sucked me in, although I sort of hated it, and it has never left me. I feel like my lost children – and I imagine them all as boys, somehow, although of course we’ll never know – are swimming somewhere like the Water Babies. Held prisoner by that bloody shark and eel.’ He took a deep breath and I rubbed his arm sympathetically although I was totally out of my depth and had no idea what he was going on about. ‘It makes me feel I can’t breathe when I think about it. I hate that book. It bloody well haunts me.’
‘Oh, Mac.’ My words were empty. I couldn’t understand less. I didn’t want children; couldn’t see I ever would. They just seemed like a pain. My mother’s legacy again – thanks, Marilyn. I hugged him anyway. I sensed it was the right thing to do. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said again. I couldn’t bring myself to say something like ‘you can always try again’, as of course I didn’t want them to. Him and Helen. I didn’t want him anywhere near her.
We lay there for a while. Kate Bush had moved on to ‘Cloudbusting’. ‘Do you think that was really it for Rick and Ilsa?’ I said eventually, as a stab at changing the subject.
‘How do you mean?’ Mac was staring at the ceiling again. There was a branch outside his bedroom window tap-tap-tapping at it. I hoped Mac wasn’t still lost in the land of the Water Babies. I didn’t want him there.
‘Do you think they really walked away from each other on that tarmac and never saw each other again? Do you think she would have been happy staying with Laszlo?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you’re supposed to think beyond the movie. I never do.’
‘Really? I like to,’ I said. ‘I like to imagine what Melanie and Mitch did after The Birds had buggered off. And did Dan and Beth survive or did they break up anyway years later, after she kept throwing the whole bunny thing back in his face? I want to know what happened next.’
‘Interesting,’ said Mac. Yes! I hoped I was as interesting as Helen. ‘I live within the movie and when the movie is over I let it go.’
‘I’m quite envious of that,’ I said. ‘I always have massive questions. Mostly, will love survive? I mean, all those big loves – they can’t just disappear!’ And I know now I am talking about me and him. Love was not something we had talked about – why would we? Love was not something that had even flickered on any sort of horizon. Until now. But now I knew it was a possibility. I felt it; I felt I could love him.
Mac pulled me down into his arms and spoke with a tenderness I had not yet heard from him. It was early days, wasn’t it, after all?
‘I think you’ll have a bigger love than me.’
‘I doubt that,’ I said, and there, I had admitted it. He was my Big Love, or at least he was damn close to it; the one I had been looking for, and I was telling him so. Was what he said just arrogance – ‘a bigger love than me’? Or was he open to the wonderful, terrifying possibility of it, too? ‘I already have a feeling this is pretty much it.’
And just like that, my coolness disappeared in a puff of smoke. I was now officially vulnerable.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You will. Your life is just beginning. There’ll be so much more for you. You’ll be so much more than this.’ What was it? Was it love? What was he saying to me?
‘You’re not going to tell me there’s a big wide world out there, are you?’
‘Well, yes I am.’
I preferred my world being in this room: the Victorian ironwork bed with its cowboy blankets and its in-need-of-a-wash white sheets; the ticking clock on the bedside table; the poster of Betty Blue opposite us an aphrodisiacal equivalent of a mirror on the ceiling; the knee-high stacks of NMEs … And the possibility of love. ‘I’d rather stay here with you.’
‘Well, me too.’ He leant down to kiss me and I turned my face to his. ‘But you know things don’t last for ever, don’t you?’
‘They bloody well should,’ I said.
NOW
Chapter 8
James is outside Ward 10 waiting to be let in when I arrive at half six on Thursday evening, fresh from work, although fresh is hardly the word I’d use to describe myself. Today has been … challenging. Nigel has been in a strop most of the day; a much-needed file went missing; there was a fire drill when we all had to troop out to the car park and waste one whole, precious hour standing around saying how fed up we were to be standing around in the car park; and the kettle broke. From about half two this afternoon I’ve been dreaming of working in other departments; I quite fancy Scripts, in my more delusional moments.
I’m in a long black wool coat and grey beanie; James is in a similar suit to before, dark navy again. White shirt. His hair is slightly smarmed down; so different to Mac’s ‘flop’, I think. I can’t tell whether he is pleased to see me or not. He has a face that reads as largely unreadable. Handsome, though. I’ve never met a man so handsome yet so unaware of it.
‘Hello, James.’
‘Hi, Arden. Here again?’
‘Here again,’ I echo. ‘How was your day?’ I ask, as we are buzzed in. ‘Sold any houses?’
‘A couple,’ he says. We walk down the ward towards Mac. ‘Not all estate agents are wankers, you know,’ he says, looking sideways at me.
I laugh at the word ‘wankers’ and say, ‘I didn’t say they were.’
‘It’s an unwritten law. I get it. I’m actually a nice estate agent,’ he adds, giving me a short smile. ‘There are a select few of us.’
‘Sorry,’ I say, feeling tremendously guilty as I have always thought estate agents are wankers, when I have thought about them at all.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He sounds clipped but he is still smiling at me.
Mac is very sleepy again tonight … he lies motionless, his eyes flicker open now and then, but only briefly. I take off my coat and hat and James and I sit on either side of the bed and volley looks of uncertain resignation to each other, accompanied by giant shrugs. Mac’s TV, like the kettle at work, is temporarily broken and is a silent black rectangle suspended above us. I wish I did knit; I feel awkward and not sure what to do with myself. I also fear there will be no celluloid pearls of wisdom coming from my former lover during this visit. To my shame I can’t quite remember which movie is the fourth from The List is anyway. I keep looking at Mac’s mouth, waiting for him to say something, but I know nothing will happen. Eventually I get up from my plastic chair to go and get hot drinks for James and me. On the way, I corner Fran at the nurses’ station, where she is briskly ticking things off on a long list.
‘Mac’s very sleepy tonight,’ I say. ‘What are the doctors saying?’
‘He’s doing OK,’ she says, not looking up. ‘He’s just on a bit of a shutdown. We’re observing him, doing all the checks. Everything is stable.’
‘So he hasn’t gone downhill, or anything?’ I ask.
‘How long has he been here now?’
She looks up. ‘Two weeks.’
‘Is that bad?’
Fran gives a medicinal smile. ‘Mac is currently stable,’ she says and she returns to her list.
‘Thank you, Fran,’ I say to the top of her head, and I leave the ward for the coffee machine. James has requested a hot chocolate, and I get myself a tea.
‘It’s been two weeks,’ I say, as I hand James his hot chocolate before returning to the other side of Mac’s bed. ‘Since Mac has been in here. I don’t know whether to be worried or not.’
‘We’re worried anyway, aren’t we?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why worry more?’
‘I suppose so. But the longer time goes on …’
‘I know.’
‘It’s just …’
‘Let’s just be with him. Show him we care. What more can we do?’
We stay for an hour, sit and continue to throw the occasional downturned shrugging smile at each other, across Mac’s sleeping form. I can feel my eyes going, too; it’s so warm in here, so yellow. I get the crazy urge to pull back the scratchy covers, get into bed with Mac and have a little sleep next to him, and I wonder if he’d like that or be absolutely horrified. Would he even really notice? I wonder what he thinks of me, visiting him all the time? Of the confession I made, telling him how my life has turned out? I could be just this annoying middle-aged woman who keeps turning up. A crazy person from the past he’d actually like to get rid of. But then, why the movie references? Why remind me of all those amazing times and some of the times that weren’t so amazing …? The Valentine’s dinner, when I sparkled like crystal. The moment when he told me about Helen’s miscarriages and my attitude was cavalier, if not heartless. Everything is being brought back, everything about how I was then, for me to hold up and examine against how I am now. Can he still see something in me? Does he see more than I do? I feel he remembers everything, things about myself I may have forgotten.
‘I want to go to Mac’s house tomorrow,’ says James. ‘Pick up some pyjamas and some more toiletries for him. He’s still in that hospital gown and he might like to get out of it. I don’t suppose you want to come with me? We could go straight after work tomorrow, then come to the hospital afterwards? Well, I don’t even know what it is you do, but would you be able to? Would you like to?’
He’s so damn awkward, I think, adding once again, in my mind, because I can’t help it: for such a good-looking man. We’re a right pair of bumbling, unconfident misfits; perhaps Mac attracts them, not that I was anything like this when he first did. Lordy, no. You couldn’t get less bumbling or more confident. Funny how twenty-eight years and a bastard of a husband can knock the stuffing right out of you.
‘I work on Coppers,’ I say to James. ‘Production office, and yes, I’d like to,’ I add, and then I nearly laugh because I sound like I’m accepting the offer of a date, or something, which is hilarious because he wouldn’t fancy me in a million years and a first date would hardly be going round some old bloke’s house to pick up his pyjamas, would it? My first date with Christian was in a loud, brash bar – all chrome and coloured lights, people out on the pull and the lash, shouting into each other’s ears and Christian a witty and attentive, benign manufacture of his later self. I am clearly a horrendous judge of character.
‘Coppers? The police drama? What do you do there?’ asks James.
‘Locations assistant,’ I reply. Mac’s eyes are flicking so I stare at him, but they go still again and he sleeps. ‘Whereabouts in Larkspur Hill do you and Mac live?’ I ask.
‘Ford Road, do you know it?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Ten minutes’ walk from here,’ says James. ‘It was barely worth waiting for the ambulance.’
He gives a dry smile, but I am confused. ‘Hang on, what do you mean? Did Mac have the car crash near his house?’
‘Yes, just outside.’ It’s something I haven’t asked, how it happened. It’s not something you want to revel in the details of, is it? How the man you once loved came to be prone in a hospital bed, unable to speak. ‘He was reversing out of his drive when a car came hurtling up the street and crashed into him, side on, driver’s side. It was a young lad. Drugs, by all accounts. He’s being prosecuted for it.’
Immediately, I wish I didn’t know the details. I will have an image of Mac now in my mind, merrily pulling out of his drive, the radio on – Radio 2, perhaps – maybe whistling, and a souped-up sports car driven by a grinning, drugged-to-the-eyeballs youth with rap music at full blast smashing into him. ‘Were you there?’ I ask James.
‘No, I was already away, at my mum’s. A neighbour down the road called the ambulance. It was pretty awful, I’ve been told. I didn’t find out until I got back today. I feel terrible, actually. That I didn’t know.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry for Mac and the neighbour, and for you.’
‘Thank you,’ says James, offering another shrug. ‘I appreciate that.’
We sit in silence for a while. James pulls a book from his bag – an autobiography, Freddie Flintoff’s – and I send random texts to Julian asking him how his day was and what he’s cooking Sam for dinner. We leave Ward 10 when visiting time is over and Mac is still fast asleep.
‘So, I’ll give you the address and meet you outside at, say, six?’ says James. We’re at the main hospital exit; me about to turn right, James about to turn left.
‘OK,’ I hear myself saying, although I am suddenly nervous about meeting James outside Mac’s house, and going inside. ‘I’ll see you then.’
Mac’s house is an almost pretty Victorian terrace: No. 6, Ford Road. His front drive is gravel, there’s a paved garden in a square next to it. A rockery? This fits with Mac; I can’t imagine him as any kind of gardener. Behind it is Larkspur Hill, the little sister to Primrose. It’s less of a hill and more of a low-rise hump, really, with a winding path ambling up to a little bench on the top, but it gives pretty good views of the city. I’ve been up there a few times before, in the summer, not for years, though. I smile to myself as I remember something Mac said once, about British films set in the north of England – like Kes (love it!) and Rita, Sue and Bob Too (brilliant!) – how they often included a scene on a hill, where an introspective character would look down on a city and its smoky factory chimneys or grey and grim housing estates and reflect on their circumstances. He loved all that realist, northern angst, mirrored in the setting, and so did I, by proxy. I’m glad to see Mac now has his very own view from a hill … perhaps that’s why he moved to this house.
‘He loves it up there,’ says James. ‘Says it’s perfect for when a moody sod wants some time alone.’
I grin as I look up at the hump and the bench – I enjoyed how James said ‘moody sod’ in his own northern inflection – although I can’t imagine Mac being moody; he certainly never used to be. But it’s perfect, this Larkspur Hill. Mac probably comes up here with a book on film theory and lords it up over London, surveying his kingdom, moody sod or not.
‘That’s mine,’ says James, pointing to an identikit house to the left of Mac’s. ‘We have each other’s keys for emergencies.’ He pulls a key from his inside jacket pocket and we walk up Mac’s front path and James unlocks the door.
We step into the hall. James croupiers up the post on the mat and puts it on a small console table. I never went to Mac’s real house, of course, back in the day. I’d only seen his little flat, the academic surroundings of Mac, where he held parties, made his notes, kept his books, slept with me. I never saw his real life.
The hall is clutter free, but there are framed movie posters. To Catch a Thief, High Noon, The Philadelphia Story … I smile when I see a famous poster of The Birds – Tippi, in her green suit, being attacked by crows – and wonder if Mac thought of me every time he passe
d it. I hope so. I can see into a dining room, to the right; dark green walls, stacks of books on the table, piles of papers. A tiny galley kitchen at the end of the hall, tiled in blue and white, dark granite surfaces; no feminine influence. James turns left into a square, teal sitting room and I follow behind him. There’s a small brown leather sofa, a matching chair. Venetian blinds like the ones Mac had at Warwick. A coffee table, bare but grained with giant knots. And, facing us, a huge bookcase lined and jumbled and stacked with books. Loads of books. Books perched horizontally on side-stacks of vertical spines; books leaning on one another and wedged into every conceivable space; books scattered along the top, layered and overhanging each other like coins in that arcade game.
I step towards the bookcase. There are some works of fiction – Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath – but most of them are film theory books and biographies of Hollywood stars. Here, Greta Garbo collides with Gregory Peck. There, Rita Hayworth nestles up against Robert Mitchum. And Dean Martin chinks against Richard Burton with a wink and a cigarette.
‘I like biographies,’ says James. ‘And autobiographies. I’ve read that one,’ he said, pointing to Richard Burton. ‘Quite a colourful read.’ He gives a rueful smile. ‘I read all sorts about all sorts of people,’ he says, ‘cricketers, soap stars, celebrity chefs. I like seeing how people started out and where they ended up. Their reasons behind things, I suppose,’ he adds. ‘It’s interesting.’
‘Absolutely,’ I reply. I flick through the Richard Burton then put it back. Something about the smell of the books makes me sneeze, although they don’t look particularly dusty.
‘Bless you.’
‘Thank you.’
I wonder how James started out and where he ended up. For the first time I wonder what his story is. From what he’s said and hasn’t said, he lives alone. Why is such a good-looking, seemingly nice guy on his own? ‘I’m not a big fan of biographies,’ I say. ‘I prefer made-up stuff to real life, I think. Oh look, this is Mac’s book!’ I pull out a red book with a navy spine, Mac’s name both there and on the front cover. ‘The Language of Celluloid. He wrote it when he was quite young, in the early eighties. It became a kind of bible for Film Studies students, for a while.’
You, Me and The Movies Page 11