Walking Alone

by Carolyn McCrae

  “Was it that bad?”

  We talked easily. I had expected awkwardness but there was none.

  “I think the worst thing was that I called on our old next door neighbours and they didn’t even ask me in! We’d been best mates and they didn’t even ask me in! They said they felt it would be disloyal to Pete.”

  “Some friends.”

  “I don’t think I’ve got many now, they all seem to have gone with him.”

  “There’re all the people here, in the village. They’re your friends.”

  “Not really, we drink together, they look out for me if I’m on my own, send strange young men up to stay with me, that sort of thing…” she was feeling better, she was teasing me.

  “I haven’t any friends. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone I would call a friend.”

  “Have you got any family, brothers? Sisters?”

  “I don’t think you could have asked a more difficult question. I’ve got a sister, her husband died. She’s left with four children….”

  “Four!”

  “Yes, that’s what we all thought, she just had one after the other, and she’s only 24. It was all rather complicated really.”

  “How did her husband die? He must have been quite young.”

  “He drowned. It was the best thing that could have happened really, his dying I mean.” She let me leave that unexplained.

  “What about the children? How does she cope?”

  “She doesn’t. She’s left them to be looked after by a Nanny…”

  “Those ‘independent means’ come in useful then?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and continued as if she hadn’t interrupted “…who probably loves having sole control of them with no parents interfering with her regime. We go over every week or so to keep in touch.”

  “Anyone else? I’m looking to find you a friend in your life.”

  “I have a half-brother, Carl. He was my father’s son but I suppose he’s also my step-brother since my father married his Mother. He’s all right, but I don’t see him very often.”

  “You sound like you don’t really want to.”

  “I try to like him, but I can’t feel anything but suspicion and latent dislike. He’s probably funny and undoubtedly clever but we’ve far too much history to be real friends. Anyway I have no idea where he is now, he was around for a few weeks around when Joe, that’s Susannah’s husband, died and then he disappeared.”

  “So where are we going to find you a friend?”

  “I’ve got one. You.”

  She smiled as she poured another cup of coffee.

  After a while he did something else he had rarely done before, he asked someone about their life “What about you?”

  “A brother, he’s a lot older than me and I haven’t seen him for years.” Her tone of voice didn’t encourage Charles to enquire any further.

  “So here we are, two lost and lonely souls!”

  Dani ripped up a sheet of paper into two bits and gave one piece with a pen to Charles. She kept the other for herself.

  “Right now, write down everyone you know between the ages of 20 and 30.”

  “That’s a bloody short list!”

  Carl Susannah

  “What about the children’s nanny?”

  “Aged. Even by my standards.” She caught my eye and we both smiled. Dani was doing me good. Not only was I getting used to being teased but I could begin to laugh at myself.

  “Come on rack your brains. There must be others.”

  Linda Forster

  “Who’s she?”

  “When Carl left home he went to live with some school friends, Linda’s their young sister.”

  “How old?”

  I crossed her out. “She’s probably still at school. No. Hang on. She’s just gone to university but that still makes her too young.”

  “Leave her on the list. She’s close enough.”

  “She’s got twin brothers, they’re older I’m not sure of their names.”

  “Well put Linda’s twin brothers”

  “That’s it then. Apart from Holly, I think her name was.”

  “Who’s Holly?”

  “A friend of Linda’s I only met her for a few minutes.”

  “Put her on the list. You’re going to have to meet people you know, if you’re not going to wither and die an old man at 35.”

  “How am I going to do that?”

  “Leave it with me. I’ll think of something. Come on time for a walk.”

  When we got back John the Post had delivered the mail. There was a letter from Monika.

  You have been away nearly four weeks and they have been busy times. I have visited the children. Josie asks where you are and I tell her you are having a holiday so she keeps asking questions. Where? Why you didn’t take her? You must send her a postcard. Send me a postcard too.

  I felt guilty. I had been so wrapped up in myself that I hadn’t thought about anyone else.

  Take care of yourself; we look forward to seeing you home soon.

  “Time to go home?” Dani was watching me as I read.

  “No. Not yet. Can you put up with me for longer?”

  “Of course. It’s good to have you here.”

  So I stayed.

  As the weeks passed I noticed more and more trippers appearing at weekends until they seemed to be everywhere all the time. Shops that had been closed through the week were now open every day, the weather grew warmer and sunnier, and the days longer and still I stayed up at the house on the edge of the village. Easter came and went noticeable only by the increased crowds of people were queuing along the beach for the ‘half hour trips along the coast’ that were touted in a loud Lancastrian accent every few minutes.

  The intimacy we had shared the night Dani had returned from London was never repeated though most people in the village seemed to assume we were sleeping together.

  My series of articles A Different Coast were well received, it had given my career a necessary boost, but in the regular letters I received from Max and Monika it became increasingly obvious that I was expected home.

  At breakfast one morning in early May I must have had a particular frown on my face because Dani asked “Problem?”.

  In reply I read from the letter “Josie and the boys keep asking where you are and I have to keep saying you’ll be back soon. Please, Charles, you’ve been away nearly four months now. When are you coming home?”

  “Sounds like time for you to go.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “I was hoping you’d be here for our birthday.”

  “We could’ve had a joint party. I could have invited that long list of people I know, and there’s lots of friends from the village eating our food and drinking our booze.”

  “Lots of people who call themselves friends from the village eating our food and drinking our booze. Most of them would go anywhere for a free nosh and drink “

  “It looks like I’ll be having a dinner party on my birthday, just a few dressed up people sitting stiffly round a table eating delicious food, drinking good wines probably wishing they could be sitting around watching television and not having to be polite.”

  “No music? No band? No dancing?”

  “No music. No dancing. Just conversation.”

  I began to realise just how much I had changed in the months I had been away. In January I would have looked forward to the formal dinner. “I’ve got to go back sooner or later, I can’t live in Brigadoon for 100 years.”

  “But it’s a different you going back now. They won’t recognise you, you’re tanned, you’ve lost weight, your hair’s positively hippie length. They’ll wonder where the old Charles has gone.”

  “Why don’t you come too? I’ve visited you for a few weeks, you could come up north and stay with me.”

  “No, thanks Charlie, I’d love to but I’ll stay here. Brigadoon has its attractions.”

  As I drove the Daimler through the gates of Sandhey late on
the following Sunday evening I knew Dani had been right, I was a different person from the Charles that had left, and I knew my life was going to have to change as well. I was looking forward to seeing Max and Monika again, but not Susannah. I didn’t know how I was going to handle my sister.

  As I let himself into the house I found them waiting for me in the hall like a reception committee. I shook hands with Max and gave Monika a hug. Luckily Susannah wasn’t there.

  “Your hair! It is so long, we must get that cut. And you are so brown!” Monika exclaimed as she released me, bombarding me with questions. “Where did you get that shirt? I do not recognise it. Have you been eating enough? You are so thin!” Max kept quiet as he waited for Monika to finish her greetings. He must have sensed that the changes in me went far deeper than the length of my hair and the colour of my skin.

  “Let the boy get his clothes unpacked and have a wash and brush up after his drive. He can answer all your questions at dinner.”

  “Where’s Susannah?”

  Max and Monika exchanged glances and it was Monika who answered. “She left, when she knew you were coming home she said she didn’t want to see you and since this was your home she’d go. She said she’d write to let us know where she was. She’s a lot better now, we think she can look after herself.”

  “But she isn’t with the children.”

  “No.”

  To change the subject I spoke with somewhat forced enthusiasm “I’ve got some photos, I’ll show you where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to. They’ll do a far better job than I could in words.”

  As I ran up the stairs two at a time I could hear Max’s voice, a mixture of enquiry and sadness “He’s changed.”

  Over dinner I told them about Dani and the house and the village, showing them some of the photographs I had taken.

  “A pretty girl.” Max was asking far more in his seemingly innocent comment.

  “Dani? I suppose so, she’s really nice, a bit mixed up at the moment but that’s because she’s been going through a divorce.”

  “Divorce? The slip of a girl hardly looks old enough to have a boyfriend let alone an ex-husband.” Max frowned over his glasses at me as I smiled at his description. “She hasn’t got a new boyfriend then?” I didn’t think he was making a joke.

  “If you mean what I think you mean no, neither of us was looking for anything like that. She gave me all her husband’s old clothes though. Not that they’re old old, just the clothes he’d left behind.”

  “What did you do with all that time you had on your hands?”

  “We talked, walked, read, cooked, ate, cleaned the house, did the gardening, just pottered about really. I got my articles in each month on time, just, and it was interesting to study a different coast, they seemed to like the different angles. It really is wonderful down there. Otherwise it was a real holiday.”

  “It sounds like it with all that housework and gardening. But what a lovely spot to be doing it in.”

  We were being so stilted and polite. I had got used to teasing, argument and laughter at meals, the formality began to grate and I wondered that this had been normal for so many years.

  “It was, and the villagers were really nice, those that I met anyway, and friendly. I met and talked with more people in these last months than I ever did here.”

  Monika had failed to spot the beginnings of impatience in my voice and asked “What sort of people?”

  “What do you mean sort of people? They probably weren’t our sort of people, they were butchers, bakers, fishermen, retired hippies, people running away from things, sick people, children, work dodgers, skivers, all sorts of people. Though there was one retired millionaire. Would he be our ‘sort’?”

  “I didn’t mean anything.” I shouldn’t have snapped and Monika was hurt.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say all that.”

  “No, Charles, of course you didn’t.”

  I should have been quiet then, Max had warned me and I should have taken notice, but I was determined not to let them make me what I used to be.

  “But it’s true isn’t it? We only meet the ‘right sort of people’ , we only mix with people the same as us and there aren’t many of them either. Susannah went outside the circle when she married Joe but it didn’t change anything. We just widened the circle and temporarily invited Joe in. We were so arrogant that we thought we could change him into one of us. But we couldn’t could we? We hadn’t changed him one bit and look where that led.”

  “We will not talk about Joe.” I would previously have obeyed the authority in Max’s tone that brooked no argument “I am shocked you should mention his name in front of Monika. Monika, Charles will apologise.”

  But I didn’t. I just carried on. “But Joe happened. We look after his children, Susannah’s gone completely off the rails and hasn’t got over it all.”

  “We do not talk about it.”

  I continued to ignore Max’s warning. I had thought a lot about this, I had even talked about the situation, hypothetically of course, with the very mixed bunch in the Smugglers. ‘What would you do if…’ None of them could understand a family where none of it had ever been mentioned since.

  “But we can’t ignore it. It’s nearly two years ago and we have never talked about it.”

  “There is nothing to talk about.”

  “But there is. There is. Can’t you see there’s everything to talk about? What happened to each of us that day, how we feel about it, how we’ll get over it. Doesn’t it seem strange that we’ve never talked about it?”

  “No it doesn’t seem strange and I think you’ve said enough.”

  “Are we arguing?” I was so frustrated at the politeness and knew neither of them understood a word I was saying.

  “No Charles, we are not arguing. You are arguing. And you are going to stop. I don’t know what’s got into you.”

  “Perhaps I’m having a belated adolescence.”

  “I think you’re tired after your long drive. Apologise to Monika.”

  I obeyed like the dutiful child they seemed to think I still was. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you Monika, I didn’t mean to.” But I couldn’t leave it there. “But I really think we should know each other well enough by now to talk about things, to try to understand each other. I think I know more about the lives of some of the people in Polperro than I do about you.”

  I was remembering why I had left.

  “We all live in the same house and we know nothing about each other really.”

  Max got up from the table and walked round to pull Monika’s chair back, an old fashioned gesture from an old fashioned gentleman. “Come my dear, we will have coffee in the lounge while our adolescent friend gets some sleep and recovers himself.”

  I understood myself dismissed.

  It had not been a successful return home.

  I sat at my desk and looked out at the familiar view, the waters of the sea meeting the estuary, the islands with the mountains in the distance. I realised how much I had enjoyed my time away and how difficult it was going to be to adjust back to what had been a comfortable life.

  I undressed slowly but did not pull on the paisley pyjamas that I knew without looking would be neatly folded under my pillow. I knew what the problem was. Max had said so in so many words. I had never been young. Dani was right. I had to do something to stop being buried in this house, however much I respected Max and loved Monika, and I really was truly grateful to them, I could no longer live the way I had been living.

  My life was going to have to change.

  At breakfast the next morning nothing was said about the previous night’s conversation. As always with anything that might upset the smooth running of the house, it was swept under the carpet.

  Instead of mentioning any disagreement Max began to talk about my birthday party as if nothing had happened to change things. I interrupted.

  “I know it’s pretty much a fixture on the calendar but would you mind t
erribly if we didn’t do the usual dinner this year?”

  I looked from Monika to Max, there was puzzlement in both their faces.

  “But we always…” Monika began.

  “Monika so enjoys …” Max added

  But I interrupted them both. “I was thinking more along the lines of a barbecue. I’ll find some bricks and build one at the bottom of the garden. I’ll cook hamburgers and sausages and with some French sticks and some salad stuff everyone will have enough to eat. Josie and the boys can come, they can invite some of their friends.”

  I had been very wary of suggesting such a change in our normal household routine but neither had said anything so I felt bold enough to continue. “I’ll invite Carl, if Susannah’s abandoned ship then he may well come, along with the Forsters, the twins, whatever their names are and the sister. And there was another girl in January, a blonde American, we’ll find out who she is and invite her too.”

  I was surprised when Max seemed to want to put me off inviting the American.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea. There is no connection really, just because she came to a funeral with her friend. Now what about your young lady in Cornwall?”

  Monika seemed the very doubtful about the idea of a barbecue. She asked was I sure she couldn’t do anything to help. I assured her it wouldn’t be up to her standard but I wanted to allow her the chance to enjoy a party for once. She allowed herself to be convinced, but only on the condition I wasn’t too proud to ask her anything if I got stuck or changed my mind.

  Max sat back while Monika and I talked. I tried to interpret his expression. It seemed to be concern, even disappointment.

  Was that because I had disrupted the normal birthday arrangements?

  Or was he recognising that he no longer controlled me and that life at Sandhey would never be the same again.

  Chapter Ten

  When I had said I would do all the arrangements for the barbecue I had no idea what I as letting myself in for, and I had allowed less than a week.

  I spent the first day on the phone inviting anyone who was likely to come, emphasising the informality of the afternoon. I found myself having to confirm that, yes, this was me, Charles, and yes, it was a barbecue, and yes, they can come in shorts. As I made the calls I began to realise how people had seen me.