Walking Alone

by Carolyn McCrae

  “Of course I did.”

  “Didn’t you try to do anything about it?”

  He was quiet for a while. Obviously the question was too close for comfort.

  “My mother. She needed me to look after her. My father died just after the war, the first war that is. He died of influenza, not war wounds so somehow it was more ignominious. I looked after her. I got a job, I couldn’t fight during the second war and then I was tied in. I did well. I did far better than anyone could have expected, but I always had Mother to look after. I didn’t leave home. I didn’t marry.”

  “But you fell in love.”

  “Of course I did. Anyone who met her fell in love with Alicia. She was beautiful, and vulnerable. She just expected it.”

  “But you never did anything about it.”

  “Of course not. How could I? She was out of my league.”

  “Why? Why was she? I don’t understand. You loved her, why didn’t you do anything about it?”

  Ted looked helpless as he looked out to the estuary for help.

  “Times were different then. I was not of her class.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No it’s not. Times were different then. Alicia, whatever ‘class’ she started in, married your father. That put her out of my reach. She never saw me as a person in my own right.”

  “Do you regret it? What would you have done differently?”

  “Oh Charles, you do ask questions that are unanswerable. Of course I regret it. I loved her, I thought she was the most precious and beautiful of women. If she had seen me as anything other than me, if she could have seen me as anything other than … Oh I don’t know how she saw me, perhaps someone who could help her when she had nowhere else to go, perhaps someone who would look after her when there was no one else. Perhaps I was her person of last resort.”

  I had never heard Ted so open with his answers, maybe he had had one or two too many wines that afternoon, maybe he had seen how hard I was trying not to be me and he wanted to give me courage.

  “I am so sorry I didn’t go to see her those last months.”

  “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

  “What should I do Ted? I’m a bit lost.”

  “Like you were when you were a boy?” He reminded me, without actually saying anything, of the time I had run away from school and he had rescued me. So I ignored him, “No Ted, like I am now.”

  “Well, do you want me to say what I would do if I were you? What I would do if I were 30 again? I would change. Without a doubt. I would change. I would become the person people didn’t expect me to be. You tried today. You tried to do something that was different and you did a good job. Don’t expect it all to happen in one day though. It will take time for that lovely red-head and the American to recognise you as anything other than the stiff person they saw at the funeral. “

  “I should change then?”

  “Of course. And you made a good start today. I admire you Charles, many people wouldn’t have had the guts to do as you did and try to do something different, especially against the strength of Max. Well done.”

  “I should carry on then? Rebelling?”

  “If that is what you want yes. He will understand, she will understand, they will understand. One day.”

  “What should I do?”

  “You’re asking me? I who failed so miserably to change? Thank you Charles. I appreciate that, more than you could possibly understand, but I can give you no answers. Trust your judgement and act on your instincts. Perhaps that’s all the advice I can offer as throughout my life I have done neither.”

  “I want to be my age you know, I want friends of my age.”

  “I know.”

  “Ted.”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  I hadn’t noticed Max getting up and going inside. It was only Ted and I who sat watching the sun sinking.

  “Where’s Max? And Monika?”

  “They’re inside, sorting out your birthday dinner I think.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “No it hasn’t been a waste of time. You have made a sign to them you are changing. That is good. You mustn’t give in, Charles. Don’t give in. You have a chance to be you. Be you.”

  Max came out to join us, just as Ted left to go inside.

  “I’m sorry Max, I didn’t realise how much our formal evenings meant to you.”

  “No reason why you should.” He seemed detached.

  “Yes there is, I have lived in your house all these years I should know you by now.”

  “Indeed you should.”

  But it seemed that Max was not going to help me in that understanding.

  Chapter Eleven

  Holly and Linda had chosen Leicester University because it wasn’t Oxford or Cambridge but it was easy enough to get to both. The course was incidental. Pat and Jeff couldn’t argue with Linda’s reasoning ‘You all do serious stuff, even Olly and Crisp did a proper degree, but they don’t use it do they? What’s bio-chemistry got to do with car mechanics? I don’t want to teach so I might as well just get a degree in anything. Bee-keeping wasn’t on offer so this’ll be great’.

  They had had a great time during their first term and had been really looking forward to getting back to Leicester immediately after the funeral.

  “Hello, Holly isn’t it? Fancy seeing you.” The scruffy man in black jeans and greasy blue anorak pulled up a chair and sat between Holly and Linda without asking.

  “Pardon?” Holly looked blank, she had no idea who it was but they had made a lot of friends in their first few months at Leicester so she assumed she must just have forgotten this one. He seemed eminently forgettable. His hair was greasy, his finger nails dirty and overall he gave the impression he could do with a wash.

  “Don’t you remember me?” He asked.

  “Why on earth would we?” Linda replied, trying her most severe put down.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to Holly, here. You remember me, don’t you darling?” He moved as if to kiss her and she smelt the beer and tobacco on his breath.

  “Bugger off! I’ve never seen you before.”

  “Perhaps you don’t recognise me with these clothes on?” he suggested with a smirk Linda and Holly found equally unattractive.

  “I don’t recognise you. You’re right.”

  He must have decided his planned approach had failed so he changed tack. “The funeral? My aunt’s funeral? You remember me now. Graham Tyler.”

  They did.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “That’s not a very nice welcome.”

  “Well, what do you expect?” Holly couldn’t have sounded less enthusiastic.

  “I was nearby and I remembered you’d said you were at Leicester so I checked out the usual drinking holes and here you are. This is only the fifth I’ve tried. Do you want to go out with me tomorrow.” He had turned speaking to Holly.

  “I don’t know what Linda’s got planned.”

  “No I don’t mean you plural, just you, singular.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  He ignored the coldness in her voice.

  “Have you ever been motor racing? Not actually doing it. Watching it.”

  “No, I can’t say I have.”

  “We could go to Silverstone, it’s not far.”

  Holly thought she could use Linda as an excuse. “I’ll have to ask Linda.”

  “Why, when she’s not invited?” Graham’s voice changed. He was past the point of rudeness.

  “She won’t go without me you know, though why either of us would want to go with you is beyond me.”

  “Come on, you’ll enjoy it. It’ll be a chance to learn something about your family won’t it?” He continued talking to Holly, his back to Linda.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He didn’t answer the question directly, instead he gave them another reason for going with him. “You’ll see wha
t your precious Carl gets up to.”

  “OK. I suppose so.” Linda replied for both of them, showing no sign of enthusiasm as she gave him their address.

  When Holly woke the next morning and looked out of the window it was raining. It looked cold and windy. She just knew it was going to be a miserable day.

  Graham picked them up at 11, opening the passenger door of the Cortina for Holly and leaving Linda to settle on the back seat amongst a mess of old cigarette packets, beer bottles and maps. The silence as they drove was only broken by the irritating scrape of the windscreen wipers. The car radio didn’t work.

  “Do we have to go to Silverstone, can’t we just find somewhere dry for a drink, a bit of lunch, and then go home?” Holly asked after they had turned off the motorway.

  “We’re going.” The shortness of his reply was slightly threatening, and somehow it was easier to do as he decided. “You’ll love it when you get there.” It seemed to Holly that he was giving her an order. Linda sat in the back just wishing they hadn’t agreed to come.

  They were both dressed for the weather, jeans and proper shoes, with heavy sweatshirt and anorak, gloves and scarves, but neither could imagine how they could be so cold as they stood by the fence on a bend next to a strip of empty tarmac in what looked like an abandoned airfield. After a few minutes a stream of cars passed by in a cloud of spray.

  “That’s it is it?” Linda asked sarcastically after the noise had died down. She got no reply and some minutes later they came round again, far more strung out. The last car had barely passed before the faster ones had caught up. She counted them passed ten times and then it went quiet again.

  “So interesting. I wouldn’t have missed that for the world.” She said to no one in particular.

  “Well piss off back to the car then. Except I’m not giving you the key am I?” So Linda walked away anyway, towards what looked, through the mists of lingering spray, like a coffee stall. She wanted something warm. If she didn’t find them again it didn’t matter, she could hitch a ride home.

  The rain didn’t ease up. Holly stood grimly with hands in pockets and water dripping down the back of her neck.

  “What on earth do you see in this?”

  “It’s a shame it’s raining, but I like the sound of the engines and the battles that go on. Just think how wet the drivers are getting.”

  “Can we go home now?”

  “We’ve only just got here. The best part of the day has yet to come.”

  “I’m going to find Linda.” She decided it couldn’t be difficult, there were hardly any other people stupid enough to be standing around in the rain watching cars going round in circles. She caught up with Linda at the coffee stall and they stood, their hands around the paper cups, trying to get some warmth.

  By the time Graham had joined them Linda had lost patience. “Graham. We’re cold and we’re wet. This is completely boring. Can we go home? We’re not enjoying it one tiny bit.”

  “Not yet. Not until we’ve seen someone. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Him.” Linda and Holly looked across the wet tarmac to where Graham was pointing and saw a man they both recognised despite his bulky coat and the hood that half covered his face in the rain.

  Carl was with a group of other men, surrounding the front of a car, laughing and apparently arguing over the lump of metal he was holding.

  “Hello Carl Witherby isn’t it, or should I say Donaldson?” Graham walked over and interrupted their discussion before either Holly or Linda could stop him. They followed him. It was the only thing they could do.

  Carl saw Holly first, recognising her without knowing who Graham was.

  “Holly?” He was so surprised to see her he repeated “Holly!”. He handed the shock absorber to one of his friends and walked over to her and hugged her. “Sorry I’m so wet, but then aren’t we all! What’re you doing here? And Linda!” He hugged her, apologising for getting her even wetter. “Not possible.” She had answered miserably. He pulled away a little and dropped his voice “and who’s he?”

  “Graham Tyler.” Graham held his hand out towards Carl who automatically shook the proffered hand.

  “Tyler?”

  “Yes. Tyler.”

  “Ah.”

  Holly and Linda didn’t understand what was going on between the two men but tried to pick up the threads of meaning behind the conversation.

  “Alicia was my aunt.”

  “So?” Carl was giving little away.

  “We are, I believe, related.”

  “No. I don’t think so.” They could hear the coldness in Carl’s voice, a coldness neither had ever heard, as threatening in its way as Graham’s more overt aggression.

  “Well nearly. I mean your father” Graham stressed the word knowingly “was my uncle so we are practically cousins.”

  “By marriage perhaps.”

  “Though you being a bastard I suppose makes it’s even slighter a relationship.”

  “I suppose.” Carl was holding his temper, trying to work out where this conversation was going. The friends he was with busied themselves with something at the back of the car. “What is it you want?” He waited a few moments for Graham to answer, but when it came the answer was oblique.

  “Are you very rich?”

  “What sort of question is that?” Carl was surprised into answering.

  “I just wondered. What I mean is your brother doesn’t work for a living and you’ve got a very expensive hobby. I just wondered where the money…”

  Carl interrupted him “Why I should explain I don’t know. I work for my living and that,” Carl gestured towards the mud be-spattered car “I share with a friend.”

  “Oh would that be friend in your brother’s sense of the word?”

  Carl didn’t answer. He took an oily rag from his pocket and wiped his hand. Ignoring Graham he turned to Holly and Linda. “What are you doing with this scumbag?”

  Before they could answer Graham grabbed Holly’s arm and steered her away. Linda shrugged her shoulders helplessly at Carl and ran after them. She couldn’t leave Holly alone with him.

  “That’s why you brought us here wasn’t it? There’s something going on and you needed to make Carl speak to you. You knew he would only do that if you were with someone he knew! What are you up to?”

  “Haven’t you enjoyed it just a bit?”

  “No. We’re cold. We’re wet. We want to go home.”

  Linda spoke for both of them.

  Graham couldn’t have been nicer on the way back. He drove more carefully than he had in the morning and talked, apparently quite frankly. “I’m sorry if you feel used. I didn’t mean it to be like that. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you both again and getting to know you, really I have.” He spoke to Holly, Linda was huddled in the back seat occasionally wiping the steamed up windows to see that there really was a world out there.

  They didn’t notice him turning off the main road and driving down country lanes until he stopped at a pub by a canal. It had stopped raining and the sun warmed them almost as much as the large brandies Graham bought them.

  He didn’t mention Silverstone or the racing, or Carl. He spoke about canals and locks. He seemed to know quite a lot about them. Holly reluctantly found herself listening; he could be quite interesting

  Linda interrupted to ask why he had wanted to talk to Carl.

  “I was curious.” He then changed the subject back to the canal, the locks and, for a reason they never understood, Roses Lime Juice.

  As he talked Holly found that she was enjoying herself far more than she had expected despite Linda’s continuing hostility. Graham was not such a bore as she had thought. He seemed to like the same music as she did, and the same films.

  Or at least that was what he led her to believe.

  Holly felt vaguely annoyed when he said he was back to London that evening, as soon as he had dropped them off. “I’ve enjoyed our chat Holly,” he had said whilst looking defiantly at L
inda, “I’ll give you a call. Perhaps we can have a drink together.” ‘Without Linda’ was left unsaid.

  “I’ll look forward to that.”

  It surprised her that she almost meant it.

  Linda couldn’t understand why Holly had accepted Graham’s invitations and had gone out with him a few times. “Just don’t let him come back to the flat.” Linda had said “He gives me the creeps and I can’t understand why he doesn’t give you the creeps either.”

  “He’s OK.” Holly would say but could offer no evidence.

  She couldn’t say that Graham was stringing her along with snippets of information about her parents. She couldn’t admit to anyone, especially Linda, that she was not only listening to what Graham told her but that she believed it.

  He had started, that first weekend after Silverstone by hinting that he knew more about her parents than she did.

  “You know your Dad’s not Canadian don’t you?”

  When she had argued that of course he was, he and her Mom had met at University in Toronto. He had been the librarian and they fell in love during her last year.

  “Have it your own way.” Graham had said dismissively in a way that really annoyed her.

  It was on another date, a week later, that Graham spoke out of the blue. “He didn’t get to Canada until after the war.”

  “ Why would you say that? You’re lying.”

  “Have it your own way.”

  “He’s Canadian. Why would he lie?”

  “You tell me.”

  Graham kept asking questions. Knowing that, because she could not answer them, they would sow seeds of doubt in her mind. What did she know of her father’s family? What did she know of her Mother’s parents, the O’Dwyers? Didn’t they have much to do with them because they hadn’t approved of her Dad? What about her Eccleston grandparents? What did she know of them? They seemed the sort of question a boyfriend might ask of a girlfriend he was trying to get to know better. She answered them honestly. She had no reason not to.

  It was when he argued with her answers, saying he knew better, that she began to argue with him.

  “I’ve been through the records. He didn’t get to Canada until he was 27 years old. He wasn’t born there.”