He relaxed. "I know, lad."
I cast about desperately for another change of subject. "She said she'd do us a stroganoff later."
"Oh,.. right."
The moment had passed and I think we were both relieved. We'd never made a habit of talking and tended to leave the deep and meaningful stuff well alone. No cosy man to man chats: You see, Tom, this is the way it is, lad,…
He returned his attention to the computer and shook his head again in mock despair. "Daft bugger - I bet you didn't get was it was worth either."
"What's that then?"
"The bloody Rover!"
After supper, I washed the pots and wiped down the work surfaces while Eleanor took time out in the lounge. If nothing else, marriage had made a relatively modern man out of me, but not so my father who returned to his study as soon as we'd eaten. I joined her, drawn in by the sound of Bruch's violin concerto. She did not acknowledge my presence but remained for a long time a picture of dark serenity, a frozen black lotus, cross legged upon the floor, the black petals of her long dress spread evenly about her.
Naturally, I had been alarmed by her sudden appearance in my father's life,… this strange woman with the Mortitia looks. So far as I could work out from what little he'd told me, they had met in the waiting room of Middleton General's clinical psychology unit.
"She's been poorly," was as much as he'd ever told me, but how poorly and what particular demons were her tormentors, I did not know. Nor could I imagine what her motives were in latching on to a man so many years her senior. He'd been all right for money since the Coal-Board payout, but he was a long way from wealthy, and certainly not much of a sugar daddy. Most puzzling to me was the fact that my father had once begrudgingly admitted, there was precious little fire down below these days, as he put it, the result of a life propped up on pills since nineteen eighty five. And Eleanor was still young,…
The marriage had been the subject of a great deal of ridicule among my aunts and uncles,… even a sensationalist picture in the increasingly seedy local rag. Annie had loved every morsel of the scandal, though not enough to come with me to the registry office the day they'd tied the knot.
"Hollywood actors do it all the bloody time," my father had said. "I don't see what the fuss is about."
He'd known of course. Like always, he'd simply been fending things off by acting numb, by assuming the easy role of a cantankerous, ornery old git. But there was more to him than that - more to both of them than met the eye.
There'd been just me and Eleanor's brother, Phil, that day - Eleanor dressed completely in black as usual and looking very beautiful - and my father, the years falling from him and a new determination in the set of his jaw.
That was three summers ago.
"Go on then," she said, snatching me back to the present as the Bruch faded away.
"Hmnn?"
"This thing you did,… You can't just say something like that and expect to get away without telling me everything, you know?"
"Oh, it was nothing. It was stupid. A stupid thing to do. I was in a state, what with Annie and everything. I don't know why I did it."
"So, tell your stepmother all about it."
She was looking at me, smiling, her hair almost brushing the carpet as she sat there. In the beginning, there had been an awkwardness between us as we had each struggled by our looks and our words to define the level of our relationship - her being my stepmother, yet so many years younger. Eventually, we made a joke of it, and I learned to trust her openness.
I lay down on the sofa and turned my face to the ceiling so I might be spared her gaze. I was afraid of what I'd done. Was I losing my grip? Was I starting down the path that had dogged my father most of his life? Was it some sort of genetic disorder that resulted in depression and an eventual nervous breakdown? Had this thing with Annie pushed me so close to the edge?
"Did you ever love someone?" I asked. " I mean someone who didn't know you loved them?"
Eleanor was quiet for a long while, so that in the end I thought she'd considered the question too personal but eventually she said: "Yes."
I waited for her to go on but she didn't and I found myself jumping in to fill the silence. "It normally doesn't last long does it? I mean, a summer,… a season. You blink and it's gone."
"I suppose it can happen like that."
"It was different for me. It began the day I first saw her, at school. I remember the date as clearly as the birthdays of my children. It was September, 1974, a Wednesday morning, a watery sun coming in through the windows of the classroom. The headmaster had brought her in half way through the lesson - a new pupil, her first day. 'This is Rachel Standish,' he said.
"I looked at her. Our eyes met for a moment as she took everybody in, but I don't think she was really aware of me. All the same, I felt something in my heart tear wide open and that was it,… until the day I walked out of my last examination in the summer of '77, three and a half years later."
"That's so romantic, Tom - and so sad. "
"No, the really sad bit is that I was still thinking of her years afterwards - until I started dating for real I suppose. Then the memories got buried under a load of other stuff. But I'm beginning to wonder if she's always been there - that she's never really gone away."
"Didn't you speak to her? Did you never tell her how you felt?"
"I'd just freeze whenever she was near "
"Is that what this is about then? This thing you did? Did you see her?"
"No. When we were at school, her picture was in the Clarion. She'd won a trophy for net ball and they'd given her address - 11 Langholm Avenue, so every chance I got, I'd ride my bike past her house after school, even though it was miles out my way.
"I was still doing it years later, on my motorbike, then my car,… just cruising by. I couldn't let her go, even though after all that time you'd think I would've realised how hopeless it was. "I imagined that if I'd seen her, I could have pulled over and said 'hi' and that would have been all we'd needed to get things moving,… except of course I didn't see her. Anyway, from the moment I learned her address, it became a precious thing and I'd write it down on the first page of all my sketch books and my diaries - anything personal. It felt like a lucky charm, having the mark of Her on everything I did.
"Then, this morning when I was gathering some stuff together to bring with me, I found an old sketchbook. I don't know, Eleanor,… everything was such a mess with Annie and yet I felt nothing, just sort of numb inside. Then, seeing that address, it took me back to a time when I used to really feel things, feel them so deeply I'd go writing down a girl's address, because in the absence of anything more tangible, it brought me closer to her."
I heard Eleanor shifting, moving nearer. Then I felt her hand on my arm and I turned to find myself pitched into the disturbing well of her gaze. "So you went round?" she asked.
"It wasn't as if I expected her to be there or anything. I just wanted to see if I could remember the feeling."
"And did you?"
"Yes."
"What was it like? "
"It was,… intense,… incredible really after all that time - the sadness, the melancholy and yet, in a way it was good, because lately I hardly seem to feel anything at all. In fact, I don't think I've felt anything in years, until this afternoon."
"It's just shock, Tom. You only found out about Annie yesterday. Do you remember the line of that Joni Mitchel song? 'there's comfort in melancholy'."
The plaintive music of Joni Mitchel was one of the things we shared. In fact I'd passed all my old vinyl onto Eleanor when Annie had refused to give it house-room. "No," I said. "It's something else, something fundamental inside of me that's gone wrong."
"What was her name, Tom?"
"Her name?"
"The girl at school."
I hesitated, even with Eleanor.
"It was Rachel," I said.
"And the way you felt about Rachel. Have you ever felt as intensely about anyo
ne else?"
It seemed odd to be suddenly talking about Rachel,… about the way I'd felt,… for I'd never spoken of her to anyone before. So far as the rest of the world was concerned my love for her was of no account. My misery throughout all those years was entirely self inflicted and of no consequence in the greater scheme of things. I thought about it for a long time, wrenching my eyes back to the swirling patterns on the ceiling. How many women had there been after Rachel? Five? Six? And of those only two I had known intimately, before Annie.
There had been excitement and warmth and with some a sense of recklessness, of danger, but had any of them been able to reach down inside and tear me apart? Had they sent me home too sick to eat and dreading tomorrow for its emptiness? Had they filled my life with melancholy, comforting or otherwise?
"No," I said. "It's like I've been searching for it ever since Rachel, and never found it."
"Not even with Annie?"
"Apparently not."
I sat up then, burying my head in my hands. I could hear my words and they sounded stupid. "But it was just a crush,… a difficult age. You bruise so easily then."
"Tom, you were in love."
"It was still crazy, going back."
"You don't know what crazy is."
"It means nothing,… "
"I'm not so sure. It's just a pity you never asked her out."
"She would have said no."
"How can you be certain? She might have been flattered. Or perhaps you're right - she would have said no, but at least if you'd asked you would have had your answer and stopped thinking about her, long before now."
"I didn't have the guts. My feelings were so strong, and a part of me desperately wanted to believe she felt the same way about me, that secretly she yearned for me in the same way and that we were both too shy to do anything about it."
"Ah,… now we're getting to it."
"So you see, it was better to go on not knowing, to go on living the fantasy that she loved me, rather than risk her rejection and have to face the reality,… that she did not even think of me, that she barely knew I existed."
"And it's the not knowing that's kept it alive."
"But I haven't thought of her in years."
"Are you sure?"
"Okay, there have been times when I've thought about her, wondered where she is, what she's doing,… times when I've asked myself what if? But life goes on. You meet someone else, you get married, you have children and these things go away, don't they?"
She sank back into the lotus and rested her head against the wall. "Not always," she said. "The subconscious is a strange place, Tom. The psychiatrist I used to see at the hospital said it was like a lake of the blackest water you can imagine. It's where we bury all our demons, but we have no way of knowing how deep. They might lie hundreds of fathoms down, so deep they're as good as dead, but some demons we might carry our whole lives barely inches below the surface and we would never know. Sometimes those demons can break through and haunt us when we least expect it."
I spent the night in my old room. It was one of the few places in the house not to have changed. The bed was in the same place, the worn out sixties furniture, the lamp shade, everything was as it had been, right down to the little rings on the carpet where as a boy I'd spilled my tiny pots of Airfix paint, and the pin pricks in the ceiling from where I'd strung up my model aeroplanes.
It had been a long road from that room to a detached executive brick-box on Parbold's Lindley Crescent, and only now, laying my Rolex back on that old bedside cabinet, the cabinet where I had once laid my first Timex, did I realise how far I'd travelled. I'm not saying my life was a big deal. I was still a small town boy, worked at the same engineering firm in Middleton since leaving school. I'd never chased promotion, not travelled much, never made love on a sun-kissed beach with the waves crashing all around me,… but I had found contentment with Annie and my children. It had seemed a worthy goal and I had never wanted to be anywhere other than where I was. I'd been so sure, so set. Where the hell had it all gone wrong?
Chapter 4
It was Monday before I could face going back. Phil picked me up at nine in his old Sherpa, honking his horn in the street to bring me running. He gave Eleanor a half hearted wave and a nod while she stood to see us off, but little else passed between them by way of greeting.
I climbed aboard. "Thanks, Phil."
He shrugged as if to say it was no problem.
He was dark haired, like his sister, but his skin had more colour. He was almost swarthy in fact and from the size of his gut, I guessed he liked his beer. The last time I'd seen him had been at my father's wedding and he hadn't said much then either. I remembered him telling me he'd worked for the Standard Machine company in Leyland, but he'd been given notice of redundancy. I'd asked him about his plans and he'd shrugged, as if he hadn't known, nor really cared much about what he would do.
I'd already telephoned Annie that morning to tell her we were coming. She'd been abrupt. It was a bad time and didn't I know she had the kids to get ready for school? It was as if it was my fault for running off and leaving her in the lurch. I think I even said I was sorry but then decided to be firm and told her I'd be there in an hour, that I didn't want any trouble, that I was sure we could sort this out amicably. That was the word they used at times like these wasn't it? The holy grail of all unholy break ups, the amicable settlement?
She wasn't in. Her father was there instead, his silver Mercedes blocking the driveway and standing out like a battle-tank. He opened the door at our approach and stood obstructing the entrance, arms folded, making me feel like I was trespassing on my own property.
"Hello, Tom."
"Hi, Alan. Just came to get some things - personal stuff, you know. Clothes and that."
He was fumbling with a piece of paper which, eventually, he handed to me. "Sorry, Tom. Annie's quite a headstrong girl, as you know."
She'd written down all the stuff it was okay for me to touch - it wasn't much: clothes, shoes, toiletries. It was written in her best, and most methodical hand, due care and consideration given to each item. I turned it over, thinking of other things, trivial things like the Biggles books my mum had bought me and I'd kept all these years. They weren't on the list. Was she saying I couldn't have them? My bottle of ten year old Kuros was fine but keep away from the Biggles books or I'll sue your ass, as they would say in America. Phil came up and took the list.
"Bollocks," he said, then pushed his way in.
Phil was a big lad with lots of muscle and the fact that he didn't say much lent him an air of menace which, according to Eleanor, was complete nonsense but people tended not to mess with him just in case. Alan took the same circumspect view and stepped aside.
"We'll be as quick as we can," I said.
What hit me first when I walked in were my children's shoes lying at the bottom of the stairs, such tiny shoes, I thought. And there, yesterday, in the living room, had been Annie and her be-suited, wide-arsed Alistair, twisting their fingers together on the sofa as they'd faced me.
"Just one of those things," she'd said. "I mean we've not been right for years, have we," and: "Let's be adults about this, Tom. It's for the best," and: "We can be amicable about this." And other set phrases gleaned from countless soap opera bust-ups which all roughly translated as: why make it hard for me, Tom! This is simply the way it's going to be!
She'd always been like that. When we'd first met it was what had drawn me to her. I'd always been so easy going and I'd found her forthright manner quite stunning. I'd met her at the Squash club,… hated every minute of the game itself right from the start, but I'd persevered for six months because the sight of her prancing about in her whites had driven me crazy.
"Could I take you out for a meal?" I'd asked her eventually.
"No," she'd replied, almost cutting my throat with a flick of her lovely blonde hair. "But I'll take you for one, okay?"
From the first, I'd thought her magnificent an
d beautiful. Then, fifteen years later I'd come home to find Alistair sitting beside her, cringing silently while I'd gazed open mouthed and felt,… nothing at all,… not I think because I didn't care, more because I couldn't believe any of it was really happening.
The shoes brought it home to me though,… the enormity it. Whatever had happened between Annie and I, the love I felt for the children was the same - it was instinctive and unconditional. Eleanor was right, I'd always be their father, but I was terrified if I was not around, they would forget me. I wanted to take the shoes with me as a sort of anchor. I mean they had to be a part of me didn't they, if I had their shoes? But Alan who'd looked on calmly throughout, became suddenly nervous.
"It's only a pair of shoes," I said but he stood up to me, his voice reverberating with all his boardroom bossiness. No way was I taking those bloody shoes and then as I emerged from my momentary madness, I saw it all: they weren't simply my children. There was a greater picture to be considered. They were his grandchildren, an integral part of the lives of Annie's family. I could squabble all I wanted over the Biggles books and my Joni Mitchel CD's but the children were a different matter. They were to be kept out of this, out of harm's way, out of my way if necessary; protected; best interests and all that. We could be amicable all we liked but mention the children and things would get very nasty, very quickly indeed.
I looked at the shoes as if I were looking at their faces. Why didn't I have a more recent photograph of my children?
"For fuck's sake," said Phil. "Leave em."
I came away with my Biggles books and my Joni Mitchel CD's and my bicycle and my printer and my CD ROMs and a half dozen bin bags containing my clothes and books and other bits and bobs, most of which I could probably have thrown away. In parting Alan offered me his hand which I took a moment to shake.
"Truly, I am sorry," he said, and I think on reflection, he was.
"Tell Annie there'll be an estate agent round tomorrow to value the house," I said. "I'm staying at my dad's for a bit until she sorts herself out. I suppose she'll be moving in with this Alistair chap. Only she didn't say,… "
The Road From Langholm Avenue Page 2