Mix Tape

by Jane Sanderson

  There was a low knock on the bedroom door. Bill ignored it, and a woman’s voice, unknown to him, said, ‘Mr Lawrence, it’s Alison.’

  He said nothing, because it was always easiest, but she came in anyway; he heard her approach. A nurse, perhaps? Or another one of those cheerful women from the day centre, with an invitation to sit and say nothing there, rather than sit and say nothing here.

  A hand on his shoulder, a soft kiss on his cheek, the lightest touch of her hair on his face like the feathers of a prize racer grazing his skin. He looked up and saw at once it was Alison Connor. He watched as she pulled Marion’s chair from the dressing table and sat as close to him as she could be.

  ‘I knew you’d come back,’ he said, the words rolling like small pebbles off his tongue, heavy and a little misshapen. She lifted his hand and held it, and with her thumb she made small stroking movements, very tender, very loving.

  ‘I’m sorry it took me so long,’ she said.

  ‘I knew you’d come back,’ he said again, practising the words, the first he’d uttered for six months. The doctor called it selective mutism, but Bill – had he spoken – would’ve disagreed. It was simpler than that. He just never heard anything that justified the effort of a response. All his life, he’d enjoyed silence, and the less you said, the less you had to listen to. By now, it no longer felt natural to speak, but it felt very natural to sit beside Alison like this. He’d forgotten a lot of the detail of his life, but he remembered as if it were yesterday the first time she’d visited his loft and the first time she’d handled one of his birds without panicking, and, always, that respectful way of listening to him talk about the pigeons, with no mockery in her eyes, only concentration. A kind, quiet, genuine girl. He’d been waiting for her to come back for donkey’s years.

  ‘Like one of your homing pigeons,’ she said. ‘Like Clover.’

  His failing eyes brimmed with ready tears, and she said, ‘Oh, Mr Lawrence, forgive me, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ but he shook his head, and although he didn’t manage to frame the words, she understood from his expression that he wasn’t sad, he was only overcome. Alison talked to him then, in her new voice. She told him every single detail she remembered about his pigeon loft, everything she’d loved about those brave, clever, dignified birds, and all the things he’d taught her about them. She named them, counting them off on her fingers, and she talked about Clover flying home six hundred miles from Lerwick, about Violet and Vincent, his breeding pair of Flash Pied Emperors, and what made them champions, how he’d known from the light in their eyes and the slope of their shoulders that they were going to be winners. Mr Lawrence tilted his head upwards, closed his eyes, and listened to her in a kind of bliss, the way some people lose themselves in music, or others lift their faces to the warm, repetitive balm of tropical rain.

  When Marion came in with tea in her best china mugs, she was stilled and silenced by what she saw. She placed the tea on the nearest surface and walked soundlessly from the room. Outside, on the landing, she allowed herself the release of what she called a good cry, but she did so only for a short while, and very quietly, so as not to disturb the tryst, then she took off her shoes and trod lightly downstairs in her stockinged feet, pausing between steps like she used to do when her children were fractious babies, and mustn’t be disturbed from their daytime naps.

  ‘What’ve you told Alex?’ Marion asked Dan.

  ‘An edited version of the truth,’ he said. ‘Katelin’d already involved him anyway, months ago, when I first told her about Alison.’

  She shook her head in a weary, defeated way that irritated him.

  ‘Do you remember throwing Alison’s letters away? The ones she sent from Paris?’

  ‘When? I’ve not thrown away anything of yours!’ But she coloured, giving herself away.

  ‘Thirty years ago, I think you did.’

  ‘Oh, thirty years,’ Marion said dismissively.

  ‘What? It doesn’t count after thirty years?’

  ‘You were only kids. I did what I thought was best.’ She hadn’t ever erased that memory, though, and there’d been something lasting and terrible about destroying those three unopened airmail letters, addressed to Daniel in Alison’s tidy italics. ‘You were very upset, Daniel, and I couldn’t see how passing on her letters would’ve helped you.’

  ‘It was wrong of you,’ Dan said, and Marion said, ‘It seems it now, but it didn’t then.’

  ‘Oh, well, anyway,’ Dan said, relenting. ‘I’m not here to give you a hard time, Mum.’

  ‘I’m worried for you, though,’ she said. ‘All this hoo-ha, it’s upsetting.’

  ‘Try not to think too much about it. Trust me to sort out my own life.’ He was making a lasagne, the sort of dish Marion liked to eat but never made. She watched him layering ragu, pasta, béchamel, and marvelled as she always did at a man who could cook, not that she’d ever given Bill a chance to. Not that he’d ever asked.

  ‘How can I not think about it? My grandson’s caught up in it all.’

  ‘Alex is pretty mature, Mum, he’s living his life, getting on with things, and I speak to him whenever he wants to speak to me. He’s going to be fine.’

  ‘Going to be?’ Marion said. ‘So he’s not fine now?’

  ‘Look, no kid ever wants anything to change,’ he said. ‘No kid ever wants to have to think about their parents’ lives at all, let alone their sex lives.’

  ‘Daniel!’

  ‘Sorry, but it’s true, right?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t know,’ she said. ‘But I never gave you three anything to worry about, I do know that.’

  ‘You didn’t.’ He smiled at her, but she wasn’t quite ready to smile back.

  ‘It hasn’t been easy being married to your dad.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘But I stayed, didn’t I? I didn’t have to, but I stayed.’

  He slid the lasagne into the oven and shut the door quickly on the gust of escaping heat. ‘Well, I hope you did that for yourself as well as for me and Claire and Joe?’ he said. ‘Because none of us would’ve asked you to be unhappy on our behalf.’

  She wagged her head, non-committal, and said, ‘I haven’t been unhappy. I’m just saying don’t assume I haven’t been flattered by other offers.’

  ‘God, Mum, I’d never assume that,’ he said, grinning. ‘But if you’re talking about that randy old goat Wilf Barnes, I’d say you’ve had a lucky escape. He’d still be chasing you round the bedroom at ninety-five.’

  She laughed at this, unable to help herself. ‘No, you cheeky devil,’ she said, flapping her hands at him. ‘I do not mean Wilf Barnes.’ She didn’t know who she meant, really; there’d never been any feasible alternative to what she had, no one to tempt her from the straight and narrow. She just wanted Dan to know that she’d done her very best, for all of them.

  ‘Well, look.’ He folded his arms and looked at her with profound affection, and she waited to see what he had to say, full of faith, because he was Daniel, her precious youngest child, the gift she hadn’t expected, the late blessing. ‘I for one am deeply grateful you stayed with Dad, because I don’t know what would’ve become of him if you hadn’t. I do know what you’re saying, Mum. I do understand, and I’m not walking away lightly, and I won’t let Alex and Katelin down, any more than I already have. But you must be able to see yourself, already, that there’s something one hundred per cent right about Alison? Can you not see that? How well she fits?’

  Marion considered this for a while before answering. ‘I can see that, yes,’ she said. ‘She’s a lovely woman, and she has a way with your dad that nobody else does. But she’s left somebody in Australia, I expect?’

  ‘Her husband, Michael.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘Two daughters, both adults.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘Well then, what?’

  ‘Well then, I’m saying yes, I can see how lovely she is, but, Daniel, it doesn’t mean I approve.�
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  ‘OK,’ Dan said. ‘Understood.’

  Claire came around like a shot when Marion told her about their visitor, and her blithe, non-judgemental, slightly child-like interest in Alison was a relief at dinner, because although Bill looked a good deal happier, he still ate his lasagne as if he had a train to catch, and was as silent as he ever had been, while Marion was wrestling too much with worry to be entirely relaxed. Claire, though: she bounced into the house like Tigger, with indiscriminate scatter-gun enthusiasm and a kind of comfortable, pleasing inanity. Claire had gained a lot of padding over the years, but she was as carefully put together as ever, well groomed and fragrant, and had probably made an extra little effort before turning up tonight to reacquaint herself with Alison. Hair, make-up, nails: all glossy and immaculate. She wore a startling yellow tailored jacket that demanded comment, and when Ali admired it, Claire immediately took it off and said, ‘Try it on, it’s MaxMara, fifty per cent off at House of Fraser.’ She wasn’t fazed at all that here was her brother, without Katelin. It was as if all that mattered to her, all that counted, was the here and now. Alison Connor? Great!

  ‘God’s sake, Claire,’ Dan said, ‘you’re three sizes bigger than her,’ but Ali shot him a look and said, ‘Go on then,’ to Claire, and put the jacket on, and yes, it was far too big, but Claire couldn’t care less, she just bunched in the excess fabric at the back and said, ‘Suits you! Aren’t you slim though! They’ve got small ones still, if you want one, they’re always the ones left, all them eights and sixes, like the shoes, it’s always tiny threes and fours that are left, but I’m a seven in shoes and a fourteen slash sixteen in clothes, and round here those big sizes go first, I have to be quick off the mark.’

  This was all very hard to follow, but then off Claire went on another tangent, this time about her neighbour’s new book club, and would Ali be in Sheffield long enough to go next month to their first meeting and talk about Tell the Story, Sing the Song?

  ‘Claire,’ Dan said, before Ali could answer, ‘pipe down.’

  ‘Oops, sorry,’ she said, all smiles. ‘Big gob, me, I do go on, but it’s lovely to see you, Alison, I suppose I’m just over-excited, it’s a big event, you turning up, famous author, y’know.’ Daniel caught her eye. ‘Sorry,’ she said again, and she applied herself to her lasagne, trying to look contrite.

  ‘No, it’s fine, Claire, honestly,’ Ali said, ‘and it’s really lovely to see you too; I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but I’ll come if I can,’ and Claire said, ‘I can’t get over your Australian accent,’ and then she blushed in case this sounded stupid, but Ali only laughed. She was remembering the pleasure Claire had given her the first time they’d met; how she’d painted Alison’s nails the same shade of pink as her own, how she’d admired her hair, how open she’d been, and affectionate. Claire was entirely without guile, as lovable now as she’d been then. Daniel thought his sister was inexcusably daft, but Ali, miraculously back among the Lawrences, knew for certain that he didn’t know how lucky he was to have a family such as this one; a family to get irritated with, to depend upon, to be loved by and to love. He took them for granted – my parents are right where I left them – but it was a lifetime’s abundance of love that informed this casual complacency, the rock-solid security, the unshakable assumptions about the permanence of familial love and support.

  Alison observed them at the table, comfortable in their habitat, and she knew that nothing would ever stop them loving each other, even this present upheaval, about which Marion really wasn’t sure. Ali could see from her shifting eyes and uncertain smiles that she was troubled and wary, and fair enough, she was entitled to be, she had Daniel’s happiness to worry about, and Alison’s track record to date had been lamentable. Oh, to have a mother as vigilant and steadfast as Marion! Ali glanced at her, and saw the concern in her face, and the corresponding irritation in Daniel’s, and she wanted to say, ‘Be good to her, it’s only that she loves you,’ and at the same time she wondered if she could ever win Marion Lawrence’s trust. She doubted there were enough years left to accomplish such a task, but what a worthy endeavour, what a prize it would be.

  The Northern General at 7.45 a.m. was less busy than it’d been the previous afternoon, which was a blessing, because Ali needed to see every single face that emerged from the interior doors and corridors beyond the entrance where she stood, shivering slightly in the morning chill, trying to ignore her churning gut and pattering heartbeat. Seriously, she was almost bored by these symptoms of high anxiety. Marion, knowing what the morning held, had offered her a Valium first thing – a Valium and a cup of tea – and she wished now that she’d accepted it, because a mellow glow of unconcern would be a special kind of state. But she needed to be alert, couldn’t risk befuddlement even if it brought with it a sort of comfort. As it was, she felt more than alert, hyper-alert, her senses lean and limber, straining towards their goal, although the truth was that she didn’t even know if she’d know him, if this Peter Connor was her brother. She had no photographs of him, only memories, three decades old. But she hoped that if the man she was waiting for was her Peter, he might recognise his only sister – he had photographs, after all. He had had photographs, anyway; it was possible, Ali admitted to herself, that he had them no longer. But assuming it was him, and assuming he knew her on sight, then his instant look of recognition would reveal his identity to Ali, and she need never let him know that she’d forgotten his dear face, after far too long away. That is, if he hadn’t already scarpered to avoid her, through a staff entrance at the back.

  It was lonely, standing there waiting. She missed Daniel’s courage, and his ease, but he’d dropped her off at the hospital gates and then left her to it, because this was between Alison and Peter. He was coming back at nine.

  The big clock on the wall stared at her and took its time. Slowed down. Went backwards.

  She scrutinised everyone, men and women alike. Some of them stared back with a challenge in their eyes, and she quickly looked away.

  A loud burst of laughter took her by surprise, offended her almost. This seemed no place for hilarity.

  Quarter past the hour.

  A man ran past her holding a child, and the child was screaming and bleeding from the forehead, and their arrival created a small, contained tornado of efficient activity, sweeping them into privacy, calming the child, calming the father.

  Twenty-five past eight, and he wasn’t here, and Ali realised that she had no idea how long was too long to stand and wait.

  This plan felt flimsy now, and ill-begotten. Too many variables.

  Hope was a demon, but hopelessness was worse.

  She thought about Peter, aged sixteen, on his first day at work, sent to the workshop by the foreman for a long stand, but it’d just been a trick, a laugh at the rookie’s expense. They let him stand for an hour and then sent him packing, and when he told Alison later, she’d cried at the injustice, but he’d laughed and tweaked her ear, and told her to grow a thicker skin, because she’d need it.

  There was a man, tall, round-shouldered, grey-haired. He was standing still, searching for someone and, with no real faith, Ali stepped forwards, raising her arm, but his eyes skimmed across her face to settle on another woman, waiting nearby on a plastic chair, flicking through a magazine. ‘Maureen,’ he said loudly, and the woman looked up, stood up and, without smiling, said, ‘Quick, I’ve only got five minutes left on that ticket.’ Ali watched them leave, then turned her face inwards again. Quarter to nine. She’d been here an hour now, and Peter wasn’t coming, was he? Disappointment was the only thing keeping her there: a great weight of disappointment, too heavy to drag all the way outside. Five more minutes she waited, and then ten, fifteen, twenty, and at five past nine she decided that at quarter past she would leave, because Dan would already be back, parked somewhere along Herries Road, waiting for her.

  She watched the hands of the clock, and at nine fifteen, she turned her back on all her dashed hope, and walked
outside down the steps, and it was then that she heard Peter’s voice calling her name, although it was more than a call, it was a bellow, a wild and feral roar, as if all of Sheffield needed to know he was looking for her. She turned and saw him before he saw her. He was standing just within the open doors, scanning the faces around and about him with frantic, disorganised haste, and it turned out she’d have known him anywhere, she could have picked him out of a crowd of thousands. She felt a great surge of emotion, a wave of wonder, and relief, and a kind of fear, which caught in her throat because when she tried to shout his name, nothing happened, no words would come. He looked desperately anxious; she could see him losing confidence, and she could hardly bear it, so she just ran at him, and he saw her then – everyone did; everyone turned to watch the woman run up the steps to the man, and they saw the man open his arms and wrap them around her, and lift her off her feet. Then they cried and laughed and clung to each other, so that the people watching them looked away, to give them a kind of privacy on this garishly public stage.

  ‘Peter, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ was the first thing Alison said when she found her voice, and he held her face, and looked down at her.

  ‘There’s nowt to be sorry for,’ he said, and his voice was breaking with joy. ‘Nowt at all. I’m sorry, I couldn’t get away, I thought you’d be gone.’

  ‘I found you,’ she said, amazed, incredulous.

  ‘You found me. Were you going, just then?’

  ‘Only for a little while. I was coming back. I would’ve come back every day, to find out if you were the right Peter Connor.’

  ‘How did you …?’

  ‘Mr Higgins, one of your asthma clinic men.’

  He nodded at this, unfazed by life’s coincidences, and they stared at each other, smiling idiotically, and all the pressing questions they each still had to ask were crowding round them, unanswered. Later, later.

  Ali thought: My brother, how I love him, but she didn’t say this, because, well, this was Peter, and they didn’t talk about love.