One Day, Someday

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  We stand and watch the penguins gliding by for a while. The sun is making millions of little spangles on the water.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says suddenly.

  I turn from the rail to look at him. ‘Sorry?’ I ask. ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘Sorry for being so tetchy with you earlier. It wasn’t fair. Am I forgiven?’

  Irritation at myself wells in my throat. ‘There’s no need to apologize. Really,’ I answer. ‘It’s me who was being tetchy. And you’re right. I was making assumptions. All of them unwarranted. My fault, not yours. So the apology should be mine.’

  And, of course, I wish now that I’d got down off my carefully constructed pedestal and been the one to make it. Why didn’t I do that?

  ‘No, no,’ he persists, as if aware of what I’m thinking and anxious that I don’t. ‘I was winding you up. I was being grouchy with you. It was a perfectly valid observation and you made it in all innocence. So I’m sorry. Friends again?’

  He’s now standing in front of me, plaster aloft and holding out both arms towards me, and for an instant I have a mind to surprise him and step into them. It feels like so long since anyone’s given me a proper hug. But something stops me, and the moment passes. God, why is it that I can never do this sort of stuff?

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ I say instead. ‘You’re always apologizing to me. Being generous. When it’s me who’s at fault here. You were right, you know. I was being sniffy. I was—’

  ‘Whoa! Enough!’ The arms go up in the air now, so I’ve missed my chance to have them round me anyway.

  ‘I’m the grouchy one round here!’ he says sternly. ‘My job, got it? So stop muscling in on my territory, will you, woman?’ He lifts a finger dramatically. I notice a couple of heads turn nearby. He winks. ‘And, good God,’ he booms, ‘can’t a man have a stab at a bit of a grovel without - oh, my Lord! You’re not about to start bursting into tears all over me again, are you?’

  ‘I’m not! I’m not!’ I pull my tissue from my pocket and shake my head wildly. ‘I’m just … I’m just … aah … aah … atchoo!

  Now his arms do go round me, in some sort of fashion, though the plaster goes ‘thunk’ against my right ear. ‘Well, thank Christ for that!’ he says firmly.

  I don’t know if it’s the fish in the aquarium that pinched them, but by the end of the afternoon, the scales seem to have fallen from my eyes. By the time we arrive for our tea date at four thirty, Leo and Angharad seem to have got over their little spat (an incident, Simeon confided to me earlier, involving access to, and denial of, the curly-wurly slide, some shouting, some taunts and a lightly scratched forearm) and it’s Magnums all round and a pot of tea for four. Joe’s nieces (ex-nieces?) are whisked off into the wood-chipping paradise with our three, and conversation of the news-and-weather kind ensues. We are properly introduced (he a retired corporate accountant, she a part-time occupational therapist) and Joe explains that I used to be a teacher and that I’m only working for him temporarily before taking some time out to pursue my real ambition, which is to do a degree in fine art. And he says it smilingly. Nicely. As if he approves of the idea. Which makes me want to burst into tears, for some reason, even more so when David enthuses so wholeheartedly about it and wonders why more people don’t consider doing likewise, then tells us both, with unabashed, genuine pleasure how he’s currently engrossed in his second year OU course and how fired up about geology he is.

  ‘Mind you,’ confides Liz, sotto voce, ‘that may have more than a little to do with the fact that there’s a rather luscious forty-something attending the tutorials too. Charlie Simpson, Joe? You know her, don’t you? Married that GP recently?’

  Joe smiles and nods. ‘Adam Jones,’ he says. ‘Yes, of course. And didn’t someone tell me they had some sort of wedding blessing in the Himalayas?’

  All of which reminds me that it’s Joe they’re here to see, and I don’t want to dilute their evident enjoyment in doing so, much less their chance to catch up after what is clearly a long while, so I suggest that, if Joe wouldn’t mind keeping half an eye on the boys for me, it might be an idea if I go off to the gift shop to plunder the postcard stand before the last-minute rush.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he comments, as we begin the long hike back up to our car-parking space on the top of the downs. ‘You’re wondering how two such lovely people managed to produce Rhiannon, aren’t you?’

  I listen for traces of antagonism, but, of course, there are none. Why do I see these things everywhere anyway? ‘I wasn’t, actually,’ I tell him, ‘because it’s never that simple, is it? I don’t doubt Rhiannon has all sorts of fine qualities,’ he inclines his head slowly at this, ‘but that she simply didn’t turn out to be the woman for you.’

  ‘Or vice versa, perhaps?’

  I’m aware that he’s turned and is watching me as I walk, and I can’t help but feel there is still a great deal that I don’t know. But I don’t want to revisit that territory again today. However cheerful his tone. And neither does he, it seems. He volunteers nothing further. ‘Whatever,’ I say lightly. ‘But what I was actually thinking was how very sad it all is. You know, families and so on. Break-ups.’

  He swings the empty cool-bag up on to his shoulder. ‘Sad’s about right,’ he agrees. ‘I’ll have to tell you all about it sometime. But not right now, huh? Wouldn’t want to spoil such a beautiful day.’

  By the time we get back to Cardiff, there is a palpable air of celebration in the air, as it has come to light on the journey home that not only does Angharad have Tomb Raider Three for her PC, but that she also has a Scalextric set, laid out, just like in storybook families, on a huge landscaped table in Joe’s loft.

  ‘Wow, that is just so mega!’ exclaims Leo. Through the rear-view mirror I can see Angharad’s glowing expression. She is practically puffed up with pride. ‘Can we see it? Can we? Can we? Can we play on it? Can we?’

  ‘Leo! Simeon! How many times have I told you? We don’t invite ourselves into people’s houses. It’s very rude and you’re both old enough to know better.’

  ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ says Joe. ‘But it’s up to your mum,’ he adds diplomatically. ‘She may want to get you home. She may want to get home herself. It’s been a long day and she’s got a cold and—’

  ‘And Joe might have had about enough of you two for one day, don’t you think?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he replies. ‘You’re more than welcome. But,’ he turns to me, ‘if you’d rather not, that’s fine, Lu. You’ve already let us hijack your outing as it is, and—’

  ‘Nonsense, Joe. We didn’t mind in the least. We’ve had a lovely day, haven’t we, boys?’ They obediently mumble assent. ‘But I’m sure the last thing you want is these two thundering up your stairs, and laying waste to—’

  ‘No, no, Lu,’ he continues. ‘It’s up to you. It’s up to your mum, boys, OK?’

  Oh, rats rats rats rats rats. I hate this. Why do children do this sort of thing? It’s so embarrassing. And, God, how I loathe these conversations. What does he mean ‘she may want to get you home’? Does he mean that he wants us to come in or that he doesn’t? And when he says ‘if you’d rather not’ is he dropping a hint or just being polite? Or what? Does he or doesn’t he? Should we or shouldn’t we?

  Angharad leans forward in her seat and taps Joe on the shoulder. ‘Daddy, tell them,’ she says. ‘Tell them they’ve got to. You’ve got to come in,’ she explains to the rest of us, ‘because Daddy’s already got tea for us all.’

  Ah. Well, at least I’m embarrassed on someone else’s account now. Which is something. And, boy, is he embarrassed! He’s not blushing as such, but I just know his toes are curling. Oh, bless him.

  So in we crunch, on to his pea-gravel, pillar-flanked, in-and-out drive, and the Jag seems to purr like a cat by a fireside. If it could speak I’m quite sure it would be saying, ‘Ah! Home! And about bloody time, woman!’ Except it wouldn’t, of course, because it’s a car of good breeding and
would consider it impolite.

  I haven’t been inside Joe’s house before, but straight away I can see it’s the kind of place that, were it for sale, would merit a full-page colour ad in the ‘Homes of Character’ slot in the local paper. For it is huge. And what people tend to refer to as ‘well appointed’. I don’t know what ‘well appointed’ means, quite, but it has bronze plug sockets and bronze door plates and deep skirting-boards and ceiling roses everywhere. I picture Rhiannon and I wonder if they lived here together as a family, because it feels very much like a family home. It has a square central hall with a big chandelier in it, a wide turning staircase and dozens of doors. Well, OK, not dozens, but my initial sweep takes in at least seven, one of which is actually two doors - of the kind people used to fit in the arch of their through lounge so they could say they had a separate dining room. We hover here in quiet humility for some seconds, the boys finally calling their manners to order and awaiting instructions about trainer deposition, until Angharad flings her own footwear back out on to the doorstep and Joe says, ‘Go on, then,’ which leaves only us.

  ‘Shall we sit in the garden?’ he suggests.

  He opens the double doors on to a spacious living room. A room for which the Roomaround budget would barely have stretched to redecorate a corner. Two sofas, two armchairs, all leather and squidgy, plus another set of double doors that opens on to the garden.

  It’s then that I notice the painting. Oof!

  Not that you could fail to. It hangs above the stone fireplace, elegantly framed, and with a little brass hooded strip-light fixed above it. It’s a print, of course, because the original hangs in the museum. At the far end of gallery sixteen.

  Joe is standing behind and slightly to the right of me. I can smell grass and sunshine. I can’t see his grin but I can hear it in his voice.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asks. ‘It’s called Running Away With the Hairdresser. And the thing that’s always struck me about it is who exactly is who, you know?’

  Oh, God. ‘Uurgh. I’m so embarrassed,’ I say.

  He laughs his big laugh. He is finding this far funnier than I am. ‘No need,’ he assures me, tugging off his jacket, ‘but blush away. It suits you.’

  As if I have a choice. ‘But you never said you knew it. That you had it.’

  ‘Er, correction.’ He chortles. ‘You never gave me a chance.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish!’

  ‘You were far too busy enthusing at me. Which was fine, Lu.’ He puts a hand on my shoulder and grins at me. ‘I didn’t mind. And by the time you’d finished enthusing about it, well, it would have been very churlish of me to own up, wouldn’t it? I didn’t want to embarrass you.’

  I turn round, nettled at his relentlessly mirthful tone. Were the boot on the other foot … plus I don’t quite recall it like this. And I certainly recall the conversation we had straight after.

  ‘Well, I’m embarrassed now instead,’ I retort. ‘You must think I’m—’

  ‘In need of a reviving cup of tea after a very long drive.’ His hand is still on my shoulder and he squeezes it gently. He doesn’t want to fight about it. Why would he? ‘So why don’t you sit in the garden, while I go and put the kettle on, eh?’

  ‘I’ll come and help you.’

  ‘No, no. I can manage.’

  ‘Yes, but wouldn’t it—’

  ‘I can manage, Lu.’

  The terrace outside the living room (drawing room?) is cosy and decked and full of scrambling climbers. Clematis, passion-flower, honeysuckle and ivy, all rising from indigo-glazed terracotta pots. There’s a circular teak table and two robust-looking steamer chairs, the latter plump with expensive stripy green cushions. Once I’m out here, I can see the full extent of the garden, which rolls down and away from the house, and is reached via a short flight of steps that are set into the grass.

  And it’s some garden. There is a wide sweep of neatly cut lawn, edged with shrub-filled borders, and another, much larger, patio area below and to the right of us, strewn with the abandoned evidence of Angharad’s occupation: a football, a skipping-rope, a little silver micro-scooter, plus more garden furniture, this time in slightly moss-fuzzed white plastic, including the sort of table you could get a rugby team round. Not that he does, I suspect. For all its size and opulence it has the look of a garden that has been left quietly to itself, that has matured, with little input, for quite a long time. There aren’t any flowers except the ones on the terrace, no gay lines of bedding, no baskets, no pots.

  I sit down in one of the chairs and gaze out over the fuggy Cardiff skyline, a little tired, a little agitated, a little awed and out of place.

  Eventually he clatters in with two mugs in one hand and a packet of chocolate biscuits clamped under his arm.

  I get up to take the mugs from him. One is slopping over the side a little and on to his hand. ‘Oh, Joe, you should have let me give you a hand with those.’

  ‘I told you. I can manage.’

  I put the mugs down on the table for him and take the biscuits from him. ‘And I hope you haven’t gone to a lot of trouble. There was really no need.’

  He sits down heavily beside me and parks his plastered elbow on the arm of his chair. ‘No trouble.’ He glances at me. ‘So don’t fret. Just got a few cakes in and so on. She’s a sociable soul, my little girl, and she wanted to have a tea party. And, well, what with her being my only child, I like to indulge her a bit. Anyway,’ he picks up his mug, ‘cheers! Thanks for a lovely day, Lu.’

  ‘It’s been a pleasure,’ I say. I sip my tea, and, goodness, I find I mean it. Who would have thought it, eh?

  Which makes what happens after such a bitch. Such a bitch. Oh, why does life have to be so unfair? OK, I know it’s a cliché, and I know it was never written anywhere that life wasn’t going to be unfair from time to time, but haven’t I had my fair share of it? Haven’t I? And, OK, I know that makes me sound like I’m feeling sorry for myself when I have no particular right to, and I know it was my own fault anyway, mostly, and I also know that I deserved it. But, oh, damn. Damn and blast it.

  ‘Crisis,’ says Simeon, who has suddenly appeared at the French doors, small scarlet Marlboro Maclaren in hand. ‘The track came apart at the bank by the grandstand, and Angharad didn’t know how to fix it all back. And Leo said he did but he doesn’t, and now a bit of the chicane has come undone too, and Angharad’s crying and says we can’t play any more, and could you fix it, please?’

  Joe parks his mug then pulls himself upright. He smiles at me. ‘All in a day’s work,’ he says.

  After ten minutes have passed I wonder quite how much time Angharad actually spends playing with her Scalextric set, and how much more time Joe probably does. When Angharad herself appears and plonks herself down beside me, her expression confirms it.

  ‘Has Dad fixed it?’ I ask her.

  She takes a biscuit from the packet and nods. ‘They’re all playing on it now,’ she says, with the air of someone for whom the dreary inevitability of boring cars and boring boys and there being no fun to be had from either was only ever a matter of time. ‘I’m no good at racing,’ she adds. ‘I always go too fast and crash.’ A little like Joe, I think. A lot like me. ‘So,’ she goes on, ‘I thought I’d come down and see you instead. Shall we have tea out here?’

  ‘Yes, why not?’ I follow her back inside and into the kitchen.

  ‘I decided we’d have scones,’ she says, bustling straight into action. There are two little pink spots on her face, one on each cheek. ‘I wanted to make some,’ she tells me. ‘We did them at school last week, and I know how to make them, but Daddy said it would take too long so we bought some in Sainsbury’s this morning instead. Do you like scones? We got some strawberry jam and squirty cream to go with them.’

  ‘That sounds lovely,’ I say. ‘Now, what would you like me to do?’

  There are all sorts of packets of things on the worktop. As well as the scones there are mini rolls, chocolate fingers, grapes, little bridg
e rolls, packets of Hula Hoops, yet more Jaffa Cakes. She gathers them all up out of the way, and gets out a breadboard and knife.

  ‘You could put stuff on plates, I suppose,’ she says. ‘They’re in the cupboard over there.’

  And near the cupboard, in the corner, there stands a bucket. And in the bucket there is water. And in the water there are flowers. Lots of flowers. Tightly furled peachy roses and lemon lisianthus and cream Brompton stocks, all standing to attention in their Cellophane bags.

  ‘Gosh, look at all these,’ I remark, getting the plates out. I know, even then, that something is amiss.

  She pauses in her cutting. ‘Oh, those,’ she says. ‘They were supposed to be for you. Daddy got them as a thank-you present. But it’s all right.’ She glances at me. ‘I know you don’t want them.’

  My mouth drops open. But while I struggle to make sense of what she has just said she goes back to her work, carefully splitting each little scone round and lining them up in a neat row on the bread board. There is a flush spreading across her cheeks. She puts down the knife and turns to look at me. ‘But why don’t you want them?’ she asks forlornly. ‘Is it because you hate him?’ There are tears welling up in her eyes now and I don’t know quite what to say or do.

  I cross the room, plates in hand, and put my arm around her. ‘What on earth makes you think that, Angharad? Of course I don’t hate him. I like him very much.’ I hug her. ‘Very much.’

  She looks visibly relieved. So much so that I wonder how much hate for her father she has to live with on a daily basis. I put down the plates and pull off a piece of kitchen roll for her.

  ‘Leo said … Leo said that if Daddy gave you those flowers you would be really cross with him. He said you said you’d shove them up his bottom.’

  ‘Oh, Angharad, that’s ridiculous! Why on earth would I want to do that? They’re lovely flowers. And it was very, very thoughtful of Daddy to get them for me.’

  She sniffs and wipes her face with the kitchen roll. ‘That’s what I said. He’s just being a stupid boy, isn’t he?’