When they had left, at last, I called: ‘Anja, you OK? Paul and Maureen have just gone. Did you hear them?’
‘Oh, right. Sorry,’ she said.
She was coming out of my office when I reached her.
‘All done!’ she said, and I followed her back down, counted her money out of my purse and rounded it up to the nearest tenner.
‘I haven’t got change. Don’t worry about it. Get yourself a coffee,’ I said.
‘Thanks, Mags. See you later!’ And off she skipped.
She sometimes stayed on for a chat. Not that time.
I switched on my computer, the swipes of her cloth still visible on the screen in the final seconds of blackness. The BBC homepage appeared, surprising me again. She had set it all up, and was right, I did like to see the headlines and the weather and a list of all the top TV that I might enjoy. Its currentness thrilled me. Breaking News appearing as I watched. I sat there, sometimes, waiting for something to happen before my eyes, but it hadn’t yet. It made me feel part of it all, which I suppose was the point. I never clicked beyond that surface page.
She had organised me entirely over a fortnight, creating a bank of folders to sit on my desktop – largely empty – though I planned to get to it soon. ‘Personal’, ‘Travel’, ‘Photos’, though I had none, and a place for passwords, not that we named it as such. We had chosen instead ‘Pet Stuff’, another of her smart ideas. She offered to help with some physical filing too, but I said no to that.
I caught up with work, a mail from Nancy dated last week, and typed all afternoon, a few hours lost, not in someone else’s problems, as Paul had once suggested, but in the simplest pursuit of accuracy. What about confidentiality? he asked. Did I ever know a person whose notes I’d typed? Did it make things hard? Truth was, I was barely aware of what I wrote and remembered nothing when it was done. The process is wall-eyed, deaf-eared, that’s why I like it. The dog sat on my feet while I worked and when I had finished I took him out, just us, and felt the muscle of my brain unclench and ease.
I threw sticks, and wondered what Buster thought of as he ran and whether it would be possible to repeat this action until he tired of it. It was always me who abandoned the game and, sure enough, my shoulder tightened and I found I’d had enough. It took him a while to work this out.
He came to me, dropped the stick at my foot but I stepped over it, pretending not to see. A dog is an optimist – he will keep on trying. It took four rejections, four times that he watched me walk away, took the stick in his mouth and left the thing, once more, clear in my path. Head at forty-five degrees, ears stiff, tense in his efforts to communicate. Finally he let out a short surprising bark but when that didn’t work, he understood. He left the stick, emptied of its magic, and took his place close by me, trotting evenly, his head and back and tail in a long low line. I talked to him, which brought his nose higher, and then he found a smell and was off, all forgiven.
We passed by the cafe on our route back home, but no one sat out at this hour. I wondered about the woman I had seen, if she had someone to go home to, unlike my mother. Unlike me.
‘So few men in your life,’ Chris once said, back when each other’s pasts seemed meaningful. We might even have been in bed. He knew there was no father or brothers and assumed the rest, and was right, as it happened. I think he liked the idea that I was missing something that he could provide. Thing is, I never felt it as a lack.
There was another prospect for my mother, once, some time in my early teens. A neighbour died, making her husband available; my aunts brought the news in low serious voices broken up by the occasional whooped syllable that left me shocked, close to offended. He was nice, Archie Brown; my mum and he took a couple of walks and he joined us for a scrubbed and silent Sunday lunch, but in the end he chose a woman from his church. My mother sobbed bitterly when she heard; Fran only this time, Bet unsuited to that job.
‘It’s all his fault,’ she shouted, and I knew she meant my father, for he had died in the pub – a heart attack, mind – and a rotten piece of luck, as he rarely drank but his father had, and mud stuck. She was good for no man after that. Our surname, Benson, carried my grandfather’s disgrace and they were pleased for me when I threw it off.
‘Kent, you’ll be a Kent,’ Bettie cried, when I told them of my engagement. ‘The garden of England! Well how about that!’
She was prone to silliness and, as it turned out, of course, the name was only on loan.
I was tired by the time I got home and couldn’t be bothered with dinner. Ate some cheese on toast with mustard and a splash of Worcestershire sauce. A couple of glasses of a decent Rioja. Switched the radio on low and got back into a book of good historical fiction. Thick socks and my toes as close to the fire as I could stand – mid-October by then, but still not cold enough to warrant it. Now and again the dog gave great big blows of satisfaction in his sleep, and I knew what he meant.
A good day; simple, solitary, absorbing. I remembered why I’d chosen my life, and reminded myself to keep hold of it.
19
Paul called, worried about Anja.
‘She seems down, Mags, have you noticed?’
Peter had taken her to one of the Tates but she held her coat to her the whole way round and said nothing, except that she found it weird. He thought it might be the crowds, or the scale of the thing.
When I had asked, she said she’d had a great time.
They think she might be lonely. In need of friends her own age. Paul had mentioned it but she said: ‘No way. I like to be alone. Or with you guys, of course.’
He sounded anxious on the phone. I could hear him moving through his house, the change in space as he passed from room to room. He told me that Anja and Peter had talked, when they were out; loosely, at an adjunct, but that he had learnt more about her life, what had happened. It was as horrible as you might imagine, but Peter would not repeat it; said it felt wrong, prurient even, to pass it on.
‘I agree with him though, don’t you?’ Paul said, but his hurt sounded louder. ‘Have you seen that bruise, on the inside of her arm? It looks like fingermarks.’
I hadn’t but I told him she marks easily, as she had told me.
‘Do the two of you. Go over those things?’
I said I didn’t ask, or want to know. I thought about it though, when I got him off the phone, what it was that Anja and I discussed, and saw that it was mostly me and that maybe this was odd. I talked about the simpler times. Let her hide in that version of my life for a while.
‘Tell me about your aunties, which was the one that did the cartwheels?’ she would cry.
Bet, fifty-one when I last saw her and could still turn three in a row on the grass behind the promenade at Hove.
‘You belong in the circus, you,’ Mum would say, pulling me on, but Bettie caught up, hot and blowing; pinched my arm.
‘Never wear a skirt, my love. That’s my advice to you. It’s skirts that held us back.’
I didn’t reply – it was meant for Mum anyway.
‘That’s your advice, is it? The whole sum total of what you’ve learnt all your years on this earth?’ She’d give a tut and shake her head, which was what Bet was after all along. And I loved a skirt, no one would get me out of skirts, with their shiver and their drama.
‘That was Bettie,’ I said to Anja. ‘She was the youngest of the three. I think I told you that.’
Locked into position in that small powerful family. Her nerves a counterpoint to her jollity. The sort of woman who could have made a bad mistake.
‘And there was Fran, too, wasn’t there? She was your favourite. I know it!’ Anja said.
She was right, of course, but there was less to tell about Fran. A tiny woman – I overtook her when I was twelve – a monkey of a person, strong and tanned and nimble, her arms covered in a downy fur that I inherited. She tried her best to moor us, to talk Mum down from her furies and Bettie, her fears. She was constant and level and sane, none of which make
s for a story. A woman seemingly without appetite, which could have put her apart from the others, but there was nothing in her to envy. I kept close and hoped some of her evenness would rub off; blunt my own sharp edge.
I tried, later that day, to speak to Anja, after I’d told her the one about Bet saving a tourist – a man! – by diving into the swell (she was a strong and fearless swimmer) and pulling him out while the lifeguard flirted. My childhood as seaside postcard.
We were busy as we talked; Anja bent down with a cloth, me cleaning the surfaces above. I preferred to help her now, as she worked.
‘What about you, Anja?’ I said. ‘Tell me something about your growing up.’
She thought for a moment.
‘What can I say? My mother and father worked hard. Everybody did. I am an only child. We lived in the country, near to a town. I played with my friends. There was a river. No aunties for me. I wanted a dog.’
She scrubbed the front of the cupboards hard, almost reckless in her action and I worried that she would knock herself, or rub off the paint. I stepped aside and she caught me with an elbow.
‘Oh, sorry, Mags!’
She told me her age though I had read it in the paper.
‘Don’t forget that I am only nineteen. Not so much to tell yet.’
And then: ‘I left all that behind. I am here now.’
‘Yes. I suppose so. Was it? It must have been terrible for you. Over there.’
‘It was not for long, Maggie. Six months. I got away.’
‘But are there people where you are staying? People to help? For you to talk to, and so on?’
‘It does not help. It’s over and gone. Why would I want to talk?’ she said.
‘Of course.’
She looked down at her palm, picked at a callus at the root of a finger.
‘Do you miss them? Your mother and father?’ I asked.
‘Not so much. We did not talk like you and me.’
She stood, with a click of her bad knee. She hugged like a child, her arms round my waist, her cheek flat to my front. She was short and I tall enough that this almost worked. Then she stepped back and sneezed, three giant sneezes, evenly spaced, that took her chin down to her chest each time. She shook her head, when she was done, like a dog, and looked up at me with glee.
‘Phew. These sprays! They really get me!’ and went back to work.
But she had a way of reading things.
My home is clean and blank. I do not gather and display. I am not defined by the things that surround me; that has been my choice. Yet Anja had an eye for the giveaway object.
Next day she came around to spend the afternoon; a new thing for us. It is noisy where she lives, and they watch stupid shows, she said. I was happy to oblige. We drank tea, where I would usually have wine, and the telly felt old-fashioned and communal and we talked at it, about it, in the place of other things. After a while, though, she became restless, trailing around the house, picking stuff up, as she would.
‘I bet you love the ocean, Maggie. I see it all around in your home,’ she said.
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘Don’t you notice it is all blues in here? The colours of the sky and sea.’
She had a tendency towards the romantic that was hard to read – naive or stupid, endearing or annoying, protection or escape; I wasn’t sure. There were two blue rugs visible from where I stood, in the hall and the sitting room, and the curtains could be described as stormy, at a push.
‘Hm. I suppose so,’ I said.
‘And all the boats of course.’
‘What boats?’
My hands on hips. A frown. A touch of challenge.
‘The pictures, see? There.’
She pointed at a couple of old Habitat prints, so shiny and thin that when I’d got them home, I wondered if I had just bought the frames; the images merely fillers. They were the closest to hand when I entered the part of the shop called Art, the first two in a deep stack propped against the wall. Still I’d chosen them above any other, I suppose. A touch of the Vettriano, I’d thought at the time.
‘And the wooden sign on the string upstairs. That’s so sweet.’
Some painted driftwood saying ‘Bathroom’ that Rosie had picked up. Anja played me now, with affection. Trusted me enough to tease. I acted my part.
‘God. You can have that. Please. Take it off my hands.’
‘And you have your shells by your bed, remember. Can you hear the sea in them?’
‘Ahh, but they are from Cornwall actually. Years ago. A holiday. Not Brighton.’
‘Brighton! Is that where you are from, Maggie? That’s quite close I think? I read about it in one of my guides. A train ride from here? Maybe we should go.’
‘God, you’re a right Lloyd Grossman, aren’t you?’ I said, and explained the concept of Through the Keyhole, which she liked.
‘Come on. Are you hungry? I’ll make you something to eat,’ I said.
We went through to the kitchen and she watched me as I cooked.
When Anja had an idea, she kept hold of it, or rather she left it out in a prominent place for me to trip over. She gave it a day after that first mention and then announced the need for a change. Shall we go somewhere, Mags? Would I take her some place new? Of course I would. Great! She would think about where. Unless I had an idea?
I did not.
She wants to see the sea. What did I know of Hastings? A dump? OK.
A subdued morning followed.
Where else? she asked, next time. Somewhere fun. Not too far. Where was Blackpool? You’re kidding! I said. Miles away. She took it well.
And finally: I’ve got an idea! Shrieked down from the landing. How about Brighton? The perfect place! (As if a sudden thought.)
I sighed. Let the girl have her way. OK, I told her. Why not? She knew enough of people, of me, to leave it there, to bank her win.
She left late, and at the front door said: ‘Not at the weekend though, Mags. Much too busy. Let’s go Monday.’
I nodded. It was arranged.
20
I met her at the station and we shopped for mags and pop, my treat. The gossipy ones that she liked, and the real-life stories too. Big bottles of Ribena and chewy sweets, renamed, but tasting the same. We waited just a minute for our train.
It felt like the holidays when we got on. There is something in the promise of a coastal town; they were right to call them pleasure beaches. Living there was different, of course, and the winters were long but you smelt it even as a child, when the weather changed, not knowing what it was but responding nonetheless, that whiff of licence that sent me baying through the house, an ordinarily placid girl, no matter how fast my mother slammed the windows shut against it.
It was here on the train, in October, even; the tourists brought it with them and I saw Anja’s nose twitch. She looked up and around, unable to settle to the magazines or the years-old Maeve Binchy that lay age-blown on her lap.
She was different out of the house; watchful. She tracked a family across from us: a mother, father and two blonde daughters with pre-booked seats, their reservations rising stiff from the slots in their headrests. A lovely group who took their places calmly. The girls removed their scarves, which were laid in the rack above the windows, but kept on their coats, of a dark woollen blue. The adults read the papers and the sisters their novels about mice and ballerinas. In a while, they switched to colouring, a box each of pencils with their names stamped on in a square gold print. Martha and Alice – I strained in my seat to make it out. Halfway there and the mother produced two boxes of Tupperware and they all snacked on dried apricots and halved grapes. I willed the children to sulk or stamp but they didn’t and I grew bored of them.
In front of us, theatre style, sat two young men. Loud, and of the visibly thuggish type. Morning beer, blunt vowels, a sudden way of talking. Bad dentistry. Anja followed them in the reflection of the window, attentive to their blasts of noise and unpredictab
le moves.
I closed my eyes, feeling weightless and mobile until the next chug or shunt spoilt things, and went back to my last summer by the sea. Nineteen. Same age as Anja. Sat on a bench in Steine Gardens, my toes dug deep into the grass, listening to a man tell me why I should go with him to his hotel that night. That he’d come all this way, straight after work, what did I say? I needled him for the unintentional rhyme but he was a good-natured boy and hadn’t pressed me.
We had met two weeks before when he was day-tripping with friends and they strayed off the tourist path, found themselves in Kemp Town. He watched me dive again and again off the east side of Banjo Groyne, bare-faced in a one piece, a careful picture of unselfconsciousness. Impressive to the onlooker but easy if you knew when and where, though Mum told a story of a girl twenty years before who had missed the tides and never walked again.
We saw them arrive, three of them, three of us, and sniggered as they hobbled, shoes in hand, across the scalding pebbles and set themselves down close enough to send a message. Our feet were tough and smooth and we could cross the beach as we pleased and did so needlessly as they sat stranded on their towels. My one, Tom (his name appeared suddenly, spat out of some recess of my brain), plucked up the guts to speak.
‘Where’s the best fish and chips around here?’ he said, looking straight at me. ‘You girls look like you know your way around.’
We showed them how to dive and, later, lay on the beach where the electric railway ran overhead and threw stones at the wheels of the trains. The best sort of hit made a spark and a crack and the stone ping away so you hid your face and pulled in close to your boy to make him think there was something you were scared of. We messed around under there for a while and said goodbye. Tom was the only one who wanted to meet again, which made me feel proud but bad for my friends, though they didn’t take it hard. A fresh trainload arrived each week.
I liked him less just the two of us, a fortnight on. The tone had changed, less cheek, more of what you might call courting. He had a habit of rubbing one side of his face, jaw pulled away from his hand, which made me think he was new to shaving though he said he was twenty-four.
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