by Freya North
Her disaffection for Mull, however, stretched far beyond its terrain and was deeper seated than a mere antipathy towards outdoor pursuits. It was seeing her husband so relaxed and rustic, her daughter so free and so muddy, that struck a dissonant chord within. It shamed her that their unbridled laughter, an integral and unforced part of such holidays, never rang out in Lincoln. Celia irritated her; she was so wholesome with her naturally tanned, attractively weathered skin, her lithe frame, her meals (delicious, damn them) thrown together effortlessly from fat, flavoursome, homegrown ingredients. Celia was unswervingly generous and accommodating towards Mildred; which of course made matters far worse. There really was nothing to dislike about Celia, yet Mildred’s thoughts were wholly uncharitable. She did not envy Celia her life-style nor her skills, but she bitterly envied the adoration and respect she commanded from all who knew her.
As Sally finishes her cocoa and sighs again, Celia settles down with a nice cup of tea. Mildred meanwhile has just come in from arranging the flowers at the church. Sally’s ears are burning but she puts it down to a vagary of her affliction; after all, she is not to know that both aunt and mother are dialling her number simultaneously. Anyway, the phone is still off the hook. Sally regards the telephone and replaces the handset with a despondent clatter. Almost immediately, it rings and Sally finds she is pleased.
‘Hullo?’ she croaks in her finest ‘I’m-so-poorly’ voice.
‘Hullo, my poppet,’ soothes the familiar lilting accent. Celia has pipped Mildred to the post. Mildred has just slammed the receiver down on finding Sally’s number still engaged. (‘On her death-bed, I don’t think!’)
Sally is delighted that it is Aunt Celia and she talks at length about the state of each spot. Forty years married to a General Practitioner has left Celia a legacy of surprisingly detailed medical knowledge.
‘You’ll not be contagious any more, you know.’
‘Well, that’s the daft thing, Aunt C. I’ve been literally quarantined,’ Sally proclaims. ‘Banished,’ she declares, ‘from school. I’m not allowed back until a fortnight on Monday!’
‘Tush tush!’ sympathizes Aunt Celia.
‘I’m beside myself with boredom and ashamed of it. I feel so cooped up! I daren’t go out because I look such a freak and if people stare and point, I’m sure to feel like one too!’
‘What you need is to convalesce,’ says Aunt Celia.
‘I know, I know,’ sighs a dejected Sally.
‘You need rest,’ her wise aunt stresses. ‘You need rest, fresh air and good food.’
Sally agrees with her.
‘Well!’ exclaims Aunt Celia. ‘When shall I expect you?’
Sally is stunned. The penny drops and a smile creeps across her face. She is at once galvanized and speechless; better already, to be sure.
‘You mean it?’ Sally squeals. ‘Are you sure? Are you sure you’ve had chicken pox, that I’m not con-ta-gious? Can I really come up and stay? It won’t be too much trouble for you?’
‘My wee bairn,’ laughs Aunt Celia, ‘it’s what the doctor ordered!’ she declares, winking at a photograph of Angus.
‘Darling?’
‘Oh, hello, Mother.’
‘I’ve been trying for ages. You’ve been perpetually engaged. Per-pet-ually.’
‘Sorry. The phone’s been off the hook. I needed to rest.’
‘Well, darling, I’ve been speaking to Dr Peabody. He doubts very much whether you are still con-ta-gious. I thought it would be a good idea for you to recuperate here; you know, let me look after you. Nothing that a bit of TLC and your old bedroom can’t cure!’
‘Oh, Mum! That’s very kind – truly. And I’m not contagious any more. And I do need to recuperate …’
‘Well then!’
‘… so I’m going up to Mull. To stay with Aunt Celia. All that lovely air. I’m leaving tomorrow.’
‘But it’s February! You’ll catch your death! I’m not sure that your strange aunt up North has the nous to nurse you back to health. Darling, reconsider!’
‘Mother,’ Sally took her time, ‘firstly, Aunt Celia is not strange. Secondly, I’ll wrap up warm. Thirdly, I can’t think of anywhere else where convalescence is a foregone conclusion. And fourthly,’ she faltered, ‘fourthly, I can’t think of any place I’d rather be. I can’t wait to go.’
My heart is in the Highlands, my heart is not here.
THIRTY-THREE
Whatever possessed Sally Lomax to pack her bag and take the high road to Scotland without telling a soul?
As the M1 unfurled ahead of her, she felt no pang of guilt, not even the slightest twinge. She was too busy singing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, the choice of that week’s castaway on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. As she neared Milton Keynes, Sally was revising her eight discs for the second time but just could not choose less than nine. By the time she joined the M6, she decided that, along with Shakespeare and the Bible, her book would be a Robert Burns anthology and, as she passed Birmingham, she chose ballet shoes as her luxury. As Lancashire slipped into Cumbria, Sally decided she would have rather a good time on her desert island, dancing away to Beethoven, Stravinsky and Genesis, and would not feel a ‘wee sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie’ in the slightest. Switching the radio off, she motored at a steady seventy and smiled at the hills as they loomed. It was a fine day, the sky seemed very high and the early-spring sun hung large and low, like a luminous pink sweet; Sally could have licked it. She felt an exhilaration she had not felt for a long while, an intoxicating mix of solitude and freedom. Glasgow lay three hours away, Oban an hour or so after that, then there was just the Firth of Lorn to cross to Aunt Celia. She was at last taking a journey whose destination was known and desired. She could not wait to arrive.
Diana was livid, Richard was not amused, Catherine was nonplussed.
‘Richard?’
‘Hullo, Diana.’
‘I think something’s wrong.’
‘Whajoomean?’
‘Have you spoken to Sally?’
‘Well, er, no. I’m er, letting her call the tune – you know, at her own pace. I took some calamine round a few days ago but I haven’t heard from her since. What is it, for heaven’s sake?’
‘I think she’s gone. I’ve been ringing her, on and off, for the last two days – nothing. So I popped round half an hour ago and looked through the letter box.’
Our letter box, thought Richard. ‘And?’ he enquired.
‘Well, it was all eerily silent. I couldn’t really see anything at all because the curtains are drawn. Thing is, I have her spare keys but I’m a bit nervy about going in by myself.’
‘I’ll be right there.’
With a quick call to Catherine and Bob to say he’d be late for dinner, Richard drove to Diana’s with a strangely empty head. Parking at the end of Sally’s street, they walked slowly to her flat, noting as they walked that her Mini was nowhere to be seen. Diana unlocked the door and Richard went in first and rushed back the curtains. All was predictably spick and span and a faint smell of polish hung in the air. The bed was without linen, its mattress turned on to one side; there was nothing perishable in the fridge; all the plants were well-watered and the bathroom and kitchen smelled of bleach.
Well, these were the clues, but where was the proof?
‘Bingo!’ muttered Richard. Diana swung from the window where she had been looking at nothing in particular in the hope of infiltrating Sally’s psyche. From Richard’s fingers a small piece of paper dangled. She took it from him and read in a voice soon tinged with tears and threaded with anger: ‘Gone to Scotland. Back soon. S.L.’
Unable to speak, she looked at Richard but saw his face blank and stony. She tossed the note aside and Richard retrieved it, carefully placing it back on the mantelpiece where he had found it.
‘Scotland?’ Diana’s exasperation, though barely audible, filled the room.
‘That’s what it says,’ replied Richard flatly. There was a loaded silenc
e as they wondered how best to react. Diana went for spontaneity.
‘Stupid, ungrateful, insensitive cow!’ she spat.
Richard chose silent contemplation.
Bitch, he thought. Why? When? Stupid cow indeed. There was silence again as each wondered what to say to the other.
‘Diana,’ Richard soothed at last, ‘there must be an explanation. Maybe something cropped up.’
Diana was aghast.
‘Cropped up? Like what? The only person she knows in Scotland is her old aunt who lives on Skye or Shetland or somewhere.’
‘Mull,’ mulled Richard.
‘That’s not the point,’ Diana growled, ‘she can go to Timbuk-bloody-tu for all I care.’ The force of her anger quite took Richard aback. Her mood was as black as her jumper, her face the same furious red as her leggings. ‘But the fact is I do care,’ she yelled. ‘Am I worth so little to her that she can just up and leave without a backward glance? Without even the tiniest phone call? Without even a scribbled note posted with a second-class stamp?’ Diana stood scowling with her hands clenched to her hips. She stamped her foot and grabbed her hair. ‘Who does she think she is? She’s needed me and I’ve been there – unswervingly,’ she fulminated. ‘Even a “piss off” to my face wouldn’t be as hurtful as this couldn’t-care-less disappearance.’
Fearing that Diana was on the verge of tears, Richard eased towards her and put his arm around her shoulders. She looked up at him, wide-eyed and wounded.
‘But, Richard, what about you? How on earth can this make you feel? Can you bear it? Will you tolerate it?’
He shrugged in a non-committal way.
‘It can’t possibly not have crossed her tiny mind that we would worry, that we would be hurt,’ Diana concluded. Richard remained silent and pensive – it seemed safer that way. The hurt he felt was so deep it was nauseating. How could she indeed? Why Scotland? Why the secrecy?
There was no need for it – it’s not as if I would have been in a position to say ‘Hold on, Sal, I’m coming too’. What can have filled her head? What did she think as she locked the door? As she hit the M1?
The horrible thing is, I’m almost certain she did not think at all, let alone twice. Thoughtless. Ungrateful. Tedious. This is the last straw, the short one, and Sally has just pulled it.
Not knowing what to do with his thoughts, much less how to express them, he gave Diana a squeeze and then ushered her out, taking a last look around before he closed the door on Sally’s silence. Though the flat was clean and fresh, its cosiness had disappeared with her and he now felt an intruder, a stranger. Knowing that its inhabitant did not want him there – or anywhere – cut straight to his heart. He closed the door and double-locked it dejectedly. Driving Diana home, they said of course they would keep in touch, with or without the slightest news. Yet as they parted, it dawned on both with some displeasure that Sally, the very cause of their suffering, was holding them captive, that they were at her mercy, at her beck and call. Their worlds, at which she had seemingly stuck two fingers, were still revolving around her.
Was that it?
Did she want the world to turn because of her?
Sally? Manipulative?
Surely not!
Both Richard and Diana felt beholden, and the very realization was thoroughly repugnant. At last, they hated her for it and felt fine about it.
But ask Sally why she did it.
Did what?
Ask her what went through her head as she shut the door on all around her and headed carefree for Scotland.
This time tomorrow I’ll be with Aunt Cee!
Do you believe her? Mention Richard and Diana to her. Why did she not call either? Ask her if it really did not occur to her that they would be hurt, worried, confused.
See. She cannot answer.
She may falter: I’m a burden. They’ve done so much. I don’t want to bother them, to trouble them.
She may limp: I’ve been so unbearable, spotty and sorry for myself, I just want to creep away and return restored.
But you will not hear her say: I’m sure they won’t mind. I know they’ll understand. I would too, you know.
Nor will you hear: I know it’ll probably land me in trouble, but I’ve got to do it; there’s something fun about it, jetting off in secret! I wonder what they’ll think when they find me gone! Will they worry? Might they be angry? What’ll go through their minds? Will they care?
You will not hear this from Sally because she cannot yet hear it herself. Banished to the back of her subconscious is the nub of the matter: God, I shouldn’t be doing this. I should at least call, leave a note. But I want to do it – just to see.
We certainly will not hear Sally say it out aloud for a while longer. Not until she has played this, her last hand in the game. It is a game to her, and though no one else is playing, she does not seem to realize that just yet.
So, Sally must lose if she is to have a chance to win.
To Catherine, Sally was an open book. A mere glance at the pages was enough; she had read it before and it was all very familiar. She knew well the form, the semantics, the beginning and the middle. Did she know the end? She thought so. Should she divulge it?
What – and spoil it for everyone? Tell them the punchline before the joke?
Only this is not very amusing.
Read them the last line when they’re but half-way through? Tell them what’ll happen in the end? I have no right to do such a thing!
Catherine’s dilemma was threefold. She was torn between her concern for and loyalty to Richard, her solidarity and understanding for Sally, and her soreness that she too had been rejected. However, she did feel equipped to shed light on the syndrome and believed it was her responsibility to all concerned to do so.
Bob had alleviated a portion of Richard’s melancholy with a particularly frenzied game of squash. Catherine, who had spied a bumper but half-empty bottle of HP Sauce next to a jumble of takeaway cartons in Richard’s kitchen, was now trying to reason the remainder away.
‘Richie – er, sorry, Richard. Please believe me, please trust me – I know women.’
‘Catherine, how pretentious,’ Richard retorted. ‘You know women,’ he mocked. ‘What on earth does that mean?’ Catherine took her time.
‘What I mean is, I’ve been there,’ she declared with gentle confidence. ‘You know the saying – seen it, done it, bought the T-shirt?’ Richard grimaced at her. She took no offence and clarified, ‘But Sally, I think, is right in there. She’s seeing it, doing it, she’s wearing the T-shirt. She’s just got to throw it away.’
‘I do not understand,’ Richard said tersely, his voice brittle and pinched, ‘what on earth you are talking about.’
‘I know you don’t,’ eased Catherine, ‘that’s why you’re hurting so much, while I’m merely nonplussed. I know what’s happening to Sally, it happened to me too. I’ve done it before – most women have, or will. I know the book she’s reading, I know the game she’s playing.’
‘That,’ declared Richard, ‘is precisely it. I am thirty-five years old. I have grown out of playing games.’
‘Richard,’ pleaded Catherine, ‘if you can just hear me. It’s not malicious, it’s not vindictive. It’s like she’s testing the water before she leaps on in.’
Still his face was pale, his brow furrowed, his eyes hollow.
‘Richard,’ she cooed, ‘Sally is doing this to reassure herself. You know: “will he love me if”: “could he love me if”.’
She could see she had made no inroad into Richard’s melancholy, so she pulled out her trump card.
‘Look, don’t you remember how I was with Bob? How I’d sometimes flirt at parties? That I’d often be late? Sometimes I’d be aloof, sometimes downright moody? Remember when I jetted off to Corfu with two girlfriends giving Bob just a day’s notice and expecting him to drive us to the airport to boot?’
A glimmer of a smile crept into Richard’s face. ‘You were a prime cow, Catherine. I rememb
er saying to Bob, “bin her”.’
‘And?’
‘I remember how he’d just shrug it off and smile. I couldn’t work him out. I thought he’d gone soft.’
‘See!’
‘But why, Catherine? I don’t feel soft at all. I feel livid, absolutely livid.’
Catherine could now wrap it up.
‘Look,’ she said kindly, taking Richard’s hand, ‘Sally is teetering on that diving board. Teetering! I bet every time she motions to leap something leers up at her: be it that awful bloke, the one who hit her; be it wedding dresses and “I do”s’; be it saying sorry to you, to Diana – to me! After all, what is it that she’ll dive into?’
Catherine’s questions hung in the air as the light began to break for Richard. She answered methodically: ‘She must forsake all for a responsible, grown-up, death-do-us-part existence.’
Richard nodded. ‘Normality!’ Catherine exclaimed. ‘Mundanity!’ she declared. ‘Gone will be her little flat, her total privacy, talking to herself, eating a tub of ice-cream in bed – she’ll have to trade all that in.’ Richard’s face was softening and he continued to nod.
‘Richard, the girl’s got to find herself by losing herself,’ Catherine announced with conviction, ‘and what better place than Scotland – all those lochs, all that heather! I’m not belittling the situation and you might not like what she might find. This is the make or break. Whatever the outcome, it will be for the better; for both of your futures. Sally may be playing a game of sorts, Richard. But the prize she’s pursuing is Truth.’
THIRTY-FOUR
‘It’s at times like this,’ said Sally out loud, drumming her thumbs on the steering wheel, ‘that I wish you were a Jaguar and not a Mini.’