501

by Robert Field

  ‘Busy, is he?’ is straight out of my mouth.

  Pegs says, ‘Him and my Dave got a drive to do next week. Dad’s sorting out the roller.’

  I’ve eaten my cake and drunk my coffee before Lydia brings their drinks over and I say I must get on. I leave them to their tea and Kit-Kats and then abandon my trolley in the aisle.

  Within ten minutes I’m driving down the rough, potted road to the Smiths site. My hands are trembling on the steering wheel and my head’s full of what I may or may not do or say.

  And nestling inside my handbag are Mum’s pictures of the past.

  I’m out of the car and into the yard and, in front of Pegs’ static, there’s a smouldering fire with a hanging blackened kettle, softly steaming. On an upturned crate there’s a brown teapot, a plastic bottle of milk, a bowl of sugar and a couple of mugs. Henry’s stringy grey dog noses me from behind, at my behind, and makes me jump. Johnny James would have laughed at this.

  I stand by the fire and call out a feeble ‘Hello’. I don’t know if I really want anyone to answer but at the sound of my voice the grey dog starts an almighty

  racket. Then Henry Smith’s at the door of the static and yelling at the dog to shut up. Then he says, ‘Pegs ain’t here, Katy.’

  I say, ‘It’s you I came to see, Henry,’ and my voice is so small and quiet.

  ‘Are you all right, Katy?’ He pauses. ‘Come inside.’ And he nods me in.

  And then it’s like I’m in a dream. I seem to see myself go up the four wooden steps (am I really counting them?) and into a gypsy’s home.

  Henry Smith sits in the chair by the log-burner and says, ‘Now what can I do for you, Katy?’

  I perch on the sofa and I’m confused; I don’t know where to start. All the words I’ve practised in my head seem to be stuck in my throat.

  He asks again, slowly and curiously, ‘Are you all right, Katy?’

  I tell him yes, I tell him no and then I stumble out, ‘Will you look at this for me?’

  From my handbag I slide out the picture of the baby me reaching for those hoops of gold from all those years ago. I pass it to him and watch a puzzling smile freeze on his face.

  ‘What’s this, Katy?’

  He seems to stare at it forever and then to suddenly realize its twin is hanging on the wall of pictures. He stands up and holds out the photo, compares it to the other, and shakes and then nods his head.

  ‘It’s Mum,’ he says, ‘and the chavi we didn’t know and…’ He stops and then, still puzzling, ‘Where did you get this, Katy?’

  ‘She…’ I don’t what to call her. ‘Your mum gave it to my mother.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  I tell him Mum’s name, her maiden name, and he freezes, becomes stock-still. Then he says so quietly it’s almost a whisper, ‘Tell me, Katy, tell me what you came here for.’

  So I take all of Mum’s photos, their pictures together, and I pass him over a love affair from thirty-five years ago. The images are there and the dates Mum so carefully, so lovingly, wrote on them are there too.

  And he’s there. He’s there as a young man with the sun in his eyes and love in his eyes.

  Even though it faded for him.

  Henry Smith picks up each photo, puts it down, picks it up, rolls himself a thick cigarette, lights it. (This is the cue for me because if I ever needed a fag, I need one now. I light up as well.)

  I say, ‘I’m sorry, Henry,’ and he says quietly, ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Katy.’

  Then he says, shaking his head, ‘I never knew.’ And then he tells me that times were so different then, no mobile phones, no letters to find them, and he was half the country away, and he, they, were always on the move.

  I want to ask what if he had known…? But that’s too personal, too close a question.

  Too soon.

  I say, ‘I only wanted to know, to be sure,’ when I’m so sure already.

  And there’s no denying from him, no excuses.

  He says, ‘All this time, Katy. All this time.’ There’s a wistfulness in his voice.

  And then his arms are around me and my head’s into his shoulder and I can taste the scent of him. He smells of the caravan, of tobacco, of woodsmoke, of the man I so desperately wanted to tuck me up in bed and kiss me goodnight.

  He smells like my father should.

  I don’t stay long after that, I don’t want to be here when Pegs and Lydia get home but, when I step outside, Big Dave Trinder is sitting on the crate by the fire and sipping a mug of tea.

  He says, ‘All right, Katy.’

  ‘All right, Dave.’

  I want to say, ‘Don’t tell anyone I was here,’ but I can’t, can I?

  Anyway, Henry Smith at the door says, ‘Goodbye, my Katy,’ and I drive away in Johnny James’s Beamer.

  I’m almost home before I realise Henry said my Katy. It’s like he’s already claiming me. Like the gypsies are claiming me.

  My Katy.

  I say it to myself a dozen times before I get back to Johnny James. And when he asks where the shopping is I burst into tears. Then he makes me a cup of tea, lights me up a fag and says, like Henry Smith did, ‘Tell me, Katy.’

  And then Mum’s secret, so carefully, so lovingly kept for all that time, is told by me.

  Again.

  For the rest of the day Johnny James treats me like an invalid. He supplies me with more fags – lets me smoke in the house – and more tea, and about five o’clock he asks if I want something to eat. I’m wondering what’s in the cupboard, since I didn’t do the shopping, and he says he can do me some toast but we’re fresh out of hedgehog pate and badger rissole.

  He makes me laugh out loud.

  Anyway he goes out for an early Indian and I set the table and make sure there’s lager in the fridge. Then I take out Mum’s photos again, and see my dad as a young man and my mum as a pretty girl. I’ve never seen her as happy as she is in that kiss-me-quick hat with Dad’s arm around her. All those years ago, a lifetime, my lifetime, is trapped in a beach photographer’s lens. I look at these pictures, shuffle them over and over, until I hear Johnny James’s key in the door.

  As the lock turns, the enormity of what I’ve done, what’s been realized, rolls over me and I think of Mum with these pictures spread out on the table at the Refuge. I see her with her head in her hands, crying, sobbing for a boy, for a life she never could have had.

  And it’s that thought that starts me off and it’s my eyes that are running.

  Then Henry Smith says, ‘Don’t cry, my Katy,’ and because he says ‘my Katy’ I cry even more.

  Monday night darts – the end of May.

  The last game of the season; the title decider.

  Still Katy.

  Johnny James wishes me – us – good luck and drops me at the George. Before I go in I take a deep breath, a smoky one of course, and kick a bit of mud off my knee-length leather boots. (A Johnny James present to me. And for him. But it can be a bit chilly with nothing else on in these spring nights – perhaps why he calls me his Pussy in boots.)

  Inside, my team are already warming up on the board and at the bar Danny’s pouring me a vodka and Coke.

  ‘Get this down your neck, Katy,’ he says. ‘Calm your nerves.’ But he’s the one clinking the ice as he passes it over.

  I’m not feeling nervous, not at all, and I really can’t wait for the game to begin. It’s like it’s the last thing I’ve got to do, to settle, because my marriage is dead and buried and I might have lost Laura for now, but I’ve gained Johnny James and Henry Smith.

  So winning tonight would be a bonus for me and I would love to do it for the ones that aren’t here: Lena, Irish, Scottie Dog.

  It’s strange how Scottie Dog just vanished, sort of stepped out of our lives with not a word to anyone. Makes me wonder if she’s sitting in some pub calling up another whisky and ‘go fucking easy on the water’.

  Danny says that he’ll keep the pub open all night if we win.
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  ‘And,’ he says, ‘if we lose I’ll stay open anyway to drown our sorrows.’

  I tell him he’s just after our money and Danny looks pained and says, quietly for him, ‘It’s not for me, it’s for the pub.’

  He says it as though he’s talking about a loved one but you never know with Danny.

  So I wait for a crack, a comment, but it doesn’t come.

  At the oche, I join my girls in taking turns to throw at the board. Ada Pikey hits a bull and swears blind that she aimed for it, and Big Nellie grunts that there’s a first time for everything. Ada Pikey opens her mouth but then thinks better of saying anything. Tiny, looking like a little blonde fairy, dances up the mat to retrieve her darts and Maggie, with a new hair-do, carefully throws at double one because she reckons she’ll end up on it anyway. So that only leaves Pegs and she’s even quieter than usual. In fact she hardly said a word at work today and it makes me wonder if Big Dave Trinder told her I was at the site. Well, he’d have no reason not to, would he?

  The Battersby Babes come in right on eight o’clock and we let them have the board for a quick warm-up. They’re stunning this lot, really living up to their name: all long legs, short skirts, shapely, fresh, young. Christ, I’m sounding like their fan club and we haven’t even got Lena to offer them competition.

  Anyway, we can’t compare – our ragged team of Little and Large, rejuvenated Maggie, and us three, the Didicoys. Christ (again), am I already changing sides?

  So we start the game against Diana, Charlotte, Catherine and the rest. Christ (yet again), even their names are glamorous, even the way they throw their darts is all poise and pose. But they aren’t only Yummy Mummys; they’re not up with us for nothing. They’re cool and keen and soon in front of us in the team game. I’m wishing for an Irish or Scottie Dog to unsettle them when Ada Pikey says that you can’t move in the car park for Chelsea Tractors and this image suits this team so we all have a snigger. But the Babes still win the team game pretty convincingly and when a nervous Tiny drops the first single she looks like she’s about to burst into tears.

  ‘Sorry, Katy,’ she mumbles.

  I tell her not to worry but I do a bit because we’re not used to being two points down. Ada Pikey, with a throw like a spear-chucker, whacks home a double sixteen to bring us back a leg and then Pegs gets stuck on double five and her opponent shoots out second dart. Now the Babes have got their pretty tails up and they cheer in tune, like they’re a sweet-voiced choir.

  I say, ‘Bad luck, Pegs,’ and she shrugs and says she had her chances. Then she says so quietly, it’s almost a whisper, ‘It’ll be down to you then, my Katy.’

  And that my is casual, natural, familiar. And I’m wondering if the tale’s been told down on the site, if the secret’s out.

  Danny’s left the bar and he’s standing behind Maggie watching the action. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed but you couldn’t get a fag paper between them, and I keep expecting her to put her hands up in the air cos he must be prodding her in her back.

  So the score’s three to one and Big Nellie’s on the oche. All the game she doesn’t say a word; she throws her darts slowly, with grim determination, and grunts her way to a convincing win. A disappointed Babe – Catherine, I think – pulls a face behind Big Nellie and rolls her eyes.

  I need another voddie before the next game and Danny’s halfway through serving Jilted John and he’s grousing out the order, rushing it through with impatience.

  ‘Well, does she want a single or a double?’ He’s asking for Jilted John’s whale of a girlfriend.

  Jilted John ponders. ‘Um… uh… um… a…,’ and Danny, becoming even more impatient, makes the decision for him.

  ‘A double.’ He pushes up the optic and mutters to me with innuendo, ‘Shouldn’t think a little one would be much use to her.’

  Then Pikey Pete calls across that Old Bob has thrown up in the bog and blocked the pisser.

  Danny says, ‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ and tells me to help myself to a drink and it’s not as though he hasn’t got enough to fucking do.

  Anyway Maggie’s started her game and she’s lagging a bit. She knows we’ve got to win this to keep us in with a chance and she keeps plugging away to a double. The Battersby Babe has first poke, misses, and then Maggie lines up for her double four. Everyone’s shushed down and as Maggie takes her throw the only sound is a loud belch, and an instant apology, from Paddy.

  Maggie throws and drops in a single four. Again, and it’s a single two. She pauses now, takes a deep breath and pins the double one.

  ‘Told you I’d end up there, Katy,’ she laughs, all the tension out of her face.

  My girls are loudly whooping and Danny’s sneaked out from the bar again and he gives Maggie a hug of congratulations.

  Ada Pikey moans that he never does that to her when she wins, and Big Nellie says she wouldn’t want him to.

  Danny says that some things are beyond the call of duty anyway.

  I whip outside for a quick fag and I give my text messages a checkout.

  Johnny James has sent two of the usual – beyond porn – and there’s another one from…?

  Mum please give me a call

  Well, I’m only Mum to one, and the last time we met she called me a slag and I slapped her face. That’s a thought that flashes through my mind as my fingers tap in her number.

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘You at darts, Mum?’ She sounds quiet, subdued. Civil.

  ‘Yes but…’

  ‘Will you call round when you finish?’

  I get out, ‘Yes but…’ again, and she says, ‘It doesn’t matter what time it is; please come.’

  This isn’t the chopsy little madam with a log on her shoulder; she sounds small and frightened.

  ‘Laura, tell me what’s the matter.’

  She’s quiet for a few moments and then I hear her suck in her breath.

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ she says, ‘I’m pregnant,’ and her voice goes hoarse.

  I take a choking pull on my fag and say, ‘Oh, Laura, I’ll come straight over.’

  In that same tight little voice she says, ‘You’ve got your darts, Mum. Come later.’

  ‘Laura…’

  ‘Please, Mum. Later. An hour’s not going to make a difference now.’

  She sounds so tired and so suddenly grown-up. ‘Love you, Mum,’ she whispers.

  And then she hangs up.

  And then Ada Pikey’s bawling to me across the yard, ‘Come on, Katy. We’re all waiting.’

  I’m standing on the oche, darts fanned in my hand, leaning forward slightly, focusing on the treble twenty and thinking how could it have come down to this: the game we need to win for the title, the game that’s standing at three to three? Christ, it’s like a corny film.

  I weigh my dart between my fingers, draw back my arm.

  And throw.

  I throw for Irish, for Scottie Dog, for Lena, for Laura, for everything that’s gone on this season.

  And then I throw for me.

  The George versus the Lamb Chops.

  The first game of the new season.

  I’m last to arrive and my girls have settled into pre-match practice on the dartboard. I go up to the bar and Danny says, ‘What do you think of that then, Katy?’

  He’s showing me the latest site of the highly polished Ladies League Winners’ cup. Over the last few months it’s been on every shelf in the pub and at present it’s residing above the row of optics. I say it looks fine but Danny cocks his eye at it and says, ‘I don’t know, Katy. Perhaps it was better above the fireplace.’

  I say that I think it looks good where it is and I’m sure that if Scottie Dog was here she’d have told him where to stick it long before now.

  Anyway, I buy a round of drinks.

  I buy a voddie and Coke for me, Katy Jones: thirty-six years old, slim and madly in love, and desperately trying to give up the fags.

  For Ada Pikey: mother of Pikey Pete, a mouthy gipo but pret
ty good with the arrows, a half of bitter.

  For Maggie: a rum and Pep and a wink from Danny that she thinks no one notices.

  For Big Nellie: a pint of best as she watches over our team like a minder.

  For Tiny: a baby doll of a girl, a dry Martini and lemonade and the chalk cos she’s good at maths.

  And then there’s Pegs, my sister who shares my taste, but not my capacity, for vodka and Coke. And she’s the one who wishes me ‘Koorshti bok’ before I take my throw.

  And cos she’s teaching me the lingo I know what it means.

  This eBook is published by

  Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd

  28-30 High Street, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 3EL.

  www.grosvenorhousepublishing.co.uk

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © Robert Field, 2017

  The right of Robert Field to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  The book cover image is copyright to Robert Field

  ISBN 978-1-78623-131-4 in electronic format

  ISBN 978-1-78623-964-8 in printed format

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