by Mike Gayle
‘Hello?’
The line wasn’t great and neither was his recall of her voice hidden as it had been for most of the night under the constant thump of the blandest of club music.
‘Hi, Sanne, it’s me,’ said Phil. ‘The English guy from last night.’
Sanne laughed. ‘You say that like you imagine I gave out my number to so many people last night that I might have forgotten! How are you? I hope you didn’t run into those guys again. Did you have a good night?’
Phil’s head throbbed at the very thought of it. ‘It was fine, thanks. And no, we didn’t see those guys again. How about yours?’
‘It was good fun. It’s always nice to catch up with friends that you haven’t seen in a long while. So, I take it you’re calling because you want to take up my offer?’
‘Definitely, if it’s still there.’
There was a short pause and then she said: ‘I can probably spare you an hour if you’d like. I thought I was going to have longer but a friend called this morning with a boyfriend crisis. You know how it is, she needs me to do the whole shoulder to cry on thing.’
‘An hour’s fine,’ said Phil. ‘Do you still think the Van Gogh Museum is the place to go?’
‘Absolutely. It’ll take me a little while to get ready and cycle over there so how does an hour from now sound?’
‘Perfect.’
‘Meet me at the entrance. Do you need directions?’
‘No,’ said Phil making a mental note to get hold of a guidebook. ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine.’
It was a little after one in the afternoon as Phil, having got lost several times along the way, finally reached his destination. Pulling his jacket and shirt, damp with perspiration, away from his back, Phil scanned the crowds milling outside the entrance to the museum but couldn’t see Sanne anywhere. Deciding to find a shop and buy a bottle of water he was about to cross the road when he felt a tap on the shoulder, and turned around to see Sanne.
She was wheeling a bike which, unlike the thousands he had seen so far this weekend was a bright metallic pink, rather than black, and had a basket on the front decorated with plastic roses.
She was once again looking head-turningly attractive, wearing sunglasses, a light blue floral dress and gold sandals and he wondered how could he have not realised that she was famous when standing next to her now it was impossible to imagine that she could be anything but.
‘So, you found your way here without too much trouble?’ she asked, taking in his suit without comment.
‘I have a killer sense of direction,’ joked Phil. ‘I should have been a boy scout.’
‘But you weren’t?’
‘What?’
‘A boy scout?’
Phil shook his head. Why had he even mentioned boy scouts in the first place? ‘I was a sea cadet for a while when I was fourteen,’ he explained, ‘but after six weeks without seeing so much as the inside of a canoe I reasoned that it wasn’t for me.’
‘I was what we call in the Netherlands a Padvindster,’ she explained as they walked towards the museum entrance. ‘It’s like your Girl Guides in the UK. At the end of each meeting we’d have to say: ‘ “I am a link in the golden chain of world friendship, and I will keep my link strong and bright.” ‘
‘And did you?’
Sanne laughed. ‘I most certainly did!’
The queue for the museum seemed to be moving quite briskly. At a loss about what to talk about Phil opted to fall back on the weather.
‘The weather this weekend has been amazing hasn’t it?’
Sanne smiled and looked at her watch. ‘I bet myself that you’d mention the weather within five minutes of us meeting and I was right!’
Only a little embarrassed by his poor conversational skills Phil attempted to make a defence. ‘Well, it is a nice day!’
‘The Dutch aren’t like this,’ continued Sanne. ‘We notice the weather but never feel the need to go on and on about it like the English. That’s one of the things I actually miss about not living in UK any more. In England there’s always a way of making conversation with anyone no matter who they are or what they do.’
‘Well, since we’re on the subject of national stereotypes,’ grinned Phil, ‘when exactly did they make it obligatory for Dutch people to ride bikes? Do you get given one at birth?’
‘So, you’d rather we went everywhere by car like you do in the UK?’ countered Sanne. ‘I’d never seen people drive such short distances until I lived in your country. Need a pack of fags . . . jump in the car. Need a stamp . . . jump in a car. One day the English will grow wheels.’
‘It’s because in the old days an Englishman’s home was his castle,’ explained Phil. ‘These days his castle is more likely to be his Ford Mondeo. So,’ he said leaping on the first subject that came to mind, ‘is Van Gogh a particular favourite of yours?’
Sanne nodded. ‘Everybody in Holland loves Van Gogh,’ she replied. ‘He is our country’s favourite son. Why? Do you not like him?’
Phil shrugged. ‘I don’t know much about him beyond him lopping off his ear, having Don McLean write a song about him and that Kirk Douglas once played him in a film.’
Sanne was scandalised. ‘You don’t study art in UK schools?’
Phil recalled the level of artistic debate that had existed at his local comprehensive. ‘Not the one I went to.’
‘Was yours a special school of some kind?’
‘That would be one word for it,’ joked Phil. ‘Put it this way, it was a bit rough. Not the kind of school where there was a lot of talk about art.’
‘And since then?’
‘What?’
‘You’ve done no learning about art?’
‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been to the art gallery in Nottingham a few times and watched the odd documentary on TV but I wouldn’t really say I’ve learned about it. I’d like to though. I’ve always felt like – much like with music and film – the world would be a poorer place without it.’
‘Do you have any pictures on your walls at home?’
‘A few, but they’re mainly things that my girlfriend bought.’
‘So she’s the artistic one in your relationship?’
‘Yeah,’ said Phil, wondering what Helen would say if she could see him standing in the queue outside the Van Gogh Museum with a beautiful, famous Dutch girl who just happened to be Aiden Reid’s ex-wife. ‘I suppose you could say she is.’
They reached the ticket desk and Phil paid for two tickets. They went inside, checked in their bags and passed through the security scanners into the first gallery, which Sanne explained was dedicated to paintings by artists who were friends, contemporaries or were considered an inspiration to the young Van Gogh.
As they worked their way around the room studying each painting Phil read a few of the names on the wall beside the paintings. Being here with an actual art lover made him feel more keenly what he always felt whenever he went to museums or art galleries: that he was on the outside looking in at people who spoke a language no one had taken the time to teach him.
Sanne, he observed, understood the language of art perfectly. Every now and again she would stand in front of a picture over which Phil had passed a cursory glance and would tilt her head slightly to one side and bite her lip absentmindedly as though she was lost deep inside the painting. He had seen Helen do the same thing and although he had tried with her help to make that connection with a work of art, most of the time he had felt nothing.
As they wandered through the galleries on the upper floors which divided Van Gogh’s work chronologically, somewhere around 1880 Phil’s mind began to drift. Chief amongst the thoughts that sought to occupy him was what his friends were up to and what excuse Simon dreamed up for his absence. Knowing Simon, the excuse would be sufficiently vague not to cause alarm and with his father present to act as the entertainment, they would hardly miss him. Phil had no idea what that afternoon’s activity might be but even though he didn’t se
em to be getting very much from seeing the work of one of the world’s greatest artists first-hand it had to be better than getting stoned or gawping at the girls in the windows of the brothels in De Wallen.
‘You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself,’ said Sanne as they entered the final gallery, Auvers – 1890. ‘You look a bit bored.’
‘Not bored,’ replied Phil. ‘Just disappointed I suppose. In myself, not him. Given that this is the year he tops himself and I’ve yet to be moved by any of the paintings I’ve got a horrible feeling that art isn’t for me at all.’
‘I used to have a friend just like you,’ said Sanne. ‘He was a really dynamic guy, and he loved all sort of culture but he never got art. And when I brought him here he said exactly the same thing right until the very end.’
‘And then what happened?’
‘I showed him my favourite picture.’
Phil’s curiosity knew no bounds, convinced as he was that the ‘friend’ was Aiden Reid.
The painting depicted a bright yellow wheat field with three paths in it underneath a dark foreboding sky. Phil stared at it long and hard imagining himself standing next to the painter, seeing what he was seeing and feeling what he was feeling.
‘What do you think?’ asked Sanne.
Phil thought hard. He felt lots of things but nothing he cared to put into words. ‘I think your friend was right,’ he said quietly as he imagined Aiden Reid standing in front of this very picture. ‘One single picture really can change your mind about everything.’
‘I really want to thank you for that,’ said Phil as they stood in the shade of the museum. Most of the hour she had promised him had gone by now. ‘I never expected to enjoy looking around here as much as I did.’
‘My pleasure,’ said Sanne. ‘Always glad to add another convert to the Van Gogh army.’
‘Well, should you find yourself in Nottingham I’ll gladly return the favour,’ replied Phil, ‘although the best we can do is a statue of Robin Hood who might not even have existed.’
Sanne laughed. ‘Or we could get a drink if you’ve got time.’
‘But I thought you needed to—’ Sanne looked guilty and the penny dropped. ‘There was no friend in urgent need of a shoulder, was there?’
‘Oh, come on,’ protested Sanne, ‘don’t look at me like that! I met you in a queue outside a bar! I didn’t know anything about you!’
They walked across a wide, open area which Sanne informed him was known as Museumplein towards a large paddling pool crammed full of parents and young children splashing in the water. To the right of the pool was their destination, a café with a large terrace: and ducking inside out of the glare of the sun they re-emerged, carrying an iced coffee and a Coke and sat down at a table in the shade of a huge awning.
Phil tried to coax out more of Sanne’s personal history even though he was already aware of the salient parts of it. She was, he learned, currently working part-time as a dance teacher specialising in modern, tap and ballet but prior to that had worked in the music business over in the UK. These days as far as the singing went she gigged at clubs in and around Amsterdam doing what she described as ‘a kind of acoustic, twenty-first century Joni Mitchell thing’. Curious to see how reluctant she might be to tell him about her previous fame Phil attempted to get her to be more specific but all she would say was that the work had involved ‘music videos, backing vocals and the like’, and that although it had been fun at the time she had no regrets that this period of her life was over.
‘So what brought you back to Amsterdam?’ he asked. ‘Or is that too personal a question?’
‘No, it’s fine,’ she replied. ‘My marriage ended and I felt the only place I might be able to heal would be back home.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ replied Phil, meaning it. ‘He must be an idiot, your ex-husband.’
Sanne smiled. ‘That’s kind of you to say so,’ she said. ‘But it was a bit more complicated than that.’
Phil just couldn’t help himself. ‘How so?’
‘You can’t really be interested.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ replied Phil. ‘Despite what you saw last night, I’m a lover not a fighter. So come on then, what was the reason?’
‘All the time he was with me he was in love with someone else . . . someone from his past.’
‘An ex?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, an ex.’
Phil’s chest tightened. ‘I know this is going to sound weird,’ he began, ‘but does this woman have a name? I’m just curious I suppose, I’m just trying to picture the kind of woman that would have that sort of effect on a guy.’
‘Helen,’ said Sanne quietly, ‘her name was Helen.’
10.
Phil was standing in front of the sink in the café’s gents’ toilets frantically splashing water on his face, like people do in films when trying to regain their composure after a shock. If this had been a film, maybe the water-splashing would have done the trick and allowed him to return to the table outside and act like a normal human being but as it wasn’t a film, but real life in all its Technicolor glory, he just managed to drench the front of his shirt and part of his tie, earning himself a number of odd looks.
Aiden Reid’s marriage had collapsed because of Helen. That had been the long and the short of what Sanne had said, hadn’t it? After all those years, after all that time, Helen’s ex’s feelings for her had remained so strong that they had overcome what he felt for Sanne, his wife. Did Helen know that Aiden felt this way? Had he tried to contact her after his marriage ended or even while they were still together? Phil tried to recall when he had read in the papers about Sanne and Aiden Reid separating. Last year? The year before? He recalled past occasions when Helen had seemed out of sorts. Like the period when for weeks on end she would get up in the middle of the night and watch TV claiming that the stress of working under a new station manager was affecting her sleep patterns or the time before that when he would find her in tears in the darkness of their bedroom. She’d claimed it was because she was worried about her dad’s struggle with Alzheimer’s or her mother’s upcoming operation. There were more such incidents and although each came with a perfectly plausible explanation Phil wondered if at least one of them had been due to Aiden Reid.
Phil suddenly felt tired and hungover again. He was too old to be plagued by this kind of insecurity. He didn’t need thoughts of some oily celebrity stalking his girlfriend a week before his own wedding. Whether Aiden had contacted Helen or not, he knew Helen would never let him down. He did know that, didn’t he? In all the years they had been together, making a home together, she had never given him any cause to doubt her loyalty. Helen had chosen him as the man that she wanted to be with for all time. They were getting married. This time next week he would be putting a ring on her finger.
Feeling more positive after his internal pep talk Phil wiped his face on a paper towel, made his way outside and stood for a moment observing Sanne watching two small children taking turns to chase each other around the children’s playground a few feet from their table. It was a shame. Her beauty, former fame and connection to Aiden Reid aside, she was actually really easy to get on with and perhaps in a different life they could have been friends.
‘I’d better be getting off,’ said Phil as he reached the table.
‘Oh,’ said Sanne rising to her feet, ‘are you sure? I was just thinking that if you really wanted to see Amsterdam I could show you around Vondelpark. It’s not far at all.’
‘That’s really kind of you,’ replied Phil, ‘but I’ve got to go. The boys . . . well you know, I’m supposed to be on a stag weekend . . .’
Sanne smiled. ‘Yes, of course. You should go.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘It was lovely to meet you Philip Hudson, it really was and I wish you and your wife all the happiness in the world.’ She handed Phil a club flyer from her bag. ‘A parting gift from me to you! It’s a gig I’m doing tonight at the Yellow Robot, it’s an acoustic thing. I’m pretty s
ure it won’t be to your friends’ liking but if you do get a chance to drop in you should say hi.’
He felt relieved and guilty as he walked away. Pleasant though she was, she was the gateway to a very special kind of madness that he could do without. For the rest of the weekend at least he would forget all about art, culture and the pursuit of deeper meaning for his time in Amsterdam and join his friends in the things that really mattered on a stag weekend: having a laugh and getting trashed.
Keen to get out of the sun for a while, Phil caught a tram to get him closer to the hotel, alighting at Amsterdam Centraal. The city centre was crawling with a heady mixture of locals and tourists. Outside the station Phil spotted a crowd being entertained by a mime artist duo whose skin, clothes and hair were covered in silver paint and he felt a sudden pang for Helen. If she had been with him they would have stopped to enjoy the spectacle before heading off somewhere nice for a canalside drink.
Right now Phil needed to hear Helen’s voice more than anything in the world. He missed her and wanted, if only for the duration of a three-minute call to be connected to her in some meaningful way. He scanned the square for a public phone and eventually found one back in the station next to a bank of ticket machines.
Phil pulled out some loose change and dropped the coins in the slot. He was about to tap the first digit of Helen’s number into the keypad when the fatal flaw in his plan dawned on him. Although he could remember all manner of phone numbers from his Nan’s before she moved into a home, to the office fax which hadn’t been used in a decade, the one number he couldn’t recall was Helen’s.