by Freya North
Polly found it amusing that the farewells were utterly without the Hollywoodization and accompanying soaring violins and heavenly angels’ chorus that she’d anticipated. There was no misty-eyed ‘I love you’-ing, no heartfelt pleas not to leave.
But there was AJ, giving her his baseball cap and saying ‘It kinda sucks that you won’t be here next year’ to a chorus of ‘Yes siree’-ing from his classmates. There was Lorna, offering wide open arms for a very public embrace in the dining hall. There was the key to Petersfield House, placed in a box with a ribbon, and on which were tied little messages from her dorm daughters. And there was Kate, popping in to ask what time they should leave for Boston. In the station-wagon with the fake wood panelling. With the dog called Bogey. On the Interstate. Huge trucks. Pretty planked houses and tree-clad mountains out of the window. Full circle.
Polly saw how, in the grand scheme of things, in Hubbardtons, at Hubbardtons, she really was quite superfluous. It was a bitter sweet acknowledgement for her.
I can leave because they can let me go.
On the last day of term, the students were far more preoccupied savouring the diminishing hours with their buddies, packing at the very last minute and then failing to hide the excitement on seeing their folks draw up to collect them.
‘So long, Miss Fenton.’
‘Yeah, like, thanks for everything.’
‘Keep in touch, Miss Fenton.’
‘It’s been pretty cool in your class.’
‘I’ll miss you.’
‘See ya round.’
‘Send my love to the Queen, hey?’
‘Toodle pip,’ said Miss Fenton, in fine form and to smiles all round. ‘Have a super duper summer,’ she said, kissing her vowels splendidly and much to the gratitude of all those to whom she said it. ‘Cheerio.’
‘Bye you.’
It’s Lorna. Polly’s friend and sworn-in penpal. She’ll never usurp Megan and yet Megan won’t really know quite how much Lorna has meant to Polly. As Lorna says, ‘It’s, like, we’ve done stuff together.’ Not just piggy-bank raiding in Manchester. They’ve grown during this year and, though they’ll selflessly take no credit, each has been fundamental to the other’s development. Lorna has a vibrator. Polly has humility. Both have the men they started with and, at last, they are deserving of them.
‘Bye bye.’
It’s Polly. Touching Lorna’s cheek and slipping one arm around her friend’s shoulders, another around her waist. Pulling her in close and holding on tight, then letting go. Smiling fondly. Letting go.
‘All set?’
It’s Kate. Polly looks around her apartment at Petersfield House, it is as bare as the silence throughout the building. She is the last to leave. She’s been dawdling; she’s needed to.
I’ve had to say goodbye to the view from each window.
And to ponder at just how far the athletic trainer’s office now seems to be, way over the sports field.
Very distant. Pretty nondescript.
And you’ve been into each of the rooms, standing still and bidding farewell to each of the vanished girls.
Daughters mine.
And now Kate’s come to take you back to England.
Mother mine.
‘All set?’
‘Yup,’ says Polly, taking a last, long look around; to commit it all to memory though it is all locked deep there already, to hide tears that prickle. ‘Time to go home.’
Once again, Polly did not tell Max which flight she was on, she told him two days’ time. Yes, she wanted to surprise him. But she also had an appointment to keep. It had been requested two days ago and Polly had agreed to it immediately.
Belsize Park. Just the same. Where’s Buster? There he is, on the corner of the street, glowering at the tiny tabby from over the road, far too preoccupied to give Polly much more than a cursory glance, and a slightly reproachful one at that. Here’s the house. Communal light is on but all is quiet in the entrance hall. No post. Invasive smell of cabbage from Miss Klee’s landing. Quick, quick. Get in.
The flat is beautifully clean and tidy. A large pile of post is on the book shelf. Polly flips through it, nothing is so interesting that it can’t be opened later. It’s not yet eleven in the morning. She has Max to surprise. She has an appointment to keep. She has to unpack. Freshen up. Her bedroom is fresh and airy, the sash windows are down a few inches at the top, the bed is stripped, the mattress upended, the pillows look plump. The washing basket is empty. The bathroom is spotless. A new tablet of Pears soap. A new roll of toilet paper. Fresh towels.
Have I really been gone? Was I ever not here?
She’ll unpack later. She’s been sitting on the edge of her bed, gazing out of the window thinking of nothing specifically with her mind whirring and full. It’s now noon. Max is up the road, tantalizingly close, blissfully unaware of her arrival, her proximity. Off she goes.
Polly was hovering by the intercom to Max’s studio. She so wanted to sashay in, wrap herself languidly around him and plant a luxuriously controlled kiss first on his forehead, then on his lips; as long planned and frequently imagined. Standing there, in Hampstead at lunch-time, her adrenal gland in overdrive, she knew resignedly that she was probably capable of no more than hurling herself at him, clambering all over him, whilst squealing and weeping far too much to kiss him with anything other than a deluge of clumsy bashes.
‘Want to save me a job?’ said a voice, at once recognizably Dominican and right behind her. Polly spun round.
‘Dom!’ she cried. ‘Inic!’
‘Welcome home, Pollygirl,’ he said, as if she’d merely returned from a weekend away. He was standing before her, brandishing paper sandwich bags and a huge smile. But not for long. Soon, the bags were on the pavement, the coffee was spilt, and Dominic was prising Polly’s arms away from his neck to avoid imminent asphyxiation.
‘You’re wearing shorts,’ was all Polly could think to say in her excitement. Dominic looked down at his legs and splayed them, Chaplinesque, in a little jig.
‘Yup,’ he said, ‘it’s summer.’ He gave her heavy sweatshirt a gentle tug. ‘Jet lag?’ he asked.
‘Just arrived,’ Polly confirmed. Dominic picked up the sodden sandwich bags and raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Just happy to see you,’ she reasoned apologetically and in her defence.
‘Great to have you back,’ said Dominic. He pressed Max’s intercom.
‘Hullo?’ came Max’s voice. Dominic put his hand over Polly’s mouth to silence her excitement and could feel the vibration of her breath against his palm.
‘Fancy something tasty for lunch?’ said Dominic into the speaker, while winking at Polly. The door buzzed open in reply. ‘Off you go,’ he said to Polly. ‘See you later, perhaps. Concert at Kenwood tomorrow night – fancy it?’
‘I’m back,’ Polly said to him, incredulously.
‘Er, yeah,’ said Dominic, wondering why she was stating the obvious.
‘I’m really back,’ Polly repeated, ‘back home. For good.’
Dominic regarded her and smiled. ‘I’m glad,’ he said, nodding. He held open the door for her. In she went.
‘Boo!’
Max remains with his back to the door, sitting at his work.
‘Boo?’ he says.
‘Boo!’ says the voice. Slowly, he turns. There she is, looking simultaneously radiant but exhausted; a vision and yet right here, standing in the doorway, holding her face in her hands. She’s wearing a short skirt and the hemline is quivering, no doubt the baggy sweatshirt conceals a flurry of goosebumps. Her cheeks are a little flushed, her eyes are an extraordinary muddy green. It’s not possible to detect whether the strange twitching of her lips is involuntary or not. Her right ear is holding her hair away from that side of her face and she is fiddling with a lock on the left side. She takes a strand and sucks on it, to give her lips something else to do, to give herself an excuse not to talk because she has no idea what else to say.
‘Hullo,’ Max says. Polly makes a strange, sha
rp noise in reply and holds the sodden sandwich bag aloft. ‘Want to come in?’ Max asks. She shuffles in a few steps, still brandishing the bag, her tongue tip pushing away the frond of sucked hair.
Come to me, Polly. Run and jump all over me. Bash my face with your manic kisses. It’s your trademark. It’s you.
Polly obliges almost instantly.
‘Hey Button,’ Max murmurs, stroking her back, her head and brushing strands of her hair from his mouth, and soggy crumbs off his drawing board.
Polly wipes her nose vigorously against his shirt. He kisses her damp cheek and dips down to her mouth. Their lips meet. Now they both know that she’s home. They crumple down to the floor and their bodies lock together. There they stay, very still, very comfortable, incredibly relieved, immensely pleased, utterly exhausted.
‘Welcome back, Mister Benn,’ Max says a little later. Polly regards him for a moment or two and then laughs.
‘As in Watch with Mother?’ she asks. ‘Little chap in a suit and bowler hat?’
‘Yes,’ says Max, ‘and yes.’
‘Who’d toddle off to the fancy-dress shop in his lunch hour?’ Polly continues, delighted at the memory flooding back. ‘Put on fancy dress and then have a quick adventure?’ Her voice trailed away as she grasped the point.
‘Yes and yes,’ Max says.
‘And then he’d find himself back in his suit and bowler?’ Polly asks. ‘Same old Mister Benn?’ She falls silent and leafs with awe through Max’s sketch pad. She looks a while on a beautiful portrait of a ringleted sleeping child.
Wasn’t there was an adult version of Mister Benn? A film for grown-ups. Brief Encounter?
‘Don’t really know where we’ve been, or what costumes we’ve worn,’ she murmurs, ‘but I know I’m Polly Fenton,’ she says, ‘and I know that what defines me, deep down, is intact. I like what I find there. I’d like to share. It’s good to be back, Max.’
‘And you like the idea of being sensibly, blissfully and happily unmarried to me?’
‘It’s a very sound idea.’
‘Fancy going to Cornwall for the weekend?’
‘I’d love to, I’ve never been.’
‘Nor,’ Max remembers, ‘had I.’
‘Miss Fenton?’ It was Jayne Greene from the Upper Fifth. ‘I thought you weren’t coming back till next term?’
‘Some welcome, Jayne Greene,’ Polly retorted. ‘I’ve just come off the plane and I simply couldn’t wait a whole summer before I saw you again.’ The pupil was quite happy to believe her and swaggered off across the playground as if her teacher had not been away at all. Polly made her way through the old house which was home to the sixth-form block, up four flights of stairs to the four small attic rooms converted into music rooms. Cramped but sound-proofed. Bookable by a list kept on the piano in the main hall. A student entered one with a saxophone. Polly waited a few moments but all she could hear was a distant, subdued tune. All that jazz. Whatever. Room number 4. A quick knock and enter straight away.
‘Hi, Polly.’
‘Hullo, Jen.’
The women shake hands, formally, but for some time. They don’t flinch from the sight of each other.
‘When does your flight go? Tonight?’
‘Uh huh, I have a cab picking me up from school at four. Can you believe Mrs Elms allowed me to miss the last three days of term?’
‘No,’ marvels Polly, ‘it’s unprecedented – she must have a soft spot for you. Or else you paid her substantial sums?’
‘Or else, she can’t wait to see the back of me?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Polly says, ‘from all accounts, I hear you’ve been a tremendous success. e e cummings,’ she whistles in admiration. Jen takes the compliment graciously. Polly looks suddenly horror-struck.
‘God,’ she says, ‘you don’t think I’m expected to come back for these last three days of term, do you?’
‘No one’s said so,’ Jen assures her. They laugh, both aware of the dire consequences of the proximity of a term’s end, let alone a year’s end, on the girls’ behaviour. They laugh again; both knowing full well that Polly will be at assembly at 8.40 Monday morning. Sitting, no doubt, by Megan.
‘So,’ says Jen.
‘So,’ says Polly.
‘You’re back.’
‘I’m back.’
There is an awkward pause during which Jen wonders if she should say sorry. Should she tell Polly that she’d spoken to Chip? That she knew? For her part, Polly wonders whether she should assure Jen that everything is fine, that she holds no grudges, that she had slept with Chip anyway. The women finish the silence with a meek smile apiece. Jen shrugs and looks out of the dormer window over the rooftops of BGS.
‘Do you know Mister Benn?’ Polly asks.
‘What, the big clock?’
‘No, no, not Big Ben, Mister Benn?’
‘That guy who creeps around the science block?’
Polly laughs and shakes her head. ‘We’re deluged by your bloody ER, Friends and Northern Exposure – fine televisual viewing, I do concede – but you mean to tell me that Mister Benn has not made it across the Atlantic?’
‘Nope,’ says Jen, ‘who the hell is he?’
‘Oh,’ Polly replies, ‘just a chap on TV I think you’d like. We both have a lot in common with him.’
‘We do? Is he on video?’
Jen continues to look out of the window. The netball court cum tennis court cum playground. The tree sitting defiantly at its centre. She is looking forward to the space and structure of Hubbardtons.
‘It was – it was so—’ Polly pauses, stuck for words, halted by the lump in her throat. ‘And I’m back now. And you’re about to return, too.’
‘Polly,’ Jen says, turning to her and regarding her unflinchingly, ‘I’m, like, sorry.’
‘For what,’ Polly replies but not as a question at all. ‘You have nothing to apologize for. In fact, I thank you, Jennifer Carter. I wouldn’t have wanted things to have worked out any other way,’ she continues, with conviction. ‘Through experiences, one learns. And oh, how you grow from what you have learned.’
‘So so true,’ Jen agrees.
‘Thanks for asking me,’ Polly says, touching Jen’s arm, ‘thanks for suggesting that we meet.’
‘Hey,’ says Jen, holding up her hands in surrender, ‘thank you for coming – I’m so so pleased that you did. And thanks also for Buster – I’m going to miss him a lot.’
‘What a year,’ Polly enthuses, ‘it was a bloody huge, brilliant year.’ She sighs wistfully and very much in the past tense. In her mind’s eye, the people who have inhabited her recent life stand in line. Kate with a jar of Marmite. Marcia with the CIA. Mikey McCabe – ha! remember him! Chip – whom she now had no need to forget. Her Dorm Daughters. Those brothers, in aprons, from the Vineyard. AJ in his baseball cap. Turned back to front. Lorna and her vibrator. Jackson. Powers. Laurel and Lauren in salopettes. Josephine in bronze. Charle(s). The men who gave her windfall apples. The sales assistants in Manchester. There they all stand, in a line, outside Jojo Baxter’s unfinished house. It’s a curtain call. They are as actors in a favourite play, one in which Polly had a bit part. They are taking a bow. And another. They exit stage left.
Polly blinks. She’s in a music room at BGS that smells vaguely of gym shoes and toasted sandwiches. She’s standing next to Jennifer Carter, who’s a lot taller than her but completely on the same level. She stands alongside Jen, looking from the tiny window, sharing the view. Polly touches Jen’s shoulder and then places the back of her hand gently against Jen’s cheek. Jen takes her hand and holds it. They share a private, generous, congratulatory smile and bring their foreheads together.
‘What a year,’ Polly marvels in a whisper. ‘Do you know, I wouldn’t have had it any other way – because I certainly wouldn’t be where I am now,’ she says.
‘Exactly,’ Jen marvels, liking it that they stand so close. ‘But, know what? If the opportunity arose, I sure as hell would
n’t do it again,’ she adds, smiling broadly and nudging Polly.
‘God no,’ Polly responds, her hands to her face, her eyes dancing and dark, ‘neither would I.’
AFTERWORD
I travelled in the United States by myself over the summer of 1991. Alongside hoping to bump into Kevin Bacon, I had a lot to think about. Was it really a good idea to ditch the PhD I was all set up to do simply because, on a whim, I’d secretly started writing a novel (which later would be become my first, Sally)? In California, it seemed like a great idea. By the time I’d reached Chicago, I declared myself nuts – who on earth lands a publishing deal?! Crazy girl! Of course I’d continue with my studies! It would pave a career path for myself in Art History – my long-standing passion. My focus and intent were strengthened in New York and I spent much of my time there in the museums and galleries thinking, this is my world. I could envisage myself as a dusty academic vividly. I liked being tucked away in libraries, I loved being absorbed into the paintings that captivated me. No question about it. I’d research and write my doctorate on the Rappel a l’Ordre in Post War British Art. That’s what I’d do. It was expected of me. It made sense.
And then I went to New England. Loved Boston – loved the architecture, the culture, spent hours in the Museum of Fine Art and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum leaving only limited time to window-shop Newbury Street and Copley Place. My next stop was Vermont. I was heading for Ludlow. Because I was travelling by bus, I needed a place where the youth hostel was walking distance from the bus stop. My last few weeks were all planned. I’d skip over to Martha’s Vineyard for a while, then head up to Vermont, have a quick look around and then return home to London, to bang on the hallowed portals of the Courtauld Institute just as soon as term began. However, I then met Laura. Laura said, don’t go to Ludlow – go to Saxtons River and stay with my sister Mary. Does the Greyhound bus go to Saxtons River, I asked? Nope, said Laura, but it stops at Bellows Falls and Mary’ll meet you there.
It was a little like deciding to change from blonde to brunette overnight – in my twenties, if a whacky idea came along, I’d simply run with it. Within a couple of days, the Greyhound deposited me by a giant Airedale called Bogey and his owner, the ever-smiling Mary. Had I really never met this woman before? Hadn’t I known her my whole life? Mary’s house was effervescing with warmth – and brimming with people. Art teacher at the prestigious Vermont Academy, Mary had gathered the younger members of staff to welcome the English girl who was stopping by for a while and an impromptu party was soon underway.