Since He Went Away

by Marie Joseph

  Well, it is one thing to call yourself a selfish beast, and another thing to have someone agree with you. Especially someone who is supposed to be your friend! So within two minutes flat, Timothy Barnes was being shown out of the front door in a silence dripping with dignity.

  My mother’s tousled head appeared over the banisters.

  ‘Tim gone? Put the potatoes on, darling, will you?’ she said.

  My thoughts as I turned on the gas under the pan were very bitter. How could my own mother write such thrilling romances, and yet be unaware of the heartbreak going on in her own house?

  I sprinkled salt on the potatoes, then threw some over my left shoulder for luck. Not that it would do any good.

  And it didn’t. The next day Tim walked home with Sandra Mayhew, who has worn tight skirts and lipstick since she was twelve.

  Jilted, like Jill. Thrown aside like a worn-out glove. A pair of worn-out gloves . . .

  I missed Tim terribly, but I didn’t burden anyone with my troubles, even Jill; she was having enough trouble of her own.

  In one short week she seemed to have gone painfully thin, all shadows and hollows. She was only going through the motions of living. Anyone could see that.

  Then she would sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the space where Mark’s photograph used to be, her brown eyes misty with unshed tears.

  She was sitting like that, pretending to watch television, the following Saturday evening, when the telephone rang. It was about the time Mark usually rang to say what time he would pick her up.

  Jill jumped a mile, a deep blush staining her cheeks, hope reflected in her eyes.

  ‘Oh, please let it be Mark,’ I prayed as I went into the hall. ‘Please, please let it be Mark.’

  ‘Amanda?’ said Tim’s voice.

  I was so surprised and glad, and yet so furious with him for not being Mark, that I slammed down the receiver. Then, ashamed of myself, I went slowly back to the living room.

  Jill had slumped down in her chair.

  ‘Wrong number,’ I mumbled, and she nodded, and pretended to be interested in a little man balancing a stick with a ball on the end of it on his nose on television.

  He was balancing the same stick with a ball on the end of it on his feet, when the telephone rang again.

  This time my mother put down her pencil and went into the hall.

  ‘If it’s Tim, I’m out,’ I said, and she came back looking most aggrieved.

  ‘Children shouldn’t encourage their parents to tell lies,’ she said. ‘When I was your age . . .’

  I spoke quickly. ‘It’s marvellous, Mummy, the way you can write with the television on, and us talking.’

  Immediately, at the mention of the word writing, she forgot what she had been going to say. She beamed at me.

  ‘Jane Austen did it all the time, darling,’ she said. ‘She could prop her notebook on the mantelpiece, and write away, in a room crowded with people. Nothing disturbed her once she had got into the flow.’

  ‘A sign of true genius,’ I agreed.

  But when we were undressing for bed that night, Jill spoke through the folds of her nylon nightdress.

  ‘I don’t know how you could treat Tim like that. If – if anyone I was fond of rang me up, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself telling him how much I’d missed him – that would be if he . . .’

  Her voice tailed off miserably, she got into bed and switched off the light.

  I finished putting my rollers in by guesswork, and lay down.

  Yes, I thought. That’s exactly what you would do. You’d run and run, straight into Mark’s arms. That’s what you’ve always done. You loved him so much, you were always there, ready and waiting for him. You would let him change his mind about your plans, and he’d know you wouldn’t protest because you felt that wherever you went was all right as long as you were together.

  I moved my head gingerly on the pillow. My head felt as though I were wearing a crash helmet, and I was thankful that I usually wore my hair straight, but I had to persevere. If I knew Tim, he would be round the next morning, and I wanted to look my best when I finally forgave him.

  The next morning I got up at least an hour earlier than usual, and put on a dress instead of my usual Sunday morning jeans and sweater. I peeled the potatoes in a frilly hostess apron, and tried to make my mother see my point of view about Jill.

  ‘She ought to have played more hard-to-get,’ I finished. ‘That’s what I think.’

  ‘Try not to use vulgar expressions, dear,’ Mother said. ‘We are all as God made us, you know.’

  Her eyes, as she basted the joint, were glazed, and I knew that she was busy hatching up another plot.

  ‘But surely you see . . .’ I was beginning to say, when the door bell rang.

  It was Tim, just as I had known it would be.

  He stood there on the doorstep, wearing his blue jeans and a yellow pullover.

  ‘I was just passing,’ he mumbled, and fascinated, I watched a blush creeping over his freckles. ‘I was just passing and I wondered if you . . . that is . . .’

  Throwing aside my apron, I opened the door wide, gave him a gracious smile and invited him in. We went into the sitting-room, and put a record on, and it was just like old times.

  When Jill had drifted in and out for a moment, all pale and wan, I couldn’t resist getting Tim to confirm what I already knew to be the truth.

  ‘Were you furious when I wouldn’t speak to you on the telephone last night?’ I asked him out straight.

  ‘Furious? That isn’t the word. That’s why I’ve come round. To see what is going on . . .’

  That was all I wanted to know.

  When Tim went an hour later he had promised to help me with my physics homework. I watched from the window as he ran up the road and I should have been happy, yet I wasn’t. How could I be happy when Jill spent all her evenings by the telephone waiting for it to ring, and all her nights crying into the darkness for Mark.

  ‘You will have to pull yourself together, Jill,’ my mother said. ‘No man is worth so many tears.’ And she gazed fondly at my father and passed him another piece of his favourite cherry cake.

  ‘There’s more fish in the sea than ever came out,’ my father began when the telephone rang, and once again I saw hope in Jill’s eyes, only to die when the caller turned out to be the butcher in the high street, whose wife was having her fourth baby.

  I knew something would have to be done, and quickly, or my sister would become a nun, or a missionary, or something drastic like that.

  So I spent three of my lunch hours cycling to and fro in front of the restaurant where Mark usually had lunch.

  And I was just about to give up, when on the third day I saw the shiny white car parked outside. I managed to fall off my bicycle just as Mark came out through the swing doors.

  He rushed to pick me up, as I had planned he would, and when I looked up into his face I could almost understand why Jill was breaking her heart for him. His eyes were hazel, with little flecks of green in them, and his hair sprang away from his forehead in crisp dark waves.

  I smiled shakily and limped over to my bicycle.

  ‘I’m all right, really I am,’ I said. Then I staggered in a realistic way – I hadn’t been chosen to play the Snow Queen for nothing – and put my hand to my head.

  ‘Just a little dizzy for a moment,’ I said bravely, and sort of slumped over.

  Swiftly Mark wheeled the bicycle to the kerb, propped it up, opened the car door and deposited me on one of the leopard-skin seats.

  ‘I will run you back to school and someone can collect your bicycle later,’ he said.

  I swallowed hard as he let in the clutch. That wasn’t in my plan at all.

  ‘Please, no,’ I gasped. ‘I shouldn’t be out of school really. Just let me sit here for a few minutes until the shock has worn off, then I’ll wheel my bicycle back myself. I won’t ride it, I promise.’

  I managed a sort of watery smile, and
he took out his handkerchief, and wiped a streak of mud from my face. Mark was just about the nicest person I had ever known. I forgot that I was supposed to be in a state of shock and smiled at him.

  He grinned back, then suddenly was serious; ‘And how’s Jill?’ he said.

  ‘Dying of a broken heart,’ I wanted to say, but I remembered my plan.

  ‘Oh, she’s fine,’ I said. ‘Not that I see much of her. She goes out nearly every evening, and when she comes in, I’m asleep.’

  ‘Out?’ he said slowly. ‘Nearly every evening?’

  ‘Yes, you know, parties, dances and things.’

  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Jill.’

  ‘No, it just goes to show, doesn’t it?’ I said, and watched him frown and beat a worried tattoo on the steering wheel.

  I started to fumble with the catch of the door, and he leant across and opened it for me.

  “Bye Mark, and thank you,’ I said. He didn’t speak, and when I walked away I knew that he was still sitting there with that puzzled look in his eyes.

  We had English literature that afternoon and Miss Arkwright, who has fawn-coloured hair, read us a long poem about love. She read it with deep feeling, and a catch in her plum-in-the-throat voice.

  Poor Miss Arkwright. Was that how Jill would look in about twenty years’ time? And would a poem be all she had left to remind her of a love that might have been?

  I felt pleasantly sad for the rest of the day, and that evening the sky was a faded blue and the lilac bush by the front gate drooped low with scented blossoms.

  I leant out of the window, just in time to see Mark’s car slide to a stop. I was so surprised, I could hardly move. My plan had worked far quicker than I had ever dreamt that it would.

  Mark was getting out of the car and looking towards the house. He hesitated, and I could have felt sorry for him if I hadn’t remembered that he had broken Jill’s heart.

  Jill! She must be warned. I started to run downstairs. Whatever happened she mustn’t let him know that she was glad to see him again.

  ‘Jill,’ I called, but it was too late.

  She had seen the car from the living-room window and had rushed into the hall, flung open the front door, and then she was running down the path. It was a long path and her high heels made a clicking sound on the paving.

  Slowly I walked back upstairs into my mother’s study, and looked through the window. There was Jill, dark hair flying, skirts billowing, arms stretched wide.

  ‘Don’t let him see that you care so much,’ I wanted to shout. ‘Make him run to you!’

  I hadn’t realised that I was speaking aloud, until my mother came over to me.

  ‘She’s spoiling everything,’ I wailed. ‘Just look at her . . .’

  My mother looked, then smiled at me and ruffled my hair.

  ‘In every love affair there is one who loves the most. One who is quick to forgive, and for Jill it will always be like that . . .’

  ‘But he hurt her so,’ I said. ‘And now she is asking to be hurt again. She should have made him think that she didn’t care.’

  But now Mark was holding Jill close in his arms and kissing her, a kiss that seemed to go on for ever. Then they walked together up the path, and waved to me, and their faces were full of joy.

  Still I argued. ‘She should have made him run to her.’

  My mother shook her head.

  ‘Some day you’ll love like that, Amanda. Some day you’ll understand that a woman can love without reservation. Be hurt, and still keep on loving. Give her whole heart and ask for nothing in return.’

  She put the cover over her typewriter and went downstairs, leaving me alone.

  I leant my forehead against the cool glass. Outside, the shadows were lengthening, and the birds in the eaves sang full-throated lullabies. The long summer evening was coming to a close.

  ‘Some day you’ll love like that, Amanda . . .’

  Oh, never, never – I vowed to myself. I’ll always be me, just like I am now. Belonging to nobody . . .

  And yet, as I made my vow, the darkness crept into the room, and at the gate, the lilac blossoms drooped their heavy heads against an almost navy blue sky.

  I cried, not knowing what I was crying for, until I felt empty, and drained, and beautifully sad. Then, just as I thought I would never stop crying, I suddenly remembered Jill would marry Mark, and I would be their bridesmaid.

  In blue, I decided, to match my eyes, and with a flat delicate flower on top of my head, because I was tall, and didn’t want to tower over the best man.

  I leant out of the window, and felt the air cool on my face. Mother called up from the hall. ‘Amanda, come down, Jill and Mark have something exciting to tell you.’

  And with blue shoes to match, I thought happily, as I ran downstairs. I’d look fabulous.

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  Epub ISBN: 9781448107889

  Version 1.0

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  SINCE HE WENT AWAY

  First published by Century in 1992

  LOVE IS LIKE THAT first appeared in

  WHEN LOVE WAS LIKE THAT

  First published by Century in 1991

  This edition first published by Arrow 1992

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  © Marie Joseph 1992

  The right of Marie Joseph to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  ISBN 9780099994503