The Writing on the Wall and Other Stories

by Penny Edwards

  ROLL YOUR OWN

  These days it always seems to come back to age because the girl on the opposite seat reminded me of Audrey Hepburn and though the girl – young woman, I suppose I should say, but being a similar age to my daughter she felt like a girl – though she probably knew Ms Hepburn by posters, it was pretty likely she didn’t know her work, as is said these days. She probably didn’t even appreciate her as an icon. Yet look like her she did, even though it was Audrey in thick, rectangular-rimmed glasses, purple baggy vest T-shirt and long, green and silver beads more reminiscent of hippy San Francisco than chic New York. An Audrey less constrained, you might say. An Audrey making, what seemed to be, a small factory’s worth of cigarettes. Ironic, really, as cancer had deprived the star of old age.

  The train was travelling through the French countryside. Audrey had got on at Lyon and I was immediately struck by this one-woman business unfolding before my very eyes. Such industrious behaviour in what was, for me, a journey of leisure seemed even more incongruous than someone on their phone or computer. Maybe it was just that I wasn’t used to witnessing the making of cigarettes on such a large scale.

  She wasn’t really interested in anyone nearby. As soon as she sat down, on a seat where the other three around her were empty, she began to pull things out of her rucksack, again something I didn’t imagine the real Audrey possessing, at least not on set, and I smiled, if only because it looked like Mary Poppins with her bag of surprises. Were all my references of the celluloid variety? So out came what looked like a large black and orange stapler, a yellow, round box of Camel tobacco with the vacuum foil still half attached to its top and a silvery grey box, which I thought might hold tools of some sort but which carried, what turned out to be, cigarette papers. Audrey momentarily glanced out of the window and caught a glimpse of the sunny day and a countryside deprived of people, then quickly returned to the matter in hand. She pushed back a tiny thread of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. Her hair, piled high as if Tiffany’s beckoned, though more dishevelled, gave the impression she was more concerned about a cat lost forever than a piece of jewellery.

  I thought how confident she seemed. How years of feminism had gifted her with this. Though as her fingers delicately twirled the cigarette paper to a point where it could satisfactorily fit into the stapler machine, she most likely didn’t see it that way. She chewed gum; she intermittently answered text messages, with barely a break in the factory process. The machine was loaded and the tobacco deftly dropped at, I would have estimated, a height of about an inch. Yes, well, we’re back to the age thing. Don’t get me wrong. I love European. But when it comes to measurement, I’ll always think feet and inches. Old habits and all that and from the end of Audrey’s manicured and varnished fingertips, there was definitely about an inch. She pushed the machine up and down three times for each cigarette, ensuring it released any unwanted tobacco and forming as it did so, a perfect shape. The process was faultless and would’ve made a factory owner proud, but this worker had her own autonomy, her absorption something to behold. And after each cigarette was born, its life was confirmed with a personal inscription written carefully on and with seemingly great satisfaction.

  I went back to my book. I didn’t want to appear too nosey. She was probably already wondering what on earth she was doing that so fascinated the middle-aged woman opposite. Her phone rang and unlike other calls that had obviously not interested her enough to deter her from her task, in fact one had caused transparent disdain, she picked this one up. Yes, she said, the train was on time. She’d be in Marseille by six. A small bundle of tobacco was picked up from the tin and gathered into an appropriate amount, the phone between her ear and shoulder. A series of pourquoi’s followed. Why? Why? Why? Then she said no quite sharply, and abruptly finished the conversation. A deep sigh followed and another cigarette completed. It was given her signature. Another box, which had started its journey empty, was filling up with the signed articles.

  “Hello, it’s Francine.” Her voice was quite deep and assured, the kind that tells you your room is ready and breakfast will be served between seven and nine. “How are you? OK, I think. Not great. But I know I’ve made the right decision… Yeah… No, I’m on the train now… Yeah, no, I know you’re right. It just feels a bit odd. But you’re so right ’cause he just rang. I couldn’t believe it. He was still going on about how he could improve my writing! Like he thought that was going to bring me rushing back! I said, ‘You’re not my professor now!’ Anyway, good to talk. I’ll give you a ring when I’ve got my stuff sorted a bit. Yeah. Cool. Bye.”

  She started tapping her phone, then checked the box with the finished cigarettes, as if she was doing some sort of calculation.

  I got my purse out of my bag. All this concentration on another’s life was making me thirsty, so I ventured down the hairy pathway of several coaches towards the buffet, holding tightly the tops of seats to avoid falling into someone’s lap. I was one generation behind such speed. My stomach and brain hadn’t quite caught up, being at the tail end of small carriages for six with sliding doors with their very definite click when pulled shut and most pleasing, individual soft lighting that meant you could still glimpse the world outside at night-time. This journey would’ve taken forever but would’ve been kinder to my body.

  “Hello, madame.”

  Audrey, or Francine I suppose I should say, was speaking again and I was sitting very comfortably and relieved my coffee had survived the return journey, with a book I wasn’t reading. Was this what it was like to be a spy?

  “Yes, thanks for getting back. I knocked on your door last night, but you must’ve been out… Right. Yeah, it is sad… That’s kind, madame. You know I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m upset about Gilles. He was very kind, but then he works with your son, so it was all a bit complicated really… Well, thanks. I’m going back to the flower shop in Marseille… Well, I hope so. My friend, the owner, and I are great mates and she’s talking about me going into business with her and the pair of us doing event organising or something like that… Yeah. Well, I should have a pretty good idea, shouldn’t I, after all those uni dos… Well, that’s really nice you saying that… Yeah, I have to say I was pretty upset about him taking my ideas and presenting them as his own to the publisher, but hey ho… Yeah, I think so too and he’s got it on his conscience… Um well, I’m glad you said that, madame! Yeah, that would be nice. You too. Bye.”

  She stopped the cigarette making for a while and concentrated on the scenery once more, which was beginning to look hotter. There was still no one to be seen. Just the odd church or a red-roofed house. She put on an olive green cardigan that had been languishing next to her bag and shuddered slightly as she did so. Her phone rang again.

  “Hello, Papa.” She sounded bored. “Oh, Papa, you’ve been drinking again. I can hear it in your voice! I tried to talk to you! … Well, that’s not my fault, is it? … What? I can’t hear you properly. I don’t know why you’re going on like this. Well, maybe I do. But you didn’t even want me to go to uni… university. You didn’t want me to go. You said it was just full of a lot of hoity-toitys who turned their noses up, and I quote, ‘at the likes of us’… Hah! I was right. I thought money was at the bottom of it. Well, stuff you… No, I won’t and I’d say something stronger if I wasn’t on a train. There’s someone near me and I’m sure she doesn’t want to hear all this… Marseille. I’m going to work in the shop again. I don’t care what you think. It’s enough for me to get by on and that’s all that worries me at the moment… Well, that’s not my prob… Problem. Your debts aren’t my problem. Bye.”

  “Tickets, please. Tickets, please.”

  She rustled in her bag, I in mine.

  “Thank you, madame. Thank you, madame. Ooh, it’s running a little late, madame, so about ten past at the moment, but we could make up the time.”

  “Thank you, monsieur.”

&nb
sp; “Hello, it’s Francine. I need to talk. I’ve just had my dad on the phone. God. It’s such hard work… Oh, have you been talking to Nicole? … No, it’s not a secret. People are going to find out soon enough I’m back in Marseille… No, I’m not going to put it on Facebook… Well, I’ll put that I’m back in Marseille. Obviously. But I’m not going to say why. Tempting though it is to out that sleaze ball for the plagiarist he is. God, when I think of the hours and hours of work he made me do. Do you know, he once had me up all night in his office? … God, no. Gross. He’s at least twice my age. No, we were working on that speech for the Paris conference. You know, the one in April. Anyway, it wasn’t like that ’cause we had old Professor Lefevre in there with us. Have to say, he’s quite a nice old thing, really. He was annoyed about the plagiarism, anyway. But I think he’s a bit torn ’cause they’ve been mates for so long. God, all those rewrites and him checking every tiny little bit of punctuation. I was like, oh my god, it’s just a comma. The man was obsessed. Anyway, how are you?”

  The train stopped. Avignon. Sur le pont. Only about another forty minutes to Marseille. We had made up the time. I watched people get off, tired and stretching limbs that had been stuck in the same positions for hours. Those waiting for them wore only T-shirts. It must be hotter than Lille, but in this air-conditioned environment it was difficult to tell.

  The cigarettes had a lid put on them, the foil on the Camel tin was gently folded over and the stapler returned to the bottom of the bag.

  “Hello. Word gets around! … Yeah. Yeah. I know, I could be making a big mistake, but I really don’t think I am… No, well, that’s good to hear… Yeah. I do feel better. I’ve just had his mum on the phone… No, it was actually OK ’cause she was the first person who really pointed out his arrogance. She thinks he’s a bit of a misogynist. She came into his office while I was there once and he’d gone out to grudgingly make her a drink – at her insistence, he didn’t really want to, ’cause his secretary was on leave, he hated that – and she asked me how he was treating me. I was a bit shocked, but, at that time, said he was fine and I remember she raised her eyebrows, even then. Anyway, must go. I’m getting into Marseille soon… Yeah, I’ll text you or something. OK. Bye for now.”

  I reached for my jacket, which I’d shoved onto the rack above my head what seemed like yesterday, though it was only a few hours ago. The book I hadn’t read was put into my bag, ready for another day and I made sure there was nothing of mine on nearby seats. There were only a few of us left.

  Francine gave an exasperated sigh and answered her phone. She looked at me and begged my pardon, as if she knew I might not like what I was about to hear.

  “Why are you ringing me? I’ve told you, I’m not coming back… No. No. No. Oh god, how many times do I have to say this? The plagiarism, the conference. The Paris conference or have you forgotten? You know, when I delivered the talk, just as we agreed, how everyone applauded, was interested, asked questions, and then you went off with the professor for a meal and didn’t even ask me to join you… Oh god, I can’t do this anymore. Goodbye.”

  There was another sigh and another apology. I smiled and said it was fine. She said, yes, it was and picked up her phone.

  “Hello. It’s me. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes… Yes, can’t wait to see you either… For my flat? That’s kind… Oh, roses, please.”

  CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?

  1980

  I was asked if I could keep a secret. I answered that I didn’t really know as I had never tried. The nearest I’d got, I suppose, was when our father told my sister, Joyce, and I that we were all going to make our mother a birthday cake. It was all very exciting and we were in the kitchen stirring and mixing ingredients and generally getting extremely messy when she came back earlier than expected from a grocery shop. Our father signalled to us that we move ourselves and everything from the table to the pantry, which was silly, really, because there wasn’t time to clean up properly. Well, she came into the kitchen, carrying a huge, heavy bag – we could just see her through the pantry door keyhole – and was obviously not in the mood for any surprises or shenanigans, as she probably saw it, and said quite loudly as she plonked the bag on the floury table surface, “Oh, Arthur, I know you’re in there with the girls.”

  And funnily enough, because this does sound rather odd, I had never got into the secrets sort of thing at school. Dolly, my best friend and I used to talk about lots of things, but I don’t ever remember her saying, “Oh and by the way, don’t tell so-and-so.” At least, I hope she didn’t. And I really don’t recall saying any such thing to Dolly. Come to think of it, no one asked us to keep their secret. Maybe they didn’t trust us. I don’t know.

  So it was a bit strange, looking back, and seeing how my daughters and their friends were always keeping secrets and getting into little huddles, shush, whisper, whisper, “Mummy’s coming!” It’s peculiar to think I had somehow managed to get to the great age of twenty-one and not kept anyone’s secret.

  Everyone knew I wanted to go to university. Absolutely everyone. I remember I was twelve and a half when I decided that was what I wanted to do. I was in my bedroom and I could hear a conversation taking place between my father and a colleague of his who he’d brought home for an early evening drink after work. My father was saying how he hadn’t gone to university, even though his parents had had the desire and the money for him to do so, and how, looking back, he regretted very much that he hadn’t gone along with their wishes. He confessed he had, instead, followed his youthful urgency for employment and a wage. His colleague, quite a nice man from what I could hear, tried his best to reassure my father that his decision had been for the best, but when pressed by my father, who never took reassurance easily, admitted that, though the work had been hard, he had had a fine old time and it had been good to escape the shackles of family life before having to support one oneself. He talked about theatre clubs, debating societies, language societies (now, that was the one that got me hooked) and lots of parties, which, he laughed, included a lot of roaming around streets singing and only the odd bit of complaining from locals or, indeed, the local police. He said one got away with a great deal.

  Yes, I was very taken with what I’d overheard, though I knew, even at that age, it was going to be a pretty hard wall to climb as a girl.

  But it’s funny how a whisper, or a moment, can change absolutely everything. How a man I never saw, whose words I wasn’t really supposed to hear, changed me from a potential housewife or secretary into an undergraduate.

  And that was where they found me. At Westfield College in London. I was in my second year, reading German with French. We were at war and at that time the universities, in their supposed wisdom, said if women were not intending to teach after their degree, then they would have to leave. Well, as much as I wanted to go to university, I knew equally well I had absolutely no intention of entering the teaching profession. I’m afraid it offered nothing to entice me.

  I think I must have started talking to people about how I was interested in war work, I can’t remember who exactly, but word must have got round and suddenly, one day, I had an application form from the FO, the Foreign Office, sent to me in the post. I later learned that colleges were being asked about likely students, so my name must have been put forward. I know one of my professors, a lovely man, had a real thing about us women doing more with ourselves than teaching, so it may have been him. He had a mischievous twinkle in his eye and was a very good sort. When I look back I feel a tad guilty about how horrified I was when he asked me once if I wanted to teach. I mean, it was a bit rude of me to be like that with my professor.

  It was my language skills they were after. Particularly, obviously, my German, which I was reasonably confident about. It was all very hush hush.

  I suppose it was quite strange that I just looked at this form without asking how it had come to me, without questioning a
nything. But after one read through I just thought, Well, why not? You didn’t question your elders in those days and I definitely thought it was an elder who had put my name forward. I can’t imagine my daughters doing the same for one moment.

  I was fortunate, living in London, because the interviews, well, many of them at least, were held there and I got up that morning feeling excited because I wasn’t sure what it was all about. I felt a bit like a child when an adult gradually unveils something; it was all very tantalising and the anticipation made me tingle a little. But I remember, as I walked to the bus stop, it was far too optimistic a day that didn’t belong to wartime, sunshine and a slight breeze, and I suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to retreat into teaching. On such a day, as a teacher I could almost forget there was a war. I think my college had made me feel safe, really, and that morning I realised, with the whiff of the breeze across my face, that things were very uncertain indeed.

  So, as I say, they asked me if I could keep a secret and I don’t think they were particularly impressed with my reply, so after a second or two of the old pin-dropping silence I added, “But I’m sure I could.”

  One gentleman, who was top flight army and who looked extremely stern, told me that discretion was of the utmost importance and though he didn’t want to imply that I was lying or that he couldn’t trust my reassurance he would, nevertheless, have to ask for the names and addresses of three people outside of my family who they could put this self-same question to. The exact nature of the work I would be doing wouldn’t be revealed, he said. I thought for a couple of minutes, then offered the names of three professors, including the one I just spoke about. It seemed a bit silly because I had never shared a secret with any one of them, so how they would be able to give a reliable verdict on the matter, goodness only knows. But my interviewers seemed satisfied with the information I’d given them and that was that. I didn’t see those professors much after the interview as term was ending and when I did, they observed the social grace that demands tight lips over anything potentially tricky, so my future employment was never the subject of discussion.