Seafood platters had recently replaced ham, egg and chips on the menu. People were filling up on large hunks of bread that accompanied the smattering of imported seafood with its dressing of tomato sauce and mayonnaise that had been arranged on a plate by a fourteen-year-old who hadn’t washed his hands. Folded beer mats may have been able to stop the tables from wobbling, but nothing could stop the landlord from making his staff wear novelty T-shirts that pictured a hilariously offensive play on the pub’s name – The Jolly Roger.
Alan looked around as he entered. He saw Lettie sat chatting with a group of her friends. She saw him immediately and halted mid-sentence, but then continued warily as he smiled gently at her, then put his head down and walked on towards the bar.
He sat on a tall wooden stool, nodded his acknowledgement to the busy barman and scanned the room. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of Lettie’s friends grasp her hand and squeeze it gently and nod encouragingly at her. Lettie returned the smile and joined in the laughing with the crowd. She looked good tonight. Her hair shone and her face had an unusual glow, almost a radiance that he hadn’t recognised for a long while. Her gold cotton cardigan made her skin blush and under the table he recognised the jeans that set her figure off and he felt a yearning to grab her backside as if a thirsty man faced with a succulent peach.
Lettie sat back in the hard pew seat, leaning against the faded floral cushions that actually did very little to make the old oak any more comfortable. The women had the prime spot in the pub and from the number of empty glasses on the table, it looked like they had been there for some time.
Alan sat at the bar with his back leaning against the wall and kept a surreptitious watch on the women. He watched as one by one they claimed their rounds and the Bacardi and the red wine flowed. He chatted idly to some holidaymakers at the bar, spun a few tales and entertained a few ladies.
Lettie’s group was a honeypot to the men in the pub. Local men stopped to chat and banter and a few of the braver ones joined them. Holidaymakers aiming for a little uncomplicated fun away from home gravitated towards them after careful scrutiny and discussions of tactics from afar. Occasionally they were lucky, usually they were not and after a few expensive rounds, they realised their limits and slunk off, taking their throbbing testicles with them and lamenting their empty wallets.
As Alan watched it all from afar, he could feel Lettie looking at him and so he changed up a gear in terms of his charm; the black polo neck was working.
Eventually it was Lettie’s round and she got up, a little unsteadily, to her feet. She knew the round by heart, but she still double-checked with the women at the table. “Do you want me to get them?” asked the friend with the steadying hand.
“No, I’ll be fine. I’ve got to face him some time,” she said and wove her way confidently to the bar.
She stood there waiting, her foot on the brass footrail to steady herself and she stared directly ahead to brace her nerves. By the time Alan reached her, ignoring the glares from the friend, Lettie was standing with both feet on the rung, leaning over the bar trying to increase her presence in the eyes of the elusive barman who was preferring to serve his mates.
Alan waved a twenty-pound note at the barman, who annoyingly turned to him straightaway.
“The lady here was first. But I’ll pay though.”
“No, Alan. No, thank you. I’ll pay myself, thank you.”
“Oh, go on. Just to say hello; I’ll go after this. Need my beauty sleep. Not like you; you look fantastic.” She looked at him, feeling out of control, but he was looking straight ahead, as if studying the range of overpriced whiskies. “Bloody tourist prices, eh. Not fair is it?”
“No,” smiled Lettie, “although perhaps it is if you’re paying.” Alan looked down, spotting a chink in her armour and played it gently.
“How are you?”
“I’m ok.”
“Good, good,” he said. “How’s work?”
“Good, thanks. Very busy.”
“I suppose it is the busy time of year. Any good tippers?” This had been a regular topic of theirs to which she usually had a good story.
“I got a tenner from an American. Told him I used to know John Fowles.” Alan laughed, added an overpriced whisky to the order and gave the bartender the money, waving down Lettie’s proffered note.
“I’ll walk you home later. Just to show no hard feelings.”
“No, no. I’ll be fine thank you,” Lettie felt her hackles rise nervously again.
“It’s OK, surely we are adult enough to still be mates? After all we’ve been through?”
Lettie felt helpless, but swigged a gulp of her wine and gathered together a few drinks, knocking over a Bacardi-on-the-rocks as she did.
“It’s OK, it’s OK,” chivvied Alan, making her feel even more incompetent than he usually did, “I’ll get another one.” He ordered a replacement from the barman while Lettie hurried the rest to her table. He played his advantage position well and by the time she returned to the bar, he was deep in conversation with one of his cronies and she grabbed the drink in relief and fled.
Slowly the group of women broke up. Partners came to take their prizes home, babysitters pricked consciences and taxis tooted outside. Eventually Lettie said a quiet goodbye to the remaining two and made unsteady progress to the coat rack that was groaning under the weight of forgotten coats. Alan reached it first and held out the familiar lightweight coat to her and straightened the arms as she struggled into it.
“I’m OK, thank you,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as him.
“Come on now, I was leaving anyway. It would be stupid to walk twenty yards apart when we are going the same direction. Look, let me hold your bag.”
Lettie allowed him to open the door and guide her through and barely noticed that he didn’t for a moment let her arm go. He made general conversation, enquiring about her evening and friends and she gradually relaxed and relied more heavily on his arm.
The comfort of having a familiar presence near her relaxed her body, and although her mind screamed, “Be Careful!” her body replied, “It’s OK, we’re just walking home. We are adults. We can do this.”
The night was clear and the Parade was empty save a few couples walking off the excesses of the night and working up an appetite for the rest of the night. Women with summer dresses were happily being warmed by their reluctant partner’s jackets. Those with second sight could estimate the lovingness of the relationships by the auras around the males, ranging from “I am glad I can warm her with my jacket,” to, “Why didn’t she bring her own? I told her she’d be bloody cold.”
Late night dog walkers emptied their dogs on the beach, away from the eyes of the Dog Warden, safe in the knowledge that the tide would sweep the beaches clear by the morning and their dog’s waste would simply be just another turd in an already polluted sea.
The stars twinkled and those who were now able to enjoy the night sky appreciated the new ornamental lamps along the Parade, their downlighters reducing the level of sky glow. Alan, however, wasn’t so impressed. He held a lamp post and tried to rock it.
“These new ones aren’t as good as the old ones were.”
“Pardon?”
“You used to be able to shake the old ones until the lamps went out. Julian Jackson put out every single one on the Parade in just two minutes, thirty-seven seconds in the fourth form.”
Lettie chuckled; she’d heard the story before, but it still made her smile.
“Whatever happened to Julian?” Alan asked.
“Plumber – in Bristol. Making a fortune apparently.” Lettie had always been the font of knowledge about all mutual school acquaintances, being slightly more amenable to keeping in touch than Alan.
Alan found himself repeating the same old pattern. Talk about home things, Lyme things, things they had in common.
“Look,” he said, pointing into the blackness. “You can see Portland Bill well tonight.” As if on cu
e, the lighthouse flashed its irregular beat. “And also, there’s West Bay.”
“No, no, that’s Seatown. West Bay is the row of lights over there.” This allowed him to come close again and follow the line of her finger pointing at the distant street lamps across the bay that obviously didn’t have the benefit of Lyme’s downlighters.
He stood behind her and wrapped his arms round her and felt her stiffen. No, more time needed.
“You’re shivering, here take my jacket too.” Ignoring her protestations, he wrapped it over her shoulders and joined the league of prepared, but still shivering, males.
It used to annoy him, Lettie’s reluctance to take enough clothing. However, this time he felt good to be able to keep his woman warm. He liked to look after Lettie, he thought. She needed someone like him to look out for her.
Lettie felt warmed both inside and out by the jacket and her body then allowed the next stage of the enveloping bear hug. Alan was good at bear hugs. He was tall enough for it to be really effective and his arms would reach easily right around Lettie, making her feel secure and gentle, even though it was the same arms that had so often gone to violate that security.
More general conversation and chit-chat relaxed her further and allowed him to state matter of factly, “We’re good together. You and me. Come on, let’s go home.” It wasn’t a question or even rhetorical. It was a statement and Lettie felt her control slip from her as she nodded meekly and, for reasons beyond her conscious understanding, allowed herself to be steered “home”.
The remainder of the walk was quick and with none of the previous attention paid. Alan just dropped back into his usual behaviour and topics of conversation – work, deals, and the new lease car. Back in the house, they slumped into the old routine; she put the kettle on, he ate toast, he made to go to bed, she said she’d follow after he’d finished in the bathroom. He clumped up the old wooden stairs, paying no attention, as ever, to trying to avoid the creaky bits despite the late hour.
Lettie washed up the cups and wiped away the toast crumbs, listening to the familiar noises as he urinated loudly into the middle of the pan, ensuring that as much noise as was possible rattled through the open door. Without hesitation, he used Lettie’s toothbrush, washed his face and wiped it on her towel, blew his nose twice and clumped up to her attic bedroom.
Lettie wearily made to stand, but caught sight of her purse sticking out of her open bag. There was nothing unusual about the tapestry wallet itself, but sticking out of the corner was a picture postcard and on it she could just see the stonework of the old Glan Llanfair Bridge. She’d taken it to the pub to show her friends tonight because the caption had made her laugh – “The Americans wanted to buy this one first, but we managed to sell them London Bridge instead.”
She took it out of her purse and looked at it again, even though she knew it off by heart. “Love Dougie xx” was written at the bottom, as if it would have been from anyone else? She compared the, as yet, faceless gent who thought to send a person he’d never even met such a sweet and amusing card, a man that laughed at her jokes, even if he couldn’t see her range of impressions yet, with the man that now lay, uninvited, in her bed. A man who had frightened her, shouted at her, taken his rage out on her. A man who was not really that interested in her, but for whom she filled a gap, and indeed provided a gap, when it was required. It shouldn’t need a great deal of thought really, but she took her time and then purposefully put the kettle back on and prepared for an uncomfortable night on the sofa.
Chapter 22
Sour and Sweet
Lettie hadn’t slept well enough to face the onslaught that she expected. She had lain awake playing scenarios over and over in her mind. In one, she stomped up the stairs and calmly asked Alan to leave. In another she was quietly eating her breakfast in the conservatory whilst reading a broadsheet and pausing only to peer over it for long enough to make him feel small and remove himself from her house. In the third, she slunk out of the house and headed for the beach so that she missed him altogether.
The night was cold and it narked her that Alan was snuggled under her duvet, whilst she was cramped up on the sofa, covered only by a throw. Her jeans were uncomfortable and therefore she had removed them and wrapped them round her feet for warmth. Lettie lay there and listened to the church clock slowly counting its way through the night in quarter hour chunks. She’d always enjoyed the sound of the bells, but this time they were bells portending doom and she felt helpless – lying there not knowing what to do for the best, but knowing that it would be to her disadvantage to be lying there when he eventually awoke.
But that is just what did happen, and the row that ensued the next morning left her shaking and in emotional tatters. Waking alone, Alan was angry and felt perfectly justified in showing it. He crashed down the stairs and into the sitting room waking her from her eventual deep sleep. She was curled up on the sofa, wishing she had kept her jeans on so that at least she could stand and not be at such a physical disadvantage.
The row started with, “What the hell are you doing here?” moved through, “You ask me back here and then you change your mind? What game are you playing, Lettie?” and ended with, “You’d better just decide what the hell you want. You can’t mess people around like this, Lettie. Think of other people for a change will you? You’re just so bloody selfish; get a bloody grip.”
As in accordance with her usual behaviour, simply sitting there, the throw defensively pulled up to her chin, provoked exasperated anger in him. Not getting any response from her, particularly one that he felt he deserved, he looked about him in his frustration for a suitable vent. The shelf that had once held heavy glass bottles of sherbet lemons and Foxes’ Glacier Mints now just carried some of Lettie’s books. They swept off the shelf with ease and Alan found he was able to get his arm behind them and launch them quite a distance.
They landed on Lettie and around her, and the arms she put up pitifully to shield her head painfully deflected a couple onto the floor at her side. Not being able to find the right words to express his anger, Alan lifted his arms in exasperation, squeezed out another grunt of rage and stormed out of the room.
He grabbed his jacket, stomped down the hall and wrenched the front door open. He slammed it as hard as he possibly could behind him and the crash reverberated through the house. Lettie dissolved into shaken tears – of frustration as much as of despair and fear. And that is how Lisa found her twenty minutes later, her face swollen and puffy with a violet bruise emerging from where an encyclopaedia had hit her. She had the blanket pulled tightly up to her chin and her hands were still shaking. Books lay scattered around her like monster confetti.
Dougie was feeling lucky. Even the north-facing kitchen seemed to let the sun in that morning and he sang along as Tom Petty’s “American Girl” blasted from the radio – although Tom himself may not have been particularly impressed with the tone of the harmonies. He scooped the collection of old coffee cups from around the house, some with just cold coffee, some with cultures growing on them and a couple that had been hidden for so long that even the mould had dried up and gone away. The remnants of last night’s pizza were swept into Alfie’s bowl and, being a Labrador, he crunched greedily through them, regardless of whether he was actually hungry or not.
Dougie passed the mirror in the sitting room and stopped his singing and gazed at his reflection, an old cornflake bowl and spoon still in his hand. What would she see? Would she like it or would she just walk quietly by as had been their joking agreement. But, many a true word was said in jest and suddenly Doug was scared and tried to see himself as others did. Black, wavy, coarse hair with a nice smattering of grey in it. He rubbed his free hand over it – a bit bushy perhaps? Yes: barber’s.
The eyes, yes, everyone commented on his eyes. Deep blue with thick dark lashes that all his aunties said were wasted on a man. Not tonight they won’t be, he thought, I need every bit of help I can get. Eyebrows – bushy. Actually, perhaps eyebrow wou
ld be more accurate? Should he do something about it – or would that be too vain?
Dumping the bowl and spoon he went to the bathroom and rooted around in the cabinet that contained his grooming and first aid kit: razor, shaving foam, an old comb, a packet of out of date paracetamol and some tweezers. Taking the tweezers in his large hands, he pulled a few of the worst offenders from the bridge of his nose. The activity brought tears to his eyes and, as had many men before him, he wondered in admiration at the pain barrier of the many women to whom such plucking and waxing is routine. Perhaps in hindsight she’d think him vain; he would be better to present himself as he truly was, but just a bit cleaner and neater.
Doug settled himself in the comfortable leather chair at the barber’s and said, “No. Not the usual, thank you. Do it properly this time. And please ask if I want something for the weekend, Sir.” Hairy Twm was the most unlikely person in Dougie’s school year to have gone into hairdressing, being big, burly and not a naturally well-kempt man, but he was good at his job and therefore his checked shirts and saggy jeans did not put off his loyal clientele. Doug relaxed back as he was lowered to the right level, prepared to catch up with the local gossip and coerced into providing every facet of his own. Hairy Twm obviously already knew everything about Doug’s life – probably more than Doug did – but didn’t feel it was his place to let on.
Time in Twm’s chair was always pleasant and it didn’t matter that above the neat shelves, nineteen seventies’ bamboo wallpaper was peeling quietly from the walls, or that the pictures of the models had nineteen eighties hairdos and rolled up suit sleeves. This was Hairy Twm’s and you got what you paid for. A haircut. What was the need for any additional trimmings?
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