by Nick Hornby
‘Believe it or believe it not.’
The two women looked at each other. These things happened. There was no need to say anything else, but then the mayor came over to them and said something else anyway.
‘You wouldn’t think so to look at her,’ said the mayor, who was not a man to let the unspoken stay that way.
His wife rolled her eyes at him.
‘I’ve already said “believe it or believe it not” twice. I’ve already admitted that I’m no Miss Blackpool any more. But you have to come clomping in anyway.’
‘I didn’t hear you say “believe it or believe it not”.’
‘Well I did. Twice. Didn’t I, love?’
Barbara nodded. She didn’t really want to be drawn in, but she thought she could offer the poor woman that much at least.
‘Kiddies and cream buns, kiddies and cream buns,’ said the mayor. ‘Well, you’re no oil painting,’ his wife said.
‘No, but you didn’t marry me because I was an oil painting.’
His wife thought about this and conceded the point with silence. ‘Whereas that was the whole point of you,’ said the mayor. ‘You were an oil painting. Anyways,’ he said to Barbara. ‘You know this is the biggest open-air baths in the world, don’t you? And this is one of the biggest days here, so you’ve every right to feel overcome.’
Barbara nodded and snuffled and smiled. She wouldn’t have known how to begin to tell him that the problem was exactly the opposite of the one he’d just described: it was an even smaller day than she feared it would be.
‘That bloody Lucy woman,’ her father said. ‘She’s got a lot to answer for.’
The mayor and his wife looked confused, but Barbara knew who he was talking about. She felt understood, and that made it worse.
Barbara had loved Lucille Ball ever since she saw I Love Lucy for the first time: everything she felt or did came from that. The world seemed to stand still for half an hour every Sunday, and her father knew better than to try and talk to her or even to rustle the paper while the programme was on, in case she missed something. There were lots of other funny people she loved: Tony Hancock, Sergeant Bilko, Morecambe and Wise. But she couldn’t be them even if she’d wanted to. They were all men. Tony, Ernie, Eric, Ernie … There was nobody called Lucy or Barbara in that lot. There were no funny girls.
‘It’s just a programme,’ her father would say, before or after but never during. ‘An American programme. It’s not what I call British humour.’
‘And British humour … That’s your special phrase for humour from Britain, is it?’
‘The BBC and so forth.’
‘I’m with you.’
She only ever stopped teasing him because she got bored, never because he cottoned on and robbed the teasing of its point. If she had to stay in Blackpool, then one of her plans was to keep a conversation like this going for the rest of his life.
‘She’s not funny, for a start,’ he said.
‘She’s the funniest woman who’s ever been on television,’ said Barbara.
‘But you don’t laugh at her,’ said her father.
It was true that she didn’t laugh, but that was because she’d usually seen the shows before. Now she was too busy trying to slow it all down so she could remember it. If there was a way of watching Lucy every single day of the week, then she would, but there wasn’t, so she just had to concentrate harder than she’d ever concentrated on anything, and hope that some of it sank in.
‘Anyway, you make me shut up when they’re reading out the football results on the wireless,’ she said.
‘Yes, because of the pools,’ he said. ‘One of those football results might change our life.’
What she couldn’t explain without sounding batty was that I Love Lucy was exactly the same as the pools. One day, one of Lucy’s expressions or lines was going to change her life, and maybe even his too. Lucy had already changed her life, although not in a good way: the show had separated her from everyone else – friends, family, the other girls at work. It was, she sometimes felt, a bit like being religious. She was so serious about watching comedy on the television that people thought she was a bit odd, so she’d stopped talking about it.
The photographer from the Evening Gazette introduced himself and ushered Barbara towards the diving boards.
‘You’re Len Phillips?’ her father said. ‘You’re not pulling my leg?’ He recognized Len Phillips’s name from the paper, so he was star-struck. Dear God, Barbara thought. And he wonders why I want to get out of here.
‘Can you believe that, Barbara? Mr Phillips has come to the baths personally.’
‘Call me Len.’
‘Really? Thank you very much.’ George looked a little uncomfortable, though, as if the honour had not yet been earned.
‘Yes, well, he probably hasn’t got a staff of thousands,’ said Barbara.
‘It’s just me, and a lad sometimes,’ said Len. ‘And today’s a big day for Blackpool. I’d be daft to let the lad do it.’
He gestured at Barbara to move back a little.
‘Say cheese,’ her father said. ‘Or is it only amateurs who do that?’ ‘No, we do it too. Although sometimes I shout “Knickers!” just for a change.’
George laughed and shook his head in wonder. He was having the time of his life, Barbara could tell.
‘No boyfriend?’ Len asked.
‘He couldn’t get the day off, Len,’ George said. He paused for a moment, clearly wondering whether he’d got too familiar, too soon. ‘They’re short-staffed, apparently, because of the holidays. Her Auntie Marie couldn’t come either, because she’s gone to the Isle of Man for a fortnight. Her first holiday for seven years. Only a caravan, but, you know. A change is as good as a rest.’
‘You should be writing all this down, Len,’ said Barbara. ‘Caravan. Isle of Man. A change is as good as a rest. Is it just her and Uncle Jack, Dad? Or have the boys gone too?’
‘He doesn’t want to know all that,’ said her father.
‘Where does she work?’ Len asked, nodding his head towards Barbara.
‘I don’t know. We could ask her,’ said Barbara.
‘She’s in the cosmetics department at R. H. O. Hills,’ her father said. ‘And Aidan’s in Menswear. That’s how they met.’
‘Well, she won’t be there much now, will she?’ said the photographer.
‘Won’t she?’ said George.
‘I’m always taking photographs of Miss Blackpool. Hospitals, shows, charity galas … She’s got a lot of responsibilities. It’ll be a busy year. We’ll be seeing each other a lot, Barbara, so you’ll have to get used to my ugly mug.’
‘Oh, Lord,’ said her father. ‘Did you hear that, Barbara?’ Hospitals? Charity galas? An entire year? What had she been thinking? Auntie Marie had told her about the shop openings and the Christmas lights, but she hadn’t thought about how she’d be letting people down if she just disappeared, and she hadn’t thought about how she’d still be Miss Blackpool in three hundred and sixty-four days’ time. She knew then that she didn’t want to be Miss Blackpool in an hour’s time.
‘Where’s she going?’ said Len.
‘Where are you going?’ said her father.
Fifteen minutes later, the runner-up, Sheila Jenkinson, a tall, dopey redhead from Skelmersdale, was wearing the tiara, and Barbara and her father were in a taxi on their way back home. She left for London the following week.
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First published by Victor Gollancz 1992
Published in Penguin Books 2000
Copyright © Nick Hornby, 1992
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Cover Design: Superfantastic
Extract from The Selected Stories of Andre Dubus reproduced with kind permission of Picador; extract from Out of His Skin by Dave Hill (copyright © Dave Hill) by permission of A M Heath & Co. Ltd; extract from The Hustler by Walter Tevis (© 1959 Walter S Tevis) by kind permission of The Walter Tevis Copyright Trust. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-14-192654-4