Love, and Other Things to Live For

by Louise Leverett

  ‘Me,’ he said, as a silence fell on the table. ‘I was the breadwinner.’

  I looked at him. I could sense that there was something he’d wanted to tell me but had been looking for a particular moment. Here it was.

  ‘You know, the offer’s still there of a homemade mince pie and a glass of sherry, if you change your mind?’ I said, grinning. I was trying to make him laugh. Perhaps clear the air.

  ‘You know, there’s something I would like to tell you, Jess.’ He looked at me, expectantly.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, softly. ‘I’m here.’

  After a heavy dinner and over two double measures of brandy, he talked about his family. How his mother was suffering from early-onset dementia at a home for assisted living in Cornwall, and his sister, Freya, was studying fine art in Florence. I reached my hand over the back of his hair and pulled his head into me. I could feel the weight released into my arms. I wanted him to know I was here to share the burden. Whether or not he took it would be up to him.

  The next morning, I pulled back the covers and did the annual British winter jig, sprinting into the bathroom as my body shivered in the December freeze. I hopped from foot to foot, twisting the hot tap of the shower, waiting for the heat of the water to compensate. As the bathroom filled with steam and the power of the water blasted my skin, I looked out of the small bathroom window at the snow still falling outside, the small, delicate snowflakes floating through the air. There, on the other side of the shower curtain, the beauty of it falling made me forget the nuisance that snow can bring.

  It was the day of Cathy’s exhibition and as with most occasions in London where the snow exceeds two inches, public transport had descended into chaos. I pulled on my faux fur-lined winter boots and padded parka and decided to brave the elements on foot. I walked with my head down, my forehead shielding the rest of my face from the snowflake-laden wind blowing in sideways. With a take-out coffee in hand, trying not to slip on the ice disguised as snow, I arrived at the gallery just in time for the opening. A woman wearing a grey trouser suit, hair tight in a bun, greeted me at the door with a clipboard.

  ‘Jessica Wood,’ I said, and she highlighted my name.

  ‘Are you related to Ronnie?’

  ‘Nope. Don’t think so,’ I said, discreetly trying to read the list of names.

  ‘And you’ve a plus one, I see?’

  ‘Yes. He’ll be here soon. I’ll head in though, if that’s okay?’

  ‘Follow the red rope to the right and straight into the main room,’ she said, directing me as she’d done to hundreds of people that day.

  I could see the flashes from paparazzi as I made my way across the piazza. Once inside, the exhibition was enormous: glamorous models and old rockers mingled with waiters carrying trays of champagne. I observed huge prints on the walls from every photographer I could name, spanning the last forty years. I walked in awe through the portrait room and looked up at the main image, an eight by six-foot portrait of Janis Joplin holding a tambourine and dancing, her eyes closed, completely absorbed in the moment. The tiny silver placard by its side read, ‘Janis Joplin 1969 (Cathy Abbott).’ I stood back to gain the right perspective and felt a huge sense of pride swell within me.

  So this was it, I was finally coming face to face with the basis of Cathy’s stories, told to me over cups of tea on a Tuesday and Thursday morning. I still smiled at the fact that she was probably on LSD at the time. I walked right up to the image again to get a closer look.

  ‘Jess,’ Cathy said, creeping up behind me, carrying a glass and a leaflet of all the works on display. ‘Not bad for an old codger, is it?’

  ‘It’s… incredible,’ I said, not exaggerating.

  ‘I like how they’ve printed it on glossy,’ she said. ‘Where’s Charlie?’ She looked around. ‘I was hoping to meet him…’

  I glanced at my watch. It was now half past one.

  ‘He’ll be here later…’

  Although I tried to hide it maybe for a brief moment, it was too late. She had already seen the disappointment on my face.

  ‘Fancy a bit of lunch after?’ she said, smiling warmly.

  ‘Sure,’ I replied.

  ‘Let me do a bit more mingling and I’ll meet you out front at two thirty.’ She sauntered off, champagne in hand.

  I spent the next hour wandering around the gallery, its three vast floors of musicians, actors and singers captured throughout all decades of modern history. It was the perfect way to document time: real, raw and unapologetic. I knew that it was time to make a plan, perhaps travel to places that would scare me, meet people whose lives I wanted to capture. I had waited for the desire to buckle, like many of the plans I’d made in life, but this time, it was unwavering. I had to do this for myself.

  ‘Jess, there you are!’ Cathy said, waving at me from across the entrance. ‘I want you to meet Vin. He’s the in-house photographer at Route magazine,’ Cathy said. ‘Hugely talented.’ He gave a nervous laugh.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ I said, shaking his hand.

  Vin was tall and broad and smelled of faint cigarette smoke unsuccessfully masked by peppermints.

  ‘Cathy tells me you’re looking for assisting work?’ he said with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Yes, I’m just putting my portfolio together. Although to be honest, I wish I could just work with Cathy for ever.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, rubbing a hand through his wiry brown beard. ‘I might have something for you over at Route. Why don’t you email me some of your stuff and I’ll give you a ring in the New Year should something come through? Anyway, Cathy, let me know if you need a hand with transportation once the exhibition comes down. I’d better get back to the office. Nice to meet you, Jess.’

  I watched him walk away, through the piles of snow that had now gathered in the doorway: a stocky version of my ghost of Christmas future in biker boots and a camouflage jacket.

  ‘You ready?’ Cathy said, linking my arm.

  ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘Lead the way, I’m starving.’

  Lying on the sofa amid wet hair, chocolate wrappers and shame, I was watching Gene Kelly dancing on roller skates. I had indulged in a two-hour bath and twenty-minute pedicure, coming to the realisation that Christmas wasn’t much fun when you spent it alone. I hadn’t heard from Charlie since his no-show at the gallery and now had the option of moping and watching repeats of old sitcoms, or instead being proactive and making the most of the evening.

  What eventually pulled me out of my stupor was remembering that my mum had given me her old cookbook before moving away. There was only one distinct smell of Christmas from my childhood and in a bid to recapture it, I sought out the recipe. I instantly knew what I was looking for. I pulled out a large plastic storage box from under my bed and searched for the A5 book adorned with illustrations of flowers, fruit and vegetables. The years that had passed had caused the colours to fade and the spine had begun to twist but that didn’t matter, it still contained something far more special: the culinary memories of my childhood.

  I placed it on the kitchen table and quickly began to flick through the pages. I could still smell the pastry mix as I pressed the book to my face. It was a distant memory of coconut and strawberry jam, sitting by the fire watching a Christmas film, first licking out the contents before completely devouring the pastry case. After passing through recipes for chicken and leek pie, Victoria sponge and sausage rolls, I arrived upon it in a ballpoint squiggle. It was barely legible in its messy scrawl, but it still represented so much happiness. I put on Amber’s apron that she had bought specifically for juicing and flattened out the crumpled edges.

  The recipe read:

  Coconut tart

  Short crust pastry as follows:

  200 g self-raising flour

  50 g lard

  50 g margarine

  Rub flour, lard and margarine together in a bowl until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs. Add a little water to bind together.

  Roll out pas
try and use cutters to make approximately 18 tarts. Place a small amount of strawberry jam into each pastry case.

  Cake mix as follows:

  50 g margarine

  50 g caster sugar

  50 g self-raising flour

  1 egg

  50 g dried coconut

  Cream margarine and sugar together. Fold in beaten egg and flour. Add coconut.

  Spoon mixture into each pastry case. Bake in 180 degree pre-heated oven for 15–20 minutes.

  Fifty minutes later, the sound of the smoke alarm rang out as I battled my way through the kitchen amidst the plumes of smoke. After wafting away the debris using an old tea towel, I was faced with eighteen round cakes the colour of coal and brittle-like charcoal around the edges. I slid them onto a cooling rack and broke one in two, tearing off a small piece from the inside. Despite the exterior carnage, it was sweet and warm and fluffy.

  I could see through the window that the snow had begun to fall again on the street below, and for the first time that year, there were barely any cars on the roads. The snow had created a cold silence. I looked around at the empty room I was standing in and decided in a gust of Christmas spirit to put my ego aside and ring Charlie. He answered on the third ring.

  ‘Hi, Jess,’ he said, ‘I was about to phone you. I’m sorry about today, I was swamped at work. How did it go?’

  ‘It went well – it was a beautiful show actually. I’m just watching the snow from the sofa, it’s really coming down out there…’

  ‘You can say that again. I’m walking in it.’

  ‘Is it as bad out there as it looks from in here?’ I said, curling up against a cushion.

  ‘Apocalyptic,’ he said. ‘I had to leave my car at work. Listen, Jess, I’m sorry about today, darling. I just couldn’t get away.’

  ‘It’s really okay,’ I said. ‘How’s work?’

  ‘Busy,’ he said, sighing. I felt the sound of his exhaustion travel through the phone. ‘You?’

  ‘I actually had a lovely night,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yeah? What did you do?’

  ‘I had a two-hour bath, baked some tarts, well, attempted to and now I’m just about to watch a film.’

  ‘So you’re fine on your own then?’

  ‘Yes!’ I said, laughing. ‘I’m fine on my own.’

  ‘Well, that’s a shame,’ he said. ‘Only I’m standing outside your flat and it’s bloody freezing.’

  I ran over to the window and could see him on the pavement carrying a small, freshly cut Christmas tree under one arm and a carrier bag full of food in the other. ‘I thought we were spending Christmas together?’ he said, grinning.

  I buzzed him in and watched him climb the stairs, his feet buried in mounds of white fluff. Despite all the phone calls, the late nights, the work commitments, when I really needed him, he was there.

  We stayed together for the next seven days. Of course it wasn’t the same as my old childhood memories, but it was something different, something new. As I tipped the pile of burnt coconut tarts into the dustbin I looked over at the postcard that I’d bought from the exhibition gift shop. There it stood, pride of place on the mantelpiece above the flickering light of the television: a black and white image of Janis Joplin.

  Chapter Sixteen – Going Against the Tide

  I awoke early, my feet nestled beneath the covers, my eyes wide open in the sunlight of yet another frosty day. I ran the list of things to do through my mind, numbering them in order of importance. I could feel the swell of excitement sitting in the pit of my stomach, not overbearing or outlandish, just patiently. It wasn’t the usual lull of post-Christmas excess either. It was a sense of urgency, waiting to be acted upon. I had the benefit of hindsight when reflecting over the previous year, and knew by this point that excitement doesn’t come from a party or drinks or getting in at sunlight, though it had done for quite some time; it came from the feeling of knowing that I was exactly where I needed to be, or making appropriate ends to get there. This year, I wasn’t going to get caught up in the expectations of it all or those around me, I wasn’t going to focus on where the crowd was going. I was blazing my own path without excuse or apology. I was going against the tide.

  Amber was tucked under her makeshift desk, typing with the intensity of a maniac. She was wearing an over-the-ear headset, listening to the soundtrack of Nineties R ‘n’ B that she claimed kept her momentum going. By the look of her, it was working. She paused briefly to massage her neck before continuing, as if sitting a speed type test. On my side of the room I was binding together a new portfolio. I had promised myself that I would remain disciplined, and not get caught up in the nostalgia of the overused creativity of the right side of my brain, allowing the left, more logical side of my brain a chance to find its way through. I sorted the images into chronological order and fastened them neatly into my new, leatherbound display folder.

  What lay before me on the living-room table like a treasure map of the soul, were street shots, portraits and some experimental work that I had taken just for fun on the side. It spanned eight months of progress. We were girl guides in a portacabin, crafting out our futures, attempting to hold things together with PVA glue.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ I mouthed to Amber as I walked across the living room before receiving a brief but enthusiastic thumbs up in return.

  My phone buzzed on the kitchen table and I could see the screen flashing Charlie’s name. I rolled my eyes and answered it.

  ‘Charlie, I told you I was working today, what is it?’ For a brief but very real second, I caught myself sounding like him.

  ‘All right,’ he said, amused, ‘am I now the needy woman in the relationship?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to snap,’ I said, softening. ‘It’s just important that I get this finished. Then I can start canvassing by the end of the week.’

  ‘I’ve gone,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to hear your voice.’

  ‘And that’s really sweet,’ I said. ‘But you can also hear it tonight, when I’m finished.’

  I heard a loud, throaty laugh as he hung up the phone.

  The brief conversation had delayed my tea duty and Amber looked over at me with desperation.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t say you’re going to make one if you’re not.’

  ‘I’m making it now!’ I tutted loudly.

  I had made an intricate list from Google of all the agencies, magazines and publishing houses across London that used freelance photographic imagery in their work. My plan was to hand-deliver, hoping for someone to take the bait and maybe offer me an interview. I put the folder on my lap and ran my hand over the soft leather cover. Then I went to make the promised tea, returning a couple of minutes later with a freshly made brew.

  ‘What now?’ I said, as Amber stopped typing.

  ‘That job’s not going to find itself…’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ I whispered, pulling myself up onto my feet.

  I put on Amber’s camel coat which I wasn’t supposed to borrow, but fitted like a dream, and grabbed my keys in preparation to leave the house. I folded a small, white envelope and placed it neatly in the pocket. It contained a decision that I had been working towards tirelessly, but now, once the day had arrived, it felt sadder than I ever could have imagined.

  ‘You look like someone’s died,’ Guido said, as I walked into the restaurant. ‘And I’ve told you before, use the staff entrance!’

  ‘She’s not due to work,’ Maria said, hitting his arm.

  ‘I dropped by to give you this.’ I handed them the small, white envelope. ‘It’s just my notice to say that I’m leaving. And I wanted to thank you both for the last six months and helping me when, well, no one else would really.’

  I handed Maria a small bunch of yellow flowers that I’d bought from a flower stall on the way with a thank you card slotted neatly down the cellophane wrapper.

  ‘These are to say how much I appreciate both of you and what you’ve done for me.’
>
  Guido gave me what I thought to be the tiniest inclination of a warm smile and turned his back to restock the wine.

  ‘You’re getting married?’ Maria said, smiling.

  ‘No, I’m not getting married.’

  ‘Do you have another job?’ she said, wiping a dry tea towel along the already clean counter.

  ‘I’m actually hoping to find a job in photography.’

  ‘She’ll be back,’ Guido said, carrying a crate of wine through to the cellar.

  Once he was out of earshot Maria carefully put two coffee cups and saucers down on the counter. ‘Got time for a coffee?’ she said.

  At that point Brenda walked through the door with her shopping trolley. ‘Bloody kids, throwing snowballs at my window. If I catch the little bleeders I’ll murder them!’ she said before smiling sweetly. She pulled off her red beret, her fiery orange hair standing to attention. ‘Espresso please.’

  I poured coffee into three small cups, sat down on a stool at the counter, and for what could be the final time, the three of us gossiped about world affairs, love in the modern age and Brenda’s arthritis.

  *

  ‘Four for a pound!’ I heard a man in a tweed flat cap and navy blue wellingtons shout loudly from behind me. His sales pitch still rang in my ear as I turned the corner. I slowly walked through the stalls of Borough Market, the smell of freshly caught fish and foreign cheeses accentuated in the damp air. I navigated through wooden crates of produce as a runaway tomato squished under my foot. I was shopping for some food with which to make dinner that evening, a meal I was cooking for Charlie in a last-ditch attempt to spend some quality time with him before I delved into a hell of my own making, also known as the job search. Plus, it was an opportunity to reveal my new hairdo, a spontaneous decision I had made that lunchtime.

  Two hours earlier I had been staring at my reflection in the hairdresser’s mirror. I still didn’t know if it was a moment of madness or an act of renewal but wearing a wafer-thin black gown with my long hair free from its ponytail, I immediately found myself apologising profusely to the hairdresser for its condition. I’d been busy, I lied. I told him there had been a personal problem and so, naturally, I hadn’t been keeping on top of things. That personal problem being that I didn’t have the money or time to waste forty-five minutes sitting on my toilet seat, my hair coated in a hair mask. I watched as he attempted to brush it through with a small plastic comb. Finally and with a slight look of disdain, he pulled my hair in front of my shoulders so we could both assess the damage.