The Second Life of Sally Mottram

by David Nobbs

  Marigold’s accident had occurred in the Market Place, and had been caused by a wave not of foaming North Sea water, but of tenderness. She had been crossing the cobbles, bound for one of the nearly-new shops where she planned to buy at least three things in her effort to cheer herself up. We have mentioned that she had always despised such shops, but after the departure of Timothy she had quite cheerfully and frankly admitted that she couldn’t afford to despise them any longer.

  She had seen Sally coming out of the bank. Sally’s face had been white, as many a woman’s is after facing her bank manager. It had been the first time she had seen Sally since her return, and she had felt a great impulse to rush over to embrace her and offer her comfort. She had turned too quickly, and had crashed heavily over a bollard. She had been taken to Potherthwaite District Hospital in an ambulance. At the hospital she had been told that amazingly nothing had been broken, but she was still in pain and she still believed that the bill of good health had been given through a mixture of incompetence and the extreme age of the X-ray machine. Potherthwaite Hospital did not receive much respect from the average Potherthwaitian.

  ‘Your starters are ready,’ announced Sue.

  They moved to their table, and they moved slowly. This was yet another bad setback for Sally. That evening, seated round that table with her friends, was to be the key first moment in the great project to which she was moving. But no less than four of them were limping, and three had bruising on their faces. The place was already full – give a Potherthwaitian a special offer and he’ll be there, and this was Potherthwaite in recession. What must they look like to all these Early Birders? She knew the answer. Like soldiers getting on a train at Waterloo to go to war, and they were all injured already. She felt tiny and wretched and stupid. She wished she could abort the whole project.

  Marigold, on the other hand, was much given to romanticism, and believed that the fact that they had all suffered accidents in which there were no broken bones was a ‘miracle’, even a ‘sign’ and perhaps also an ‘omen’.

  Sally stirred herself sufficiently to ensure that people sat where she wanted them to be. She at one end of the table, Marigold at the other, the Busses at one side, the Pattersons at the other. The evening had a subsidiary purpose for Sally. If it achieved nothing else, she hoped that it would have at least a minor influence by nipping in the bud anything there might be between Jill and Harry. Like everyone else, she saw little danger from Arnold and Olive.

  Arnold didn’t have a starter. He never did when he was paying, and he wasn’t to be cajoled out of his economical ways even by Sue’s generous offer. Olive had asked what the soup was, and on being told ‘leek and potato’, she had said, ‘Oh good. I can eat that.’ Jill had chosen mussels and Olive had said ‘Ugh!’ and Harry had given her a look. He had looked at Olive defiantly, and ordered the kidneys in mustard sauce. She had raised her eyebrows as if to say, ‘He’s showing off to annoy me.’ Marigold ordered prawns with sweet chilli jam, saying, ‘I can’t resist hot things.’ It was cosy with the curtains drawn behind the table, and the radiator full on. On every available space on the walls of the pub were photographs and paintings and mementoes of the great days of textiles, the halcyon years of the Potherthwaite mills. Rog and Sue argued regularly and fiercely about their choice, Rog believing it to be a moving tribute to a great era, Sue regarding it as a depressing little song entitled ‘Look How Great We Once Were’.

  Sally struggled with her food. She felt sick with nerves, but she had to eat up, she mustn’t show weakness. She heard, yet didn’t hear, Arnold describing, briefly but not quite briefly enough, the medical reasons why he never had rich sauces at his age. She heard, but didn’t hear, Marigold saying that each husband had been worse than the one before, her judgement was getting worse with experience.

  The main courses arrived. Lamb shank for Arnold, belly pork for Harry, chicken supreme for Olive, beef curry for Marigold, fish pie for Jill. Sally had chosen risotto as being likely to be the smallest. She didn’t want her nerves to cause her to struggle to finish her food. She wished she was anywhere but here, wide awake in her tiny guest bedroom in Barnet even, or learning bridge from Judith, in lovely Totnes, going back to retrace her steps and find the dishevelled driver of that awful lorry, to thank him … for what? For not raping her? Had life in Britain come to that?

  Her troops, who didn’t know that they were her troops, had been dismayingly indecisive even over what water to choose. One wanted still, one sparkling, one tap (Arnold never paid for water), one wanted lemon but no ice, one wanted ice but no lemon, the waitress hated them already, what kind of PR was that, how could these people be her trusty lieutenants in a great project, when they argued so much about such trivia? All the things she had read on the train, all the achievements of Transition in other places, all the things that had inspired her these last few days to attempt something similar here, now seemed impossible. This was Potherthwaite, forget it, Sally, forget it, deluded little woman who couldn’t even make your husband happy.

  With the desserts it was the same palaver all over again. With ice cream. With cream. With ice cream and cream. With neither ice cream nor cream. Nor was it any easier with the coffee. With milk. With cream. With neither milk nor cream. With both milk and cream. And still they all seemed to be making rather frequent visits to the loo, and still the majority of them were limping. Perhaps she should have told them that this evening was the start of a great movement, a movement that was beginning quietly with six friends but would grow to subsume a whole town. Their town.

  At last they all had their coffee. She must start.

  The pub was much less full now. Potherthwaitians were early eaters, and, besides, the Early Bird offer finished at 7.15. But two tables nearby were still occupied, and she didn’t want anyone else to hear. If you didn’t want anyone else to hear, Sally, why did you arrange to do it here? Because you are totally incompetent. And may I say something, Sally? Certainly, Sally. Don’t you think it’s silly, Sally, to be frightened of being overheard when you have booked the church hall in a month’s time so that you can shout your message to the world? Well, not to the world exactly. To Potherthwaite. Yes, but it’s too late to give up now. No, it isn’t. Nobody knows what you are about to say. Just say nothing, and it will all never happen.

  She couldn’t give up. Her life must mean something. And she loved Potherthwaite. She couldn’t just let it die.

  She started, quietly. Too quietly. Her troops weren’t deaf, of course they weren’t, but some of them weren’t exactly in the first flush of youth and they were, let’s say, just a little bit hard of hearing when there’s a lot of talking in a room. She had to speak up. But she didn’t really want to speak up because she didn’t want the people at the two other tables to hear what she had to say. Some leader, this.

  She told them how she had first heard of the Transition movement, in Totnes. She told them what she knew of the movement. She told them what it had achieved. They listened. They seemed interested, even impressed. She grew in confidence. Her voice grew stronger. She was quite unaware that the people at the other tables were beginning to listen.

  ‘This evening is just the start, a small start, an intimate start. I have invited you because I want you to help me, because you are my friends, and I love you. I want you to take this message I am giving you tonight, and take it to the people of this town.

  ‘The great thing about this is that it can work on two levels. At the national and international level, we will be trying to deal with two major threats – global warming and peak oil. You may be less familiar with peak oil, but we are going to reach, or already have reached the moment when the world’s oil resources are beginning to be used up, and one day, unless we act on an incredibly large and fast scale, a civilization built on cheap oil will collapse. It’s as simple as that.

  ‘However, their contribution to the global solution is based on small-scale local initiatives, and it so happens that I can see that the sol
utions for Potherthwaite can help the global solution while also helping to create an infinitely better Potherthwaite. So, we will be able to deal at the same time with world issues and with our problems here, with our town, its decline, its ugliness, its quiet daily despair. We will bring the canal back to life, we will bring the Quays back to life, we will bring the High Street back to life. Is this pie in the sky? No, because I have plans. Yes, me, a little widowed woman, a sad little failure, I have plans for Potherthwaite. I am reborn as a town planner. Ridiculous? Yes, but what is happening now is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous that we let our town die around us and do nothing about it. It has been ridiculous here tonight, all of us injured, all of us bruised – I thought it was not a good start, but as I talk I see that it is the perfect start. Our town is bruised, it bears the scars of decline in every street, but the greatest bruise of all is that to our souls, and our spirits, because we haven’t cared – and I’ll tell you this, it will happen, and it will succeed. Shall I tell you why it will succeed?’

  She hurried on to answer her own question before anyone could shout, ‘No. Shut up.’

  ‘It will succeed not because I’m clever, or a great leader, or have any great ability whatsoever. It will succeed because it has to succeed.’

  She stopped. There was a moment of silence, and then applause rang out, not just at her table but at both the tables where there were still people. A group of four, who had been putting their coats on to go out into the cold night, had stopped at the door, as if sensing that something was going to happen. They were clapping too. Sue Foreshaw, the manageress, was clapping. Even their grumpy young waitress was clapping, all grumpiness forgotten.

  She had said so little, but an enormous energy had been released, even from these few people. Sally was deeply moved, and horribly scared. This thing was bigger than she had dreamt.

  And the evening, due to her inexperience, had been badly constructed. She now had to explain, quietly and only to her table, what she wanted from them.

  ‘In a month’s time, I will be speaking in the church hall, setting out my ideas for Potherthwaite, my plans for Potherthwaite. I want you all to take an area of the town and visit it, calling at the doors, asking people to come to the meeting, explaining why it’s important that they should come.’

  ‘I’m up for that,’ said Marigold, so excited that she started talking the English of a younger generation. ‘I am so up for that. I’m, like, this is fantastic. I’m, like, count me in. I’m, like, “Sally, wow!”’

  ‘Fantastic idea, Sally. Count me in too,’ said Jill.

  ‘Oh, Jill, that’s great,’ said Sally. ‘I was relying on you, to be honest. You’ve got such energy. We’ve been friends for so long. Real friends. Oh, Jill, thanks. Hey, I think this calls for one last bottle.’ She called the waitress over. ‘Could we have one last bottle?’ she said. ‘We won’t keep you too long.’

  The waitress blushed.

  ‘You can keep me as long as you like,’ she said.

  ‘You see!’ said Harry, when the waitress had gone to get the wine.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’ll work. She’s had a Transition already.’

  ‘So … um … are you in, then, Harry?’

  ‘Certainly am. It’s a funny old place, this, but I have been warmly welcomed in this funny old place, and I would like to give something back to it.’

  ‘That’s marvellous, Harry,’ said Sally.

  ‘Give me a tough part of town,’ said Harry. ‘I love a challenge.’

  ‘Good. You can do the Baggit Estate. You were too young to do National Service, weren’t you?’

  ‘Certainly was, why?’

  ‘How would you like to be our sergeant major?’

  ‘What does that involve?’ asked Harry cautiously.

  ‘Keeping everyone in order. Saving Marigold and me from our wildest dreams. Having the courage to take the unpopular decisions. Doing by force what cannot be done by persuasion. Being strong.’

  ‘Harry! Blood pressure!’ whispered Olive.

  ‘Thank you, Sally,’ said Harry. ‘I’m flattered.’

  Yes, you were meant to be.

  Olive mouthed the word ‘cholesterol’ at him.

  ‘That sounds right up my street,’ said Harry.

  ‘So, how about you, Arnold?’ asked Sally.

  ‘I don’t think so, Sally,’ said Arnold. ‘I’m too old. Besides—’

  He stopped abruptly.

  The waitress brought the wine. Arnold and Olive declined it. Harry, Jill and Marigold raised their glasses and reached out to clink them with each other and with Sally, but not with Olive or Arnold.

  ‘“Besides …”?’ asked Jill remorselessly.

  Arnold sighed.

  ‘I thought I’d got away with it,’ he said. ‘Besides, I have my book.’

  ‘But think how much more successful it will be,’ said Marigold, ‘when Potherthwaite is news.’

  ‘Yes, but you don’t know what my book is,’ said Arnold.

  ‘We do,’ said Jill. ‘It’s a history of Potherthwaite.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s the rise and fall of Potherthwaite. I’m Potherthwaite’s Gibbon. I’m writing a weighty tome about the reasons why it succeeded and why it couldn’t continue to succeed, why it couldn’t fail to fail, if you like. It’s a historical interpretation over the decades and centuries. You are going to ruin my thesis.’

  ‘But if your thesis is wrong, what can we do about it?’ asked Sally as gently as she could.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Arnold petulantly, ‘but do you think that’s any consolation to me? To you all it’s a joke. Oh yes, I know that. To me it’s my life’s work. It’s my raison d’être.’

  Sally turned to Olive.

  ‘Olive, you haven’t …’ she began.

  But Arnold hadn’t finished.

  ‘There’s another thing,’ he said.

  Nobody spoke, but their eyes groaned.

  ‘I’m not catching up fast enough,’ said Arnold. ‘At this rate I’ll be dead before I finish it. And now you’re going to have plans and suggestions and changes. I know what’s going to happen. Do you know what’s going to happen? I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Lots. Lots and lots. That’s what’s going to happen. Lots and lots of happenings. Transmission. Transformation. None of you thinking of me. I won’t catch up at all. I’ll drop further and further behind. I wouldn’t mind, but you’re all so smug. Leave me out of your precious Transmission, please.’

  ‘Transition,’ said Sally.

  ‘Arnold, darling,’ said Jill, and in her anger her voice took on a rather unpleasant tone, a parody of sweetness. ‘Perhaps you should consider making your book not quite so sodding long.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Arnold bitterly. ‘Thank you, darling, for your sympathetic comment, and your learned and constructive criticism of my great work. It’s so sad that, with an analytical brain of that calibre, you wasted so much of your life peering up people’s badly washed, spotty, polyp-ridden arses.’

  There was silence. Sally felt that she had to break it.

  ‘Olive,’ she said. ‘Can we count you in?’

  Olive hesitated.

  ‘I haven’t said much,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I only speak when I have something worthwhile to say.’

  She paused, as if daring somebody, Harry perhaps, to say something devastatingly sarcastic. Nobody did.

  ‘I agree with what Harry said about ceasing to feel an outsider here so quickly, yes, I do, and I appreciate it,’ said OIive. ‘I really do. But I still don’t think I feel that I want to get involved in anything as ambitious as this. I have my health issues, I have to be careful, I’m not overflowing with stamina, I never have been, can’t help that, it’s my metabolism. But it’s not just that. You aren’t going to like what I’m going to say, but it’s how I feel. I’m not a very brave person, but I’m going to say what I really think for once. I can’t see the point of getting involved at my age and in my state of health. If there�
��s going to be an end of the world, why should I care? I won’t be here to see it.’

  ‘I think that’s the most selfish thing I’ve heard in my life,’ said Harry. ‘I’m deeply ashamed to hear my wife say something as selfish as that. What about our children? What about our children’s children? Are you alive, Olive? Are you?’

  Sally Mottram, in her new role as a great local leader, learnt an important lesson that night at the Bruise Special Offer Dinner at the Weavers’ Arms.

  She had gone to the pub with two objectives. In the more important one, the introduction of her plans to potential supporters, she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Not only at her table, but at other tables. She had learnt that she had underestimated the power of her ideals.

  Her subsidiary aim, less important but still of real consequence, had been to deal with her concern over the two neighbouring couples in the cul-de-sac. She had wanted to bring Harry and Olive closer together on the one side, and Arnold and Jill closer together on the other.

  It had been an abysmal failure. Jill and Arnold had shouted at each other. Harry and Olive had disagreed completely. Neither couple was now speaking to the other. Sally had hoped to have five reliable friends to carry out and inspire the next stage of the work, that of filling the church hall within a month. Already she was left with only three.

  She had learnt that it is a big mistake to have a subsidiary aim. Having an aim at all was difficult enough.

  SEVENTEEN

  Sally breaks new ground

  ‘What did you have for breakfast this morning?’ asked Nick Podger, the burly, unshaven technician.

  It’s the standard question at sound checks, and it’s hoped that the answer will contain the word ‘porridge’, which is, apparently, the most helpful word for a burly, unshaven technician to hear in a sound check.

  Sally did not say ‘porridge’.

  ‘… Um … let me think …’