The Second Life of Sally Mottram

by David Nobbs

  ‘Maybe I’m interested in a wide range of things.’

  Their eyes met properly for the first time. Was he wondering if this remark carried sexual connotations? Had she intended it to carry sexual connotations? She wasn’t sure herself.

  Her next remark rang out with first-date flatness.

  ‘Is it your job that’s brought you up north?’

  It was. He’d been offered a better job, with better pay. He was very experienced in flood control.

  She discovered that it was cancer that had taken his wife, four years ago. He was ready at last to build new life.

  There are many moments in our lives when it is lucky, whatever we may think and however frustrating it may be, that we cannot see into other people’s hearts and minds. It’s even luckier that they can’t see into ours. As Sally said her ‘Oh, I’m so sorry’ and her ‘How sad!’, her sympathy and distress at this news, real though they were, were being swamped by the joy of knowing how astonishingly available he was.

  She tried to make her ‘And do you have children?’ seem like an innocent piece of fact-finding rather than a coded version of ‘Do you have two monstrous, possessive, spoilt, grasping daughters who would make my life hell if we ever happened to marry?’

  ‘No children, sadly. Magda had … internal problems.’

  She hid her thoughts on that one too.

  But, inevitably, the main subject of discussion was the house. Her house, now his. Why had he chosen it?

  He said that it seemed a friendly house.

  She thought of saying, but didn’t, that she had once thought so too.

  He said that it was the right size.

  She thought of asking, but didn’t, for what was it the right size? For a family with two children?

  He heard the question that she hadn’t asked, and replied to it without making it obvious. His brother had three small children. He needed something big enough for their visits.

  He said that it had been reasonably priced.

  She thought of commenting, but didn’t, that this was not something she was overjoyed to hear.

  He realized that perhaps he had not been entirely tactful, and said that he hadn’t meant that it had been cheap. He had meant that it had been realistically priced.

  He asked her questions about her childhood.

  She told him that she had been the younger of two daughters. Her father had been a GP and had died of a pulmonary embolism at the age of sixty-eight. Her mother had died in a plane crash at the age of seventy. She told him that she got on well with her sister in Devon but they weren’t any closer socially than they were geographically, and that she was sad that her son and daughter also lived so far away, in Barnet and New Zealand. She had the self-awareness and the wit to realize, as she told him these facts, and in the way in which she was telling them, that she might as well have said, ‘I too, Conrad, have remarkably little baggage.’

  He drove her back over the dark, dark moors. Frozen by the dazzle of his headlights, the sheep were painted by Hockney. There were no other cars on this road. Separated by the cruel hills, Potherthwaite and the Shoulder of Mutton were on different planets.

  A return journey after a first date is unlikely to be without a degree of uncertainty in the twenty-first century and particularly for someone who has not really lived in the twenty-first century yet. Will he ask me in? If he does, should I go in? Will I go in, which is a very different question? Will he kiss me on the cheek? Will he kiss me on the mouth? Will he kiss me on and in the mouth? Will he suggest another date? If he does, should I agree straight away? Will I agree straight away, which is a very different question? And why does it all depend on what he does, why am I not more proactive? Am I not really a modern woman at all?

  Sally felt a degree of tension about these matters, and in this instance it was deepened by the fact of their dropping down into the Pother Valley, and into Potherthwaite, where every drawn curtain begged the question, will the people behind that curtain support me on the march?

  Conrad drove his Audi smoothly down the almost deserted High Street West, through the almost deserted Market Place, down the even more deserted High Street East. Would all this ever be pedestrianized? He turned right into Quays Approach. Would the canal ever be cleared? He turned right again into Vatican Road. Sally’s block of flats was not pretty, and the meanness of her new surroundings did shame her that night.

  He got out of the car, came round to the passenger side, opened the door for her. She had waited for a moment to see if he was going to. To have pre-empted a polite gesture would have been a behavioural error.

  He kissed her on both cheeks.

  He said, ‘We must do this again soon.’

  Only then did he kiss her on the lips.

  He kept his mouth closed and his tongue safely locked up.

  She kept her mouth closed and her tongue safely locked up.

  She walked to the door of the flats, unlocked them, turned to wave.

  The Audi was already halfway down the road.

  As she opened the door to her flat, in the unlovely hall, Sally wondered if it was healthy that such social and indeed sexual minutiae should be under examination by a forty-seven-year-old woman who might soon be a leader of men.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The march

  Sally had spent the few days since her dinner with Conrad in a state of high anxiety. She had been to the doctor for sleeping pills and the Pother Health Centre for natural aids to relaxation. Rattling with pills, and stuffed with herbs, she had tottered through the days to the big event. She had longed for the day to come, and now it had, and of course she wished that it hadn’t. She dreaded it.

  But what disturbed her more than anything, more even than taking by the scruff of its neck the town in which she had lived as a quiet, rather shy, not very brave solicitor’s wife for twenty-four years, and leading it in a campaign against that symbol of power in modern Britain, the supermarket, was the fact that Conrad hadn’t phoned to ask her to dinner again.

  She opened the curtains, and felt the same shock that she felt every morning. No longer did she look out over a well-tended garden, with finches and tits and magpies flying about with every appearance of joy. All she could see was the unimpressive mixture of offices and small shops on the northern side of Vatican Road. To the rear, over the badly maintained roofs of outhouses, were some scruffy back gardens, separated by dilapidated fencing from equally scruffy gardens at the backs of the houses on the neglected Quays. There was no way of smelling the weather, and she felt huge dismay at the thought that she might spend the rest of her life here. She shook her head several times, as if she believed that this negative attitude would drop out on to the threadbare carpet. She pulled herself together. She thought about the appalling conditions in which billions eked out an existence in much of the world. It didn’t work. Now she felt full of guilt as well as dismay.

  She went out – she had to feel the air. She took a brisk walk to the end of the road, turned right along Quays Approach, right again along the Quays, right yet again along a narrow ginnel that led back to Vatican Road, and a final right turn to her hateful block of flats.

  She felt a little better after her walk. In fact, she took the walk twice more, before she forced herself to go back into her flat. It was a perfect morning. Perfect, that is, for a march. It was dry, a dry day in early September. There was very little sun, not enough to persuade anyone to lie half-naked on their lawn. There was the faintest of breezes, only just enough to make an occasional sail turn lazily on the giant windmills at the head of the valley.

  The marchers were to gather in the park at half past one, ready to march at two. Marigold called round just after eleven, dressed entirely in green except for her boots. She laid out an attractive little lunch, also mainly green. ‘Environmentally friendly,’ she said excitedly, ‘and my wearing only green is a statement of an ideal too.’

  She had brought a bottle of vintage champagne, ‘the last bottle from t
he Boyce-Willoughby family’s wedding present’ and they drank it together in that sad little room. The moment it was finished, the pit in Sally’s stomach returned.

  It was barely twelve when they finished their lunch and champagne. When Marigold suggested setting off to soak up the atmosphere, Sally said, ‘What atmosphere?’

  ‘Here we go, side by side, two true friends, two damsels in distress,’ said Marigold.

  In an impulse of affection Sally linked arms with Marigold as they marched to the end of the horrid road.

  They turned left into Quays Approach and left again into High Street East. The traffic was crawling. The pollution was almost visible. In a few of the shops that weren’t yet boarded up, the two women were puzzled to see staff busying themselves among the window displays.

  They crossed the Market Place. No markets were held here any more. From the northern side of the square a road led up through the suburbs to the railway station.

  Marigold indicated a few people who were moving towards the road.

  ‘Quite a few people,’ she said.

  ‘Aren’t they going to the station?’ Sally asked.

  ‘They’re coming on the march, you idiot,’ said Marigold. ‘Sally, it’s going to be huge.’ She waved at some girls. ‘Hello, girls,’ she called out excitedly. ‘Wave,’ she told Sally.

  Sally waved very uncertainly. The girls cheered.

  ‘You see,’ said Marigold.

  Sally was beginning to see. And, ahead of her, she saw something that made her eyes widen in astonishment and set her at last into believing that something special might happen this day. Ali and Oli were struggling painfully up the road in front of them, Ali still just over eighteen stone, Oli twenty, which meant, since they were both four foot eleven, that they were still pretty fat. When Sally called out to them, they turned and gave her a thumbs-up and broad smiles.

  ‘Ellie insisted we came,’ said Ali, but it was exactly twelve-thirty, and at that moment, right on cue, as planned, the Rackstraw and Potherthwaite Band struck up, rolling back the years in the steep, narrow valley, and causing old people to stop, and listen, and smile. Ali had to repeat herself. ‘She, like, said she wouldn’t never speak to us again if we didn’t come and support you. She loves you,’ she shouted.

  There were a good few people coming out of the side streets and joining them, and there was over an hour still to go. These were mainly the older people, who remembered the little grocery stores of yore, when the smell of ground coffee wafted over the severe little town.

  Baggit Park was to the left of the railway station, and the bandstand was at the top of the park, where the ground began to rise towards Baggit Moor. Sally stood and listened. For years she had disliked brass bands, but such was Barry’s hatred of them that he had eventually driven her into the arms of admiration. It was only now that he was gone that she realized this. The band were playing for their lives, looking down towards the town as they did so. The seats around the bandstand were almost full, and a few people were standing and listening. ‘Cherry Ripe’ was followed by ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’. Sally saw Jenny Hendrie, mother of the great soprano Arabella Kate Hendrie, standing smiling by this modest bandstand, and suddenly she realized that she was smiling at her husband. Arabella Kate’s father Gordon was actually playing the euphonium in the band. That made her feel gloriously sentimental, and that was the moment that she cast off all doubt about the march.

  Next she saw Sophie Partingon, the same Sophie who had defaced the church noticeboard, marching with friends and a large banner which stated ‘Prostitutes Against A Second Supermarket’.

  The band swung into gentle jazz mode with ‘Lazy Days’, the crowd grew, it was a carnival. There was no food or drink, and nobody needed any. The air was their food, the music was their drink. The Revd Dominic Otley arrived, followed by a small group of his friends and worshippers, all smiling broadly. The Revd Otley began to jig, almost but not quite in time to ‘Zadok the Priest’, in the overenthusiastic way parsons do to show they’re men of fun as well as God. He had no sense of rhythm whatsoever. The music was never the best part of a Revd Otley service. But today, in the park, his genial and inelegant fooling was charming rather than irritating.

  Now another large banner was carried into the park. It stated ‘Muslims Against Supermarkets’. The Muslim children were jumping up and down with excitement. ‘Shenandoah’ seemed wonderfully inappropriate.

  Sally was delighted to see Jill and Harry, though she was a bit alarmed at the amount of time they were spending with each other. She wandered over to them and Harry said, ‘We’re so cross with Olive and Arnold. They’re missing so much.’

  A few police officers stood around, smiling. None smiled as much as Inspector Pellet. Getting on the side of the crowd had been an important part of those seminars on the Isle of Wight.

  The sight of Inspector Pellet was a vivid reminder, to Sally, of the day that Barry hanged himself. To think of it here, now, at this lovely moment, was … barely disturbing at all. That was the past. She was looking to the future now.

  A group of – were they yobbos, or were they villains, or were they just naughty boys? – sidled illegally into the park on their bicycles, looked at the scene, heard the music, laughed at its simplicity, but had enough sense to judge the mood of the town, did a few lukewarm wheelies, pretended that was all they had come to do, and rode off with front wheels in the air. Inspector Pellet watched, smiled, and congratulated himself on his laid-back approach to crowd control.

  Sally saw more people whose presence gave her pleasure. Terence and Felicity Porchester, still stranded on their narrowboat. In two years, if things worked according to plan, they might be able to chug home.

  Ben Wardle, that strange boy, arrived with his parents. A few minutes later, his friend Tricksy arrived, and he abandoned his parents. A few minutes after that he abandoned Tricksy too, went over to a large cage, and stared at it. Inside the cage there were a few moth-eaten marmots. After a few more minutes he took a piece of stiff paper from his pocket and began to draw the moth-eaten marmots.

  There was a noticeable absence of professional people, but Marigold explained that the posh type wouldn’t stand in a park listening to a brass band.

  And where was Conrad? She longed to confide in Marigold about Conrad.

  At two o’clock, with perfect timing, the band moved off, playing ‘The Departure of the Queen of Sheba’. Behind the band went Sally and Marigold, side by side. More people were joining now that the march had actually started, but Sally felt that these latecomers had missed one of the best bits and was cross with Conrad for not being there.

  They marched not through Georgia but along the dreary, unprepossessing Warwick Road, which curled round to reach the top of High Street West by the roundabout off which the allotments began. On the way they passed a little café, Beryl’s Parlour, and Sally was amazed to see Linda Oughtibridge emerge from Beryl’s Parlour with nine women almost as square as she was. They were, in geometric contradiction of their appearance, her knitting circle.

  A few people in the allotments, mainly looking like lovable eccentrics, laid down their trowels and joined the march. There were quite a few banners now, with mainly uninspired messages like ‘No to the Second Supermarket’.

  The band’s eclecticism continued. They were joyfully into ‘Black-Eyed Susan’ as they passed the end of Cadwallader Road. Sally thought not of Black-Eyed Susan but of Ellie whose eyes were almost completely hidden by rolls of fat. By the time they reached the cul-de-sac they were playing ‘The Ash Grove’ and Sally wondered if Arnold and Olive were peering out of the window to see what they were missing. And then, to the accompaniment of ‘Lo! He comes with Clouds Descending’, there came Conrad, not with clouds descending but with seven colleagues from flood control.

  He wasn’t quite as tall as she had thought, now that she saw him in full daylight. And he was slightly lined. Maybe he was a little older than she’d thought. Early fifties, perhaps. But all
the more attractive for that. He waved, but didn’t attempt to join the front of the march. He led his gang into the main body of the protest most tactfully, slid them in as it were.

  People joined at every street corner. There was Kate Kavanagh from the Kosy Korner Kafé. Here was Jade Hunningbrooke, manageress of ‘Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow’. Maurice Sibley, owner of the struggling wet fish shop, emerged from his thinly stocked premises carrying a large square placard with a brilliantly painted, slightly surreal fish and the words ‘The Potherthwaite Aquarium. Prop M. Sibley’. The placard was heavily ringed with black.

  ‘Brill,’ said Marigold.

  ‘Bream, I think,’ said Sally

  ‘What?’

  ‘The fish. Black bream, I think.’

  ‘No, I meant, it’s brill. The idea. Clever you.’

  ‘It’s not me. It’s not my idea.’

  ‘Well, who the hell’s is it?’

  Now Sally realized an extraordinary thing. All the independent shops in the High Street had their windows covered in black, and the manager or owner of every shop came out and joined the march, carrying a large banner with the name of their shop, and all the banners had slightly surreal representations of some aspect of their stock, and all were ringed with heavy black.

  It had been done by some self-important clever clogs, and it had been done without even telling her, let alone consulting her. It was outrageous.

  No, it was brilliant, stunning. It just might make all the difference. It wasn’t outrageous at all. She had never called herself a leader, except in her thoughts. There was no power structure, she had no office or rank, so there was no way anybody had to consult her. Somebody had spent his or her time on this fantastic plan, in the aid of her cause. How could she be upset? And the paintings were bordering on genius.

  As they passed the turning to the Dog and Duck, they were joined by those three faithful customers, Mick Webster from the travel agency ‘Unravel Your Travel’, that randy little tosser Bill Etching (but all were welcome on the march, however unspeakable), and David Fenton, now only the second-most attractive man in Potherthwaite, since the arrival of Conrad Eltington.