by David Nobbs
‘It’s just that the game’s actually called fives and threes,’ said Sally.
When they were seated, the Revd Dominic Otley leant forward and spoke very quietly. ‘Little tip for you. For tomorrow. Seventeen minutes seventeen seconds.’
‘What?’
‘My estimate for tomorrow’s sermon. Easy to remember. People bet on the length, you know. I do myself. Not myself, of course, in the sense of myself. Wouldn’t do. I have what I believe is called a bookies’ runner. Never won. Can’t keep to my estimated time, you see.’ He changed the tone of his voice into what he thought was an intimate one. ‘Sally?’
Sally’s heart began to race. Sadly for the vicar’s chances, it raced with dread, not excitement.
‘There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you for some time, Sally,’ said the Revd Dominic Otley. ‘I felt it needed a suitable pause after your dreadful tragedy. Tact, you know. A quality present in all the Otley family.’ He began to breathe rather heavily. ‘They all go on about the Boyce-Willoughby woman, and yes, she is beautiful, but you … you have a better beauty, a more discreet beauty.’
‘Thank you, Dominic. What every woman wants to hear. Discreet beauty.’
The sarcasm escaped him entirely.
He put his great Bible-holding hand on her left knee. His breathing was getting harder. She removed his hand gently and placed it on his thigh in slow motion.
‘Will you come to dinner with me on Tuesday?’ he asked.
‘Oh, Dominic, I can’t. I’m having dinner on Tuesday.’
‘With … a man?’
‘The details of my social life are hardly your business, but yes, with a man.’
‘Ah. Perhaps … Wednesday?’
‘It’s very kind of you, Dominic, but … at present my social life is somewhat in flux.’
‘Flux?’
‘Yes.’
‘Somewhat?’
‘Yes.’
‘At present?’
‘Yes.’
‘That encourages me to think that the … um … “flux” may not be permanent. Maybe I have surprised you today. I shall make my feelings known later, when they will not be such a surprise.’
‘Dominic, I wouldn’t go to bed with you if I was the last woman in the Pother Valley and if you had inherited ten billion pounds, and I think that may very well go for every other woman in the Pother Valley and probably every female in the country including Polish and Portuguese immigrants, so I wouldn’t waste your time with me or any other woman if I were you. Another noggin?’
But that was not what she said.
‘Later, yes,’ she said.
All afternoon the sun shone. The setting sun in the west that evening was most glorious to behold, but there was hardly anybody on the Quays to behold it, largely for the simple reason that there was nowhere for the beholders to sit down without ordering something from the café, and also because some seventy minutes before sunset it slid out of view behind the stark, sterile hills, and sunset comes early in late October.
And all day Sunday the sun shone too, but we have seen Potherthwaite in the sun and perhaps we should visit a couple of the places that the sun did not reach that day, for the sun never reaches everywhere in any town. We refer to the Intensive Care Unit of Potherthwaite District Hospital, and to the ground floor of number 6 Cadwallader Road.
Harry sat at Olive’s bedside. Sunshine was streaming into the ward. On the bed, the sun didn’t quite reach Harry’s newspaper, with its proud headline of ‘Warmer in Huddersfield than Marrakesh’. Olive’s eyes were closed, and she seemed to be asleep, but he knew that she wasn’t. She opened her eyes just for a moment, gave him an anguished look.
‘Harry?’ she said in a faint voice.
He leant closer to her.
‘Yes, my darling?’
‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
She closed her eyes and just for a moment he thought that she was dead.
‘Harry?’
‘I’m here.’
It dawned on him that she was plucking up her strength. She didn’t have enough left to open her eyes and speak at the same time.
‘Arnold and I met when we were students,’ she whispered.
He had to lean even further forward.
‘In Cheltenham. Harry, you’re hurting.’
He realized that in his tension he was gripping her hand. He removed his hand hastily.
‘Sorry. So sorry,’ he said.
‘We … were friends. Not lovers.’
‘Ah.’
He wanted to ask her why she hadn’t told him. He was so hurt that she hadn’t told him. He wanted her to be fit and well again so they could talk it through.
‘Harry?’
Was it his imagination or was the voice even weaker now? Was she dying?
‘Yes, my darling.’
Don’t leave me, Olive, not yet.
‘It was while you were in Monte Cassino.’
It was absurd, at this moment, to correct her. But he did. Habit dies hard.
‘Montepulciano.’
‘Yes. We thought … we thought that you and Jill … we … anyway, we … we did it, Harry … Just once. Just once, Harry.’
He felt sick. It was so unfair of her to tell him this now, when there was no time to work through it, learn to cope with it, learn to accept it. What could he do but forgive her instantly? So unfair. But he stroked her hand, her old hand, her bony, veiny hand flecked with age spots. He stroked her hand very gently.
‘Harry?’
The voice was going.
‘Harry, I’m so sorry.’
He stroked her hand again. He couldn’t speak. He could scarcely breathe.
‘Just wanted to … wipe the …’
Those were her last words. He thought that she was dead. In a film she would have been. But then he saw that she was still breathing, her chest was still just moving.
He stumbled out of the room, tears cascading down his face. He reeled down the corridor as if he was drunk. The doors of the lift were opening and he stepped in before he realized that he didn’t know why he needed to.
There was a man in the lift. A doctor.
‘Are you all right?’ the doctor asked with concern.
Harry knew that he would bitterly regret his anger, but he couldn’t worry about that now.
‘No, I’m not,’ he said. ‘It’s all very well for her to wipe the fucking slate clean, but what about me?’
No sunshine ever lightened the gloom in the lift, but it promised every morning to flood Ellie’s bed. Frustratingly, it never quite reached it. Not ever.
‘It’s just such a lovely scene,’ Sally was saying. ‘So beautiful, so serene. There’s still a great deal of beauty in this world. I’ll take you to see it.’
‘What about your husband?’ said Ellie.
‘I don’t have one any more, Ellie.’
‘I know that, Mrs Mottram. I’m not stupid.’
‘Ellie? I’m not a carer. I’m not a moral woman keen to satisfy my conscience by doing good works. I’m a friend who is passionate about this. Ellie, Ali, Oli, I will enjoy showing you these things even more than you’ll enjoy them. Your joy will thrill me. So, please, no more Mrs Mottram. Mrs Mottram is gone. Call me Sally. If I ever have another husband, which is looking doubtful, he will have to accept that I have made you some commitments. Venice was my first commitment. Florence was the second. The Stockholm Archipelago is the third. When you are fit enough, Ellie, I will take you, and Ali and Oli of course, on a cruise to the Baltic, that great northern sea, where the air in summer is as clear as spring water, and the days are long.’
How could she promise those things when she was so strapped for cash? The thought slid into her mind like a burglar into a house. And she answered, to herself, How can I not? I know, in these moments in this house with my three obese friends, that the Transition of Potherthwaite will succeed, Ellie’s great walk will succeed, and the generous heart of this new Pothe
rthwaite will not allow me to renege upon my promise.
‘We sailed up it in the early morning,’ she continued. ‘So few people got up early to see it. They pay all that money and they miss things because they can’t be bothered to get out of bed, or rather, they can’t be bothered to read up where they’re going so they don’t even know that it’s something worth getting out of bed for. They’re half alive, Ellie. Barry didn’t bother to get out of bed. I tiptoed to the bathroom, put on my dressing gown, tiptoed back into the cabin, picked up the key, unlocked the door, slipped out. I thought that I half hoped to wake him but I realize now that I dreaded waking him. I didn’t want my husband beside me – isn’t that awful?
‘I stood at the bow and watched the ship slicing through the clear water. I suppose it was about six o’clock. There was still a touch of mist on the water, and there were islands everywhere, little islands covered in trees with rocky coasts and as you looked ahead you couldn’t tell where the channel was, which islands you would pass to starboard and which to port, and dotted about the islands were houses, not crowding each other, pretty houses with clean simple lines and bright but never garish colours, and it went on and on and you dreamt of living there.’
Sally stopped for a moment. Nobody said a word. Ellie in her great bed which the sun never reached, Ali and Oli beside the bed in their large chairs – all three were silent. Sally realized that they weren’t in Cadwallader Road at all. They were in the Stockholm Archipelago.
‘We’d been going at least an hour, maybe more, and a little builder’s boat came chugging towards us from the city, and I laughed out loud. I laughed because I’d thought of them arriving at some far-off island, settling to work and finding they’d brought the wrong-sized screws, and having to chug all the way back to Stockholm to change them. There was nobody there whom I wanted to share it with. When you’re there, I will have someone to share it with, and, who knows, maybe a lovely husband to share it with as well.’
But not Conrad.
Tuesday loomed.
TWENTY-NINE
A difficult meal
This time Conrad took her towards the east, towards the gathering dark. It was a dull, stagnant evening. The clouds, the traffic and Sally’s heart were heavy.
It was her birthday. She was forty-eight.
There were a few flecks of almost undetectable rain on the windscreen. Conrad gave the wipers one turn. There wasn’t enough rain for them, and they screeched.
‘We can go to the moon,’ he said, ‘but we can’t make the perfect windscreen wiper.’
What a way to celebrate her birthday. A Chinese meal with an unscrupulous seducer.
Conrad looked at Sally as if he had suddenly noticed that everything wasn’t right with her.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
She didn’t want to tell him that it was her birthday. Nobody in Potherthwaite knew, not even the Indian restaurants. Barry had been so jealous of any sign of enjoyment in her that she had long ago given up any attempt at celebration.
‘Yes. Fine. Why?’
‘You seem very quiet.’
What could she talk about? Her three cards, too sad a sight even to put on the mantelpiece. One from Judith. Insincere? One from Sam and Beth. How she wished she could help them more. One from Alice and family. How lovely New Zealand has been looking this spring. No mention of an invitation.
She wished she was anywhere but in the Audi. She had no idea how to play the evening, but there was no point in challenging him now. She might at least get one more meal off the bastard.
‘Not much to comment on really,’ she said. ‘It’s not exactly an inspiring evening. It’s not exactly an inspiring drive.’
‘But worth it, I’m told,’ said Conrad. ‘My water people tell me it’s the best Chinese restaurant for fifty miles.’
A cue. She grabbed it.
‘How are you getting on with your water people?’
‘Everything’s fine. They’re a nice bunch. I’ve just thought. I should have asked earlier. Do you like Chinese food?’
Yes, you should. But of course I know now that your perfect manners are just an act, a veneer, you conniving swine.
‘To be honest, Conrad, I haven’t had a Chinese meal for at least twenty-five years. Barry was not an adventurous eater.’
‘Oh. Well. This’ll be a bit of an adventure then.’
Not quite how I would have described it, Conrad.
‘Yes. I’m looking forward to it.’
Liar.
The gaps between the small towns and villages in the Pother Valley were short, barely worth farming, and so they were barely farmed. There were a few disgruntled cows that had drawn the short straw. Sickly corn struggled to reach a height worth cutting. Elderly barns looked on the point of collapse. There was a dead badger at the side of the road.
The lights of ‘Mr Kong’ shone with spectacular vulgarity in the gathering gloom of this impatient evening. Once again, the cars in the car park made Conrad’s Audi look very modest.
An extremely scrutable waiter greeted them with a broad smile and a warning of a dentist to be avoided at all costs. He led them into a vast, excessively bright room. Large groups of noisy people at circular tables were spinning their lazy Susans round, eating more than seemed possible, laughing more than seemed natural. Sally felt that if she confronted Conrad in this room he wouldn’t hear a word that she was saying. Was this the point of his choice of restaurant? Did he suspect that she knew?
Seated at a table for two right at the far end of the room, Sally felt that she was drowning in fun. She stared at the enormous menu without comprehension. Her stomach tightened up at the sight of the endless lists of dishes.
‘My friends didn’t tell me it would be so noisy,’ shouted Conrad.
‘I beg your pardon?’ she shouted.
‘My friends didn’t tell me it would be so noisy.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It is isn’t it?’
‘Yes. If you aren’t used to Chinese food, shall I order?’
‘Good … idea.’
‘Is there anything you don’t like?’
‘Sorry. What?’
‘Sorry. What?’
‘That’s what I said. “Sorry … What?”’
‘Ah. I said, “Is there anything you don’t like?”’
‘Shark fin.’
‘Right.’
A smiling waitress came to take their order and had no trouble hearing as Conrad rattled off a dismayingly large number of dishes. Well, it was all her fault. It was she who had thought that she might as well grab one more meal off the lecherous philanderer before she told him what she thought of him.
They were both silent after the waitress had gone. Sally felt an urgent need to speak.
‘How are you finding the house?’ she asked.
They discussed her old house with a pretence of vitality, and found that they had acclimatized themselves to the noise and could hear each other passably well if they just raised their voices a little.
Conrad leant forward and said, ‘I’m sorry, Sally, this isn’t going to work.’
‘What isn’t going to work?’
‘I intended to wait till after the meal, but I just can’t. Sally, I’ve … I’m afraid I’ve …’ He looked round nervously, as if he really thought that people at neighbouring tables might be able to hear him above the din. ‘I’ve met somebody.’
Sally’s heart thudded dangerously. She was swept away by a tide of relief, but the tide had surged through a timberyard and had brought sharp shards of jealousy downstream with it, and soon there was nothing but shock and jealousy in her heart.
‘Well, happy birthday, Sally’ she thought.
But all she said was, ‘Oh.’
‘In fact, she’s a friend of yours. Marigold Boyce-Willoughby.’
‘Good Lord! Marigold!’
Why lie? Why commit herself to this charade? But she couldn’t
say, ‘I know. She told me,’ or he would say, ‘Why did you come out with me if you knew?’ and she would have to say, ‘Because I thought you were a conniving two-timing tosspot and I was going to tear you to shreds in a very public and embarrassing scene once I’d eaten your expensive food and drunk your delicious wine.’
He was telling her how it had happened.
‘After my dinner with you at the Shoulder of Mutton – what a lovely evening that was. You looked so beautiful, Sally, in that glorious sunset …’
‘I’m good in sunsets. Everybody says so.’
She wished she hadn’t said that. He looked as if he wished she hadn’t said it too. He looked as if he thought that for her to show any evidence of hurt or bitterness was an affront to good manners.
‘I enjoyed the whole evening enormously, Sally.’
Sally narrowly managed to avoid saying, ‘So enormously that in the next few days you didn’t ask me out again for fear you wouldn’t be able to stand the excitement.’
‘Then after the march I just ran into Marigold on the Quays …’
Sally just managed to avoid saying, ‘How careless!’
‘… and … well, a strange thing happened.’
Sally failed to avoid saying, ‘You realized how much you preferred her to me and asked her to dinner.’
‘Sally! No! Well, I mean, I did, I suppose, but not because I … well, I mean, I suppose in a way I must have done or …’
‘When you dig a hole for yourself, don’t carry on and fall into it, Conrad.’
Their starters arrived. Conrad had ordered far too much. Sally felt sick.
‘Tuck in,’ said Conrad.
Sally’s attempts to tuck in were, frankly, pathetic, and Conrad didn’t do much better.
Sally put her chopsticks down. At least three-quarters of the food remained uneaten.
‘I’m really sorry that it’s turned out like this,’ said Conrad.
‘Do you know, so am I,’ said Sally.
THIRTY
Sally confronts her soul
In the morning the clouds had lifted, but Sally’s heart hadn’t. She was furious with Marigold for stealing Conrad from her. She was furious with Conrad for dumping her, and for the huge miscalculation he had made in the way that he told her about it. She was furious with Barry for having killed himself, thus forcing her into this ridiculous business of leading the Transition movement in Potherthwaite, and having such debts that she was condemned to live in this wretched flat. She was furious with Potherthwaite for having become such an abject place that she had persuaded herself to attempt to save it. She was furious with the kettle for being so slow – you bought British out of the goodness of your heart and look what you landed yourself with. She was furious with herself for having thought that the most effective way of dealing with Conrad was to accept an expensive dinner from him and then throw it, metaphorically speaking, in his face. She was furious with herself for not having realized that there was even the smallest chance that Conrad was actually an all-right guy. She was furious with herself for not having bigger breasts. She was furious with Marigold for having such big breasts. She was furious with Marigold for claiming to be completely disillusioned with men and then tempting them with her soft, fleshy legs on every bar stool from Land’s End to John o’Groats. She was furious with her toothbrush for being such a silly shape. In short, she was furious.