The Second Life of Sally Mottram

by David Nobbs

  She had to get out of Potherthwaite. She had to escape the valley. She had to walk. She had to punish her body. She would walk, and walk, and walk, walk out of the valley, walk over the hills, walk into the setting sun, walk through the dark night, under that absurd plethora of stars, under dead stars, past dead sheep, until she fell, until she herself was dead. They’d all be sorry then.

  She finished her meagre breakfast, filled three empty water bottles with three litres of tap water – perhaps she might change her mind about dying at some later stage – put on walking clothes and boots, took up her rucksack, walked out of her hated flat, locked the door, strode along Vatican Road, turned left into Quays Approach, left again into High Street East, passed the Potherthwaite Arms – one good thing if she did manage to die would be that she would never need to set eyes upon the Revd Dominic Otley again in her life – walked through the Market Place, scene of that great afternoon which she now understood to have been a false dawn, crossed the river where the two bipolar mallard were having a mad moment, walked past the waste ground, the hole in the heart of Potherthwaite, looked in on it and saw how little impact the great clean-up on Saturday had achieved, entered the Potherthwaite Deli – there were no other customers, the bloody place didn’t deserve a deli – bought three sandwiches and a slice of apple tart – it would be stupid to decide not to die and then die after all because you’d got nothing to eat – walked out of the deli just as Nicola Winkle walked in – did the bloody woman live there? – and walked on past the cul-de-sac, where Marigold would even now be fucking her lover, past Cadwallader Road, where she was going to let Ellie down really badly, past the Rose and Crown, which was still boarded up, past the turning for Oxford Road, where Conrad was even now fucking his lover – no, even bloody Marigold couldn’t be fucked by the same man in two different places at the same time – on on on past the allotments and there at the end of the valley, on the left, was the supermarket, and the cars were pouring in – people who had been on the march were busy betraying their principles, the town didn’t deserve to be saved, she had wasted all her time and energy.

  The road began to rise now, up up up into the bare hills, up up up to the five hairpin bends. The sun was breaking through, the ground was still wet from the night’s rain, the moors were steaming as they dried, Sally’s world smelt like a laundry. On on on she went, round the first hairpin bend. ‘I’m going round the bend,’ she cried to an inquisitive sheep. ‘That’s what I’m doing. I’m going round the bend.’

  The sheep ran away. I’d run away if a madwoman shouted at me, she told herself.

  She found that with her articulation of the thought that she was going round the bend, she started to cease going round the bend. By the time she went round the second bend she looked back on the morning and realized that she really had been going round the bend.

  She took a long draught of water. Already there wasn’t much left in the first bottle. She decided not to take any more water until she reached the third bend, and not to eat any of her sandwiches until she had got to the top. She also vowed not to look back until she had reached the top.

  She wasn’t angry any more. Strangely, that disappointed her. And it also made her very tired. The anger had been fuelling her walk, moving her legs for her.

  It was more than an hour later before she reached the top. She was hot and extremely weary. She sank on to the ground. Sheep watched her cautiously. She took a draught of water from the second bottle.

  After about half an hour, for quite a few minutes of which she had actually been asleep, she pulled herself to her feet. To her left were the vast windmills of the wind farm. Three of them weren’t turning even though there was a steady breeze up here. Above her, three buzzards circled slowly on the thermals. Behind her, the inhospitable moors stretched to infinity. In front of her, in the valley, Potherthwaite looked tiny.

  Sally had realized, deep down, as she passed the end of Cadwallader Road, that she would not abandon the town and the Transition movement. She was hating herself for her jealous feelings towards Marigold. How much more would she hate herself if she failed Ellie? After she had eaten she would walk down to the town and call on her and describe a boat trip on the Rhine.

  She had seen many women fall prey to jealousy and had always felt that it demeaned them, so she had been very shocked to find herself giving way to such thoughts over the long wretched night. But how could she stop her feelings? She couldn’t cut them off like a gangrenous leg.

  She munched her hummus-and-red-pepper sandwich slowly. She didn’t feel hungry. The memory of all that Chinese food still haunted her. The look of contempt in the waitress’s eyes as she removed the vast amount they hadn’t managed to eat still taunted her.

  She tried logic. Marigold didn’t know that she had been out with Conrad. Marigold was a sexy woman. She hadn’t asked to be. She might not even have wanted to be. It had hardly been of great benefit to her. She had suffered three broken marriages. Her assertion that it had all been the fault of the men might have been an exaggeration – there were cupboards full of shoes to testify that Marigold wasn’t blameless – but Sally had known Timothy Boyce-Willoughby and any woman who had been married to him needed sympathy. And her brain examining. No, find generosity in your heart, Sally. You can’t do this Potherthwaite stuff without generosity in your heart. Marigold didn’t know that you had been out with Conrad. Concentrate on that. Marigold, damn her, was blameless.

  Marigold was her best friend. They had sworn undying love. They had sworn that no man would ever come between them. What sort of a woman was she if those words were empty? What sort of a woman was she if she hated her best friend? But she didn’t hate her best friend. She wanted to hate her best friend, but she couldn’t. In fact, she wanted both to hate her and not to hate her at the same time.

  She sought refuge in an easier debate. Should she eat her second sandwich now or save it for the walk down? She couldn’t decide on this issue either. She looked down on the town, the church, the Market Place, Oxford Road, ‘The Larches’.

  She began the long walk down, the walk to Marigold, the walk towards Conrad. She still hadn’t made her mind up about the sandwich, but it was already too late to eat it before she started, so it had already decided for itself.

  Instead of the sandwich she chewed over the situation as she walked. She couldn’t absolve herself of all blame for the fact that her dinner with Conrad hadn’t led on to romance. She had been tense, stiff, insufficiently amusing. The pub had been efficient, attractive, professional, courteous. It had lacked only heart. And she, she had been much the same.

  Marigold was right for Conrad, more right than her. She had no reason to complain. Marigold was her friend. She needed her.

  Conrad had never given her, in word or deed, any kind of promise. If Marigold could bring herself to trust him, she might find happiness at last.

  This morning Sally had felt herself capable of abandoning this town, of reneging on all her promises to it. What sort of a woman did that make her?

  Well, not too bad, because she had found that she couldn’t. But to even be capable of thinking it, that was enough to disqualify her from any thoughts of condemning Marigold.

  She was very tired now, and walking more and more slowly. ‘Bit of a wasted day? Every day’s like that for us,’ said the body language of the sheep. She had finished her water, but the air was getting cooler. There were few cars, and none of them stopped for her. Even if she had thumbed them, none of them would have stopped. The days of trust were over.

  It was early evening, and getting dark, by the time she reached the floor of the valley. She telephoned Marigold. Yes, she was in. Yes, she would like to see her. Lovely.

  She walked to the supermarket. It was like every supermarket everywhere. She saw Matt Winkle talking to a woman whom she didn’t know. She waited for him to be free, so that he could advise her about champagne.

  But his conversation went on and on. His voice was rising. She could h
ear his words clearly now. ‘Madam, I didn’t grow them, I didn’t pick them, I didn’t store them, I didn’t put a notice on them stating they were ripe and ready to eat, I accept that they weren’t, I offer you two more packs of inedible peaches or double your money back, plus I will pay all your dental bills for the next five years and I apologize, but I am sorry, I have to go, I’m off to Italy to buy peaches which I will bring back in my car and ripen in my garden specially for you, see you Tuesday, goodbye.’

  He walked over to Sally.

  ‘I’ve had enough,’ he said.

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘I’m losing my marbles and my wife. She says she can’t live with me any more.’

  ‘Oh, Matt. Poor Matt.’

  ‘So how can I help you, Sally?’

  ‘Do you have a good bottle of champagne, chilled?’

  ‘Certainly do. Peace offering?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘This is nice. Not too sharp. Nice and biscuity. Have it on the house.’

  ‘No, Matt, please.’

  ‘Yes, Sally, please. Nice to see your face, brought me back to sanity.’

  ‘Are things really bad with Nicola?’

  ‘Not good. I’m not liveable with.’

  ‘Oh, Matt, be careful.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Pleasure.’

  She hardly found the energy to walk on, but she did. She limped past the turning to Oxford Road. She told herself that it wouldn’t have worked, living there with Conrad. She told herself that it wouldn’t have worked, living anywhere with Conrad.

  She didn’t quite believe herself.

  She paused at Cadwallader Road. How could she have even thought of turning her back on Ellie?

  She was too tired to recreate the castles of the Rhine today.

  She turned into the cul-de-sac. Number 9 looked empty. Well, it would be. Olive hadn’t died, but she had been in a coma since Sunday. Harry spent all his days at her side, stroking her hand and trying to forgive her.

  Marigold waved from an upstairs window. The door opened as she approached it. Her heart was racing. She handed Marigold the champagne. Marigold kissed her and asked to what she owed this treat?

  ‘I bring good news,’ said Sally bravely.

  She apologized for being in walking clothes.

  Marigold said, ‘You look good in anything. That’s what I envy about you.’

  Marigold conjured up nibbles as if she had known that she was going to be brought a bottle of vintage champagne. They didn’t sit in the chairs where they had drunk deep from Baileys, Cointreau and friendship. Sally was very relieved by this. They sat on the window seat above the dimly lit cul-de-sac, a little table in front of them with the vintage champagne in vintage flutes, and the nibbles stylishly arrayed on tiny Japanese plates.

  ‘So what’s this good news?’ Marigold asked.

  Sally told her of her dinner with Conrad, her feelings for Conrad, her reaction to Marigold’s tale about her dinner with Conrad, and about her second dinner with Conrad last night.

  ‘So the good news is that I think you can trust him. I think he’s proved he’s a good man.’

  ‘Aren’t you jealous?’ asked Marigold.

  ‘Why should I be?’ said Sally. ‘I’ve got my own lover boy chasing me.’

  ‘Ooh! Who’s he?’

  ‘No less a person than the vicar of this parish.’

  Marigold hooted and then suddenly stopped.

  ‘Don’t say you mean it,’ she said.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘Not much help there.’

  ‘Are you really serious?’

  ‘I’m serious that he’s chasing me. He can’t run fast enough though.’

  Marigold laughed.

  ‘Can you imagine it?’ said Sally. ‘“For what I am about to receive may nobody ever give thanks.”’

  They giggled and laughed and Marigold refilled their glasses.

  Sally raised hers.

  ‘To you, Marigold,’ she said. ‘I hope that you will find the courage to trust in Conrad and that the two of you will have a long and happy life together.’

  ‘Do you really mean that, Sally?’

  Sally smiled.

  ‘Of course I don’t, you idiot. But I hope if I say it often enough I may mean it one day.’

  ‘Oh, Sally.’

  Marigold went over to her and hugged her solemnly.

  ‘I think you will meet a wonderful man very, very soon,’ she said.

  BOOK FIVE

  Transition

  THIRTY-ONE

  An emissary with a wet handshake

  It was the handshake that Sally remembered. If she’d been asked to describe his face, she wouldn’t have had a clue. She had forgotten the paunch. She had forgotten that he looked more like a pregnant man than any man she had ever seen. She had forgotten the long strands of his oily hair. She wasn’t sure if he had shown her his lopsided smile. Well, she had only met him once, on the day of the great march, as she left the crowded Market Place, and a whole winter had passed since then.

  It had been a dispiriting winter, wet and wild, and with desperately little to show for it. True, work on the bypass had begun, but it had ground to a halt in the mud. True, the clearance of the Potherthwaite Arm of the Rackstraw and Sladfield Canal had begun. Five and a quarter miles makes a fairly pitiful canal, but five and a quarter miles turned out to be a hell of a distance to clear. There was so little to show for it, and so much to do, and only the hardiest and the most loyal persisted.

  She was walking through the Market Place again, on a cool day in late spring. There were no crowds now. She was dreaming of how it would look when it was pedestrianized, when the whole of the High Street was pedestrianized, when her dreams had become reality. At the moment, there was nothing to be done but to dream. Sally was feeling very small that morning. Her dreams seemed absurd.

  Now the thing that she had dreaded since she had seen him limping into the square from High Street East was happening. He was holding out his hand.

  ‘We meet again, clever lady,’ he said.

  She shook the proffered hand. In her excessive need for good manners she didn’t want to hurt his feelings by making the handshake too brief, in case he was aware of its unpleasant dampness. So she overcompensated and held his hand for just a moment longer than was necessary, as if to say, ‘Don’t worry, strange man. I at least don’t find your handshake repulsive.’

  But she did. A tremor of revulsion passed through her.

  ‘You recall our first meeting?’ he asked.

  Who could forget him?

  ‘I do. The march was just leaving the square. The band was playing. You said nice things.’

  ‘I said them, lady, because I meant them. You were impressive. I wished to leave you in no doubt about that.’

  ‘You succeeded.’

  ‘Good. You may recall that I told you that when I reported that I had found you impressive, the boss would be impressed.’

  ‘I do recall it.’

  ‘I told him, and he was impressed.’

  ‘That’s good news.’

  ‘He was more than impressed. He was very impressed. I have to tell you, lovely lady, that he is not often impressed, and very rarely is he deeply impressed, but when I described the march to him, your speech, your charisma, your beauty – oh, yes, you are beautiful, Mrs Sally Mottram – I told him how you and … um … your partner …’

  ‘Marigold Boyce-Willoughby.’ Paradoxically, Marigold had irritated Sally that winter by seeming to proceed so slowly with her romance. It was one thing to have lost Conrad, but to have lost him to a woman who could do so little about it because her nerve had gone, that was painful. Sally had to work hard to prevent a touch of lingering iciness from creeping into her voice as she spoke the name.

  ‘Correct. The two of you, at the head of that march – I told him that if you were to smile at the glaciers of the Arct
ic, the global warming that we all fear would become an avalanche.’

  Sally just managed to say, ‘You’re very kind,’ without laughing.

  ‘I can tell you, lovely lady, that—’

  ‘He was impressed?’

  ‘You have got it in one. As ever, you have hit the nail on the proverbial.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I was impressed by how impressed he was. In fact, I don’t think I have ever seen him so impressed.’

  They were walking slowly up High Street West now, though neither of them could have said why.

  ‘This is all very nice,’ said Sally, ‘but I have to say that I haven’t the faintest idea who you are.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness me. How remiss of me. You are walking, lady, with none other than Leonard Tiptree, more widely known to his friends and associates as Lennie.’