by David Nobbs
‘Oh, Harry.’
‘Yep.’
Olive had lain in a coma for several months, watched over day after day by Harry. Some days she hadn’t moved at all. Other days she’d had tiny convulsions. Just occasionally, a groan had come from far away. But she had been there, and now suddenly she wasn’t there any more, and it was almost more than Harry could bear.
‘You look as though you could do with a drink,’ said Sally.
‘Do you know, I could. The Dog and Duck opens at eleven. Shall we?’
They did. Sally had a red wine. Harry had a half of bitter and a large malt whisky. There were no other customers yet. The pub smelt of carbolic.
‘She never regained consciousness,’ said Harry. ‘Sunday she made a noise. I thought it was going to be a word – I was terrified she’d say something nasty, but it was just a cough. That’s odd, isn’t it? I mean, why should I think she’d say something nasty?’
‘Tension, probably.’
‘They’d been friends as students.’
‘What?’
‘Olive and Arnold. In Cheltenham.’
‘Good Lord.’
‘Never told us. Why didn’t they tell us, Sally?’
‘Embarrassment?’
‘No need. Nothing even happened. Not properly. Not in Cheltenham.’
‘What?’
‘It was when Jill and I were in Montepulciwhatsit. People always thought I was Jack the Lad. Something about my face, and being bald, and being up for … you know … the sailing … the painting course … but I’m not. Jill, she was bronzed in the sun … in Montethingummybobiano. One evening … it wouldn’t have taken much … but, well, we didn’t, in the end. I loved Olive too much. I think Jill probably loved Arnold too much. They … the quiet ones … the sly ones … would you believe it? Only once … I forgave her, of course … I mean … once … it’s hardly a hanging offence … but why did she have to tell me? Why did she have to tell me, Sally? I needn’t ever have known. I wouldn’t ever have guessed.’
‘She thought … tidy things up, get things straight?’
‘Try to make peace with her maker. Lessen her chances of going to hell. How could she believe those things, Sally? How could she believe all that? But she obviously did.’
‘It beats me, Harry.’
‘But she obviously did. Look how desperately she hung on. I wish she hadn’t have told me. I do. I wish she hadn’t have told me. I do, Sally. I never told a soul all these months. I watched her, day after day, sleeping, and I felt cross with her for not waking up, so we could have it out, make our peace. Now I know we never will, I have to tell someone, have to try to get it off my chest, clear it away so I can grieve properly. Sorry to burden you.’
‘Don’t worry, Harry. I understand.’
‘Same again?’
‘I think if we’re going to get maudlin, maybe we’d better stop.’
‘You’re probably right. Thanks, Sally … for this … and everything.’
‘Not a problem, Harry.’
Although they had decided not to have another drink, neither of them wanted to go. They sat in companionable silence for several minutes.
‘Do you think, Sally, that if folk could see how their marriages ended – the pain, the loss – they’d still get married?’ asked Harry eventually.
‘Yes, I think most of them would.’
‘Yeah. I do too.’
These thoughts might have led to a reason for not marrying Sir Norman, in Sally’s endless quest for a decision. Avoid marriage. Avoid the loss and the pain.
But they didn’t. They led Sally to the conclusion that a marriage of practicality, of convenience, might be the best way. Not to feel enough love to ever feel pain. An even keel.
Harry was a sailor. Harry got quickly bored, on ships, when the keels were even.
Did Sally want an even keel?
There were certainly worse things.
She bought herself a couple of wraps in the deli, clambered into the waste ground, sat on a stone far out of sight from the road. It wasn’t really warm enough to sit out, but she welcomed the chill and the shivers, they were suitable accompaniments to the absurdity of the decision she was being forced to make.
And as she sat there, she had a most unworthy thought. If she married Sir Norman, would she not become Lady Oldfield? If so, what a massive one in the eye for her dear sister Judith. Totnes Schnotnes, I live high above the Thames Valley with my shining knight.
Then she thought back to her visit to Sam and Beth. While she was there she had seen Sir Norman’s suggestion as absurd, but it would enable her to help them with their lurking money problems. God, it was difficult. The more she thought, the less she knew. Then she went slowly up High Street West to Cadwallader Road where Ali let her in to number 6. Ali and Oli sat in chairs at either side of the bed – they were both certainly looking quite a bit slimmer, Sally thought, but that might have been just the effect of hope. She was amazed, and thrilled, that they appeared to be sticking to their diet, day after day after day.
She talked of the Rhine, the great hills through which it had carved its route, the endless healthy vineyards covering the high, steep slopes, castle after spectacular castle to be admired without fear in one of the lengthiest periods of peace Europe had ever enjoyed due to an institution which was otherwise derided on all sides. She talked of the small towns and villages on the route, the winding banks of the great river, the old, timbered houses, the ramparts, the defences, the towers, the beauty that the warlike history of the Continent had created and left as our heritage. She talked of the thrill of the long passenger boats with their fine restaurants and succulent white wines, their finely cooked trout, their sparkling sunny beer. She spoke of the other ships, the great barges, and of the railway lines at both sides of the river, with express trains to all sorts of destinations north and south, and everyone on the boats being conscious of this great movement of people, of sharing their wonder at the magnificence of the scenery, and she told how, unlike in the great cities, the immense amount of traffic was exciting, it was thrilling to be part of all this, as one day they would be, when they would laugh at how small the boundaries of their lives had been, as she took them through the Rhine Gorge and perhaps on to the mighty cathedral of Speyer and the gentler beauties of Strasbourg. And they drank it all in and relished it, because they believed what Sally told them, that Ellie would walk again, and that they would sit on a Rhine steamer and eat Wiener schnitzels with clean consciences.
And Sally, as she talked to them, realized that she had made her decision. At first it seemed like a relief, but this feeling didn’t last. It came with an ever increasing terror that she might be making the wrong decision, but that, of course, is the nature of decisions.
She kissed each of the three girls on both cheeks. Ali led her to the door. She walked slowly through the town, slowly across the Market Place, and on every step of the way she thought of how Sir Norman’s money might speed the town’s transformation. She stopped at a stationer’s – you’ve guessed it, ‘The Potherthwaite Stationer’s’ – and bought their most expensive writing paper, with matching envelopes, for Sir Norman Oldfield was a billionaire and she wasn’t going to have her writing paper ridiculed in the Thames Valley.
She turned right into Quays Approach, right again into Vatican Road. She opened the mean communal door, climbed the tacky communal stairs, unlocked her thin, shoddy, deformed door, and entered her tiny flat, and there, she thought, thought again, decided that she had been right in her decision, and wrote her reply to Sir Norman Oldfield on writing paper destined for a far finer house.
THIRTY-FOUR
An unfinished manuscript
Under the stewardship of Walter ‘Wally’ Frond, one of the Fronds of Willis & Frond, ‘Potherthwaite’s Premier Store’, the Chronicle was a truly, and indeed solely, local weekly newspaper. The Suez Crisis held the capital in a ferment, with pitched battles of an intensity and hostility rarely seen on the streets of this isle of reason
and moderation, but—
Jill entered the stuffy study, with its walls covered in bookshelves that contained rows and rows of great classic novels and history books. She was aware that every single book on those shelves was better than her dear husband’s ‘A Complete History of Potherthwaite’, but Arnold wasn’t, so it didn’t really matter.
‘I’ve made some tea,’ she said.
Arnold’s expression was that of a Tolstoy being interrupted by Mrs Tolstoy with a buttered muffin just as he was pushing Anna Karenina under a train. Then he recovered himself, smiled as sweetly as he could, and said, ‘Bring it in here, darling, will you? Thanks.’
‘I want you to take a break. You’re overdoing it.’
‘I am not overdoing it, and I do not want to take a break. London is in a ferment, Jill. I want to set the Suez Crisis to rest. Then I’ll take a break.’
Jill sighed.
‘You’ll make yourself ill,’ she said.
‘I will not make myself ill,’ he insisted. ‘I will not make myself ill, Jill.’
‘Stubborn old fool,’ she muttered.
‘I heard that,’ he said.
‘You were meant to.’
She closed the door carefully as she left. She would be back in less than a minute, but he couldn’t write a word with the door open. It was one of his many little kinks.
—not a word of the Crisis reached the pages of the Chronicle. Were the pros and cons of Sir Anthony Eden’s actions hotly debated in the town’s pubs, which still numbered twenty-two at the time, or was Potherthwaite, protected and imprisoned in its steep valley, a more parochial place even than it is today? We will never—
The door opened. Arnold stopped writing, even though there was only one word left in the sentence. His writing was a private business, not to be witnessed even by his dear wife. In truth, this practice was more an affectation than an obsession. If he just sat there, his whole being taut with interruption, she would leave more quickly, and, much as he loved her, he always longed for her to leave when he was writing.
‘Your tea, darling.’
‘Thank you, darling.’
‘Arnold, I must speak.’
‘Must you, Jill? Well, all right then. Speak.’
‘I know you’re upset about Olive. We all are. But you mustn’t let yourself get obsessed about it.’
‘You know, Jill, it’s ironic. I think you are beginning to get obsessed by the idea that I am obsessed. I am not obsessed. I have seen our dear new friend die, and, yes, I find I was fonder of her than I realized. We had time together, you know – we were thrust together, you might even say – when you and Harry went gallivanting together.’
‘We didn’t gallivant, Arnold. I helped him bring his boat home, and we tried to keep our minds active by learning new skills. It’s odd. “Gallivant” sounded wrong to me, though it must be a word if “gallivanting” is.’
‘It’s perfectly correct grammatically, Jill. Now please let me be. Thank you very much for the tea, which looks lovely and is very welcome, but, now, please, leave the room.’
Jill was as near to storming out as she would ever be. She came as near to slamming his study door as she would ever dare, for this was a door to and from an author’s place of inspiration, and therefore to be treated with extreme respect.
—know. While researching this passage, in fact, I came upon a short paragraph that says more to me about the true spirit of my native town than any political debate or council issue. It appeared under the headline, ‘Unusual Leg of Lamb at W.I. Talk!’
Jill entered the room again. Arnold’s deep sigh was more dramatic than anything in his huge tome.
‘There’s no need to sigh, Arnold,’ she said. ‘Sighing is not pleasant.’
‘Jill,’ he said, ‘let’s have this out. I have just seen our dear friend die, and I would be a strange man if that didn’t lead me to think of my own mortality. Who will finish this book if I snuff it? Who? I have to catch up, and I am not catching up, and now there is the prospect of this stupid Translation business—’
‘You know it’s Transition. You get it wrong deliberately. You’re a stubborn old ex-teacher and you’ll kill yourself.’
‘May I finish my sentence? Thank you. Most kind of you. —with this stupid Transformation business and that Sally Mottram creature out of whose admittedly curvaceous backside you seem to think the sun shines, I am going to fall further and further behind unless I am allowed to continue uninterrupted. All right?’
‘I came to tell you that I’m going round to see Harry, see how he’s coping, see if he needs anything. So you’ll have no interruptions for at least the next few minutes. I love you, Arnold.’
‘Well, I love you too, obviously, of course I do, but I must get on.’
‘You’ve time for a quick kiss.’
‘Well … yes, of course.’
Jill bent down towards his face. He grabbed her shoulders and reached for her lips. They kissed.
‘Don’t go on too long,’ she said.
‘Not too long, no. I won’t.’
She gave him a loving smile. He smiled back, but it was a rushed sort of smile. The kiss had been good but it was over, every fibre of his being was stretched, poised, eager to create more and more words, she could see it all and she couldn’t stop it.
She left the room as quietly as she could, shut the door with slow, precise care.
There was an unusual presentation at this month’s meeting of the W.I. in the Railway Rooms on Tuesday, when Mrs Victoria Penrose of the Halifax W.I. gave a demonstration on the subject of ‘How to Bone a Shoulder of Lamb’. She had to admit, with embarrassment, that she had forgotten to bring the shoulder of lamb. However, a cushion was found, and stood in very successfully for the missing shoulder. ‘It didn’t affect our understanding of the process one little bit,’ commented W.I. member Annie Bramble.
Arnold smiled at this little absurdity. Suddenly, he felt gripped by the most intense pain. He … he couldn’t move. He …
The smile was still on his face when they found him.
THIRTY-FIVE
An envelope of distinction
Sally noticed the envelope straight away. All the letters at the unlovely block of flats were sorted by the postman into the eight occupancies, and delivered one flat at a time but into the same big wire box, so that the occupants had to sort their own ones out all over again. Sally didn’t want to stand out as a person of superior organizational ability by suggesting that this absurd state of affairs should be improved. So there the envelope was, in a confusion of brown threats from HM Revenue & Customs and eight crumpled copies of the menu of a new Indian takeaway. There it sat, not askew like most of the other envelopes, but level, neat, holding itself apart from the rabble. This envelope spoke of a large house, of a neat hand, of a clear mind. Sally knew immediately that it was from Sir Norman Oldfield.
She was surprised to see the envelope. It had only been three days since she had posted her letter to him, and this promptness seemed beyond the current capabilities of the British postal service.
The human brain is a marvellous thing. It has such capacity for thinking of several things at the same time. Who, looking at Sally carefully rescuing her envelope from its impersonal companions, could have thought that she was in a ferment of anxiety about its contents, while also reflecting anxiously on the wisdom of her letter to him, and all this overlaid with the memory of last night, Arnold’s death, Jill shaken and shattered, Harry not knowing how or indeed whether to try to console her, the vicar desperately mouthing words of consolation?
Even as she lifted the envelope, Sally was thinking that she had seen the Revd Dominic Otley at his very best. In this moment of professional responsibility he had managed to convey to her, with the slightest of gestures, that tonight he would not embarrass her with any reference to his feelings for her. He had talked to Jill and Harry without pomposity and with, she felt, genuine shock and sorrow at their loss of their respective spouses to a heart a
ttack and the consequences of a severe stroke within a few days of each other.
Harry, too, had shown how much more sensitive a soul he was than his bluff exterior suggested. With the very slightest look towards Jill, accompanied by a mixture of warning and reassurance in his usually boyish eyes, he had managed to indicate to Sally that Jill didn’t know of Arnold’s past friendship with Olive or of their one act of unfaithfulness.
Harry’s social dilemma had been obvious, and all the more touching because he had been trying so hard not to make it obvious. His dilemma had been that he had wished to console Jill, had wished to mingle his grief with hers in the natural warmth of two friends who have both suffered a huge loss, but he was also aware that Potherthwaite society, if Baroness Thatcher was wrong and such a thing existed, would be thinking that now the field would be clear – after a decent interval of course, this wasn’t London – for the two more adventurous of the four pensioners to get together. By calling round to Jill’s house he had put himself into her space, and he’d had an uneasy feeling that he shouldn’t be there. Sally had seen all this, had done what she could to keep the conversation from also dying. Everyone had thought, and no one had said, that it was ironic that the two who had feared death had died, and the two who had ignored it were still in rude health for their age. Sally had tried, as she made her departure, to hint to the Revd Dominic Otley that she respected his performance, without reinstating in his breast any hopes that he might one day have her for his wife. It had been, she had reflected as she had trudged slowly up the bare unfriendly stairs to her flat, a singularly exhausting evening.
When she’d got home, she had opened a bottle of red wine – how shocked Barry would have been, if there was an afterlife, to see how much she drank these days – and had reread the copy she had taken of her letter to Sir Norman.
Dear Sir Norman,
Thank you so much for the lovely visit I made to your home last weekend, and for the impeccable hospitality you offered me, which included quite the best sherry I have ever drunk.