The Second Life of Sally Mottram

by David Nobbs

  Thank you also for the generous financial offers that you made, and which I really do appreciate. As you can imagine, the condition that you imposed, that I must agree to marry you, has been uppermost in my thoughts. You gave me a month to make up my mind. It was such an extraordinary offer that I thought I might need more than a month, but in fact I came to my decision within three days, hence this letter.

  I can imagine that some women might feel offended at an offer of marriage being tied in with a financial offer in that way, but I want to assure you that I did not. I was surprised, shocked even, but I want you to know that my main feelings are of gratitude that you feel you could lead a pleasant life with me, and of sympathy for you in that all your wealth has clearly not made you happy. Loneliness is a terrible thing, as I know only too well, having experienced a great deal of it recently.

  I have realized that in my life with my late husband I did not once achieve a true moment of spontaneous physical joy. More important, I did not once wake up in the morning and think that I was blessed to find myself beside a man who could make me feel happier than any man on earth.

  It is very likely that I never will, that I am giving up the chance of a perfectly happy life for a dream. No. If I could accept the word ‘dream’ as a description of my ambition, I would accept your offer. I don’t believe in dreams. But the word that comes to mind is not ‘dream’, but ‘hope’. Had you put your offer of marriage to me in such a way that there was even a faint hope of our relationship growing beyond our expectations, then maybe I would have accepted it, but you didn’t. You made it clear that to accept your offer was to accept the conditions that came with your offer, and give up all thoughts of true love. I am too selfish, and perhaps too foolish, to give up all hope of that.

  I bear you no ill feelings. I am flattered that you feel able to make me such an offer, and I am very conscious that in my old age I may find that my decision will seem like a great mistake. I also feel that, in a world with all the problems that we are trying in our little way to redress, I may be quite wrong to place my romantic and perhaps deluded hope above all other interests and responsibilities. I do not turn you down because I believe it is right to do so. I turn you down because I find I can’t not.

  With all best wishes,

  Yours sincerely,

  Sally Mottram

  She looked at Sir Norman’s envelope, and suddenly she didn’t want to open it. It looked so virginal, so neat, with its smooth solid paper, and its subtle lavender tone. The handwriting was very neat too. It gave away no secrets, except for the revealing fact that it was carefully created not to give away any secrets. She slit it open gently, slowly, carefully, as if it was a sentient being.

  It was a beautiful envelope. It also smelt of lavender. It deserved respect. As she opened it the scent of lavender grew stronger. Gripped with tension though she was, Sally also felt that this moment was an elegiac tribute to a past form of communication. She knew what Sir Norman’s letter would not say. It would not say, ‘Hi, Sally. Got your note, sad but I understand. Hope to see u again one day. N xx.’

  My Dear Sally, she read.

  Thank you so much for your marvellous letter. After he had first met you, Tiptree told me, with a fervour that impressed me, how impressed he was by you, and your letter simply confirms what an impressive person you are. I little thought, when I put that outrageous condition on my offer of money, that you would take it so calmly.

  As I told you, I have not the capability for physical love, nor do I have the temperament or the warmth or the intensity necessary for deep affection and true friendship. My palate is not subtle enough or strong enough to appreciate great food, and I have no desire for alcohol because I would hate to lose control. I have neither the fine ear for great music nor eyes sharp enough and distinguishing enough to understand and enjoy great visual art. Only one pleasure is truly available to me from all the wealth I have amassed, and that is the joy of power. I made that suggestion of marriage so that I could feel my power over you. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed the look of astonishment on your face, before your amazing middle-class manners swept it into the dustbin.

  In the days between your departure and the arrival of your letter I relished the thought of the agonies of indecision you would be going through, all that temptation, all that cost, your sense of duty to others clashing violently with your search for personal pleasure. I imagined your sleepless nights, your frenzied walks along the canal bank, and I felt a real sense of excitement that at least verged upon the sexual. I have to admit, though, that the thrill of this was not as great as I had hoped, maybe age is beginning to affect me. I gave you a month in the hope that you would twist yourself into despair for four whole weeks. I am not, as I seem, a kindly if rather dull and unemotional man. I am wicked. I am cruel.

  However, dear Sally, there are limits to my cruelty. I didn’t mean it. I was teasing you. I can give you sleepless nights. I could not consider destroying a life. The offer remains open in full – the cost of the bypass, a salary of £50,000, and I will match any money raised by the people of Potherthwaite. My emissary, Tiptree, will come to meet you and the council representatives and I hope you will all very soon have an agreement and be able to shake hands on it.

  Oh dear.

  I also hope that you will meet a man who will make you very happy.

  Sally, I never dreamt that in the end you would accept my proposition, but there was one moment in the reading of your letter when I thought that maybe you were going to. I feared that I was being hoist with my own petard, and I was terrified. I realize that this must sound abominably rude, but I want you to know that, if I was to be hoist, there is not in the whole world a petard that I would as much like to be hoist with as you. I would have gone through with the marriage, of course, a promise is a promise, but I don’t know how I could have borne the constant proximity even of a petard as lovely as you.

  I cannot endure the company of my fellow men for very long. I become claustrophobic. I need space. I give most men an hour, Tiptree ten minutes. But you, Sally, I invite you to come here to stay occasionally – very occasionally! – to try a new sherry, to enjoy poached wild salmon or roast red deer and watch me eating scrambled eggs, and to lunch with me next day. Roast parsnips every six months – how does that sound to you?

  I will make you one more promise. I will attempt – I cannot guarantee that I will succeed – to pluck up enough courage to come to my beloved birthplace for the great ceremony which you told me you plan to hold when you celebrate the completion of your main work. I would love to be there, dear petard.

  You have something in you, Sally, that is rare. You will create a miracle in the transformation of Potherthwaite. You will make Ellie walk again. You may, also, rescue my heart from the dead. I do not say that you are some kind of god, I do not believe in gods, but you are a very special person.

  With very best wishes and with the nearest I have ever been to, and the nearest I will ever get to, love,

  Your friend,

  Norman

  THIRTY-SIX

  Public and private changes

  Now that Sir Norman had made his offer, work at last could begin in earnest. Lennie Tiptree came up to the town, met council officials, signed an agreement, handed over an initial cheque. Councillor Frank Stratton, Lennie and Sally had lunch at the Weavers’ Arms. They lingered a little too long over their celebratory Calvados and suddenly there was a risk of Lennie missing his train. In the haste and confusion Sally managed to avoid a final handshake with him. A small thing, but to her it felt like an omen of good luck, a harbinger of joy.

  She bounced to the Market Place as if the roads were made of rubber. Even the sight of Linda Oughtibridge, waddling painfully towards her across the cobbles with heavy shopping bags in both arms, failed to dent her ecstasy.

  Linda Oughtibridge came straight up to Sally, put both her bags down on the cobbles, and said, ‘Oh, Mrs Mottram.’ She panted breathlessly, then braced herse
lf to speak again. ‘Oh, Mrs Mottram.’

  ‘What on earth’s the matter, Mrs Oughtibridge?’ asked Sally. ‘Painful feet?’

  ‘A verruca,’ panted Linda.

  On this happy, Calvados-fuelled afternoon, Sally had no wish to say ‘Oh dear’ to Linda Oughtibridge, yet again, but what else could she say?

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I have a history of verrucas.’

  ‘You must lend it to me some time. I love a good book.’ How this new Sally, riding on a tide of triumph and frivolity, wished she could say that. But she didn’t of course. She said, ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Can you help me? You’re so clever,’ wailed Linda Oughtibridge.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Sally. ‘I mean, not personally, but I know a very good chiropodist.’

  ‘It’s not the verruca,’ said Linda Oughtibridge.

  ‘Not the verruca?’

  ‘No. It’s hubby.’

  ‘Hubby?’

  ‘He went to Canada. He has cousins there.’

  ‘Nice for him.’

  ‘He isn’t coming back.’

  One look at Linda Oughtibridge’s face stopped Sally’s thought of ‘I’m not surprised’ in its tracks.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’

  She didn’t want to listen to tales of woe this afternoon of all afternoons, but what choice had she? She took the poor woman to the Market Café for a cup of good old English tea.

  ‘It’s funny you should mention a chiropodist,’ said Linda. ‘Well, not funny. Odd. Funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha. She’s a chiropodist.’

  ‘She?’ asked Sally, slow on the uptake because she wasn’t really listening.

  ‘The woman he’s run off with, in Canada,’ said Linda Oughtibridge rather sharply, and Sally, still in her bubble of happiness and frivolity, thought, ‘You could go and drag him back and have your verruca done at the same time,’ while saying, ‘Oh, Linda, I’m so very sorry.’

  ‘I’ve prayed to God,’ said Linda. ‘Nothing. I’ve worshipped him twice every Sunday and not committed even one small sin in fifty years and what do I get back, the first time I ask him for anything? Nothing.’

  Sally heard herself making noises, heard the kindliness and concern in her voice, knew that Linda Oughtibridge would say, ‘What a nice woman Sally Mottram is. She’ll always make time for you,’ and all the time she was making time she was nursing the secret joy of her day like a hot-water bottle in her stomach.

  That warm feeling stayed with Sally later in the day when her path crossed that of the Revd Dominic Otley.

  ‘I’m so glad I’ve run into you,’ he said. ‘I want to apologize.’

  They found themselves walking down towards the Quays, although neither of them had decided to do so.

  ‘I apologize for making such a nuisance of myself,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I’ve realized that there is no chance for me. You’re a bit out of my league, to be honest.’

  ‘Oh, Dominic,’ she said. ‘Don’t think that.’

  ‘Oh, but I do.’

  Sally looked round the dilapidated, almost derelict scene. It no longer looked sad to her. In her mind it was already transformed.

  The Revd Dominic Otley appeared to be looking at the scene too, but when he spoke it was to continue his theme.

  ‘I have … how can I put it … I have fought my yearnings for you. I have taken myself in hand.’ He seemed fortunately unaware of the implication that a less naive person might put into this remark, and particularly fortunately unaware that one of those less naive persons, in this her second life, was Sally Mottram.

  ‘Well, thank you, Vicar,’ said Sally. She had got what she wanted and she should have stopped, like a good salesman on getting an order. But her kindness led her on, and she said, ‘I thought you were very good at Jill’s the other day, and at the two funerals.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Oh, how kind.’ As he spoke, he wandered into the Quays Café, the only establishment that was still active in the Quays. ‘The cup that cheers?’ he asked, and without waiting for a reply, ordered a pot of tea for two. The last thing Sally wanted was more tea.

  The vicar put on his confessional face. Sally’s heart sank. What was coming?

  ‘I feel awful, you know,’ he began, ‘every time I don my vicar’s voice. I can just hear my words coming out more and more hollow.’

  ‘They don’t sound hollow, I do assure you.’

  ‘Dear Linda Oughtibridge has hit a marital cliff.’

  ‘Yes, she was telling me.’

  ‘She is seeking consolation in the Lord, and finding none. I have felt myself so inadequate in consoling her.’

  ‘If the Lord can’t help her, why should you feel bad about your failure?’

  ‘Yes, but he doesn’t exist. I do.’

  Sally’s jaw dropped.

  ‘You don’t believe in God?’

  ‘Haven’t for … oh, I don’t know … twenty years? Feels like thirty. Every week, Sally, the same words, hollower and hollower. Having bets on the length of my own sermons and not feeling any guilt. Awful.’

  ‘Why don’t you resign?’

  ‘What would I tell people? I am not going to invent some ghastly sexual misdemeanour. Besides, who would believe me, and who could I say I’d done it with? We have no choirboys. Mrs Oughtibridge?’ He let this prospect hang in the air. ‘Unless you …’

  ‘No, Dominic. No. We’ve been there. Sorry.’

  ‘No. Quite. Well, there you are, you see. More tea?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Jolly good.’

  The vicar poured Sally another cup.

  ‘Dominic, couldn’t you just say you’ve lost your faith?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh?’

  The Revd Dominic Otley leant forward and lowered his voice. His breath smelt of biscuits.

  ‘There are twenty-six people in this town who look to me and my church to buttress their faith. One or two are close to death. Some are lonely and only have me and God to help them. They are my flock. My tiny flock, my diminishing flock, but my flock. They need me. I can never tell them that I no longer believe. I’m trapped, Sally.’

  Sally felt her arm moving towards him to comfort him. That would never do. She managed to stop it just in time. But she knew that he had noticed. She knew that she couldn’t blink without his noticing. She liked the vicar more at that moment than she had ever done. She must be careful.

  The thought occurred to her that maybe he needed his flock as much as they needed him.

  ‘Maybe I also need them,’ he said. ‘Oh, Sally, it’s so good to talk to you. If I promise to be a very good boy and behave like a vicar, can we have lunch together some time?’

  ‘Maybe not lunch, Dominic. Maybe a cup of coffee.’

  He sighed. It was clear that his defeat of his yearnings had not been as thorough as he had thought, and Sally, being a woman, couldn’t help feeling rather glad about that.

  ‘Would you be able to do something for me?’ she asked.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he replied cautiously.

  ‘Would you rustle up some of those fabulous helpers of yours, so that we can start on clearing the canal?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. A pleasure. A privilege. Anything for you. As always. With joy.’

  Yes, don’t overdo it.

  It crossed Sally’s mind that in her new role she would always be seeking to turn the conversation towards what people could do for her. If she wasn’t very careful, people would realize this and be on their guard. Oh Lord, here comes the Transition person.

  One of the people she no longer had to worry about was Councillor Frank Stratton, stationer supreme. Now that she had inspired the gift of so much money from Sir Norman Oldfield, Sally had become, at the stroke of a pen, his golden girl. At the very next council meeting, the route for the bypass was passed. At the following month’s meeting, the plan for a park on the waste ground was voted in with one abstention and no vote
s against. There was always at least one abstention on Potherthwaite Council. Councillor Farsley, a retired doctor, had sat on the council for forty-three years, having realized that if he never voted for or against anything he would survive a lifetime without making enemies.

  Sally was satisfied with these victories. She had the sense not to be too greedy. The idea of painting all the houses on the Baggit Estate would need to wait until other schemes had proved themselves, until all the councillors except Councillor Farsley had cottoned on to the fact that art could inspire, and art could pay.

  Work resumed on the bypass, and with greater urgency, and at weekends more and more volunteers began the long task of clearing the canal. Sally spoke to all the shopkeepers in both High Street West and High Street East, attempting to recruit them to a common style of shopfront. Most agreed that, if all agreed, they would agree. Some agreed that they would agree even if they didn’t quite all agree, but others felt that it was pointless to agree if they didn’t quite all agree. In the end they all agreed that it would be better to wait until nearer the time of the pedestrianization of the street. Sally believed that at that time excitement would grow and at the last minute everyone would jump on the bandwagon.

  Not everything went so smoothly, though. Beth lost her baby, neither she nor Sam coped very well, and Sally found herself making regular lasagne-filled visits to Barnet to help, quite successfully, to cement a relationship on which she was not actually all that keen. Twenty minutes after she had returned from one of these visits, Ben Wardle called on her at her tiny flat, which was piled with packing cases. She was about to move. With her salary she could afford to rent a flat, still quite small but no longer tiny, in one of the rather tatty but characterful old late Georgian warehouses on the Quays, where she would in fact look out directly on to Terence and Felicity’s narrowboat.

  Ben was very nervous. Sally offered him a coffee, and he asked for a mug rather than the cup and saucer that Sally normally gave him. As he took his mug it dawned on her why he had chosen it. His hands were shaking so much that the cup would have rattled noisily in its saucer.