The Second Life of Sally Mottram

by David Nobbs

  ‘Can I come in?’ he asked.

  ‘Ben, of course. You never need to ask.’

  ‘Sorry, you do at college, people might be humping, lot of it about.’

  ‘Sadly, you’re safe here. You have entered a no-humping area.’

  She offered him a drink. He asked for a Diet Coke.

  ‘Not alcohol?’

  ‘Not at the moment, thanks. I’ve left all that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve left uni.’

  ‘What? Sacked? Sent down?’

  ‘No. No, not sacked at all. They begged me to stay.’

  ‘Then why, Ben? Why?’

  ‘I can’t cope with leaving uni owing forty thousand pounds. It terrifies me, Sally.’

  He looked so intense. His left leg was working, the way young people’s legs often did. It was sad to see how many young people’s legs drummed nervously beneath pub and café tables.

  ‘I understand,’ said Sally. ‘I think it’s terrible that young people face such stress.’

  ‘Lots of older people hate students and burden them with debt and still expect them to grow up to clear up the messes that they themselves have made of the world. Don’t call this a civilized country.’

  ‘I agree the debt is awful,’ she said gently, ‘but I don’t believe you’ll have any problem in paying it off. I believe you have a very real talent, Ben.’

  ‘So do I,’ he said. ‘That’s not my problem. Does that sound awful?’

  ‘No. You’re brave to say it, not just think it.’

  ‘I’ve been immersed in art, Sally. I’ve seen people with talent making money and people with no talent not making money, but I’ve also seen people with talent making no money and people with no talent making heaps of money. Art, like, has no rules any more, and lots of people have no taste, and fashion is almost everything, so I can’t say as a serious artist trying to have integrity that I will ever be able to pay off my debts. Don’t try to persuade me to go back. I won’t. Am I still on for the High Street job?’

  ‘If you want to be. That would be fantastic.’

  ‘Cool. Sally?’

  He went slightly pink.

  ‘Yes, Ben?’

  ‘My dad thinks what I’ve done is cowardly.’

  ‘It could be called that. It could equally be called brave. It isn’t either. It’s what it is.’

  ‘I can’t live with him. He’s a pig.’

  ‘Oh dear. Oh, Ben.’

  ‘Ever since I’ve taken up art, gone to London, he’s been hateful.’

  ‘He’s jealous.’

  ‘Of me?’

  ‘Oh yes, Ben. Of you.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Sally?’

  ‘Yes, Ben?’

  ‘Can I live with you?’

  ‘Oh, Ben. Oh, Ben.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘I know you have.’

  She walked over, and sat beside him on the settee.

  ‘I’m young for my age. I think I still need a mother.’

  Sally took hold of his hand, kissed it very gently.

  ‘You have a mother,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, she’s not bad, but Dad comes with her.’

  Sally was tempted. So tempted. It was her dream. But it wasn’t right. His parents had feelings. They might stir up controversy. There might even be accusations that she had stolen him. These days you never knew.

  Besides, he needed to learn to stand on his own two feet, free himself from his mother, not lean on more mothers.

  And it would get in the way of her work.

  And he didn’t drink. At their meals she would feel that she was setting him a bad example.

  Each sip of wine would taste of guilt as well as grape.

  But it was hard, hard not to seize him for her own.

  She forced herself to be very definite.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ben. I’m afraid it’s not possible.’

  He was hurt.

  ‘Much as I might want it.’

  He didn’t believe her.

  Shortly afterwards, Eric Sheepshank suggested a place, up near Baggit Park, that he had looked at as a possible studio before making his final choice, and it suited Ben well, so he rented it, and he was happy to sleep on a camp bed surrounded by his creations. The two artists worked in solitude a few doors away from each other for long hours, and just occasionally, in the rare moments when the muse failed them both at the same time, went down to the Dog and Duck, sat in a corner, and talked art for hours and hours.

  The days lengthened. They do. Sally introduced a badge for people who supported and helped Potherthwaite in Transition, or Transition Town Potherthwaite, as the creators of the movement dubbed it. Large numbers of people wore this with pride, and were delighted to feel a connection with Brixton, and Tooting, and Los Angeles, and Brasilia, and all the other places that were working towards the salvation of the planet in a myriad little ways. The badge provided benefits, local buses gave 20p off. It provided obligations. When wearing the badge, people in public places (and in their homes if the family decided it so) had to observe what Sally called Football Free Fridays. Millions of people in Britain talk about football almost all day almost every day. Under Sally’s scheme they were not allowed to do so on Fridays, and were fined if they did. The money went to the cause, and Sir Norman, hating anything that was as popular as football, contributed the same amount to this as well. To Sally’s surprise, the Baggit Arms took this up big time, trapping the unwary and fining them with relish. ‘I’ve had a great evening,’ Luke Warburton said once. ‘Didn’t mention football all evening.’ ‘You just have,’ said his sister. ‘That’s 20p.’

  The bypass grew longer at amazing speed, with Sir Norman’s money behind it. Ellie could not yet be weighed, but she felt that she was on track. Harry and Jill continued to play Scrabble and go to the Weavers’ Arms once a week. Marigold led a varied life, having sex with Conrad in her home in the cul-de-sac, having sex with Conrad in Sally’s old home, and having sex with Conrad in nice hotels in the Lake District, which he charged against tax on grounds of urgent research into flood control. Every time they met, Marigold braced herself to find the courage to agree to brave a fourth marriage, to be ready and decisive when he popped the question. It was galling that he never did.

  Harry and Jill were still not having sex anywhere, but one unusually warm evening, on their return from the Weavers’ Arms, Harry suggested a nightcap in the garden. It’s not often, in Potherthwaite, that it’s warm enough to sit in the garden as dusk falls, but on that spring evening there was the first faint smell of summer. Soon his and Jill’s arms were round each other and soon after that they were no longer taking advantage of the warm evening, they were standing by Harry’s bed and taking their clothes off. Jill pulled back the duvet and flung herself on to the bed, lying on her back and smiling. Harry could not believe that a woman in her seventies could look so beautiful. As he clambered on top of her he saw the photograph of his wedding day that he still kept on the bedside table. He longed to turn the picture round, hide from himself how pretty Olive had been before anxiety had carved lines in her lovely face. He couldn’t do that, but he couldn’t stand that photograph’s hope and certainty. It was over before it began. They dressed in what seemed to Harry to be the loudest silence he had ever heard.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said as he led her out of the room. ‘Are you upset?’

  ‘Why do you think I’ve never suggested doing it in my house?’ said Jill. She gave a gentle, sad smile, kissed him on one cheek, and stepped back into the cool warmth of a black, perfect night.

  And now the nights were perfect. Summer came. It does. Occasionally. Even to Potherthwaite. Everything burgeoned. Flowers. Trees. Works of art. Eric Sheepshank presented Sally with three massive pieces for the Sculpture Trail. He was no Henry Moore, but there was a rugged strength about them, a rippling vitality that held an echo of the town’s industrial heritage.

  ‘They’re lovely,’ she sai
d.

  He hugged her and kissed her, then stood back in confusion that he had let her see his feelings.

  Potherthwaite steamed in the wonderful, golden, stifling heat. Mornings were exquisite. The air was cool and virginal, as if this was the first day of existence. Sally took to having a kroissant and a koffee outside at the Kosy Korner Kafé. One day, Matt Winkle walked past, power-walking with a grimace on his face, thinner and paler than ever.

  ‘Matt,’ she called out.

  It took him twenty yards to register that she had spoken, and to stop. He left all his energy on that spot, and walked back wearily.

  ‘Sally!’ he said. ‘Why do you never come to my supermarket?’

  ‘You know why,’ she said. ‘I can’t be hypocritical.’

  ‘But you’re the only person in this town I want to see. Fuck all the others.’

  ‘Matt! Language!’

  ‘I don’t mean it literally. I mean, the exact opposite, of course. Sally …?’

  ‘No, Matt.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Don’t force me to say negative things, Matt. Sit down. Have a kroissant.’

  ‘I haven’t time. The bitches will be queuing with their unripe avocados. “Oh, isn’t it hot,” the fat cows will be saying, the same fat, stupid cows who complained cos there wasn’t a summer last year.’

  ‘Matt, please, relax.’

  ‘I’m off. If ever you … oh well … nice to see you as always, Sally.’

  She stood up. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t avoid it. She let him kiss her.

  He walked off, quite slowly at first, then gathering pace, pistons working, a high-speed train on the verge of coming off the rails.

  The temperature rose. It does. Occasionally. Even in Potherthwaite.

  Now the glistening bald head of Sergeant Major Harry Patterson was everywhere, noting the work being done on the canal, noting the names of the brave souls who were sweltering for their town, cajoling, encouraging, the sweat on his bald head shaming people into one extra effort. But, for all his efforts, the heat did slow the work down, and Sally knew that every day from now until the festival date next summer, she would be anxious about their progress.

  And then the long, lingering, lovely evenings came. They do. Even in Potherthwaite. A cool little breeze from the east gently feathered the sweat off the tired pavements, and breathed new life into lovers and into clearers of canals.

  The council held an open evening to enable the townsfolk to have a first look at their new park. At the front, there were two formal, elegant parterres, with areas marked out by posts. Next year these would be, in the words of the shy Fred Burns, who was halfway on his journey to becoming the not-so-shy Frederick J. Burns, ‘awash with flowers’. Then there was a huge pile of stones. Next year this would be a terrace. Its fountains would be, in the words of Frederick J. Burns, ‘literally flowing with colour’. Did he mean ‘water’, people wondered.

  Beyond the terrace, ‘French sophistication gives way to good old Pennine honesty’, in the words of Frederick J. Burns, who was growing less shy with every minute. ‘He’ll earn a sodding billion with that J’ was the overheard opinion of the most bitter and twisted of all Potherthwaite’s traffic wardens. Here, at the back of the park, there would be an informal look, with lawns, areas for sitting and picnicking.

  On one of those memorable evenings, Lucy called round at Sally’s house on the Quays. The girl who had performed in a circus at five years of age, and had jumped from the wall of the police station on to a magnolia, and, even more precariously, from the magnolia back on to the wall, looked really nervous now.

  ‘I’ve come to apologize, Mrs Mottram,’ she said. ‘I was rude to you that time we met in the café.’

  ‘Not very rude, Lucy, and you were very young. And it’s very nice of you to apologize.’

  ‘Not really. I’m only doing it because I want something from you.’

  ‘Oh. And what do you want from me, Lucy?’

  ‘Advice.’

  ‘Shall we have a drink?’ said Sally. ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’

  ‘Oh, that would be great.’

  Sally opened a bottle of white wine. They stood by the window, looking out over the Quays as the sun approached the moors.

  ‘This is the Viognier grape,’ said Sally. ‘I’d like your opinion on it.’

  ‘I’m seventeen, Mrs Mottram.’

  ‘Please call me Sally, Lucy.’

  ‘Cool.’

  Lucy took a sip and drank it carefully.

  ‘It’s nice.’

  ‘I thought you’d like it.’

  Sally sat on the settee and patted the place beside her. Lucy sat.

  ‘So,’ said Sally, ‘what do you want my advice on?’

  ‘Ben.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘He … I shouldn’t be telling you this. He’d hate it if he knew. We … quite a while ago … we … he bedded me. Well, more I bedded him really.’

  ‘As you do.’

  ‘As you do.’

  ‘No. As you do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t. Not in my day. Not at your age.’

  ‘I suppose not. But … you know … Sally …’ Lucy smiled at her success in calling Sally Sally, then went very serious again. ‘Guys today … young guys … they’re all supposed to be brill in the sack. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes, Lucy, I know what you mean.’

  ‘But … I shouldn’t be telling you …’

  ‘He couldn’t manage it?’

  ‘Well, not … you know … not really.’

  ‘Yes, I do know.’

  Sally realized that the memory of Barry that flashed through her mind at this moment was the first time she had thought of him for many weeks.

  ‘I mean, he …’

  ‘Shall we leave it there, Lucy?’

  ‘He was so ashamed. So embarrassed. He’s terrified of me now. You know how nervous he can be. He’s not like other boys. That’s what I like about him, Sally. So, I wondered, can you help?’

  ‘Maybe I can, Lucy. I do have a kind of idea. Maybe I can. Will you leave it with me?’

  ‘You won’t tell him I told you, will you?’

  ‘Lucy!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘When are you going to do that play, Lucy?’

  ‘I’ve done it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I did it a few weeks ago.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell me?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘I’d have come.’

  ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘I would. I’d have definitely come.’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘How did it go?’

  Lucy suddenly looked very serious.

  ‘I wasn’t satisfied, but I learnt a lot.’

  She sounded so unexpectedly adult that Sally only just managed to keep a tremor of amusement out of her voice as she said, ‘Marvellous.’

  ‘Sally?’

  Sally felt a frisson of excitement at something in Lucy’s tone, but Lucy’s next remark took her completely by surprise.

  ‘Can I come and live with you?’

  Sally’s mouth opened in astonishment.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ she said. ‘Ben asked me that.’

  ‘Really? Oh, could we both come? That would be wicked.’

  ‘It would be wicked, yes. Wicked of me. You both have parents.’

  ‘I don’t. Not really.’

  ‘Are you prepared to tell me what happened with your parents, Lucy?’

  ‘They split up. They had a row. Very nasty.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Ten. They had this argument. I was terrified.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. It can’t be nice hearing your parents saying horrid things to each other when you’re ten.’

  ‘It wasn’t so much what they said. It was where they said it.’

  ‘Where did they say it?’

  ‘On the trapeze.�
�

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Mum fell, broke her leg. Never performed again. Took me with her. Dad stayed. It turned out she’d been longing to leave. She hated the circus. She hated the treatment of the animals. She hated that she was losing her nerve. I understand all that now, but I mean really, honestly, Sally, from the circus to selling envelopes in bloody Stratton’s.’

  ‘How do you get on with your parents?’

  ‘Mum looks after me. She doesn’t love me. She drinks.’

  Sally cringed inwardly at the adult phrase that Lucy used. ‘She drinks.’

  ‘I haven’t seen Dad since we left. He’s never even sent a fucking Christmas card.’

  ‘Oh, Lucy.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sally. I shouldn’t have said that word.’

  ‘I think you can be forgiven under the circumstances. That’s awful.’

  ‘I know. How can a dad do a thing like that?’

  ‘I don’t know, Lucy. I don’t know.’

  To have Ben and Lucy with her. To meet their friends. To watch their abilities develop. Oh, Sally, Sally, if only you could.

  ‘More wine, Lucy?’

  ‘No thanks, Sally. I see my mum using it as a crutch every night.’

  On another of those memorable evenings, Ben led Sally silently through the velvet dusk, led her slowly, excitedly to his studio. He opened the door with shy pride. There, on three walls, was a painting of the prettiest high street she had ever seen. She gazed at it in wonder. Every window was different, but every window had clean, clear lines. The colour of the paintwork in every shop was a variant of the colour of its neighbours, so that the whole of High Street East had become a slow, subtle journey through the spectrum, and High Street West presented the same journey in reverse. The names of the various premises were in a lovely hand, subtly varied, and for every building there was a glorious little painting – a fish, a cupcake, a delicious dessert, a dress, a tie, a foaming pint, a worried accountant. For William Hill’s, for instance, there was a little dramatic scene – an exultant punter, a weeping bookmaker.

  ‘It is itself, in its entirety, a Work of Art,’ he said. ‘It is, in its entirety, an Installation.’

  She was so overawed by it that she found him unapproachable at that moment. She wanted to hug him, but couldn’t.

  ‘Show it to Lucy,’ she said.