The Way We Were

by Marie Joseph

  Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Marie Joseph

  Title Page

  Love on the Menu

  Sentimental Journey

  The House with the Pink Door

  A Day of Daffodils

  The London Look

  A Matter of Pride

  Home for Sale

  Research on Love

  Back to Square One

  The Road to the Isles

  To Love Again

  Love in Top Gear

  I’ll Ring You Tomorrow

  The Psychologist

  No Time for Love

  If I Lost You . . .

  August Is A Month For Loving

  The Solid Citizen

  Rain in the morning

  The Day of the Move

  The Long Hot Summer

  Birds of a Feather

  Two Can Play

  Funny Girl

  The Cat who Came in from the Cold

  Love in the Red

  Let the Sunshine In

  Jane

  Love is a Girl with Stars in Her Eyes

  Tomorrow I am Seventeen

  The Secret Garden

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Marie Joseph was born in Lancashire and was educated at Blackburn High School for Girls. Before her marriage she was in the Civil Service. She now lives in Middlesex with her husband, a retired chartered engineer, and they have two married daughters and eight grandchildren.

  Also by Marie Joseph

  RING-A-ROSES

  MAGGIE CRAIG

  FOOTSTEPS IN THE PARK

  A LEAF IN THE WIND

  EMMA SPARROW

  GEMINI GIRLS

  THE LISTENING SILENCE

  LISA LOGAN

  POLLY PILGRIM

  CLOGGER’S CHILD

  A BETTER WORLD THAN THIS

  PASSING STRANGERS

  A WORLD APART

  THE TRAVELLING MAN

  WHEN LOVE WAS LIKE THAT AND OTHER STORIES

  SINCE HE WENT AWAY

  The Way We Were

  A collection of short stories

  Marie Joseph

  Love on the Menu

  WITH MENUS AS big as sandwich-boards, bound in dark red, tooled leather, he should have guessed! His eyes skimmed in horror down the neatly printed lists, and registered in amazement the astronomical prices. He was glad that his face was hidden, as frantic little sums added themselves up in his mind.

  How could anyone with a conscience charge six shillings for a side-plate of salad?

  From the outside, the restaurant, tucked away in the labyrinth of streets around Piccadilly Circus, had seemed ordinary enough. He’d known it wasn’t exactly a Wimpy Bar, and he’d felt the first twinge of apprehension when the immaculately coiffed receptionist at the desk had taken his shortie Burberry from him as though it were mink-lined, and handled Beth’s cloth coat as if it were the very latest model from Givenchy.

  ‘What would you like to start with?’ he asked her, hoping his face and his voice didn’t betray his near-panic, and she smiled at him, and pushed a tendril of her short dark hair behind an ear.

  ‘The iced melon would be very nice.’

  His mind registered the asking price. For that amount, he knew his mother could give his entire family a three-course, vitamin-packed meal, but he managed a nod, and said he’d have that too.

  ‘And to follow?’ he asked, and as she hesitated, a hovering waiter, with the face and demeanour of a television Jeeves, pointed to the menu.

  ‘The lobster Thermidor is to be recommended, Madame,’ he whispered, and she smiled, and before he could think up a valid excuse for not eating shellfish on account of it bringing him out in a rash, or laying him low with a virulent form of food poisoning, he found himself weakly ordering two portions with salad.

  What could any self-respecting chef possibly do to an innocuous lobster to make it cost over two pounds a portion, he wondered feverishly. As he ordered the cheapest bottle of wine, costing, he calculated, at least a shilling a sip, his hand strayed to his top pocket, where two five-pound notes had seemed to him to constitute wealth untold.

  Feeling what surely couldn’t be beads of perspiration starting on his brow, he wondered if she would notice if he took the wallet from his pocket, and had a surreptitious recap underneath the fall of starched white tablecloth.

  ‘It’s nice in here, isn’t it?’ she said softly, and he said, yes, it was, wasn’t it, and all the witty things he’d thought of saying, the intelligent comments on books he’d read, films he’d seen, were nullified by the clicking computer that had been his mind, still adding and subtracting in confusion.

  Beth was quite different from the girls he’d known back home in his Lancashire town. A real dolly-bird, with her cap of dark hair, her blue eyes fringed with suspiciously long eyelashes, and her short, swinging skirts that were really very little more than a few abbreviated frills.

  Although they worked in the same advertising agency, it had taken him three whole weeks before he could summon the courage to ask her to go out with him.

  ‘A meal somewhere,’ he’d said grandly, and she’d smiled at him, and said something in her husky-sweet voice, and never in his life had he seen eyes of such incredible blue.

  Back at his desk he’d tried to find ways to describe them, and though words were his business, he’d sat there staring through the window at the broken vista of London rooftops until his own eyes had gone out of focus.

  And still he hadn’t been able to find the words . . .

  ‘Do you like living down here?’ she was asking him now, and he stared in mesmerised fascination at the sweets trolley going by. Strawberries and raspberries out of season, of course, and chocolate gateaux smothered in cream.

  The computer that had taken over his brain clicked into action again, and he forced himself to smile at her, and asked her what it was she’d just said.

  ‘Do you like living down here?’ she repeated, and with an effort he pulled himself together.

  He wanted to tell her that since he’d walked into the office on that day three weeks ago and seen her sitting there, London had seemed to be a magical place; that his bedsitting room with the rusty cooker out on the landing had taken on a new enchantment. But the wine waiter was pouring a little of the wine into his glass and stepping back with exaggerated deference to wait for his verdict.

  No, London wasn’t a magical place at all.

  It was a city where only a millionaire could afford to take his girl out for a meal, and he wondered if there would be enough money to send her home in a taxi while he rolled up his sleeves and offered to pay the balance by washing-up in the kitchens . . .

  He’d even considered suggesting a late film afterwards, and he’d imagined them sitting close together in the darkness, quiet now after their scintillating conversation over their meal, lulled into a growing awareness of each other. Then, grandly, he’d order a taxi, and the next morning in the office their eyes would meet, full of unspoken memories.

  The melon had arrived, and the Jeeves waiter poured a liqueur glass of Cointreau over each large portion.

  ‘Sugar would have done just as well,’ he thought bitterly, and when the lobster took its place he couldn’t swallow as he imagined her embarrassment when he had to admit that he couldn’t pay the bill.

  She said that she didn’t want a sweet, but a reckless air of abandonment to his fate had taken possession of him now, and he ordered strawberries for two.

  His mind was quite detached as thick cream was poured over them.

  When the bill arrived, after they’d sipped a three-shilling coffee each in silence, he could hardly bring himself to look at the amount. The cover charge
came to over a pound, but by now he was past caring; he felt a sense of exhilaration as he placed his entire fortune, the two five-pound notes, on a plate, and waved the change away.

  Groping in his raincoat pocket, he found some stray coins, and left them triumphantly for the beautifully coiffed receptionist.

  ‘Not at all,’ he told her as she murmured a polite thank-you.

  It was two whole days to pay day, but anyone could go that long without food, he told himself. At least he’d been spared the final humiliation of being unable to pay, and for that he supposed he should be grateful.

  But their evening was spoiled. It was only half-past nine, and the evening stretched ahead, full of what should have been promise. The rain had almost stopped, and the sky was a pearly-soft grey.

  ‘What would you like to do now?’ he asked her, quite sure that she’d want to go straight home, but she said that she thought a walk by the river would be nice, and no, they wouldn’t take a bus; it wasn’t far, and she felt like walking anyway.

  The streets were crowded with people, all going somewhere, or coming from somewhere, and as a swarthy passer-by bumped into her, nearly forcing her off the pavement, he took her hand.

  Instantly her fingers closed round his own, and with their pressure soothing his jangled nerves, they walked along together.

  ‘That was a lovely meal,’ she said, and he glanced sideways at her, at the profile he could have drawn from memory, at the way her hair grew down to a point in the nape of her neck. And there and then he decided that she was worth starving for.

  ‘Not a bad meal,’ he said with admirable condescension. ‘Not bad at all for the price.’

  Down by the river it was misty-dark, and the lights over the other side reminded him of Blackpool at Illumination time, and they stopped by the wall, and leaned against it, and then he talked about the books he’d read, and it seemed she’d read them too, and when he told her that he preferred Debussy to the Stones, and Tennyson to John Lennon, it was like a miracle unfolding when she said that she felt that way too.

  Once she shivered a little, and he opened his coat and wrapped her inside it, and her mouth, when he kissed her, tasted of wine . . .

  Apparently she didn’t like riding in taxis after all, and would be quite happy if he saw her to her bus, but before it came she asked him if he’d come round to her flat the following night, and she’d cook him a meal.

  Just for a moment, before she left him, her blue eyes twinkled at him, and he knew with certainty that one day they’d joke about the lobster, and the wine that had surely cost a shilling a sip.

  After the red bus had lumbered on its way, he started on his long walk home. London was a magical place after all, and it was wonderful to be just nineteen and in love – really in love for the first time.

  Now he knew that the outing had been worth every penny, even cheap at the price, and some day they’d laugh and tell their children about the evening he took their mother out for the very first time . . .

  Sentimental Journey

  NELL HAD BEEN married to Ben for five years. Not long, but long enough for her to have had two children, and to have found out that her husband was of a cautious turn of mind.

  So cautious, that last Christmas she decided not to tell him that they were going home to her mother’s house in Yorkshire until a couple of weeks beforehand.

  In the lounge of their heavily mortgaged little semi, he had eyed her malevolently over the top half of his evening paper.

  ‘Out of the question, Elinor,’ he had said.

  He called her Nell usually. Only Elinor when he was trying to show her that he meant what he said.

  Very much to her surprise, she had felt tears prick behind her eyelids. Normally she was the type of person who only cried at weddings and school Nativity plays, but now, big, unwanted tears swam across her vision.

  She sucked them back as far as she could make them go, knowing that tears were wasted on Ben.

  ‘Turn off that tap!’ she had heard him command their eldest son, Benjie, when he had fallen down and filled his kneecap with gravel.

  ‘Big boys don’t cry,’ she had heard him coldly inform their youngest son, Angus, when he had fallen from his high chair and raised a many-shaded bruise on his rounded forehead.

  And the surprising thing was, his methods worked, too!

  However, she tried again, a great surge of sentimentality welling up somewhere near the region of her heart.

  ‘But everyone goes home for Christmas,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’ asked Ben.

  There was a lump in her throat as big as an egg. A hard-boiled egg at that . . .

  ‘Because it’s the season of goodwill, and snow, and robins and everything. Because it’s the time for family reunions. And because I want to go,’ she finished lamely.

  Ben tapped out his pipe, adjusted his reading glasses, and fixed her with a look of sweet reasonableness.

  Her hopes zoomed to zero. She knew from experience that when Ben started being reasonable, she’d lost the argument before it had properly begun.

  ‘We are a family,’ he stated now. ‘You, me, Benjie and Angus. OK?’

  She nodded. After all, he was right so far.

  His smile was gentle, and his voice soft with understanding.

  ‘Your mother has your father, your sister Lucinda, your sister Jennifer, and your brother Robert. All living at home. A family! Complete! All together! Right?’

  ‘But Ben –’

  ‘And furthermore . . .’ He was well into his stride now, like a sarcastic teacher explaining a geometry theorem to a rather stupid pupil. ‘Anyone’, he said emphatically, ‘who travels at Christmas, and especially anyone who exposes a car like ours to the rigours of the Ml, must need his head examining.’

  ‘But the car passed its test,’ she said quickly.

  He chose to ignore her.

  ‘And the weather . . . What else can you expect at this time of the year but snow and ice? Up north, especially up north.’

  ‘We would only be going as far as Yorkshire. Not penetrating the Arctic Circle,’ she reminded him, though gently.

  He rustled his paper into shape again, and disappeared behind it.

  ‘We are staying at home, and that’s definite!’ he finished.

  Nell only just resisted a childish urge to stamp her foot. She wished that she had been the type who threw things, or swore, or even shouted mild abuse. Instead she went through into the kitchen and switched on the electric kettle.

  Then, waiting for it to boil, she brooded about snow and robins, and holly, and her mother, watching them all gathered together, singing carols round the Christmas tree. She could see her quite clearly, her grey curls fluffed into a silvery halo by the light of the candles, and her plump, unlined face shiny with happiness.

  Just because Ben had no parents, she told a cream cracker, buttering it furiously, just because he hadn’t a single unselfish streak in the whole of his body, he was quite content to deprive the children of their grandparents at Christmas.

  And vice versa, of course.

  She allowed a tear to slide down her cheek, and left it there when she carried in the tray.

  But he remained totally unmoved, even when she borrowed his handkerchief to wipe the tear away. For a whole week, and part of the next week, he told her every single day exactly what would happen if they were such fools, such utter fools, as to leave their own snug little house at Christmas.

  For a whole week, and part of the next week, she appealed to his better nature. Then, with just three days to go, she came to the reluctant conclusion that, as better natures went, she had married a man who didn’t possess even the semblance of one!

  Yet, on Christmas Eve, as they packed the car with two children, one drop-side cot, hot-water bottles, blankets, and a case full of presents, he was strangely quiet.

  Benjie and Angus, wrapped up like overdressed Eskimos, were delirious with excitement on the back seat.

  Ne
ll smiled fondly at them over her right shoulder, and tried not to look too triumphant as the car turned out of their avenue, and headed due north.

  With only a couple of miles behind them, Benjie tapped her with an urgent finger, and passed on a message from Angus.

  ‘He can’t want to. Not already,’ she said. ‘Give him one of the biscuits out of the red tin.’

  The back seat subsided into a silence, broken only by loud champing noises, and the monotonous but nevertheless constant opening and closing of the biscuit-tin lid.

  The car circled a roundabout, and breasted the Ml. Miles whizzed boringly by, and Nell started a self-conscious chorus of ‘Jingle Bells’, in which nobody joined.

  A thin drift of drizzle spattered the windscreen and mingled with the spray of half-frozen mud thrown by cars streaming past in the fast lane.

  Grimly Ben switched on the windscreen wipers, and Nell’s eyes slewed rhythmically from side to side in time with them.

  Benjie’s sudden shriek jerked her awake, every nerve alive and quivering.

  ‘Angus won’t wake up. I think he’s deaded. Mummy! Daddy! Look at Angus!’

  Ben, with a barely smothered oath, swung the car on to the nearside verge, and viciously jammed on the brakes.

  Kneeling up on the front seat she leaned over and pulled an unresisting Angus into her arms. He collapsed against her, head lolling, as white and boneless as a filleted plaice.

  ‘Angus isn’t dead,’ Ben reassured a loudly weeping Benjie. ‘He’s just feeling sick. Your mother knows he can’t stand long journeys. Especially by car.’ And he got out and began a frenzied wiping of the now mud-streaked windscreen.

  The pallid little bundle in Nell’s arms gave a convulsive shudder, and she wrenched open the door.

  Benjie’s tone was all solicitude:

  ‘Angus was very sick. Wasn’t Angus very sick?’

  She confirmed this, and closed the car door.

  Relentlessly, Benjie pursued the subject:

  ‘I was sick in bed, wasn’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘There were bits of chocolate biscuit and carrot in it. Were there bits of chocolate biscuit and carrot in –’