by Sandy Taylor
We all piled back on the bus and went home. Joe was quiet but he held my hand, and I felt safe again.
Once we were back indoors, Mum put the kettle on, but Dad said he fancied a pint. ‘Why don’t we all go down the Queen’s Head for a drink?’ he said.
‘Take Joe,’ said Mum. ‘I’d like to spend some time with my girl.’
‘You up for it, Joe?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Joe.
Once they were gone I took cups and saucers out of the cupboard and put them on the table. Mum poured some hot water into the teapot, swished it round then poured it down the sink. She always warmed the pot before she put the tea leaves in. It was comforting watching the same routines that I’d seen all my life.
It was warm in the kitchen and even though it was late afternoon, the sun was streaming through the net curtains. I took off my cardigan and sat down.
‘How are you, love, are you all right?’
I stared down at the tablecloth. I didn’t want her worrying about me.
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
‘I saw the look on your face today, Dottie, when you heard about Ralph and Fiona emigrating.’
‘I wasn’t expecting it. I wish I’d known what the barbeque was in aid of, then it wouldn’t have come as such a shock. I can’t get it out of my head.’
‘I thought as much.’
‘I’ve cared about Ralph for so long that I don’t know how to stop caring for him. I don’t know if it’s love or habit. Knowing that he’s with someone else, that he is going to marry her and go to Australia, scares me. It feels as if I’m losing a part of who I am. Does that make any sense?’
Mum put the tea on the table and sat down. ‘You have some decisions to make, love.’
‘Do I?’
‘I think you know you do.’
‘But what have I got to decide?’
‘Whether you want to be with Ralph or whether you can let him go.’
‘But that’s just it, I don’t know. I wish I did.’
‘Well only you can decide that. Only you know the truth, Dottie, and you’ve got three weeks to work out what you want.’
‘But what about Joe? And what about Fiona?’
‘This isn’t about Joe and Fiona. This is about you and Ralph.’
I took a mouthful of tea. It was too sweet. I made a face. Mum just couldn’t accept that I’d given up sugar.
‘Too much sugar?’ she asked.
I nodded.
‘I keep forgetting.’
‘What am I going to do, Mum?’
She reached across the table and held my hand. ‘The right thing,’ she said. ‘You must do what’s right for you.’
15
I’d been back in London a week, and I was no nearer to making a decision. Polly and I were sitting in the kitchen of Victoria Terrace eating a Vesta beef curry. Last night over a couple of bottles of Blue Nun I had finally told Polly the whole story of me, Ralph and Mary.
‘Bloody hell, Dottie,’ she said. ‘Sounds like a Mills & Boon novel.’
‘Without the happy ending,’ I said.
‘You must miss her.’
‘I do. It’s easier here in London. It’s when I go back to Brighton that it hits me the hardest.’
‘You must have been mad at her when she got pregnant. How the hell did you cope with that?’
‘I didn’t, not really, and we didn’t speak for months, but I missed her so much, maybe even more than I missed Ralph. I think it was the worst time of my life. I trusted them both. Mary was my best friend, and Ralph was the boy I loved, and between them they broke my heart.’
‘How did you manage to forgive them? I’m not sure that I could have – in fact I’m sure I couldn’t have. I mean, bloody hell, he was your boyfriend, and he got your best friend pregnant!’
‘I was tired of carrying all that hate around with me, and in the end it all just sorted itself out. It was so hard to keep on hating them when I still loved them both so much.
As the evening wore on Polly and I got progressively more sozzled, and we came up with a very drunken solution to it all, which in the cold light of day neither of us had any recollection of.
‘How long have you got?’
‘Two weeks now.’
‘What if you decide you want to be with him, and he decides that he doesn’t want to be with you?’
‘I guess that’s just a risk I’ll have to take.’
‘Hell of a risk – you could end up with no one.’
‘I guess I could.’ I put my fork down on the table. ‘Sorry, I can’t eat this curry.’
‘You’ve hardly eaten anything since you came back from Brighton.’ Polly scooped the remains of the curry onto her plate. ‘I’m going to be as fat as a house if I keep having to eat your leftovers.’
‘You don’t have to eat them.’
‘Waste not want not,’ she said. ‘Besides, other people’s problems always give me an appetite.’
The sun was streaming through the large Victorian windows and into the kitchen. I loved it here. I loved sharing this flat with Polly. I loved my job, and most of all I loved being with Joe. Why the hell was I even considering giving it all up to go back to Brighton to be with Ralph?
‘I’d miss you if you went back,’ said Polly, putting her fork down. ‘I’ve lost my appetite now.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Why don’t we do one of those brainstorming things that we had to do at school? You know, make a list of all their pros and cons.’
‘I think we did that last night.’
‘Did we?’
‘I think we did. It should be around somewhere.’
Polly went into the front room and came back with a scrappy piece of paper with some scrawls on it. This was obviously the light-bulb moment that we were sure would be the solution to all my problems.
‘What does it say?’
Polly, who is very short-sighted but won’t give in and wear glasses, squinted at the piece of paper.
‘I’m blowed if I know,’ she said, passing it across the table.
I looked at it. ‘I think that Joe won.’
‘So?’
‘We were pissed – it doesn’t count.’ I wasn’t ready to make a decision based on drunken ramblings.
‘I always think that everything’s so much clearer when you’re pissed,’ said Polly.
Suddenly Mrs P shouted up the stairs. ‘Are you cooking foreign food up there?’
Polly grinned at me. ‘No, Mrs Pierce, it’s English.’
‘Well it doesn’t smell English from down here.’
‘It doesn’t smell English from up here either,’ I whispered.
We listened for her footsteps on the stairs, but all was quiet
I sat at the table with my head in my hands. Time was ticking by, and maybe I should just let it tick. For heaven’s sake, I loved Joe, didn’t I? And Ralph loved Fiona. I shook my head trying to clear it.
‘Come on girl,’ said Polly. ‘I’m taking you out.’
I groaned.
‘Well it’s better than moping around here. Where do you fancy going?’
‘To bed?’ I said hopefully.
‘Time to visit Mrs Dickens,’ she said, smiling.
‘Good idea,’ I said. I could certainly do with a distraction and I loved visiting Mrs Dickens.
We took the bus up to Highgate. As we climbed up the steep hill I began to feel better. I was glad that Polly had made me come out. This was a part of London that we both loved. We jumped off the bus and walked through the big iron gates that led into the cemetery. It was like being in another world. It smelt of rotting vegetation and decay. We walked along pathways through overgrown shrubbery, past sleeping angels and crumbling tombstones, long abandoned and soon to be overtaken by nature. Gnarled roots of old trees snaked their way across graves so old that epitaphs that had once been chiselled into the stone were long gone.
Eventually we came to the grave of Charles Dickens’s wife, Catherine. We sat down on th
e grass beside her. I loved this place; it was so peaceful. The only sounds were the gentle movement of the trees and the rustling of leaves, unseen creatures rummaging around in the undergrowth, the dull drone of the bees and the constant twittering of the birds.
I suppose it was a bit of a daft thing to do, visiting a dead poet’s dead wife, but we’d been doing it on and off for about a year. Polly and I used to use the cemetery as a kind of cut through to the shops. We had stumbled across the grave purely by accident – we hadn’t even known that she was buried there. Highgate Cemetery was popular with visitors who came to see the grave of Karl Marx. No one seemed to visit Mrs Dickens. I suppose she just wasn’t that popular. Polly said that she felt sorry for her, all alone and forgotten, and that we should pop in and see her sometimes. So that’s how it started. Then Polly took to telling her, her problems, and she swore blind that Mrs Dickens sorted them out.
I concentrated hard and told her what was worrying me. Nothing happened.
‘Give her a minute,’ said Polly. ‘She’s thinking.’
Just then a robin flew down and settled on the top of the old stone grave.
‘If he was called Ralph or Joe instead of Robin, I would have taken that as a sign,’ said Polly, grinning. ‘Have either of them got a red breast?’
‘Not that I’ve noticed,’ I said, and we both fell about giggling. An elderly couple walking past smiled at us.
‘Hang on,’ said Polly, wiping her face on the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘Ralph’s got red hair, hasn’t he?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said, still giggling.
‘Well there’s your sign. I knew Mrs Dickens wouldn’t let us down.’
Polly took off her cardigan, made a pillow for her head and lay down on the grass.
‘What is it with you and Ralph?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you say you’re in love with Joe, and I really think you are, but one glimpse of this Ralph bloke and you go to pieces. It’s almost as if he’s got some sort of hold over you.’
‘Don’t be so dramatic.’
‘Well, it is dramatic, isn’t it? The whole thing’s pretty dramatic. I mean you love it here, you love your job, your flatmate – obviously – and yet I bet if Ralph Bennett snapped his fingers you’d go running.’
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m as sure as I can be.’
‘Which isn’t very.’
I lay down beside Polly and closed my eyes. Was she right? Would I go running if Ralph snapped his fingers and why now? I could have stayed in Brighton after Mary died. I’d known that Ralph still loved me. I could have given us another chance. But I didn’t. I ran away, and now he had fallen in love with someone else. Is that why I wanted him? Because I was about to lose him?
‘So what is it about him that keeps you dangling?’
I opened my eyes. Polly had propped herself up on one elbow and was staring down at me.
‘I’m not dangling.’
‘Well you’re doing something.’
‘It’s hard to explain.’
‘Try.’
How do you explain a lifetime of loving someone, and how do you know if what you are feeling is really love?
‘Well?’ said Polly, poking me.
‘I can’t explain something to you that I don’t understand myself. Go and have a wander through the gravestones and stop nagging.’
‘I’m not nagging, I’m just concerned.’
‘Well go and be concerned somewhere else.’
After Polly had gone, I lay staring up at the sky, watching a cloud of midges floating in the rays of the sun that filtered through the tall trees. One day I would figure out what tied me to Ralph but it wasn’t today.
16
Monday morning found me back at my desk, looking at a picture of Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman, standing outside Marylebone register office. It had been besieged by hundreds of distraught teenagers, weeping and wailing because their idol had got married. For heaven’s sake what did they expect him to do? Stay celibate because some spotty little girl in Clapton-on-Turnip thought he should be marrying her? No one had loved Paul more that I had, but I was under no illusion that he would ever pick me out of a line-up to be the next Mrs McCartney.
I thought Linda looked lovely. She was wearing a bright yellow coat and Paul was wearing a matching tie. Maybe yellow was Linda’s favourite colour, the same as Mary’s.
I hoped Linda would take care of Paul. I don’t know why, but I always had the feeling that he needed taking care of. Mary had been crazy mad about John Lennon, and while I thought of myself as Paul’s counsellor and confidante, all Mary wanted to do was jump John’s bones, which, looking back, seemed more natural somehow.
The pictures were good. I looked at the name of the photographer, but I didn’t recognise it.
The piece was written by resident office creep and general pain in the neck Miles Denton. He was writing about how, in his opinion – which seemed to be the only opinion he cared about – their marriage would never last. My job was to go through the article with a fine toothcomb to make sure he hadn’t written anything that would end up with the magazine being sued. Part of me was hoping that he had. I would love to be the one to wipe that smug look off his face. The annoying part of it was that he seemed to get the stories that no one else managed to get. At the weekends he would be propping up the bar down the Elephant and Castle picking up all the local gossip. He even said he had it on the best authority that John Lennon was about to marry Yoko Ono. I wondered what Mary’s reaction would have been to that.
Mary had been dead for four years, but not a day went by without something reminding me of her and the friendship we shared. A song, a face in the crowd or passing a hospital. My life had changed beyond all recognition. Working on a trendy music magazine was a far cry from the cosmetics counter in Woolies. And yet there were times when I longed for those days, those summer days that seemed to go on forever. Sitting on the school field next to the boy with the ginger hair. Soaring high into the sky on the Ferris wheel, Mary in the car above us with Elton Briggs, the love of her life. Walking over the Sussex Downs, holding hands, planning a future. Was that what I wanted back? Those innocent days were gone. That boy was gone. Did I love Joe enough to give up the lovely life that I was now leading? The whole thing was giving me a headache.
Polly worked just round the corner from me in Boots. She stood behind the Elizabeth Arden stand selling perfume. She always smelt lovely and her make-up was always perfect. Today we were meeting for lunch.
By the time I got to the Bluebird café in the King’s Road, Polly was already sitting down at a table.
‘I’ve ordered egg and chips for both of us, is that okay?’
I wasn’t really that hungry, and the thought of eating a plate of greasy egg and chips was making me feel a bit sick.
Polly noticed. ‘Egg and chips are just what you need, girl, you’re fading away.’
‘Hardly.’
‘You are. I’m pig sick.’
‘You can have my problems any time you like. I’ll give them to you gift wrapped.’
‘Come to a decision yet?’
‘I have actually.’
‘Crikey, tell me all.’
‘I’ve decided to stay with Joe.’ Saying this out loud felt like someone had lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. I had been tormenting myself over something that was never going to happen. I knew that there would be times when I would be sad that Ralph was going to begin a new life in Australia, but the time had come to let him go – not just out of the country but out of my head.
‘Really?’
‘I think so.’
‘Think isn’t a decision, think is a maybe.’
‘I’m going to stay with Joe.’
‘Why am I not convinced?’
‘You tell me.’
‘You don’t look that happy about it.’
‘Give me a chance, I’ve only just
decided – about ten minutes ago to be precise. I haven’t had time for it to filter through yet.’
Just then the usual waitress that served us plonked rather than placed two plates of egg and chips on the table in front of us.
‘Want any sauces?’ she asked in a bored voice.
‘Ketchup, if it’s no bother,’ said Polly.
The girl sighed as if we had just asked her to catch the next plane to Italy and pummel the tomatoes with her feet. She returned to the table with the tomato-shaped plastic bottle.
‘Anything else?’
‘No thanks,’ I said, smiling at her.
‘I don’t know why you always smile at her, Dottie. She doesn’t deserve to be smiled at – she’s positively rude. I don’t know why she works here if she hates it so much. If it wasn’t for the fact that they do the best chips in London I wouldn’t come here at all.’
‘Yes, you would, Polly Renson. It’s not the chips you fancy, it’s the chef.’
Polly grinned at me. ‘It’s true. I can’t deny it. I want to marry him immediately and bear his children.’
‘You like him that much?’
Polly squeezed a great glob of ketchup over her chips and sighed. ‘I’d just like to like someone that much.’
‘I think you’re better off as you are.’
‘So speaks the voice of wisdom.’
‘So speaks the voice of utter confusion.’
‘That doesn’t sound like someone who’s just made a decision.’
‘Doesn’t it?’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘Oh God.’
17
I met Joe outside The Roundhouse. I’d been given two free tickets to a gig there. That was one of the perks of working at the magazine – we were given lots of freebies. It was a lovely soft summer evening. London was buzzing, as always, traffic on the roads and the Tube trains rattling in the distance. Already a crowd was gathering outside the venue, waiting for the doors to open. The crowd was mostly young men wearing jeans and leather jackets and Pink Floyd T-shirts, huddled together in their little groups, smoking and talking and miming strumming guitars. I smiled to myself, imagining my dad beside me snorting with indignation.