by Sandy Taylor
‘Those are all the places I’m going to visit when I grow up,’ she’d said. ‘You can come with me if you like. The world’s your oyster, Dottie.’
‘I don’t like oysters,’ I’d said.
I looked at the clock again. There was still eight and a half hours to go before Ralph and Fiona walked down the aisle. I imagined Fiona waking up this morning, happy and excited. She might be looking at her wedding dress, hanging on the wardrobe door. She would be thinking of her perfect wedding and her new life in Australia with Ralph and Peggy.
Joe was watching Arsenal playing away in Manchester this weekend, and I was glad now that he wasn’t here. I needed to get through this day in my own way.
I twirled the pretty ring round my finger. I loved Joe, and I knew that he was the right man for me. I had no regrets about Ralph, but today would still be hard – letting go would be hard.
There was a tap on the door and Polly came in, looking bleary-eyed. She was wearing short pink baby-doll pyjamas.
‘I thought you’d be awake. Do you want some company?’
‘Yes, please.’
Polly got into bed beside me.
‘We should go out today. We should definitely go out,’ she said, plumping up the pillows and leaning back against the faded pink velour headboard. ‘It’s going to be a long day, and you need to take your mind off it. How about breakfast at the café?’
Thank God for Polly.
‘What would I do without you?’
‘You don’t have to do without me.’
It was 11 a.m. when we eventually left the flat. We took the Tube to Sloane Square and walked to the café. There was a notice on the door saying ‘Closed until further notice’.
‘George must have given up on the cooking,’ said Polly.
I hadn’t expected to feel hungry, but I was suddenly starving. ‘I need to eat.’
‘Me too.’
‘Let’s just get a sandwich and go and talk to Mrs Dickens.’
I knew that we were killing time, but that’s exactly what I needed to do.
We took a couple of Tubes and got off at Archway. Then we stopped at a grocer’s just outside the station and bought fresh bread, cheese and a couple of apples. Polly bought a bunch of daffodils for Mrs Dickens. It was a beautiful day, so we decided to walk up the hill instead of getting the bus. We cut through Waterlow Park, past the lake and the squawking ducks and through the imposing iron gates that led into Highgate Cemetery.
As always, we were enveloped by the peace and utter tranquillity of the place.
There were a few people wandering around. You could tell the tourists visiting the grave of Karl Marx by the cameras slung around their necks.
Polly picked up an old stone urn that stood on Mrs Dickens’s grave and filled it with water from the tap against the crumbling wall.
‘This weighs a ton,’ she said, struggling back with it.
I took the cellophane off the daffodils and arranged them in the urn. The bright yellow flowers were like a ray of golden light against the darkness of the place.
We sat on the grass.
‘Aren’t you going to ask her anything?’ said Polly, biting into an apple.
I stared at the grave. ‘No need.’
‘So all your dreams have come true, eh?’
‘Yes,’ I said, looking down at the ring on my finger.
I was just about to bite into my apple when Polly said, ‘There’s Ralph.’
‘Where?’ I said, jumping up and letting the apple roll across the ground.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I meant Ralph the robin.’
‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘Sorry,’ she said again.
‘Anyway, how do you know it’s that robin?’
‘I just do. He’s got that Ralph look about him.’
‘You’ve never even met Ralph.’ I looked at my watch. ‘And you never will now,’ I said. ‘It’s over.’ It really was all over. Ralph belonged to Fiona now.
‘I know,’ said Polly, lying down beside me.
‘Thank you for being with me today.’
‘That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?’
The sunshine had made us both drowsy, so we decided to catch the bus home instead of walking. We didn’t talk much on the way back, but that was okay. Polly seemed to realise that I wasn’t up for much conversation. We got off the bus opposite the Tube station and walked across the park. As we turned into our road, Polly suddenly stopped and said, ‘Bloody hell, there’s Ralph.’
‘For God’s sake, Polly, stop freaking me out with the robin jokes.’
‘I don’t think it’s a robin, Dottie.’
And that’s when I saw him. He was sitting on the old stone steps leading up to the front door of 59 Victoria Terrace.
20
Neither of us had moved. ‘It is him, isn’t it?’ asked Polly.
I nodded. I couldn’t speak. I was numb with shock.
‘Didn't he just get married?’
I had no answers for Polly. I just couldn’t get my head round the fact that for whatever reason, Ralph was here, in London, and sitting on our front steps when he should be at his wedding.
Ralph saw us and stood up slowly, then sat down again as if standing was too much effort.
‘You go on,’ I said to Polly.
‘Will you be okay?’
‘Right now I haven’t got a clue what I'm going to be.’
She squeezed my hand and ran up the steps. Ralph didn’t even look up as she passed.
I walked across and sat down next to him. He looked ill. His face was an awful grey colour and he kept running his hands through his hair. I took hold of his hand and held it in mine. I suddenly felt very calm and I didn’t know why.
‘You didn’t leave her standing at the altar, did you?’ I asked gently.
When at last he spoke, his words were so quiet I could barely hear them. ‘I might as well have.’
He hadn’t married her. Every emotion I had gone through today had been for nothing. He hadn’t married her at all, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel.
He shook his head, as if he was trying to make sense of what he had done. ‘I couldn’t stay there. Everyone was putting their two pennerth in. Fiona’s parents, her brother, Mary’s mum. Elton was the only one I could talk to in the end.’
‘How has this affected Peggy?’
‘She’s confused and angry and sad. She thought she was going to be a bridesmaid. She thought Fiona was going to be her new mummy. Fiona isn’t the only one I’ve hurt.’
Ralph looked like a broken man, and I could understand that, I could, but why was he here? Did he just need a shoulder to cry on? Was that all he wanted?
We sat on those cold stone steps until the light had faded from the sky and the street lights were beginning to come on. He didn’t say another word, not one. There were so many things I wanted to ask him but the main one was, ‘What do you want from me, Ralph?’
Eventually the front door opened and Polly came down the steps carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. She slowly mouthed, ‘What the hell is going on?’
I shook my head.
Then she mouthed, ‘It’s bloody dark.’
I mouthed back, ‘I bloody know.’
She handed Ralph one of the coffees. ‘I’m Polly.’
‘My flatmate,’ I said.
He looked at me as if he had just realised that I was there.
‘I should get going,’ he said, trying to stand up.
‘Where?’
He put his head in his hands. He seemed so lost. ‘I don’t know.’
‘We could try and sneak him past Mrs P,’ said Polly.
‘I can’t stay here. I shouldn’t have come,’ he said.
‘Do you have somewhere else to go?’ I asked gently.
‘No.’
Whatever I was feeling and no matter how confused I was, Ralph was my friend, and he had come to me because he needed to. I made a decision.
‘Then you’re staying here,’ I said.
Ralph gave a deep sigh. ‘Thanks.’
Polly picked up his bag, and I held onto him as we walked slowly up the steps and into the house.
Ralph sat at the kitchen table drinking his coffee, while Polly and I made a bed up for him on the couch.
‘What about Mrs P?’ said Polly, carrying an extra pillow in from her room.
‘I’m going to tell her he’s my brother.’
‘Do you think she’ll buy it?’
‘I don’t care whether she buys it or not, I can’t have him wandering around London all night.’
‘He must have left her standing at the altar. Imagine being left at the altar. I’d die.’
‘I don’t think he did. From what I could make out, there was no wedding today.’
‘All that worrying we did and he never got married.’
‘I know.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’ll speak to him tomorrow. There’s no point in trying tonight, he’s exhausted.’
I sounded in control, but I wasn’t. I had yet to find out why Ralph had come to me, but at least I knew that it had nothing to do with anything that I’d said or done.
Ralph fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, and I wondered when he had last slept. I, on the other hand, lay in the darkness trying to make sense of what had happened.
Having spent most of the night tossing and turning, I didn’t wake until 8.30. When I opened my eyes, Ralph was standing by my bedroom window looking out onto the street. I shifted myself up the bed.
‘Hi,’ I said.
He turned round. ‘Hi,’ he said, giving me a weak smile.
‘Sleep all right?’
He nodded. ‘Thanks for letting me stay.’
‘I was hardly going to let you walk off into the unknown.’
‘I’ve made such a mess of things,’ he said.
‘Can you tell me what happened?’
Ralph turned away from the window and came and sat on the bed. He didn’t speak for a while, and when he did I could tell that he was struggling not to cry. He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been on a kind of roller coaster for months. The wedding plans were going on around me. The banns were read out at the church. I’d given my notice in at the bakery. Fiona had done the same. She was so happy, and Peggy was so excited, and I just felt numb. My brain was wrecked trying to think of a way to let Fiona down gently, but I kept putting it off. I couldn’t bear to hurt her.’
‘But you must have cared for her enough to have asked her to marry you?’
‘Of course I cared for her. There were times when I convinced myself that I loved her. She deserves to be loved, she’s a great girl, and she loved me. I wanted it to work. I thought we could be a family. Peggy adores her.’
‘But?’
‘I saw you at the barbeque, and I knew that I was done with pretending. I should have told her then, but I was hoping that I would feel different. I left it till a week before the wedding, and then I told her that I couldn’t marry her. Everyone was furious with me, and I didn’t blame them. Like I said, Elton was the only one who didn’t judge me, but then you know what Elton’s like.’
I smiled when I thought about Elton. Cocky, devil-may-care Elton, the boy that Mary had loved. The boy who, in the end, found it in his heart to make Mary’s last wish come true by taking her in his arms and dancing with her, just before she died.
‘What was his advice?’
Ralph smiled. ‘He said that marriage was bad enough without marrying the wrong girl.’
‘Sounds like Elton.’
‘He also said that I knew who the right girl was.’
That was when he took hold of my hand and noticed the ring. He swallowed.
‘Joe?’
I nodded. I didn’t want to talk to Ralph about Joe. I wore his ring on my finger. I had given him a promise. If Ralph had loved Fiona enough then he would have married her. I couldn’t make this right for him, but I could be his friend. ‘Come here,’ I said, making room for him on the bed.
We lay on my little single bed with our arms around each other, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Ralph and I were just two pretty unremarkable kids who became friends then fell in love. The path ahead of us had been straight and clear – house, kids, normal things. We weren’t reaching for the stars; we were content just to be together. Life, fate or whoever was in charge up there had other plans for us, and it was time that we both accepted it was over.
‘Dottie?’
I put my finger against his lips.
‘Hush now,’ I said.
21
I walked with Ralph down to the Tube station. We didn’t speak – there was nothing to say. We stood outside Mrs Spatchcock’s shop and said our goodbyes. I could barely breathe. There had been so many goodbyes. Sometimes it felt as if my relationship with Ralph had been one long goodbye.
Ralph reached for my hand. I let my fingers close over his.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said, kissing my cheek. ‘I’ll be okay.’
‘I know you will.’
He started to walk away then turned around. ‘Be happy, Dottie.’
I watched until he was out of sight, and it felt as though he was taking part of me with him.
I was meeting Joe in the afternoon. We had planned to have a picnic up on Hampstead Heath, so I bought some grapes and tomatoes and a loaf of crusty bread from Mrs Spatchcock’s shop and started to walk home.
I knew that Polly would be dying to hear what had happened, but I wasn’t ready for that yet.
I got as far as Highbury Fields and sat down on the nearest bench. A watery sun was breaking through the clouds and a cool breeze rustled the leaves on the trees. I shivered and drew my cardigan closer around my body. I pulled down the sleeves so that they covered my hands.
I was filled with an overwhelming sadness. For Ralph, for Fiona, for Peggy and for me. I wondered what Ralph was thinking about as he made his way home to Brighton. He’d more or less said that I was the reason that he couldn’t marry Fiona, and yet he hadn’t asked anything of me. Perhaps he would have done if he hadn’t seen the ring. Perhaps he would have asked if there was still a chance for us, but he hadn’t, and for that I was grateful. I was going to marry Joe, sweet uncomplicated Joe, and that was what I wanted.
I got up from the bench and walked home across the field.
I put the food in my room and tapped on Polly’s door. She was playing ‘Little Red Rooster’ really loudly, so I knocked harder. She opened the door and almost dragged me inside.
‘I’ve been on hot bricks all morning! Has he gone?’
‘I just took him to the Tube.’
‘What the heck happened? Did he leave her at the altar?’
I sat down on Polly’s bed. ‘No, thank God, he just couldn’t go through with the wedding. He called it off a week ago.’
‘Bloody hell, you can’t help feeling sorry for the poor girl.’
‘I can’t even think about it.’
‘Why did he come here though?’
‘To tell me that he couldn’t marry her knowing that he still loved me.’
‘Bloody hell. Did you tell him that you’re engaged to Joe?’
‘I didn’t have to – he saw the ring.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘Nothing. He’s gone back to face the music.’
‘Dottie, are you really sure that you want to marry Joe?’
‘I’m positive.’
‘Well, as long as you’re sure.’
‘Never been surer of anything in my life.’
‘On a purely selfish level I thought you might be going back to Brighton with him. I’d really convinced myself that you weren’t coming back.’
‘You thought I’d just leave without saying anything?’
‘I know, but I’d really wound myself up.’
‘Well you can stop worrying, because the only place I’m going today is up on Hampst
ead Heath with Joe. And for heaven’s sake turn that music down. We’ll have Mrs P up here in a minute, and I haven’t taken the bedding off the couch yet.’
Polly made a face. ‘She’s already been up. She asked who the man was that stayed overnight. I told her he was your brother.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said she very much doubted that, on account of his ginger hair.’
I started to giggle ‘And you said?’
‘I said he was adopted.’
‘You said what?’
‘I couldn’t think of anything else.’
By now we were both giggling.
‘She said she hadn’t arrived at 59 Victoria Terrace on a pushbike.’
I left her laughing and went into my bedroom to get ready for my picnic with Joe. I wanted to be with him. What Ralph had said was still whirling round my head, and I needed to touch Joe. I needed to feel his arms around me. Joe was real; Joe was the boy I was going to marry.
I heard the doorbell ring and I ran downstairs. I opened the door and Joe stood there grinning, carrying a bottle of wine. I threw my arms around him and gave him a hug.
‘Well that’s a nice welcome.’
I smiled and kissed his cheek. ‘I won’t be a minute,’ I said. ‘I just need to get the picnic.’
I ran up the stairs, grabbed the food and a blanket and shouted goodbye to Polly. I yelled down the stairs. ‘Joe, have you brought a bottle opener?’
‘Screw top,’ he yelled back.
‘Glasses?’
‘Sorry.’
I grabbed two glasses and ran down the stairs.
I loved Hampstead Heath. It was an oasis of green in the very heart of the city, with its rolling hills and meadows, beautiful lakes and acres of woodland.
We walked past the magnificent Kenwood House and up towards Parliament Hill, one of the highest points in London. We found a shady spot and lay the blanket on the ground. I was here in this beautiful place, but today it wasn’t working its usual magic. Ralph was in my head, and I couldn’t get rid of him. I was here with Joe. I didn’t want to think about Ralph.