by Sophie Duffy
‘I’m gonna do something, Phil,’ he says.
And he does. He gets up early one morning the following week to drive to south Wales in a comrade’s truck, the back of it filled up with food donated by fellow students and activists.
I love him for doing this. And I love him even more for not asking me to go with him – because he doesn’t want to hear me say no. Though I do give him a tin of baked beans and the fiver I won from my latest pool contest. I want to do my bit but I am sort of fed up with always being expected to help elsewhere. Looking round Portsmouth, I think quite a bit of help is actually needed right here. It isn’t called the northern town of the south for nothing.
Joe likes to think of himself as a man of the people, but he has more affinity with the miners of South Wales than with the locals; he dislikes the way they apparently cling to the glories of the Falklands. (It isn’t their fault there’s a whacking great naval base on their doorstep.) If it weren’t for Mr and Mrs Raby, Joe could pass most of his time at the Poly without interacting with any genuine Pompey inhabitants apart from those who shout abuse at him as he shakes a bucket outside their pub.
Joe’s heart always seems to lie elsewhere. But he does have a heart and that is what I love about him. When the bomb goes off in the Grand Hotel further along the south coast, he isn’t pleased or impressed by this action, as one might’ve wrongly assumed he would be. Being a pacifist, he is full of horror at the idea of people wanting to kill other people. Even Margaret Thatcher.
But he doesn’t have long to dwell on this. Soon after, he is round at mine, the Raby’s out for the evening at the working men’s club. A quiet evening watching telly, eating biscuits, when the news comes on. We are not prepared for what we see. If I’d have been warned, I might’ve switched off the television and taken Joe to the club to experience a true Pompey night out with the Raby’s. We could’ve gone to the pub, the Union, gone anywhere except the place where Michael Buerk transports us. A country in Africa… a country I remember from school… Abyssinia… Haile Selassie and Rastafarians. We are taken to Ethiopia where a famine of biblical proportions is desiccating the nation while we sit in our comfy chairs, an empty packet of Hobnobs on the table, watching in silence the sickening images… tiny starving children clinging to their dying mothers… the skeletons of cattle lying in the dust… brown, dead earth.…
Big Joe is in tears and that starts me off. I grab one of Mrs Raby’s tissues and offer the box to Joe but he waves it away, sniffs, and demands some paper.
‘Paper?’
‘I’ve got to write a letter, Phil. I’ve got to do something.’
So he writes to Mrs Thatcher, still no doubt reeling from the shock of the bomb. A short-and-to-the-point letter which he leaves me in the front room to go and post in the box round the corner, possibly even before Bob Geldof has got off the phone to Midge Ure.
Joe is no fool. He knows words will not be enough. And he knows he will not ever be able to collect enough tins to feed the world. But this doesn’t stop him trying.
‘We’ve got to do something, Philippa,’ he says. ‘We’ve got to do something.’
It is a mantra of his I will hear many times during our friendship over the years. My Jiminy Cricket nudging me to get off my arse and stop reading about the plight of downtrodden Victorian women. And do something.
Term ends all too quickly and I go home to a Christmas that is the first in living memory without Andy. In honour of my return, Bob and Wink kill the fatted calf (which would horrify Joe). They also stockpile a sickening amount of presents under the tree which makes me feel even worse for the famine victims who won’t be getting so much as a bowl of rice or a cup of fresh water. Who won’t even know it is Christmas.
Still, it is lovely to be back, to help out in the shop, filling the sweetie jars and stacking the stationery shelves, to sit with Wink in front of the telly and watch all the Christmas specials, to share a box of Quality Street and argue over who gets the last green triangle, to throw the travel rug over Captain’s cage as he has decided to grow old disgracefully. But I worry about her. She is smaller than I remember. More frail. Her eyesight so bad she has to sit closer to the screen and ask me to tell her what is going on every few minutes.
‘You got yourself a boyfriend yet?’ she interrogates me one evening. Wink won’t be happy till she knows I have a man to look after me as Bob can’t do it forever.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m too busy.’
She almost chokes on her tea.
‘You? Busy? Busy drinking cheap beer, I suppose.’
I feel an almighty blush coming on and for once am thankful her eyesight is not refined enough to see it.
I get three Christmas cards in the post. The first from Cheryl, apologising for not coming home for Christmas. She’s chucked Doug and moved in with a final year medical student in Fishponds. The second is from my mother who this year is at least honest and signs it with love from Helena, Orville and Wesley. The third is from Mr and Mrs Raby, apologising for not being in the flat on my return as they’ll be off on a cruise on the proceeds of a five horse accumulator at William Hill’s. Will I be all right on my own? And will I water Mr Raby’s assortment of African violets? Plus will I buy the Radio and TV Times every week – so they know what they’ll have missed on their return. There is some money in a jam jar in the boiler cupboard.
At last. Independence.
On the eve of my return, I wander out into the backyard of the shop. If I were a proper student I’d be puffing on a roll-up but I have no desire to smoke as smoking has far too many associations for me. Lugsy, however, has no such worries and gets through as many fags per hour as Helena, though she probably wouldn’t be too impressed by the liquorice Rizlas.
‘So, is it like being in The Young Ones, where you live?’ he asks.
I don’t like to let him down, so I skim over Mr and Mrs Raby and their plated-up meals.
‘Yeah, it could be based on my life.’
I am not completely lying. I get an image of Joe and his donkey jacket and Docs and try not to compare him to Rik Mayall.
When Lugsy goes back into the shop, I notice the slight stoop to his shoulders.
‘She’ll say yes, one day,’ I call after him.
He turns back and shrugs.
‘I don’t think so. But what can you do?’
It seems that everyone is asking themselves this exact same question. Only some of us are more prepared to try than others.
I stay outside a little while longer. The new rose bush has established itself, Andy’s bones feeding it well. I don’t have time to get melancholy because Lugsy has reappeared.
‘Phone,’ he calls from the door. ‘It’s your mate, Joe.’
I’ve been trying to get hold of him for days. As has his poor mother.
‘Where’ve you been?’ I demand.
‘Up in London.’
‘What, to see the Queen?’
‘Organising my passport,’ he says sombrely, not nipping at the bait. ‘I’ve got onto VSO. I’m going to Africa.’
‘But I thought they only needed doctors and nurses.’
‘They need truck drivers too. Someone’s got to get the food there.’
So Joe is going away. Far away. Not for the day, with a carload of beans. But for as long as it takes. My third best friend, snatched away from me. Only this time, as much as I want to, I can’t complain.
Bob drives me back to the Raby’s after Christmas. He helps me unpack and gives me a bag of fifty pence pieces for the meter. He makes me a cup of tea, the latest in a long line that he’s brewed me over the years, the first still being the most memorable – the tinkle of glass on the shop floor and little Margot Fonteyn trotting down the road after her mother.
‘Have you seen Auntie Sheila?’ I’ve been meaning to ask that all Christmas but I’ve been waiting for Bob to mention her name first. The very fact he’s kept quiet fills me with worry for him.
‘Yes, I have, funnily enough,’
he says.
I am not surprised. I knew she’d be back once she heard about the departure of Linda. But I am surprised it has taken her this long. Poor old Bernie. I am actually beginning to feel sorry for him. And there is someone else of course that springs to mind.
‘And Toni and T-J? What’s the latest with them?’
‘Oh, well, Toni’s moved in with some chap from her office, some estate agent or other… Anthony… Aidan… I can’t remember.’
‘What’s he like, this bloke?’
‘Sheila’s none too keen. And Bernie hates the sight of him apparently.’
No-one will ever be good enough for his Toni.
‘And T-J?’ I have to prompt Bob to continue with his news update because he’s got distracted, hunting for the watering can in order to see to the drying-out African violets.
‘Oh, Terry, ah… let me see… he’s somehow managed to get himself a girlfriend. Swedish or Danish or is it Norwegian? Tall and blonde by all accounts. Very attractive. Works for a travel magazine… something trendy like that… gets all these free flights and things. Sheila can’t quite believe he’s landed on his feet. Bernie certainly can’t.’
It is quite a struggle to control the tornado of jealousy twisting about inside me right at that moment but I must have managed it somehow because Bob is quite oblivious to my stormy emotions.
‘Have they got any Baby Bio?’ he asks, searching in the cupboard under the sink, giving me a bird’s eye view of his pink scalp. ‘By the way,’ he says, straightening up and clutching the bottle of plant food in his hand, ‘he’s not called T-J anymore.’
‘Has he gone back to Terry?’
‘No, he’s using his other initial, the J.’
‘What does that stand for? I’ve often wondered.’
‘Justin.’ Bob notices a look of surprise on my face. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘He doesn’t really seem like a Justin, does he? But he’s gone all London now. An estate agent living with a leggy Swede in Camden Town. Who’d’ve thought it?’
Not Bernie that’s for sure. Not me either.
‘Why’s he gone and changed his name again?’
‘Something to do with Captain Kirk apparently.’
‘Captain Kirk?’
‘You know, the Starship Enterprise.’
‘Sorry, you’ve lost me.’
‘Well, not Captain Kirk exactly. William Whatsit, who plays him.’
‘William Shatner?’
‘Yes, that’s it.’
‘Why doesn’t he want to be associated with William Shatner?’
‘It’s his other programme, the one where he’s a police officer or a private detective, that sort of thing.’
‘Do you mean T-J Hooker?’
‘Oh, you know it?’
Yes, I know all about that telly programme. Between Wink and Mr and Mrs Raby and Ed in his deerstalker (and of course Lucas who started me off all those years ago) I have a pretty thorough knowledge of television programmes on both sides of the Atlantic.
But I don’t care if he is Terry or T-J or Justin. He’s got what he’s always wanted. A bird. A beautiful woman. Not plain old frizzy-haired Philippa. Not me.
After Bob has stopped faffing, he goes into the bathroom and because of the appallingly thin walls, even thinner than those of our Canadian motel which from here seems like a dream, a telly programme I once watched long ago, I hear the rattle of a bottle of pills, a telltale sign that he is still on the Valium.
‘Do you want to stay here the night?’ I ask him when he reappears. ‘You look tired.’
‘The shop,’ he says automatically. ‘I can’t leave the shop.’
‘Don’t be daft. Call Patty. She’ll take care of things.’
‘What about Wink?’
‘Patty and Lugsy can stay over. I’m sure they won’t mind if you explain.’
‘It’s only a three hour drive,’ he protests. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Three hours driving that shouldn’t happen. Not with those pills kicking round his blood system. I need another excuse.
‘Please stay with me. Just till I get settled. Till the morning. I’m lonely without Joe.’
It is true; I will miss Joe. But I’ll find someone else. Someone else always turns up in the nick of time.
Bob smiles. A genuine beam. Because he believes I still need him. More than the shop. More than Wink. More than anyone in the whole wide world.
Bob goes home the next morning and I don’t see him again till the Easter holidays because I am so wrapped up in my new life, my independence, that I can’t bring myself to get the train back home and see my Bob and Wink needing me as much as I used to need them. I may live in Portsmouth, but I have the whole world of literature at my command. I can go anywhere, be anyone – all from the (comparative) comfort of my little box room, huddled under my duvet with George Eliot, the orange street lights shut out by the purple velour curtains that Mrs Raby was so proud of when she first showed me into my new accommodation. No sign of the Cavalier.
2006
No more classic novels. No more Agatha Christie. It is all baby manuals and heart leaflets.
Some holes are so small that they cause no problem, and are left alone. Some holes in small babies may close by themselves: if the cardiologist thinks this is likely, he will not close it immediately, but wait for some time to see if it has closed by itself, by repeating an echo. Other holes must be closed, either because they are already a problem, or because they will cause a problem in the future. There are two ways to do this. The first way is via an operation...
No, please, no.
Chapter Fifteen: 1987
Jeopardy!
Three years later I’ve left Portsmouth Poly with a respectable enough 2:2 in English but with no real idea of what I want to do now I am officially an adult. So I manage to get on the PGCE course at Rolle College in Exmouth. I think I’d quite like to be a teacher. After all, I can’t do as badly as the Mothballs and Pitchforks of the profession. And Exmouth is the ideal place to study. As much as I enjoyed my time away, I hanker after Devon. And Wink is now so ill – and Bob so dependent on tranquilisers – I don’t want to be too far away. Just in case.
By having a part-time job in the Union bar, I managed to pay for driving lessons and passed my test on the first attempt, thanks to my well-developed road sense born of the Tufty Club and Linda. So I can live at home and drive in to college every day in Bob’s still-limping-on Cortina. I can also drive up to Bristol to see Cheryl (now married to her doctor). I can go anywhere I want, though it tends to be nowhere.
But it is good to be home. I like to walk through the shop and complain at Bob when I notice any changes.
‘Where’s the pipe display gone?’
‘No-one smokes pipes anymore.’
He is right of course. When was the last time I saw anyone puffing on a pipe? But I like my shop to be the same. The same as when Helena left. Though maybe I can take this as a positive sign. A sign that Bob has somehow managed to move on. To look to the future. To go with the times.
‘When did you decide to sell potpourri?’
‘Sheila suggested it.’
‘Sheila?’
‘She popped in a while back. To buy the Western Morning News. And to see how Wink was doing. She’d heard she wasn’t too good.’
I suspect ulterior motives but it is sadly true that Wink isn’t too good. But the old girl has done well so far; she was never expected to live this long. She’s kept going mainly thanks to Bob, not an easy burden what with all the early hours, getting up for the papers.
‘Sheila could see for herself the deterioration,’ Bob goes on. ‘She suggested a home.’
‘A home? What’s it got to do with her?’
‘Well… she’s worried about me.’ He does his cough-thing. ‘I told her I’m not sure how much longer I can go on.’
He reaches for his bottle and washes down another tablet with his afternoon cuppa, then cracks open a Twix, offering me a half but I
’ve lost my appetite. Wink can’t possibly go in a home.
‘I could help out more.’
‘No.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘No. You need to stick at college. Wink would want you to get that qualification.’
‘Wink wants me to get married.’
‘She wants you to be happy.’
‘I am happy.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes, pretty much. I’m just worried about you and Wink. I don’t care about teaching. I’m not sure I even like children.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘I should think so, yes.’
Despite my protestations, Bob wins in the end. He persuades me to carry on with college and agrees to up the home help’s hours.
So the following week, I’m back at school, only this time I am not hot and squashed on the carpet, I am allowed the privilege of a chair as a student teacher and I am referred to as Miss Smith by Mr Donnelly, the class teacher, a young keen man – though more keen on chatting me up than on teaching. I can feel his eyes every time my back is turned, every time I bend down to re-tie a rogue shoelace (of which there are several thousand). Mr Donnelly gives me the creeps. He must give the children the creeps too because this is the quietest class I’ve ever been in. All those six-year-olds doing what they are supposed to be doing. Spooky.
At the end of the day, Mr Donnelly leaves me to read them a story. I choose Where the Wild Things Are, hoping to give this subdued bunch of children a bit of imagination.
It is an ill-fated plan. This meek and mild class mutate into a group of hooligans and I hear my voice warbling like Wink’s but sadly it lacks any of her authority. After half an hour of this torture, I am fighting back the tears as well as the little hands that grip my ankles like octopuses’ tentacles. Mr Donnelly strolls back in with his mug of tea, as I was contemplating giving screaming a go. I’ve tried everything else.
‘It’s the wind,’ he says, shrugging his shoulders. ‘The wind always whips them up into a frenzy.’
I look out the window onto the empty playground where leaves and crisp packets are bowling across the patched-up tarmac. He grabs the book from me and rereads it. He is a magician, a mesmerist. A hypnotist. Every pair of eyes focuses on the pages of the book, every pair of ears listens to the story. I will never make a teacher. I do not like children, especially in large numbers. I want to work in the shop. I want to take care of Wink. I just have to persuade Bob.