by Sophie Duffy
After the bell has gone, Mr Donnelly stands outside the door to the playground, pairing each child off with the (hopefully) correct adult. He is proficient and the pandemonium of my school days only serve to remind me that it needn’t be like that – which it would be with me in charge.
The wind blows into the class scattering worksheets and sugar paper. I’ve just finished piling them up again when he nips back inside, pulling the door closed behind him, face flushed and hair messed up.
‘It’s really getting up out there. I don’t think we should hang around long tonight. I can give you a lift home if you want.’
I am relieved not to stay one moment longer than I have to now that I’ve reached this decision. But not desperate enough to accept a lift off this randy young man who’d try any excuse to get me into a confined space with him. I am not having any of it. For the last few years I’ve embraced celibacy and I don’t intend letting go any time soon. That part of life in which most students over-indulge, makes my stomach turn when I think of all the consequences. The maybe’s and the what-if’s. It is all too complicated. Too difficult.
‘It’s fine. I can get the train.’
‘No, you can’t,’ he says, triumphant. ‘It could be dangerous. Trees on the track.’
You don’t even have to look out the window to see there’s a storm brewing. There is a change in the light, the beginnings of a low howl washing over the sea towards us. But it isn’t that bad.
‘It’s hardly a hurricane,’ I tell him, gathering my things and preparing to leave.
‘Let me drop you at the station,’ he insists. ‘It’s cold.’
It is cold and I want to get home.
‘Alright, then.’ I give in, my mind changeable as the weather. Five more minutes and I’ll never have to see him again, (so long as I can persuade Bob this job isn’t for me). I needn’t worry; Mr Donnelly is a teacher after all, a respectable member of the community – if a little creepy. And I have a good right hook if push comes to shove. What harm can one little lift do?
I follow him to the car park. His car is by far the most battered and un-roadworthy. I probably have more to fear from his Triumph Dolomite than from his roving eye. Though when he judders out of the car park and into the road, I see it is his driving that should be giving me the most cause for concern.
He switches on his decrepit cassette player and a burst of Irene Cara’s What a Feeling fills the Dolomite, which briefly takes my mind off the nasty smell that I know to be Eau de Dirty Children, having been one of them myself from time to time (and having sat next to Christopher Bennett on many occasions). If it wasn’t so cold outside, I would open a window – though I’m not sure the handle would be that effective judging by the amount of electrical tape wrapped around it.
The source of the smell emanates from the junk piled up on the back seat.
‘Don’t mind that lot,’ he says, noticing me looking at it. ‘It’s marking and stuff. I haven’t got round to it. There’s so many other things to do.’
Yeah, like the pub and womanising and listening to dodgy music.
As he pulls into the station I can breathe easy again. He hasn’t attacked me or propositioned me or anything like that. He is just a teacher who has to go home to a load of work and then go back to class again tomorrow, and the next day and the next. I definitely do not want to do this.
‘Thanks, then,’ I tell him, holding my skirt as I get out the car in case the wind flings it over my head.
‘See you tomorrow,’ he says.
But I’ve already started to shut the door and don’t have to reply to this.
He judders off, nearly knocking over a cyclist. I dart into the station so the cyclist doesn’t come after me. And that is when I see him.
He is sitting on a bench, presumably waiting for the same train back to Torre station as me. He hasn’t noticed my arrival yet because he is busy trying to keep his Herald from blowing away, the very same paper he used to deliver for Bob. Christopher Bennett. He must hear me thinking his name because he looks up and grins.
‘Smithy!’ he shouts. ‘What are you up to?’
I have to force down the urge to shout back Mind your own! as I’m not a teenager anymore. I am an adult.
He’s up on his feet now, walking towards me, the wind pushing his hair back so I can see his face which he’s finally grown into. No crusts around the nostrils. No frown lines on the horizon.
‘You alright?’ he asks, in front of me now, smiling, offering me a cigarette.
I shake my head at the packet and tell him I’m fine, fine. I tell him about Mr Donnelly, the children and then he says his name: Lucas.
‘Do you remember your friend, Lucas?’
‘‘Course I do.’
He tries to light his cigarette but it’s a losing battle with the wind, which is whooshing up the tracks.
‘He was a smart kid,’ he goes on, nostalgic. ‘You’d be alright if they were all like that. Maybe you’d stick it out then.’
‘They’re more like you, Chris.’
‘No-one’s like me,’ he flirts.
‘Cut it out, Christopher.’
‘What’ve I done?’ he asks, pretend-offended.
Then our train pulls in, blasting our words away. But there is no escape; I have to sit with him all the way back to Torquay.
‘You’re looking good, he says once we’ve found our seats. You going out with anyone?’
‘Mind your own.’ There. It’s out before I can stop it.
‘I’m engaged,’ he announces, out the blue, sounding slightly bewildered.
But not as bewildered as me. When I’ve managed to recover myself, I ask a flabbergasted: ‘Who to?’
‘Mandy,’ he says. ‘You know, Mandy Denning.’
‘Really?’
Mandy Denning of the doll hands and china blue eyes.
‘We’re getting married next month so I’m sorry, Smithy… you missed the Bennett boat.’
‘I’m crushed.’
‘You wish,’ he says, pretending to jump on top of me.
‘Cut it out, Christopher.’
I shove him back on his seat, flushing as everyone is staring at us, tutting. I’ve had a lucky escape. Poor Mandy. I hope she’s toughened up.
It is quiet back at the shop. Not one customer. They must all be staying indoors, in the warm. Patty is getting ready to close up.
‘Where’s Bob?’ I ask.
‘Cash and Carry. He should be back soon.’
So I tell Patty about my day as Bob isn’t there to listen. She doesn’t say much but then she is a woman of action not words (a female Joe). Perhaps Wink will be more sympathetic. I find her in her usual place, sitting by the fire with a woolly blanket over her gammy legs, watching Blue Peter. She’s never got over the vandalism of the Blue Peter garden and never misses a programme out of solidarity (and maybe as a nod to Lucas).
At the sound of the closing hornpipe, she switches her attention to me. Or rather to the weather, which is beating a persistent rhythm at the window.
‘Time to batten down the hatches,’ she warns, with the wisdom of old mariners and their wives. ‘It’s coming in.’
Wink refers to the weather as ‘It’, as if it is a person of many disguises. Today the weather is to trick us all. Apart from maybe Wink who has sniffed ‘It’ out. Or maybe it is Captain. Maybe he harks back to the monsoons of the Congo, where, in his youth, he swooped through the trees of the equatorial rainforests. He is certainly restless tonight and snatches any possibility of Wink’s attention for himself so there isn’t much point in bringing up my future career prospects.
‘Shall I get the tea on?’
‘Why don’t you pop out and get fish and chips. I fancy fish and chips.’ She gets a fiver out her bag. ‘Get some mushy peas and all. And the scrapings for Bob. He likes the scrapings.’
The fish and chip shop is empty too so I am back before long but there is still no sign of Bob.
‘Plate his up and
put it in the oven,’ Wink suggests.
I do as I am told, feeling like Mrs Raby. Then Wink and I eat off our laps in the living room, in front of the telly, John Craven’s Newsround, the same way we used to all those years ago over the road in Wink’s old place, watching The Generation Game.
‘I miss Bruce,’ she says, eyeing up John’s jumper. Then she looks at me. ‘But probably not half as much as you miss Helena.’
I am not sure how I feel. I keep on eating my cod.
‘I miss Andy,’ I say eventually. And I do. At this moment I miss him more than Helena.
‘Don’t be too hard on her,’ Wink says. ‘One day you’ll understand.’
‘What is there to understand?’
‘More than you think,’ she says enigmatically. ‘Most probably,’ she adds.
When I’ve finished washing up and poured Wink a sherry, I open Captain’s cage. But he doesn’t want to come out. ‘Shut that door,’ he says in his campest voice.
‘Poor love,’ says Wink. ‘He’s sickening for something.’ He does look odd. Head down and a bit droopy-feathered.
‘But I am more worried about Bob. He’s never this late – not without due warning.’
‘Don’t worry,’ says Wink. ‘Top of the Pops is on soon.’
‘I’m going to have a bath,’ I say. ‘Some of those kids were filthy.’
‘Oh, Philippa,’ she says. ‘I never asked, did I? I never asked how you got on.’
‘Not so good, Wink. Looks like I’ll have to fall back on that other plan.’
‘Which one’s that?’
‘Your plan. The one where I find a husband.’
‘Don’t be daft. What do you want one of them for? You’re alright on your own for now. You don’t want to go thinking about that. There’s plenty of time.’
‘Yes, I’ve always had lots of that: time. More than enough to go round.’
‘You can always get a parrot,’ she says. ‘They’ll outlast any husband. Captain certainly has.’
She reaches out to him and he edges out the cage door, then swoops and lands on her shoulder, nuzzling into her curly white hair.
Once I’ve scrubbed away the grime of school, I decide it is late enough to put on my pyjamas and dressing gown and make a mug of Ovaltine for Wink and myself even though Tomorrow’s World is still on and most people my age are out and about as the night is still much too young, except for Cheryl who’ll most likely be up all night trudging the wards learning about the latest medical advancements from her husband among other people. I have to make do with Tomorrow’s World’s Maggie Philbin.
Only the most dedicated of young people will be out in this though. The wind is now rattling the windows but you can make out the motorway-drone of the sea in the distance. Captain has retreated to his cage. Wink is out like a light. But Bob is still not back. And, like Captain, I can feel it in my bones: ‘It’ is coming in.
He is still not back by the time the news has finished. Then there is the weather to sit through. Wink likes watching the weather, presumably because she likes to know what ‘It’ is getting up to. So I tap her shoulder gently to wake her up. When that doesn’t work, I tap a little harder, bringing her back to life.
‘Oh good,’ she says. ‘It’s Michael.’
Michael Fish is her favourite weather forecaster. She struggles to lean forward in her chair all the better to see and hear him.
Michael tells us to ‘batten down the hatches, there is some really stormy weather on the way’, which gets Wink’s nod of approval. Perhaps she was a meteorologist in a former life as she’s already predicted this herself.
I get up and check behind the curtains, looking out into the dark street where the chestnut tree is getting rather uptight.
‘Don’t worry, duck,’ says Wink. ‘He’ll be fine. He’s most probably run into an old friend.’
Perhaps that’s what I am worried about. There is only one old friend of Bob’s who would purposefully run into him.
At half past eleven I’ve helped Wink into bed and am helping myself to some of her sherry when the phone rings.
‘Philippa,’ a small cough-voice says. ‘It’s me.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I ran into an old friend.’
‘Sheila by any chance?’
‘Yes.’ He sounds surprised that I’ve found him out. ‘Anyway, no need to worry. I’m staying over here as ‘It’s’ coming in.’
A poor excuse if ever there was one.
‘It’s hardly a hurricane.’
‘Yes, but Sheila’s made up the spare bed for me now. In Terry’s room.’
The thought of Terry’s room does something to my insides and I end the conversation with Bob a little curtly.
‘You mean ‘Justin’.’
‘Yes… Justin, Terry, whatever he’s called.’
‘You should have phoned earlier.’
‘I’m s — ’
Then the line goes dead. If I wasn’t still holding the handset, I’d believe I’d put the phone down on him. But I am still clutching it. There is no Bob. Just a crackle. Still, at least I can go to bed now, knowing he hasn’t been blown off the planet but into the arms of Auntie Sheila. What has she done with Bernie? Unless Bob really is staying in Justin’s bed.
Justin.
That sets my insides off again. Will I ever get any sleep?
But it doesn’t matter, does it? I am not going back to school tomorrow. I can have a lie in. Bob isn’t even here to ask me how I’ve got on. So I’m not going to worry about what he thinks.
And no. I don’t get any sleep. When I eventually switch off the light at around one o’clock, I lie there picking out all the noises: bin lids in the street, the branches of the horse chestnut, the odd clang that could be any number of objects coming loose from their mooring. I switch the bedside lamp on. It flickers every now and then. I stare at the curtains which ripple unnervingly, tossing the Cavalier around on a wave of wind. This is too much.
I get up to check on Wink. She is fast asleep, snoring, her eye mask on. I tiptoe out and make my way to the living room, where the wind seems worse. The windows rattle more insistently and the branches of the conker tree flap more furiously. The wind whistles up through the floorboards; I can feel it round my ankles. Captain isn’t happy about all this. He is thrashing around inside his cage. I take off the travel rug and open the door to stroke his head which he usually likes when he is feeling stressed. It works to a certain extent but he still mutters under his breath, ‘Don’t panic, don’t panic.’
‘Don’t worry, Captain,’ I tell him. ‘I’m not panicking. Go to sleep.’
The thought of sleep entices me back to bed. I can hardly keep awake. It has been a long day, what with the children and Mr Donnelly and Christopher Bennett and Bob and ‘It’. My legs are dead, my brain numb though I just have enough energy left over to be annoyed with Bob. He should’ve phoned earlier. He should be here now, making me Ovaltine and keeping me company in the storm.
I read Spycatcher for a while, a copy that Wink managed to get hold of somehow. This does the trick and soon my eyelids begin to droop, but every time sleep pulls me under, there is another new noise to try and make sense of. Eventually sleep wins the battle and I am dreaming once again of being that glamorous Russian spy in a Bond film, trapped in a train compartment with 007 himself, when I am slapped wide awake by a heart-thumping, stomach-sinking crash, a sickening mixture of glass shattering, wood creaking and something heavy falling over. For a second I think the train has crashed but then I get a grip and am out of bed, heading for Wink’s room… maybe she’s fallen out of bed…
No, she is still there. I can make out her frail body in the darkness. All quiet, all still. She’d sleep through anything… the noise must’ve come from the living room…
I’m not quite sure what comes out of my mouth when I open the door. I’m not sure if I am able to say anything at all. It looks like we’ve been the victims of a cruel and nasty burglary or a dire
ct hit by a bomb. Or maybe I am still dreaming, like Max in Where The Wild Things Are. Our living room has turned into the world all around.
Gradually my brain catches up with what has happened. For the wind is now screaming straight at me. There is no glass left in the window. It has been smashed by the horse chestnut tree which has… no, no, no… fallen right into the room and is pinning the crushed cage to the floor.
Above the furore of the storm, I make out a screechy voice saying ‘Shut that door, shut that door,’ as if Larry Grayson is present right here in our living room.
Then I spot a flash of red. Red tail feathers. There is Captain in the branches of the tree, as if he is back in the rainforest, like my father. Yes, I am most definitely dreaming.
I am pulled from my shocked inertia by a voice outside in the street.
‘You alright up there?’
I can’t get anywhere near the window to see who it is so I go down to the shop and switch on the light. Mr Taylor is banging on the door, peering through the glass, his dressing gown billowing all around him, revealing the prize-winning knobbly knees that I never expected to see again.
‘You look terrible Philippa,’ he says as I let him in. ‘Is anyone hurt?’
‘No, Wink and I were in bed, poor old Captain’s alright, I must’ve left his cage open, I was so tired, not thinking, he’s sat in the tree.’
‘Show me,’ he says, authoritatively, and he bolts the shop door saying, ‘you can’t be too careful… looters… ’ (He is a Daily Mail regular.) And as he guides me back up the stairs, I realise I am shaking.
‘Let me call 999 for you,’ he says after a moment’s surveillance of the great outdoors in our living room. ‘You’ll need some help clearing this lot up.’
‘I’d better phone Bob first.’
‘Isn’t he here?’
‘He’s at Sheila’s.’