That Was Then

by That Was Then (retail) (epub)

  ‘No, but I’ll get a cab.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky,’ she said, in this. No, you just might on the corner here – they drop off at the hotel.’

  ‘I’ll be alright.’

  I went to the front door, and she followed me. Then we both began to speak at the same time.

  ‘I’m sorry I—’

  ‘I do hope you—’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’m pleased we’ve met,’ she said. ‘It’s been something I wanted but didn’t know how to bring about. Perhaps this was the only way it was going to happen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good-bye then. And all the best.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I went out, and she closed the door quietly behind me.

  I should have gone straight to Victoria and caught the next train home. The trouble was I didn’t want to go back to my empty flat where the only company would be problems that I was in no state to solve.

  A cab pulled up right next to me which put me on the spot. I was in its sheltering warmth before I’d even decided where I was going.

  The driver assessed me in the rearview mirror. ‘ Round the block, then?’

  ‘Um – no, hang on …’ I clasped my brow. I could actually feel the throb of my head beating under my hand. To hell with it. Back there in Ian’s flat I had just proved, hadn’t I, that this was the perfect condition in which to to negotiate delicate social situations.

  ‘Do you know Troughtons Hotel in Vane Street?’ I asked.

  He clicked his teeth cheerily. ‘Retreat of the rich and famous.’

  It didn’t look anything much, which convinced me he was probably right. The utter discretion of the outside of Troughtons didn’t even run to declaring itself a hotel. Once I’d passed through the tall and solid outer door there was a small brass plate in the hushed lobby between that and the swing door, but even then the word ‘Hotel’ didn’t appear. The foyer, from which polished oak stairs spiralled up into dimly-lit upper reaches contained only one gigantic carved chair and a highly polished table with a vase of lilies. However, a man in a black jacket and pinstripes appeared as if by magic and asked in a beautifully-modulated Scottish voice what he could do for me.

  ‘I believe there’s a Mr Charles McNally staying here? I wondered if he was in.’

  ‘He is here, yes,’ said the man. ‘Is he expecting you?’

  ‘He said to drop in. My name’s Eve Piercy.’

  ‘Fine, Mrs Piercy, he’s in two-thirteen, the lift is round the corner. I’ll tell him you’re on your way.’

  ‘Thank you.

  The upper storeys of hotels are always quiet, and a little dreamlike, but the second floor of Troughtons was positively eery. If I hadn’t had someone else’s word for it I’d have thought there was only me in the entire building.

  I found number two thirteen, but as I raised my hand to knock the door opened.

  Charles McNally was barefoot, in grey joggers and a frayed jumper. His hair was sticking up on one side as though he’d been lying on it. A black and white film flickered on television in the middle distance.

  ‘Eve, are you ever seeing nature in the raw …! Come in, come in, sorry about the mess, come on.…’

  He walked ahead of me into the suite – it was vast – and zapped the television. There were clothes scattered everywhere, papers all over the table, a room service tray loaded with plates on the floor. From the pelmet of the smoke-grey ceiling-to-floor curtains hung a lifesize toy gibbon in fluffy banana yellow.

  My host scratched the back of his head, grinning anxiously. ‘This is the best surprise, Eve, but if you’d have rung I could have spared you all this.’

  ‘It was a spur of the moment decision. And it doesn’t matter.’

  Now what? I wondered. I’d pictured ordered calm, a stately bout of verbal fencing, drinks in the bar (tomato juice for me), the flash of the gold Amex, the offer of dinner duly declined, and a lift to the station. A grown-up, self-affirming encounter that would send me back to Littelsea feeling rather less like Bagwoman and more able to adopt a sophisticated overview of my troubles.

  ‘Sit down, please.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Instead of which – I looked around me – it looked as if I’d linked up with my very own Bagman.

  ‘Don’t go away,’ he exhorted, walking backwards and holding out his hand as if I were an apparition. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  I sat there and waited, and wished I hadn’t come. The suite had a distinctive smell, not unpleasant but familiar and evocative. I sniffed. I knew who I was reminded of: Ben. Oh God, I thought, he’s pigging it, I feel like death, this is the worst mistake of my life.

  He came back in, having put on some Nikes, and a blue polo shirt instead of the jumper. He had also, I thought rather touchingly, put water on his hair but the measure had been only partially successful and the odd strand was continuing to stick straight up.

  ‘I have to tell you,’ he said ruefully, ‘that you look great.’

  ‘Really?’ I couldn’t even remember what I’d put on, the early morning when I’d done so was like another life. ‘Oh, this.’

  ‘It suits you, really. Now what would you like Eve? I’m afraid my body clock’s shot to pieces, where’ve we got to? Afternoon tea or what?’

  ‘Well,’ I said cautiously, ‘it’s about quarter past seven, I’m really on my way home—’

  ‘But you have to eat. Shall we do that?’

  ‘No!’ I said, rather too sharply. ‘No, thanks, to be honest I’m feeling a little delicate today.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I know what we both need. Brandy and soda, plenty of ice.’

  ‘I’m not sure—’

  ‘Trust me.’

  He went to the mini-bar – it was behind panelling, and very far from mini – and produced whopping drinks in heavy cut-glass tumblers. I took an extremely tentative sip but to my surprise the ice-and-fire slipped down rather well, and I took another.

  He sat down on the sofa and raised his glass. ‘Cheers, Eve. This is so great.’

  It wasn’t, and we both knew it. If it was not what I’d had in mind in my befogged state outside Ian’s building, how much less it must be what he’d been thinking of when he rang me.

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Let me get rid of this crap.’ He got up again and went to put the tray outside the door. Without the big suit, the big car, the clouds of oil-man glory he seemed not just smaller, but younger. The balance of confidence was more evenly distributed in spite of my indisposition.

  ‘I haven’t been out of this place all day,’ he told me, returning to the sofa, ‘and I guess it shows.’

  ‘Have you found anywhere to live yet?’

  ‘I keep looking at places, but the thought of buying one frightens the shit out of me.’

  ‘You’ve got somewhere in the States?’

  He shook his head. ‘A rented apartment. To be frank I wouldn’t mind staying here. I love hotels. They’re cosy. You can be alone but not lonely, I like that.’

  ‘I hate them,’ I said. ‘Especially on my own. After one night they give me shortness of breath.’

  ‘But you stayed with your daughter,’ he reminded me.

  ‘That was a holiday. And she was around.’

  ‘I don’t get out enough,’ he said, ‘I’m a bum. Who said travel broadens the mind? All I do when I travel is work and make an in-depth study of the local television.’

  I thought how strange that Charles McNally, globetrotting bachelor and fearless troubleshooter should like hotels because they made him feel safe. I pictured him jetting into exotic places all over the world and rushing to his room to muss the bed, test the TV, check the towelling robe … It was bizarre.

  ‘How are your family?’ he asked. ‘No actually I mean your son, because I do bump into your daughter from time to time.’

  Go with that, I thought. ‘Yes, she said.’

  ‘She’s a smart girl, Mel.’

  ‘
I’ve always thought so.’ The fact that he so readily remembered her name made me think this wasn’t just flannel. ‘And your son?’

  ‘He’s fine. I don’t see much of him.’

  ‘New romance keeping him busy, huh?’ I felt my stomach lurch, and he added: ‘Our mutual friend Martin Drage said your boy was dating his daughter. I remember they looked good together at that party … we were watching from the terrace?’

  ‘Oh, yes – yes.’

  ‘Lucky kids.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Could I never get away from it? I felt absolutely dog-tired. Charles, too, seemed to have slipped into a reverie. The sleeping giant of good manners heaved beneath my exhaustion.

  ‘What were you watching on telly?’ I asked.

  ‘Whistle Down the Wind, do you know it?’

  ‘I remember it.’

  ‘It’s absolutely one of my all-time favourites, a classic. It’s showing on the in-house channel. Those child actors were just so great.’

  ‘Hayley Mills.’

  ‘That’s right. She could break your heart in that movie.’

  I could hardly believe we were having this conversation, and

  that he was displaying this almost childish enthusiasm for an old,

  English, black and white film.

  I nodded at the screen. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Eve … You didn’t come all this way to

  watch TV.’

  And what exactly, I wondered, had I come all this way for?

  I shrugged. ‘Go on. I’d like to see a bit of it – it’d be nostalgic.’

  ‘OK, if you say so.’

  He switched it on. There was the windswept northern landscape,

  the children in their belted gabardine macs and wellies, Hayley’s

  pale, big-eyed face as she talked to the convict in the barn, the man

  they believed to be Jesus … There was that haunting music.…

  I don’t know which of us fell asleep first, but I was the first to wake up. The film had finished and the in-house listings were on the screen. I didn’t move to turn it off because I didn’t want to wake Charles McNally, who was dead to the world. He lay on his stomach on the sofa with one hand trailing on the carpet. He hadn’t been lying down the last time I looked, so he must have watched me drift off and then made himself comfortable. Oh God, had my mouth dropped open? Had I snored? Shit – dribbled?

  He sighed heavily and I thought he was going to wake up, but he only turned his head the other way. What a paradigm of middle-aged social interaction in the nineties we were – spark out in front of the box.

  I looked around the suite and experienced a momentary itch to tidy up. But this after all was a five-star hotel ‘retreat to the rich and famous’ as the taxi driver had said. Gingerly I picked up my bag off the floor, found a biro and a blank page at the back of my diary, and considered carefully what to write. No point in apologising too profusely for falling asleep, since he’d done the same; not much point either in thanking him fulsomely for allowing me to watch television amongst his dirty washing.

  In the end I put: ‘Nice to see you, take care of yourself, Yours, Eve.’

  He didn’t move a muscle as I placed the note beneath the remote control on the arm of the sofa, and the door made no sound as I closed it behind me.

  I bought a first-class ticket back to Littelsea, so I could sit on my own and in comfort. I wondered how on earth I was going to get the car back. Since calling Ben was out of the question, even if I’d had Nozz’s number, I’d have to get a taxi the other end as well. When I got there there were no cabs waiting and I had to call for one. The driver was insinuating and the price was extortionate.

  There were four messages on the answering machine. The first wasn’t for me: ‘This is a message for Ben, from Sophie. Where are you? Not that long till I go, so give us a ring – OK? Bye for now.’

  The next two were both from Sabine, at first cool. ‘Eve, it’s Sabine. It would be nice to see you.’ The second was almost peremptory. ‘This is Sabine for Eve. Give me a ring when you get in.’

  The fourth message was no more than a short silence – I guessed Sabine again, losing patience. Well let her sweat, I thought, and left the machine on. The phone rang twice more, once as I was taking my make-up off and again just before I plunged into sleep, but on neither occasion did I hear a voice other than my son’s.

  I didn’t sleep late next morning – habit I suppose – but I did lie in bed for ages, unable to face another round of crisis management. The voice of common sense told me that I should get back into work and re-impose a structure on my life, but it might as well have recommended an assault on K2.

  I finally broke cover at ten. I had a bath and put on jeans and a T-shirt, which felt weird on a weekday morning. The latter of the two calls had been from a London number that I didn’t recognise. It was a sunny morning and I went out on to the balcony. Brave and calm, I thought – but when the doorbell rang it made me jump so much that I slopped coffee on myself.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mrs Eve Piercy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Interflora for you.’

  It was very nearly the whole of Interflora for me. The little man from our local branch looked like a floribunda Burnham Wood.

  ‘Hope you’ve got enough vases.’

  There were four dozen yellow roses, I counted as I put them in the bath. Then I took the card back on to the balcony.

  ‘These can’t possibly say how sorry I am, but I hope they’re pretty. I’ll call when I feel less like a jerk and an idiot. Charles.’

  Like an idiot, I cried.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Later that morning I forced myself to go into Ben’s room. It was like World War Three as usual and, also as usual, the door was open. Compared with the obsessive secrecy of his teenage years I usually found this openness touching, but today it seemed bitterly ironic. I opened the bottom of the sash window as far as it would go and went at the room like a thing possessed. I was going to bring it back under my control. This room was part of my flat, dammit, and as such it was my right to have it decent.

  I picked up all the clothes and hurled them on to the landing. I’d wash the lot but by God I wasn’t going to be too fussy about looking at labels. Then I stripped the bed and threw the sheets on the pile as well, Algy with them. I fetched a binbag and filled it in record time: I didn’t waste time on the decision-making process, anything that wasn’t instantly recognisable as something else I designated rubbish. Everything that was something else I stuffed in the drawers or the wardrobe. I draped the duvet and the bedside rug out of the window. I hoovered and wiped and polished and went round the edges of the window frame with an old toothbrush. I replaced the rug and put clean sheets on the bed. For a simple domestic operation it felt amazingly like vandalism.

  On second thoughts I rescued Algy from the tangle of dirty sheets and submerged him in a tepid solution of handwash in the kitchen sink. His beady eyes stared up at me through the scummy foam like Glenn Close at the end of Fatal Attraction.

  I found some vases and put the roses on every available surface. I wondered what the significance of yellow was. Ribbons I knew, but roses …? Perhaps it was just an avoidance of red, or pink, the colours of romance. It was a very long time since I’d received flowers from anyone but my husband, and I wished I could have taken more pleasure from them. But it had been such a strange, unsatisfactory meeting, and now that I was back, with the enormity of Ben’s actions hanging over me, I could see how impossible it was for Charles McNally to understand the smallest thing about my life. We were on separate planets, and only red wine and jealousy had prompted me so unwisely to visit his.

  I was just stuffing the cut-off ends of the roses in the swingbin when the doorbell rang again.

  ‘Mrs Piercy – it’s Anthea.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Anthea – from Mr Piercy’s office?’

  ‘A
nthea!’

  I buzzed the door open and went down to meet her. We caught up with one another on the second landing, where she was taking a breather.

  ‘Golly, you are high up …!’

  ‘I’m sorry. Come and have a coffee.’

  ‘No, marvellous, really, you must be so fit…! Look – I don’t want to disturb you, I wasn’t really expecting you to be in, I was going to put a note through the door, but then I thought I might as well – oh my goodness!’

  ‘What are you doing down here?’

  ‘I brought your car back.’

  I was mortified. ‘Anthea, you didn’t! But it’s miles, I feel so awful!’

  She waved a hand, too breathless to speak as we went in. ‘ No … honestly.…’

  ‘How did you start it? I’ve got the key.’

  ‘Luckily Mr Piercy’s still got one on his keyring. I’ve got it here to give back to you …’ She handed it to me.

  ‘This really is very kind of you, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Please, I enjoy driving, and I was going the opposite way to all the traffic. Mr Piercy said you’d be lost without it, and I’m being thoroughly compensated, he’s given me the day off.’

  ‘Heavens, I should hope so.’

  As I filled the kettle, she asked: ‘Do you mind if I call a cab to take me back to the station?’

  ‘I’ll give you a lift, it’s the least I can do.’

  ‘It’s on the company, Mr Piercy was most insistent.’

  ‘Well if you’re sure … The phone’s in the sitting room – there’s a taxi number on the pad.’

  In a couple of minutes she came back in and I handed her her coffee.

  ‘Thanks, no sugar thanks. He’ll be here in about ten minutes. What absolutely gorgeous roses everywhere.’

  ‘Aren’t they?’ We leaned back on the worktops. ‘ They just arrived this morning.’

  ‘So lovely – from an admirer?’

  The charming candour of this question probably influenced my answer.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think they may be.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Anthea again. ‘Lucky you.’

  What I needed was someone from my own planet to dump on. My glimpse of the Chatsworths lunching en famille at The Esplanade made me think that their early return from holiday might have something to do with the boys. It wouldn’t – couldn’t – be in the same league as our situation, but there was much to be said for a trouble shared, and as the mother of sons Ronnie would at least be entirely sympathetic.