‘Well, that’s about it, I’m afraid. Not much to see.’
‘Thanks, anyway.’
‘If you like,’ he suggested, ‘we could go back to my place. Watch a film, smoke some dope ...’
She shook her head and Lorna now saw that, in his disappointment, he didn’t really look like Omar Sharif. His good looks were superficial, like make-up: a chameleon skin stretched over a false frame. He was just somebody pretending to be Omar Sharif: an impostor, and a bad one at that. His dark eyes weren’t mysterious, they were blank. He pressed a button on the outer wall and ushered her back into the woodland.
She didn’t go home at first, and for a while she just walked. It was good to smell flowers again, to touch bark, to feel the brush of grass. She walked further into the woodland, no longer believing where she was and no longer caring. Trees stretched out in all directions, oaks and willows, small streams bubbling between them. In small clearings were daffodils and the drone of bees. She may have walked for hours or minutes, clambering on stepping-stones over streams, following grassy pathways up hillsides, feeling the wind on her face. She was in a familiar place, but somewhere she had never been to before. She kept looking, trying to find the clue that would tell her where she was. Then she found herself on the top of a hill, clear of the woodland, with a steep grass slope facing towards the sea. In the distance were two tall towers, and smoke was billowing from one of them.
* * *
She woke with Joe’s arms around her and lay, warm and safe, listening to his slow and measured breathing, instinctively pushing herself back into him so they fitted together like spoons. Then her mobile phone alarm went off. Just before Christmas, she’d set it to make a quacking sound, like a duck, thinking it would wake her up with a smile, the closest thing to a dawn chorus that her phone offered. This was the first morning she’d experienced it and realised it was intensely irritating. Being woken up was bad enough; being woken up by an electronic duck was worse. She reached up to switch the bloody thing off, knocked her phone onto the carpet, and swore.
‘Nice wake-up,’ said Joe.
‘Sorry ... thought it would be funny. But it’s not.’
His arms were still around her and she folded herself back into him. ‘Definitely not,’ he agreed, sounding half-asleep.
She ran her tongue around her teeth. ‘Promise I’ll change it. No more animals.’ They lay there a little longer, while Lorna thought about what she felt. It was still the passionate start of their relationship, the fiery beginning where they made love every time they saw one another, but not yet confident enough to put how they felt into words; the part where they wanted each other all the time, and always had to touch one another and hold hands. But emotions were still being skimmed over, particularly by Joe, although he would always hold her tight after they’d made love (a term he never used) and tell her she was beautiful – which she didn’t believe, but what the hell. But she’d not known what he felt, and whether they were on a similar wavelength. It was the not knowing that troubled her. She’d never pushed him, never asked what he felt, not wanting to scare him away, but aware that he was an itinerant Australian and would one day travel home. And then what? She didn’t dare think about it. Instead, she forced herself to break free from his embrace and sit on the side of the bed. ‘The HappyMart awaits, Joe. Duty beckons.’
He groaned. ‘Want some coffee?’ she asked.
‘Hmmm ...’
‘Which means what exactly?’
‘Yes,’ he said into the pillow.
‘Then, go make some, Joe. I’m going to have a shower.’
By the time she’d showered and dressed, Joe had made coffee and, unusually for him, had also made toast and they sat like a newly-married couple at the kitchen table smiling at one another. His hair was dishevelled but now she knew him well enough, she stroked it flat with one hand. ‘You really are a mess in the morning, Joe.’ She picked up her mug and cradled it in both hands. ‘Did you mean what you said last night?’
‘About Greece? Yeah, of course.’
‘In which case, I’ll need to buy thermal underwear.’
‘It won’t be that bad. It’s Greece, and Crete is quite far south.’
‘All the same ...’
Lorna had been thinking about the HappyMart which stocked a small selection of clothing, mostly nylon socks and shoddy underwear but not, as far as she could remember, anything warm. In the intervening hours, another thought had also come to her. They were about to go to a place where the main men in her life had both made a cameo appearance; Austin professing love, Leo never phoning – and now Joe. Would they also make love outside Nico’s taverna? Would that help expunge Leo’s ghost? ‘You won’t forget about tonight?’ she asked, moving onto another nagging worry.
‘Dinner here, right? I finally get to meet your glamorous friend.’
‘She’s a flirt, Joe. Don’t flirt back. That’s an order, not a request.’ She bit her lip, having long experience of Suzie’s charms, particularly now she was an actress with a real film about to be released, while Lorna was a check-out operator ... no, supervisor, which didn’t make her feel any better. ‘If you even so much as look at her, I will kill you..’
He was smiling. ‘But suppose she says something to me. I’ll have to look at her.’
She smiled back. ‘You know what I mean.’
He kissed her goodbye and she listened to his footsteps on the stairs, then went to the window and watched him on the pavement, turning up the collar of his coat and looking up the window where she was standing. He waved, and she waved back, wanting to run down the stairs after him and ... what exactly? Drag him back upstairs and into bed? Tell him she loved him? He’d been gone for only a minute, and already she was missing him.
She went back to the kitchen to finish her coffee, and was surprised by the front door being opened, and Suzie appearing in the doorway. She’d stayed the night in North Berwick and Lorna hadn’t expected to see her until that evening. Suzie heaved a jumbo-sized bag of toilet rolls on the kitchen table. ‘Your Christmas present, remember?’ she said.
‘What on earth are you doing here? This, for you, is officially dawn.’
‘To speak to you, that’s what.’ Suzie made herself a cup of coffee and sat opposite Lorna, occupying the space that Joe had just vacated. She could still smell his aftershave, still see his fallen lock of hair.
‘OK ...’
‘Christ, Lorna, your brains have turned into mush! Has that fucking shop made you deranged?’
‘Only partially.’
‘It’s just that I can’t believe you said yes!’ Suzie seemed genuinely angry.
Lorna had seen the way that Suzie had scowled at her on Christmas Day, knowing a rebuke would follow at some point. That point seemed to have been reached. Lorna took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair. ‘For God’s sake, he’s only going to have a chat about me on a golf course! Where’s the harm in that?’ As Lorna said this, she had a mental picture of her own father hopelessly lost in the Auld Hoose, not making it to the first tee.
‘I’m only looking out for your best interests, babe,’ said Suzie, scowling as Lorna lit a cigarette.
‘But where’s the harm in it?’ she repeated and, sighing, opened a window. A weak sun was still low over the rooftops but the wind was blowing the wrong way and most of her smoke was ending up inside the flat.
‘Chats on golf courses are often fatal,’ said Suzie. ‘They lead to things.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m. Not. Being. Ridiculous.’
‘What, like an interview?’
‘Exactly, Lorna. Before you know it, you’ll be on a slippery slope to nowhere. What’s happened to you, babe?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You know precisely what I mean. OK, you’ve never aspired to be Mother Teresa. At the same time, sweetie, I’ve never had you down as a fucking corporate lawyer.’
Lorna said nothing. It was too
early in the morning to have to justify anything, let alone something she couldn’t yet justify to herself.
‘I’m your bestest friend, remember?’ said Suzie. ‘I just want to know what’s happened to you.’
‘Nothing, Suze. Just life.’ Lorna looked at her watch, realising what the time was. ‘I have to go,’ she said, then paused. ‘Joe’s also asked me to go back to Crete with him, visit Nico and Simone. She’s pregnant, apparently.’
‘How nice,’ said Suzie. ‘When?’
‘In a few weeks.’
‘In a few weeks! What’s the point in going to Greece in the middle of winter?’
‘They’re having a party,’ said Lorna. ‘Joe thought it would be nice if we went.’
Suzie raised an eyebrow. ‘You must be mad.’
‘It’s a family gathering, Suze.’
‘Then maybe you are making the right choice, Lorna. Now that you’re about to sell your soul, you’ll soon be able to afford to do whatever you like.’
Lorna felt her blood rising. ‘And what exactly is your point?’ she demanded. ‘You’re the actress, not me. You’re the one with the Porsche, not me! You’re the one whose earning Christ knows how much! Not me, Suze! I work in a shop, remember, with brains for mush.’
‘Well, that’s what it seems like, Lorna.’
‘Don’t you dare lecture me about being able to afford stuff.’
‘I’m not lecturing you!’
‘It’s what it sounds like, Suze.’
Suzie plonked her empty cup in the sink and turned, arms crossed over her chest. ‘At least I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do. Not exactly making the world a better place, but that’s your thing. I’m more interested in my world. But the Lorna I used to know always wanted to do something useful with her life. Maybe, past tense, babe.’
‘I haven’t changed,’ she mumbled.
‘But something has ... something has.’
The two girls stared grimly at one another. Suzie eventually broke the spell. ‘Anyway, I’ve got an announcement to make.’
‘An announcement?’
‘A boyfriend announcement.’
Lorna, still angry, was late, and she hated being late, even for MIKE. ‘Then it’ll have to wait, Suze,’ she said, turning on her heel and leaving Suzie looking unusually crestfallen.
Minke
There was nothing that Mike liked better than staff meetings, judging by his beatific smile and gleaming eyes, as he ran through that week’s not-to-be-missed special offers. It was one regular occasion that Lorna found particularly depressing. ‘Christmas is over, boys and girls,’ he was announcing, beads of sweat on his forehead, the HappyMart heating having accidentally been turned up to tropical overnight, ‘and that means it’s going to be New Year in a few days.’ Mike paused to let this not unexpected information sink in. Lorna was perched on one corner of her checkout, while Maggie, Gosia, Vlad, and Mad Steph had formed a rough semi-circle around Mike. Lorna was always struck by Mike’s enthusiasm, which seemed to be shared by the other managers she’d met and even some of the staff; he genuinely seemed to consider his small empire both challenging and rewarding, and would regularly emerge from his cupboard to march proudly around his domain, offering inspirational encouragement to his staff, before returning to his office ... to what? Climb over his desk and check actual sales figures against forecasts? Chase up delayed deliveries? Go to sleep? It was hard to know what Mike did in his cupboard, but Lorna couldn’t help but admire his enthusiasm for the tedium of his existence. Her bored indifference to her job made her feel like an imposter – someone who shouldn’t have any stars, let alone two. She forced herself to concentrate. ‘That means that mince pies go on special offer. Likewise, Christmas pudding, lager, and own-brand whisky. Everyone likes a party at New Year, don’t they, boys and girls,’ he said, smiling, embracing them within the HappyMart family, as Lorna’s attention drifted back to Suzie and her stinging denunciation. Had she changed? Lorna didn’t think so, but did know that she was now aiming in a slightly different direction; her ambitions were no longer about nonsensical ideals, but about practicalities. The HappyMart was a constant reminder of her need to escape, to never again have to listen to Mike’s encouraging speeches: to aspire to better – and to not feel guilty.
Suzie was going back to London for New Year, having been invited to several parties that would be attended by people she utterly had to meet, sweetie. Producers and casting directors; the glittery people that Suzie now mixed with. Joe would be working on New Year’s Eve, the busiest night of his pub’s year, and Lorna had invited a few friends over for the evening. They would probably drink far too much, then at midnight watch the firework display over the castle, counting down the hours and minutes until Joe came round after his shift, sober and exhausted. At the thought of him, she smiled, and Mike smiled back, delighted to see his checkout supervisor sharing his enthusiasm for food retailing.
* * *
Later that day, in the early afternoon, she found a frog sitting in the middle of aisle four. How it got there was anybody’s guess. It was green and slimy, its throat pulsating and its neck craned backwards. It seemed to be looking at a box of cereals. The front of the box was dominated by a cartoon frog holding a large spoon and wearing a large smile. The frog on the floor wasn’t smiling, although it was hard to tell. Steph put it in a cardboard box and said she’d release him after work. (How did she know the frog was a him? Lorna wondered). Steph lived near a pond, so she told everyone. The HappyMart family agreed that would be best, glad of be relieved of any responsibility. Only Mike disagreed and suggested killing it and making frog’s legs, which Lorna assumed to be a joke although with Mike, being obese and much given to constant snacking, largely from the Snacks‘n’Nibbles range, she couldn’t be sure. The frog didn’t seem to mind being incarcerated in a box but, deprived of its cartoon counterpart, did look a little lonely, or so it seemed to her. It bore a distinct resemblance to Mike.
* * *
The only living thing that Lorna ever seen that was bigger than Mike or Aunt Meg was a whale, and it wasn’t properly alive. It wasn’t a very big whale. It was a minke whale to be exact, and it washed up on North Berwick’s east beach one morning. This was good, because the town’s famous golf course fronts onto the west beach, and all those American tourists presumably didn’t want to be distracted by police and coastguards and the stench of a decomposing whale.
Lorna had always liked whales, although she’d never seen one before. On TV, they seemed placid and kind, their size making them magisterial and wise. She liked the way they weren’t proper fish, and had to breathe air, and lived in families and looked after one another. She liked the mystery of them; how scientists didn’t really know how they navigated the oceans, or understand the clicks and squeaks of their language. One day, she used to think, she would study whale language and translate it. Would they be spouting wise philosophy? Describing the conjunction of stars in the night sky? Or just complaining, Bloody hell! Not fish again for tea. I wish we had some sweetcorn.
It was Dora Prentice who heard about the whale and texted Suzie, who texted Lorna. She had no idea how Dora got to hear about it, since you couldn’t see the beach from the bike sheds Even Lorna’s mum had heard about Dora’s burgeoning reputation although, being Catholic, she was more forgiving. It’s her jeans, she told Lorna, which didn’t make any sense.
The whale was surrounded by yellow tape, presumably to stop small boys prodding it, and by men in uniforms wearing walkie-talkies. Occasionally the walkie-talkies would make a squawking sound and then voices came through. The words were indecipherable; like whale language that only whales could understand, it seemed that walkie-talkie language only made sense to large men in uniforms. There was also a Land Rover parked beside the whale, with COASTGUARD written on its side. Lorna looked out to sea, half expecting to see the rest of the whale’s family, but there was only a large tanker heading upriver towards Edinburgh.
Suzie joined h
er beside the yellow tape. She was wearing tailored blue jeans and a cream blouse, neither of which would have come from a charity shop, unlike Lorna’s jeans and T-shirt. Several charity shops had taken to calling their clothing pre-loved, which made them sound nice rather than secondhand, which made them sound shoddy. Pre-what? Lorna wanted to ask. Pre death? Pre realising that shapeless, baggy jeans just aren’t fashionable? Her mother, whose taste in fashion should have been a criminal offence, had tried to persuade Lorna that her friends would be really jealous, depositing a few meagre coins on the shop’s counter and handing her the plastic bag containing Lorna’s new pre-loved jeans and pre-loved T-shirt.
‘It’s a big brute,’ said Suzie, looking at the whale. Was that mascara around her eyes? A hint of blusher on her cheeks? She brushed blonde hair from her eyes and pouted at the whale, half closing her eyes against a gust of wind. ‘Do you think it’s really dead?’
Lorna was flattered that Suzie had asked her, as if she could possibly be an expert on whales. ‘I expect so,’ Lorna replied. ‘Anyway, it’s not moving.’
This wasn’t quite true, as the whale’s tail was still in the water so that, with each incoming wave, its tail would move up and down, like it was trying to flap its way further up the beach.
‘So what are they going to do with it?’ Suzie asked, brushing a grain of sand off her lipstick. Lipstick? Lorna’s mother had made clear that make-up was for grown-ups. Girls are made of sugar and spice, she would say, and don’t need make-up.
‘Maybe just dig a big hole,’ Lorna suggested.
‘It would have to be the biggest hole in the whole world,’ said Suzie.
‘A really fucking gigantic hole,’ agreed Lorna, which made Suzie cackle. Lorna liked it when Suzie laughed. It was uninhibited; it seemed to spring from every part of her body. Her laugh was contagious; when Suzie laughed, everyone laughed.
But it wasn’t really funny. The dead whale’s eye seemed alive, its blank gaze fixed on Lorna’s face, following her as she moved around its great carcass. She wanted to touch the whale, to stroke its flank, to tell it not to worry, and that she, Lorna, would look after other whales from now on.
The Things We Learn When We're Dead Page 31