by Judy Astley
‘I didn’t mean that kind of talent,’ Lottie told him. ‘I meant the money sort. The Old Testament was big on securing the future. Unlike us. All our money’s in this house.’
And what a house, a vast Surrey Lutyens gem, far too big for what was now only three of them, and soon to be only two once Sorrel had gone first on her travels and then to university.
‘Yeah but …’ Mac started folding the whole of the sports section into a fat, unwieldy paper aeroplane. For a second she wondered about asking him to save the racing pages, to start checking out form for that £3.50 bet. ‘… what would you rather do now? Stash everything away for a rainy day that we might not live long enough to see? Or should we think about doing something else? In the bank yesterday, I was thinking about kids having gap years and why it was only them. It’s our lot would appreciate it more, surely.’
‘Mm. I was thinking that way too,’ Lottie agreed vaguely, ‘but in Top Shop.’
France was perfect in May, she thought, that rustic pension would be just the thing. If they simply packed and left Holbrook House right now, they could go on from there, overland towards Italy, down through Greece, Turkey, all points east. It couldn’t be a first-class trip though, more a budget break at the moment. Oh you beautiful but falling-down house, she thought as she looked at the peeling paint on the kitchen walls, and the splashy self-portrait of her own naked body that covered up a crack so deep and serious that no one wanted to have to look at it and consider the expense of repairs: why, house, are you such a costly dependant? When Sorrel left for university, would it be so terribly disloyal to this thirty-year home to consider, just maybe, giving someone else a chance to do the right thing by it?
Ilex was always going on about pensions. Lottie sometimes thought he must have been swapped at birth, for how else could she and Mac have raised a son so cautious and sensible? She imagined the hell it must have been for his real parents who’d have been constantly bewildered to find themselves bringing up some kind of junior Ozzie Osbourne. What would these unknown people, a Building Society executive perhaps, paired with a studious librarian, make of their cuckoo? How had they dealt, in his younger years, with his appalling language, his moody clothes and his crash-and-burn music on their quiet Madeira holidays?
A few months before, Ilex had brought to the house with him a collection of brochures about ‘Third Age Options’, full of deeply unthrilling information about how to maximize investments. Lottie had tried to disillusion him gently, pointing out that she and Mac had long ago learned that in their hands investments tended to settle for minimizing themselves; they wouldn’t be making the day of any fancy city brokers unless they had a stonking win during a Las Vegas bargain weekend break. She remembered how he’d smiled so blankly when she’d said all this, as if she’d told him a joke that he didn’t want to admit he didn’t get. When he and Manda came to lunch this Sunday, Lottie rather hoped he’d bring tulips instead – they would be far more welcome.
There was a rattle and a clunk from the hallway and Lottie went to collect the post from the mat.
‘Len gets later every day,’ Lottie muttered as she carried the small heap of envelopes back to the kitchen. ‘I don’t feel as if the day can start properly till he’s been and now look, it’s nearly eleven already and I haven’t been down to check the coriander or feed the hens.’
‘No rush – nothing’s going anywhere. Though I’m really beginning to think we should.’ He chuckled. ‘Why should kids be the only ones who get to have all the travel adventures? I know we’ve seen the world, you and me, but that was work.’
It was mostly Holiday Inns, airports, smoke-filled buses and backstage bars too. If they’d played Rome, say, they’d immediately be on the way to Florence and the next gig rather than touring the ancient sites. Even Australia had been an in-and-out job, four days, four cities and on to Tokyo. Lottie looked at him. What was he saying? That he too seriously wondered for the first time about selling up and moving on?
The house seemed to agree – only that morning Lottie had noticed that the fuzzy, greenish patch of mouldy damp on the floor of the downstairs cloakroom had definitely got bigger. It sort of glittered too, like a holy statue weeping mystical tears. It reminded her slightly of a dog holding up an injured paw, asking for it to be fixed, please – and, if you can’t do it, please find someone who can. This tiny seed of an idea about getting away could be like idly mentioning you might need an extension to the house – once the thought had been voiced, you realized you simply couldn’t contemplate living without the extra space. But oh lordy, the potential for upheaval. Could they really just pack and sneak out when no one was looking?
Mac poured himself another cup of coffee. ‘Anything profitable in the mail? A win on the premium bonds? Reader’s Digest come up with my name yet?’
Lottie laughed. ‘God knows, you deserve it. You must be the only person in the country who fills in every single one of those forms they send you to claim the big prize.’
‘That’s right. Me and Tom Champagne, we go back a long way.’
‘Crazy name.’ She shook her head. ‘Hope he’s a bubbly kind of guy.’
‘It would be such a waste if he’s a miserable git,’ Mac agreed. ‘Go on then. Hand over the bad news. Ugh – brown envelopes, bills, bills, more bills. This place, it’s like heating a castle. And what’s this?’ He ripped open a large envelope. ‘Some local government bullshit. I just paid the council tax, what more can they want?’
Mac stared in puzzlement at the envelope’s contents. He spread out on the table in front of him the various forms, brochures and information sheets.
‘Buses?’ Mac said. ‘What do I want with …? Bloody ’ell, Lottie, they want me to apply for a sodding bus pass! I’m not that old, am I?’
‘Ah! Well I suppose you nearly are. You’ll be able to join the Twirlies!’ she told him.
‘What the naffin’ ’ell is a “Twirly”?’ Mac looked perplexed. ‘Sounds like the Brownies or something. Is it a sect? Is it paramilitary?’ There was a glimmer of hope in his eye and Lottie fleetingly considered the awfulness of Mac being let loose with any kind of weapon. He’d once taken a powerful air rifle to a flock of pigeons that were devouring the bean plants, a flock so dense no one could possibly miss. And although not a single bird lost so much as a feather, a passing rambler on the far side of the fence had come to the front door showing a pellet hole in his rucksack and raging that if he hadn’t bent to look at a grass snake he could have lost an eye.
Lottie considered. ‘No and possibly yes. “Twirlies” are those pensioners who line up at 9.25 in the morning to get on a bus and when they try to use their passes, driver says, “Sorry, love, you’re too early.” Twirly. Get it?’
‘Got it,’ Mac groaned. ‘Nothing paramilitary, then?’
‘The uniform for men and women is beige coats, woolly hats. The men are armed with walking sticks and the women with tartan shopping trolleys. Both lethal.’
‘You’re being ageist. That could be us, one day.’ Mac slowly tore up his bus pass application into tiny pieces.
‘Never,’ Lottie said. ‘Our generation didn’t fail to die before it got old just so it could wear beige. At least not me and you. I shall totter to my dotage in Vivienne Westwood and a selection of mad hats, thank you.’
I’d better think about making a start on collecting all that lot now, she thought ruefully – when does dotage start? Or had it crept up already and taken hold without her noticing? There were a lot of things that did that. Her passport had needed renewing the previous year. As she’d filled in the forms she’d had a weird shiver of knowledge that maybe this, or the next, could be the last one she’d have. And then there were the succession of wolfhounds they’d had over the years, even to the extent of being serious breeders and Cruft’s entrants at one time. They hadn’t got one at the moment; the last one had died in the autumn and was buried, along with four of its ancestors, down in the orchard – but when they did, should they g
et a puppy and risk it ending up homeless on the grounds of outliving them? Not only was she having these bizarre musings, but she was also furious with herself for them: she was probably wasting carefree time here and should not have to give this so much as a passing thought for another twenty or even thirty years. In fact, if she was given the kind of luxurious TLC the late Queen Mother had had, she could still have another fifty-plus years to live. You just couldn’t tell. All she could say was that although she felt as strong and healthy as she had in her thirties, thoughts now shimmied across her mind that wouldn’t have got so much as a look-in back then.
Lottie indicated the little heap of ripped paper on the table. ‘You should have filled that form in and sent it off, Mac – it’s the ecological way to go. The local green mafia will be very disappointed in you.’
Am I nagging? she wondered. She heard old women like that all the time. They were in the supermarket and the older they got, the bossier, telling their defeated, wizened old husbands that no, they wouldn’t like Coco Pops and to get a move on or they’d miss Countdown. She didn’t want to catch herself turning into that type.
‘Bugger the green mafia, I can’t start queuing up for buses,’ Mac said. ‘Suppose someone recognized me? Suppose someone said, “Ooh look, it’s that old geezer who used to front Charisma and now look, he’s on a free bus pass, just like every other poor and needy oldie.” You can just see them, all ha ha ha, and who’d-a-thought-it.’
‘Hey, you’re not bloody Rod Stewart, you know! No one’s recognized you in ages. Perhaps they’d think you’d lost your licence and had to put your Ferrari collection into storage.’ Lottie started to clear away the remnants of their very late breakfast.
‘And I bet Rod filled in his bus pass form,’ she told Mac. ‘He’s your age and looking well up to snuff – he wouldn’t let a little thing like a council age-reminder get him down.’
‘Ah yes, but he’s a Scot. He’s not going to miss out on a freebie. So tell me then, where would a bus go that I’d want to get to?’
Lottie thought for a minute. ‘India? Didn’t you used to be able to go to India from Amsterdam on the Magic Bus? I have a vague memory of ads in Oz and the International Times for hippie-trail transport.’
Mac laughed. ‘I remember that – one of our sound techies got on a bus in Paris after a bender and ended up in Afghanistan. He thought he was on a coach trip to Versailles. I’m not sure how it would go down here though, getting on the local 170 and asking if they’re stopping in Katmandu.’
Mac picked up the rest of the mail and headed for the kitchen door. ‘I’ll go and let the hens out on the way to having a look at the coriander. The bloke from The Candle at Both Ends said he needs some later today – he’s got a Thai special on this week. The organic-box people are coming to pick up a load of the flat-leaf parsley so I’ll sort that as well. And then I’m going to put a few hours in down at the studio. I’ve got a song on the go in here.’ He tapped the side of his head and grinned at her. ‘It might do for Robbie.’
If only. Then they’d be talking pensions with a capital ‘P’ and even Ilex might shut up. Over the years since Charisma had gone their separate ways, several of Mac’s songs had been covered by other artists. ‘It might do for Robbie’, as in Williams, had become a running joke between them whenever Mac felt inspired to take himself off to his studio with a half-formed song in his head.
Lottie loaded the dishwasher and noticed a new line of rust on the side of its door. The machine was probably well overdue for replacement and had done long and loyal service. A bit like me, Lottie thought, then re-considered. No, it’s not, she thought. I’m still OK. There was, if she thought about it, a good long list of Still-Haves and Still-Dos. She put an encouraging list together in her head as she wiped down the work-top.
I still have: a full set of healthy teeth/a definite waist/an excellent sex life.
I still don’t: leak when I cough/get puffed going upstairs/wish the world would slow down.
I still: buy clothes from Jigsaw, Gap and Joseph/fancy Bob Geldof/wonder what I’ll be when I grow up.
That last might not be a good thing, she decided. Surely, once the time with Charisma was over she’d already been what she was going to be when she was a grown-up, albeit an occupation that for her had only lasted about five years before family life and Holbrook House took over. You could take toddlers out on the road with you, especially to the summer festivals, but once school-age set in, she and Mac had decided it was time to give Ilex and Clover some home-time. And then there were the things she’d been since: restaurant owner, wolfhound breeder, racehorse supporter, painter, gallery-owner, and now herb-and-salad-crops grower. All of these were things they’d sort of fallen into by accident. Only the children and the house were the constants and with Sorrel about to leave school, what exactly was the point of holding on to a house of this size and this demanding? She felt a small twinge of guilt at the thought of abandoning it, now that it had become needy and she had to remind herself that it wasn’t a human, or even a pet. Someone else, someone better equipped, with time and money and energy, would be able to take it on, give it the love and attention it deserved. She wondered if Mac was feeling the same way. Something told her he was.
Lottie scooped up the fragments of Mac’s bus pass application from the table and threw them into the bin. Her mother had been keen on bus trips late in her life. The highlight of each fortnight had been her Friday outings to historic houses, gardens, craft fairs, anywhere that could accommodate a mini-bus packed with old ladies in need of a loo, a sit-down, tea and a scone. When she’d died, Lottie had been moved to tears by the collection of small souvenirs her mother had collected on these trips. All the pottery thimbles, scenic coasters, printed tea towels and commemorative mugs tucked away unused in a cupboard were testament to a woman who liked to get out and about a lot and was far too well mannered to visit anywhere without making a grateful contribution to the economy of the venue.
‘Your rooster has raced up from the henhouse to crap on your car roof again.’ Mac reappeared in the kitchen doorway and indicated the sight of the fat Light Sussex cockerel strutting his stuff on top of Lottie’s Audi. ‘So do you fancy going there then?’ he added, looking oddly shy as if he was still a young boy asking her for a date. He’d looked a lot like that the first time she’d met him, when at sixteen she’d been refused entry (on grounds of looking under eighteen) to The Roundhouse to see Spooky Tooth and he’d managed to get her in, by way of the guest list.
‘Do I fancy going where?’ Lottie asked, wondering why you couldn’t reason with poultry.
‘India. On a bus. Or a plane, whatever. Like we were just talking about. It wasn’t just talk, was it?’
Telepathy like that was what you got, Lottie thought, when you’d lived with someone so long. She held her breath, waiting to see if he really was on the same thought rails as her.
‘It’s only …’ he continued, ‘I don’t want to be harvesting boring bloody leaves for the rest of my days. Perhaps we need to flog this massive great place and go, while we can still get around without needing new hips and knees. And I’ve been reading this great book about world events not to be missed. There’s a camel fair, at Pushkar, up in Rajasthan, sometime in November. It’s a sort of mixture of Glastonbury and the Appleton horse fair but with camels. Very colourful, very noisy. Smelly too, probably.’
Lottie pushed the door of the dishwasher shut with her foot and heard something fall off inside the machine. It was a loud clunk and sounded terminal. When, if, the time came for clearing out to be done, and she felt a choking rush of both terror and excitement at the thought, this gadget would be first into the skip.
‘Sounds great! And in theory, I’m right with you. But there’d be a huge amount to think about, wouldn’t there? I don’t want to put any kind of a downer on things, but what about Sorrel? This has always been her home. We’ll have to sit her down and talk to her about it properly, give her some idea where we might
be thinking of living when we get back. Wherever it is, unless we stay in the village she’ll be leaving all her friends.’
‘But she’ll be leaving them anyway – and they’ll be leaving her when they all go off to university. She’s only got a few more weeks in school, and she’ll keep the friends who really matter. They do far more getting together on the internet than they do in real life. She’ll be OK, one darkened room with a computer in it is much the same as another. For one thing she can always go and stay with Clover. She’s got plenty of room over in Richmond.’
Lottie looked at Mac warily. He seemed more determined with every sentence. He was persuading her now, fielding each and every possible problem with growing enthusiasm. She’d seen him like this before, many a time. The first had been when he’d come home one night from Kempton Park races, half-cut and half-owner (with best friend George, late – in every sense, sadly – guitarist from Charisma) of a two-year-old thoroughbred called Lacy Lil. Lil had been hailed, by Mac and George, as the great post-Charisma way forward.
‘She’ll keep us occupied, off the streets, out of trouble.’ George had draped his drunk, stoned self lovingly round his furious wife Kate and tried to persuade her and Lottie that horseflesh really was a cracking investment.
‘She’ll run at Ascot. We’ll get a box and you girls can do the fancy hat thing,’ Mac had joined in, carried away by Tequila slammers and wild ambition. ‘Owners’ box,’ he’d said, fist up in a victory punch. ‘One up from all that Royal Enclosure bollocks. And you two can lead her in when she wins. I can see it now.’ Kate and Lottie had accepted defeat and hoped for the best.