If This Is Home Page 16

  I know, she said, I could never help you. No matter how hard I tried.

  Ferne was sitting on the same stool at the bar. Her hair was down and she was winding it around her index finger as she read. I watched her for a moment, wondering whether I had upset her the night before. You care about her feelings? Bethany said. Already? You sure about that?

  There was a clear way of exiting without alerting Ferne, but I decided against it. Instead I sat next to her and tried to catch the barman’s attention. She looked up and folded down the corner of the page.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi,’ I said as the barman poured me a pint of bitter.

  ‘Did you go to the Indian in the end?’ she said. ‘I hope it wasn’t too awful.’

  ‘It was okay. Didn’t realize how hungry I was till I got there.’

  ‘I’m glad it was okay,’ she said.

  She went back to her book and I took out my notes. I wrote Simon Parks’ name, and underneath: Gives the impression of knowing more than he lets on. But doesn’t. Does not dwell on the past. After a pause I added: He is lucky.

  ‘What you writing?’ Ferne said.

  ‘Just notes. I had some meetings today.’

  ‘They go well?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  She smiled. It was simple and beautiful in a fractured kind of way.

  ‘I can’t stand the thought of another night in this place,’ she said. ‘I could show you around if you’d like. Not that there’s much to see.’

  I didn’t say anything and she wound her hair tightly in her fingers.

  ‘You probably have plans, though, right? Saturday night and all that.’

  ‘No plans,’ I said. ‘But no matter how drunk we get, promise we won’t end up at Chaps.’

  I smiled but Ferne looked confused. Chaps was the town nightclub, and the only place to get a late drink. Before going out, Hannah, Beth and I would promise we wouldn’t be tempted.

  ‘What’s Chaps?’ she said.

  ‘I thought you told me about it,’ I said. ‘A nightclub or something? Upstairs on the High Street?’

  ‘No. Not me,’ she said. ‘Must have been someone else.’

  ‘My mistake,’ I said. ‘Must have been in one of my meetings.’

  Very convincing, Bethany said, leaning against the fridges behind the bar. She must think you’re a fucking weirdo already. She’s pretty, though. Looks a bit like me, don’t you think?

  ‘Well,’ Ferne said, ‘I promise not to take you to the place I’ve never been to. Guide’s honour.’

  Ferne did not look like Bethany; a little around the mouth, a similarity in the eyes, but that was it. It did not stop me from staring, though, keeping my eyes on her as she lit a cigarette. She blew out smoke like Bethany; held her cigarette in much the same way. She set her cigarette in an ashtray and put her book in her handbag.

  ‘We don’t have to, you know. I just thought it would be nice, that’s all. Since we’re both stuck here and all that.’

  Bethany put her head on one side and filled up a drink from the optic, then shot down the whisky. I think she likes you, honey. Maybe you should go and fuck her.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’d like to go out. You can show me around.’

  Ferne smiled and flicked her ash. ‘I’ll just get my coat and then we’ll go and eat.’

  She came back ten minutes later, her jacket furred at the collar and long over her trousers. She had done her eye make-up like Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra and had changed her handbag. As she approached I could smell her perfume: it was heady and surprisingly light.

  ‘Where to first?’ I said.

  ‘The Counting House,’ she said. ‘I really fancy a cocktail.’

  *

  Over a Mai Tai and a gin and tonic, we traded stories about our friends, Ferne doing most of the talking. It was a strange sensation, standing in an unfamiliar place, talking about a past we did not share, and none of it scripted, no chance of my guessing whether everything was true, or what was embellished, no recourse to notes, no background intel. It was like being unmoored. Yet it was real and easy: just two people in need of company. Like me and O’Neil, once. It felt like a long time since I’d had such a conversation, a long time since I’d been able to relax and not worry about an endgame or resolution. We talked because that’s what people do: they talk, they laugh and they find other reasons to keep on going.

  ‘Right, time to make a move, I think,’ Ferne said. ‘The Falcon next.’

  Perfect, Bethany said. Twat central. I wonder if you’re still barred?

  The Falcon had always looked like an Alpine ski lodge, had always been full of the people we sought to avoid and was always the most expensive place in town. Nothing had changed. Ferne bought a bottle of white wine and we sat by the window. I wanted to tell her that I had once sat on the same table with Bethany and Hannah, the night we discussed whether Hannah should do anything about the mystery man in her life, and both Bethany and I tried to dissuade her, thinking this could only be about Bethany’s father, but hoping it wasn’t.

  ‘I prefer this place,’ I said. ‘Less … gaudy.’

  ‘And you’ve been here before, too,’ she said with a smile. ‘So what’s the deal?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve been here before. When we left the last place you knew that we were turning left, you knew the Falcon was the next pub along and you knew where the toilets were, even though they’re not signposted. QED, Joe. QED.’

  Tentatively, she put her hand on mine.

  ‘Talk to me, Joe. Why don’t you talk? All you seem to do is sit there and listen.’

  Don’t talk, Mark, Bethany said. Just listen.

  Saturday, 7th July 1990, 3.41 pm

  She sits in the changing room of the silent leisure centre, dressed only in her underwear. The gown is hanging from a peg, her shoes kicked out over the rough, slip-proof flooring. Her bag is open, her clothes lolling out of its open zip. She has showered and the ends of her hair are slightly damp. On the other side of town, Hannah and Mark will, she knows, be checking the pub clock and wondering where she has got to. Mark will be optimistic of her arrival; Hannah already swearing at her for letting them both down. They will get over it. All she has to say is that she was caught up and couldn’t leave as planned. Hannah will sulk for a while, pull her face, then let it go. Mark will just be happy to see her whatever.

  Though she is determined to go through with it, she has stalled at the point of dressing. When she was at school her class used to come to the swimming pool here and it was the real low point of the week, her talent for dressing quickly beneath a large towel only matched by her speed in the water. There was no way she would be sitting around in just her underwear then. She has finally started to come around to her own body.

  The T-shirt feels thin in her hand; it has Big Black on it, a band she only got into through Daniel. ‘They sound like a fucking heart attack,’ he’d said as he’d played her one of their records in the shop. ‘They just fucking hate everything.’ She pulls it over her head and then puts on her jeans. Her Dr Martens are polished to a high shine, something her father does in the mistaken belief it is an act of kindness. They look too new, too fresh from the box. She begins to lace them up, all images of her as queen now slipping away.

  She had been distracted for so long after the motorcycle display that she expected Waller to shout at her afterwards, but instead he told her how well she’d done, what a fine effort she had made, and how she deserved a nice stiff drink. He looked hurt when she turned him down, explaining that she had to change out of her dress and meet friends before dining with him and the rest of the carnival committee later.

  ‘Oh, just a quick glass of wine,’ he’d said. ‘You’ve earned it.’

  Bethany laughed. ‘Thanks, but I have plans. I’ll see you later.’ And she took off, picking up her bag from the boot of her father’s car on the way to the changing rooms.

  She is dresse
d now and she looks at herself in the mirror. It is a moment she wants to record, to ensure that she remembers. The clock on the wall tells her she has twenty minutes to make her rendezvous. She checks her watch to be sure. Her bag shouldered, she pushes open the swing doors. A man in a blue polo shirt and tracksuit bottoms is mopping the hallway. He looks up and nods.

  ‘Quite a transformation,’ he says with a smile. ‘I wouldn’t have recognized you.’

  ‘Thanks for letting me in,’ she says. ‘Another minute in that costume and I’d have …’ She shakes her head as her voice trails off. The reception area is angel-bright and she takes out a pair of sunglasses and puts them on: the lenses soothe everything but the sun’s heat. The car park is still full and families troop towards their vehicles, the kids holding balloons, their faces painted like animals, their parents keeping them well-drilled alongside their picnic baskets. She puts her bag in the back of her father’s car, lights a cigarette, sucks in the smoke. A man taps her on her shoulder. He has an unlit cigarette in his hand.

  ‘Got a light please, love?’ he says and she nods and passes him a box of matches. He lights five before the cigarette catches, then passes back the box.

  ‘Weren’t you the carnival queen?’ he says. Bethany nods and starts to walk away.

  ‘You looked better in a dress. You know, you look like a tramp done up like that.’

  She turns to stare at him. He is an older man in his thirties; cheap glasses, neat shirt, jeans and trainers. He is wearing thick spectacles. She vaguely recognizes him from the pubs.

  ‘Fuck off, four-eyes,’ she says.

  ‘Very original,’ he says.

  She turns to walk up the bank and on to the main road. He says something she half hears behind the clotting of adrenaline. She’s tempted to turn and look back at him, to see whether he is still there, shouting abuse in her direction. But she lets it go and at the top of the bank she sneaks a look down, but the man has gone. She is surprised to feel angry with herself for being so rude, for giving him a reason to say such a spiteful thing. Of course, she’s heard worse, in the pubs, on the streets. Really there is nothing left to tolerate: these men deserve all they get.

  There are groups standing outside the Grapes, plastic pints of beer in their hands. They do not recognize her, for which she is grateful. This part of town is unfamiliar to her, as much as any part of such a small town can be unfamiliar. It is less genteel, given over to the sprawl of the council estates. One of them is still known as Tin Town. Her mum explained about how the temporary roofing used immediately after the war had given it the nickname; how the bombed-out residents of Manchester and Liverpool and Stoke were shuttled here for a new life in the town’s remaining mills and light industry; how this exodus had engendered the strange mixture of accents the town has co-opted as its own.

  The further she walks, the quieter it becomes. There are no cars at the petrol station, no kids pumping up their tyres with pressurized air. The corner shop is open but looks dark inside. She checks her cigarettes and considers going in to buy some more, but the thought of speaking to anyone, even to ask for twenty Marlboro, is too much. She looks at her watch; she is supposed to be there in ten minutes and though she is no more than five away, she hurries her pace.

  By the closed-up post office she smokes another cigarette and checks her watch again. Over the road is a telephone box. It doesn’t help. She can’t call the pub now; Mark and Hannah will probably have moved on. She imagines Mark trying to pacify Hannah, Hannah complaining that Beth always does this, and wondering how he puts up with it. Hannah has always had a disarming interest in her and Mark’s relationship. Initially Bethany found it amusing, then intrusive, then somehow achingly sad. For a moment, she thinks again about her father and Hannah. We all have our secrets, she thinks, secrets are important things. Our secrets are the things that define us.

  The lane is narrow and dusty, mud baked to dry and brambles pricking her skin as she negotiates it. She scuffs her boots in an attempt to take off the shine: it is only partly successful, and it makes her feel self-conscious again. It’s a stupid thing to feel, she thinks as she walks the last dog leg towards the clearing, all he wants is sex: nothing more. Just like her, just exactly the same as her.

  The van is already there. He is sitting on its bonnet smoking a joint; she can smell it clearly over the woods and the water. Perhaps he is nervous too, she thinks, but reminds herself that this is not something that gives him nerves. This is what he does and this is why she is here.

  She sits next to him and smiles. He takes a toke on the joint and passes it to her.

  ‘My queen,’ he says, laughing.

  ‘Fuck off, Daniel. I’ve had about as many jokes as I can stomach today.’

  ‘It were okay though?’

  Beth nods. ‘It could have been worse.’ She thinks momentarily of the guy shouting at her, calling her a tramp. ‘It could have been a lot worse.’

  She has not imagined how they will get from there, from idle conversation into the back of the van, from strangers to lovers. She wishes she could be like Vikki Palmer, turn dirty mouthed and say: let’s stop with all the talking and let’s fuck. But that would be ridiculous, he would laugh and the moment would be ruined; there would just be his laughter and the feeling that she had shrunk back into girlhood. She passes him back the joint, and with it clamped in his mouth, he bends to pick up a stone and pitches it out to the river. The water looks like flattened metal, then breaks. He comes back and puts his arms around Beth’s neck.

  ‘You surprised me,’ he says. ‘I thought this ship had sailed a long time ago.’

  ‘I was young then.’

  ‘You’re young now.’

  ‘I was nervous then.’

  ‘And you’re not now?’ he says and laughs again.

  ‘No. No, I’m not.’

  ‘You looked good all dolled up, you know. Barely recognized you.’

  ‘Were you hoping I’d wear the dress?’

  He laughs again, and so does she. For a moment she thinks that he has lost interest, that this was just a nice game to play. In the bright afternoon light he has lost some of his allure; he is better framed by wreaths of smoke and the hum of people, by the beat of music she wants to like and the smell of stale beer. He passes her the joint and she holds it, not smoking it, the two of them sharing a silence that has promise but still uncertainty. He will not turn her down, she is aware of that, but the idea of him suggesting that, after all, this is a bad idea is somehow appealing. He turns and they watch the stream return to battered metal. She thinks that it may be down to her to actually move things on. It is not something that sits well with her.

  He places his arms around her again.

  ‘You on the pill? Or do I need nodders?’

  She can smell him, his aftershave and the beers he has drunk. There is a slight scent of cherry about him, the tobacco he uses for his roll-ups. They have not even kissed. Not even touched each other in any meaningful way, but it is his use of the word nodders that gets her. That he broached the subject is no bad thing, but that word! Almost anything else would have done, anything other than the kind of word a nine-year-old might say. It makes her feel slighted, unwanted.

  She kisses him. He kisses her back, well. He puts a hand on her behind, then one on her breast. It is clumsy but arresting: she had expected nothing less. He pushes her against the bodywork of the van and she can feel the tensing in his shoulders, in his whole body. His legs are in between hers and his erection is against her thigh. He makes a slight humming noise as he kisses her below her ear. She unbuttons his fly, feels his cock through the fabric of his underwear then scoops her hand under the cloth. She tugs it once or twice, then suddenly feels repulsed.

  She stops touching but for a moment Daniel seems not to notice. His eyes are still closed, his mouth open. He looks vaguely simian, paused by the van, leaning against her. She wants to feel that this pause is because of Mark; that he has a bearing on all of this. But it is n
othing to do with him, not in the way that she would like. In a way she can’t quite fathom, she realizes that it is all about her mother, how she would react to seeing her there.

  It is not about disapproval, but her mother’s life-held acceptance that we all make mistakes in life; her understanding that people fuck up from time to time. She would have understood; she would have seen the situation for what it is. If her mother had been around, and had she spoken to her, she would not be here, a large, partially clothed cock pressed against her. She would be at the pub with her best friend and the boy she loves, dreaming of New York and counting down the days. None of this would have been important, the tit-for-tat, the need to get even. She would have seen it sooner for what it was: a tawdry bunk-up in the back of a Transit van.

  He kisses her again. And pushes her towards the back of the van. His eyes are wolfish. He opens the sliding door to reveal a mattress and one pillow. She can see evidence of clearing up, but still an empty packet of Rizlas and the wrapper from a Mars bar. He grabs her, holds her close.

  ‘Shall we go inside,’ he says. He has her by the wrist. At another time, in another place, she would be excited.

  SEVENTEEN

  O’Neil loved Sundays. Back in New York, he would always wake earlier than me, listen to the radio as he cleaned up the apartment, go for a long morning walk, returning with breakfast and a newspaper. He’d make pancakes and sausage, brew proper coffee and call members of his family while flicking through the international news. If I was not woken by the slam of the door, or the sound of the music or the allure of the cooking smells, he would bash on my door and tell me I was wasting the day. He called it the safety of Sunday: a day when nothing bad could happen, when there was a bubble of hope. I told him that Pearl Harbor happened on a Sunday; Bloody Sunday too, hence its name. Exceptions, he’d say, that proved the rule.

  In the hotel room, curtain open, looking out over the car park and listening to the pealing bells of the St John Church, I wondered whether he would see such possibility here. The sky was powder blue and the smell of bacon was coming up from the kitchens below, but this was no different to waking the previous day. Sunday here was indifferent: it didn’t care either way.