Читать книгу The Lies Between Us - Marian Dillon - Страница 10

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Eva

1987

On my way home from my shift at the Prince Albert, if I choose, I can go down the road where I lived until I was ten years old. I don’t always go this way, it’s quicker along Weston Avenue, but sometimes I like to walk down The Parade and turn right towards the park, which takes me right past our old house; 1 Ivy Road. This is what I do tonight. Maybe it’s nostalgia. Or maybe I’m putting off the moment of going home. I don’t know.

The small semi looks exactly the same after nine years – mucky grey pebble-dash, black and white paintwork, and the narrow front door with its sunrise window. When I lived here, I didn’t see that it was small, and mucky-looking, and lacking the suburban smartness that my parents now embrace. It was home. Now I look at it and think, what would this house say if it could talk? When we lived here, was my mother already drinking too much, and was my father already under her thumb? Were these things that I just didn’t notice then, being younger?

I often think I’d like to look inside, to see if anything has changed. It’s a young couple who live here now, I’ve seen them outside once or twice, and one time I nearly asked if I could look round, but I thought they’d be embarrassed, so I didn’t.

The flickering light of a TV can be seen through the gaps in the curtains and I stare at the window, imagining myself aged two, four, six, eight, ten – lying on my stomach in that room, gazing up at The Magic Roundabout, Sesame Street, Blue Peter, Tiswas, Grange Hill. I could go on and on, could list them all as I watched them all, always on my own. I can’t remember ever having my mother by my side on the big settee, although my mother never worked and was always home. She preferred to stay in the kitchen, smoking and drinking tea at the little Formica table, and if I went in for a glass of squash and a biscuit the room would be a warm fug of cigarette smoke. She would lift her head from the magazine she was flicking through – Woman and Home, Home and Garden, Country Life – and say vaguely, ‘All right, Eva?’ God knows what she’d have done if I’d ever answered ‘No’; it hadn’t been part of the agreement. If I left my mother alone, I could watch TV till the cows came home, and have my tea on a tray. That would normally be at five o’clock, when John Craven’s Newsround came on, and while I ate my fish fingers or tinned spaghetti I’d hear the chinking of glasses when my mother set the Martini out, ready for when my father came in at six. A ritual that got steadily earlier, until she stopped waiting for my father, eventually.

Down the road a door bangs and a man walks out with a dog. He gives me an odd look, so I pretend I’m looking for something in my bag, and then move on.

From here to what I still think of as ‘the new house’ is a distance of maybe half a mile, but the streets change dramatically; they widen, they sprout trees, and acquire drives and double garages; they become Avenue, Drive, Crescent. I’m entering a different world, the one we moved to when my father stopped selling cars for other people, took out a bank loan, and began the business of selling cars for himself to the people of Harborough. A business he’s doing very well in, reflected in the house I’m now looking at, in leafy Park Vale. Across the curved lawn, lights blaze and figures are silhouetted in the big bay window – the house is lit up like a cinema screen, for one of my parents’ parties. I can hear music pulsing and shrieks of laughter and I know the booze will be flowing. Hopefully, it should be easy to slip upstairs unnoticed.

Letting myself in at the front door I make straight for the stairs, but my father sees me as he comes out of the lounge with empty glasses in his hands.

‘Eva, where are you going?’ He’s a little tipsy, his speech veering towards the Brummy drawl that he tightens up for his customers. My accent, like my mother’s, is more nebulous, more received pronunciation than provincial. ‘Don’t go hiding upstairs. Where have you been? You’ve been out all day.’

‘Just out, with Louise, and some others,’ I say. ‘We went to see a film. And then I was working. Dad, you know that.’

‘Of course, of course.’ He’s smiling at me fondly. ‘Come on, come and say hello.’

‘Not now. You go back in.’

‘No, no. You must come and meet everybody. Come on Eva, just for me – you know I like to show my lovely daughter off, hmmm?’

‘Dad, I’m tired, and I’m not dressed for a party –’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘You look lovely, you look … delightful.’

And at that I give in to being propelled into the lounge and towed around the people gathered there, some of whom I know, most of whom I would rather not spend time with. Self-conscious, embarrassed by my father’s attention, I smile and nod and give the right responses to the same questions, over and over. No, I found I hadn’t quite got the grades I wanted, when I opened up my results letter (which doesn’t quite reflect the cold shock of those stark letters, C, D, D, and the idea of another whole year at home stretching ahead of me). Yes, I am retaking my A-levels and hope to go to university next year. Yes, I quite like my part-time job behind a bar, but I’m looking for something better paid to tide me over the next year. And no, I don’t have a boyfriend, yet. (As if that’s your business, I think.)

When my father is distracted by some guests who are leaving my mother drifts over on a cloud of Dior and gin, glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She wears ski pants with a sparkly lurex top that leaves one shoulder bare, and her newly permed hair is caught at both sides in tortoiseshell combs, from which red curls spill extravagantly. (One day I will tell her that she should stop trying to look like Olivia Newton-John). But it’s her eyes that make my heart sink, with that glitter in them that comes with an evening of steady drinking. When she drinks my mother never trips or stumbles over her words; drink seems to have the opposite effect on her. She becomes harder, sharper. At least, until the hard look eventually becomes a glassy, unfocused stare.

‘Hi, darling.’ My mother’s eyes run swiftly over my clothes: a long black blouse worn belted over a very short denim skirt, and then black tights and pumps. My standard pub uniform. Tomorrow she’ll ask me when I’m going to stop wearing all that black. ‘Nice day?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

Her mouth twitches. ‘Yes, thanks. Is that it?’ I go over the same things I told my father, and she says, ‘Was James there?’

‘No.’ I frown, wishing I’d never mentioned my one date with James Gregory. ‘No, he wasn’t.’

My mother pulls a face. ‘Shame.’ She smiles at her friend Connie, who has wandered across and is drinking all this in. ‘Eva’s saving herself. She hasn’t met anyone good enough yet, but we have great hopes of James.’

Connie laughs some more, until I snap, ‘Shut up, Mum, you’re talking bollocks,’ at which Connie’s gaze whips back to my mother. She, however, seems unfazed, and gives me a bright smile.

‘I suppose you must be tired?’

‘Actually no, not yet.’ I look around. ‘I think I’ll get a drink.’ I head off to the kitchen, sensing her mild annoyance follow me across the room, and pour myself a large glass of red wine. For a while I stand in the doorway, drinking my wine and staring down at my pumps, which, even to me, look incongruous next to a trio of stilettos.

Another pair of feet, shod in dark brown leather, materialise at my side. My gaze travels upwards – past jeans, a check shirt and a soft leather jacket – to find a pair of serious eyes staring at me. These eyes are the colour of polished wood, set in a face that is long and narrow, like a fox, and the owner has thick, light-brown hair, cut short at the back, with a big fringe that falls over his eyes. He looks younger than the rest, who are all my parents’ age. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him here before, but then I’ve usually made sure I was either staying at Louise’s or upstairs in my room.

He waves his bottle of Buds in my direction. ‘You look like you wish you were somewhere else.’ He has a deep voice and the accent is northern; some has become soom.

I glance into the room, to see my mother and Connie swaying along to ‘Dancing Queen’, with their hands in the air and all the words on their lips. I look back at him. ‘Don’t you?’

He laughs. ‘I hear these parties are a regular event.’

‘Yes, but no one ever seems to have had enough. They all still come.’

‘Which must include you – to know that?’

I give what I hope is an enigmatic smile; he obviously has no idea who I am. ‘You remind me of someone,’ I say.

‘Oh?’

‘I can’t think who.’

He turns his head. ‘Try my profile. Does that help?’

‘Not really. It’s in the eyes. Shit, it’s going to annoy me now.’

‘Don’t think about it, then it’ll come to you. I hope it’s someone good-looking.’

‘Well, now you’ve said that, I will of course think of someone supremely ugly.’

We both laugh. He looks down at my nearly empty glass.

‘Can I get you a refill?’

I nod, and he takes my glass and disappears into the crowd in the kitchen, and as I wait for him to come back there’s a new jittery feeling in my belly that tells me I’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t. I glance across at my mother and see she’s taking all this in. For a moment we hold each other’s gaze, then he comes back with my drink.

‘Do I get to know your name?’ I ask.

‘I’m called Ed,’ he says.

‘Why? Isn’t that your real name?’

He gives me a close look. ‘As it happens, no.’

‘Is it that bad, the real one?’

He grins. ‘You don’t get it out of me that way, either.’ He takes a swig of his beer. ‘So,’ he says, ‘you didn’t answer my question.’

I frown. ‘Question?’

‘I was saying, you must come here a lot?’

‘Oh. No, I never come to these parties if I can help it.’

‘You don’t like the company?’

‘No. Not much.’

I’m looking at my mother, now given up dancing and talking to one of my father’s colleagues, standing close, too close, with her head tilted fetchingly to one side, laughing too much. Ed’s gaze follows mine.

‘Pretty obvious, isn’t she?’

It’s startling to hear someone say it out loud. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I think so.’

‘I wonder if it’s all show. Or if she really lives up to her reputation.’

My stomach churns a little. Somehow I thought that I was the only one who would find my mother embarrassing; I never thought that she might have a reputation.

‘Don’t you know, then?’

‘Me? I’m a newcomer. Just moved to town. I’m here with my mate, Steve, he works for Vince.’ He nods at a man talking to my father, across the room, but I don’t recognise him. Then Ed’s gaze travels back to my mother. ‘Word is …’ He stops. ‘Look, I might be speaking out of turn. I hope she’s not your best friend, or your sister, or something like that.’

I’m watching my mother, as she puts her hand on the man’s arm and says something in his ear. He laughs heartily. ‘I suppose you mean she sleeps around.’

Ed turns to me, squinting slightly as someone’s cigarette smoke drifts across our field of vision. ‘Look, I’m not saying …’ He’s backtracking now, probably wondering if he’s dropped himself in it. ‘Steve says he thinks she’s not very happy, a bit desperate.’

I look back at my mother. I’ve never thought of it in those terms, that my mother might be desperate. I’ve always seen her as being totally in control.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Maybe.’

Ed peers at me through another wreath of smoke. ‘So, do you know them well – Kathleen and Vince?’

‘Oh,’ I say, ‘sort of, yes.’

‘Look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. That’s me all over, putting my size nines in it.’

‘It’s okay. I know how things are.’

He waits for me to elaborate, and when I don’t we fall silent; in the long pause I wonder if he wants to extricate himself now, but is too polite. My head feels a bit swimmy after all the red wine and the couple of Stellas I was bought at work, and I start to think I should go to bed and save myself the embarrassment of Ed sidling off at the first opportunity. Then I catch my mother looking our way again, and change my mind. For want of something to say I begin to interrogate Ed. I find out that he comes from Leeds, hence the accent; that he’s been living and working in Cambridge, but moved here for a job on the local paper; that he’s the youngest of four boys; and that he’s staying with Steve, an old school-friend of his older brother, while he looks for a flat to rent. I begin to wonder how old he might be, as it’s hard to tell.

‘Is this your first job?’ I ask, and he shakes his head.

‘No. I’ve served my time as junior reporter, not to mention office gofer. This is a promotion.’

‘Gofer?’

He laughs. ‘If someone wants something, you go fer it.’

‘Ah.’ I’m still calculating. Twenty-four, five? But before I can glean any more information my father appears in front of us.

‘Eva, can I borrow Ed for a minute? Someone wants to meet him.’

I shrug. ‘Okay.’

‘Hope you don’t mind?’ he says to Ed.

‘Of course not.’ Ed turns to me. ‘Excuse me.’

I watch him go, and tell myself he must be relieved. Of course not. I would have liked to carry on talking, but I doubt he’ll be back, and as a loud burst of laughter comes from the group he joins I decide there’s no point hanging around like a lemon. I should just go to bed.

Upstairs, though, I realise I’ve left my bag; when I go back down I see my mother has now commandeered Ed and is talking to him at the far side of the room. Talking is a loose term; there’s a lot of flirting going on, she’s laughing and standing close, the way she does, with her eyes hooked on his. It’s so naked it’s embarrassing, and I hate to think of what Ed might say about my mother now, with firsthand experience of how ‘desperate’ she is. I shouldn’t care, I really shouldn’t care what others think, but somehow I still do – I can’t bear to see my mother making a fool of herself. I wonder if I should go and interrupt her, somehow prise her away from him, but that will piss her off even more and I’m not prepared to get the sharp end of my mother’s tongue in front of Ed.

Back in my room, I stand listening to the babble downstairs. Someone has just changed the music, and ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ drifts up the stairs. She’ll take a tumble on you, roll you like you’re a dice. Would she? Does she actually do that? I can hear her laughter now, above the rise and fall of voices, and to shut it out I put my hands over my ears. I stand there, frozen, with my heart hammering and my eyes squeezed tightly shut. When at last I open them I stride to the door and run smoothly, quickly, downstairs. In the lounge my mother still has Ed cornered and I watch them for a moment, trying to read Ed’s body language, to decide if he’s lapping it up or attempting escape, then I whirl round and go in search of my father. He’s in the kitchen, stashing empty bottles into a box.

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Do you? What, right now?’

‘Yes. Right now.’

He picks up a box of empties and turns towards the side door. ‘Just open the door, will you?’

I follow him out, and I’m wondering what to say, because when I came back down I hadn’t got as far as that. ‘Dad, don’t you think you should wind the party up now? It’s late.’

He gives me a puzzled look. ‘Don’t be daft, Eva. It’s just getting going.’

‘Dad, listen, please. It’s Mum.’

‘What?’

‘She … she drinks too much.’

He laughs. ‘No more than anyone else. Don’t be daft.’

‘No, it is more, way more. And … Dad, you need to sort this out.’

‘Eva …’ He’s shaking his head, smiling. ‘You funny girl.’

My father puts the box down by the bin, the bottles chinking together. Then he makes to move round me, to go back inside. I put my hand on his arm. ‘Dad, please, just tell them all to go home. Make them go home.’

He pauses for a moment, caught by the threat of tears in my voice. He reaches up and smoothes my hair on one side. ‘What’s wrong, Eva? It’s only a little party.’

‘It’s a party every week, Dad, and she drinks as much on all the other nights. It’s out of control.’

He frowns. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous. Nothing’s out of control.’

‘Vince?’ My mother appears, framed in the doorway. ‘Steve and Amy are going. They want to say goodbye.’ She looks at me. ‘I thought you’d gone to bed.’

I tighten my lips and glare at her. She sighs, brushing back long wisps of hair that have come loose from one of her combs.

‘Eva thinks we should tell everyone to go home,’ my father says, and I flinch at the amusement in his voice. ‘You’re out of control, she says.’

‘Me? Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t be stupid, Eva. It’s a party, not Sodom and Gomorrah. Come on, Vince, you’re the host, you can’t stand out here all night.’ She goes back in to the party.

I stand looking at my father. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Have it your way. But I know you know what I’m talking about.’

Turning, I push my way rudely through some people coming into the kitchen, just in time to see Ed following Steve and his wife out onto the porch. My eyes meet Ed’s for a moment, and he raises a hand in a single wave, before the door slams shut behind them, and then I run up to my room and close that door too, leaning against it as if the whole houseful is behind me.

Pretty obvious, isn’t she?

So why haven’t I seen it?

***

At ten-thirty the pub is still filling up, and myself and the other two bar staff are working at full tilt. Occasionally the landlord pitches in, rounding up the empties, but mostly he chats to the locals and gets on with what he calls ‘keeping things sweet’. We should have had Jon on as well tonight, but no one predicted it would be this busy on a Wednesday night. There’s no reason we can think of – just one of those things. Maybe because it’s been such a warm day, the last day of September, making people feel nostalgic for their Spanish holiday and sending them in droves to the next-best thing, the great British pub.

My feet ache, and I’m so hot I can smell the sweat on myself. I’ve been pulling pints for four hours solid, and if I have to listen to Rick Astley singing ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ one more time I think I’ll throw up. As if that isn’t enough, I’ve just started my period and the heavy, dragging feeling between my legs is yet one more drain on my energy.

All in all, I’ll be glad when eleven o’clock comes round and the bell is rung, and that lovely phrase called out in the landlord’s husky, forty-a-day voice: Time per-lease!

As I look up from pulling a pint the door opens, and a large group of men crowd through. It’s obvious from the suits and ties that they started drinking straight from work; now, at the end of the night, they’re loud and full of drunken banter, although harmless enough. As I serve them I find myself laughing along at their stupid jokes, a bit of light relief. I know the landlord is keeping an eye on things, so I don’t have to think too much about it. Then the door opens again and three more squeeze through and struggle to the bar. When I glance up again I see who the last one is, before he sees me. And then he does, and quickly I look back down to the Snakebite I’m pouring – which is hard enough to do at the best of times. The man who ordered it is grinning at his mates, in a ‘watch her make a mess of this’ way, so I take extra care to dribble the Guinness slowly and thinly down the side of the glass, into the waiting cider, so that it doesn’t froth up and over. I’m glad to have something to distract me, and that I can blame the flush in my cheeks on the heat in the bar. When I’ve finished, and the pint stands there with its gold and dark layers, there’s a loud cheer. Despite myself I laugh, and give them a mock bow.

They drift away from the bar, finding seats when the group who have been sitting in the corner for hours decide it’s home time. I look around for Ed. He’s been served by someone else, and is now at the end of the bar talking to his friends. He doesn’t look my way, and I get on with serving, cleaning, washing up, collecting empties. I’m surprised to see him in here. The Prince Albert is on the main road out of town, about a mile or so from the centre. It serves office and shop workers at lunchtimes and locals in the evenings; with its fading seventies décor and keg beer it isn’t the kind of place you’d go out of your way for. I glance at him again out of the corner of my eye, not wanting him to see me looking. Anyway, he probably doesn’t remember me, as it’s a few weeks since that party, or if he does he isn’t interested in picking up where we left off. Maybe Steve will have told him who I am, and when I think of that, and how my mother was so ‘obvious’ that night, I wonder if I even want him to recognise me.

When the bell is rung and eventually the punters begin drifting off, I look despairingly at the mess that remains; far more than the usual half hour’s close will see to. The landlord sees my face.

‘Go on. You get off,’ he says. ‘You look dead on your feet.’

I started an hour earlier than everyone else, and the only time I’ve stopped was for toilet breaks, so I don’t think anyone can accuse me of skiving. My coat and bag are in the room at the back, and while I fetch them I decide that I will go and say hello to Ed, because why the hell not? I’ve got nothing to lose but pride. But when I come back through he’s gone, and I’m disappointed, kicking myself for not going over before.

Outside the air is still balmy; it’s hard to think that soon all the leaves will fall and winter will set in. Maybe that’s why there are still people hanging around, chatting and laughing; no one wants to go home to bed; they want to make the most of this Indian summer. I have to squeeze past a large group standing right by the door, but as I start the walk home I feel a hand catch my arm.

‘Hi, wait, I thought it was you.’

Ed’s there with his two mates, who immediately stop talking to look me up and down, but Ed says goodbye to them and thanks for something or other, and with more glances at me and big grins pasted on their faces they saunter off together.

‘I was going to come and say hello, but then you disappeared,’ Ed says.

‘You were with your friends, I didn’t want to interrupt.’

‘Nice work,’ he says, ‘with the Snakebite.’

I grin. ‘Yeah. I made sure of it.’

There’s a slight pause, when neither of us seems to know what to say next. A bus rumbles by. I could have caught that one, as far as the park. Although generally I like to walk, tonight my feet hurt. I’m about to say I should go when Ed asks if there are any fish and chip shops nearby.

‘There is one, yes, not far.’

‘Don’t suppose you fancy some as well?’

I can just picture them now, fat, greasy chips and white, flaky fish, and a hollow feeling drops into my stomach. I always feel hungry when I’m on my period.

‘I wouldn’t mind.’

‘Right. Lead the way then.’

I point in the opposite direction from home, towards town. ‘There’s a place along here.’ I giggle. ‘Sorry, no pun intended. They do the best chips.’

Ed is tall and his stride is long, and I find myself quickening my normal pace. ‘What were you doing in the Albert?’ I ask him. ‘It’s a bit of a dive.’

‘I don’t mind dives,’ he says. ‘But only if they have good beer. Pity that’s my local.’

‘Your local? Does Steve live round here?’

‘No, I’m not staying with him now, I moved into a flat, at the weekend. The two lads I was with, they’re from work, they helped me move a few things in this evening. I bought some second-hand stuff and hired a van to shift it all in one go.’

He tells me what he bought, and what a job they had getting some of it up the narrow stairs to his flat, and I like listening to him, to his northern voice with its abrupt endings and the t just a sound in the back of the throat. When we reach the chip shop we get served quickly because it’s empty, about to close, then we turn back the way we came, picking chips and bits of fish out of polystyrene trays, licking the grease off our fingers.

‘You were right,’ Ed says. ‘About the chips.’

My feet are really hurting now, and I say there are some benches a bit further along, where we could sit down and eat, and Ed says, yes, sure.

The benches are in some gardens, planted on the site of the old Co-op, which burnt down a few years ago; I remember seeing the orange glow in the sky from my bedroom window, the fire was that fierce. Behind the benches is a flower bed, whose leggy plants are still flowering. I recognise them, chrysanthemums, my father’s favourite and one of the few plants I know the name of. Their dank and earthy scent is in the air, and makes me think of a story by D.H. Lawrence, about the accidental death of a miner: Odour of Chrysanthemums. We read it in English, and I liked it so much I went on to read all his novels.

That’s the one thing I really regret, that C in English. It should have been an A. Then I would have already escaped.

We sit down, under a lamp post that casts a circle of brightness around us, and eat hungrily at first, not saying much. I start to wonder if my parents will worry that I’m not home, but then think that my mother is just as likely to be out of it, having drunk herself into one of her deep sleeps, and my father will probably assume I’ve gone off somewhere with a friend, forgetting that most of my friends have gone away to university. Except for Louise, who works in a bank and is all loved up with Tom, about to move into a flat with him. I don’t see much of her these days.

Every now and then my father says he ought to come and pick me up after work, but I tell him I’m all right and that Jon the barman walks me home. Which he does – some nights. I never say to my father that I don’t like climbing into a car with him when he smells of whisky, and when I think he might be over the limit. There’s no way of telling when that might be; if my mother is in one of her drinking moods my father usually has a few too, keeping her company. I think that way he can pretend my mother has it under control.

‘How’s your new job going?’ I ask Ed.

‘Okay. Hard work. I’d forgotten what it’s like, being new boy.’

‘What kind of stories do you cover? I mean, I suppose you don’t just do any old thing.’

‘In Cambridge I was a court reporter,’ he says. ‘But now I’m doing more investigative stuff, stories that are in the public interest, that kind of thing. At the moment I’m following the row about the new bypass they’re planning. Have you heard about that?’

‘A bit, yes. My dad goes on about it. He’s all in favour of it because it would bring traffic right by his salesrooms.’

‘You might have read one of my articles, without knowing it’s me.’

I shake my head. ‘My parents don’t buy the Echo. My mother says it’s too provincial. But then she reads the Daily Mail so her opinion doesn’t really count for much.’

‘Provincial is a dirty word to some,’ he says. ‘But a local paper needs to carry local news. De facto. Anyway, if you buy it yourself you’ll see my name there, most days.’

‘Ah – well, you’ll have to tell me your proper name then.’ I lick grease off my fingers. ‘I guess they don’t just put, by Ed?’

He winces. ‘Shot myself in the foot there, didn’t I? All right. But first an explanation.’ He gulps down a piece of fish. ‘My parents are called Rhona and Ralph. They decided we boys should all have a name beginning with R. So, there’s Robert, Richard, Raymond and … then they ran out of decent names. I’m Rupert.’

‘Rupert?’ Apart from anything else the name doesn’t go with the flat, northern vowels.

‘Yeah. Like the bear. Rupert Edwards – hence, Ed. Or Eddie the Teddy as my “friends” at school used to shout.’ I snort with laughter. ‘And no, you don’t have permission to call me that.’

He eats the last few chips and screws up the wrapper. ‘Your name’s unusual. I don’t know any other Evas.’

‘My mother named me after one of her favourite film stars. Eva Marie Saint.’

‘Never heard of her, but I like the name.’ He pauses. ‘So you still live at home? You said your parents don’t buy the Echo.’

I stare at him; I’ve almost forgotten that he doesn’t really know who I am.

‘I can’t afford to move out. I don’t earn enough.’

‘That’s your only job, at the pub?’

‘Yes, part-time.’

‘Right.’

I’m going to have to tell him. ‘I only just left school. I failed my A-levels – well, didn’t get the grades I needed for university. So I’m doing resits and hope to go next year.’ I see by his eyes that he’s registering my age, looking surprised; I know I look older than nineteen. ‘I’ll have to find something that pays more, soon. I want to move out, find a flat, if I can.’

‘It’s expensive,’ he says. ‘It costs more than you think.’

‘What’s yours like?’

‘Okay. Monochrome. Everything’s black and white. Apart from the bedroom, which for some weird reason has got shiny wallpaper and looks like the inside of a spaceship. But it’ll do. It’s not for long.’

When I’ve finished my fish and chips we look round for a bin, then leave the gardens.

‘I’ll walk you home,’ Ed says. I tell him there’s no need, but he insists, and to be truthful the streets seem lonely now, at nearly midnight. There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach when I realise what he’s about to find out, but I don’t know how to tell him so decide to just let it happen. As we walk along Park Vale I wonder if he will recognise the house. After all, he’s only been there once, as far as I know. But when we get near, when we come to a slow halt outside my house – unlit, a dark block of shadow against the inky-black sky – his mouth drops open.

‘This is your house? Your parents’ house?’

I nod, hoping he won’t think I’ve deliberately done this. I picture the little film show going on in his head: my mother drunkenly dancing; my mother close up to him, practically pinning him against the wall; the things he said to me right at the start. Word is… Steve thinks she must be a bit desperate.

Ed groans, and plunges his head into his hands. He stands very still, staring down at the pavement, then breathes in, breathes out, and looks back at me.

‘Sorry doesn’t go anywhere near, does it? That must have been … what I said, it was so offensive.’ He shakes his head. ‘How come you’re here? I’d have thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.’

I fiddle with a loose thread on the cuff of my jacket. ‘Listen, Ed, it’s what everyone thinks, that’s what you said. Including me. Although I guess, up to now, I’ve only ever thought of it as flirting – embarrassing, drunken flirting. Now …’ I shrug. ‘I’m not sure what I think. Maybe she does have affairs, sleep around, whatever you want to call it. She’s never worked, always been home, she’d have the opportunity, wouldn’t she?’

I glance behind, and see an open window at my parents’ bedroom, and possibly someone moving away from the window, just as I look up. I had spoken softly, but in the quiet of the night my voice seemed too loud. As Ed begins to answer I put one finger on my lips, and he lowers his voice.

‘But you don’t want to listen to gossip. People always exaggerate, make things up. Just because it’s what people think doesn’t make it true.’

‘No. But you listened.’

He gives a slight nod – yes.

‘And the way she behaves, it doesn’t matter what the truth is. The damage is done.’

‘Seems as though she doesn’t really care too much what people think.’

I shake my head. ‘I meant the damage to my father.’

He frowns, and remembering that Steve works for my father I panic at the thought I might be making things worse with my blabbing. ‘Look, this is just between you and me. Please don’t talk to Steve about it. He can think what he likes, but I don’t want my family being this week’s hot topic.’

‘Of course, of course I won’t.’

‘Thanks. I do trust you, Ed, which is weird because I hardly know you.’

He gives me a long, slow smile, which does two things to me, right at the same time; first it makes my stomach flip over with pure pleasure, and second it makes me feel intensely self-conscious, wiping out any thoughts of what to say next. Nervously I lick my lips, and hear myself say,

‘Well I’m going in now. Thanks for the fish and chips.’

‘You’re welcome. Maybe I’ll see you in the Albert – if I can bring myself to drink the beer.’

‘Right. Maybe,’ I say, as nonchalantly as I can manage. As he turns to go I put my hand on his arm. ‘I just worked it out,’ I say. ‘Who you remind me of.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. It’s one of those old pop stars, can’t remember the name, my mother has all his records. You look just like him. You’ve even sort of got a quiff.’

He laughs, then pats my hand, and walks away. I could kick myself. Why the hell did I say that?

Kathleen

1963

There’s always an ‘if’, isn’t there? But some ‘ifs’ seem more crucial than others.

If I hadn’t been so ill with measles just before the Eleven Plus.

If my parents hadn’t accepted my fail so readily.

If they’d insisted on my retaking it, or some special dispensation for my condition.

But no, you didn’t do that then; you took what came to you and got on with it, or the neighbours would think you were getting above yourself.

I wasn’t a really clever child, but I do think that if my head hadn’t felt like it was stuffed with cotton-wool I would have passed that exam. And maybe then life would have taken a totally different path.

My mother always said that I was lucky to have been at Page Road, as though I should have been grateful for the chance to learn to type. Unlike some secondary moderns, Page Road offered a few City and Guilds courses, for the boys in metalwork or woodwork, the girls in shorthand and typing. So when we left, most of us walked straight into a job.

In June 1963, at the age of fifteen, I walked through those school gates for the last time, having acquired a grand total of just two CSEs (in English and housecraft) and my City and Guilds. The following Monday I joined the typing pool of Harrison & Sons, an engineering firm. On that first day I was so sick with nerves I couldn’t eat breakfast, but I was excited too. I’d be a working girl, not a schoolgirl, I’d have my own money to buy what I wanted, and I’d be able to wear my own clothes and not that disgusting bottle-green uniform, with its skirt all shiny from sitting on hard, wooden chairs.

The expectation was that I’d stay at Harrison’s until I married and had kids. That was what my mother did, working in one of the shoe factories until she had me and my brother, John. ‘I couldn’t see any point messing about, looking for other jobs,’ she’d once told me. ‘I was happy there so I stayed put.’

At that point the idea of marriage was a very remote one – a desirable but far-off state that I might one day find myself in. Of course I’d had boyfriends; for most of us at school acquiring boys had been more important than acquiring qualifications. The one had brought kudos and immediate gratification; the other seemed unnecessary, promising us work that we were all expected to give up at the first sign of babies. Still, when I thought about marriage it seemed to have no connection with those boys, the shy, awkward ones or the brash, loud ones, all of whom seemed to laugh like braying hyenas. I couldn’t quite see how I was going to bridge that gap, but I did believe that somehow it would happen.

My first day at Harrison’s was spent trying hard to absorb a million facts, all the routines and procedures – where to find this, where to find that, which stationery to use for which purpose, who was who and how to find them and then how to address them, or not – until my head was clogged with facts like an overstuffed suitcase. I was shown round by the Personnel Manageress, a brisk, scary woman with a beehive hairdo. She said that I’d be working mainly for the draughtsmen, typing up the specs for their drawings, and that sometimes I would have to go down to their department to fetch last-minute jobs and alterations. We stopped off on our little tour to look down on the drawing room from a windowed corridor above, where twenty or so men sat in rows at their boards. One or two of them glanced up, and one put his thumb up and grinned. I gave a faint smile back. The idea of walking in there and asking for anything was terrifying.

The factory itself was huge, but the offices and drawing department were all huddled together at the front of the building, so I thought I’d find my way round all right. In the typing pool there were about nine of us, and one girl was assigned to look after me. She was called Mary, and I took to her straightaway. She had vivid green eyes and a gutsy laugh.

At first I was quite timid and hardly dared speak to anyone apart from Mary, let alone ask for anything I might need. When I had to go down to the drawing room it was all I could do to say what I’d come for. But gradually, as the weeks went by, I got to know the men and started to chat back to them. They relished having us girls come along to relieve the boredom, and it was all just a bit of fun, they weren’t rude or dirty… well, except for the odd one or two, and I tried to avoid them. I hated being made to blush, and then hearing them laugh when I went out.

I tried hard to save money, which is what my dad said I should do – for a rainy day, he said. But it wasn’t easy when every Saturday all I wanted to spend my money on was records and clothes, the only two things I was really interested in then. Beatlemania had swept the country (pushing out singers like my idol, Billy Fury, who I still adored) and fashion had hit the High Street. It was as if I’d been half-asleep, as if my life had just properly woken up and I could see my sedate twinsets and tweedy A-line skirts for what they were: staid and deeply boring. I even began to think I looked worryingly like my mother. So now, on Saturdays, I went shopping with Mary, who I’d become good friends with. There was a new shop in town called Lewis Separates, where you could try things on without the assistant looking down her nose at you. Everything in there was so new and fresh, it was as though colour had been thrown down from the sky and landed right here on our High Street. I can still picture some of the things I bought: a lilac dress and matching coat; a tight houndstooth skirt that came above the knee and which I could only take small steps in; a cherry-coloured blouse with a ruffled collar, which I wore over a pair of black ski pants that my mother denounced as ‘unfeminine’. I kept going back, and what I couldn’t afford to buy I eyed up for making. Then I would get cheap material and Butterick Patterns off the market and run things up on my mother’s old sewing machine. It was mostly shift-dresses, which were so easy to make. With each one the hems rose a little further above the knee, and the skirts got a little tighter. To complete the look I learnt how to backcomb my hair into a blonde bouffant, and experimented with make-up. I piled it on – heaps of mascara, thick black eyeliner and pale, glossy lips – until my father muttered that I looked like a panda and my mother said I was showing them up. I didn’t really care about that. I was sixteen now, and turning heads. I had my mother’s eyes (baby-blue), my father’s full lips and a swing to my hips that I practised at home.

It worked, the look I’d perfected. I got chatted up at work, or at the dances Mary and I went to, and was asked for dates quite often, some of which I accepted – to films, or to a milk bar, or maybe a walk in the park on a Sunday. It was all very tame, and I didn’t find any of the boys especially interesting. So I didn’t go for long with anyone; I was always looking for the next conquest.

Months passed like this. By Christmas, Mary was engaged to one of the engineers on the shop floor, who she’d had her eye on for some time. She said she was sure he was ‘Mr Right’ and that all she wanted to do was leave work and have children. Some people thought it was too quick and there were rumours about her being pregnant, but no bump appeared. I hoped she wouldn’t have babies yet; I thought I’d be lost without her at work.

In January 1964 a new junior manager started at Harrison’s. His name was Rick Boutell and his family had moved to Harborough from London, which gave him an air of cosmopolitan glamour. Not only that – he was achingly good-looking. He had thick, glossed hair swept up in a quiff and cheekbones a girl would die for. At a distance he could have passed for Billy Fury; that on its own was enough to get my pulse racing. He was twenty-one, and had what others called ‘experience’, which raised the glamour factor. Even his name sounded like a pop star’s; Rick Boutell. He was a far cry from the other men at work, and suddenly all my light-hearted flirting had found a serious target. But not an easy one.

Unlike the other men, Rick didn’t seem to notice me much, although I tried to catch his eye. In the canteen I would give him a little smile if he glanced my way. And if we happened to pass in the corridor I’d say ‘Hello!’ brightly, but not slow down at all, as though I was far too busy to stand and chat. I made sure to emphasise that little sway to my hips that I knew men liked. All of this had worked a treat before, but all I got from Rick was an amused stare or a quizzical look. It was as if he could see straight through my little ploys and was laughing at me. Mary said not to bother about him, that he was rumoured to be having an affair with a married woman, that he was a ‘bit of a one’. I wasn’t sure I believed this, but it only made me more determined.

Things went on like this for some weeks until finally I had to accept that he just wasn’t interested in a sixteen-year-old girl. I’d been asked out by someone else, someone more my own age. I was thinking about it, and had stopped trying to get Rick to notice me. Two days later, as I was coming out of the ladies’, I saw him loitering by the window, looking out at a sudden flurry of snow. It was late February. He turned as he heard the door.

‘Looks cold out there,’ he said, tilting his head towards the window. I said yes, it did. ‘So… I think maybe you’d like to go for a drink sometime?’ he went on, with such casual cheek it took my breath away. I just stared at him, feeling my face grow hot. He grinned. ‘It hasn’t gone unnoticed, you see. Your interest. Only I was waiting.’

I blinked, thinking maybe this was how they behaved in London; this was how you did it when you had ‘experience’.

‘Waiting for what?’

‘Until I was free, of course. I don’t like two-timing.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Better be getting back. What do you think then? Tomorrow at eight? I’ll meet you outside Boots in town.’

I was used to being called for, so that my dad could give them the once over. And I wasn’t used to it being assumed I’d say yes.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet you tomorrow.’

I didn’t tell my parents, partly because of him not coming to the house, partly because I didn’t want to contaminate the nervous, fizzing excitement inside me with their inevitable questions. As far as they were concerned I was meeting a girlfriend and going to the cinema.

He was there at Boots before me and took me to the Fox and Hounds. I didn’t tell him I’d never been in a pub without my parents, and I wondered if he thought I was older than I was. I was so nervous I could hardly speak, hardly think what to say. Luckily he talked enough for both of us so I just sat and listened until a couple of Cherry Bs had loosened my tongue. But as the evening went on my heart began to sink when I realised what a gulf there was between us. Every topic of conversation seemed to show me up as naïve and ignorant. Like music. He was into jazz and blues and Bob Dylan, and thought the Beatles were a one-hit wonder. And films. I said I liked watching all the old black-and-whites on TV, and he looked scornful. ‘My all-time favourite’s Rebel Without a Cause,’ he said, and then that James Dean was his hero. I didn’t tell him I’d barely heard of the film, or James Dean.

Eventually we got on to our families, and the gulf widened until it yawned beneath my feet. His father was in property, he said. My face must have shown that I didn’t know what being ‘in property’ meant exactly, and Rick explained that his father bought, sold and rented houses.

‘He used to work in my grandfather’s business, in the East End,’ he said, ‘trading cloth. But the war saw off the business, my granddad retired on the proceeds of selling the building, and my old man turned to property.’

When his father had made ‘quite a bit of money’ they’d moved out of London to Harborough. I recognised the name of the road where they lived; there were some big houses down there by the park.

‘Why don’t you just work for your dad?’ I asked him. ‘Couldn’t he give you a job, if he makes so much money?’

Rick shrugged. ‘I will one day. He said I should do something else first. Another string to my bow, as he calls it.’

Rick asked me about my family, and miserably I told him that both my parents worked in a shoe factory, my father as a supervisor and my mother as a stitcher on the line. He didn’t say much to that, but I saw him reassessing what little he knew about me.

When Rick walked me home I stopped at the end of our street and said, ‘Well, here we are, this is where I live.’ I pointed to somewhere halfway along the terrace, deliberately vague. But then, feeling guilty about fobbing him off, I said, ‘Do you want to come in for a coffee, or anything?’ He grinned, and I regretted that ‘or anything’. Then regretted asking him at all, wondering how I’d explain it away.

‘Dad will give you the third degree, though,’ I added. ‘And my little brother will hang around and be annoying.’

‘Now that sounds inviting.’ He pulled his collar up a little higher and blew on his hands, then shoved them into his pockets. ‘I’ll see you at work then. Okay?’

‘Yes, sure,’ I said, and he turned and walked away, round the corner and gone. I was stunned. Given his reputation I’d imagined myself having to politely remove groping hands. Was that it? Not even a peck on the cheek? Had I not passed the test?

In bed, later, I thought back over the evening, convincing myself that everything I’d told him would have put him off. I felt stupid, like I’d somehow been found out, found wanting. And I was disappointed; it sat in my stomach like a bowlful of my mother’s porridge, because even though I could see he was a bit full of himself I liked him. He made me laugh.

Two days passed without another word from him, barely an acknowledgement when I saw him at work. On the third day, we happened to pass in the corridor above where the draughtsmen worked. When he saw me coming he stopped and leant back on the wall, his eyes looking me up and down. I got ready to give him a quick nod and carry on, but he put one hand up to stop me.

‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ he asked.

Tomorrow was Friday, and I was doing nothing. I looked down at the drawing room and saw two of the men staring up at Rick and me. One leant over to the other and said something that the other one laughed at. I ignored them and turned back to Rick. ‘I’m seeing a friend,’ I said. And then added, ‘Maybe.’

‘Well, don’t see her, see me instead. I’ll take you to a nice Italian restaurant I know.’

Italian? That was one up on the fish and chips I usually get offered. ‘What, you don’t talk to me for two days and then you want to take me out?’

Well, those were the words in my head, but what I actually said was, ‘All right then. Why not?’