Читать книгу Would Like to Meet - Polly James, Polly James - Страница 17

Oh, God, this splitting-up thing must be catching: now Joel and Izzy have split up, too. He told me about it late last night when he came back from a date with her, and said it was his choice, but then clammed up when I asked him why. I try again this morning, when he finally drags himself out of bed.

“Well, you and Dad are hardly a good advertisement for long-term relationships, are you?” he says. “And anyway, I’m fine with it.”

He may be, but he looks a lot more bleary-eyed than he normally does after a night out drinking.

In fact, he looks so rough that I don’t feel I can ask him to go into the loft to find my painting things, so I end up doing it myself, which is not the world’s most enjoyable experience. First the ladder wobbles alarmingly, and then I have to climb off it into the attic, which is so dark that I can barely see a thing, apart from all the horrible cobwebs near the hatch. I hate spiders – and so does Joel – so I’ve no idea how we’re going to deal with them now Dan’s not here.

“You’ve got no choice, so just man up,” I say to myself. (That’s another thing that happens when your husband’s left you: you start talking to yourself, like a lunatic.)

Luckily, my art stuff is in the box closest to the hatch, so soon I’m back downstairs, sitting at the kitchen table and drawing the viola Pearl gave me from the garden at Abandon Hope. My first few strokes of the pencil are tentative, but after that, my drawing becomes more fluid and the result is surprisingly good, given that I’ve done nothing but draw stupid website icons for the last ten years. The trouble is that, once the flower drawing’s complete, I can’t think of anything else to draw and – after a few minutes spent racking my brains to no avail – I realise I’ve been doodling Dan’s name, over and over, by accident.

I scribble all the doodles out.

“What shall I draw next?” I say to Joel.

“I don’t know,” he says, which is no help whatsoever, but then I recall what I used to do whenever I ran out of ideas at art school: go for a walk in the countryside.

I pack up my sketchbook and drawing materials and then I arrange to go over to Pearl’s. I may as well kill two birds with one stone, I suppose.

* * *

“You look terrible,” says Pearl, as soon as she opens the door to me. “I’m surprised you’ve got the energy to go for a walk. Are you still not sleeping?”

“No,” I say, “I mean, yes, I am. But that’s actually worse – because of the nightmares I’ve been having recently.”

Pearl raises an eyebrow.

“Nightmares?” she asks. “What nightmares?”

She makes me a coffee while I tell her about my recurring dream.

“It starts with me and Joel standing on the deck of the Titanic, while Joel keeps yelling at me that Dan has disappeared,” I say, finding it all too easy to visualise the scene that replays itself in my mind most nights: dark water swirling round our ankles, the captain of the ship conspicuous by his total absence, and the deck tilting more and more alarmingly.

“So what happens then?” asks Pearl.

She actually seems interested, which is unusual, given how boring most of us find listening to other people’s dreams. Esther tells me about hers every morning when we arrive at work, and I’m starting to wish she wouldn’t bother, though I’d never dream of saying so.

“Go on,” says Pearl. “We haven’t got all day, so don’t drag this out.”

“I’ve nearly finished,” I say, “and I was only pausing to take a breath. Anyway, when the ship’s about to capsize, Joel and I spot Dan sitting in a lifeboat in the sea below, so we both breathe a big sigh of relief because we know he won’t let us drown. Then we start jumping up and down, yelling, until he spots us …”

My voice tails off again at that point, as I suddenly get a bit choked up, so I try to cover that by slurping at my coffee, which is still so hot I burn my mouth.

“Ouch,” I say, getting up and heading for Pearl’s kitchen for a swig of cold water.

“Don’t change the subject by leaving the room,” says Pearl, getting up and following me. “Not when I’m still waiting to hear how this blooming dream ends – though I don’t see how you can call it a nightmare, if Dan rescues you.”

“That’s the thing,” I say. “When he finally sees us, he waves … but then he starts to row really fast. Away from us.”

“Ah,” says Pearl, who I’ve never known to be lost for words before.

She remains mute until we reach the wooden viewing seat at the top of the hill that forms the outer edge of the Abandon Hope estate, the same hill that overlooks a lake situated in a public park just outside the boundary. If Pearl thinks the sight of a large body of water is unfortunate in the circumstances, she doesn’t say so, and nor do I. I just avert my eyes.

“I want to give you some advice, Hannah,” she says, after a minute or two has passed. “From experience. When you find yourself on your own after a long time of being half of a couple, solitary hobbies like drawing and painting aren’t enough. You need to get out and meet people. You really do. I know it’s terrifying but you just have to face the fear. Take the opportunity to make new friends, whenever it presents itself, and be friendly to everyone you meet. Even people you don’t like.”

“Why have I got to be friendly to them?” I say, as I begin to sketch the view below us. (The one that doesn’t involve the lake. I’ve got my back to that.)

“Because they may have friends you like a lot,” says Pearl. “Ones they can introduce you to – oh, hello!”

She’s addressing one of the men who attended her poker night, the nice one who looks like Pope Francis, not the vile Fiddling Fred. He’s approaching us from the direction of the lake, dressed in a fisherman’s jumper and a very natty cap. The sort that a ship’s captain would wear, if he was the sort of captain who didn’t abandon women and children on the deck of a sinking ship. (I know Joel’s twenty-two, but to me he’ll always be a child.)

The man says hello to Pearl and then he smiles at me, and says, “Beautiful view, isn’t it?”

Pearl steps in before I can tell the truth about how I feel about the sight of large expanses of water at the moment.

“Hannah, you remember Albert, don’t you?” she says. “He’s one of my lovely fellow residents.”

I’d forgotten Albert’s name, but Pearl’s obviously taking her own advice by referring to him as “lovely”. She definitely told me she’d ruled him out as a potential new husband after the poker game, because he was “too quiet” for her taste.

The conversation between them isn’t exactly flowing now, which is a bit awkward, so I escape and walk to the very edge of the hill where I sit down on the grass, and start to draw the other view – the one which does contain the lake. Face the fear, and all that self-help stuff.

“I row my boat across that lake every morning,” says a voice behind me, and I turn round to see Albert looking down at my drawing. “It’s become one of my favourite places in the world.”

I don’t know what gets into me, but – all of a sudden – my mouth opens and I say,

“Albert, would you teach me to row?”

It might be purely symbolic, but imagine how much better I’d feel if I was rowing, not drowning.