CHAPTER 37
I finally got the last of the crowd off to their respective homes at about two thirty. Jim had been allowed to stay up to see and hear the Big Ben Bongs, and he was already asleep as Tony carried him upstairs. No story that night.

There were a couple of surprises, in that Suzy had given up the idea of a clubbing session and stayed to chat with Alice, which soon turned into raucous banter, as a little group of women formed around the two. Janet stayed sober, and a little outside their orbit, but I noticed her getting deeper into conversation with Pat as the night went on.

Finally, finally they were gone, all apart from the snoring figure of Andy on the settee, a half-empty can of lager next to him on the coffee table. Trying to outdrink rugby men and Customs Officers, silly boy. I covered him with a blanket and laid him into a safe position, pulling his shoes off.

Janet and Pat were the last conscious ones to leave. They had ended up locked in discussion, and each time I passed I caught words like “Aquinas” and “predetermination”. That latter one made me realise how tightly she had controlled her drinking, and I understood a little of how ferociously she had ordered her life to keep her secret. I felt sorry for her, then. For all her success, she had walled herself off from the world, much as I had, but far more solidly, and for far longer. Perhaps the connection she had found with Pat matched that of a nun and a priest.

Pausing to leave a washing bowl by the settee, just in case, I made my way up to join my snoring partner. A typical man, he had ambled upstairs after the last departure, and undressed vertically so that all his clothes were piled on top of his shoes, as if from some bizarre ‘beaming up’ accident.

In the morning, Andy looked a bit green as we three girls cleared, wiped, brewed and cooked.. When Jim selected some Bon Scott-era AC/DC to listen to over breakfast, Andrew looked positively purgatorial. I thought it best to distract him.

“You spent a lot of time with Suze last night, Andy”

“Er, I like her a lot. Always have done”

“She’s single….”

He started to laugh. “She’s a good mate, Sar, but we’d strangle each other by the second day”

“So you wouldn’t?”

“Physically? If I didn’t know her, yes, I would, but I do know her, and I like her. I know she takes the piss out of me; what was that last one, something about Ann Summers? It’s just, well, remember what I said about incest? It would be like shagging my sister”

He paused, and remarkably for him, looked embarrassed. “She’s asked me out”

“Oh…”

“No, Sar, not like that. Not on a date, meal, want a coffee thing”

“Right, Andy. What has she asked you to?”

“Well, I don’t know what to do…it’s a badminton club”

Alice had heard this, and started to chuckle. “Hmm, tight white shorts, young maaaaaan!”

I slapped her wrist. “Behave!”

There was a real slide show of emotions across Andy’s face. His boss…his male boss…was making lewd remarks about him…but his boss was actually a woman…and was older…and….

I could almost read the scream in his mind. “Oh fuck, how the hell am I supposed to react to THIS?”

“Andy, just ignore her. Did Suzy explain why?”

“I think it was because I was pissed, and I was rambling on about Iain and Kevin, and Jim to be honest. I said how everywhere I went I was dragging a cartload of baggage behind me, and when we talked she made me realise that perhaps I could try somewhere other than licensed premises. And she said about her club”

That made sense. I could see how he had fallen into a nice little loop of gossip and drink. Clubs and bars were where you met girls, right? The girls talked to each other, and the loop became a noose. Same with the company. If Margaret was aware of his reputation, so was every other girl he might run into on a course. He needed to break out of his small world and go somewhere that would let him be himself. An idea came to me.

“Andy…do yourself a favour, OK?”

“Such as?”

“Don’t go there with the assumption there will be a woman for you, and if you do meet any, don’t chat them up”

“But I’m good at the chat, Sar!”

“What do you want, Andy? The knickers off some girl in a pub, or something better? Just try talking to them and seeing what happens rather than pulling them.”

“You mean like that priest and teacher last night?”

There was a thought. “Yes, Andy, just like Pat and Janet. Talk to the head, talk to the person”

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Alice drove him home after breakfast, as she had had little enough to be safe to drive, and I kept thinking back to Pat and Janet. I could see how they would click. They were both sharp as needles, equally fascinated by logical debate and wordplay, and from what little Janet had let out about her life since her vanishing trick she was rather prone to self-examination. She was also a head teacher of a school known locally for very strict rules on behaviour; not brutal, not petty, but serious emphasis on turning out good children who understood why their behaviour had to be controlled.

Pat was a moralist. That sermon he had written for Father Bill was quite uncompromising in its message. If you are good, you will do good things, and they will come naturally from being good. Ticking the boxes with actions perceived as ‘good’ would not change your mind, your heart. There was another side to him, as well, in that while he was wholeheartedly a believer, and a Catholic, he saw flaws in their doctrine that clearly pained him. They would bear watching.

Jim wanted a ride on his new bike, and so we walked out, the four of us, to the seafront cycle path, Jim and I pushing our bikes as Tony ambled arm-in-arm with his mother, and I was happy at that moment. It may sound callous, but just then, without the complications of other people’s lives, we were simply a family, out for a stroll on New Year’s Day, to watch the ships and the waves.

That brought so many feelings to the surface. New Year, new lives. Trite, I know, but it was still an amazing thought. After all the rubbish and damage of my life, I was suddenly centre stage and not as the person who everyone worried about. I was becoming the caregiver, it seemed, the one that others came to for help and support.

All except Enid, of course. She astonished me, the acceptance she had given me and Alice, and the energy she brought to the family. I realised that the only way I could repay her would be to follow her example as best I could. Be there for others, as she was for me and my boys.

And Alice, of course, but that gave me a little bit of insight. Enid had clearly been living entirely for her family since Tony senior had gone, no time or effort for herself. Alice had started out as another person to be tended, it seemed to me, but rather than a patient she had become a co-conspirator. Simply put, my mother-in-law had a friend, someone of her own age and with similar tastes. They were both blooming, both feeding off each other’s smiles and laughter. Both had clearly been lonely.

We got to the front via the underpass at Townwall Street, and then out past the Churchill hotel to the esplanade behind the shingle beach. I set Jim upon his bike, him to stay off the drops till he got used to the handling, so different from his little mountain bike, and as he wobbled off down the cycle way I rode slowly behind him. Enid and Tony went to the odd little shelter with the spike sticking out of it and settled down for some serious ship-naming by Tony.

We rode out three times to the junction with Townwall, and back past the ‘waiting miner’ statue to the shelter, Jim getting more fluent with each pedal stroke until on the last run he was trying to race me and laughing as he rode. I called for a break then.

“Jim, darling, you have worn me out! Time to see what Daddy has in his rucksack!”

Orange squash, flasks of tea, fresh sandwiches made by Enid, and leftovers of the savoury stuff from the night before. Plus some Quality Street. As we settled down to the sound of the pebbles hissing and clattering in the waves, Alice arrived with another flask, of hot chocolate.

It was a good day.