Chapter nine
Martine was keen to hear how the Story of My Life introduction had gone.
She called me on the kitchen phone, late on Friday night.
Already, I half-expected its old-fashioned peal now somewhere between ten and eleven.
She never chatted for longer than a few minutes but always dropped some interesting nugget about the house or the town.
She’d asked me twice ‘how the writing was going’, which had the (no doubt intended) effect of making me more focused on Seraphina and Arthur than I had been in some time.
It was one of Fraser’s grumbles about his mother, what he called her ‘relentless need to chivvy people’.
I didn’t mind, though; it was nice that she was interested.
In fact, when the phone rang, I was sitting up in bed with my laptop on a pillow, writing – or more accurately, writing and deleting – the pivotal library farewell scene while Rosemount’s baronial fireplace was fresh in my mind.
It wasn’t going well, and I was happy to abandon the weirdly stilted non-conversation Seraphina and Arthur were having.
‘So can you choose whom you interview?’ Martine asked, after I’d regaled her with the whole thing. ‘Or are your interviews allocated at random?’
Since Martine knew virtually everyone in the town, one way or another, I wondered if she’d draw up a priority list for me. To interview, or perhaps to avoid. Maybe that was why she hadn’t volunteered herself; the temptation to correct people’s inaccurate memories would be too tempting.
‘It’s random, I think.’ I opened Pam’s email again to check. ‘My first interview is with a couple called Horrobin? Do you know them?’
‘Hmm.’ Martine pretended to think, but I knew she knew. ‘Would that be Bill Horrobin? The greengrocer?’
‘Maybe?’ I said. ‘Pam just sent me names, not any other details.’
‘Well, if it is, Bill Horrobin’s a lovely chap. You must let me know how it goes! But don’t let me distract you – I saw your light was on. Are you writing tonight? Or still working?’
I looked at my laptop, stuck at Arthur’s wooden goodbye speech. Were there any new ways to say ‘I love you?’ I couldn’t find any. The fireplace they were embracing in front of currently felt more animated than the lovers.
‘Writing,’ I said.
‘Then I won’t disturb you,’ she said. ‘Strike while the iron’s hot! Don’t let anything distract you!’
‘Good night, Martine,’ I said, and we hung up.
Tomsk was lying in his new favourite place, close to the gas fire, squinting through his fringe at the mismatched pack of pottery dogs on the shelf, as if daring them to move. When I ended the call, he looked up at me with his soft brown eyes.
I told Tomsk I loved him several times a day, in ludicrous, if creative ways. But I didn’t think Seraphina would appreciate Arthur telling her that she had the warmest, softest ears in the world and her feet smelled of digestive biscuits.
Tomsk laid his head on his paws, as if reminding me it was getting late.
‘Ten more minutes,’ I said. ‘And no, I’m not giving Seraphina a dog.’
Although it would give them something to talk about, I thought, turning back to the fireplace and Arthur’s stilted goodbyes.
‘. . . and was it 1976 when we moved to Surbiton, Bill? Yes, it was. That was when that programme came out, The Good Life, and your sister thought we were going to buy a pig! Of course we didn’t, but you did get a Flymo . . .’
Linda Horrobin had not stopped talking since I’d taken up position on the armchair opposite the sofa where she and her husband Bill sat, side by side.
I’d heard about the flat they’d lived in when they got married, off Upper Street in Islington, bought ‘when no one wanted to live there, of course now our little place would be worth millions!’, and the early mornings Bill had worked, supplying fruit from Covent Garden Market to restaurants and luxury hotels across the city.
Linda had started her nursing career at St George’s Hospital, ‘of course, it’s a fancy hotel now, can you believe!
’ I heard about the red satin pants he’d bought from a shop called Mr Fish that Linda ‘couldn’t believe were men’s trousers’, the Mini they’d driven around Nelson’s Column ‘on two wheels!’ the night England won the World Cup, the time they shared a table in a nightclub with Tom Jones. That was just the first half-hour.
Bill smiled, but hadn’t said a word.
Linda glanced across at him every other sentence, and included him in the conversation so naturally that it felt as if he was participating – ‘we liked dancing, didn’t we, Billy, although not so much when it all went a bit hippy-like, we grew up with proper dance floors and bands who could play, like those jazz men at the Flamingo, oh, you loved them, didn’t you, Georgie Fame and his Blue Flames . . .’
I was scribbling this down as fast as I could but I was barely keeping up. As per Gayle’s instructions, I was recording our conversation on my phone, but I wanted to jot down details that my phone couldn’t see.
Like when Linda flicked her gaze at Bill, either for confirmation or in the hope the same memory was forming out of the fog in his mind.
Every time she checked and he smiled back, I caught flashes of the heartbreaker she’d fallen for: the deep blue eyes, the jutting cheekbones, the tenderness in his expression.
I jotted down the way she took his hand now and again in hers; I made a note of the faint movement as Linda squeezed it, the sigh of a memory escaping.
I wrote down ‘Elnett hairspray’, and the single fat pearl in Linda’s ears like a dot of punctuation under the swirled hair; Bill’s ironed blue shirt and striped tie under the lambswool jumper, the pressed trousers, the velvet slippers with the dashing skull and crossbones on the toes.
‘Everything had a bit of glamour in the old days,’ she said, when I commented on what a stylish pair they were. ‘People made an effort.’
‘Well, you two still do, clearly.’ I waved a hand in the general direction of my own hair, scraped up in a messy bun. ‘Your hair looks beautiful, Linda. Like a film star’s.’
She patted the back of her roller-set, suddenly self-conscious. ‘Oh, I’m not the glamorous one in this marriage. Bill’s too modest to say, but people used to tell him he was the spit of Albert Finney.’
‘Oh, I can see that.’ Google Albert Finney. ‘What about you? Who did people say you had a look of? You definitely remind me of someone.’
She shook her head, shy but delighted. ‘Well, I couldn’t . . .’
‘Petula Clark,’ said Bill unexpectedly.
We both swung our attention back to him. His voice was so quiet I wondered if I’d imagined it, but Linda’s reaction confirmed I hadn’t.
I held my breath, in case he spoke again, but he didn’t.
‘Oh, love,’ said Linda.
There was a knock-knock on the door and Pam Woodward popped her head round.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, ‘but just to let you know that there’s refreshments for our volunteers in the lounge. Gayle’s come back to give some advice about writing up your notes.’
‘Are there refreshments for the interviewees?’ Linda gave me a cheeky wink. ‘Hard work, this reminiscing.’
‘Lemon drizzle today,’ said Pam. ‘Your favourite! I’ll pop a slice aside. Same for you, Bill?’
We all glanced at Bill, in the hope he might speak again.
‘Bill, do you have a favourite cake?’ I asked, and there was another pause while we waited for him to say something. He gazed towards the window with a blank expression, and after a moment, Pam broke the silence.
‘He loves a scone, am I right, Linda?’
Linda was nodding agreement, when Bill’s lips parted and he said, in a whisper, ‘Bakewell tart.’
I caught Pam’s eye and although she indicated not to make a fuss, she seemed pleased.
‘We’ll have to add that to the list, Bill!’ she said. ‘Bakewell tart, eh? Was that one of Linda’s specialities?’
Another long pause, but the silence didn’t feel as empty as before.
‘No! I can’t bake to save my life! Bill liked the Café Royal in town.’ Linda gave her husband’s hand a squeeze. ‘We used to go there before the pictures, didn’t we?’
‘My mum loved the Café Royal!’ said Pam. ‘She said the waitresses had special silver cake slices, and white gloves. Do you remember those, Bill? The white gloves?’
There was no reply. Bill’s gaze had returned to a point outside the window, but there was an energy in his expression that hadn’t been there before, as if his imagination was spooling vivid images across his mind’s eye.
‘Well, thank you for such an entertaining afternoon,’ I said, standing up quickly.
I hadn’t expected to feel so emotional. That two people could still love each other like that after decades together was simultaneously hopeful and humbling.
What were the chances of meeting that one special person?
‘I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!’
‘You’ll be coming back, won’t you?’ Linda looked up. ‘We barely got started!’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I want to hear more about the fruit and veg market! And Georgie Fame!’
‘We’ll get your photographs out for next week, Linda,’ said Pam. ‘That often helps,’ she added to me, under her breath.
‘We’ve got some terrific albums, haven’t we, Bill?’ said Linda. ‘All those holidays in Spain!’
A faint smile twitched at the edge of Bill’s pale lips, and I wondered if he was back in the Mini with a giggling Linda, circling Hyde Park as he tooted the horn for the World Cup winners. And who could blame him, with memories like that to slip back into?
‘You’ll have to tell Mr Levison about that,’ said Pam as she hurried down the corridor. She moved urgently at all times, as if there were an alarm going off somewhere, stopping only to check the big table lamps in the corridor – flicking them on and off, then frowning. She didn’t say why.
‘Tell him what?’
‘That you got Mr Horrobin talking. He’ll be chuffed. He’s barely said more than a few words since he and Linda moved in.’
‘Is Bill . . . ?’ I didn’t know what the correct term was, and didn’t want to seem disrespectful.