Chapter 14
‘Come on,’ Dot says. ‘You and I are going out.’
‘Where?’ I ask.
We’re just over a week into the trip, and I’m feeling more relaxed than I have in years.
‘Road trip,’ Dot says, waving the car keys at me and heading to the door.
She hasn’t driven the Cadillac since we arrived but I knew Sean had put her on the insurance in case she wanted to. I get up and follow her, checking my handbag for the essentials. Sean’s outside, ready to wave us off.
‘Did everyone know about this other than me?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ Dot says. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’
‘And I wanted you to have a bit of time to yourselves,’ Sean says. ‘I don’t want to be cramping your style for the entire holiday.’
I give him a playful tap on the arm, because he’s hardly cramping our style. More like making this whole thing possible.
‘What are you and Geoff going to do?’ I ask.
Sean runs a hand through his hair. ‘He’s offered to take me to his chess club, and I thought I might go for a swim. Don’t worry about me, I’ll keep busy.’
‘We’ll see you later,’ Dot calls from the driver’s seat. ‘Get in, Mabel.’
I’ve barely fastened my seatbelt when she pulls away. ‘Sean helped me plan the route,’ she says. ‘We’re going along the coast for an hour or so, and I’ve got a picnic in the back.’
The roof’s down and for a few minutes we just enjoy the scenery and the breeze, which whips our hair back.
‘Almost forgot,’ Dot says, pulling over on the grass verge. She reaches into the back seat and produces two headscarves, and we tie them on, laughing, and set off again.
‘It’s like that film, Thelma and Louise,’ she says. ‘Did you ever see it, Mabel?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I say. ‘But I might, if it’s like this.’
‘Well, it’s not all like this. They drive off a cliff at the end.’
I turn to look at her until she takes her eyes off the road for a moment to meet my gaze. ‘I don’t want to do that, thank you.’
‘Noted,’ Dot says, and we both laugh again.
As we drive, I try to take everything in so I can tell Erin and Julie about it later.
But the views aren’t the kind of thing you can explain, and I know if I asked Dot to stop and took a photo with my mobile telephone that it wouldn’t quite capture the magnificence of it.
I make a decision – just being here and seeing all this has to be enough.
Being here and seeing it with Dot. I don’t need to try to recreate it for anyone.
I just need to appreciate it. So that’s what I do.
‘You’re quiet,’ Dot says. We’ve been driving for almost an hour.
‘Just taking it all in,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Beautiful. We’re stopping in a few minutes, in a little town with a beach. How does that sound?’
I nod my head. There are tears in my eyes, and I’m not sure whether they’re from the wind or just from my happiness at being here with her. ‘That sounds perfect, Dot,’ I manage.
The town is similar to where Geoff lives, small and picturesque. We find a gravel car park and Dot swings the Cadillac into a space.
‘Right then, I picked the food up at the deli. All our favourites.’
She takes the picnic basket and I take the blanket she’s packed and we make the short walk to the beach and find a spot to settle down in.
It’s breezy and we have to take our shoes off to weigh the blanket down, and we get a bit of sand in our tuna sandwiches, but it doesn’t matter because everything can’t be perfect. And on this day, so much is.
‘Do you remember that beach trip we did with Arthur and Bill?’ I ask her, pouring us cups of cloudy lemonade.
‘Like it was yesterday,’ Dot says.
We’re quiet, both lost in our memories, and I wonder how similar they are. I wonder whether she wished it was just the two of us that day, as I did.
‘Would you have married Bill, if he hadn’t died?’ I ask.
It’s a big question, and Dot blows out a big breath before answering it.
It’s something I’ve always wondered, and now feels like the right time to ask, here on the beach on our big adventure.
I don’t mind if she says she would have done.
I married Arthur, after all. But I think it would alter something between us, in a small way.
That knowledge that we would never have been able to be together, if it wasn’t for Bill’s untimely and tragic death.
‘I don’t think so, Mabel,’ she says. ‘I liked him so very much but I knew I wasn’t in love with him the way he was with me.
I was starting to wonder how I was going to extricate myself from the situation without losing you in the process.
And then he died, and I felt awful because it freed me but not in a way I ever would have chosen.
‘It’s funny, I’ve heard my grandchildren talking about their relationships a bit over the years.
There are all these stages leading up to properly committing to someone these days.
To even being in a relationship with them, I mean.
But back then if you danced with someone a couple of times, everyone had you married off in their minds, didn’t they? ’
It was like that. I laugh at Erin when she tells me that her and Hannah are talking to each other or seeing each other and I don’t know the difference, but in our day it was as if everyone’s goal was to pair off as quickly as possible, and it was easy to fall into something and end up over your head.
‘I remember Julie telling me that it was a done deal with her Martin after a few months of dating, and she’s much younger than us,’ I say.
It would have broken Bill’s heart if Dot had told him she didn’t want to be his girl. But in the end, his heart broke in a different way.
‘I think the young ones have got the right idea,’ Dot says. ‘All that communication so everyone knows exactly what stage they’re at. And all that freedom, too. To try different people out and see how they fit.’
‘You make a relationship sound like a new outfit,’ I say, laughing.
‘Well, it is like that, in a way. You look around the shop, dismiss lots of things you don’t like the look of, choose a few that you do, and then see which one you like best.’
‘I knew I liked you best pretty quickly,’ I say.
‘I knew I liked you best, too. But it wasn’t that simple, was it?’ She covers my hand with hers. We’ve finished eating, and I’m starting to feel sleepy.
‘It was not. We had people like Reg Bishop to contend with.’
Dot smiles. ‘That old fool. Did he ever marry?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Who’d have him?’
And we both laugh despite knowing that it simply isn’t the case that all the best people get to fall in love and experience marriage and the worst people don’t.
‘I think I’d like a little lie-down after all that lovely food,’ I say.
Dot gets up slowly. ‘I prepared for this eventuality.’
She goes to the car and comes back with two cushions for us to rest our heads on. It’s touching, the way she’s thought of everything. We lie down, face to face, and I close my eyes. I feel at peace. A gentle breeze on my arms and the woman I love by my side.
‘I think this might be the best day of my life,’ I say, quietly but loud enough for her to hear.
‘Stick with me,’ she says. ‘This is only the beginning.’
We doze for half an hour or so. When I feel myself properly waking up, Dot is sleeping, so I lie there watching her for a while. And then I hear a voice.
‘Pardon me, are you all right?’
I sit up, and it takes me a while. There’s a man and woman, about Julie’s age, standing at the edge of the blanket.
‘We’re quite all right, thank you,’ I say.
‘Oh, you’re British!’ the man says. ‘We love London, don’t we?’
His wife nods. ‘We’re sorry to bother you, we just saw the two of you lying here and I knew I’d never forgive myself if we didn’t check that you were okay.’
Dot is awake, now. She rubs her eyes and sits up, looking at me as if waiting for an introduction. But I don’t know these people’s names.
‘I’m Jennifer,’ the woman says, as if she can read my mind. ‘And this is Hank. Are you ladies on holiday here?’
I tell them we are, that we’re visiting a friend in Sea Cliff and we’ve come on a little road trip. Dot and I get up and brush ourselves off while I speak.
‘So are you sisters, or friends?’ the man asks.
Dot takes this one. ‘Mabel is my partner,’ she says, reaching for my hand.
I see the distaste on their faces immediately. They don’t try to disguise it. The man barks out a loud laugh, and Dot and I look at each other, and it’s clear we’re on the same page. It’s time to go.
‘Well, it was a pleasure to meet you—’ Dot starts.
‘Hold on a minute, are you saying what I think you’re saying? That the two of you are lovers?’ The man’s arms are folded across his chest, and his wife is looking down at the ground. She’s less confrontational, but no less homophobic, I’m guessing.
‘Are you?’ Dot asks.
The man takes a step backwards. ‘Are we what?’
‘Lovers?’
‘This is my wife,’ he says.
‘And this is mine,’ Dot says.
She doesn’t say another word after that, just quietly gathers our things together while the man asks a couple more questions and then gives up and walks away, spitting on the ground as he goes.
It’s so unpleasant that I feel close to tears as we put our shoes on and take the things back to the car.
When we’re strapped in, before pulling away, Dot turns to me.
‘They don’t matter,’ she says. ‘People like that. They’re not our people, and we don’t need their permission.’
It’s right, what she’s saying, but I’m still sad because it was such a perfect day and now it’s ruined. I tell her as much. She doesn’t say anything at first, just reaches out her arm behind my headrest as she reverses. We’re back on the road when she speaks.
‘I think I see it differently to you. It has been a perfect day, you’re right. Up until that point. But nothing’s perfect, Mabel. We need the bad things to make us appreciate the good.’
I think about that the whole drive back, watching the ocean rush past the side of the car.
I think about Erin and her troubles with her mum, how it led her to me.
Julie being left by Martin and him going off with that Estelle.
Life is a mix of all things. Good and bad and everything in between.
The best you can do is share the good and the bad times with the best people you can find. And I’m certainly doing that.
When we pull up outside Geoff’s house, I put a hand on Dot’s arm. ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘I won’t let it be ruined.’
She nods.
‘You said I was your wife,’ I say.
‘And you will be, Mabel. You will be.’