Chapter 14 #3
But someone else appears behind them and when I glance her way, Lyra’s expression isn’t threatening or expectant; it’s intrigued, I think. Will he sign?
I nod and make my way back to the girl, crouching down in front of her. ‘What’s your name?’
She grins from ear to ear. ‘Anabell. Ah, nu, ah, be, eh, lu, lu.’
Taking her pen, I spell out her name and sign mine. The way I used to, without hesitation, as if it was just yesterday that I’d sign hundreds of posters for promotions, t-shirts, caps and banners after concerts. For a nanosecond, I forget.
A sharp flash brings me back from wherever my mind wanders to and I see Lyra, with a different camera to her usual one, taking a picture of the moment.
I scowl at her. No. Then hand the notepad and pen back to the girl, give her the kind of response I used to give on autopilot to fans, and head outside, into the cool fresh air, taking a cigarette from my inside pocket and placing it between my lips as I head to the solitude of my seat.
Crossing the gravel between the castle and the lawn, I hear voices on the balcony behind me, frantically calling out for ‘Nanna!’
‘Has anyone seen Nanna?’ a woman asks.
I continue walking.
I’m in such a blind from the last hour and a half. From feeling like I’ve been cracked over the head with an emotional mallet. I’m starting to hallucinate. Just like the lone man in the desert seeing an oasis, I smell the sweet solace of not just nicotine but the specific brand I used to smoke.
I’m glad I don’t smoke any more, or drink or take drugs. I’ve worked hard to get here, for myself, and for Scott. I have what my therapist describes as an addictive personality and the lifestyle I had in the band legitimised it.
But damn, that smell is still a welcome one.
It’s so strong, it makes me take my unlit stick from my mouth and check I didn’t accidentally take a lighter to it in my emotional fog.
I didn’t.
Now, almost at my hideaway, I see a plume of smoke rising into the dark night.
Stronger than my yearning for that old habit is my irritation that someone has nabbed my spot.
As I tuck around the corner of the seat, I see an elderly lady, resting back into the bench, her ankles crossed beneath her green and purple dress, feet swinging back and forth like someone seventy years her junior. She takes her next drag like she really needs it.
Just as I decide to leave this woman in peace, she says, ‘Oh, hiya, love,’ in that way people from the north east can, as if they’ve known you forever, so you can’t turn on your too-shiny shoe heel to walk away.
She glances to the cigarette between my lips and starts reaching into her small purple handbag. ‘I’ve got a light,’ she tells me.
‘I’m good, thanks. I don’t smoke.’
She considers this, taking in the picture of me in front of her, presumably pondering whether I’m being sarcastic. Then, she takes her cigarette between two fingers, removes it from her lips and turns her head to blow her smoke in the opposite direction to me.
‘I had a friend who packed in that way,’ she says. ‘Joyce from along the road. She was always trying to quit. She had the patches, the gum, even tried one of those hypnotherapists who she met at the bingo one night. None of it worked.’
She shuffles along the seat and lifts her handbag onto her lap, leaving a space for me that I feel obliged to fill, coming to sit next to her.
‘Eventually, someone told her that what she missed was the physical act of it. Doing the action with her hands and what-not.’ She waves her fingers that are still holding her near-finished cigarette.
‘So she tried what you’re doing. Whenever she wanted a drag, she’d put a cigarette between her fingers and pretend to smoke it.
Aye, she was one of the good ones, our Joyce. Lovely woman.’
‘I’m going to take a punt here but are you the Nanna people are looking for back at the party?’
She hisses her next breath through her teeth, head shaking. ‘Can’t a woman have two minutes’ peace?’
‘I hear you. Your secret’s safe with me.’
We fall into silence and in the distance, I can hear another call for ‘Nanna’, as if this woman isn’t capable of looking after herself. She seems just fine to me.
‘They’re all squabbling amongst themselves about who let me have too much whiskey.’ Her head’s shaking again. ‘Do I look drunk to you?’
I turn her way. Her eyes do look a little glassy but I get the sense that might not only be from alcohol.
‘Not in the slightest.’ I’m not sure why but I offer her my right hand as I tell her, ‘I’m Guy.’
‘So they tell me,’ she says, accepting my hand. ‘You’ve got a musician’s hands.’
By that, I assume she means no labourer’s callouses. I’ve also lost the hardened tips of my fingers that I had when I played guitar every day.
‘My father was a musician. He used to play piano and sing in the clubs. He was good. All the locals loved him. They’d always ask for one more tune.’
I smile. Genuinely feeling like this woman is a pretty cool nanna. ‘Shall I just call you Nanna?’
‘Most people do, love. But I’m actually Mary. Mary Winnifred. People call me Winnie, though.’
‘Winnie.’
‘I haven’t had too much whiskey. They’re only on at us because none of them want to look after us and they think I’m too bloody old to look after myself since my Billy died last year.’
‘Was Billy your husband?’
‘Sixty years. We spent our entire lives together. He was a hard man to live with. Drank too much. Smoked too much. Ate far too much lard. Never lifted a finger around the house.’ She looks away but not before I notice her eyes glaze over even more. ‘But d’ya know what he’d do if he was here, Guy?’
‘What would he do?’
‘He’d say, Winnie, you only live once. Get yourself another whiskey, darlin’. Hop on my feet and I’ll turn you round that dance floor.’
She reaches into her purse, takes out a crumpled tissue, and sounds like an elephant blowing its nose as she corrects herself.
‘Nanna?’ we hear being called again.
I don’t know what’s happening to me of late. Maybe it’s all that therapy or getting older. Or being trapped in small spaces with a woman who wants to help everyone.
Standing, I hold out my hand. ‘Come on, Winnie. I might not be a replacement for your Billy but I’d be honoured if you’d let me turn you around the dance floor tonight.’