Chapter 30 Bardy
BARDY
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
They are back in the lifeboat station, and the warmer, muggy May weather has been broken by a sudden storm.
Wind is lashing the building, rain pummeling the big window.
The run from the parking lot had been a dash that left them dripping.
Coats are now hung from spare chairs, and they are gathered around the main table, lit by a pool of yellow light. A good place to gather.
All except Tay.
“Out with her mate Uzma tonight,” Bardy tells them.
Bardy doesn’t mind. Smiled when he got the text.
Friendship comes hard to Tay. And now there’s Uzma.
This group, too. Sometimes you only need a start.
He glances at Lou, who is on his way to the kitchen with Linda, a cake tin in hand.
She has brought coffee cake, and he has brought Italian pastries.
Like an old married couple. Which makes him turn to Leonard.
“Have you told Linda?”
“Well, I’ve not really had the time. It’s been a busy week with one thing and another.”
Silver-bright Kate comes straight out with it, Satya and Pia listening in. “Told Linda what?”
Silver-bright Kate, who is going out with that big blond idiot.
Or is he the idiot? The lady doth protest too much. FFS!
Plus, he’s the idiot who had looked at Pia like . . . well, like that idiot Jonathan.
So many idiots. They could form a band.
He turns to Pia, who is asking, “Is there something you are not telling us, Leonard?” So soft now, gentle. A twinkle. But boy, does he want this woman on his side when the going gets tough.
Leonard’s blustering continues until the others are back.
“Linda, Leonard has something to tell you.” Bardy pushes him to the edge of the cliff and holds him there.
“Leonard?”
Bardy is surprised by how concerned Linda sounds. The woman who wants to run her husband over. Linda continues to pass around cakes and coffee, but her eyes are on her husband. And Leonard only has eyes for Linda.
It is as if the rest of them don’t exist.
Is this love? Is this what it really looks like? Not as in the films, or even in most of the books he’s read. How many times has this couple looked at each other over the years? How well they must know each other’s eyes, their changing light and expressions.
“Leonard?” Linda sits down, coffee forgotten.
“I don’t want to paint.”
Linda laughs. It is propelled by relief. What had she been expecting?
Leonard looks at his laughing wife and glances helplessly at the man who pushed him to the cliff edge.
“What do you want to do?” Linda knows there is more.
Leonard pauses. They all wait. The rain on the window is his drumroll.
“I want to write a musical.”
“Oh, Leonard!”
Bardy never knew that name could be said with such delight, enthusiasm, and—you can’t deny it—sexual promise. Blimey, Leonard. Hidden depths.
Now they are all joining in with enthusiasm. And Leonard the composer is off.
“I’ve always wanted to but I just didn’t have the time, or I thought people might think it was beyond me, or laugh at me.” But it is Leonard who laughs with relief at his confession.
“What’s it going to be about?” Satya asks.
“I have this idea of a story of a middle-aged man who is running a big factory making something boring like . . . oh . . . extruded plastic. All whistles and big chimneys—an industrial setting. I can see the stage set. He is not happy, but keeps going to make sure his family is provided for. Here I am imagining some darker scenes, thumping tunes, machinery whirring. Then there is his walk home to his family and that moment before he opens the door.”
Leonard is now leaning forward with enthusiasm. “Now comes the family scene, warm and happy. This man really loves his family. But there is a hidden sadness. He is keeping this secret from them.”
“Oh, Leonard,” Linda’s voice cracks.
He pats her hand. “No, it’s alright. It has a happy ending.”
“Does it?” She doesn’t sound so sure.
“The man’s wife realizes he isn’t happy, and she says he should do whatever he wants to do. Now that’s a very poignant scene. I have the song for that one already.” Leonard is nodding and smiling.
Bardy glances around, and everyone looks dumbstruck.
“Then—and this I think has the chance to add in some comedy—we see the man trying out new jobs. He tries to be a painter, but he’s really bad at it, and his father laughs when he sees what his son is doing. Tells him he’s no good and should go back to running the factory . . .”
Bardy hears the next, whispered, “Oh, Leonard,” from Linda. He doubts Leonard does. Still no hearing aids.
“So the man goes on to try all sorts of things. He could join a circus, try to start a newspaper,” Leonard glances at Lou, “become a baker and set up a cake shop. Lots of possibilities for color and humor. Each scene change could see the man reinvented, but failing.”
“He could be a guitarist in a band,” Satya suggests. But Bardy notices she isn’t smiling.
“Oh, great idea.” Leonard has started making notes. “I am thinking quick scene changes. Lights fade, and we open on a new scene, then another. The set miraculously altered. The man could become mixed up with who he is, to create more comedy.”
“What happens in the end?” Pia asks.
“Ah.” Leonard looks a little crestfallen. “I haven’t really got that far.”
“But it has a happy ending?” Pia sounds anxious.
The hard-nosed lawyer who wants to believe in happily ever after.
“Oh, yes!” Leonard proclaims. “It’s just I haven’t come up with the right thing yet.”
“You will, dear,” his wife tells him.
“You don’t think it’s ridiculous for me to think I can do this at eighty?” he asks.
“Not at all,” they chorus.
Linda takes his hand. “I was once with a woman who was dying. She was very old, and it was definitely her time. She told me she had one big regret. She said that had she known she was going to live to 101, she would definitely have learned the piano when her grandchildren suggested it on her sixty-sixth birthday. She always wanted to play and never did. So you see.”
They all did.
“Blimey, Leonard, I think you’ve stolen the show. Anyone else want to say what they’re up to? Lou? Thinking of writing a play?” Lou’s hand is still bandaged.
“No. I’ll leave that to you, mate.”
Bardy wonders if Lou guesses he still hasn’t actually written a word of a short story.
“I’ve been collecting driftwood. Think I might make something from that.”
“I like that idea,” Kate says.
Lou looks embarrassed. “Well, we’ll see.”
“Kate? Are you really interested in that tall tosser?”
Luckily, this only sounds in his head, although he does manage, “Kate?”
“I’m experimenting with color. Hana was really helpful, so thank you for that, Bardy. I am just mixing different shades at the moment. So in some ways it feels like I’ve gone backward. But in lots of ways it doesn’t, if that makes any sense.”
Pia leans forward. “Can you paint on fabric?”
“Yes,” Kate responds, “especially on natural fibers. What are you thinking of?”
“My quilt,” she replies, “my huge quilt. I think the stitching is getting lost. So I wondered about adding something extra.”
“I think that’s a lovely idea,” Linda says. Mellow plum.
“Come round and I will show you which paints work,” Kate offers.
“Great, so who’s next, Satya?” Bardy suggests.
Satya pulls out her tablet and holds it up.
“I’ve been thinking about how most of us find it hard to find the time, or give ourselves permission to do this.
” She smiles at Leonard. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about that.
” She starts to flick through photos of paint boxes, brushes in colorful pots, fabric tied in bundles, crayons, pastels, and piles of sketchbooks.
Each is a study in its own right and filled with color.
A poem starts to form in Bardy’s mind, about old paint dried on the tip of a well-used, well-traveled brush. Burnt sienna.
Satya continues, “It occurred to me that over the years I’ve bought so much stuff like this because I love the colors, the idea of them.
Even the textures.” She points to a photo of a box of chalky pastels.
“In a way, it reminds me of starting my business. I began with makeup—all those colors and the feel of them, glossy and matte, liquids to powders. And I learned about them. How they were best used, the chemistry behind them.” She looks at Bardy.
“And it wasn’t just work, it was fun. So when I look at all these,” she gestures to her images, “I think what I wanted to capture is the promise they bring, of maybe being able to create something. Even if the reality is that I keep buying them and they sit around, and I don’t know what to do with them. ”
“All-the-gear-but-no-idea,” Kate says.
They all look at Kate.
Especially Bardy. Not great. Unlike her.
Kate flushes. “I’m so sorry, Satya, I didn’t mean it quite as it came out. It was just a saying I heard once.”
Bardy has heard it too. Hana. What did Kate and Hana talk about? Hana had said she liked Kate, but she hadn’t been exactly enthusiastic. Then she had been different with him in the pub. Kept close. What was that about? He tries to concentrate on what Satya is saying.
“No, it’s alright, Kate, it’s true.” Satya nods.
“I do love the photos,” Kate responds, “I think they really capture something.”
They all make noises of agreement. Linda adds, “I feel like that when I see beautiful spices. I might not know quite what to do with them.” She chuckles.
“And can’t usually be bothered to find out, but I can still enjoy looking at them, smelling them.
I agree, Satya, you can enjoy the promise of them. ”
Mellow plum merging with the blue of lapis. Reassuring.
“Same with me,” Lou unexpectedly adds, gesturing with his bandaged hand, “something about having the tools, seeing the gouges lined up. Pleasing.”
Bardy realizes he felt the same seeing Hana’s palette of oil paints. Those splatters of color. Something satisfying and also beguiling. Even to the non-painter, like him.
“Who’s next?” Bardy asks.
“How about you?” Leonard suggests.
Non-painter. Non-writer.
Bardy looks at him and eventually finds some inspiration. “I’m thinking about a short story that is a love story. A bit unexpected.” He pauses, looking at Linda and Leonard, before continuing. “Just don’t know the ending yet.”
“Oh, very good,” Leonard chortles. Confessing to Linda seems to have given Leonard a new lease on life. From lockdown king to musical maestro. A man with a love story.
And what about my own love story? Fat chance. Hana is going to New Zealand, despite that hand on his shoulder that had made him think . . . he has no idea what. And silver-bright Kate is with a tall, good-looking man who makes her laugh.
Still a prat.
He will end his days with Lou, the baker, in a pink spotted apron.
“Linda? How about you? Still planning on that short story?” Bardy eventually asks.
Linda looks toward the rain-soaked window. “Perhaps not.” She smiles very slightly. “I thought I might try painting birds.”
“Really?” This is from Leonard.
“And maybe Leonard,” she continues loudly, “you might like to take us all out on a bird-watching trip?”
“Indeed I would!” Leonard enthuses, rubbing his hands together. “Oh, I know just the spot.”
Linda looks around at them. “Kate, it might help with your painting, and Pia with ideas for your quilt. Satya, you could take photos, and Lou, you can look for new bits of driftwood.”
Linda turns to him. “And who knows, Bardy, you might even find your happy ending.”
They are all getting coats on, ready to dash back through the rain.
Bardy watches Kate. Should he say something?
It is then he sees Kate beckoning Pia and Satya.
They gather around her. He moves a little closer, ostensibly to tidy the chairs, and catches Kate saying, “I’ve had an idea .
. .” but he hears nothing more. However, a few minutes later, Pia and Satya laugh.
They all glance toward Linda and Leonard.
Lou appears beside him. “What is it, mate?”
Where does he even begin? As usual, Bardy feels like he is living in an alternate universe—feeling he is missing something—and that even in his own world, nothing much is making sense.
“Pint?” Lou suggests.
Bardy nods, gratefully.
Jon and Lou. He’ll take that.
And it’s so wet, they might even see an otter.