Present day #3
‘I don’t have the big extended family that you enjoyed, and so there’s no one to share the memories of playing canasta with my dad of a Saturday night while he smoked his infernal cigarettes and we made cheese on toast under the grill.
He and my mum, dancing on the parquet flooring of the lounge, all of it.
No one else remembers it or knows about it, and so I like to sit by the water and paint the view, the same view.
Trying to capture it, as if, while I’m doing that, the past that I miss is still going on in the flat behind me.
It’s the only place I’ve ever lived, my home.
And I loved that feeling back then, when it felt like everything was possible and everything was going to be okay.
Because my dad was around and I was young and I was in the greatest city on the planet, and there was a whole life stretched out ahead of me and I had someone to rely on – him.
I could always rely on him. It’s just me now, been just me for the longest time.
So yes, I guess I like spending time in the past.’
‘I feel like that about Norfolk.’
‘Norfolk?’ It was her turn to laugh at his unexpected admission.
‘Yes.’ He glanced at her without a whiff of irony.
‘When we go on holiday, invariably to Norfolk, the girls, all the kids, a whole bunch of us – for that week, my life feels different. I feel different. I laugh more. Drink more. Eat more. Sleep deeper. I have this kind of peace that settles over me, and it resets me for whatever the next fifty-odd weeks might throw at me until I can go back.’
‘Have you ever thought of moving there? It sounds like a nice way to live.’
He shook his head and let his eyebrows rise and fall.
‘No. I think it feels that way because it’s temporary, not real.
An escape. The thought of living there and it becoming normal, average, losing the magic, well, that would be the worst thing.
Not having it to think about, a place to mentally dwell, when life is swirling all round me before it hits the fan. Yes, that would be the worst thing.’
‘You don’t have that kind of peace on your farm? I can only picture it as a green country haven.’
‘Oh, it’s peaceful, no doubt, but not the same. Plus, I get up most days and make my way into the city, so hardly a life of rest and relaxation.’
‘Is that the life you want, Alfie? To slow down, rest more?’
‘I don’t think so.’ He considered this. ‘I believe being busy keeps me young. I’m not one to sit in the sun or spend my days on a golf course. I like working.’
‘Me too.’ She knew her life was richer because she kept busy.
‘But I think if I had someone to slow down with, I’d work less, probably, and do more that was fun.’
‘So, it’s a daunting prospect, the idea of having all that free time, working less?’
‘Daunting, why?’ He screwed his nose up.
‘Because it motivates you, keeping busy. Having meetings in restaurants that you don’t really want to go to. I mean, what would you do with all that time you got back?’
‘Touché, Lilly. Touché.’
He gripped her hand and they walked on, as if holding hands was normal and she didn’t feel the spark of joy travel all the way up her arm and along her chest at the feel of his palm against hers, so lovely it made the breath catch in her throat.
It had been a long, long time since she had felt this, not since .
. . it took a while to remember, not since Rex, lovely Rex, decades ago now.
‘Do you feel older?’ he asked as they walked under the festoon lights that lined the walkway; it was pretty.
‘You mean do I feel seventy?’
‘I didn’t want to ask your age!’
‘I’m seventy, Alfie—’
‘Seventy-two,’ he interrupted, as if keen to share.
‘I feel my age a lot of the time. Recent weeks have been quite stressful for a number of reasons, and I’ve certainly felt it then.
’ She was not about to give him the details of her living situation and the fact that someone wanted to raze her home to the ground, not tonight, when everything was pretty perfect.
‘But when I’m laughing out loud or dancing alone or walking my little friend Apollo to school or even getting dressed up tonight to come and meet you, then I feel the same as I did when I was young and it’s great. ’
‘No one tells you that, do they, that your body might clock up the years, but your mind stays the same.’
‘No, they don’t.’ She wondered what age her brain thought she was.
Late twenties, probably. ‘I think ageing is such a privilege. Not that it’s been easy.
I always think if the universe had given me a list of all that was going to happen in my life when I was young – all I would encounter, have to give up, all that would hurt me – I would have told you categorically that I would never, ever get through it.
It’d be too much, the prospect of it, worse than anything I could imagine.
The strength it would require, the energy, the mental dexterity, the character.
All of it far more than I possess. And yet I have, I’ve survived it all.
I live to tell the tale. I’m often amazed by myself!
’ She laughed. ‘But I’m damaged, Alfie. Make no mistake that survival comes at a cost. If you live long enough, you pay a price.
We all do. It changes you, don’t you think? ’
‘Changes you how?’ He evaded her question with a question.
‘Erm, subtly, really. Nothing overt to anyone who has always known me. I have the same temperament, the same sensibilities, intolerances, desires, beliefs, but inside . . .’ She paused, unsure how much she wanted to confess to this charming man who had wheedled between the cracks of her armour, disarming her with his honesty, his openness, encouraging her to respond in kind.
She decided then that the detail could wait.
This was, after all, only their second meeting, far too soon to be shedding skin.
‘I guess I’m of less substance than I used to be, a little hollowed out.
’ She bit her lip to stop it trembling, knowing this was not a night for tears.
‘I present as super-confident, but actually, I am in some ways quite fragile.’
It was the closest she could get to admitting to her fear of loneliness, and the feeling of utter despair, of defeat, that dogged her in the early hours, as Denzel’s words jumped in her thoughts .
. . these large developers have more money, time and resources than you.
They could tie you up in legal knots that would be costly, and you could end up with nothing.
It was horrible to feel so vulnerable. It made her feel old.
‘So fragile you feel the need to live with one foot in the past, painting the same scene on the riverbank and imagining those you have loved and lost all around you?’
‘Yes, Alfie, exactly like that.’ She sniffed, cursing the pull of tears that she managed to contain, just.
‘I understand, Lilly, more than you think.’
‘Why, are you fragile too?’
He took a second to respond. ‘I have a failed marriage that didn’t just fail, it imploded!
According to my ex-wife, I put my business first, prioritised making money over spending time with her and the kids and, on reflection, I can see she was right.
And I can never get those years back. Never make up for my absence.
I live in a big old farmhouse all alone, and I’ve already told you I get lonely.
And with work, I can’t see the end game any more, and that’s an odd one for me.
My goals always had yardsticks, metrics which meant I knew when I’d won, or the thing was finished, X amount of pounds made, or the dotting of the Is on a contract, but not any more.
It’s grown so much, it’s like being on an endless travellator with one thing merging into the next, and it’s less rewarding because of it.
So yes, a little fragile and tired, quite tired. ’
‘Sounds like you might need that trip to Norfolk.’ She smiled at the man.
‘I think you might be right. Are you hungry?’
‘Ravenous! You?’ Her stomach gave its customary rumble, as it did around dinnertime.
‘Always.’
They quickened their pace.