1973 – aged 18 #2
She had trusted him with her emotions and her body, handed him her virginity as if it were no more than a vol au vent at a party – something to grab and consume without discussion or care.
One of the hardest aspects of his disappearance was that there was no one she could really discuss it with, apart from Bertie, who was busy with the gallery and spending time with Beautiful Jack, who he loved and who loved him back, lucky things.
Glenda was no doubt looking forward to seeing her at the start of the college term, but Lilly knew she couldn’t confess to her friend just how far she’d taken things with Wilkie, especially now he had left her high and dry.
Given it away for free . . . These words were enough for her to feel nauseous.
Her dad was clearly worried, tempting her with home-made leek and potato soup, despite the warm weather, and hot toast spread thickly with butter and lemon curd, courtesy of Mrs Devlin, who played percussion in the orchestra.
And tea, lashings and lashings of tea. It was lovely of him to be so attentive, but she half wished he would leave her alone to stew.
He kept his music low, as if the sound might be an intrusion, given whatever ailed her.
Still the mellow sounds of Dave Brubeck filtered under her door.
‘What’s up, little love?’ he’d asked tentatively from the doorway only a couple of nights ago. ‘I’m concerned about you.’
She hated that she was causing him a second of worry.
This abandonment by her love felt like just punishment for lying to her dad, for thinking a relationship with someone as wonderful as Wilkie might be possible for someone like her.
Was this how her dad had felt when Jeannie up and left?
Her heart twisted for him, not least because, despite her feelings of regret and confusion, there was a small part, actually a medium-sized part of her, that longed to feel her mum’s arms around her, telling her all men were pigs and that it was all going to be okay, believing that only another woman of the world could possibly understand what she was going through.
‘Just women’s troubles, Dad.’
It was cruel in a way, knowing the catch-all, the mumbled umbrella term used to suggest menstrual cycles, womb activity and bleeding was enough for him not to ask again.
‘I see.’ He’d swallowed, taking a drag on his cigarette. ‘Would you like me to call your mum?’
It broke her heart that he, too, thought her mum might have the answers, might be able to succeed where he was failing. It made her want to rage at the woman she had stupidly shared her news with, letting her in, choosing her, telling her how she’d met a boy.
‘No, Dad. I’ll be okay, just want to rest.’
‘Rightio, love. Well, if you need anything . . .’ He backed out of the room, letting his words trail, as if he, like her, really didn’t have the first clue how to make things better, especially when it came to women’s troubles.
It was an hour or so later when he called from the hallway. ‘You have a visitor, Lilly!’
She sat up in bed, her first thought that it was Wilkie, returned and about to beg for forgiveness, which she would of course give, before instantly falling into his arms and holding him tight as they made a plan for their future.
But it was not Wilkie, the disappointment enough to send a fresh batch of tears to douse her pale cheeks.
‘It’s Bertie! Shall I send him in?’ her dad called again.
‘Yes.’ She did her best to keep the quaver of distress from her voice.
The two men now stood in her doorway, her dad looking worried. Bertie scanning her room, no doubt taking in the rather bland decor, peach-painted woodchip wallpaper, an old pink tasselled lamp and the white Formica bedside cabinet. Not a Murano glass chandelier in sight.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Bertie?’
‘Oh, bless you, Robert, tea would be lovely.’
Her dad made his way to the kitchen.
It was lovely to see Bertie, looking handsome in his pink paisley shirt and white flared jeans, always so hip. The moment her dad left the room he swooped forward and threw the curtains open.
‘What are you doing?’ She shielded her eyes from the sudden bright light, having been cocooned in her dimmed hideaway for days now, like a mole rat being forced above ground.
‘What I’m doing is taking my life in my hands and travelling to Vauxhall, of all places, to kick you up the arse.
’ He picked her jeans up off the floor and folded them.
‘I usually only come over to this side of the river under the cover of darkness to visit the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, so consider this an honour!’ He stared at her now.
‘This will never do, never! You can’t let the bastard win! You just can’t! That’s the rule!’
‘I don’t care about the rule! He left me, Bertie, he just left, he never even said goodbye!’ She thought he might need the reminder.
‘You think I haven’t had my heart broken a thousand times?
The key to surviving is to get straight back up and keep going; otherwise life stops, Bob!
It just stops, and that cannot be the case.
You will look back at this time of your life and be so grateful for it!
You will never again be as young as you are now, never have so much life stretching ahead of you.
You’re a goddess! And you can’t waste a day of it sitting here looking at those dreadful curtains.
They are enough to make anyone depressed!
’ His humour was usually enough for her to snap out of any mood, but not tonight.
‘But I love him!’ She felt her bottom lip tremble.
‘Love!’ He flapped his hand in front of his face. ‘It’s a small thing, it comes and goes, and it holds you in its thrall, like being caught in a wave, but never doubt that you are at its mercy and therefore there’s nothing you can do to control it, even if you think you can.’
‘It wasn’t a small thing to me.’
‘It will be.’ He perched on the side of her narrow bed.
‘It will be one day, when you have lived a long and happy life and you look back. You’ll realise that this Wilkie’ – he almost spat the name, and she loved the solidarity of it – ‘you will realise that he was only a page in your life story, not even a chapter, or more likely a paragraph. Yes, just a bloody paragraph! No more!’
Lilly nodded, tears falling down her face, so wanting to believe what her good friend was telling her, and yet still feeling struck at the mere mention of her lover’s name.
‘I have this’ – she placed her hand on her chest where it hurt the most – ‘this pain!’
‘He’s hurt you, sweet thing, and it’s the first time.
I remember what it feels like. We all do.
It leaves an indelible mark that you think is a scar, but I promise you, I absolutely promise you, that you will reach a point in your life when it’s just a smudge where the ink of that paragraph has spoiled over time, no more. ’
‘I want to believe you,’ she levelled.
‘Two things.’ Bertie wiped the tears from her face with his silk handkerchief. ‘First, I have never and will never lie to you.’
She nodded and smiled, knowing this to be true.
‘What’s the second thing?’ she sniffed.
‘I think we should forfeit the tea and go and find some champagne. What do you say?’
‘Maybe.’ She smiled at the brilliant Bertie Barnes, who was everything.
‘Well, it seems to me you have choices. You can either put on your glad rags, if you have anything clean’ – again he scanned the bedroom floor, where her clothes lay in heaps – ‘or you can go and phone Mr Wilkie Jones and tell him how you feel, see if there is any way forward, although I am sincerely hoping you do not do that. I want you to dance on and forget all about the rogue!’
‘Oh my God, Bertie, I can do that! I can call him!’ She sat bolt upright in the bed, energy flowing though her veins, just the thought enough to halt her tears, completely ignoring her friend’s preference.
‘You know where he is?’
‘Yes, yes, I do! I’ve just remembered, he told me he teaches at a school in York, St Ethelred’s!’
‘Well, there we go. Boy am I glad I mentioned it.’ He exhaled his sarcasm. ‘I guess it’s better you do something. Anything is preferable to lying here letting the world pass you by.’
‘You’re a genius!’ Lilly flung back the covers as her dad arrived with two cups of tea.
‘Oh! You’re up!’ Her dad beamed, delighted with this sudden change of events.
‘I am, Dad, up and raring to go!’
‘Women!’ Her dad shook his head and rolled his eyes at Bertie as he handed him a cup and saucer.
‘Tell me about it!’ Bertie took the tea from her dad and winked at her. Her dear, dear friend.
By the next day, with Bertie’s words ringing in her ears, Lilly knew he was right: she had to do something.
Short of jumping on a train at great expense and taking time off work, lying to her dad, again, and trawling all the way up to Yorkshire, making the call seemed like the next best option.
With the scrap of paper in her hand, she studied the number that she’d got from directory enquiries.
‘Oh my God!’ She breathed deeply, bent double in the phone box, riven with nerves. ‘Come on, Lilly!’ She raised her voice, straightened and put her finger in the little circle to dial the number. It was answered almost immediately and at the sound of the beeps she plied the slot with coins.
‘York two eight six four four, St Ethelred’s, how may I help you?’
Lilly had hoped that Wilkie would answer, while simultaneously praying he would not.
She was unsure what she would say, at the same time having an entire monologue cued up on her tongue.
And now she stood with the complex combination of relief and disappointment forming a stopper in her throat.
Holding her breath, she almost forgot to speak.
‘Hello?’ the woman asked again.
‘Yes, hello,’ she managed. ‘I was wondering if it might be possible to speak to Mr Jones, Wilkie Jones.’