Ordinary Miracles (26 page)

I’m not quite sure how this stuff about my needs and
other people’s started. Maybe it was with my mother and
my fervent wish to cheer her up. To make up in some way
for some lost dream she seemed to be mourning. Sometimes it
worked, sometimes it didn’t, but I felt impelled to try. I didn’t
just do it for her – I did it for myself too. Even when I was
sad I tried to make her feel better. I think what I was trying
to prove, to believe, was that it was possible to be happy.

I don’t ask myself too much about happiness these days. I
do believe something though, and it’s that I’m doing okay.
I’m doing the best I can.

This morning I went to the cupboard where I keep Katie’s
old toys and emptied its contents into a black plastic rubbish
bag. I’d consulted Katie about this and she said the only toy
she wanted me to keep was Teddy. I’m glad she said this
because I’m not sure I could have got rid of Teddy anyway.
He’s on a shelf in my – our – bedroom. When Bruce and I
made love Bruce sometimes got up and turned Teddy’s face to the wall. He said Teddy was looking at him. I don’t know
how Bruce got the impression that Teddy is a prude.

After I’d put Katie’s toys in the bag I went to my bookshelves
and picked out the books belonging to dead relatives that I
will never read. I kept the ones I thought I might read, but
none of the others. They went into the bag too.

By this stage I was feeling jittery. I made myself a cup of
tea and stared out the kitchen window into the garden. ‘What
am I going to do?’ I found myself saying. ‘What am I going
to do?’

My mother sometimes asked me that question. It was
usually connected with something ostensibly mundane – s
uch as whether to cook chicken casserole for dinner. But
even at ten I sensed there was more to it than that. I knew
she was disappointed by something, but I didn’t know what
she’d expected, what she wanted in its place. Maybe she didn’t either. She just knew she didn’t have it. She was so
busy feeling this I’m not sure she had much time to see what
she did have. And what she no longer needed.

After I put the books in the bag I went to my wardrobe and grimly plucked certain items from their hangers. I didn’t have
to think about it – I just knew I’d never wear them again. I
also knew if I’d paused this certainty would disappear so I
added them quickly to the bag, along with some ornaments
I’ve never liked. Then I had some lunch and now I’m ready
to bring the bag to the Oxfam shop. I’ve fastened the bag to a luggage trolley and, as I get onto the bus, I’m aware of
curious, almost wary glances.

I approach the Oxfam shop with a fearful resolve. I take
a deep breath outside the door, then I go in and put the bag down.

‘These are some things I no longer need,’ I say to the elderly
lady behind the counter. ‘I hope they may be of some use
to you.’

Then I flee guiltily. It’s supposed to be a clean get-away
but, some time later, I realise I’ve left my luggage trolley
behind so I have to go back and reclaim it before it’s price
tagged.

I feel surprisingly light-hearted as I walk to my bus stop.
I’d feared the abandoned items would call piteously to me, reproving me for disloyalty. But they don’t. Maybe this is something they also wanted. Maybe they feel like a change too.

Then I notice a Morris Minor for sale outside a garage. I
like Morris Minors. There’s something friendly about them.
They don’t want to speedchase or show off. They don’t want
to snarl or honk. They just want to get from one place to
another. They know the world is not exactly Toy Town, but
they’re only as streetwise as they need to be. They are a type
of car I think I just might possibly be able to drive.

I’m frightened of driving. I’ve had some driving lessons and they have only strengthened my belief that driving cars
is something other people do. The last time I had a driving
lesson I did an excellent three-point turn.

‘Well done, that was perfect,’ said my instructor. Then he
grabbed the steering wheel. Having mastered one of the most
difficult manoeuvres of driving I was heading off down the
wrong side of the street.

‘I spent some months in California once,’ I said, blushing
with shame. ‘They drive on the other side there.’

I could see he was not impressed by this excuse. In fact he was visibly shaken. I’d been sailing along dual carriageways
with him for weeks. He couldn’t believe I’d made such a basic
and dangerous error. Neither could I. I haven’t driven since
that lesson. It just doesn’t seem fair to other road users.

Susan says I need more practice. She says driving lessons
are fine, but one also needs to drive on a daily basis and for
that one needs one’s own car. If I drive often enough it will
become second nature, she says. Maybe she’s right.

I’m still gazing at that Morris Minor when a man comes
out of the garage.

‘Hello, Jasmine,’ he says.

‘Hello,’ I reply absent-mindedly. For a moment it seems
quite natural that a stranger should know my name. I’m
falling in love, you see. The emotion is unexpected and not
entirely comfortable – as is so often the case. I’m falling in
love with Bunty. That’s the name I’ve decided would suit
the car – my car. I want her. And she needs me. A bit of
paintwork, a bit of re-upholstering, would give her back
her dignity. She’s middle-aged, like myself. But that doesn’t
matter. She’d show me the ropes, I’m sure of it. We’d make
a good team, Bunty and me.

‘Hello, Jasmine,’ the man says again.

I look up. It’s Jamie. My first great love. I feel the earth
lurch. Other people talk about the earth moving during sex,
but I find that it can sometimes happen long afterwards. Even
when full penetration has not occurred – as is the case with
Jamie and me.

‘Oh shit,’ I say.

‘Thanks. It’s good to see you too.’ He smiles cautiously.

He’s plumper than I remember, and he’s lost some of his hair. But he still has a jaunty look about him, an engaging
warmth. That warmth surrounded me once. Sheltered me. I’d stepped straight into it from the cocoon of girlhood and
it had seemed to me, then, that it would always be there.

I prepare myself for his eyes by staring at his mouth. It’s still a nice mouth. It still curls in a wry, worldly way. That
mouth once used to French kiss and suck me into its urgent
sweetness. That mouth searched out my secret places while
I blushed with innocence and longing. I was uncharted territory and Jamie was my first explorer. I believe he may
even have left a little flag.

‘Hello, Jamie,’ I say at last. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I own this place.’

‘That’s nice. You always did like cars.’

I look into his eyes. They look a little sad, but there’s an
affection in them too. The last time those eyes saw me I was
crying. I was crying because Jamie was going to America to
start a new life.

‘We’re both so young,’ he’d said. ‘We should go out with
other people. Travel. Maybe in a couple of years I’ll feel
differently. But that’s the way I feel now.’

I wish I’d felt that way too instead of just wanting someone
– Bruce as it turned out – to take Jamie’s place. I couldn’t
stand the feeling that comes when love goes. For months I
went around in a daze of disbelief. Love was supposed to
last, wasn’t it? That’s why everyone wanted it. I couldn’t
believe that someone might have it, and then choose not to
keep it. I didn’t think one had a choice in the matter – but Jamie obviously did.

‘I love you, Jasmine,’ he’d said as I cried. ‘But I need to get away from all this for a while.’

‘From all what?’ I’d asked angrily. ‘From me, I suppose.’

‘No, not you,’ he’d sighed wearily. ‘From this island. From
the person I am when I’m here. There’s a whole world out
there, Jasmine. Haven’t you ever felt it? Don’t you get tired
of the smallness of this place? Haven’t you ever wanted to
be a stranger someplace where no one gives a fuck?’

‘No,’ I replied truthfully. ‘No I haven’t.’

‘Well I have,’ he’d said. ‘That’s the way I feel.’

So Jamie went off to his other country and left me a stranger, for a while, in my own. What he’d said to me made absolutely no sense, until I went to California with Susan that summer. I was supposed to meet Jamie in San
Francisco
, but by then he’d met someone else.

I didn’t fall in love with another man that summer, but I did get some sense of why Jamie had left. It snuck up on me in strange ways. Like that time our friend Doug was driving Susan and myself along the freeway to San Francisco. The Bay to the right was smooth and calm and before us was a jet plane which seemed to almost touch a flyover as it headed for the airport. Cars were streaming to and from the city, which we could already see in the distance. Life seemed to be moving all around me in a vast, confident way. And as I sat in that car I felt confident too. I felt it was all right to be part of all this.

I began to see why people loved driving along freeways, along highways. Some of them had such great names for a start. ‘The Pacific Coast Highway’ – that was a great name. Doug drove us along part of it one day. We went south, through Monterey and a small town called Carmel to a nature reserve called Point Lobos. It had seals and cypress trees and sea otters and we found a beautiful little cove with white sand called China Beach.

‘Look,’ Doug had said. ‘There are two seals making love. Isn’t it beautiful?’

Susan and I had watched, rather embarrassed. The seals making love didn’t seem that beautiful to us. But what Doug had just said was. We’d so often heard sex described as sinful or dutiful. Maybe it could be something else too. Something innocent. Something entirely natural. Like the seals and the sea before us. The Pacific Ocean seemed to have an inky, sinuous movement to it I’d never seen in a sea before. And everywhere, following us, above us, was the big, blue sky.

I didn’t like that big blue sky when I first arrived in California. It seemed to me very still and vast above the flatness of much of the landscape. I felt almost drawn up into it at times. At least in San Francisco there were hills and c
louds, but once one got beyond the city the land and the sky
seemed to merge. When there were hills they were golden
dry. They looked like sleeping lions. It just didn’t seem right
at first. I yearned for meadows – for a sense of containment
–
something cosy. And then, after a while, I didn’t mind the
big sky any more. I didn’t mind that the land felt as endless as
the sea. I liked the vastness. It mirrored some sense of space
that was growing inside me.