The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper (24 page)

Crappy Birthday

TODAY WAS HIS BIRTHDAY
. He was seventy years old. It was supposed to be a landmark. Miriam would have bought him a small gift, maybe some new stripy socks or a book. They would have gone to the Crown and Anchor in the village for haddock and chips or perhaps a ham and mustard sandwich. They'd have had a couple of shandies and maybe apple pie and custard as a treat. His wife didn't like anything fancy. Except that's what he used to think.

Lucy hadn't been in touch yet. He didn't expect Dan to remember and Bernadette had more important things on her mind. He was sure that there would be no cards falling on his mat today.

He had gone to bed thinking about Sonny and Martin and had woken through the night thinking about them. His sleep was fitful and he wasn't sure what thoughts were true and which were in his dreams. He saw Miriam laughing in a car with Martin's arm hanging over her shoulders, as if he owned her, protecting her from harm. He pictured a car, a bottle green one with a rolltop roof. It shot across both lanes of a road and plowed into a tree. He imagined himself at the scene, running over to help. Miriam lay there, her head lolling, a trickle of blood from her forehead. But the man driving had his head against the steering wheel. The angle of his neck wasn't quite right, like he was a piece of origami folded the wrong way. He saw his own hand reaching out to touch the man's head and seeing blood like black treacle in his hair. Then Martin raised his head. He laughed maniacally and his teeth were smeared red. “She killed me. Your wife killed me. Happy birthday, Arthur.”

He sat bolt upright in bed. His clothes were wet and clung to him like a second skin. At first he plucked at them and then peeled them off. Throwing them in a pile on the bathroom floor, he got into the shower, even though it wasn't yet five in the morning.

Letting the water trickle down his face he stood stock-still, trying to block out the thoughts and images in his head. Miriam wasn't here. She had killed a man. How could he spend a lifetime with someone and not know them? Did she ever consider telling him? He must be an idiot not to sense it, not to ask her anything about her past. Instead, he had assumed that they were similar, that there had been nothing significant in their lives until they had met. He was wrong.

He dried himself and automatically put on one of his old shirts and Graystock's blue trousers. It was still dark outside. He felt listless. Hopeless, helpless and useless—a lost cause. Nothing he could think of doing had any meaning. This should be a happy day, a celebration. His birthday. Yet he was here alone, bereft.

He sat on Miriam's side of the bed. Opening up the drawer in the bedside cabinet he took out a lined pad and pen and without thinking he began to write a letter. His wife had written to Sonny, now he would write to her, too. Although Miriam may have been involved in Martin's death he had loved her for many years and always would, even if she hadn't confided in him.

He felt the need to do this. He was confused and hurt but he wouldn't allow himself to become bitter. He had to fight it. In his shock of the conversation with Sonny yesterday there were things he hadn't said.

Dear Ms. Yardley,

I loved my wife with all my heart. She wasn't perfect, but no one is. I am certainly not.

I am a quiet man, not particularly bright, not particularly handsome. I did wonder for a long time what Miriam saw in me, but she did see something and we were happy.

I have discovered things about her life that I didn't know. I wasn't aware of you or Martin, or of India or Paris. I could sit here and spend the rest of my life mulling over why she didn't tell me. But she had her reasons and I honestly don't think those reasons were selfish, or to hide anything. I think she kept them from me because of love.

You may think of me as a silly, deluded old man, but I want you to know and remember me as the person who loved Miriam and who was loved by Miriam. I feel like the luckiest man alive to have had that. She made me a better person.

It sounds as if she loved you and Martin, too, dearly...

He carried on writing, unaware of what was spilling from him. All the anger and frustration and love he felt for his wife went into his words.

When he was finished he held four completed pages in his hands. His wrist ached and he was teary from emotion and as empty as an egg with no yolk. He didn't read through the letter, knowing that he had said all he needed to. He added to the bottom of the last page.

After all these years, I implore you to search your heart to forgive her. If you cannot forgive, then to at least remember the friendship you once shared.

Yours sincerely,

Arthur Pepper

He ripped the pages out of the pad and folded them into an envelope. Then he wrote
Ms. Sonny Yardley
on the front.

He rolled up his sleeve and exposed his forearm, then he gave his skin a firm pinch and watched as his flesh slowly moved back into place, leaving pink fingerprints. He didn't even feel it. So he tried again, this time digging in his nails. He just wanted to feel something, physical pain, to tell him that he was alive, that this was all happening.

The weather was miserable. From his bedroom window he could see that the sky was the color of ink-soaked cotton wool. The good weather had broken as Bernadette said it would. But he couldn't stay in the house. The thought of being surrounded by four walls made him feel claustrophobic. It would be miserable to spend his birthday here. He would only sit thinking what might have been, what could have been. Had his wife spent over forty years mourning Martin and wishing she was with him instead of Arthur?

The questions in his head made him feel woozy and he placed his hands flat against the walls to steady himself as he went downstairs. He had to get out of here.

In the hallway he pulled on a coat and some shoes, not thinking if they were suitable for the weather. As he walked out of the door he shoved the envelope in his pocket.

The stars and the moon were still in the sky. No one would remember that seventy years ago a cheeky, chubby baby named Arthur had been born. Today was a nonday like any other. The only thing of any meaning was that this afternoon his friend Bernadette would find out if she had cancer.

At that thought he stopped dead in the street. He wished with all his heart that she was going to be okay. How could he cope if he lost someone else who was dear to him? He realized that Bernadette had been more than a helping hand to him in his time of need. She was a friend. She was a
dear
friend.

Terry was leaving his house. “It's nasty, isn't it, Arthur? Do you want a lift?” he shouted out, pulling up the hood of his anorak.

“No, thank you.”

“Where are you going so early in the morning?”

“Out for the day.”

“To Lucy's?”

He didn't want to make conversation so he pretended not to hear Terry's question and plowed on. He walked and stopped at the third bus stop he came to and waited for a bus to York center. Then he took the train to Scarborough. For the fifty-minute journey he stared out of the window. Clouds were thick inky blankets and the sky was a fluorescent white.

When he got off the train, rain dripped off the trees. But he didn't stop. He strode through the streets toward the college. He arrived dripping wet and handed the envelope to the silver-haired receptionist.

“Look at the state of you,” she said, recognizing him. “Don't you have an umbrella?”

He didn't reply. “I want you to give this to Ms. Sonny Yardley as soon as she arrives for work. It is most important.” He turned and walked back to the glass entrance doors, not hearing as she shouted after him, offering him her jacket.

He walked past the students smoking, chatting, browsing on their phones and making their way to begin college for the day. He didn't notice the amusement arcades where families sheltered from the rain under striped canopies, or hear the electronic jingles and rattle of pennies from the arcades just opening up for the day. When he reached the beach, he was alone. No one else was stupid enough to come out in this weather, especially down to the sea.

It stretched out before him like a gray carpet, moving, rippling. He stood at the edge and watched, letting the
shush
of the waves hypnotize him. Water soaked through the toes of his shoes. The wind nipped his thighs. His ankles grew red and sore as he stood.

In the space of a few weeks he had gone from being a grieving widower, pining for his lost wife, to his mind becoming a mass of suspicion.

They had known each other so well. That's what he had loved about their marriage. They were soul mates who were in tune with each other's thoughts and emotions and likes. Except they hadn't known each other's stories. Why had he never asked his wife about her life before him? Because he hadn't expected her to have one, that's why.

Without her, he had—what? He had Lucy. He had Bernadette. He had his son on the other side of the world. But there was a hole inside him that ached, that would never be filled again. It ached for the woman he loved, the woman he didn't know. His house wasn't a home without her. It was just walls and carpet and a silly old man rattling around inside.

How could he live without again feeling her cheek pressed against his shoulder? Without the sound of her singing as they made breakfast together. Things could never be as they were when they were a family unit. The thought pulled him down like quicksand.

It began to rain more now. A spatter at first, flecking his eyelids. And then it began to fall heavily so it looked as if drinking straws were firing down from the sky. The water hit his face, rolled down his cheeks. His trousers were sodden, stuck to his legs. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Miriam!” His voice was captured and taken by the wind and blown elsewhere.
“Miriam!”
He shouted her name over and over knowing that she couldn't hear him, that his words were futile.
“Miriam!”

When those words were gone he felt empty, as if they were the only things holding him together. The sea rolled over his feet and filled his shoes. He stumbled backward over a rock and he hit the wet sand with a thud. His knees crunched and his hands and backside slapped against the sand. A wave crashed over his legs, soaking him again and surrounding him with a halo of white foam. “Miriam,” he said again weakly, digging his fingers into the sand. He felt it suck and slide away from him. He wished he had left her alone, perfect in his memory, instead of prying and pursuing her. He had opened doors that he wished had remained locked. How he wished he hadn't sunk his hand into the boot. Someone buying them from a charity shop would have had a nice surprise in finding the charm bracelet. It might have brought them good luck.

He took it from his pocket. He hated it now, detested what it had done to his memories. The gray stretch of sea beckoned. He raised his hand to shoulder height, feeling the weight of it in his palm. He imagined it spinning through the air and then plopping down into the water. It would sink and drift down and then lie on the seabed for centuries, waiting to be discovered, when someone might find it and wonder at the origins of the charms. Except to that person the bracelet would be anonymous. It's only significance would be its curiosity value or worth in gold.

Arthur wondered if it would make him feel better to be rid of it, but there was still the one charm he knew nothing about—the heart. The heart-shaped box, the heart-shaped lock and the heart-shaped charm. Perhaps it could tell him that his wife did really love him, that their time together hadn't been a compromise for her. It might hold the answers.

It had to.

But it was so tempting to walk into the sea with the bracelet. The waves lulled him into their midst. If he carried it in he could be sure it was gone. His feet were wet, and his ankles, so why not his groin, his waist, his chest, his shoulders? Why shouldn't the sea cover his mouth, his nose, his eyes, until all that was left was a tuft of white hair, which the sea could sweep over and claim.

Who would care?

A few months ago, he would say that no one would care. But then he and Lucy had reconnected. He and Sylvie had kissed. Bernadette cared for him.

It was when he thought of Lucy that he forced himself to stand up. She needed him. He needed her. It was a relief to hear the shingle crunch under his feet, that he hadn't carried out what the sea willed him to do. Lucy. She had been through enough with her miscarriage, her marriage ending, losing her mother. He would have to be a selfish old fool to kill himself and bring more tragedy to her door. He stepped backward again and again until his feet hit a bank of pebbles. He sat back on a rock and stared at the bracelet in his hand. It shone so brightly against the dark gray of the pebbles and sea and inky sky. The heart seemed to glow.

There was a halo of water around his feet as he sat next to a rock pool. A tiny gray crab swayed, suspended in the seawater, still enough to be dead. Arthur watched it for a while. It was trapped. The tide would go out. The sun might come out and dry up the water. The crab's little body would dry to a crisp.