The Girls from See Saw Lane (16 page)

‘It is,' I said.

We went into the cafe. I sat down at one of the tables and waited for Ralph to get the coffees. I pushed a little pile of sugar around the tabletop with my fingernail.

‘Do you want some records on?' he asked, putting a cup of coffee down in front of me.

‘No, thanks,' I said.

He sat down beside me and put his hand gently on my arm. He leaned down to try to catch my eye but I wouldn't look at him. I still didn't know how I would find the words to tell him.

‘Come on then out with it,' he said. ‘It can't be that bad.'

I'd been thinking of nice ways to explain, adult ways, ways that would make it sound less shocking, but I still couldn't make myself actually say the words. I watched the steam curling from the surface of the coffee. I watched the pattern of the milk, still swirling on the top, and I listened to the buzz of the voices of the other people in the cafe.

Ralph spooned sugar into his coffee. He stirred it. I was on the point of telling him, I was just about to say something, when the cafe door swung open and Elton came in. He had the usual swagger about him, the usual half-smile. He did a mock salute when he saw us and sauntered over to our table, as if he didn't have a care in the world.

‘No Mary?' he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down, ‘I thought she'd be with you two.'

By the look on Elton's face it was obvious he knew nothing. Now I felt a kind of anger towards him. He should have been there for Mary when she needed him. He should be with her now. Still I didn't look up. I made the sugar on the table into a letter ‘M'.

‘When did you last speak to her?' I asked.

Elton shrugged. He had a cigarette packet in his hand. He turned it over on the table, flipping it with his fingers and then catching it. ‘I dunno,' he said, ‘a couple of days ago.'

‘You need to speak to her, Elton,' I said.

He caught the packet, flipped it again. His legs were stretched out, getting in people's way. A girl climbed over his ankles to get to the door and frowned at him. He didn't notice. ‘Why?' he asked.

‘You just do,' I said. I could hear the urgency in my voice, a kind of panicky shrillness that wasn't usually there.

Ralph heard it too. ‘What's wrong, Dottie?' he asked.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. It was up to Mary to tell him, but now they were both looking at me waiting for an answer.

I should have said something vague. I should have hinted or implied or just said that I was worried, but before I could stop myself the words came out.

‘Mary's pregnant,' I said.

‘She's what?' said Elton.

‘She's going to have a baby.'

There was a moment's silence. A moment of absolute shock when it felt as if time stood still and nobody breathed. All I could hear was the deafening sound of my heart pounding in my chest.

I looked up then. I looked at Elton and I held his eye. I could almost see his brain working, hearing, but not understanding; trying to make sense of what I'd just said and then immediately going on the defensive. The cigarette packet dropped onto the floor and he left it there.

‘Well don't look at me,' he said angrily. ‘Is she saying it's me? Is she trying to pin it on me?'

‘Well, who else would she be trying to pin it on?' I asked.

‘You tell me,' he said. His eyes were wide and angry, and something else, something I'd never seen in Elton before; he was frightened. He pushed back his fringe with his hand, leaned down to pick up the cigarette packet, tapped it on the table. ‘It wasn't me,' he said. ‘If it's true that Mary's pregnant, then it's nothing to do with me.'

I was now totally confused. My heart was beating faster and faster. I wanted to be angry with Elton, I wanted him to face up to his responsibilities and be a man and do right by Mary, my best friend, but there was something in his eyes that made me believe him. ‘It
must
be you,' I said.

‘Well it's not,' said Elton, ‘and do you want to know why it's not? Because we've never done it.' He was leaning forward. He was tapping the cigarette packet on the table; he was pale and he was frightened but he was sincere. I noticed how thin his wrists were, and his fingers. I noticed the hairs on his wrists where they emerged from the cuffs of his jacket. I noticed that Elton was vulnerable. He was like a rabbit in the headlights.

I stared back at Elton. ‘But what about when your mum went to the bingo and Mary came round to your house? I thought…'

‘Mum went with a neighbour. The neighbour got a headache. They came back early. We never did it.'

Then I remembered asking Mary about it and her telling me it was too embarrassing to talk about. I thought she was talking about the sex, but perhaps she wasn't. She hadn't wanted to tell me that nothing had happened, that her great passionate love affair hadn't exactly been that.

Elton pushed back his hair again. His chest was flushed, and his neck. I felt a stab of pity for him.

‘If it wasn't you… then who?'

If it wasn't Elton, then it meant that Mary had cheated on him. If it wasn't Elton, then who on earth was it? She'd never mentioned anyone else to me. She'd never breathed a word about anyone else. Elton and I stared at one another in mutual horror as we both realised that Mary must have lied to us both, if not directly, then by omission. We were so wrapped up in one another, so frantic were our thoughts, that neither of us had paid any attention to Ralph. It was only when I heard him scrape back his chair that I looked up.

He was standing beside the table, as white as a sheet.

He rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand, then he looked at Elton. ‘I'm sorry, mate,' he said. He had tears in his eyes as he turned to me. ‘I'm so sorry, Dottie,' he said.

And it was then that I knew.

M
ary and Ralph
were married on a rainy August morning at Brighton Town Hall.

Since learning the truth about Mary and Ralph I was all over the place. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't bear to have the radio on. The only place I felt safe was in my room. I felt so empty inside and so hurt. I still couldn't believe what they had done to me. I would have trusted them both with my life, but they had ruined my life. I hadn't only lost the boy I loved; I had lost my best friend. If ever I had a problem, no matter how small, I could talk to Mary about it. We would talk it through and somehow make it all right.

Time meant nothing to me. I'd spend hours staring out of my bedroom window, not seeing anything, just going over and over what had happened. Reliving all the wonderful times I'd had with Ralph. Remembering Mary and our lives together. Tormenting myself with it all. It was like having a tape recorder in my head that just kept going round and round.

Ralph had asked me to marry him knowing what he had done with Mary. How could he have done that? I went from being so angry I wanted to kill them both and then myself to missing them so much that I could hardly breathe. I wanted so badly to hate them and there were times when I almost convinced myself that I did. But how do you stop loving someone? How do you switch off love? The truth is you can't.

I hadn't spoken to Ralph or Mary. In my heart I knew that they would be missing me as much as I was missing them. I knew they would be wanting to see me, to try and explain why they had done what they had done, but I wasn't going to let that happen. I would make them suffer as I was suffering. I wasn't going to make it easy for them.

On the morning of the wedding I was lying on my bed in a kind of stupor. I'd woken early and as soon as I woke up the tape in my head started again. I was literally driving myself mad. I couldn't bear it. I knew this was going to be the hardest day of my life. I buried my head in the pillow and cried and cried.

I heard my bedroom door open and felt someone sit down on the bed. They didn't speak, they just gently rubbed my back. It felt good, nice. I thought I hadn't needed anyone, but this human contact made me feel I was not alone. I didn't have to go through this alone.

‘Mum sent this up,' said Rita eventually.

‘I don't want anything,' I mumbled.

‘Come on, sit up,' she said. ‘You can't spend all day in bed.'

I pulled myself up the bed and Rita handed me a cup of cocoa. I sipped the hot sweet liquid and it felt nice.

‘What are you going to do?' said Rita.

‘There's nothing I
can
do, is there?' I snapped back.

‘Well, you could have a bath for a start.'

‘And that's going to solve everything, is it?'

‘No, but at least you'll smell better.'

‘That bad, eh?' I said.

‘Worse,' said Rita. ‘It's beginning to smell as if someone died in here.'

I took another sip of cocoa and smiled.

‘Well that's a start,' she said.

‘They're getting married today.'

‘I know,' said Rita. ‘Mum said.'

‘I don't know how I can get through it.'

‘Well, if you can't do it for yourself, do it for Mum; she's worried sick about you.'

‘Okay,' I said begrudgingly, ‘I'll have a bath.'

‘It won't last forever, you know,' said Rita.

‘What won't?'

‘The pain you're feeling now. It won't last forever.'

‘How do you know?'

‘His name was Clive. He went to the grammar school. He was my first boyfriend and we loved each other, or at least I thought we did.'

‘What happened?'

‘His family emigrated to Canada. He said he would write but he never did.'

‘I don't remember that.'

‘Well, you wouldn't, would you? You couldn't see left or right of Mary Pickles.'

‘Sorry.'

‘It was a long time ago,' said Rita. ‘I was only sixteen.'

I had a vague recollection of Rita wandering round the place like an Anna Karenina cut-out, but Rita was always being dramatic about something, so I don't suppose I took much notice.

The sweet cocoa and listening to Rita was beginning to have an effect.

‘Perhaps you should go the wedding,' said Rita.

‘Why on earth would I want to do that?'

‘Because it might be better than mooching around here all day, imagining the wedding to be all hearts and flowers and happy ever afters. Because that's not how it's going to be, is it?'

‘Isn't it?'

‘Of course it's not. They don't love each other, do they?'

‘No.'

‘When Clive went to Canada I imagined him doing cartwheels over the Rocky Mountains and having the time of his life.'

‘And wasn't he?'

‘No, they had a rotten time. They came back after a year and by then I'd got over him.'

‘Maybe you're right.'

I dragged myself out of bed. I felt light-headed and my legs felt heavy, as if I was getting over a long illness. I ran the bath and as it was filling up I cleaned my teeth. My face in the mirror above the sink was white, with dark smudges under my eyes.

I stepped into the tub. The warm water on my body felt comforting and I was beginning to feel a bit more human.

By the time I got back to the bedroom, Rita had laid some clothes out on the bed for me. I barely registered what she had chosen; I just put them on. I was dressing to go somewhere I didn't want to go, and I didn't care what I wore.

We went together, me and Rita and Mum, and we stayed out of sight until everyone had gone in. Ralph arrived first, with his parents, then Mary with hers. Only the twins out of all of Mary's brothers were there, and I thought that was sad.

We waited until the wedding before Mary's was over. That looked as if it had been quite a jolly affair, because a load of people came tumbling out onto the wet pavement. They were all laughing and talking, and the men were slapping the groom's back and the groom was wearing a Beatles suit and the bride really was blushing, wearing a flowery dress and carrying a bunch of pink roses. They kissed as they came out and they looked so happy. I wished I could go with them, wherever it was they were going.

Once we were sure they had all gone in, we slipped in the back of the room.

There weren't many people at Mary and Ralph's do. They hardly took up any space in the room; they just filled a few of the padded seats at the front. I sat between Mum and Rita. It was nice having them warm on either side of me. It made me feel safe.

Ralph and Mary stood at the front, like naughty children who were about to be punished. I was staring at Ralph's shoes that were brown and very shiny. It made me feel sad to think that he had polished his shoes so that they looked nice even though I knew in my heart that he didn't want to be there. 

The registrar was a small, thin chap with a receding hairline. He was wearing a brown, badly fitting suit and his shirt looked as if it was in need of an iron. He spoke so softly it was hard to hear him and he didn't smile once. It was more like a funeral than a wedding. Once Ralph and Mary had said their vows, Rita and Mum and I left. We went outside and we stood there, huddled together.

It was still pouring with rain. People tramped past in raincoats and umbrellas, and the buses sprayed water with their wheels. 

‘I've got to get back to work,' said Rita.

‘You took time off work?' I said.

‘Well you don't have to sound so shocked,' said Rita, going all huffy. ‘Contrary to popular belief, I do have some feelings, you know.'

‘Sorry, and thanks for today.'

‘You're welcome,' said Rita.

Mum and I watched Rita totter off in her Stead and Simpson's stiletto heels. Then Mum turned to me. ‘What about you, love?' she asked. ‘What do you want to do?'

‘Would you mind if I just had a bit of time by myself?

Mum put her hand on my cheek. ‘No,' she said. ‘Of course I wouldn't mind. Take as long as you want. When you come home I'll have something nice ready for your tea.'

She kissed me goodbye and she went one way and I started walking in the opposite direction downhill towards the sea. When I got to the promenade I couldn't find a dry bench to sit on so I leant over the railings. The tide was in, the sea looked grey and cold and it was bashing and splashing against the wall. It reminded me of when me and Mary were kids, how we used to love it when it was stormy and the sea was rough and angry-looking. We would stand at the railings and wait for the waves to hit the wall, then we'd run back screaming as the spray crashed over on to the prom. I stood looking out over the water. You couldn't even see the horizon; there was just greyness where the sky met the sea.

In my whole life, I'd never wanted to run away from home before, but now I did. Everywhere I went, I was reminded of Ralph, or Mary, or both of them, and I didn't think I could bear it. I wanted to be a million miles away. Mary and I had walked every single pavement on the estate where we both lived. We'd been in every shop in town, we'd ridden every bus route. The places I hadn't been with Mary, I'd been with Ralph. He and I had walked up to the Downs so many times while we were making plans for our future. We'd been to the beach, dawdled on the pier, walked home from the cinema together, his hand holding mine, our shoulders bumping together. Now all the friendly places, the happy places, the places I thought would become part of our history had changed their temperament. I'd imagined telling our grandchildren fond stories about the places Ralph and I had visited while we were courting. I'd imagined saying: ‘This is the bench where we sat; holding Granddad's coat over our heads to protect us from the rain,' or ‘This is where the seagull swooped down and stole Granddad's ice cream.' Now it hurt to remember the good times and every time a thought or a memory flashed into my mind, it was like being stung and the stings didn't get better, they just accumulated until I felt as if I was carrying a huge, lead ball of hurt around inside me. I had never been so lonely. Never.