Whispers Through a Megaphone (21 page)

A
woman’s voice: “Are you crying?”

It is Alison Grabowski. The hero. The forty-year-old girl with balls. She is breathless, red-faced. The drunken taxi driver has landed and who brought him in? Alison Grabowski.
Take a bow, madam. Don’t mind if I do. Are you some kind of vigilante, Ms Grabowski? Well not until now. I don’t know what came over me to be honest, I think it was probably just adrenalin, the body talking, fight or flight. Well it’s quite a victory, Ms Grabowski—quite a conquest. I must confess that it’s not the conquest I was aiming for this evening. The King of St Ives is not the prize I had in mind
…

In Alison’s mind there is champagne and clapping and for she’s a jolly good fellow. But alongside the self-congratulation there is something else. Sadie Peterson (no, Alison, she’s a Swoon remember? She’s Sadie Swoon) is crying and it hurts Alison Grabowski, it actually hurts. When Bessie Bryant cries, Alison’s responses range from irritation to wanting to fix the problem, but it’s
never
particularly uncomfortable. What does this mean?

“Darling?”

“I don’t cry,” Sadie says, more breath than voice.

Alison assumes that all this
upset
is about the taxi driver and tonight’s near-death experience (she has always been overdramatic), but she is wrong. Does it matter? Probably not. This innocuous misinterpretation is the first of many that will happen between them over the next three decades. If it were visible now—this misreading of the other’s mind, this relational blunder—it would be something they could refer back to:
Do you remember the first time you thought I was thinking one thing when really I was thinking another? We were standing on a stranger’s front lawn—you’d just sat on a taxi driver, do you remember? I was crying, but it had nothing to do with the taxi driver. I was crying because I loved you—not my husband, not Kristin—and the fact that I’d been able to put those feelings away was devastating. If I could repress something as vital as that, what else had I repressed? How could I trust myself? How much time had I wasted?

“It’s okay,” Alison says, putting her arm around Sadie’s shoulder.

“Where to, ladies?” a policeman says.

“Sorry?”

“I’m taking you home.”

If I start to cry I might never stop
. You hear people say this sometimes, when they’re in so much emotional pain that crying feels like a trap instead of a release. Sadie, on the other hand, has been snared by an
inability
to cry. It’s hard to remember the last time tears flowed from her eyes—the birth of her sons, perhaps, and since then, nothing. She has howled, moaned, made her breaths quick and jagged, scrunched up her face.
Zilch
.

And now she can’t seem to stop.

She tells Alison this, between sobs—how she gets what people mean now, when they say that thing about not wanting to start.

Alison says I’m sorry, darling, I can’t make out what you’re saying, why don’t you just breathe, sit quietly, try to breathe.

Two strangers, impelled to call each other
darling
. Nothing else needs to be said.

Sadie buries her face in a tissue. When she finally emerges she tells Alison to take a shower.

“You want me to take a shower?”

“I just need a few moments,” she says, “to compose myself.”

“Oh, I see. I thought you were trying to tell me something.”

Sadie shakes her head. The tears are coming again, another wave rising.

“I do fancy a shower,” Alison says.

“You go.”

“All right.”

Sadie sits up straight, places her hands flat on her thighs, talks to herself silently.

Jesus Christ. The embarrassment, the
shame
. Weeping all over her like that. I’m a soggy wreck of a woman.
Disgusting
. Why have I longed for
this
? This outpouring of God knows what.

Deep breaths, there we go.

Think of something uplifting. You can do it. Imagine Alison in the shower. There we go. That’s better. No need to sit here crying is there?

That’s it.

Everything’s all right.

She gets up, takes a CD from a shelf and sets it playing. The voice of a woman fills the room: intense, urgent, American. Then a guitar that sounds as though it’s being played in someone’s bedroom: squeaky and monotonous.

She sits back down and closes her eyes until it’s time to see what is in front of her.

Alison is fresh-faced, bespectacled, her hair damp from the shower. She is wearing a red and grey skirt and a silky black top. A silver heart hangs from a chain around her neck. This is not the same Alison Grabowski as the one Sadie ate pizza with a few hours ago. That one could be guarded, distant, a little suspicious. And this one? Sadie eyes her up and down and watches her fill two glasses with whisky.

“Feeling any better?” she says, joining Sadie on the sofa.

“Bit calmer.”

“That’s good.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“It’s just that—”

“It’s okay,” Alison says.

“Is it?”

Alison leans in.

(There are so many ways to say
yes
.)

She leans into a first kiss that has taken eighteen years to happen.

A kiss with history.

Sadie’s mind is empty.

Her thoughts have flown.

It’s a respite, a reprieve from

No.

Stop
.

Who cares what it’s a reprieve from?

That was then and this is

And Alison says you’re beautiful, I must have told you that, way back when. You’re just, I don’t know,
you’re just
.

And Sadie says I’m not playing games, this is serious, Alison—do you know what you’re letting yourself in for?

And Alison says I used to live with you, remember? I know what a complete pain you can be.

And Sadie says this is serious, okay,
I am really being serious
.

And Alison says I know, so am I, don’t worry.

And Sadie says I made a joke, years ago—I was glib and stupid and everything was a joke until it wasn’t.

And Alison says stop, you’ll make yourself cry again. I really think it’s time to stop talking.

From the bedroom, Sadie can hear a car alarm, two men shouting, a woman singing, footsteps on a pavement.

“That singing sounds really close.”

“It’s Leonora. She sings with her window open.”

“She’s good—sounds like Tracey Thorn.”

“She does, doesn’t she?”

Alison’s body is pale and slim. She has muscular arms and narrow shoulders. Sadie can’t stop looking. It makes Alison laugh.

After breakfast, Sadie calls Ralph’s parents.

“I beg your pardon?” Brenda says. She has a knack of making Sadie feel incomprehensible.

“I said I’ve had to go away at short notice. Could you possibly keep an eye on Stan and Arthur? You know I wouldn’t normally ask, but things are difficult right now.”

“Ralph called us this morning.”

“What?”

“He told us the boys are home alone.”

“They’re sixteen, Brenda. They’re absolutely fine. But it might be nice if you and Frank went round to see them, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Where are you, Sadie?”

“Sorry?”

“Well it’s not as if you’re working. Unless you’ve finally got a job?”

“Can you call in or not?”

There is a pause. Muffled voices. Sadie is sure she hears the word
bitch
.

“We’ve already discussed this with Ralph,” Brenda says. “And we’re moving in for a while.”

“That’s really not necessary, Brenda. There’s absolutely no—”

The phone goes dead.

What just happened?

J
ulie Parsley drives a red Fiat 500. It holds the road better than Ralph thought it would. He tells her this but she doesn’t reply. Maybe it’s boring. Maybe she’s thinking about something else.

“Julie?” he says.

“I don’t like to talk while I’m driving,” she says. “Life and death are only separated by a cat’s whisker you know.”

“A cat’s whisker?”

“That’s all,” she says.

Ralph looks out of the window. He pictures Julie singing ‘Move Over Darling’ on stage at the King’s Head. He remembers the evenings they spent together at the Maypole Social Club for teens—the way he used to watch her. How could she seem so experienced when she was only fifteen? She knew things about the world that he didn’t, and the things she knew made her distant and gloomy. It was a solemn kind of maturity, a dark sensuality that made her irresistible to older men. They stared at Julie. They offered to buy her drinks. Eat your heart out Doris Day, they said. She’s going places that one, they
said. But the places they had in mind were not where Julie wanted to go. Her sultriness was not for the pleasure of her friends’ pitiful fathers—men who spent every other night in the King’s Head.

As a teenager, Ralph had a plan. He was going to woo Julie Parsley. How? By going to university, of course. By going away and coming back. His absence would make her miss him and then he would turn up, less boyish and naive, full of talk about seminars, lectures and bars, and he would say so then Julie Parsley, how about I buy you dinner at that Italian place by the river? And she would say fine, if you want to, because Julie was the Queen of Understatement.

But he didn’t come back wearing a new jumper and new shoes.

By then, he was married with children.

“What are you thinking?” Julie says.

“I thought you didn’t talk while you’re driving?”

“I don’t have a problem with listening.”

“But you won’t respond?”

“No.”

“Not much of a dialogue then.”

“I can respond afterwards.”

“You’re talking and driving now by the way.”

Both hands on the wheel, looking ahead all the time, she says: “Ralph Swoon, when did you become so prickly?”

“First I’m smug, now I’m prickly.”

She smiles.

“Maybe you bring it out in me,” he says.

“Maybe I do,” she says. “So what were you thinking?”

“I was remembering you singing at the King’s Head. You were gorgeous back then.”

“Oh thanks very much.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“You were gorgeous then and you’re gorgeous now.”

Cornered, Ralph. You’re
always
cornered. (Will you ever come out fighting?)

She takes her eyes off the road, just for a second, to look at him.

It’s true, he thinks. You were and you are. But you’re different now. Of course you’d be different now.

“Here we are,” Julie says, parking the car outside a bungalow.

“Is this your father’s place?”

“It is.”

Mr Hugh Parsley. Retired artist. Hugely successful in Europe. Ralph hasn’t seen him for years. Whatever happened to Mrs Parsley, the voice coach who developed an insurmountable stutter at the height of her career?

“And your mother?”

“That’s a sad story,” Julie says. No explanation follows.

Hugh Parsley is watching
Starsky & Hutch
on a gigantic television. “David Soul!” he shouts as they enter the room. “Paul Michael Glaser!”

“He likes to state the names of actors,” Julie says, glancing at the moving picture on the living-room wall.

“And who are you?” Hugh asks.

“This is Ralph Swoon, a friend from school.”

“You’re still at school?”

“No, Dad, from my
schooldays
.”

“And his name’s Swoon?”

“That’s right.”

Ralph walks up to Hugh’s chair and holds out his hand. Hugh kisses it, then inspects Ralph’s nails.

Julie’s expression doesn’t change. She has clearly seen this a hundred times before. “Fish fingers?” she shouts.

“Fish fingers?” Hugh shouts back. “Don’t mind if I do, dear.”

“In a sandwich or with chips?”

“Fish-finger butty with gherkins, if that’s all right.”

“On its way.”

Julie wanders off into the kitchen, leaving Ralph alone with Hugh Parsley and the gigantic television.

“Have you come to ask me for her hand in marriage?” Hugh says.

“Oh no, nothing like that. I’m already married.”

“To a man?”

“To a woman.”

“Got any pets?”

“One dog.” Ralph pauses. “And a cat.”

“Don’t you like the cat?”

“The cat’s new. I forgot about it for a second.”

“Why don’t you sit down?”

“Actually, I think I’ll give Julie a hand in the kitchen,” Ralph says, noticing the pile of magazines on the sofa. One in particular catches his eye:
Make Your Own Helicopter
.

“Baby Ralph,” Hugh says, laughing. “You always were a big baby. Are you aware that I’m not the actor Hugh Bonneville from
Downton Abbey
?”

“I am aware of that, yes.”

“It’s just that people tend to get us mixed up.”

Despite the twenty-year age difference?

“Right.”

A perfume advert appears on the TV and Hugh shouts: “Brad Pitt with long hair! When did he turn into a country singer?”

The three of them eat fish-finger butties and watch the news.

“Do you know what’s going on in the world?” Hugh says to Ralph.

“Not
everything
,” Ralph says. He is finding his fish-finger and gherkin butty surprisingly tasty. He has never had a butty before. A sandwich, yes. A roll, yes. But never a
butty
.

“Don’t you watch the news?”

“I normally do.”

“Self-obsessed?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be sorry. Some people are just born that way,” Hugh says, before summarizing the news at the same time as the newsreader on TV is also summarizing the news. Noise upon noise. Two announcements colliding.

“We’re going to the beach this afternoon,” Julie says.

“Why would you drive so far? You hate driving.”

“For a change of scenery, Dad.”

“Are you eloping? He’s married already, to a man. They have a cat.”

Julie kisses her father on the cheek. “I’ll just wash up, then we’ll be off. Don’t forget to watch the Channel 5 film at three.”

Ralph’s phone vibrates. It’s a text from Boo Hodgkinson:
Hello there Ralph, I hope this message finds you well. I’ve decided to fiercely pursue Miriam. What do you think of this please? Best wishes, Boo X

“That’s from his lover,” Hugh says, before choking on a gherkin. Once he has recovered and wiped his chin, he asks Ralph another question. “Can you play the guitar, Ralphy boy?”

“He can,” Julie says. “He used to play all the time.”

Hello? I can speak for myself you know. And my name is not
Ralphy boy
. “Why do you ask?”

“Go get it, Julie,” Hugh says, clapping his hands.

“Dad, we haven’t got time.”

“One song, Jules.”

Raised eyebrows, tight lips, stiff back. Ralph imagines David Attenborough observing Julie from a distance: “And when the female Parsley is irritated, she displays this quite clearly by pushing out her stomach and stiffening her body from the waist upwards. Her eyes are fixed on the father, and any minute now she will—”

“One song and that’s it,” Julie says.

Hugh has a request: ‘Little Boxes’. It’s one of his favourites. Julie sings it for him sometimes, when she calls in to deliver his Monday evening treat—a hot chocolate with marshmallows from the local cafe. On Tuesdays he gets a Chinese takeaway. On Wednesdays a coffee flavoured with syrup. On Thursdays and Fridays he gets nothing, but that’s life. Take what you can get and be grateful (Hugh’s motto).

And so Ralph plays ‘Little Boxes’. His performance is clumsy, what some might call
experimental
, but Julie and Hugh can see that he’s trying and that’s what matters. What Ralph lacks in ability he makes up for in effort, which is not something that can be said for the rest of his life.

Julie sings. She still has it. Fantastic. Just
fantastic
. Ralph’s mood brightens as she sings. He can feel it, the regeneration, the renewal. She is making him new. Her voice is a glitter ball. It’s disco time. Let’s dance. No, calm down, keep playing the guitar. Hugh is clapping again. The news is still on. Such discord. Cacophony. He winces, even though he’s having fun. This moment is it. What? Just
it
, he thinks.

The song is over too soon.

On the gigantic television, a trailer for
Downton Abbey
.

“Well if it isn’t Hugh Bonneville!” Hugh shouts, and bursts out laughing.

“Do you need the toilet, Dad?” Julie says.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Hugh says.

Julie speeds into the beach car park, sending a cloud of dust into the air. They sit and watch as four young women run past. Julie opens the window. They can hear the women saying can you believe it, I can’t believe it can you?

“What’s going on?” Julie calls out.

“There’s a man on the beach,
naked
,” one of the women says.

“So?”

“Well it’s not a nudist beach is it? It’s not a beach for dangling his
you know what
.”

Julie laughs. She likes these women. She imagines having them as friends, then quickly losing them. This is what happens, she’s careless like that, clumsy when it comes to people, just drops them, oops,
there goes another
.

“He’s got some cheek,” a woman says, which makes the rest of them squeal.

“We found him queuing for an ice cream.”

“What did he get?” Julie says, enjoying the way their voices are getting faster and higher, a symphony of gossip.

“It looked like a Mini Milk lolly.”

“It wasn’t the only thing that looked like a Mini Milk lolly.”

They squeal again, their bodies convulsing, and one of the women slaps her friend’s bottom out of sheer delight, which stops the laughter for a second, then it begins again, carrying the words
deary me
and
stop it I need the loo
.

“Bye ladies,” Julie says, winding down the window.

“Do you know them?” Ralph says.

“Never seen them before in my life.”

“They certainly cheered you up.”

“What do you mean?”

A blanket, a towel, a flask, a Kit Kat Chunky. Ralph sits cross-legged on the blanket, grimacing at the seagulls hopping about on the sand, while Julie Parsley strips down to her underwear and runs into the water.

Matching bra and knickers, duck-egg blue, revealed to the world, just like that.

He watches her swimming, an eastwards front crawl, then back again. She’s a strong swimmer, fast and steady. She floats on her back, her feet poking out of the water, looks in his direction and waves.

Now she is standing in front of him, dripping. It’s not the
worst
view he’s ever seen. She hides inside a grey towel and the matching bra and knickers fall to the floor. The towel is a damp dressing room. He looks away, stares at the sea as she steps into her linen trousers and pulls a long-sleeved T-shirt over her head. He is watching without watching, looking without looking, and she knows what he is doing and she doesn’t mind. This is nice, she thinks. It’s
interesting
.

He pulls two plastic cups from the top of a flask and unscrews the lid. “Tea?” he says. Then: “I didn’t expect to see your underwear
quite
so soon.”

She laughs. “So you expected to see it, did you?”

“Who knows,” he says.

On a blanket, side by side, they drink tea and watch teenagers learning how to surf.

“What
were
your intentions?” Julie says.

“I rarely have any intentions.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

“No you didn’t.”

“You haven’t changed that much.”

“
You
have.”

“You might be happier if you had firm intentions. You need to visualize what you want.”

“That’s very New Age, Julie.”

“Not really. I’m not talking about magical thinking. You just don’t seem to care what happens to you.”

He thinks it over, but he is tired of thinking, so he stops.

“Your life,” he says. “It’s not the one I imagined you’d be living.”

“None of us lives the life we imagined we’d be living.”

“But yours is so…”

“So?…”

“I don’t know.” He wants to say
mundane
. He wants to say that he had expected her to be doing something extraordinary—something that would inspire him.

“I’m a carer,” she says. “I’m single and I work in a shop. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“No, not at all. You’re a businesswoman. You’re
independent
.”

She rolls her eyes. “I would describe you as handsome,” she says. “Amongst other things.”

“Really?”

“Don’t look so surprised. Surely your wife must say it?”

Is she winding him up? Flirting with him? He just can’t tell.

“Sadie doesn’t really go in for compliments.”

“Cold?”

“No, she’s not cold.”

What are you talking about, Ralph? She’s as cold as they come
.

“Just not very warm?”

“Can we not talk about my wife?”

Julie sips her tea. She looks at where the sea meets the sky.
This meeting is an illusion, a meeting of the mind. “Are you her favourite person?” she says.

What kind of question is that?

“Well, she married me. We tend to marry our favourite person don’t we?”

This statement hangs between them, sandy and stupid. How did she know to ask that question?
How did she know?
She is opening him like she always did, but he isn’t sure that he likes it. The trouble is, Ralph doesn’t really know
what
he likes. He’s been confused for so long that murkiness is his natural territory and it’s hard to separate good feelings from bad ones. (How handy—a psychotherapist who has no idea what he feels.)