The Year of the Ladybird (27 page)

‘But—’

‘It’s not your father; it’s what he was. That boy isn’t you; it’s what you
were
. Leave them alone. Why don’t you leave them alone?’

My eyes wanted to fill with tears all over again. I managed to stop it. Someone tapped on the door. She ignored it.

‘He was very, very confused,’ she said.

‘Yeh.’

‘He wasn’t much older than you are now.’

‘No.’

‘You can’t hate him.’

‘No. I don’t.’

‘You have to forgive him. That’s important.’

I nodded.

‘You have to forgive him. I pull the stopper out. That’s all I do.’

I stood up. ‘I’m ready to go. Thank you.’

She got up stiffly, pressing a hand to her arthritic hip, and moved to the door, where she lifted the latch. I thanked her a second time and made to go outside. ‘Hold on a moment,’
she said, ‘there’s something else.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’ve had some new shirts and trousers in as will fit you now.’

Can someone hold your hand and make lost memories come tumbling down? Nikki and I fell asleep that night drugged with sex and folded in each other’s love. But new forces
were dragging me back. I had a dream that looped horribly. It played over and over. If I woke and went back to sleep it would start again. It was just a dream of being in a small boat out at sea,
but a hole had appeared in the boat. Instead of water running in, grains of the boat were running
out
and into the water like sand running in an inverted egg-timer. At first the grains
appeared not to move at all, then a hole collapsed in the boat and the grains appeared to run faster, running towards some groaning terror that would cause me to wake up.

I spent the next day curled up in bed like a foetus. Nikki went into work and told them I had a stomach bug. In breaks between activities she came back to the flat above the bucket-and-spade
shop and fed me soup or got into bed with me and made me talk about these things.

‘I can see why your mother never wanted you to come here,’ she said. ‘But you must have known. You must have known that this is where it all happened.’

‘I was three years old. I didn’t know anything.’ Perhaps that wasn’t entirely true. Clearly some dark and secret place inside me knew everything perfectly. But those
events had accreted a shell and burrowed under sand to be covered with water. Not everyone with lost memories can swim their way back to remembering. The muscle will perish; the shell will be
picked clean; the waves will break the shell and pound it into sand.

I didn’t blame my mother or Ken, even though they should have spoken to me about these things. They were already busy blaming themselves. They simply could not bear to prise open the
subject.

After the events I have described, other memories came tumbling back to me. I remember being at home and playing in the front garden. The wooden gate opened and there was my natural father in a
smart, blue suit. I hadn’t seen him for some weeks and when I ran to him he swept me up in his arms. I loved him and I’d missed him. I didn’t know why he’d been away so
long.

He was wearing spectacles. I hadn’t seen him wear them before and I didn’t like it. He seemed not to be quite like my father. But then he looked up the path and asked me if I wanted
to go to the seaside. I said yes. He put me in his car and he drove us to the seaside. He hadn’t told my mother. He hadn’t told anyone. When we got to the seaside we were hiding out
while he made his plans.

Nikki encouraged me to go back into work the next day. Even though I was in a fragile state I was mindlessly efficient. I smiled when I needed to smile. It can be done, and is done often. I
sometimes think that half of humanity is smiling across a profound agony. Nikki and I were in every sense professional. We didn’t tell anyone about what had happened.

One evening Nikki was dancing in the Variety show at the theatre while I was calling the giant bingo session in the Slowboat. Between intoning Two Little Ducks or Kelly’s
Eye Number One into the microphone I medicated myself with beer and stood at the bar, chatting to Eric the Brummie drummer. Someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned round and I almost dropped my stein of beer.

‘Awright?’

I felt the blood drain from my face, and then rush back again. ‘Colin. How are you?’

‘I’m all right. You?’

I stared at him as if he were the ghost of Macbeth. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘Just the one. I’m not staying. I’m up for poker night. Last time.’

I moved over to the bar and ordered a pint of Federation Ale for him. I was afraid of my hands shaking again, just as they had when he’d taken me for a beer at The Dunes. I took a breath,
composed myself and carried his beer over to a table. He joined me, but he kept looking out of the corner of his eye, as if he was scanning the room for someone.

‘Is Terri up here with you?’ I asked.

‘Na.’ He took a sip of beer and the foam printed a moustache on his upper lip.

‘Where is she?’

‘Dunno.’

We sat in silence for a minute. He scanned the room constantly. Then he volunteered some information. ‘I took her off to Marbella after last I seen you.’

‘Marbella.’

‘Yeh. It’s in Spain.’

I wanted to say I knew where Marbella was but I thought better of it.

‘Thought that would suit her. We used to go there in the old days. We was alright for a while. Then she ran away.’

‘Ran away where?’

‘I’ve a good idea.’

‘Oh?’

‘With someone from ’ere.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ I said.

His eyes flared open and he tipped back his head. I saw the back of his upper fillings. ‘I nearly catched her at it. In that feater over there.’

‘What,
this
theatre?’ I was incredulous for him.

‘I followed her in one day. It wasn’t that Italian cos he was ’aving a smoke with Pinky. When I gets in there she’s in the dark with that scrote, your mate.’

‘My mate?’

‘That fuckin’ soft Mancunian. Whatsisname?’

‘Nobby? Are you sure?’

‘He was wearing that kit like you wear.’

‘But are you certain it was him?’

‘Less it was you, or that prat with the wig.’ He flashed me a half-smile. ‘Na, it was him all right. I know cos he disappeared off the scene straight after.’

‘I don’t know, Colin,’ I said helpfully. ‘Nobby? It doesn’t add up. He’s not her type.’

‘Her type? Anyone with a hard cock is her type. Maybe I’ll go up to Manchester. See if I can’t find ’em both.’

It occurred to me that Colin might just do that. I don’t know what it was about Nobby but he always fitted the bill. I suddenly felt emboldened. ‘Colin. Why do this to yourself?
Sometimes you have to let it go. Walk away.’

He sniffed. ‘Listen to you. Givin’ the advice out now, aincha?’

‘I didn’t mean to –’

‘It’s alright, son. I’ve heard it. It’s alright.’

It was impossible to tell if he was lying about Terri’s fate. I tried to look deep into his eyes. It was like looking down a mine shaft.

He drained his beer glass and stood up. ‘Might see you here next season, then?’

I got up off my stool. He dug his hands in his pockets, almost as if to tell me that he didn’t want any handshake ritual. ‘Might well do, Colin. Might well do.’

He nodded briefly, turned and left. It wasn’t until he’d passed through the doors that I let out a big sigh.

I rejoined Eric the drummer at the bar. He was chatting with one of the bar staff and, when the barman moved across to serve someone, Eric said to me, ‘I didn’t know he was a friend
of yours.’

‘No,’ I said.

The Saturdays came and went, the sea turned the grey of gun metal and the infamous and bracing east coast wind grew squally and bitter. Most people had gone back to work and
for the last couple of weeks the resort was populated by special groups: disabled people, children from care homes and the like. It was actually more fun to work with these groups but the numbers
of holidaymakers were already well down on the peak season and I was aware that many of the staff had already left.

The performers were signed off and a rudimentary programme was offered for the rump of the season. A goodbye party was held for the theatre people. Luca Valletti made a brief appearance. He
arrived late, had one drink and then went round solemnly but punctiliously shaking hands with everyone equally.

When he came to me he blinked, smiled and offered his hand. ‘I wish you every success with your studies.’

‘Thank you, Luca. I learned a lot from you.’

He blinked and regarded me rather strangely, I thought. Then he offered me almost a bow and moved on to the next person.

Nikki, meanwhile, was already thinking about her next job. She had an audition in Coventry for a part in a Christmas pantomime production. Puss in Boots, where the chorus line wore leather boots
up to the top of their thighs. I saw her off at the train station and went to meet her when she came back. She didn’t know whether she’d got the part or not. We avoided discussing the
future.

In the final week we had a party of disabled children from a special home and Nikki, Gail and I threw ourselves into designing a fresh programme suitable for kids in wheelchairs. Even Tony
– yes, Tony the fascist – got enthusiastic about whether we could make it all accessible and high energy, so that we could give the kids our very best.

And then it was all over. I said goodbye to Pinky and he made me promise that I would come back the following year. ‘Your face fits,’ he said.

Tony shook my hand manfully and apologised for not being able to knock some political sense into me. He pointed at me with a big tanned and nicotine-stained index finger. ‘Don’t let
them commie professors fill your head with nonsense, mind you. And don’t forget about us.’

They were all wonderful with the sweet wine.

I talked Nikki into shacking up with me in Nottingham. We scoured the local newspaper and we found another flat together near the town centre of Nottingham. We bought paint and freshened the
place up and she gave it some feminine touches. We were playing at being a couple. One day she came home with a little gift for me.

‘What is it?’

‘Open it.’

I unwrapped some tissue paper and I found it was a heavy glass paperweight. The glass was red with black spots and bifurcated to look like the carapace of a ladybird.

‘It’s to remind you. Of the summer.’

I weighed it in my hand. ‘It’s lovely.’

‘It’s for your studies.’

Perhaps I looked confused. I don’t know what type of student Nikki thought I was: maybe she had a notion of me at a big desk with a brass telescope and a silver engraved pen and a huge
blotter, with a pile of maps and scrolls.

‘It’s a silly present, isn’t it?’ she said, suddenly losing confidence.

‘No it’s not. It’s beautiful.’

‘Silly.’

‘I’ll treasure it.’ I weighed it in my hand for her to see. ‘Really.’

Nikki was entertained and amused at being part of the student scene. She met my friends, and we drank in the union bar. We even sneaked her into a few lectures, completely unnoticed, just so she
could get a sense of what we did. She was three or four years older than my contemporaries and though she never criticised them I could tell that their immaturity bored her. Nonetheless she became
excited by the lectures; she always wanted to discuss what she’d heard; in fact she was more interested in learning than ninety per cent of the student population. She hungered for
learning.

She almost fell over backwards when I explained that it cost nothing to be a student at university; that the government paid all fees and awarded a grant to students so that they could live and
study in reasonable comfort; that education was a right to be claimed. No-one had ever told her. We found out that she could apply as a Mature Student on reduced qualifications, and she immediately
prepared to take an extra couple of O level examinations in order to matriculate the following year.

One rainy, misty Thursday evening we were on our way to the Old Angel Inn to meet with some friends. We would always walk the short distance into town from the flat, and on the
way we passed by a small theatre, a place that staged both amateur theatre and irregular concerts. One night you might see a rock band and another night a comedy act. Billboards outside the theatre
advertised these various shows and one particular billboard proclaimed ‘for one night only’ a performance of ‘A Selection of Songs from
My Fair Lady
’.

The billboard caught Nikki’s eye. I was still walking when she summoned me back. The billboard indicated that this was the public’s
last chance
to catch this
amazing
show
before it went on an
international tour
.

‘What?’

‘Look at the photos,’ she said.

I saw it at once. In the photograph his appearance hadn’t changed at all, but his name had. He was no longer called Luca Valletti. His new stage name was Dante Senatore. His duet partner
was Shelly Diamante. To be precise she was billed as Shelly ‘The Nightingale’ Diamante. I don’t think I would have recognised her from her photograph: it was a very professional
and air-brushed Terri who gazed out with tender eyes from the billboard as she leaned her head against the breast of Dante Senatore’s tuxedo. Her hair had been restyled and her lips were
painted with luscious red lipstick. She no longer looked like someone who mopped the floor after hours.

I remembered Pinky’s words, about whether telling someone they have a nice voice constitutes making a pass.
Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.

We were way too early for the show but Nikki suggested we find out what time they finished, and that we come by and say hello. I was reluctant, but she said it would be fun to surprise them. We
went inside and asked at the box office about what time the performance ended.