Who Wants to Live Forever? (2 page)

It was actually my daughter, Julie, who had persuaded me to take this action, during one of our weekly phone calls:

“Hi, Dad, how are you this week?”

“Much the same, much the same.”

“So that means you’re still stuck at home every night, then?”

“Well, love, it isn't that easy. Not at my age…”

“Of course it is, Dad! Especially at your age. You’ve no commitments, nothing to stop you getting out there. I worry about you. It isn't as if I can just pop in and see you every night, is it?”

“Hey, I don’t need looking after to that extent. I’m quite capable of doing something about it myself.”

“Then go on and do it. Why don’t you book on one of those evening classes? It’ll give you something to think about, and you might meet somebody nice there.”

“Oh, so you’re the matchmaker now, are you?”

“We’re just concerned, that’s all.”

“We? So you discuss me with your friends, do you?”

“Very funny, Dad. I was talking with Gary last night and he feels the same as I do. He was even talking about cutting his volunteering trip short and coming back home.”

“Tell your brother he’s not to do that. He’ll regret it forever if he does. I’m really proud of what he’s doing out there, so, next time you speak, tell him he must keep at it.”

“I wish you’d talk to him. Skype is so easy to use.”

“Now, Jules, you know that I’m a bit of a technophobe. I just can’t seem to get the hang of computers, so, much as I’d love to, it just isn't me, I’m afraid.”

“Then why not look for a beginners’ course in computing? That would solve both problems.”

“It just doesn’t sound interesting enough, and if I wasn’t interested I’d stop going.”

“Okay then, why not follow one of your interests? You’re always saying you could do better than those detectives you watch on the TV. There must be something in that area you could enrol on.”

“Oh, I tried, but ‘How to catch a murderer in ten easy lessons’ was all booked up.”

“Ha ha, very funny. You should be on the stage. But, seriously, you know I’m right, don’t you? You love your puzzles, so even if there isn't a course for prospective Inspector Morses, there must be something that will stretch your brain.”

“Okay, you win. I’ll look, I promise.”

“Good. And I know you. Don’t think you can get away with making something up and telling me about it during our phone calls. I’ll expect you to show me some solid proof when I next visit.”

“Will do. When is that again, late November?”

“Yes, that’s right. I’m coming up for a work conference, so Dave won’t be with me. I’m presenting my first advertising campaign, so it’s a big chance for me.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But it’s a lot of pressure.”

“Are all the junior staff involved?”

“No, I’m the only one.”

“That must be really good, then. So let’s get together afterwards, and I promise I’ll have something to tell you about my reintegration into society by then.”

Promise made, I knew I couldn’t let my daughter down. Most of the courses on offer didn’t appeal to me, and I was beginning to think that I’d have to take something I wouldn’t enjoy just to placate Julie when I saw one that caught my attention:

Local History — Learn about life in Lancashire during the last hundred years. Your experienced course presenter, Louise James, will take you on a ten-week journey through the county’s many towns and cities and you will experience life as it was for the inhabitants in those times.

I had lived on the Fylde all my life, yet knew very little about the rest of the county. This course sounded as if it would be interesting and so I decided to enrol. It had taken everything I could muster to venture to the enrolment day, but at first a small amount of self-assurance had returned, and when I saw a few women enrolling on the courses I even began to look forward to this evening with an anticipation I hadn’t felt for over thirty years. Although I wasn’t used to interacting at a social level with the opposite sex, I found the prospect to be far from unattractive.

When I mentioned what I’d done to her, Julie was a little surprised to hear that I’d be studying history. “I hope you’re not the only one on the course,” she joked. I laughed; I was looking forward to the course with a confidence I hadn’t felt in a long time.

But now, standing looking at the imposing college entrance, that confidence dissipated. I might have turned away if I hadn’t remembered the money; granted, a hundred pounds wasn’t a lot to spend on a ten-week course, but I’d paid it and I wasn’t going to let it go that easily. Taking a deep breath, I pushed through the doors and entered the foyer. Nobody was about, but a laminated sign on the noticeboard directed me to follow the purple line to room M6 for
“A course in Lancashire history”
and I followed the purple footsteps pasted on the floor — intersecting at times with yellow for
“Photography”
and red for
“Life Drawing”
— until I came to the designated classroom.

As I opened the door it was like stepping back in time to my first day at senior school. The classroom was big enough for thirty or so pupils, containing five large circular tables and a front teacher’s desk. The two tables towards the rear of the room and the one in the centre all had chairs stacked on top of them, leaving just the two at the front for me to sit at. One of those was empty, the other had half a dozen people already sitting around it, and a dozen eyes focused on me as I entered.

I headed for the far, unoccupied, table, but a woman who looked to be in her thirties rose from her seat and directed me towards the seventh chair around the nearest table. As I sat I took a closer look at the other occupants. The three women, who I judged to be in their thirties, forties and fifties, included two who I had seen at enrolment six days earlier; I noticed now that only one of them wore a wedding ring. The woman who had directed me to my seat hadn’t been there at enrolment — at least, not while I was there — and the other two were a man and woman barely out of their teens.

All seven of us sat there, some of us fidgeting nervously, all of us trying to avoid eye contact, as we wondered what was going to happen next. The three women were to my right, the two youngsters to my left, with the woman who had directed me to my seat almost opposite me. I looked at my watch — two minutes past seven — and unwittingly caught her eye.

“Yes,” she said, “I think it’s about time we started. I had hoped that we might have a few more late enrollers, but it looks like half a dozen is all we’re going to have on the course.” She looked round at the six of us. “I recognise a couple of you from last week, but not all,” she added, looking in my direction as she spoke.

“Just in case any of you have come to the wrong room, this is the Local History course, where we’ll be taking a closer look at some of the events that have taken place across Lancashire over the last hundred years.” She looked to see if anybody had come to the wrong location — again, I noticed her glance more at me than anybody else — and then continued. “Good, it seems we’re all here for the right reasons.”

I looked at her as she began giving us a brief introduction to the topic. She was almost librarian-looking, with short bobbed brown hair and glasses; she reminded me of Donna Reed in the alternate-reality portion of
It’s A Wonderful Life
, but I soon saw that she portrayed none of the timidity of that character.

“Before we begin,” she said, cutting across my mind-wandering, “I think it would be helpful if we all introduced ourselves and said a little about what we hope to gain during the next few months. I’ll start. I’m Louise James, and, as you’ve gathered, I’ll be teaching this short course and, over the next ten weeks, I hope to introduce you all to some of the more interesting events and characters associated with the county of Lancashire since 1911. Some people think of history in terms of wars and nations, but it is much, much more than that. A single unsolved murder that took place a century ago can still have relevance today…”

There was a sharp gasp from one of the women to my right, but when I instinctively turned to look all three looked deep in concentration on Louise’s words and I wondered if I had imagined it.

“Everybody has a history, something that is personal to each and every one of you, and I want to begin by exploring that. So come on now, it’s your turn, stand up and introduce yourselves to the group. Tell us what
you
hope to get out of the course.”

I always hated that sort of thing, and I tried to sink down into my chair to become less noticeable, but Louise was looking directly at me and I had no choice. I stood and, in an unsteady voice, I began. “Er, I’m Ethan Hudson, and I’m fifty-nine years old. When I was younger, I hated my name, but now it’s come back into fashion it makes me feel a bit younger.” I could feel sweat beginning to trickle down my temple.
That
wasn’t what she meant when she said
introduce yourself
but I felt as if my mouth had been working of its own volition. “Yes, er, I’m divorced, two children, one married and living in the South of England and the other on a sabbatical to South America for a year, so I don’t get to see much of them, unfortunately. I’m retired, but I worked for most of my career as a loss adjuster at a variety of insurance firms across Lancashire. So I’ve travelled about the county, but know very little about it, really. What am I hoping to get from the course? It’s strange in a way. I always hated history when I was at school, but now I’m older I often find myself wondering about the past. Especially as a lot of it is my own past, but you don’t look upon things in the same way when you’re a child, do you? It’s the chance to learn a little about the county I was born in that attracted me when I saw the advert. And that’s about it, I suppose,” I said, hastily sitting down.

“Thank you,” said Louise, and her warm smile suddenly made me feel a lot better about myself. She turned her gaze to my right, to the first of the three women, the one with the wedding ring on. She had short multicoloured hair, a mixture of light and dark brown, and my immediate instinct was to wonder whether or not she dyed it to cover the grey. I judged her to be approaching sixty, but before I could glean any more information she stood and began to speak, in a strong, clear voice.

“My name is Gail Smythe and I’m a fifty-two-year-old housewife. My husband is the national manager of a fast-food franchise, and — as we don’t have children — I travel with him a lot as he goes to the head offices in America several times a year. He doesn’t have any overseas trips planned for the immediate future, but he works long hours and is often late home, so I was looking for something to fill some of my spare time. We’re originally from London — we met at the Isle of Wight festival, as we were both big fans of
The Who
at the time, and we moved to this area two years ago when the company moved its UK headquarters to Manchester. As I’ve never really thought much about life in the north before, I considered it might be useful to learn something about the area I now live in, and the people who live here. I could also pass the information on, as it might be of use to my husband in his job.”

She sat down, and I wondered if she had been the one who gasped when Louise spoke. Something about what she’d said didn’t quite ring true. I vaguely remembered the Isle of Wight festival as taking place around the time of Woodstock, which I knew was in 1969. I did a quick mental calculation. If Gail had gone to the festival in, say, 1969 or 1970, then she would only have been around eleven or twelve. It was possible, of course, but it just didn’t seem right, but I tried not to be overly judgemental; perhaps I was wrong about the dates and the festival had been in the mid-seventies after all.

The woman next to her, who had short-cut dark reddish-brown hair, rose and began to speak. “And I’m Trish Carson, and it isn’t short for Patricia or anything like that. Trish is the name on my birth certificate. I’m fifty-four, and a happily divorced businesswoman — some of you may have seen me during the working day, for I provide sandwiches for some of the larger employers in Lytham and the surrounding areas.” I glanced across at her, trying not to stare and make it too obvious. Fifty-four? I wouldn’t have thought her to be a day over forty-five. She didn’t notice that I was looking at her, and continued to introduce herself. “Like the others said, I too would like to know a little more about the county I’ve lived in for the last thirty years. I also thought it might be a good way of meeting new friends, as modern life doesn’t give us the same opportunities to socialise as our parents had. It would be interesting to learn how things were fifty and a hundred years ago, so we can see how things have changed, and it might make it easier to determine whether all of those changes have been for the better or not.”

As she sat down, with a slight crimson shade on her face, the third of the trio — a bobbed fair-haired beauty who looked to be in her mid-thirties and dressed as if she were ten years younger than that — stood, ready to tell us her own potted life story. “Let’s get this over, then,” she began, a little nervously. “I’m Deborah Havers-Home,” she said, carefully enunciating each syllable. “It’s spelt the same as the former Prime Minister that some of you will undoubtedly remember. And that’s all I have in common with him. I prefer to be called Debbie rather than my full name, as it sounds rather pretentious. It isn’t; I just wanted to keep my own surname when I married Mr Home. My job is very unglamorous — I’m an accounts clerk at a bakery, as I had to return to work when I left my husband.”

She went to sit down, then hurriedly rose again. “Oh, and in keeping with everyone else, I’m fifty-five years old and I am fascinated by the past, so I thought this was an ideal opportunity to be with like-minded people. I do know the county quite well, for I’ve travelled a lot over the years, but you can always learn something new. And, as…Trish said, an event like this can also be very useful for meeting people. I think it’s very important to have plenty of friends and acquaintances from all walks of life.”