Wise Follies (24 page)

I turn the page on my notepad, and as I do so I feel as though I am pushing a door open into my own past. To a day when my childhood was dappling into something different. A day when I could feel the severance and yet could glory in what remained.

‘After we’d read the sex bits in
The Naked Ape
at least five times that spring afternoon, Annie put it back on her parents’ bookshelf with amazing lack of detection,’ I scribble. ‘This seemed to reassure her in some way because she suddenly announced that she’d been thinking about sex and she’d decided something. She’d decided that the only thing that could possibly make people want to bump and bounce off each other so slurpily and scarily was love. And if love made you want to do something that ridiculous it must be a big and wonderful thing and she wanted it. I looked at her for a while after she’d announced this, not knowing what to say. In fact I didn’t say anything. We left the subject quickly, almost carefully, as if guided by one of those beams of insight that can come at any age. Suddenly we wanted to leave all that ‘stuff’ until later, because we knew that’s where it belonged. And so we ran off to the river to see if there was any frog spawn yet, and found Aaron and Eric McGrath there too. We paddled and giggled and when I was climbing up a muddy bank Aaron held out his hand to help me. And it felt firm and warm and right. And I looked into his face and I knew

I loved him. And I knew he loved me too. And it had nothing to do with The Naked Ape and those strange words that had so perplexed me. It was just that there, that afternoon, there was no one else I would have preferred to be with. No one else who knew me so well. And I somehow knew too that time was dappling our certainties. I knew that sometimes none of this would seem true. And then we walked for a while until we came to the narrow bridge. The one with no sides – just a plank across the water. I had crossed it so many times before. Completely unafraid.

‘That was the last time I crossed that bridge without looking down. In later years I would walk further to the footbridge, not even considering it. But that day I followed Aaron’s firm, steady footsteps. Revelling in our daring. And then we went to the Delaneys’ shop and bought four of the marshmallow mice we liked so much. The marshmallow mice with proper tails. We were – so happy – so happy to find that we were young again. Young in the old way that we knew.

‘And then Aaron and Eric drifted back to their football, and Annie and I went to her house to watch The Monkees and wish we could meet Davy Jones. And though we knew time was making things different, a small sweet strand from the past had somehow reached us like a narrow bridge over our different dreams. Reminding us that what had now nearly gone had been so very precious, and that we knew it. And it was in some deep part of us all and would always be there.

‘That spring a woman in the village read my tea leaves and told me I would marry “the man next door”. I was sure that she meant Aaron. By the time summer came Annie had decided she wanted to be a jazz singer in a smoky New York night club. I didn’t know what I wanted to be, but it didn’t matter. The tadpoles changed into frogs and I hopped around our lawn saving them from the mower. And then, shortly after my twelfth birthday, Aaron’s parents announced they were emigrating to Australia. They sold their house and shipped their furniture to the other side of the world in huge wooden crates, and I never saw Aaron again. So much was changing. They even built bungalows on the meadow by the river where we used to play. And then, that autumn, I went to boarding school and in a way my childhood ended. And on my first day home during the autumn break I discovered the Delaney sisters no longer sold pink marshmallow mice with proper tails.

I stare numbly at what I have written. Where did all these words come from? Why did I write them so urgently, so passionately? There is no comfort in them. None at all. They seem so mute and abandoned as they lie there. Lost. Bewildered. Like me.

I hear sniffling sounds and look round. The woman in the pink tracksuit is crying. Samantha does not seem too surprised.

‘Some of you are probably feeling a sense of loss,’ she announces, as she shifts her long slim legs so that they are curled beneath her on the cushion. ‘That is quite natural. You’ve been remembering something precious. Something, perhaps, that you’d almost forgotten.’

‘When’s lunch?’ the man who wants to be a graphic designer interrupts. He doesn’t seem to be sharing the general mood.

‘Soon, Peter,’ Samantha answers firmly. ‘I just want to address some issues that seem to have arisen first.’

‘Could I open a window?’ asks the woman in the blue kaftan. ‘It’s getting a bit stuffy in here.’

‘Of course, Laura,’ Samantha replies. ‘You may need to use a chair.’

‘I’ll do it,’ says Peter gallantly.

‘To get back to what I was saying,’ Samantha says. ‘We all have lost parts of ourselves, and we can reclaim them. Find a way to incorporate them in the person we are now. That carefree, playful child that you were remembering is still inside you and can teach you so much.’

Though I know what Samantha is saying is important I, and a number of other people in this room, are now looking at Peter as he struggles to open the window. It seems to be jammed in some fashion. He’s pushing and pushing and it’s not shifting. ‘Try the other one,’ Samantha suggests, and he does. This time the window opens and Julie isn’t crying anymore. She’s been distracted. We all have. We want lunch. We can smell it. The dining-room is just down the corridor.

‘Is there anyone who would like to discuss what they have written?’ Samantha is now asking, rather pleadingly.

Silence. I look at her sympathetically, sharing her disappointment, even though of course I could relieve it. I could speak about Aaron, but I just don’t want to.

‘Can I tell you after lunch?’ Julie asks tentatively.

‘Yes, after lunch’ – a number of people echo her suggestion. I watch them shifting restively on their cushions. Reason and passion. Poetry and prose. We are all such a mixture of things. Even the ones who were looking nostalgic are now glancing eagerly towards the door. Samantha glances at her watch.

‘Yes, you’re right. It is lunchtime,’ she smiles tolerantly. ‘Bon appetit, but do try to be back here by two o’clock. We’ve got a lot more personal exploration to do this afternoon.’

‘Save me a place, will you? I want to go to the loo,’ Matt whispers as we all rise from our cushions and our conundrums.

‘Yes, of course I will,’ I reply, as I follow the others out of the room. We’re almost running with glee. The simple solace of vegetarian risotto suddenly seems enormously enticing. In fact, our ‘inner children’ are so excited that there’s a minor spat about who is to have second helpings of the bread and butter pudding.

‘Wait. Wait,’ Samantha addresses us firmly. ‘There’s another bread and butter pudding over there on the sideboard.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Peter demands petulantly.

‘If you’d looked you would have seen it, but you only saw the one in front of you.’ She smiles at him and then for some reason glances at me as she adds gently, ‘Perhaps that’s a small insight in itself’.

Chapter
21

That ‘Personal Exploration’ day
was more interesting than I’d thought it would be. I think the last ‘exercise’ we did was the most helpful. Samantha asked us to make a list of all the things we’d like to do but are frightened of for some reason. She said it might help us reconnect with some of our own ‘passion’.

‘You may even find yourselves putting love on that list,’ she told us. ‘A lot of people are frightened of loving. Of the intimacy a close relationship brings. They are scared of being truly known in case they are rejected.’

‘Well, that’s not me anyway,’ I thought, remembering James Mitchel.

The list of things I’d like to do but am too scared to try could have filled an entire shorthand notepad. Thankfully we were only given one A4 lined page each, so I just made a random selection. Among them was my desire to do an art course in Paris. There’s a college there I’d wanted to attend when I left school. In fact, I almost went there until piles of people pointed out to me that living in a garret isn’t quite as romantic as it sounds.

‘Why not try journalism?’ Uncle Sean suggested. ‘You loved writing essays at school. You’d enjoy the variety. And you could keep your painting as a hobby.’

‘Yes. Yes,’ everyone chorused. ‘What an excellent suggestion.’

‘Mmmm – maybe,’ I said. It certainly seemed a sensible solution, even though on at least three occasions I almost buggered off to Paris with a haversack. Annie and Laren thought I should go, but in the end I didn’t. I was scared of being alone in a big strange foreign city. Painting seemed a whimsical thing suddenly, journalism was far more sensible and solid. My French wasn’t fluent enough anyway. The reasons why I shouldn’t go to Paris grew and grew. But they have never entirely convinced me. I’m not sure they ever will.

Another thing I put on that list was that I’d like to visit my parents’ graves again. I used to visit the graveyard occasionally, but then there came a point when I found it too upsetting. I’d like to give them flowers. Show them they are remembered. But it seems so lonely standing by their headstones. Maybe if I marry Eamon he could come with me.

By the time I’d finished writing my list it covered every inch of the paper I’d been given. As I re-read it the bit that most surprised me was the sentence that said, ‘I’d like to ring Laren MacDermott.’ I realized I’d been feeling deeply curious about her. We’d been such good friends. It seemed a pity just to ‘lose’ her telephone number like that…even though I hadn’t. It turned up the other day in a pocket of one of my jeans. It was stuck together and hard from the washing machine. The numbers were faded, but I could still just make them out.

Now I’m in the sitting room with Laren’s telephone number in my hand and wondering if I can summon up the courage to dial it. I’ve spent all morning puzzling over a particularly problematic assignment Sarah has given me so this diversion is, in a sense, quite welcome. Phoning Laren could be fun, as long as I don’t care if we find we have nothing in common anymore. Yes. Why not. We could always talk about her apparent detestation of terrapins.

I dial the number quickly. She probably has an answering machine. I listen to the ringing tone and look at Tarquin playing with his catnip mouse. No reply. She’s obviously not there. In a way I’m rather relieved. I’m just about to hang up when she answers. ‘Hello!’ she says brightly. ‘Hello, Laren here.’

‘Hello, Laren,’ I say softly, suddenly unsure about the wisdom of this reconnection.

‘Is that you, Alice?’ she asks. I must admit I’m rather surprised she recognized my voice.

‘Yes, it is,’ I reply.

‘How funny, I was just thinking about you. I was wondering if you’d lost my number.’

I’m about to say that I did, but decide not to. Why not be honest? There’s enough acting in the world as it is. ‘Well, to be truthful, Laren, I was a bit nervous about phoning you,’ I say hesitantly. ‘I was worried that – you know – we might find we don’t have much in common any more.’

‘Oh, I’m sure we do,’ Laren laughs reassuringly. ‘Don’t be too fooled by my public image, Alice. I’m not quite as intimidating as you might think.’

‘Would you like to meet up for a drink sometime?’ I ask. ‘Then we could have that “proper chat” that you suggested.’

‘I’d love that,’ Laren replies. ‘But I’m afraid it will have to wait until next month. We’re flying to Japan today. We’re doing a tour in East Asia.’

‘Wow, how exciting!’ I exclaim. ‘I’ve never been to anywhere as exotic as that.’

‘Come with us,’ Laren suddenly announces.

‘What?’ I frown.

‘Come with us to East Asia.’ She makes it sound as though she’s inviting me for a cup of coffee in Bewley’s. She has obviously grown used to this type of last-minute suggestion, but I haven’t. We have been leading very different lives.

‘But – but, aren’t you leaving today?’ I enquire cautiously.

‘Yes. This evening. We have a fantastic tour manager, I’m sure he could get your airplane tickets in time. All you need to bring is your passport. It wouldn’t cost you anything.’