The Year Of The Ladybird Part 21

'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 s.h.i.+rts and trousers in as will fit you now.'

22.

Oh there will be time for sweet wine Can someone hold your hand and make lost memories come tumbling down? Nikki and I fell asleep that night drugged with s.e.x 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.l will be picked clean; the waves will break the sh.e.l.l 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 s...o...b..at. 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 s.c.r.o.t.e, your mate.'

'My mate?'

'That f.u.c.kin' soft Mancunian. Whatsisname?'

'n.o.bby? 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. 'n.o.bby? It doesn't add up. He's not her type.'

'Her type? Anyone with a hard c.o.c.k 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 n.o.bby 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 Sat.u.r.days 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 gla.s.s paperweight. The gla.s.s 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 bra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 Sh.e.l.ly Diamante. To be precise she was billed as Sh.e.l.ly '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 const.i.tutes making a pa.s.s. 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 h.e.l.lo. 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.

After that we went on our way to The Angel Inn, where we drank with friends until about ten o'clock. I was comfortable and I didn't want to go, but Nikki was determined. She persuaded me that it would be rude not to say h.e.l.lo. When we got to the theatre people were already spilling out of the doors, turning up their collars. Knowing that Luca's professional habit was to get out quickly, I thought we might have left it too late. Nikki dived inside and asked someone where the stage door was. It was at the side of the building.

'Should we send a note? Say we're here?'

'No!' Nikki said. 'It will be more fun if we don't.'