Margaret had done what Scott called getting them in. She was at one of the low tables with armchairs, in the first-floor bar of the hotel overlooking the river, and she had ordered a gin and tonic for herself, and a bottle of Belgian
127 beer for Scott, and it was very pleasant sitting there, with the earlyevening sun shining on the river and the great bulk of the Baltic on the further shore with some daft modern-art slogan on a huge banner plastered to its side. Amazing what people thought they could get away with, amazing what people put up with, amazing to think of the contrasts. There was the pretentious nonsense all over the Baltic – it had just been a flour mill when Margaret was growing up – and then, at the other end of the scale, there was the old Baptist church in Tynemouth, now deconsecrated and a warren of gimcrack little shops with Mr Lee’s Tattooing Parlour right under the old church window which said ‘God is love’ in red-and-white glass. Just thinking about it made Margaret want to snort. ‘Penny for them, Mam,’ Scott said, dropping into the chair opposite her. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you wouldn’t want to know.’ She waved a hand at the Baltic. ‘That rubbish, for starters—’ ‘He’s a serious artist,’ Scott said, ‘and if you don’t behave, I’ll take you to see his video installation.’ ‘You will not—’ ‘Amy liked it,’ Scott said. Margaret’s expression gentled. ‘Amy — ’ Scott grinned. ‘She’s texting, all the time.’ Margaret said, ‘Dawson liked her. Even Dawson. He won’t sit on just anyone’s lap.’ ‘We’ve all gone a bit soft on Amy—’ ‘Well,’ Margaret said more briskly, ‘she’s got work to do.’ ‘She’ll do it.’ ‘She’s not very practised. She’s been sheltered. Over-sheltered. She thinks money’s just pocket money. She doesn’t know anything about money —’ ‘She knows enough to get Mr Harrison to give her a job.’ ‘Nonsense,’ Margaret said. Scott pulled out his phone, and pressed a few buttons. Then he held the phone out to his mother. ‘Read that.’ Margaret leaned forward, putting on her reading glasses. She peered at the screen. She said, ‘So he says there’s work for her. I doubt it. He’ll only have her fetching coffee.’ ‘She won’t mind that. She’ll be learning. She’ll get to see his acts. She’ll be performing. She can sing.’ Margaret leaned back. ‘I know she can sing. It’s not much of a voice yet but it’s in tune—’ ‘Bang on the note.’ ‘Don’t make a fool of yourself over her, pet,’ Margaret said. Scott took a swallow of his beer. He grinned at his mother. ‘She’s on a mission to find me a girlfriend.’ ‘Good luck to her.’ ‘I don’t mind,’ Scott said, ‘I don’t mind if she manages it—’ ‘What’s got into you?’ Scott raised his beer bottle towards his mother. ‘Same as you.’ ‘I’m just as I was,’ Margaret said. ‘No, you’re not.’ ‘I’m—’ ‘Look at you,’ Scott said, ‘look at you. You’ve had something done to your hair, and that’s new.’ ‘What’s new?’ ‘That dress.’ ‘Oh,’ Margaret said airily, ‘this.’ She looked out at the river. ‘Everything I’d got suddenly looked so tired.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why do you say yes as if you know something I don’t know?’ ‘Mam,’ Scott said, ‘I don’t know anything you don’t know. The difference between us is just that I admit it.’ ‘Admit what? ’ ‘That I feel better. That you feel better. That we all feel better.’ ‘All?’ ‘Yes,’ Scott said firmly, ‘Mr Harrison too.’ Margaret took a sip of her drink. ‘What has Bernie Harrison got to do with it?’ ‘You tell me,’ Scott said. Margaret smiled privately down into her gin and tonic. ‘Why’d you ask me here?’ Scott said. ‘Why’re you all tarted up?’ ‘Don’t use that word to me—’ ‘Why, Mam?’ Margaret looked up. ‘Are you in a hurry, pet?’ ‘No,’ Scott said. ‘Well, yes, actually. I’m meeting some of the lads from work.’ ‘And the lasses, too?’ Margaret said. Scott said, smiling, ‘There’s always the lasses too.’ ‘Ah ’ ‘Never mind ah. I want to know what’s going on. I want to know why you asked me here.’ Margaret looked round the bar in a leisurely way, as if she was savouring something. Then she said, ‘Bernie’ll be here in ten minutes.’ ‘And? And?’
128 ‘I just thought,’ Margaret said, ‘that I’d like to tell you before I told him. That’s all.’ It was late when she got home, but the night sky over the sea was dim rather than dark, and the sea was washing peacefully up against the shore below Percy Gardens. Margaret liked the sea in its summer mood, when even if it lost its temper it was only briefly, unlike the sustained furious rages of winter when she could stand at her sitting-room window and see the spray flung angrily upwards in great dramatic plumes. But in the summer, there was less sense of frustration, less of a feeling that the sea was outraged to find its wild energies curtailed by a shoreline, by the upsettingly domestic barriers of a coast road and a crescent of houses inhabited by people who thought they had the capacity to control and contain whatever was inconvenient about nature. Margaret paid off the taxi, and walked, in her new summer shoes, to the edge of the grassy oval of grass in front of Percy Gardens, so that she could see the sea, heaving and gleaming and spilling itself, over and over, on to the stones below her. Bernie Harrison had wanted to take her somewhere impressive to celebrate, but she’d said no, they could eat there, in the brasserie of the hotel, and when he said wasn’t that meant for much younger people than they were she said speak for yourself, Bernie Harrison, but I feel years younger than I did only a week ago. Their steaks had come on rectangular wooden platters, like superior bread boards, and Bernie had found a very respectable burgundy on the wine list to drink with them, and Margaret had to hand it to him, he hadn’t crowed over her once, he hadn’t said, ‘What k ept you?’ or, ‘About time too,’ he’d just said, over and over, that he was so pleased, so pleased, and, if he was honest, relieved too. ‘Have you told Glenda?’ ‘Of course not. Would I tell Glenda before I told you?’ ‘I think,’ Bernie said, reflecting on how nice it was to have chips with his steak, how nice it was to be with a woman who didn’t think chips were common, ‘she’ll like the plan, don’t you?’ ‘She’s been on at me ever since you first suggested it.’ ‘Margaret,’ Bernie said, putting down his knife and fork, ‘Margaret. How do you feel?’ She glanced up at him. ‘If you can’t see that for yourself, Bernie Harrison,’ she said, ‘you need your eyes seeing to.’ He put her into a taxi in a way she found entirely acc eptable, no challenges, no fake gallantry, no showing off. He’d just kissed her cheek, thanked her and said, ‘We’ll both sle ep happier tonight,’ and then slapped the roof of the taxi as if to wish her Godspeed on the journey home and somehow more than that, on a journey into something that was, of course, more of the same, but with a twist, with a new injection of vitality, a new optimism. She took several de ep breaths of the sea, and then she turned and went carefully back over the rough grass to her front door, and put the key in the lock. Dawson, with his strange, rare and precise intuition, was sitting eight feet inside the door, waiting for her. When she came in, he lifted himself to his feet and arched his back slightly and made a small, interrogatory remark. Margaret looked at him. She remembered him as that small, battered kitten with a bloody eye and patchy fur and felt a rush of affection for him, not only for what he was and what he had overcome, but because he had by now walked so much of her path with her, had seen her out of some considerable shadows into, if not blazing sunlight, at least light-dappled shade. ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t,’ Margaret said. ‘Just this once.’ She followed him into the kitchen. He paced ahead of her, not hurrying, confident of his small victory, and, as ever, blessedly, uncomplicatedly detached. He sat down with dignity beside his food bowl and watched her while she found a small square tin of his special-treat cat food in the cupboard and peeled back the lid, releasing a rich, savoury
129 aroma that made him run his curling pink tongue round his whiskers. ‘There,’ Margaret said. ‘There. You fat old bully.’ She straightened up. Dawson folded his front paws under himself, in order to bring his chin down to the level of his dish. He was purring triumphantly. ‘Night-night,’ Margaret said. ‘Enjoy. See you in the morning.’ And then she turned to close the door and switch off the light. Upstairs she put on the lamp by her bed, and opened the window, and drew the curtains halfway across so that there was enough space for a slice of summer dawn to fall through in the morning. Then she took off her new dress, and hung it up on a corner of her wardrobe, and put on her padded dressing gown and sat down at her dressing table to begin the rituals of the end of the day. In front of her lay the Minton dish, waiting to receive her pearls and her earrings. It wasn’t quite empty, already containing two safety pins, a pearl button, and the wedding ring she had taken off those months before and allowed, subsequently, just to lie there until it became out of familiarity no more significant than the safety pins. She picked it up now, and looked at it. It had meant so much, once, had symbolized something when the marriage was happening, and even more when it was over. It had been, for years, a talisman, a token of validation, of justification, proof that she had been, in some way that had mattered very much at the time, more than just herself. She examined it. What a dull thing it looked now. How gladly at that moment would she have given it to Amy’s mother, to that woman who’d had so many reasons, so much time, to believe that she was entitled to it. She wasn’t going to think ill of Richie now, she wasn’t going to waste precious energies on stacking up the case against him, nor was she going to do the same for Chrissie. Amy hadn’t talked much about Chrissie exc ept to say that she hoped she really would take this job and this flat, and start to lead her own life at last, but Margaret had had the strong sense that when Richie died he’d left his castle in London and the people it contained grievously undefended. Amy, of course, was in no place to see that yet, might not see it for years, but already she seemed to want a freedom for her mother, a wish Margaret much approved of, a wish that suggested, at the very least, that life with Richie, for all its beguiling charms, had not made allowances for much liberty in the lives around him. She slipped the ring on to her wedding finger. It lodged itself on her second knuckle and, although it could be persuaded, with difficulty, to slide all the way down, there seemed no point in its doing so. She took it off and laid it on the dressing table. In the morning, she thought, on her way to work – she would walk to work, whatever the weather – and to tell Glenda the news about the future, she would cross the grass as she had just done, and then the road, and she would scramble down the shallow cliff slope, holding the ring, and when she got to the bottom, as a mark of respect to the past and all it r epresented, but also as a gesture of finality, a signal that the past was now over, she would throw the ring into the sea.