Secret Scribbled Notebooks (19 page)

‘Rubbish!' said Marjorie.

‘Can you go around the block,' I asked Marjorie's mother, ‘to give Lil and Sophie time to get there?' They were taking a cab to the venue, so they could watch me arrive. High-school formals were like weddings, or Academy Awards, with people waiting around outside to applaud and take photographs. You had to run the gauntlet.

The Holden pulled up in a line behind several others, and as I got out I could see Lil and Sophie, with Hetty. Milling around outside were all my handsome friends, all dressed up. Cameras were clicking and everyone was squealing and kissing each other. I got squealed at and kissed, and various girls grabbed me by both arms and declared that they
just loved
what I was wearing, and some were being sincere and some were insincere, but I didn't care either way. I was lined up with various combinations of people for pictures to be taken. Then, on the edge of all the onlookers, I saw Alex, tall and brown and slender, in his black beret, and I went up to him.

‘Hello, Kate,' he said shyly. ‘I just wanted to come and see you on your big night.'

I had forgotten that we were exactly the same height, and could look right into each other's eyes. In the flurry of getting ready for the formal, I had almost forgotten that he would be gone the next morning.

I leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. It was something I didn't even have to think about; I simply did it. Moving towards him and touching my lips to his was entirely natural. Then I walked backwards, away from him, looking at him all the time, for as many steps as I could comfortably manage, not wanting to lose sight of him. Marjorie took my arm and we went into the building.

Marjorie's mother had left the car for us to come home in, and Marjorie and I went on to a party that someone had organised. I wandered around the house and garden, nibbling on a bit of food here, sipping a drink there, chatting to people, laughing, being grabbed from behind, hugged. But my heart wasn't in it. I'd had enough celebration. All I could think of was Alex.

‘Do you want to go home?' I asked Marjorie, finding her in the kitchen in front of the punch bowl.

Marjorie turned to me, looking most un-Marjorie-like. ‘I don't think I can drive,' she said. ‘I've drunk too much. I feel ill. Really ill.' She dashed for the back door.

I spent the next half hour with Marjorie in the back garden while she tried to be sick into a garden bed. But she couldn't be. In between retching she lay on her back on the grass and looked up at the sky and groaned.

‘Stop groaning!' I told her crossly. ‘It sounds awful.'

‘It is awful. I'm so drunk and so sick and I can't vomit, but groaning makes me feel better.'

‘Why on earth did you drink so much?'

‘Well, the punch was so yummy and fruity and then it made me feel so wonderfully light-headed, and I'm sorry that this is the last time we'll all be together, and I'm worried about my results, so I thought I'd like to forget about it for a while. Kate?'

‘What?'

‘Don't be snappy with me, Kate. I love you. You know that, don't you?'

Marjorie groaned again.

‘Kate?'

‘WHAT?'

‘Don't yell. I've just discovered something . . . I feel so ill . . .'

‘Well, of course you do. Drinking all that punch.'

‘No –it's something else. Something really important.'

‘What, then?'

‘Don't be impatient with me, Kate. I've just now learned . . . that groaning really does make you feel better. When I've got patients who are ill –and they probably will be ill, that's why they'll have come to me –I'm going to say to them, “Groan as much as you like. Go on,” I'll tell them, “have a good groan. It will make you feel much better.”'

I put one hand on Marjorie's forehead. In the hot night, it felt cool and clammy. ‘Wait here,' I told her. ‘I'm getting someone to drive you home.'

I got up and ran. I ran through the dark, deserted streets. I ran with the stars and the moon and the slight breeze accompanying me, pulling me along. Growing hot, I shrugged off my jacket and held it in one hand.

I see now that I could have asked one of the other people at the party to drive Marjorie home. Or I could have called Marjorie's parents and asked them to come and get her. There was no logic to what I did. I ran until I came to Alex's place.

He was stirring a pot of paint with a flat stick, and he looked up as I came in.

‘It's Marjorie,' I said. ‘She's too drunk to drive home. Could you take her?'

Alex replaced the lid on the tin of paint, and scrawled a note to someone, which he left sitting on top of the tin. We walked back to the party without talking much, but all the time I was enormously aware of Alex's presence beside me, and it made me happy.

Marjorie hadn't moved from her spot near the garden bed. She lay staring at the sky. ‘The keys,' I said to her. ‘I need your car keys.'

‘They're in that little bag thingy of mine. Somewhere in the house. You know, people kept wanting to take me home but I said you had it all under control.'

I located her bag thingy on a sofa in the by now almost deserted house. We helped Marjorie to the car and I stayed with her in the back seat, while Alex got into the driver's seat. He sat for a few moments fiddling with the controls of the car. ‘It's all right,' he told me, glancing back. ‘I'm just finding where everything is. And the gears aren't what I'm used to, but I think I've got it figured out now.'

We set off, and it seemed so ordinary, to be driving home with Alex at the wheel and Marjorie with her head on my shoulder. I directed him to Marjorie's place, and he parked the car in the drive. We got out, and Alex handed me the keys.

I took Marjorie's hand and led her into the house. Lights had been left on in the hallway, and her father called out something from the bedroom as we went down the hall, but I ignored it. I got Marjorie to her room and helped her onto her bed, and put a light rug across her feet. Dropping the keys on the bedside table, I switched off the night-light, and left again.

Outside, Alex was leaning against the front fence with his hands in his pockets. ‘Well,' he said, and smiled at me. We set out down the street together.

‘Oh,' I said, stopping. ‘I've left my jacket somewhere. I don't know where. Either in the car or back at the party or –somewhere. Oh well, I'll have to find it later.'

We kept walking, and I thrust my hands deep into my pockets, feeling very manly in the suit pants and white shirt and bow tie. I burrowed down so hard that I hit a torn seam and one of my fingers went through into the lining. There was something hard there; I pushed my index finger and thumb through and plucked it out. Under a street light, I stopped and stared at what I had found.

‘What is it?' said Alex. “What have you got?'

‘It's a stone.'

The Wild Typewritten Pages 24

It was the stone
I'd picked up all those years ago, and given to my father, the day after we'd played in the motel pool late at night. I put it into the top pocket of my shirt, and kept walking.

Except it hadn't been my father. The man I remembered had been Alan.

For some reason, this knowledge gave me a new feeling of freedom. I felt light and light-headed. The memory of that stone had weighed me down for years. And it had been there all along, sitting at the bottom of a trouser pocket in Lil's wardrobe. Now I had the absurd feeling that it didn't matter what I did, and I had never felt this way before, so free of anything that tied me to the earth. I might never return to Samarkand. I could, if I wanted to, get on the bus with Alex in the morning and head away from here. Just like that.

There was someone waiting in Alex's garage. It was the thin boy who sold the socialist newspapers in the main street. He'd been sitting at Alex's table reading a paper, and he got up as we came in.

‘Sorry,' said Alex. ‘I had to go out for a while. Michael, do you know Kate? Kate, this is Michael.'

Michael bobbed his head shyly at me, and said softly, ‘Hi.' He had beautiful blue eyes. I'd thought he looked nondescript, but his eyes were his beauty. I thought that perhaps everyone had something beautiful about them, if you bothered to look at them properly.

‘Well,' said Alex, ‘Are you ready? I'll find an extra brush.' He rummaged on one of the shelves at the back of the garage and found an old brush, stroking its bristles to make sure it wasn't too stiff. ‘Graffiti,' he explained. ‘I said I'd give Michael a hand.' He held out the brush questioningly to me. ‘Do you want to come with us?'

‘Yes. Why not?' I took the brush and felt like wielding it at once. Alex picked up the pot of paint (an old pot, left over from painting Vivienne's house, probably), and we set off. For the graffiti, Michael had chosen a wall supporting a railway bridge with a road running beside it. In the daytime it was a busy spot, but tonight it was deserted. The only living creature that observed us was a dog that met up with us near a streetlight, a dog with legs too short for its body, and large tan spots all over it. A car drove past. I wished we had spray cans, something we could conceal under our clothing.

‘Right,' said Michael. He seemed sure of himself now. ‘FREE THE REFUGEES
.
Alex, you do the FREE, Kate do THE, and I'll do the last word. Letters so high,' he indicated. We lined up, and began.

I thought of Alex's typewriter and the unused ream of copy paper that he couldn't find the words to fill, the novel that he hoped might help change the world. Perhaps sheets of A4 paper weren't big enough for him. Perhaps he didn't need to write a whole novel. Perhaps three words could say it all, and he needed a whole wall to say it on.

‘Car!' hissed Michael, as he saw headlights approach, and we ducked behind the support of the bridge, then emerged again when the car had passed. The spotted dog with short legs had decided that it would stay and observe us, and it sat with a worried and faintly embarrassed expression on its face, glancing at us every so often.

I had never imagined that paint could be so stiff, or brickwork so difficult to paint on. I had rolled up my sleeves, and the paint dripped down my arm and trickled over my wrists. Michael and Alex finished before me, despite having longer words, and as I completed the last part of the E, Alex grabbed my elbow and we departed.

We couldn't stop laughing. The dog gave us a departing glance and trotted off. ‘Police informer,' said Michael, and we burst out laughing again.

At Alex's place, we washed the brushes out under the tap outside the back door, and cleaned the paint from our fingers. ‘I'd better go,' said Michael. He had been confident and decisive while we were painting the graffiti, but now his shyness had returned. ‘Thanks for helping, Kate,' he said.

He turned again to Alex. ‘You too. Anyway, have a good trip. Look us up if you ever pass this way again.' They embraced briefly, and he left.

Now Alex's room seemed very small and very quiet. I saw that his few possessions had been packed up into boxes and labelled ‘For Lifeline'. The bed sat there, neatly made; it was the only sign that someone still lived there. The suitcase labelled ‘Winter Stuff' stood next to the bed, ready to go.

‘Well,' said Alex. ‘What now?'

‘I don't want to go home,' I said. ‘I don't want to leave you like this.'

‘There's not much of the night left,' said Alex. ‘My bus goes at eight this morning.'

‘What, then?' I said.

‘Let's walk,' said Alex.

So we walked, and the streets were as silent and thoughtful as we were. It seemed natural to head upwards, because Lismore is a hilly place, and by taking the streets that ran uphill we eventually came to the highest point, where a grassy park looked out over the town. We sat down on a seat at the edge of the park, not touching, and I leaned forward, looking down at the place where I'd spent almost the whole of my life.

I sat there with Alex and it seemed that I was poised between where I was from and where I was going. All I possessed at that moment was the present.

‘I never told you my love story,' I said.

‘No, you never did.'

‘I was about two, or three. And we'd gone to a wedding . . . at least, I only have a feeling that it was a wedding.

‘I do remember this. We were staying at a motel. It was late, and I couldn't sleep. I was making a lot of noise, talking and giggling. Someone tried to shoosh me –they thought I'd wake up Sophie.

‘And then a man picked me up and put on my swimmers, and took me out to the motel pool. Everyone else was asleep. The place was dead quiet. It must have been two or three in the morning.

‘We played for ages in the water. I'd jump in, and he'd catch me. He'd pull me through the water and hold on to me and bounce me up and down. It was wonderful. It really was. I was full of wonder. And all the time there was this sort of quiet laughter between us.

‘I don't even remember his face properly. Just this particular way he had of smiling, and the way he . . .
was.
He was quiet and sure of himself. He took a lot of notice of me. Not fussing over me, but noticing how I was feeling. It was just the two of us, and the lights sparkling on the water. Everything shimmered.

‘And I can remember the next morning, I gave him something I'd found. It was a stone, from the garden of the motel. I'd found one that I thought was prettier than the rest, and I picked it up and gave it to him. He lifted me up and kissed me on the cheek. He told me that he'd always keep it.'

I took the stone out of my pocket. ‘Here it is. He did keep it. Except he died not long afterwards, so I'll never know if he really would have kept it all this time. But I think maybe he would have.'

I looked at Alex, who was regarding me with all of his bright, bird-like attention.