Break Point (5 page)

"Selling Wimble Den? But I
can't
leave Babs. I can't live
without her."

As for June,
well, she said it wasn't so much me shagging with Babs, though that
hurt. It was the feeling it left her with. Like there was no going
back. It was over. Finished. Kaput. History. She needed to hang
onto something, some foothold on the future, she said, some hope of
us getting back.

"Bobbie, I'm
prepared to forget this thing with Babs," she said, after a while.
"It wouldn't have happened if I'd not let things drift."

"There's no
going back, June. We're like chalk and cheese. It's not me, is
this. All this home-building stuff."

"But
it’s
ours
. What's
mine is yours."

"You keep it.
I don't want material comforts. I want some danger, some grit. I
want some of that spirit of the seventies. That's why I went with
Babs."

I meant it,
however much it hurt. I'd lost a lot of me roots, me politics,
though June always said she never wanted me to lose them. Said she
loved them. Fancied them. But she couldn't keep up with me and she
stopped trying. She always liked her routine. Whereas I wanted to
be devoted to the cause again. Part of the revolution. Momentous. I
saw Babs into Pride and anti-roads protesting and she was bringing
all that out in me again. I told June I wanted life to be
momentous. And d'you know what she said? She said so much in life
just isn't momentous. Most of it's dull routine. Washing dishes,
waiting for electricians to call, answering wrong numbers, waiting
at traffic lights. Now she's being momentous while I'm swilling out
chamber pots and straightening cushions and prattling on about jugs
of blackcurrant with Mrs Parrott. I'm doing the dreary stuff
between the big points: the pauses, the lets, the double faults.
But they're what hold the momentous together when you think about
it.

FIRST
FRIDAY

Something's woke me up, a huge bang, and I slip on my
dressing-gown and go downstairs. Gwen's fallen out of bed. She's
lying there on the floor, pink brush-nylon nightie up around her
swollen knees, a tear of blood running from her
nose
.

"That was
clever, Gwen. How d’you manage that?"

"There's blood
on my nightie."

I wipe her
nose and sit her upright. "It's all right. It's just your nose.
There, now just keep this against it while I help you back into
bed."

"I feel all
dizzy. Perhaps it's a brain haemorrhage."

"Let's have a
look at you. No great damage done, though you've got a bit of a
bruise coming up. I better call the doctor just to check you
over."

"There's no
need."

"Just to be
sure."

"No! Doctors
search for things. And find them sometimes."

"Well, I'll
keep an eye on it for you. How's your cold today?"

She grumbles.
Something about it being the flu, not just a cold. I tuck her up.
She's still looking a touch pale and rheumy round the eyes, and her
lips are all cracked.

"I wish Anne
would hurry up and come back. She knows exactly what to do in
situations like this. I do miss her." She tuts. "Could you close
the window and put the fire on?"

"The
fire
?
But it's dead warm out."

"Don't argue
with me, Rosemary."

"Robina."

"What's
Robina?"

"My name,
duck. Robina not Rosemary."

"What's
Rosemary got to do with it?"

"You just
called me Rosemary."

"No I didn't.
How do you know her name?"

"You told
me."

"I did no such
thing."

"It doesn't
matter. I’ll get you your breakfast."

It really
doesn't. I've met crabbier old people than Gwen in my time. People
at the Arnecombe nursing home who were crotchety day in, day out.
With Gwen it'll be because she's ill. I do wonder about this
Rosemary though. Like I wonder about Anne. What special qualities
does Anne have that I don't? People are always telling me how easy
I am to get along with. Well then. It'll just be that Gwen's used
to Anne.

While Gwen's
recovering from the shock of the fall, I make her breakfast, and
I'm thinking how things were never quite the same after our big
trip up to Wimbledon. I'd be sitting there watching it and I'd say,
Where are all the mutinous tennis players these days? Tennis went
through a dead rebellious time, like rock music. Pete Townsend
smashed his guitar on stage in the sixties and in the eighties John
McEnroe slammed his racket on the grass until it bounced. He
shouted, Chalk flew up, and You're the pits man, and, I said it to
myself, taking it all one step further than his predecessor
Nastase. People used to fight and be devoted to the cause. People
stood up and shouted their anger down microphones or smashed their
rackets against authority. But what happened to them?

I'll tell you
what happened. They became like June. Reverting back to type. Bog
standard magnolia. Safe. I didn't put it like that to June, mind.
But she knew I was getting itchy feet, without me having to spell
it out.

I bring in the
poached eggs and tea and Gwen's face perks up. "Poached eggs. Just
what I like when convalescing. I'm not sure about the tea
though."

"What about
some drinking chocolate then?"

"Drinking
chocolate? Yes. Rosemary always makes me that," she says. "Bring me
my photograph box too, would you?"

I go and make
her drinking chocolate and bring it in with her photos.

"What did you
say his name was?"

"Whose
name?"

"Your
boyfriend's."

Shit,
what
did
I say?
Did I tell her that my brother was called Elliot? Gwen's memory can
be sketchy but sometimes it's as sharp as glass.

"Gordon. His
name's Gordon."

Well, we did
kiss the once. He was even planning to father a child with me or
June once.

"Gordon. A
gardener, you say?"

"Landscape
gardener, yeah."

"I was
wondering ... no ... I shouldn't really ask."

"Go
on."

"Well, it's
the garden. I hate to put on Mrs Parrott. She's so busy, and she's
such a little thing, and as your boyfriend is a gardener anyway I
thought ... "

I know what's
coming.

"I was
wondering if he might possibly have a go at it this weekend if he's
free. Only you did say you were saving up for a place of your own
and I could pay him quite handsomely..."

"Oh ... yeah
... or there's always me brother ... "

"Oh, but your
brother hurt his back, didn't he? No, I wouldn't trouble him. Backs
are so precious. I just thought it might be nice for you, having
your boyfriend over here. It's not as though you've been able to
get out much in the last day or two, is it?"

"Oh, we're
used to it, Gwen. He knows to keep out of my way during Wimbledon
anyway."

"Oh
Wimbledon," she says, all sort of derogatory. "Still ... there'll
be no play on Sunday, will there?"

"Shouldn't
think so."

"Is it unfair
of me to ask? You were probably wanting to spend Sunday afternoon
alone with him ... it was silly of me ... I am sorry ...
"

"No ... you're
all right. I'll ... put it to him."

"You can phone
him from here any time. I'm not one of these people who's stingy
with the phone."

That's the
trouble with lies, even white ones. You can get yourself in a right
pickle. Now I'm in deep shit. I suppose I could always ask Gordon
to do the honours, to be me boyfriend for the day. We had that kiss
once, didn't we, some years back, when I felt his face next to
mine, rough as sandpaper. Mind you, I might have gone all the way
with him, me or June, if the baby thing had come off. But we don't
mention it now, the kiss, or the failed baby. Failed at the
planning stages. It wasn't meant to be is what we all said. But you
can get yourself in a right old mess when you bend the truth and I
wish I'd said 'no' when Gwen asked the boyfriend question
initially.

"I'm just
going to do the lounge, Gwen."

"Lounge?" she
barks, her mouth open and cornered with spittle which makes me
thirsty just looking at it. "You make it sound like a saloon
bar."

I dust and
polish and plug in the hoover which roars to life, and I sing as I
push it back and forth but then I hear knocking above the song and
the hoover.

It's Gwen,
rapping her stick against the chest of drawers in her room. She can
get a good grip then, when it suits.

"Oh, thank
goodness you've turned off that racket. Anne never hoovers when
I've got a headache. Get me my paracetomol, will you?"

Funny that,
how quickly Would-you-be-so-kind has become Get this, Do that.
Crack crack. Jump to it.

No good
letting it get to you. Keep cool. You don't see umpires getting all
hot under the collar. Where would the game of tennis be if they
lost their rag? If they were still concentrating on the last point
and getting caught up in players' tantrums?

Crack crack,
the sound of the paracetomol lid. Crack crack. Crack on.

*

Back upstairs,
Kournikova is playing an Argentinian, and I'm missing June. I keep
thinking she'll come through the door, a suitcase in each hand, not
able to miss Wimbledon. Except she wouldn't because she doesn't
know I'm here. Perhaps it's not June I'm missing, but someone to
share it with - another devotee.

I slouch
across Gwen's lumpy bed with the fraying quilt. I can't imagine it
looking tip-top, though it must have once. Same with the snagged
damask curtains coming out of their runners, which I haven't
bothered to reinsert them and there it goes again. Rap rap
rap.

"What is it?"
I hear the snappy edge in my voice as I open Gwen's
door.

"Could you
turn the television down? I'm trying to get to sleep."

Soothing
tennis balls should help her kip if anything.

"And can you
take these away?

"What, your
photos?"

"Which
photos?"

"Your pictures
of Rosemary."

"What do you
know of her?"

"Nothing.
D'you want to tell me about her?"

"You're
watching your tennis."

"I can soon
catch up."

She's pointing
at one of the schoolgirl photos. "This one here ... this was taken
when she went to the grammar school."

I see a dead
ordinary snap - stripy tie, dark regulation pullover, schoolgirl
smile.

"These are all
old ... these are all I want ... to remember her as she was ...
take them away now would you, Robina?"

I put them
back in Gwen's photograph box and return them to their home in the
sitting room cupboard. These are all old. So there must be some
recent ones then, upsetting ones, taken just before Rosemary
died.

The clock
chimes and I make drinks for myself and Gwen, and upstairs I lower
the volume because the crowd is getting noisier. It's a Brit
playing, isn't it? Danny Sapsford against Pete Sampras and I fall
into a daze. I need something to wake me so I go to the left-hand
drawer of the dressing-table where I've stashed some of my most
personal bits and bobs, like photos and letters from June. Maybe I
should write to her in Copenhagen. All I've had from her is a
couple of postcards. Short and not so sweet. Business-like. She's
the one who’s turned her life around.

And here I am,
up here, with my secret life. Secret from Gwen, I mean. But if she
just poked around a few drawers and boxes she might find out who I
really am, and perhaps if I did the same in the bedroom at the
other end of the landing I'd find out who Rosemary is.

But it's
sacrosanct, Rosemary's bedroom, with its divan and light wardrobe
and wicker chair. I wouldn't want someone snooping around my
private things, so Rosemary will just have to be a mystery for now.
The black and white girl who grew into a sandy, good-time seventies
girl before disappearing from the picture altogether.

The phone
rings.

It's Anne.
She's surprised to hear that Gwen's flat out under her bedcovers.
And she's coming back she says. Hooray! Afternoons and evenings
free again, in time for the big week next week. She truly is Anne
the Infallible.

Gwen calls out
the minute I put down the receiver. "Who was it?"

I push my head
round the door. "It was Anne."

"Oh I do so
wish she'd hurry up and come back. I do miss her."

"You're in
luck. She's on her way home."

*

I switch off
the telly and decide to sit outside for a bit, feel the sun on my
face.