Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon (26 page)

‘It’s just that I keep losing them,’ she blurts. ‘They come back and then I lose them again.’

‘Lose what? Look, why don’t you come in and sit down for a minute or two?’

Cassandra shakes her head; she fumbles in her shoulder bag for a tissue and her fingers meet the smooth leather of her purse, which she pulls out in triumph.

‘No, I’m fine, see – here it is after all.’ She holds it up. ‘Thank you. I’m perfectly all right now.’

Unsteadily she walks away. Knowing that the kind woman is still watching from the doorway, she raises a hand in jaunty farewell. A tear courses down her cheek, and she swipes it away. Such a mess, such an utter mess she has made of her life. Roland was only the first. He set the pattern, or she did, and there’s no getting away from it.

This is her punishment. She must wander and wonder, searching strangers’ faces in the street, catching her breath at the lift of a chin, a hunch of shoulder, a way of standing. Always hoping, always crushed with disappointment.

Chapter Fifteen

Sandy, 1967, 1966

It felt incongruous for spring to come as usual, for the days to lengthen and green shoots to push out of the earth, as if nothing had happened. Sandy felt like a stowaway, with no right and no choice but to be carried along with the vast indifference of the world’s turning. No way of getting off, unless she followed Roland, and she wasn’t brave enough for that.

The ringing of the telephone had ceased long ago to be of any personal interest, but one wet evening in March she heard her mother answer downstairs, then call her name.

Unbelievably, it was Phil.

‘Need to meet you,’ said his voice, husky, almost whispering.

‘Why?’

‘Just say yes.’

‘What for?’ She was jolted out of her torpor.

‘Can’t talk now. Meet me Saturday?’

‘Yes – yes. Where?’

‘At the station. Early, say eight. Can you make it the whole day?’

What could he have in mind? The possibilities turned and tangled in her mind. Surely, surely, it could only be something to lift the guilt from her. Part of it, at least. He had been as close to Roland as she was, or closer; he knew things she didn’t. Where had the LSD come from? That hadn’t been ascertained, from Phil or from anyone else. Seeing him in the churchyard, pale and motionless by the graveside after everyone else had moved on, the thought rippled through her:
He loved Roland.
Surely Roland had been wrong. She might have spoken to Phil, or gone and stood mutely beside him, but her father had taken her arm and led her away towards the line of cars waiting beyond the lych-gate. Afterwards there was a funeral tea at a nearby hotel; Roland’s headmaster, two teachers and a few of the boys had been there, but Phil must have slipped away.

She set out to meet him on Saturday without telling anyone. If the death of Roland hadn’t been the sole reason for the outing, she’d have thought it an impossible fantasy, setting off for a whole day with the boy she had doted on. The day when Roland had left home was too recent for her to inflict such anguish on her parents again, so she invented an alibi: a shopping trip with Delia, and tea at her house afterwards. Sandy’s mother was pitifully pleased that she was starting to go out again.

At East Croydon station, Phil asked at the ticket office for two returns to Portsmouth. Sandy realized what she could have worked out earlier: that they were setting off on a kind of pilgrimage, following Roland.

‘We’re going to the Isle of Wight?’

He nodded, handing pound notes through the ticket-office window. She rummaged in her shoulder bag for her purse; she had two half-crowns and a few pence.

‘I haven’t got enough,’ she told him. ‘I can’t pay you back.’

‘Don’t expect you to.’ Phil pocketed the tickets and his change. ‘It was my idea.’

‘We used to go on holiday there when we were little. We stayed at Shanklin.’

‘I know,’ said Phil. ‘Rolls told me.’

What else did he know? What other memories had Roland shared with him? Everything, now, every casual remark Roland might have made, was loaded with significance, as if he’d left a trail to be followed.

Announcements crackled over loudspeakers; they both listened. ‘That’s ours,’ Phil said. ‘We change at Clapham Junction.’

The first train was full of people in weekend mood – families, pairs of women, other teenagers. She knew that she and Phil must look like boyfriend and girlfriend, but they hardly spoke; it didn’t seem right to chatter, and she couldn’t ask him anything important. In adjoining seats, they didn’t have to look at each other. Soon Phil took
New Musical Express
from his canvas shoulder bag, and studied it closely until their stop. Wishing she’d brought a book, Sandy made do with a copy of the
Daily Mail
someone had discarded.

The next train, from Clapham to Portsmouth Harbour, was less crowded, and now she could only think about Roland making this same journey. The return ticket in his rucksack – along with his toothbrush, spare T-shirt, razor and notebook, and a paperback copy of
On the Road
, apparently just bought – gave ample indication that he hadn’t planned to kill himself. Maybe he’d have phoned, later that evening.
I needed to get away. Had to be by myself for a day or two.
Had he changed his mind? Deliberately let the sea take him?

At Portsmouth it was hard not feel a little adventurous, following signs for the Isle of Wight ferry, then boarding the boat. There were only a few passengers. Sandy and Phil sat by a salt-stained window, watching as the ferry pulled out past wharves and cranes, car parks and building sites, a Victorian pub, and on into the greyness of sea and sky. Then it felt more symbolic to brave the cold wind out on deck than to shelter inside. Sandy wound her scarf twice round her neck and thrust her hands deep into her pockets; strands of hair lashed her cheeks. A hovercraft sped ahead, low on the water, throwing up spray like a snowplough. The island already filled the horizon, long, low and hazy, and as Ryde came more clearly into view she saw buildings stacked up a low hill surmounted by a church spire. She remembered the years-ago family holiday, the special feeling of being on an island, where the daily business of life couldn’t reach. She thought of Roland standing here, perhaps remembering too.

Wouldn’t he have jumped over the side if he’d wanted to drown himself? Quicker than walking into the sea, more decisive. What would it feel like, to care so little for your own body that you could abandon it to be swirled by currents, bloated with sea-water, battered by waves? When did your body cease to be
you
?

‘Do you think he’s still
somewhere
?’ she asked Phil. ‘Or just – gone?’

Phil considered it, standing very still, hair blowing across his face; then he shrugged. ‘I don’t believe in an afterlife or any of that shit. So – I guess he’s just gone. Finish.’

She wanted to ask more, to find out if the one thing she hoped for was true – that in spite of what happened at Elaine’s he did love Roland, and that Roland had died happy, knowing that. But of course not, because if that were true, Roland wouldn’t have set out by himself. Wouldn’t have given himself to the sea.

They looked out at the Solent, at a big cross-Channel ferry and a large tanker in the distance; then Sandy asked, ‘Are we going to the actual place? How will we find it?’

Phil turned his back to the wind, huddled into his inadequate coat, arms tightly folded. ‘I know where. Went with Rolls.’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘Not …?’

‘Not
that
time, no. Christ – wish I had. Last summer. While you and your parents were on holiday. The weather was hot and Rolls said why not take off, the two of us, go to the sea. I thought Brighton, but he said no, let’s get a ticket to ride, like the song. I said, ride where? and he said
Ryde
– he felt like going to an island, leaving the mainland. So we did. This, exactly – same train, same ferry. Over there we bought fish and chips, then hitched lifts. Didn’t know where, but we ended up at Freshwater Bay. Then walked along the downs.’

Sandy was silent, sensing more; after a pause Phil continued, ‘We didn’t talk much. Rolls had gone quiet, the way he did when he was working out a song. I knew he’d show me when he was ready.’

‘And did he?’

‘Yes. Only not then. He didn’t finish it till weeks later. That was when it all started to go—’ There was a catch in Phil’s voice; he took a moment to recover himself. ‘Anyway. That day. We sat on the grass and shared a joint. Then we went down to the beach, this long stretch of beach. We could see the white cliffs that lead round to the Needles.’

‘Roly didn’t say anything,’ Sandy said. ‘Not to Mum and Dad, not to me either. When we got back from Devon he said he’d been hanging around at home.’

‘Well, he was like that. Kept things to himself.’

Sandy gazed at a screaming gull that seemed balanced on the wind, its wings outstretched. Roland and secrets – the gull’s cry was an accusation, memory a blunt kick of pain, familiar to her now.

Ahead, Ryde was coming into focus, with individual buildings discernible, and people waiting on the pier, braced against the wind.

‘So why come back?’ Sandy asked.

‘Dunno really. Thought of it and just had to. That funeral bollocks – I hated it. So stiff and dry.’

‘Me too. It felt all wrong. Nothing to do with him.’

Phil turned away from her to lean on the railing. ‘So – this, instead. For Rolls.’

With less than an hour until midnight there was no sign of the Merlins, and in Elaine’s view Sandy was responsible for ruining her party. The music was loud, the room packed, the air thick with smoke; what had started out as fruit punch had been generously boosted with spirits from Elaine’s parents’ cocktail cabinet. Various boys were present, but none of them counted for much, as far as Elaine was concerned. To show that she didn’t care, she was flirting vigorously with a boy Sandy had never seen before. She was wearing a new dress, very short, in cream crochet, her enviable legs clad in turquoise tights; her hair shone conker-coloured in the glow of shaded light-bulbs.

Pretending, pretending, that’s what parties were about. You had to act as if you went to them all the time; if this one was a disappointment it would be someone else’s fault, never yours. While desperately hoping the right boy would notice you, you’d try to convey that you could select anyone you fancied. It was imperative to convey that none of this mattered, that you could be somewhere else if you chose, that your presence would bestow cool wherever you went. Always you were waiting for something, without being sure what; you only knew that it wasn’t happening yet, but might arrive from elsewhere.

Things became hazy. People overflowed into the garden, though it was bitterly cold outside; the sweet smell of pot mingled with cigarette smoke. Then Phil and Roland were here after all, with Dempsey. Someone changed the record to a Kinks album, and the mood was instantly more excitable; Dempsey began strutting and posing, clearing a space around him. Roland, in black shirt, shades and a trilby hat, made for a group drinking in the kitchen, but Elaine headed him off, grabbed his hand and pulled him into the front room and the dancing. Roland wasn’t extrovert like Dempsey, but still a good mover; he danced in an ironic, self-mocking way, face deadpan. Sandy found herself partnered with a lanky shy boy, someone’s brother, but it was too hot and crowded now, smoke stinging her eyes. She escaped outside, looking for Phil, hoping for maybe a few words from him, an acknowledgement.

When the cold drove her back indoors, she saw that Elaine’s second string had been demoted to DJ, and with Roland firmly in her grasp Elaine requested something slower. At first Roland played along as she snaked her arms around him and pressed her hips against his, her hand moving down his spine. Then, abruptly, he pushed her aside with a vigour that sent her stumbling into the arms of a surprised Dempsey. ‘Woo-
ooo
-ooh,’ someone hooted, as Roland elbowed his way out of the room. Elaine recovered enough to smooch with Dempsey instead, in a jokey way, but five minutes later she was in tears in the kitchen, cutting between Sandy and the shy boy who were moving towards a first fumbling kiss.