The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (37 page)

“Patty …”

“Jim, let’s have Christmas. We can have a week without any mention of Duncan Cobhurn or his family or—anything. Just us. Then we can talk about this and plan what will happen on Tuesday. But let’s just have Christmas. You can love me like it’s 1979.”

Saturday, December 25, 2010

They walk hand-in-hand through Greenwich Park at dawn. There’s still snow under the trees and frozen leaves crack underfoot. They have had five days together. They went to the zoo, up in the London Eye at twilight and walked the length and breadth of the National Gallery, Tate Modern and St. Paul’s. They’ve eaten Vietnamese and Thai food and, after so many years apart, they made love. They have not spoken once about Duncan Cobhurn—in fact, they have not talked about the last twenty years at all. They have talked about their friends at university, especially Ed and Jacks. They’ve laughed, sung, and people-watched. They agreed not to buy presents for each other, though both have a little something tucked away at home for after breakfast. The last two nights they’ve spent back at the family home, the home they bought together some thirty-five years before. Now they walk. There is nothing to say—they both just bask in the other’s presence.

At the crest of the hill they stop and look out over the sweep of London. They have always loved this spot, this view over the park into the heart of the city. He feels her hand slip from his, but he is lost in thought. He is thinking about Duncan Cobhurn—about him and Dani. Jim still has not told Patty about those days decorating with Dani. He wishes now that he had told her the truth all
those years ago, but then it was Dani’s secret. Just like the trouble with Seb Merchant had been their shared secret. He had not wanted Patty to worry, either time. But knowledge of both worry him. He needs to tell …

“Aaaaah!” His face is wet and freezing. Patty scoops up another handful of snow and shoves it right in his face.

“Patty!”

“No. You were being maudlin. It’s Christmas.”

“You sound like Noddy Holder.”

“Do not take his name in vain.”

They both laugh. Patty scoops up another handful and cups it—pressing the snow into a ball.

“You dare!”

It hits him in the chest. “Oh, you asked for it.” He starts to gather his own snowball. It’s war.

An hour later they reach home. Both are frozen, covered in snow and happy.

“Go get changed,” he tells her. “I’ll make hot chocolate.”

Patty goes upstairs and Jim walks into the kitchen. He stands there, quietly, listening. He whispers to the air: “Dani? Where are you?”

He has not seen his daughter since he told her of Duncan Cobhurn’s death. He misses her. Cannot bear the memory of the sadness on her face. It reminds him of one other time, soon after she came to live with him.

“Can you tell me?” he had asked.

She thought for a second, her nose crinkling with concentration.

“I don’t know what to say, Dad. I don’t remember what it felt like. It just all changed, slipped away and … I think I just winked
out from one way of being and then there was something else. I just wasn’t alive anymore.”

He had nodded at her words, but doesn’t really understand them.

“I used to see you, just catch a glimpse of you in a crowd.”

“I kept my eye on you.”

“Why?”

“I was worried. You seemed so sad.”

“Did you watch your mum?”

“Not really. She was stronger.”

“It was her that fell apart when you died.”

“Yes. That surprised me, really.”

“Then you came back properly. After your mum and I …” He paused, the pain of that time shifting in his chest once more. “Why did you come back to me?”

“You called me.”

“Did I?”

She nodded.

“I needed you.” He sighed then looked sadly at his daughter. “Was there pain?”

“Oh, Dad, you keep asking that. If there was I don’t remember, and it doesn’t make any difference now.”

“And the man who …”

“Dad!” She dropped her head. They had agreed he would not ask that again. “I told you I don’t know. I can’t remember.” She kept her head down for a while then raised it and smiled at him—that beautiful open smile.

The memory of her fades and Jim is alone in the kitchen once more. “Where are you, Dani? Have you remembered more?” he asks the air. There is no answer.

It’s 11 p.m., Christmas night. One hour left of their holiday from life and responsibility. Tomorrow reality will wash back in. Today they have made love, watched twenty minutes of
The Great Escape
on TV and made a roast dinner. Now, they are back in the park, where the day started. The sky is black, yet the scene is ablaze with lights and the occasional firework that arcs into the darkness above the cityscape. Jim and Patty came prepared for the cold. They have a Thermos of hot coffee and several blankets. Jim puts a bin-bag on the bench and then a blanket. They sit and pile the other blankets on top of themselves.

“Tomorrow …” Patty starts.

“Shh. No tomorrow, just tonight.”

They snuggle together and watch the city lights wink at them until the cold finally sneaks into their bones. Then Jim pulls a bag from under the bench.

“I was wondering what you had in there.”

“I hope it still works.”

Jim pulls out a black case, which he flips open to reveal a little portable record player.

“Oh my God. The Dansette Transit. You kept it?”

“I kept everything. Here.” He pulls out a cloth bag and places it alongside the record player, then pulls out a small, shiny vinyl disc.

“You haven’t—”

“1963, ‘Heatwave’ by Martha and the Vandellas.”

“You romantic bastard.”

“Birmingham University dance hall. You were all Peter, Paul and Mary.”

She laughs. “And you were all Johnny Cash, Man in Black.”

“But we danced to Martha and the Vandellas. Our first dance.”

She shakes her head. “You’re crazy.”

“And Elvis, the Beatles.”

“Even Cliff Richard.” She makes a gagging face.

He puts the needle on the record, and through the hiss and crackle, the song starts.

“Dance with me?” he asks and holds out his hand. Patty nods and takes his hand, melting into him. In the cold of the wee small hours, they dance.

When the song ends, Patty lifts the needle and starts it again. They dance six times to the same song, before Jim suddenly stops and pulls out his phone.

“Who are you calling?”

Jim holds his hand up to quieten her as he listens to the phone ring for ages before it’s answered.

“Hello. Who’s that?” a sleepy voice asks.

“Listen to this.” Jim puts the needle back on and places the phone close to the little speaker.

“Is that you, Martha?” the voice on the other end croaks.

“What’s going on?” a second voice, more distant, and very sleepy, comes from the phone.

“Do you remember, Ed, November 1963, Birmingham University?”

“I remember an old friend from those days who must be fucking dead because he hasn’t called me in years.”

“Merry Christmas, Ed. Love to Jacks.”

“I think you owe us at least eight birthdays and Christmases.”

“It’s almost midnight,” Jacks says, with sleepy annoyance, in the background.

“Is there a point to this call, Jim?” says Ed. “We could have a pint next week or have you got some horrible terminal disease and you’re running down memory lane before you snuff it tomorrow?”

“I’m in Greenwich Park, dancing in the dark with my wife.”

“Remarried—good for you. I hope she’s a looker.” He whispers to Jacks, “New wife.”

“Congratulations. Now let us get back to sleep!” shouts Jacks.

Patty grabs the phone. “No, still the same old wife.”

At home in Dorset, Ed and Jacks jump up in bed like they’ve been electrocuted.

“Patty?”

“I think the object of this call is to ask you to dance with us again,” she says.

“It’s almost bloody midnight. I’m sixty-five,” Ed says in disbelief.

“We all are,” says Patty. “Isn’t it great?”

She puts the phone back down by the Dansette and lifts the needle again. She drops it on the first groove and takes her husband in her arms to dance.

In a bedroom 134 miles away, a couple who have not danced together in a long, long time, get out of bed. They put on the speaker-phone and dance with their oldest friends.

When the song ends, both couples kiss and Ed takes the phone.

“We love you. Let’s get together soon. I think we have both really missed you. But now bugger off so we can get some sleep.”

“We love you too,” Jim tells them before he ends the call. He stands there for a while, silent, thinking about his oldest friend.

“What else do you have?” Patty asks.

Jim opens the bag and looks through. “Carole King, Four Tops, Diana Ross, Donovan …”

“Anything. You decide. I need to pee.” Patty runs off behind a bush. Jim continues to fish through the bag until he finds something that makes his heart skip a beat. He pulls it out and looks at it in the moonlight.

“I remember that from my first party.”

Jim turns to see his daughter standing there.

“Good to see you,” he tells her.

“Do you remember? I danced to it with …”

“Gary, Gary Rohr. Buck teeth.”

“My first kiss.” She smiles, remembering such an innocent time. Behind her there is a flare of firework from somewhere behind Canary Wharf.

“Come up and see me …” he starts.

“… make me smile,” she finishes.

He puts it on. Steve Harley’s unmistakable voice cuts through the air. Jim holds his hand out and the ghost drifts over. Without touching the two of them move and spin together.

They dance until Patty returns and steps through her daughter’s image, making it shatter into a million fragments, to take her husband’s hands and dance with him.

“This was …” she starts.

“… Dani’s favorite,” he finishes her sentence.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

They danced in the park and watched the stars until four that morning before they went home. Now, at 2 p.m., they sit surrounded by newspapers and with a laptop open. They are back in the rushing of time that is real life. Patty sits at the table, head down over her laptop, searching, intently scrolling and noting down things in a small Moleskine notebook. Jim stands to the side, alternating his gaze from the road outside to the side of his wife’s head, his mind in an absolute turmoil.

“What are you looking for?” he asks. “What are you hoping to find?”

“I don’t know,” she tells him, though she knows full well what she’s searching for. She wants to see photographs of the wife … widow. Ideally two photos: before and after; happy and sad—the eternal opposites.

The first would be the couple, together and happy. The second would be of her alone, after his death. Patty wants to see her grief.

“Bloody hell, that sounds sick,” she thinks. “Why do I need to see that?” But she knows the answer: because she wants to judge her sorrow.

In her own wallet she has two photographs of herself. She never leaves home without them, though she hasn’t looked at them for a very long time. She just needs to know they’re there. The first shows
her happy … no, not happy, that is far too bland a word. She is absolutely ecstatic—caught in a moment of rapture with her husband and her child. She is whooping, whooping with delight. Her perfect child has just won the English prize at school and Patty dreams she will follow her into writing, noble writing for great causes, something to make her so very proud. Patty can close her eyes and see that photo in every detail. It is taken in the grand hall of her school. Dani is about twelve and is standing on the stage holding a cup aloft—her prize. Slightly behind her are Jim and Patty. Jim stoops slightly to make sure his head is in the picture. His hair is still a brilliant black, he’s dressed like a cut-price Steve McQueen—he looks great. Patty has long hair—probably the longest she ever wore it. It suits her, spilling over her shoulders. She wears a clingy dress—a floral pattern that shows off her fuller figure; hourglass many people called it. Patty knows it’s her and yet she barely recognizes herself.