Summer in the City Read online

  ‘Er, yeah. I saw it. Both.’

  In my small defence, I have thought about her a lot. The jumper, Philippa. She’s been named. She was called Philippa Helens and she was twenty-nine years old and from High Barnet. There was a photo of her online this morning: long blonde hair, brown eyes, really pretty. She looked happy in the photo. She looked like a proper, well-put-together person who’d got this. Not someone who felt the opposite. I wish I hadn’t seen her picture, really, but in a strange way it does make me feel slightly more qualified to talk about her. I’ve had that photo on my mind since five o’clock this morning.

  Verity’s eyes are fixed on my face. I can feel my birthmark beginning to itch, to pulsate. ‘And how did you feel about that?’

  I’ve implied I saw everything: a figure leaping on to the tracks, a body struck, a horrific after-scene. When do I tell her I only saw three hundred heads and a balloon?

  ‘Well … I was disturbed.’

  ‘Disturbed?’

  ‘Wouldn’t anyone be?’

  ‘Well, you tell me, Prue. If you can. Tell me how you feel.’

  What’s another word for ‘disturbed’?

  ‘Are you angry with her in any way?’

  ‘Angry? Why would I feel angry with her?’

  ‘For disrupting your journey, for making you an involuntary witness, for causing you and many other people to feel sad and shaken and, well’ – she smiles at me sympathetically – ‘bad.’

  Well, yes, I do feel bad, I think. I feel bad for the many other people who really were witnesses and may need help but haven’t asked for it, while I sit here on this smelly sofa under false pretences. But I am not angry.

  ‘I feel sorry for her,’ I say.

  Poor Philippa. Her face swims before me again: smiling, happy, those deep brown eyes that were supposed to see the world for many years to come. A photo that will now be consigned to a box of others by her grieving family – that was our Philippa. Or placed lovingly in an album, sealed for ever behind a polythene sleeve. Damn, I haven’t done the photo for Angela yet, I realize. I’ll do it tonight, if I remember. I’m not in any rush. And I’ll crop me out of it.

  ‘I feel sorry for the woman who jumped,’ I repeat. Now this is the truth … ‘Philippa. I’ve been thinking about her and I feel sorry for her.’

  Verity nods. She makes some notes on a little notepad on her lap. Is she writing ‘lunatic’ … ‘terrible birthmark’ …? I don’t know when she’ll ever refer to these notes. I mean, I won’t be coming back.

  ‘Any flashbacks, nightmares?’

  Not about that. ‘No.’

  Verity nods again. She uncrosses her legs and places both shoes neatly on the carpet. She pouts slightly. I decide to give her something. ‘I’m having preoccupations, though. Intrusive thoughts.’ Well, I am, aren’t I? I’m looking for updates about Philippa on the news all the time.

  ‘Are they impacting on your day-to-day life? What do you do for a living?’

  ‘I work from home,’ I lie. God, I want to take off this lovely jacket.

  ‘So you have remote colleagues?’

  All my colleagues in all my jobs were pretty remote, I think, because I kept them that way. ‘No, I kind of work on my own.’

  ‘And what’s your home situation? Are you married?’

  I look down at my ringless left hand, where she is also looking. ‘No.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘No.’

  Do I tell her I’ve not exactly been a success when it comes to relationships? That I lost my virginity in a student bedsit when I was seventeen (I was never a student but my first terrible lover was – a very drunk boy who kept his plimsolls on)? That my love life stalled at that point and never got going again? That two particular encounters in my life have meant relationships are not something I go looking for?

  ‘I live with my blind father and we don’t get out much any more,’ I blurt out instead.

  ‘Did you used to?’

  ‘What?’ I’m already regretting saying it.

  ‘Get out much.’

  ‘Yes, we did. Well, obviously I did, when I was working. I started … er … working from home three years ago.’

  ‘What is it exactly that you do? I haven’t missed that, have I?’ She frowns, consulting her notes.

  Oh, sod it, I think. I’ve only got the hour. ‘I don’t work,’ I say. ‘Not any more. I used to.’ I take a deep breath and I launch. ‘I left school at sixteen and drifted for a few years in dead-end, go-nowhere jobs, then, somehow, one of those cards in the Job Centre landed me the role of catering assistant at the North London Conference Centre, in Highbury, when I was twenty-one. I enjoyed it. I did well there. Badging, Bookings, then management … I worked at the conference centre for twenty years, until I was made redundant, then I returned to those dead-end jobs again – bars and bookies and pound shops and taxi offices and dog-burger companies …’ I give a wry smile. I enjoy Verity’s look of surprise at ‘dog burger’. ‘And for the past three years I’ve done nothing at all. Which is how I like it. My father doesn’t do anything either, although back in the day he used to have a life, despite being blind … a good life, really.’ I pause. Verity is interested, I can tell. I can see she’s fighting not to raise her eyebrows. ‘Until we lost the guide dogs.’

  ‘Oh?’ says Verity Holmes, leaning forward. She looks really interested. Is the crystal about to come out? ‘Tell me more about that.’

  I take another deep breath and I tell her. We had such a gorgeous series of dogs: Sunny and Milly and Folly. Sweet, loving and clever, each of them, in turn. Lifesavers, literally. They kept Dad afloat and because we had the dogs, we were happy in our little unit, in the life we had never expected. Dad adjusted amazingly. He cooked the tea, made sure my sister and I got up and dressed for school, that our faces were clean and our uniforms ironed, supervised homework, took us for days out and, most importantly – for us and for him – continued to take us and pick us up from school. Things were fine for a long time, at home, right up until I was twenty.

  ‘But Dad got severe asthma when he was thirty-six, a pet allergy, and there could be no more guide dogs,’ I say. ‘I mean, how unlucky was that? It was awful. He just went in on himself, like there was no point to anything any more. He just switched off.’

  She nods solemnly, but her eyes are lit up. ‘Do you talk? Talk to each other? Air your feelings? While you’re in the flat?’

  ‘No, not really. Less and less, actually, over the years. We don’t really talk at all these days.’ And what I’ve just said in this room is the most I’ve spoken in decades.

  ‘What about your mother?’

  ‘She doesn’t feature.’

  ‘Feature? Has she passed?’

  Passed? Passed where? Passed ‘Go’ without collecting her £200? ‘No. She’s just not in my life.’ I want Verity to move on.

  ‘And do you have friends around you?’

  ‘I don’t really have any friends.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say.

  ‘Do you miss having someone to talk to?’

  ‘Yes.’ I could have made friends at my various jobs, but I let any contenders drift away from me like minnows in a stream, while I have stayed stuck in the mud, weeds wrapped round me, safe. I stayed surface-level friendly only with Sally and Justine and Paula and Yvette. I batted away invitations from Jeanette and Diane and Stevie. Colleagues, acquaintances; people I have never let get too close to me …

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’ she asks kindly.

  There’s a pause, then a rattle at the door. It opens and a sheepish face is there, framed by a giant dehydrated umbrella plant in the poky hall.

  ‘Sorry, wrong room,’ says a man with a doughy face. ‘I was looking for Martin?’

  He scans the room, his eyes lighting on me and staying there too long.

  ‘I’m not Martin,’ I proffer.

  ‘Up the corridor,’ says Verity, with a pretty, bu
sinesslike smile. She turns her smile back to me. It is full of compassion, which makes me feel uneasy.

  ‘Is that why you’re here? To talk to someone?’

  ‘To talk to someone about my trauma,’ I add lamely.

  ‘You didn’t really see anyone jump, or the aftermath, did you?’ she asks softly.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You came here just to talk to someone, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  She looks at me for a few seconds. I reach behind me to my bag. As I’ve been sitting, a packet of Extra Strong Mints and a tube of concealer have rolled out. I stuff them back in.

  ‘I’ll go,’ I say, my back still to her. When I turn around, she suddenly stamps the heel of one of her pretty shoes down on the carpet.

  ‘Spider,’ she says.

  ‘Oh,’ I reply. Why do people always save the ladybirds and never the spiders?

  ‘Please don’t go yet,’ she says. ‘Can I ask you something else? I hope I’m not being indelicate, and please say if you think it isn’t pertinent but, your birthmark, is it something that adversely affects you?’

  Hold the crystal, people, I don’t like where this is going! ‘What about it?’ I am suddenly curt, dismissive. Actually, I’ve already dismissed myself from this session, haven’t I? There should be no more questions now. I am out of here. I stand up, pick up my bag and I walk to the door.

  ‘Do you shy away from life because of it, Prue?’

  I turn in the doorway, blushing furiously. ‘Yes, of course I shy away because of it! I hardly go skipping through life like a bloody unicorn!’ She is kind, but I am angry, although not at her. ‘I’ve had it for a really long time, I’m more than used to it, but there’s no getting away from it, is there? I have a monstrous great birthmark on my face and although I cover it in thick make-up, sometimes it makes me want to hide away for ever and never see another living soul ever again. How about that?’

  She ignores my tantrum and nods sagely. ‘So, your father’s blindness and your low self-esteem have become tremendous barriers you can’t see past?’

  ‘Well, he can’t see past them …’ I retort.

  ‘You don’t go out and you don’t even communicate now, so much so that you have fabricated witnessing something you haven’t in order to receive an hour’s free counselling? In order just to talk to someone?’

  Her tone is so gentle that I mumble, ‘Sorry. Sorry,’ like an overgrown schoolgirl.

  ‘Look,’ she says, leaning back in her chair, ‘I’m going to dish out some advice. You and your father sound like you’re stuck in a horrendous rut. If he can’t see, why don’t you become his eyes?’

  ‘Become his eyes …’ I repeat dully.

  ‘Take him out and about. You live in one of the most exciting capitals in the world,’ she adds. That explains the skirt, I think. ‘Did he used to enjoy London?’

  ‘Yes, he did,’ I say. ‘He was supposed to design some of it. He was an architect, before he went blind.’

  ‘That’s a real shame. And did you enjoy London?’

  Enjoy was a bit of a stretch; it’s not like it’s chocolate cake. ‘I suppose so,’ I respond. No. Not really.

  ‘Find out where he’d like to go and do some day trips together. Force yourself to go out, be your father’s eyes.’

  ‘Day trips?’ My father is blind and I am probably the grumpiest woman in London. I can’t really see us going on day trips.

  ‘Yes, day trips. And talk to each other.’ She smiles at me again, in a way I feel she means to wrap this up. Well, I’m ready. I’m in the doorway. ‘I wish you all the best, Prue.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I mumble.

  ‘Goodbye, Prudence.’

  I take one last look at her beautiful shoes.

  ‘OK, thank you, Verity. Thank you very much. Goodbye.’

  CHAPTER 6

  Three sets of stairs and an infuriatingly hard-to-open door later and I have never been so relieved to breathe the air of a London street into my lungs, in all its exhaust-fumed glory. I flee up it (unwise to run in flip-flops, but needs must), a very guilty fugitive, the new jacket flopping over one arm like a limp fish. That was horrendous. Verity was kind, but I have been exposed as a charlatan of the highest order. And ‘day trips’! Dad won’t want to go on any day trips! He barely talks to me; he’s hardly going to want to go strolling round London, bumping into things and making polite conversation with me about the weather while I ping poisonous looks at all the people staring at us …

  The jacket falls off my arm and on to the pavement and I retrieve it and put it in my bag. I really don’t think my father wants me to become his eyes. I don’t think he would appreciate my surly, moody vision of the world. And I’m not sure I can take on the responsibility of guiding him around, either. Not on proper outings. We’re safer in The Palladian, surely? I don’t think it would do either of us any good to be let loose on the streets of London, an unwieldy double act. None of my forays into the world have ever been successful, after all.

  I skitter up the road, rushing towards home. Thank you for your advice, Verity, I think, but there can be no day trips. I didn’t see anything, remember? So absolutely nothing needs to change.

  ‘This is new, you going out all the time.’

  Dad is in his chair when I get home, the window shut on the muffled sounds of buses rumbling past. He is cooking something for lunch – macaroni cheese with extra garlic, it smells like.

  ‘Hardly all the time, Dad.’ I go to the kitchen for a drink of water. Glug it down in one go. ‘I’ve been out twice in a week, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s a lot, for you.’ I told him I was going for a wander to the charity shops. I told him I fancied some fresh air. I currently feel as fresh as a daisy that’s been trampled on by a muddy welly. ‘What’s the weather like out there?’

  ‘Glorious. Boiling.’

  He nods and reaches for his headphones. He doesn’t want to talk further, which is probably for the best. I won’t end up telling him I’ve just been bare-faced lying to a TFL-endorsed counsellor who then rumbled me, or that I pretended I’d seen someone commit suicide so I could go and chat to a complete stranger.

  I plonk down in my chair, slip off my flip-flops. I take out my phone and my own headphones – I need music; I need solace. It’s time for a bit of Janis: ‘Me and Bobby McGee’. I sit back and allow the force of that woman’s voice to wash over me. That’s better. Janis was also bullied at school, you know – called a pig and had pennies thrown at her. At the University of Texas she was once declared ‘Ugliest Man on Campus’. She moved to San Francisco to escape, and I used to think I’d go there, one day, to check out her house. We have a lot in common, me and Janis – apart from all the talent, of course. And the drugs.

  After a while I check the news. I search for more on Philippa and there’s a small update. Oh, she wasn’t an actress or something glamorous – she worked as a crew member at Ultra Laser in Enfield, one of those places where kids run around in the dark firing neon beams at each other from plastic guns. This is quite different to what I imagined. My vision of her needs adjusting. I wonder if she got depressed working in the blackness all the time. If she got tired of putting on a smiley, energetic front for all those kids. Maybe she came out of there, after each shift, blinking into the light and wondering if this was all there was … I feel even sadder for her. She was so young. Janis Joplin died in her twenties, too – a member of the tragic ‘27 Club’ of Cobain, Winehouse, Morrison and the like. In her case, a heroin overdose. I realize I have lived almost twenty years longer than all of them, and I have absolutely nothing to show for it.

  Dad is tapping me on the shoulder. ‘It’ll be twenty minutes,’ he says, above my low-level Joplin. ‘I’m just toasting the cheese on the top.’ He can’t see the dish he’s created, but he always knows the exact moment it’ll be ready. Picture-perfect food he will never see.

  Picture perfect … I remember the photo for Angela. I’ll do
it now, before lunch. I don’t want her phoning up again in the middle of the night.

  The photo album is on the top shelf of the tall cupboard to the right of the sitting room, under Dad’s ancient A–Z. It has a terrible pattern on the cover: a sort of Pollock-esque 1980s mess in purple and black swirls – like a bad nightclub – and the 90s was about the last time anyone opened it. Dad and I don’t do photographs, for obvious reasons.

  ‘What are you up to?’ asks Dad. He ‘oofs’ down in his chair, stretches his legs out to the footstool and plonks his feet on top.

  ‘Getting the old photo album down. Angela wants a picture from it. She rang last week – in the early hours, one night.’

  ‘Ah, right,’ says Dad. ‘The photo album. Is she going to phone back?’

  ‘I expect so, as she missed you. You know you could always phone her,’ I add. Like many men, including those who make a million phone calls a day for work, Dad has an aversion to instigating family calls – and I’m not bloody phoning her. It’s twelve years since Angela last came to London and we’ve only seen her three times in total since she absconded. She flew over for Papa’s funeral in 1998, two nights only, and for Nonna’s, arriving on Millennium Eve, because the flights were cheaper, and returning three days later, then she and Warren came in 2006 for two weeks in the summer – they stayed at the Travelodge in Marylebone and spent most of their time at the Tower of London and Madame fucking Tussauds. But even when I do spend time with my sister, we end up rowing over stupid things, like sisters who don’t like each other very much do.

  ‘She’ll phone back. Bring the photo album over here,’ Dad says, slapping his knee. I’m surprised. He never asks for it. ‘I used to know the first ten or fifteen pages of it by heart.’

  ‘Really?’ I ask. ‘You want it?’

  ‘Yes. You can start going out all the time … I can ask for the photo album.’

  I come and perch on Dad’s footstool and place the album on his knees. He peels open the front cover and traces his hand over the first page and the photos clamped into place under their plastic sheet. I watch as his fingers navigate one of those satisfying bubbles.