One Good Thing, page 17
‘I’ll say.’
With a swift piece of professional wrist action, Valentine neatly slips his scraper underneath and a large piece peels off. It’s hugely satisfying. Less satisfying is the state of the plaster underneath.
‘My ex-husband preferred golf to dancing.’
‘Hitting a little ball into a hole?’ Valentine tuts and shakes his head. ‘What’s the point of that?’
‘He’d probably say the same about dancing.’
‘He doesn’t know what he’s missing.’ Pushing his flat cap back from his forehead, Valentine wipes his brow and peers down at me. His face softens. ‘And I’m not talking about the dancing.’
I bash his compliment away and return to blasting the walls with the steamer. Yesterday I’d told Valentine I was divorced. I didn’t go into details – Valentine didn’t want any. He wasn’t interested in the whys and wherefores. ‘That’s just background noise,’ he dismissed it with a shake of his head. ‘I’m here to listen to the main act.’
‘OK, that should do it.’ I turn off the steamer.
‘Once when we were courting, we went to Paris to go dancing,’ he continues, chipping away at a stubborn layer of paint. ‘We rode all the way there on my scooter.’
Honestly, this is fascinating. Is it my imagination, or was dating then so much more romantic than it is now? ‘On a scooter?’
‘Well, there was no Eurostar in them days.’
Putting down his scraper, Valentine pulls out his wallet from his trouser pocket and slips out a small black-and-white photo he keeps inside. Climbing down a few rungs, he passes it to me. It’s of a young couple on a Lambretta in front of the Arc de Triomphe. She’s wearing a gingham dress nipped in at the waist and a headscarf, knotted under her chin; he’s in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up at the elbows, and braces, with a thick quiff of dark hair.
‘Is this you and Gisele?’
Valentine nods. ‘Over sixty years ago. She was eighteen, I was nineteen.’
I turn it to the light to examine it. ‘Look at your hair. And her waist. It’s so tiny!
‘I used to be able to get my hand right round it when we were jiving.’ He gives a little jig, and I grab the ladder as it sways.
‘Be careful!’ I cry, but he seems unconcerned.
‘I remember we went to these underground cellar clubs playing jazz and bebop – nothing like we had here. It was like a different world . . . Saint-Germain.’ He smiles at his terrible pronunciation. ‘Gisele is French, of course, but I couldn’t understand a word, although I didn’t have to, as nobody was talking. We all just danced and danced till we couldn’t catch our breath and our feet had blisters.’
Holding the legs of the ladder, I look up at Valentine; only he’s not seventy-nine years old and in my spare bedroom peeling back woodchip; he’s nineteen and in that club in Paris with Gisele, dancing up a storm.
‘It was dawn when we finally left. The sun was coming up over Notre-Dame.’ As he turns to face me, his eyes are shining brightly.
‘It’s a lovely photo.’
‘I wish I’d taken more. Now everyone takes so many photos. I see the young ones with their phones, snapping away.’
‘Yes, but how many are they going to look at, sixty years later?’
I pass him back the photograph, and Valentine looks at it again.
‘I never thought she’d agree to marry me, you know. We met and then I had to go away to do my National Service. I imagined she’d meet someone when I was gone, that she’d forget all about me.’
‘But she didn’t,’ I prompt.
‘No, she didn’t,’ he nods, slipping the photograph back into his wallet. ‘Not then, at least.’
His face falls and I feel my heart ache for him. He’s so sad and trying so hard to be brave. He goes to pick up his scraper and we both turn back to the job at hand when ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’ starts playing on the radio. Valentine starts to whistle to himself.
‘You should teach me.’
‘What? Painting and decorating?’
‘No,’ I laugh. ‘How to jive.’
‘Oh, I’m long past that now.’
‘Rubbish! Look at you, up and down that ladder.’
But he shakes his head. ‘Nay, I’m not as fit as I used to be.’
Ignoring him, I reach over to the radio and turn up the volume. Bill Haley and His Comets blast out. ‘How does it go?’
Valentine hesitates, but the pull of the music is too much and he puts down his scraper and descends the ladder.
‘You know I learned to dance with a chair.’
‘You did not!’
‘I did that, as there weren’t enough girls to go round. Me and Brian Hattersley had lessons every Sunday – I’ll never forget it.’
‘Well, I’m not a chair at least,’ I say and he laughs.
‘Right, well, I’m a bit out of practice, but you put your arm here, like this, and you just follow me.’
Sliding his arm around me, he starts stepping from side to side, with unexpectedly deft footwork. Harry watches us suspiciously from the corner, where he’s curled up on a pile of old dustsheets.
The music is infectious and I try to follow Valentine, being careful not to trip over the decorator’s sheet spread out across the floorboards.
‘There, look, you’re getting it.’
We sidestep together, Valentine’s hips seeming to loosen up as he sways to the music.
‘And now for the twirl,’ he instructs, spinning me around. I laugh and stumble backwards, but he catches me with surprising strength, and for the first time I see the man he used to be, before he was diminished by age and grief and guilt.
‘Now, see, this was the part where I’d spin you over my shoulder,’ he jokes. At least I hope he’s joking.
‘I think we might draw the line at that, Valentine,’ I protest as the song comes to an end and I realize I’m quite out of breath. ‘This isn’t Strictly.’
‘Oh, that used to be mine and Gisele’s favourite.’
Wiping his brow with a handkerchief, he props himself against the rung of the ladder to rest his legs.
‘Mine too,’ I grin, ‘but my ex refused to watch it.’
‘Well, that’s enough reason for a divorce right there,’ he smiles, and I can’t help but smile too.
‘How about this year we watch it together?’ I suggest.
Valentine nods. ‘I’d like that.’
We take a break to eat lunch and get our breath back, before Valentine climbs back up the ladder and I pick up the steamer. The last few feet of woodchip come off like a dream and we’re left with bare, naked walls. And a day that I’ll look back on forever as one of the most fun I’ve had in years.
Because it’s only later that night, when I’m lying in bed, that it strikes me that the best times in life are never those special dates you circle in your calendar. It’s a random, nameless day spent stripping woodchip with my seventy-nine-year-old neighbour, when I learned to jive and he learned to let go – just for a little while – and, more and more, the future seemed to hold something for us both to look forward to.
Regret
Everyone knows that regretting things is a complete waste of time. The legendary Edith Piaf famously sang ‘Je ne regrette rien’ and, as a woman who suffered many personal tragedies, she certainly knew what she was talking about.
Alas, I am not Edith Piaf, and I regret a lot.
No one ever mentions it when they talk about the stages you go through after a great loss, but it seems to me that regret is always to be found lurking at the end of any relationship, piping up with its ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda’, taking you on a journey down a road of reflection, playing the blame game.
Regret is heartbreak’s unhelpful friend. They go hand-in-hand, like a comedy duo, only no one is laughing. Least of all me.
When my marriage fell apart, my regrets would keep me awake at night. I’d lie in the darkness, forensically running over old conversations, looking for clues and signs that I must have missed. Examining all the decisions taken and mistakes made. Second-guessing and doubting myself. Playing the blame game, and losing every time. It was a nightly ritual. As soon as I closed my eyes, the grim autopsy would begin.
Now I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. I don’t know if it’s all the fresh air and exercise, because when I’m not walking Harry, I’m pushing a wheelbarrow between my freshly dug raised beds, discovering muscles and a joy in gardening that I never knew I had. Or whether it’s because deep in the Dales there are no street lamps or car alarms or planes flying overhead, to keep me awake. On a clear night here there’s just the planets and the constellations twinkling above me in the vast, dark skies and the hoot of the owl that lives in the graveyard.
That, or Harry snoring.
Unlike me, Harry has no regrets to keep him awake at night. Harry is a walking, limping, barking affirmation. Live in the moment! Today is a new day! Don’t look back! Harry never looks back (unless it’s for a squirrel). He’s carpe diem in canine form, and I love him all the more for it. He’s not brooding about the time he threw up in the back of my rental car, or worrying I’m still upset about him chewing my Gucci handbag. He’s out there digging a hole in the garden and having the best time of his life.
Sometimes, when I’m having a bad day, I look at him and can’t help but feel inspired. And amazed that I’m the age that I am and it’s taken a scruffy old dog to teach me lessons I should have learned years ago. To teach me how to be human. Because while I don’t believe the scars of his mistreatment and abandonment will ever completely disappear, he’s not dwelling on the past; he’s all about living in the present. I don’t know who came up with the phrase ‘dumb animals’ because, from where I’m standing, they’re the smart ones. They’ve been practising mindfulness long before it became a buzzword.
So I’ve decided: from now on, I’m going to try my hardest to follow Harry’s example and start living in the moment. To stop beating myself up with the endless ‘what if’s and ‘if only’s, and all the other regrets that haunt me.
And I’m going to start by calling Ajay.
The Village Idiots
‘No-Brainers?’
There are groans around the table.
‘I thought that was funny,’ protests Ajay, reappearing from the bar with a round of drinks.
‘Too corny,’ Maya tuts dismissively. ‘How about “Nettlewick’s Got Talent”?’
‘Only if I get to be Simon Cowell,’ he laughs, putting down the drinks and crisps and sliding onto the stool next to me. ‘You get the golden buzzer.’ He winks and I feel myself blush.
Reaching for my pint of cider it suddenly comes to me. ‘Hang on, I’ve got it! The “Not So Great Expectations”!’
I feel a beat of triumph. Though I say it myself, that’s actually really good.
‘Huh? I don’t get it.’
Ripping open a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps, Maya wrinkles up her nose. It makes the stud in her nose twinkle.
‘Charles Dickens!’ I admonish, shooting her a look. She looks suitably sheepish, as she should for an English Literature A-level student.
‘No, too literary.’ Ajay shakes his head and takes a sip of his wine.
I glance across at him, rather miffed by his betrayal, and drink my cider.
We all fall silent.
It had been my idea to get a team together for the pub quiz. Ever since the landlord of the Crooked Billet had mentioned it at Easter, it had sounded like fun, and what better way to meet more people and get involved in the local community? Plus Valentine seemed energized by the project. Every time I walked past his window or dropped Harry off, he would appear from his bungalow with a leather-bound volume of the British Encyclopedia and reel off some fact or figure. I’ve never seen him so enthused.
‘I bet you didn’t know that, did you?’ he would declare, before regaling me again with the story of how, when he and Gisele first married, they saved up each month and sent away for each illustrated volume until, over the course of several years, they had collected the complete set. ‘Everything you’ll ever want to know is in here,’ he would say proudly. And I would say ‘Wow!’ and look impressed and resolve never to tell him about Wikipedia or Google.
Our only problem was our lack of team members. Normally never one to brag, Valentine threw his modesty out of the window and assured me that when it came to general knowledge, he couldn’t be beaten. ‘One advantage of being an old bugger like me is I’ve lived through a fair amount of history and politics . . . and it’s all up here,’ he added, tapping his temple with his large forefinger. Valentine, I must mention, has the biggest hands I’ve ever seen. Literally the size of shovels. Apparently they’re the reason for his boxing success when he was younger. ‘I was never that good,’ he admitted, ‘it was just hard to miss my opponents.’
My speciality was literature, of course. But that still left music and sport. Luckily, when I mentioned it to Maya in our next lesson, she immediately volunteered to act as our expert in pop culture. ‘Absolutely! Count me in!’ Her exams are only a few weeks away and we’ve been making good progress. Despite her initial reluctance, she’s worked hard at her studies, though she’s still determined not to go to university. The quiz would be welcome relief from both her revision and her parents for a few hours. Having recently passed her driving test, she’d even asked if she could borrow her mum’s car.
With her mum being PC Neesha Sharma, this meant answering a few questions first – and confirming that no, I wasn’t being used as an alibi so Maya could attend an illegal drug rave; and yes, she really was going to be spending the evening drinking Diet Coke and answering quiz questions with a bunch of old people and a flatulent dog – before Neesha was satisfied and lent Maya the Mini.
Which only left sport.
‘I know it’s not a traditional second date,’ was how I phrased it to Ajay, when we were making arrangements to see each other again. Determined to let go of the past, I’d called him a few days after bumping into him in the bed shop. I was nervous of what his reaction might be, but I needn’t have worried.
‘Well, considering it was never a first date, I think we’re OK,’ he said, and I knew he was smiling on the other end of the phone. ‘But does this mean you only want to see me because you know I’m massively into sport and can tell you which football team has won the Champions League the most?’
‘That’s not the only reason.’ I smiled into my phone too. ‘But it helps.’
‘OK, great. I’ll see you on Wednesday at seven. Oh and, Liv.’
‘Yes?’
‘The answer’s Real Madrid, and they’ve won it thirteen times.’
So now here we all are, on Wednesday at seven. Actually it’s nearly quarter past, as the last fifteen minutes have been spent trying to come up with a name for our team, and what started out as fun is now rapidly disintegrating into bruised egos and indecision. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.
‘We’re the village idiots.’ Valentine, who this whole time has been sitting in the corner sipping his pint and not saying anything, suddenly pipes up.
‘Hey, who are you calling an idiot?’ protests Ajay.
‘It’s the name of the team, you daft bugger. The Village Idiots.’
‘It’s tongue-in-cheek. Obviously.’ Maya rolls her eyes at Ajay.
Valentine catches her eye and winks. She flashes him a grin and offers him her crisps. I watch them across the table. Despite the age gap, they share the same deadpan humour.
‘OK, are we all agreed?’ I ask. There’s a nodding of heads. Picking up a pen, I write our team name across the sheet of paper. ‘“The Village Idiots” it is then.’
The landlord’s son, a rather fierce figure in a Sex Pistols T-shirt, is going round selling raffle tickets. We buy several, more out of fear than for the cash prizes. The pub is packed; every table is filled with various teams, and there are even several people sitting up at the bar on stools.
I recognize a few familiar faces: Gary the postman, who kindly rings my doorbell and pops my mail inside on my windowsill to stop Harry ripping open the envelopes; the couple who run the local cafe and always let me have the table tucked away in the corner by the range, to tutor Maya; the local farmer and his wife, who always beams at me gratefully from the heated seats of her Honda Jazz. There’s even Sheila from the post office. It’s funny how quickly it’s beginning to feel more and more like home here.
‘Right then, teams, are you all ready for the first question?’ booms the landlord who, with his deep baritone, has no need for a microphone. Before he was married he used to sing with a leading national opera company in Leeds; local rumour has it that he once sang with Alfie Boe.
A hush descends over the chatter of the pub; I’m almost expecting the lights to go down and the thudding theme music of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to sound. Heads draw together, as teams confer with grave expressions. And there was I, thinking this was going to be a bit of light-hearted fun. Instead everyone is taking it very seriously.
On the table my phone beeps up a WhatsApp. Picking it up, I glance at the screen to see it’s from Naomi.
‘No mobile phones!’ snarls the landlord and I almost drop mine. ‘If I see a phone, you’re out on your ear.’
Crikey. I quickly put it away without reading the message and glance across at Maya, who shoots me a rather scared look across the table. I see her smartphone in her hand, the illumination of her screen giving her away.
‘I was only looking at TikTok,’ she mutters as a disbelieving jury of locals throw her accusatory looks. I think that’s the quickest I’ve ever seen her put her phone away.
As expected, Valentine excels in the general-knowledge round, while Ajay is an expert when it comes to sport. There are not many questions on literature, but still I’m relieved to know the answers. It’s really quite nerve-racking. When Maya correctly answers a history question, Valentine tells her to keep her voice down.
