The Second Life of Sally Mottram. David Nobbs

Barry had been too, but … consulting a psychoanalyst? Killing himself? And why oh why had he not left her a suicide note? To go, to hurt her so, without a word.

      This was awful. This was not why she had come to stay with Sam and Beth. She had come to begin to recover from her trauma. She had come, with Barry dead and Alice in New Zealand, to find some family feeling, some family warmth.

      ‘Lovely.’

      ‘Do you mean that?’ asked Beth naively.

      ‘It’s very good.’

      ‘It is, Beth,’ said Sam. ‘Really. Beth has no confidence, Mum.’

      Beth gave Sam a glare, which she turned into a comedy glare to try to hide the fact that it was a real glare. She wasn’t unattractive, but you couldn’t say she was beautiful. She’s a bit like her lasagne, thought Sally, and then she wished that she hadn’t, but you can’t unthink a thought.

      She was ashamed of herself for wishing that her son had found somebody more glamorous. She was ashamed of herself for wishing that he had got a better degree from a better university and had a better job.

      They were sitting on wooden chairs at a square, battered table in a corner of the small lounge/diner of their tiny rented flat in a street of small pre-war houses in Barnet. There were two round marks on the tabletop, where hot mugs had been put down without protection. Sally found herself wondering which of them had left the careless marks. She hoped it wasn’t her son, he had been well brought up.

      She calculated that she was now more than halfway through her lasagne. She could make it through to the end. And there came to her at that moment a sudden memory of Potherthwaite, the last thing she wanted to remember. Hadn’t she in part come here to forget? Marigold had suggested, at the funeral wake of all places, that they go out to lunch together, damsels in distress, to cheer themselves up. There was a special Pensioners’ Lunch Offer at the Weavers’ Arms on Thursdays, and they had decided to cheer themselves up by going there and perhaps being the youngest people in the room.

      Seated at the next table had been Jill and Arnold Buss, with their new neighbours, Olive and Harry Patterson. Jill, who knew Sally, had introduced Olive and Harry. At the end of the meal, Harry and Arnold had gone to the bar to dissect the bill, Jill had gone to the loo, and Sally and Olive had met at the coats, and as Sally had helped Olive on with her coat, she had praised the beef casserole, and Olive had told her about having to finish the beef casserole at Jill and Arnold’s when it was too spicy for her. ‘I shouldn’t have told you. They were very kind. Please don’t mention it,’ Olive had said hastily as the men returned. Sally had thought this a very trivial story, but now she was beginning to sympathize with Olive.

      Thinking back to Potherthwaite led her inexorably back to Barry. Oh God, she missed him. Had he not known, how could he not have known, how much she would miss him? How could he do it to her?

      ‘Really lovely.’

      It would have been better not to say that. It would draw their attention to the slow speed of her consumption, the almost desperate working of her jaw.

      She felt guilty about wishing that Sam didn’t look so pale and thin. It made him look too tall, a beanpole. It made his nose look too long and too serious. She felt uneasy about being so disappointed that Beth wasn’t taller, and had such heavy breasts. She told herself that it was unreasonable of her to hope that they would soon move to somewhere more exciting than Barnet. Poor Barnet, how could it live up to her picture of ‘The South’, that mythical place she had missed so badly for twenty-four years? Every now and then she made some kind of reply to some kind of remark, but afterwards she couldn’t remember what they had talked about, she could only remember what she had thought. It wasn’t that Barnet was ugly exactly, it was just … commonplace. Ordinary. Rather like Beth and the lasagne, really.

      Beth had left the lasagne in the oven too long, perhaps less than two minutes too long. But that was the trouble with pasta, leave it a smidgen too long and it went heavy, solid, stolid. As she chewed, she saw Olive chewing, and she was back in Potherthwaite again. This was terrible. Oh, why hadn’t he left a note?

      Each mouthful was a hurdle, but now she was in the final straight. Chomp chomp. Finished! Good girl! She’s eaten all her dinner! Who’s a clever Sally?

      ‘Delicious.’

      She longed for something sweet. How humiliating to long so much for something so unimportant.

      Sam was clearing up, and soon Beth rose to help.

      ‘I’m afraid we don’t do desserts,’ said Sam.

      ‘We’ve turned our backs on sugar,’ said Beth.

      ‘That’s fine,’ lied Sally. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to eat another mouthful anyway.’

      They refused to let her into the kitchen to help. It was too small.

      ‘You go and sit down and relax,’ said Sam.

      Relax!

      It wasn’t only the kitchen that was too small. So was the lounge/diner, and her bedroom, and the bathroom. She longed to leave, and she was committed to staying for four whole days. She couldn’t leave early. Sam was her son.

      She felt at a loss, having no fire to sit by. There were just two armchairs, depressingly dark green and past their best. They were arranged facing the television set, the open fire of modern living. The central heating made the flat warm, almost stuffily so, but it wasn’t the same as a fire. How spoilt she had been with her nice house in the best road in Potherthwaite. How could she not have fully appreciated it until she was on the point of losing it? She hadn’t had a bad life, until Barry’s death of course, but it had been … ordinary.

      Rather like Barnet. And Beth. And the lasagne.

      When they had washed up, Sam and Beth joined her. Sam plonked himself into the other armchair. Beth pulled a wooden chair over and sat between them. Sally wished she sat more gracefully. She also wished that her son had been more polite.

      ‘Is there anything you want to watch?’ asked Sam hopefully.

      Yes. The movement of the hands of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece as it leads me slowly but reliably towards the moment in four days’ time when I can leave this prison. Sally, that is not worthy of you. Pull yourself together – isn’t that what this trip is all about?

      ‘Not really, thank you. I’m not a great telly watcher.’

      ‘I’ll open another bottle of wine,’ said Sam, standing up.

      ‘I’ll do it,’ said Beth hastily.

      Beth didn’t want to be alone with her! Come on, Sally. Be bright and friendly. Let Beth in.

      ‘Nice of you to bring all that wine, Mum.’

      I brought it for myself, in case I needed it, but we don’t need to go into motive, do we?

      ‘I want us to be cheery, Sam. I want us to start to get over what’s happened together. We need each other.’

      Beth brought the wine and they all made an effort and really the conversation wasn’t too bad at all, but all the time Sally was aware of Sam’s anxiety.

      Then Beth stood up.

      ‘I’m a bit tired,’ she said. ‘I’m off to bed.’

      She kissed Sam. Sally moved to stand up but Beth said ‘Don’t get up’ and bent down and kissed her. Sally realized that Beth wanted to say something. What could it be? ‘It’s great to have you here’? ‘Sam and I both hope you’ll move down near us’? ‘Let’s have a lovely four days’?

      ‘I’ve put you two towels and there’s a glass of water by your bed,’ said Beth.

      When Beth had gone, Sally asked, ‘Is she being tactful?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Going to bed early. Leaving us alone together.’