I am still feeling slightly unwell. The palpitations have increased, and my breathing is troublingly laboured. The doctor puts it down to the recent change in my medication, and expects to see an improvement soon. In the meantime, my days have fallen into a comforting routine. I wake at around 5.30, and turn on Radio 4 just in time to hear the daily broadcasts begin. I lie in bed for an hour or two before I get up to make breakfast. A cup of tea and two slices of toast. Woman’s Hour; Desert Island Discs. At lunchtime, Emma comes to bring me my bit of shopping. Half a dozen eggs; a loaf of bread; some currant teacakes; sausages. No Gauloises, though I asked for them; the girl is under orders.
Kitty Teague called once, to bring a bunch of chrysanthemums and a card from the rest of the Department. Dr Devine called round again, ostensibly to bring me some books, but in reality, I suspect, to check for further signs of decay. My day is punctuated by my visits and the wireless. These are my lessons; my free periods; my Breaks. They help me keep track of the passing time. I suppose that, when I finally retire, this is how I shall proceed; gliding listlessly from one radio show to another, stopping for tea at ten-thirty sharp, maybe taking a walk in the park if the weather seems up to it. And then, as regular as the news, La Buckfast’s visit at six-thirty.
I like that she is punctual. A Headmaster needs to be punctual. Her dedication to duty, too, is pleasing – though I cannot imagine that she comes to visit me out of anything but a sense of responsibility to an old man long past his prime. And I’ll admit that her unfolding narrative has become the highlight of my day.
I have never followed soap operas. Perhaps this is because St Oswald’s itself is a kind of long-running drama. Our small but intense community; our comings and goings; our conflicts; our deaths. I have known Masters refuse to speak to each other – sometimes for years – for something as relatively small as taking a colleague’s board rubber out of his room without permission. From La Buckfast’s story, I guessed how many enemies she must have made during those few weeks in the summer term of 1989 at King Henry’s. She was clearly unaware of the extent of the effect she must have had, both on boys and on staff. Young as she was, and with more on her mind than the volatile chemistry of the Languages Department, she would have been as unconscious of the effect she’d caused as a child stepping on an anthill. And yet, I could tell from her story that she must have made quite an impact – on Mcleod, on Sinclair, on Higgs, even on my friend Eric Scoones, although he had tried hard to hide it from me.
But with time on my hands to recall just what he had said to me, I realize now that Eric did mention her to me several times, each time with a kind of chilly indignation. I even actually saw her once, when I was with Eric in the pub. I’d almost forgotten it until now, but memories gather together like lint, and now I remember it clearly.
The Thirsty Scholar was always a traditional Northern pub. You didn’t see many young people there – except, on weekdays, our sixth-formers, and some of the Junior Masters. There was always an unwritten rule that Masters and boys should never acknowledge each other, the boys removing their blazers and ties in a pretence of anonymity. At weekends the tap was mostly filled with middle-aged and older men, and to see a young woman – especially one as attractive as Becky Price – was already unusual. In spite of my long and comfortable bachelorhood, I’m not unaffected by female beauty, and even if I had been, Eric’s reaction to seeing her would surely have alerted me.
We’d been sitting at a corner table some distance away from the bar. We’d already had a couple of pints, and I was about to suggest we order a ploughman’s or something. Then the door opened and Eric stiffened like a dog. ‘Dammit, Straits! What’s she doing here?’
‘Who?’ I whispered.
‘Asda Price.’
I looked at the woman who had come in. Young, in jeans and a sleeveless top, red hair torched by the sunlight. I’ll admit I was a little surprised. From Eric’s use of that nickname, I’d expected someone older – perhaps a little frumpy. Instead, I saw a woman of the kind I’d only ever seen before in certain Victorian paintings, though without the quiet serenity that seems to come with the territory. Instead, she looked edgy and ill at ease, scanning the bar for someone. I remember the way her hair caught the light through the open door; the graceful curve of her collarbone revealed by the simple neckline.
Eric hid his face with his hand. ‘Is nowhere sacred anymore?’
‘Oh fine. Drink up and we’ll go somewhere else,’ I said with some annoyance. Eric could be remarkably over-dramatic at times, and I doubted whether even he believed some of the things he claimed to think. One of these persistent claims was that women worked to undermine our traditional spaces, making it impossible for men to enjoy each other’s company. The fact that Miss Price was young, too, must have served to annoy him, because I remember him saying then:
‘She’s barely older than one of our boys.’
‘Give her a chance, Eric,’ I said. ‘Even you were young once.’
He shrugged. From the height of his forty-eight years, she must have seemed ridiculously young. Now, it is we who seem ridiculous in retrospect. At forty-eight, the world is still new, and rich, and full of promise. At forty-eight, the prospect of old age – sickness, dementia, death – is nothing but the shadow of a summer cloud against the sun.
I don’t remember much more of that day. Eric finished his drink and we left, by which time Miss Price had settled down at a table by the door. There was a man sitting with her, but I couldn’t tell you anything about him, except that for a moment I felt a fleeting stab of envy. Sometimes a woman will do that to you, a woman you’ll never see again.
Except, I did see her again, some fifteen or so years later. She has changed of course, and yet I can see the girl she was. Maybe it’s hearing her story that makes her come alive again. Or maybe I’m the one coming alive, after a long and dismal dream.
I only wish I felt better. I have made an effort to rest; I have taken my medicine; I have avoided fatty foods; I have even forced myself to drink La Buckfast’s herbal tea (three times a day, after mealtimes). In spite of all this, the promised recovery does not seem to be forthcoming. She commented on it earlier, when she made her usual call.
‘I hope you’re taking it easy,’ she said. ‘I don’t like to see you looking so pale. Shall I make some herbal tea?’
‘I’d rather have a brandy,’ I said.
‘Tea,’ said La Buckfast firmly. ‘And maybe something light to eat?’
I let her make me scrambled eggs. She makes them better than I do, with herbs and a little grain mustard. I wondered briefly how it would feel to have her cook for me every day, to sit with her in the mornings and talk, and listen to the wireless. It was an odd and troubling thought, and very unlike me. I have very few regrets in life, and having avoided marriage has certainly never been one of them. And yet, as I sat in my armchair, watching the lamplight against her hair and the sure, quiet way she handled the utensils – the wooden spoon I’d made as a boy in woodwork class at St Oswald’s; the little aluminium pan that once belonged to my mother – I felt a little pang in my heart for a life that might have been. A life of companionship; of shared moments in the kitchen. It lasted a minute or two, no more, and when she turned back with the food on a plate, flanked by two generous slices of toast, I was fully recovered again.