Sally Read online

  ‘Come on, let’s go and get your Barbour.’ Richard urged Carlotta to her feet and left without waiting for his change. Lucky Carlos, a tip twice the cost of the breakfast. Richard looked again but Sally was gone. He felt simultaneously greatly relieved and yet terribly disappointed.

  Was it her? Just an apparition? It was her, of course it was. I want her and I don’t want her. I want her like that – gorgeous in rags and colour clashes – but not yet. Not now. Not today. Not ’till I’ve rid myself of this American affliction; not until she wants me. God, where is she? Just another peep to tide me along. Let me see her unseen.

  Simultaneously desperate for another glimpse but dreading being seen, Richard tried to set the pace, brisk and assertive. Carlotta resisted, drawn compulsively to the tempting shop windows. Richard’s heart was heaving and his breakfast sat defiantly at the base of his throat; his stomach too tight to allow access. His palms were clammy, his feet were cold and his knee joints stiff, though he needed them now more than ever to carry him away.

  His car was around the next corner at the top of Fitzjohn’s Avenue; close, frustratingly close, and yet horribly far away. He grasped Carlotta around the waist and pleaded that they really should get going if she wanted to shop for a Barbour. As he pulled her away and made her walk, he saw Sally.

  And she saw him.

  And they were just a few feet apart, hopelessly headed for each other.

  Sally stood stock still. Richard was so overcome with horror that he could neither prevent his legs from moving nor remove his arm from Carlotta’s waist. Fortunately Carlotta, unaware of the tragedy of the situation, freed herself to scrutinize a pair of boots and was soon inside the shop, leaving Sally and Richard less than a yard away from each other. Richard felt sick but not half as sick as Sally. They stood there, defying Newtonian time; their mouths open, their minds whirring, their eyes disbelieving and searching, their hearts in overdrive. He wanted to push the lock of hair away from her mouth. He wanted to fall on his knees at her feet. He wanted to swoop her up, into his arms and take her a million miles away from this place and this moment. He just wanted to touch her. But all he could do was remain frozen and desperately remorseful.

  Sally wanted to dissolve. She wanted to be back in childhood, away from all this. She wanted to cry, to be sick, to fall asleep and wake up yesterday. She wanted to be anywhere but here. She wanted Richard to cradle her in his arms and kiss her forehead.

  No, I don’t.

  Yes, you do.

  ‘Hon, I’m through, let’s go.’

  Carlotta, oblivious and brash, broke through their tragic barrier and destroyed the frozen moment. Richard heard Sally give a sharp and involuntary intake of breath and watched, helpless, as she fled across the road, the back of her dress dragging in a puddle as she went. He wanted to go after her; to catch her, to shake her, to explain to her, to kiss her. But he was rendered immobile. He had no strength to move, his body felt heavy, his eyes were fixed to the loaded space Sally had left, his heart was grinding to a halt. Carlotta, bored and still brash, hauled him to his car.

  ‘C’mon, hon. Take me to Dustin Reeves or wherever it is I can buy an oily Barburry.’

  Austin Reed, you stupid cow, Richard thought witheringly as he crunched his gears and sped recklessly away.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Our poor heroine, sad old Sal. Poor Sally of the shabby dress, she of the comfy cardie, of the tatty trainers; Sal of the dirge and frills.

  How do you feel, scurrying to nowhere in particular just to get away? You can feel the gritty wet of your dress slap against the back of your calves. You can feel the chill in the air whistle its way through the holes in your cardigan, through the buttons in your frock. You’re chilled, aren’t you, chilled to the bone? Numb too. Poor old girl, what a nasty shock, what a beastly thing to have happened. What are you thinking, Sally Lomax? And how do you feel?

  How do I feel? What do I think? I think I feel sick. I feel like I’ve swallowed a lump of lead. There is something in my head, a noise, it’s thudding around. Every time I move my head it crashes against a side of my skull.

  But what are you thinking?

  What am I thinking? I’m thinking that I’m frightened, she frightened me. I can’t get her out of my mind’s eye. Did you see her?

  Yes, we saw her, Sally, we’ve seen quite a lot of her, not that you’d know. But yes, we saw her.

  Who is she? Who is she? Has he slept with her? Why were they in Hampstead? Does she live near me? When did it start between them? But did you see her? All high heels and couture clothes, cheek bones to die for and lips to pray for. Did you see her? I did. And I saw Richard’s hand around her waist and he didn’t even drop it when he saw me. He couldn’t keep his hands off her. He had his hand glued to her gorgeous horrid tiny waist. It seems bizarre but I feel rather like Hamlet. Remember his distress and disgust with his mother for exchanging the love for a husband not two months dead, for the bed of another?

  A husband, Sal? Oh, girl! If only you knew. Think not of Hamlet, but only of yourself. What do you make of it all?

  He said he loved me.

  And you hated him for it.

  I never hated him. I just didn’t like the idea of it. In retrospect, I loathed myself more, I think. Richard, Richie, who is she? Was she good? In bed? Did you think of me? Did you compare us? Well, I compared J-Bloody-C to you. And he was lacking. I bet I was far from your mind, from your soul, from the desires of your body. Get me away from all this. Get me to a nunnery!

  Sally!

  Where is Richard right now? What is he thinking just this very second?

  If you want to know, he has dumped that woman at Austin Reed with a cursory farewell to her, and ‘good riddance’ racketing through his mind. He has just zoomed over a zebra crossing forcing innocent and indignant pedestrians to stand motionless and precarious in the middle of a road. He is on his way home. He does not feel very well. Like you, he’s wondering about you.

  ‘But you don’t understand. He was with a woman,’ Sally pleaded as Diana helped herself to the untouched pasta on Sally’s plate. Diana chewed thoughtfully, gazing at the swirled irises patterning Sally’s laminated Liberty tablecloth.

  What does she want me to say? What can I say? I’m not likely to say: ‘Well, it’s all your fault, Sal.’ Until she says it, says the ‘L’ word that she abhors so much, then I really can’t say much, can I? After all, if the love-factor didn’t exist, then I doubt whether she’d be this devastated.

  Diana looked across at Sally, sitting shabby and collapsed in her funny old clothes that actually only seemed funny in the wake of her recent sassy wardrobe. Sally sat still, her lower lip jutting out; in a sulk, in anger, in sadness? It was difficult to decipher its provenance. But her eyes told her tale, downcast but constantly on the move, an eyebrow furrowing, pupils darting, eyelids beating fast to prevent ready tears. Diana had finished Sally’s plate and was full. She’d had enough and she had had enough.

  ‘Sally?’ she ventured. Sally remained slumped but looked up with her eyes and scanned Diana’s face desperately. ‘What is it that you want?’

  Sally’s eyes dropped under the weight of such a question. She sat silent and let it go unanswered. Suddenly she spurted forth a torrent of uncontrolled woe.

  ‘Diana! He saw me like that, like this!’ She brushed violently at the bodice of her dress, pulled at the cardie and kicked her legs out to the side of the table to emphasize the socks and trainers. ‘And Diana! You should have seen her! She was, she was horrible, she was stunning and slick, and such a … such a … She was a vamp,’ she spat, ‘a femme fatale,’ she wailed, ‘a vixen,’ she moaned. ‘She wasn’t like me, you see.’

  Sally trailed off, her voice now a defeated whisper. Diana waited, breath baited like an expectant fisherman’s fly. All was silent and still and loaded. Bite it! Then movement. Sally turned her head and Diana glanced at the tear which had fallen with a sonorous splash on to the stamen of a printed iris. More m
ovement. Sally rose, arms folded, hugging the Aran knit about herself. Passing Diana, she crossed over to the window. Diana swivelled in her chair and saw her as a silhouette, pressed two-dimensional and opaque against the cold, white January light. Immediately, she had an idea for a painting but tactfully put the creative inspiration on hold and returned in spirit and sight to Sally. And she waited. Finally, she was rewarded. In a voice that was broken and frail, Sally at last uttered the truth.

  ‘She wasn’t like me, you see,’ she started, ‘she wasn’t like me because I’m not like her. You see. But, I wanted to be a sort of “her”. That’s what I wanted to be. And that’s what I tried hard to be, for Richie, for me. It was hard work, but I got there, and I enjoyed it. I believed in it and I really enjoyed it. But I know now that it’s just not me. I don’t have the guts, I don’t have the strength. I don’t even have the style. Nor the money, nor the easy sophistication. And I don’t have the body. At the end of the day, I don’t really have the personality. It’s not in my nature, it’s not natural, it’s just not me.’

  Slowly, Sally turned to Diana. She shrugged her shoulders and dropped her head. Her shoulders drooped and shook twice before she checked the sobs with all her might and braced her body upright. Diana was drawn to her, drawn to her plight and drawn to her damaged, battered state. She went to her and placed her hands on Sally’s shoulders. She shook her gently. And then she shook her more forcefully and spoke in rhythm and in time with her shakes.

  ‘But, Sally, you’re there!’ she proclaimed. ‘You know who you are not. You know who you are! Look what you’ve learnt, look what you’ve found out!’ It all seemed very clear-cut and simple to Diana. Diana was smiling. But she was soon perplexed that Sally remained so unhappy. She shook Sally again. And again, almost irritated by the limp and feeble body in her hands. In fake submission and an effort to free herself from being shaken, Sally nodded her head reluctantly and Diana eased her grip but let her hands rest gently on the weary shoulders.

  ‘But don’t you see, Di? She wasn’t like me. I’m not like her.’ Sally nodded her head energetically, a frown cutting deep into her brow. Diana did not understand. In fact, Sally hadn’t understood either, not until just then. The effort and discipline of organizing her thoughts and woe into coherent, spoken form had rewarded her with clear insight. She could see now what it really was that she felt, why she felt it, and what she wanted. Sally cleared her throat.

  ‘Diana.’ Diana tipped her head to one side inviting Sally to continue, unhurried, unjudged.

  ‘Diana. I’m not like her. But Richard is with her. She’s not like me. But Richard was with her. Richard,’ she declared, ‘wants that kind of woman.’ The room resounded with the noisy silence of the wracking of brains.

  Go on, Sally.

  ‘But,’ she faltered, ‘I want Richard.’

  ‘You want Richard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But, Sally, Richard told you that he loved you!’ Problem solved, solution easy, happy ending in sight, rejoiced Diana to herself. ‘He loves you. Go get him, girl!’

  ‘Yes, Diana. No, no, Di. Richard wasn’t in love with me. He was in love with the me-type. I mean the her-type. The wrong me – I’m not her! I am not like that. So that makes a nonsense, somewhat, of his words.’ Now it is Sally who can see the clarity of the unfortunate truth, or what she believes it to be, and Diana’s mind is in a muddle as she tries to decipher Sally’s theory, assess the facts and present a helpful solution to still-suffering Sal.

  Think, Diana, think.

  Ah, but of course! Go easy here, tread softly.

  ‘But you want Richard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you want him?’

  Sally looked at Diana with incredulity, as if she was dim and dippy.

  ‘You know!’

  No. Diana does not know, or at least makes it seem that way. She does, of course, know. But, until Sally says it out loud, unprompted, Diana will remain supposedly in the dark. Sally must remain untouched and have no prompting. Take your hands away from her just now, let her stand tall. Say it, Sally, say it.

  ‘Dian-arr!’ Sally looks at her, encouraging her to say it for her. Diana merely shrugs though it is excruciating to have to do so. A whisper of bewilderment flickers across Sally’s face. Diana sees it. No, Diana, don’t help her! Not now! Not for this! As much as you love her, leave her alone, you know it must come from her, you said as much to Richard. Let her say it.

  Come on, Sally, feel the solidarity urge you on.

  Diana, bite it, bite your tongue, bide your time.

  ‘Sally. Are you in love with him?’

  Oh, hush, Diana. Damn! Bad move, big mistake; huge. See how the Lomax barrier has come down, the shield raised? See Sally lower her veil? It may be as thin as gossamer, as transparent as muslin but it is as strong as steel.

  An infuriating shrug with a twitch of the lips is all Sally’s giving out today. Time to go, Di.

  ‘Am I in love with him?’ Sally later asked the African Violet as she watered it and tweaked off two dead leaves.

  ‘Do I love Richard?’ she asked the kettle as she waited for it to boil.

  ‘Is it love that I feel?’ she enquired of the tea towel as she turned her back on the kettle in the hope that, if unwatched, it might come to the boil faster. Sally could not find the answer in the flora or domestic appliances in her flat, so she sipped her tea and looked at the mismatched laces holding her trainers together.

  ‘Is it love?’ she asked the rain as it drizzled its haphazard way down the window pane.

  ‘Is he the one?’ she quizzed the tea leaves which had gathered conspiringly in the base of her cup.

  If the tea leaves don’t hold the answer, who does?

  Sally continued to search for the answer as she made an inroad into the ironing. Needless to say, shirts, skirts and hankies did not have it.

  ‘Am I in love with Richard Stonehill?’ she asked her knees as she sat on the toilet, her legs suspended and stretched out in front of her.

  But Sally knew where she could find the answer, where hitherto she had avoided looking. Sally knew she’d find it once she pulled the chain. She had only to turn around and confront it. Turn, Sally. Ask.

  And there was the answer, staring her straight in the face. The mirror, of course. There was Sally and there was the mirror, and there, in the mirror, was Sally. There was no need to ask out loud.

  Do I love him?

  Yes, I love him.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  So Sally is in love. Are we surprised? No, not really. But how will she show it? How will she deal with the inherent responsibility of such knowledge? And is she happy? Would she have acknowledged how she felt had she not seen Richard with the Other Woman? Miss Tiny Waist, Madam Long Legs, Lady Luscious Lips. (Damn them and their perfect Cupid’s Bow shape!) And if Sally puts down her shield and throws back her veil, will she be lost mercilessly to daydreams of babies, of scones baking in an Aga and all the other things she previously deemed reprehensible? Who might she be letting down if she lets her heart rule her head? Ms Collins? Ms Jung? Herself?

  Sally had chased fun – fun that was not chaste – through playing and creating a whole new persona, a very different woman. She had wanted The Richard Thing to be a delicious secret that she could recall with enduring pleasure at her leisure. She had orchestrated The Richard Thing to be something she could carry with her through her life, a sort of magic rune that she could take out at times when things might not be going well.

  Tedious dinner parties – oh! remember how he would kiss me!

  Trying Christmases – and there was that time when he hired a box at the Opera and we made love while Violetta sang.

  Tiring school functions – remember his eyes travelling my body, glazed with desire that burned unheeded.

  The Richard Thing would enable her to take a mind-flight away from being boring wifey with brood and Aga, back t
o the time when she was an outrageous vamp, desired madly by a living Rodin. The Richard Thing was to be fun, it was to be slightly reckless, somewhat irresponsible, rather naughty, thoroughly liberating – all the things Sally presumed adulthood and marriage to forfeit. She had envisaged standing in front of her mirror in her forties, fifties, sixties, even seventies, smiling gleefully at the memory of a man totally ensnared in her seductive web, one she had spun all by herself, following no known pattern. Maybe Sally, sweet Sally, good girl Sally, wanted to know that she had the ability and independence to be as she wished and to be whom she probably knew all along she was not.

  But what is wrong with the real you, Sal? After all, it did not take our Richard long to see what was behind the veil, to be lost in the spell of you! Maybe you wanted merely to have a good time and great sex without suffering the consequences and catches of a rampant fling dampening down into a relationship. But why the fear of a relationship, Sal? Why the trepidation of going through life conventionally – marriage, children, dinner parties, school events? Is fun confined merely to an illicit fling? Are men who are the stuff of rampant affairs a different species from those who have the substance for a relationship? More to the point, are women?

  Sally had neither envisaged Fling Thing falling in love with her, nor had she foreseen Fling Thing assuming his true identity as Richard Stonehill so quickly. She had been thoroughly unprepared for her reaction and for the consequences; she desired the person under the muscle, she respected the brain beneath the brawn, she felt the heart behind the hands, she saw the soul through the (beautiful) eyes. Fling Thing was fabulous but Richard Stonehill was far better. Sally had naively presumed that utter lust and deep love were poles apart. Now she must reconcile the two.

  When Richard phoned her almost a fortnight later in the staff-room, Sally was relieved, and just a little thrilled too. Twice since that fateful morning in Hampstead she had ventured out to see him. Once, dressed in heels and black Lycra, she had made it as far as pulling the choke on her Mini but slunk home to eat chocolate instead. Two days later she tried again, this time making it right to his flat. She drove appallingly and her wits were truly frazzled by the time she approached Notting Hill. On spying Richard’s Spyder, the surge of adrenalin made her head so light and her hands so heavy that she nearly veered straight into it. She drove straight past, round the block and then back again, juddering to a halt outside the building she so wanted to enter but just could not quite. She counted up the floors and took note of the lights that were on. He must be in.