The Last Girl (18 page)

And this is
where the really strange thing happened. Now that it was me that was wearing
the stuff, not only did it not smell so bad, it actually smelt quite nice. Not
my cup of tea in the usual run of things, not by a long chalk. But it was
something different to do with your time. And it was funny to think that everyone
would be able to smell you coming. More than that, although it was just a
smell, it was almost like wearing something that was solid, like a disguise. If
Doreen or anybody was to catch a whiff of me on a dark night, she'd think I was
someone completely different. And if it was Mandy on that same dark night,
she'd think it was....

Piece of fun,
that's all it was, no different from trying on a hat. But I'll say this, it
taught me something. I’m willing to bet anything you like that dressing up in
fancy smells is half the secret of his success. No, really. Listen to this: 
there I was sitting innocently enough on the 104 looking forward to home and a
well-earned rest, when up comes a woman who plonks herself down beside me
without so much as a second glance. Next thing I know, before the bus has even
moved off her nose is starting to twitch and - this is the honest truth - I'm
suddenly aware of all these sideways looks coming in my direction. In short,
the glad eye.

Considering
that she was sixty-five if she was a day, and painted up like a shop-front to
boot, it was a relief to get off the bus when the time came. Who knows what
sort of thoughts were going through her mind? And in a woman of her age. Makes
you shudder, honestly it does.

All of which
made the sight of Mandy and her sweet face standing there behind the front
door, almost as if she'd been waiting for me, even more welcome than usual.
Mind you, she looked as if she could have done with a bit of a day out of the
house herself, she was that pale. Lovely little smile she gave me, though, when
I said to her, Cheer up Mandy, love. It might never happen.'

Still, if
she'd been hoping for a bit of the old tea and chat, she was going to have to
be disappointed. The only thing on my mind now was getting a bit of hot food
inside me after eating practically nothing all day. Then again, being the
considerate sort, I didn't want to just leave her standing there with no
explanation apart from needing my tea. It wouldn't have seemed nice somehow,
and besides, she might have seen that as a reason for not bothering to come up
later.

So what I
actually said to her was, 'I'm going to have to get on, Mandy love. I don't
know what it is, but I’ve just come over queer.  Think I'll go and have a
liedown.'

Straightaway,
she answers, 'Oh Larry, are you not feeling very well?'

That’s my
Mandy. All concern. I tell you that girl deserves everything that's coming to
her. 'I'll be all right love. But I tell you what, drop in later when you've
got a minute, just in case.'

So that was
that sorted.

But there was
one last thing. On my way upstairs, taking it slowly, naturally, I had a
feeling that something was going on behind me, down in the hall. So on the
middle landing I stopped, took a little peek over the banister... and there was
Mandy, down below, exactly where we'd been talking, only now her head was up,
and that little nose of hers was twitching away like billy-oh.

Now, I know
there were some nasty moments today, but when you think about the rest, I'd be
tempted to say that this, the second Saturday before Christmas, was pretty
close to what some folk would call a nearly perfect day. Mandy love, we're
going to have a lovely time, such a lovely time.

Just give me a moment to think. That's all I need. A few minutes'
quiet reflection.

There are
things I've still got to take in. Letters coming out of nowhere. The sort that
fly at you, wanting answers, telling you to do this and do that, and all by
such and such a deadline, not giving you any time. The sort of letters you
don't need, not on top of everything else. The sort of letters you don't want.

One letter to
be exact. One letter too many, though. One bloody letter.

Excuse
language.

It's what you
get for letting yourself look on the bright side. Just for a little while, I
had started to think that maybe somebody up there loves me after all. That
after twelve long years of watching the bad prosper, maybe the tide was on the
turn. Because all of a sudden you've caught a glimpse of pure goodness shining
like a silver lining in a wicked world - and keeping its shine. People come
along, try to put it out, try to drag it into the dark, and wonder of wonders,
the good stays good. Keeps on shining, brighter than ever. And it's then you
find yourself thinking: maybe you're not alone. There's another voice beside
yours, crying in the wilderness. And this, finally, is your reward.

But it's all
piss and nonsense isn't it? Another one of life's little jokes. Because out of
the blue there comes a letter. And it's not even as if it's addressed to me.

But I'm the
one who's got it. I can't put it down, and it's not mine to throw away.

It arrived
this morning. The letter she's been waiting for. I came downstairs to find
Ethel there by the hall table, a pile of cards beside her which she ignores
while she holds a large white envelope up to the light, no doubt wishing she
had X-ray eyes.

If only that
were all, though.

Ethel has no
shame. She put the letter down fast enough when she saw me, but there was no
mistaking what she'd been up to. Yet she had the cheek to look me straight in
the eye and trill, 'Morning Mr Mann,' as if I'd done no more than find her
checking her pools.

'And good
morning to you, Mrs D.' The  letter's lying between us, second-hand now, thanks
to her. And all she does is smirk, and mince off down the corridor.

After she's
gone, I check what's there for me. Two cards, both with the postmark of
Reigate. And that's it, the whole year's news stamped on the outside of the
envelopes. In other words, Aunts Gertie and Freda are still alive and kicking
and fit enough to get out and buy a couple of stamps - and still refusing to do
anything together. The insides of the cards themselves wouldn't tell you so
much.

Then there
was Mandy's letter. See, I knew straight off it was a letter not a card. Ethel
never bothered to put it back on the table properly and it only took a slight
brush of my arm for it to fall on the floor. Naturally I picked it up and it
was the feel of it between my fingers that told me. Letter. No doubt about it.

And it was
that, oddly enough, that got me wondering, even despite everything else, 
despite Mandy tripping up and downstairs to see if anything like it had
arrived. It depended on the way you looked at it. If you thought it was normal
on top of the labour of having to fill in hundreds of cards, for someone then
to go to the trouble of writing a letter - and a thick one at that - all well
and good. But if you thought it was a bit odd to be making that much more work
for yourself at a time like this, then you'll know why it bothered me. See, the
way I looked at it was, you would only go to the length of writing a letter at
Christmastime if you had something very important to say.

Postmark Hong
Kong.

All the way
from Hong Kong then. All this way just to be fingered and mauled by Ethel Duck
in her nosiness. What had been meant for Mandy's eyes only practically had
thumb marks all over it. I put it back on the table as it was.

It was as I
was climbing upstairs again with my own cards that the picture came into my
head, as clear as if it was right there in front of me. Ethel standing by her
kitchen door, just waiting to spring out again and take up where she'd left
off. Holding Mandy's letter this way and that, trying to make out something,
anything, of what was inside. Have I not said it before? The woman's curiosity
knows no bounds.

And I knew
then, there was only one thing I could do. I went straight back down, doubtless
disappointing a certain party poised to return to the snoop, and picked it up,
to take to Mandy's kitchen. But it was as I stepped through her door that
another thought occurred to me, almost worse than the one before. The only way
I could leave Mandy's letter here, on her table, and keep Ethel away from it
was by stopping in all day. That would mean a whole day's Christmas shopping
lost. And I couldn't do that, I just couldn't. Not when we were into the third
week of the Plan.

The upshot
was, the letter ended up propped against my kettle in full view to remind me it
was there, while I got myself ready to go out. Only it would have been better
in a way if I'd simply shoved it into a drawer and tried to forget all about it
until Mandy came home. As it was, it just sat there on the side, ruining my
concentration. Even when I wasn't in the same room, I could feel it there, like
another person. Like a warning almost. And all the time I kept coming back to
it, looking at it, and wondering.

I could try
to explain, I suppose. This may sound mad, but where Mandy is concerned, it's
almost as if I've developed a second sight. Or you could simply call it
instinct, popping up whenever there's anything remotely connected with her. I
know now the reason she does things, often even before she's thought of doing
them herself. She's become familiar ground, you could say. And that's half the
beauty of her. Someone who's at all decent is almost bound to act in a certain
way. That's why, when you think about it, the Doreens and the Junes of this
world are so unpredictable.

I even know
what makes her unhappy - Francis not phoning, Francis not coming when he
promises, Ethel snooping and....And any mention of her mum and dad.

Well, surely
you remember that time she nearly bit my head off just for mentioning the
subject? I was licking my wounds for days after.

Which brings me
back to the letter. There couldn't be any doubt who it was from, and what could
be more natural - a letter from her mum  and dad? Nothing, until you remember
she told me that she and her father hadn't said a word to each other in two
years. She never did go into details, and to spare her feelings, I never did
ask, but you knew who was at the bottom of it. Francis, a man who could split a
family apart. Francis who was still on the scene.

In which
case, why were they sending letters now?

Do you see
the way my mind was working then? Everything logical and thought-out, and all
leading up to the certainty that this wasn't just any old letter.

So what do
you put in a letter that no-one in their right minds would be sending unless
there was something special they needed to say? It's hardly going to be news
about what the dog's been up to, or how too much rain recently has been ruining
the dahlias. No, it would have to be something else. Something important.
Something big enough to cross the Gulf of Discord.

I was sure of
this, though. It's not good news. If Doreen won the pools, the last person
she'd think about was me. Good news isn't important enough, not to other
people, and least of all as a reason for making up a quarrel. So it has to be
bad. Nothing else will do.

Bad news
then.
Please come
home, your father is dead.

Yes well, we
don't want to overreact. It doesn't have to be that bad, with Mandy
disappearing off to look after her mum, whether she wants to or not. Better to
be realistic, bearing in mind what they've all been up to already. Maybe
something on the lines of:
Your
father is very ill. Perhaps dying. Do not come home, though, as the sight of
you would only distress him
. That would make sense. Putting her in the
picture but making no bones about what they think of her.

Only, you
tell me - what sort of thing is that for a young girl to have to hear two weeks
before Christmas?

The effect on
me was bad enough. But that's not what counts. It's her you've got to imagine -
Mandy, reading something like that, on her own, when probably all she'd been
doing was looking forward to a Christmas card from her folks. Mandy having to
learn from cold print what should have been broken to her gently by a friend.
Sit down Mandy love. I've
got a bit of bad news
. Mandy suffering because of it. Yet what have I
been saying all this time? That Larry would do anything in the world to make
her happy. Now here he was, about to hand over the one thing guaranteed to do
the opposite.

What sort of
man would that have made me? The kind who could happily go back on his word?
The kind who could take a letter like that, knowing what it might contain, and
hand it over for someone to read cold and unprepared?

I don't think
so.

I'll show you
the sort of man I am. I traipsed back and forth across my little bit of
kitchen, brewing up pot after pot of tea, moving the letter for the kettle to
boil, putting it back again, supping tea I didn't really want, asking myself
again and again what I should do. And that went on for two hours. Two solid hours.

So what
happened then? Well, in the first place the kitchen pretty soon started to drip
with condensation. Hardly surprising given all the steam that had been pumping
out of the old kettle. I reckon by the end of the morning that letter was
halfway to coming unstuck all by itself. In other words, what happened in the
end more or less came about without any help from me. And when you consider how
Ethel would have done the same thing without thinking twice merely to satisfy
her instincts, my holding out till it was nearly the afternoon just seemed
daft. In short then, two minutes after finally facing up to the inevitable, I
had the letter lying open in front of me.

But would you
believe it, even then I couldn't bring myself to read it. Not straightaway. The
old hand started to shake - just like it did outside her bedroom the first 
time I ever went in. I'd had to give myself a good talking-to then and it was
the same now. After a deep breath I looked down and started to read.

The first
thing noticed was the date. Three weeks ago. It's Christmas. Everything takes
longer.

'Dearest
Amanda,

Your
letter arrived this morning. I don't have the words to describe how we felt. All
I can tell you is that you have not been out of our thoughts for a single
minute. Sweetheart, if you could only have told us where you were ...

 But
already that sounds as if we are blaming you, which is wrong. Believe me when I
say we blame no-one but ourselves. It is a terrible thing to be a parent and
know that you have hurt a child. Especially when this was the last thing we
intended.

I'm not
going to waste precious words and time. The episode of your father and that
woman shook us in ways we could hardly imagine. But whatever its importance
then, it is over. Your father and I are closer than we ever were, perhaps
because finally we understand each other a little better.

Amanda, I
think what I am trying to say is, we are only people. Could you remember that
when I tell you that all we want to do is hold you in our arms?

I would
write more, but I have your letter here. It is too short. Every time I read it
I feel there is so much you are not telling us. Are you in trouble? Or has
someone else hurt you in any way, because if so...'

Do you really
want to hear the rest? There wasn't very much. At least nothing that you could
pinpoint as relevant. No mention of Francis. Not so much as a dicky bird. No
real news even, not on the lines of how they both were and what the weather was
like.

What had made
the envelope so bulky was a wad of something else - little bits of paper
stapled together. It took me half a minute just to work out what they could be
- not having ever travelled on a plane. You see, it was an airline ticket. And
attached to that was another piece of paper that read, 'Heathrow-Hongkong, 23rd
December. Please confirm A.S.A.P.'

That's what
the letter was really about. They're trying to bring her home for Christmas.
They want to take her away.

So.

So do you
want to know what I've been doing for the past hour? Emptying the cupboards,
that's what. Bringing it all out - the stuff I’ve been buying these past weeks.
There's too much to go on my little kitchen table, so it's piled up on the
sides, and that's not including the Christmas tree lying on the bed in the
spare room just waiting for someone to come along and unwrap it. Seeing it
spread out now, it makes you wonder how I managed to fit it all in in the first
place.

It's all
here, you know. Brandy, sherry, advocaat, ginger ale, glass balls, tinsel,
Victorian crackers, brazil nuts, liqueur chocolates, liqueurs on their own,
mint chocolate, white chocolate, wrapping paper, tangerines, novelty biscuits,
serviettes with holly on them... I could go on and on. I haven't left out a
thing, barring the fresh stuff, the vegetables and the brandy butter, but even
that's all taken care of. Everything else is here, down to the last hazelnut
whirl.

Only, I don't
like hazelnut whirls. I got them just for her, for Mandy.

The funny
thing is, all of a sudden, I've got the sort of ache in my guts that makes me
feel as if I've eaten a whole mountain of them already. Why didn't she tell me
that she's been Writing letters too?