The Last Girl (20 page)

Now, you know how I feel about Mandy. I wouldn't hear a
word against her and that's final. But there comes a time when you have to be
honest, and say what's in your mind. Which in this case is - if things go wrong
from now on, then we know who to blame. A certain young lady who need not be
named.

Nothing is
quite the way it was before yesterday. Until then everything was going
swimmingly. Then Mandy comes up here, acting up, and everything else starts
doing the same.

What's
outside, for instance.

Look out of
the window, and it's staring you in the face: that brilliant weather that
seemed set fair to continue for the next week has taken a turn for the worse.
Makes you shiver just thinking about it. You can actually see the wind, see the
shape of it in the dust, kicking up the crisp packets like some great big lout
in the street. What's worse is that it's waiting for you, for the moment you step
out of the house so it can rush up from behind the hedge and throw you straight
into the road, spitting gobbets of freezing rain at you as you go. Struggle as
far as the bus stop and you're wishing you were home again. I tell you,
practically the only people on the streets early this morning were the tramps
and the dossers and that's because they're used to it. The rest of the old folk
were at home, toasting themselves beside their gas fires.

Do you see
the way things seem to be drifting? One day everything seems just wonderful,
and the next it's all going awry, as if one thing is simply leading to another,
starting with Mandy. With the Holloway Road acting  like a great wind tunnel,
the only thing to do was escape to the West End and let the old spirits get a
lift from the lights and the better class of crowd, but it wasn't possible.
Thanks to Joey gone to meet his maker untimely there had been a slight change
of plan, and I had business in this part of the world to get over with first.
Well even then the day might still have turned out right - if I hadn't decided
at the last minute to slip into Woolworths on the way. Silly me, there wasn't a
thing there that I hadn't already got, yet all the same I found myself queuing
in the pick 'n; mix for half a pound of coconut mushrooms. And that's when it
happened. I must have put my shopping bag down to reach for the scoop, and the
next I knew the bag was gone. I could hardly believe it. Someone had stolen it
right from in between my legs.

Fortunately
it was only a plastic bag from Tesco and my wallet was sitting safely in my
back pocket, but the point is, little Joey was still wrapped up in the bottom
of it, so now the poor old blighter is not only dead but stolen property to
boot. And what it does is leave a nasty taste in your mouth to think that, even
at Christmastime, there isn't a soul you can trust.

Well, that
just did for me. Knocked me right out of the ring. No way could I find it in me
to battle with the buses and crowds all across town. So I traipsed back home,
thinking-that none of this might have happened if Mandy had never put her foot
into what I can only call
the
right flow of things
. Added to which there was always the thought that
this might not be the end of it. That things might even get worse.

With the best
Will in the world on my part, then, Mandy was hardly going to get the sort of
welcome she was used to. She was up here early enough this evening, I'll say
that for  her. But then I was half expecting that. If we were going to have our
usual time together
plus
an apology, she was going to need to allow for a few extra minutes. What I
hadn't expected was to feel so lacklustre about her visit. I suppose I was
dwelling on it all - first the manner in which she spoke to me yesterday and
then the way everything seemed to have gone wrong after. In other words, I
couldn't see why I should put myself out to make her feel so comfortable that
she might decide to do it again. After half an hour, then, of me being polite
but distant, and of her struggling to make some kind of conversation (hard for
her at the best of times I reckon), she tried another tack.

'I'm looking
forward to the weekend, Larry. Are you?'

'You got that
friend of yours coming?' I said by way of a reply, and when she nodded, I told
her. Oh yes, I told her. 'Then I don't  suppose I shall be looking forward to
the weekend very much. I'm a man who likes his peace, and if you'll excuse me,
I think I'd like a little peace now.'

In point of
fact, I didn't say it nastily, even if I was surprised to hear myself say it at
all. But you should have seen her face. Shocked is hardly the word. Mind you,
it's only what I should have said to her months ago. Trouble was, I didn't know
how she'd have taken it then. But it's different now of course. If someone is a
close enough friend, you can say practically anything you like. Besides, she
couldn't afford to be too offended, because who else has she got? 'Where are
they all, Larry?' Her own words.

All the same,
I felt the teeniest bit sorry when I saw the colour drain from her face. And
she even looked a touch shaky when she got up. It was almost enough to make me
want to shout, 'April Fool Mandy, love.' But I didn't. For one thing, it's the
wrong time of year. And for another, I couldn't see any harm in it. Let her
think she's in Larry's bad books for a while. On the big day she'll see there's
not a soul who can forgive and forget like he can.

But oh, Larry, you can be stupid when you like. There
you were, telling yourself you knew it all, thinking that the first thing she'd
do was run down those stairs and start sobbing into her pillow the way she does
when
he
goes
and upsets her. Thinking you'd be kept up all night with it.

Well, I was
wrong, wasn't I. About half an hour later, I start to notice this racket coming
from downstairs. So I took a little walk to the smallest room hoping to find
out what it was all about. It was her, Mandy, in the bathroom, splashing about
and - singing again. Christmas carols this time. Christmas carols at the top of
her voice at nine o'clock in the night.

She's still
there, and what's more that's the second time she's sung 'Away in a Manger'.
She sounds as happy as a lark. How can that be? I told her off. I sent her
packing. She's my sensitive Mandy. She should be sobbing her heart out at
least. I'm all she's got.

But of course
I'm not. That's why Stupid is my middle name.
He's
coming to stay, which means she's thinking on different lines altogether. She's
got her company after all. So she doesn't need Larry. Why should she?

And there was
I, giving her the idea I don't need her. Thinking I could let things slide, we
were that settled. Even thinking I'd got Christmas sorted out. But I haven't.
Nothing's sorted.

And I still
haven't found the one thing that could put her straight. Her present.

Next morning, it's no better. I tried to catch her on
the stairs on her way out, but she mutters something about a bus, and with just
a quick glance at the hall table, off she goes. Leaving me like a lemon,
staring after her.

After an
encounter like that, the only thing to do was to get out and get going. Remind
myself that this is Thursday and with eight shopping days to go, I should be
there with the best of them, buying our Christmas.

But it's an
unforgiving world. No exaggeration, half of London was out today, cramming up
the streets, filling up the buses, causing the sort of queues you only ever
expected to find in Russia. Normally there's nothing Larry likes better than
holding his own in the riot for the 104, but not today. Believe me, it was no place
for an OAP.

Still, queues
or no queues, you know where I was headed, even if it meant finally stepping
off in the middle of the Brompton Road and walking. That bus was going nowhere,
trapped in all the traffic like one of those flies in amber. Even Larry had
never seen it that bad.

It's only
then, half a mile further on, that I see the reason. Blue lights flashing and
police ribbon everywhere. Walkie-talkies clicking and people standing around
waiting for something to happen. Bomb scare. They've closed the entire block.
Go home Larry, if you can.

All of which
must have taken me the best part of three hours.

I know how men must feel coming home with the battle
behind them lost. Walking up the garden path, the only note of comfort was the
thought of a basin of steaming water for my feet, and the hope that Mandy would
have come home in time to read what I'd left for her on the kitchen table.
'Dear Mandy, was ever so out of sorts last night. Please do not take offence or
do not know what I shall do. Love, Larry.'

A short note,
but heartfelt. Then there was the little box of presentation nuts that I'd
bought this morning and been carrying around with me all day. They were for her
as well. She could have them the moment I got back.

Then it
happens, the event to cap it all. The front door opens and there
he
is. Francis. A
whole day early.

'Ah, MrMann,'
he says. 'The second person I’ve surprised today.'

As he speaks,
Mandy comes and pushes· her way between us, actually brushes my arm, yet she
never gives me a look. It’s as if I wasn't there. She goes and stands by the
gate, waiting for him. You'd have thought he would have joined her, but he
doesn't. He stays where he is, suddenly all charm and smarm, wearing one of
those long posh overcoats you only find in gentlemen’s catalogues 'Been doing a
spot of Christmas shopping, I see.' And so saying he points to that little bag
of speciality nuts. After all this long exhausting day, the one thing I've
brought home with me. And he smiles.

For a second,
I don't get it. That smile is about something, but I don’t know what. And then
it clicks. He's smiling because he's thinking he's just seen the full sum of
Larry Mann's Christmas. A bag of nuts and the Queen's speech.

Now, the good
Lord knows I've been tempted before this, tempted to blow the gaff and ruin it
all, spill the beans and let the cat out of the bag entirely. But those times
were nothing, nothing compared to this. That umbrella hanging off my other arm,
I wanted to take it by the handle and thrust it, pointed end into his stomach,
turn him round and march him up those stairs, past Mandy's rooms, and up  again
into my kitchen. And while I held him there at bay, empty out the cupboards
before his lizard eyes and show him what Larry's Christmas was all about.

A bag of speciality
nuts.

Only in the
nick of time does the voice of reason come to my rescue, whispering in my ear.
'He's not worth it, Larry boy. Think what you've got to lose. Just get yourself
up those stairs and you'll be all right.'

And I was - just about. But it meant getting
everything out of its place to prove it, pulling out the crackers and the chocs
and the drink and the nuts and the paper and the baubles, and the rest, to make
myself remember it's the future that counts and not the here and now. That the
Mandy we know and love is waiting, sitting there in the middle of next week,
feasting her eyes on a World of Christmas created and brought to her by her own
Larry. Other parties will be significant only for their absence.

And the night
helps.

Yes, it does,
really. Staying awake, listening to the silence in the room below, knowing that
she's there, sleeping like a baby, alone, herself again.

See, she
might only be doing it in her sleep, but so long as she stays that way, asleep,
alone, innocent, she's fighting the good fight for both of us.

And so we come to today.

Haul myself
out of bed. There's no rest, even if I had the time for it. It only takes the
sound of a laugh to drag you out of what little sleep you've had.

No-one saw me
set off - not even Ethel. Today was her day for Christmas Cheer, when she
rounds up the house and gathers them into her kitchen. She does it every year,
treats us all to cheesy snacks and Cyprus sherry and a lot of talk about us all
being one happy family. So that's where they all were now - her, Gilbert,
Mandy,
him
.
The whole household, except one, who preferred to leave quietly.

Naturally I
was invited. When was there ever a Christmas when I wasn't? Not turning up this
year was my idea of giving them something to think about. If I wasn't there,
who was going to pass round the cheese straws?

It wasn't a
question that needed answering - I thought. Then just as I was walking out, it
came to me. If I wasn't there to do the honours, and Gilbert was incapable,
then guess who would step in to fill the breach. All of a sudden I could see
Ethel smirking and nodding at the plate.
'Oh
Francis, would you be so kind? I wouldn't ask, only seeing as Mr Mann has let
us down ...'

Mr Mann?
Who's he? The last person on anybody's mind.

I almost
turned around to go back. But it was too late, of course. I'd already said I
wasn't going, so what would they all think if I showed up now? I for one knew
exactly, and I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction.

So there you
have it. Here was a day that should have started off with so much promise, and
already it had gone sour on me.

But there's
something called the Dunkirk spirit, which is another way of saying that even
when all the world has turned its face against you, you keep up the good fight
no matter what.

So what did I
do? I gave myself a good talking-to right there on the doorstep. Said to
myself, 'Larry, my boy, this is no time to go weak at the knees. No, lad, this
is the time to stiffen the sinews, show them what you're made of. They may be
in there enjoying themselves at your expense, but there's only one among them
worth the heartache. And it's for her you're doing this.'

And then I
added something else - the clincher, the ideal strengthener. 'Yes, my boy.
Today is the day when you walk back with the goods under your arm. Because
today is the day you find her present. The one that says it all.'

And that's
when I felt it. The thrill of anticipation chasing up and down my spine. I was
a man with a mission again. Suddenly it was almost as if I was there already,
returned from the fray, holding her present under my arm, hugging it close,
feeling what it was going to say to her. The best feeling ever.

In five short
seconds I had become a man renewed. It didn't matter if it was raining, it
didn't even matter that it was cold enough to freeze your heart. I took off my
cap and let the weather wet my forehead - good London weather giving me its
blessing. Then I put my cap back on and marched off, into the day.

And what a
day it was. At first it seemed as if all the world was keeping up the
conspiracy. I tried the Tube this time. But that was no better, sitting there
for hours in the dark like something undigested. Back up amongst the living, it
was almost worse. The pavements had disappeared under a heaving swell, as
likely to wash you up in the nearest door of Harvey Nichols as let you come
safely to where you wanted to be. But I kept my head, never lost my cool, not
even when the hands on my watch kept showing that more and more of the day was
escaping just in the travelling. I felt that all these things were sent to try
me. A test, if you like, of whether I was worthy.

And then, a
few steps more and I was there. The police ribbons had gone and there was
nothing to stop me walking through the swing doors, feeling the wafts of warm
air blowing a welcome on my face. Not that the old ticker knew the difference,
not at once. For the first two minutes all I could do was stay there, between
the inner and the outer doors, waiting for the steam hammer pounding away
inside to rest up. When I took off my cap for the second time that day the
inside rim was wringing wet, a sure sign I'd been overdoing it. Elderly folk
aren't meant to sweat, after all. They're meant to take things easy. But today
it was all part of the test. Mandy love, I told myself as the breath came back,
if only you knew.

Then it was
time to go inside, properly. And all I can say is: thank the good Lord I knew
what to expect. Namely that the moment I stepped through that door there really
would be an explosion. A deafening blast of colours and shapes of things, all
different, all wonderful - all impossible to tell apart. And wouldn't you know,
I was right.

For a second
I thought maybe I was going to panic after all, but that little voice of reason
that's been standing me in such good stead recently, said, 'Hold hard there,
Larry. Get a grip. What you want to do now is relax. Take an interest. Look
around you, and enjoy.'

And
gradually, very gradually, that's what I began to do. And just as gradually, I
started to notice not the shop so much as the people. Hardly surprising in a
way, seeing as how we were kindred spirits, all here while the rest of the
world was somewhere else, in search of inferior goods at inferior prices which
they would carry away with them in bags that bore an inferior name on the
front. We were different from them - a different class of shopper. And these
folk, who were the same as me, I began to see in glorious detail, from the
headscarves on the women to the gold caps on the tips of their shoes. Most of
them had a man in tow - someone has to pay the bills after all - but still it
was mainly the women I watched. Watched them circling displays, watched while
they stopped for no obvious reason that I could see. What made one cabinet of
gloves which they ignored less interesting than another which they examined
with the attention of a nuclear scientist? I didn't know, but I wanted to find
out. And pretty soon, simply from watching the women, I thought I'd discovered a
way of seeing things, of making objects come into focus out of the blur. What
they looked at, I looked at too, just as closely, and ignored the rest, as they
did. You could say that it was like finding a pair of spectacles that made you
able to see everything that was worth seeing.

Of course,
that's not to say I always agreed with their choice. Take the case of the woman
buying that hat. I'd got that close, the shop assistant, mistaking me for a
husband, turned and asked me what I thought. Now I could have stopped and been
a bit more helpful than I was, in other words told the truth, namely that you
could pay a quarter of the price for a sou'wester and not look any different,
but seeing the way the other woman was staring at me I thought - why bother?
Let her waste her money. And off I went.

Money. I can
almost hear what you're saying at this point. Larry, Larry, what's it all for?
Are you really going to shell out an arm and a leg just to impress some little
bit of a thing
who
might not even appreciate it?
And the answer is - yes. As much as it
takes. Because the simple truth is, she
will
appreciate it.

It all boils
down to the kind of girl she is. You only had to look around you to see the
difference. At first sight you might think it would be no bad thing to be a man
dragged along in the shadow of some of the women here. Attractive, they were,
most of them, well dressed, every hair in place, as much at ease in this place
as they would be in their own front rooms. A far cry from Doreen you might say.
But no, not really. In one way they're no different. These are the women who
have seen it all, done it all. The same as women the world over. It shows in
their faces, in the way they walk. Worldly, that's how you could describe them.
And what was Doreen if not that? And what's the betting that
his
wife isn't
exactly the same? I'd wager anything that she tows him up and down the posh
shops of Edinburgh with exactly the same expression on her face - the one that
tells the world, 'He may be paying, but I’m the boss.'

There's not a
farthing of difference between them. And I bet there's not a man here not
praying for release.

And that's
the secret, isn't it. I mean it has to be. The reason he's messing around with
a girl like our Mandy. Because she
is
different. Because she's young, and innocent as the day. She'll hang on to
every word, never argue, never laugh. When they go out together, it's him that
people will talk to, not her, because he's the one with the clout. In short,
she's everything a woman should be - and everything that women aren't.

Bingo.

Young and
innocent as a child, that's what I said, wasn't it. Naughty even, when she's
got a mind to be. But she sleeps by herself and has all the experience of a
baby. My Mandy. My old kid. Who will never let you down.

And all at
once I knew exactly where to look.

Where I
needed to be is right at the top of the shop, as far away as possible from
where I had been searching all this time. No wonder nothing had appealed, down
here amongst the perfumes and petticoats. All that stuff is for the likes of
Doreen and June, not her, my sweet Mandy.

I'd been in
the right shop, looking in the wrong place. Until now. But when I stepped out
of the lift, I knew. I'd come to the end of the rainbow.

The Toy
Department.

Like a rush
of blood to the head it rises up to greet me - Christmas, the very essence of.
They've got it all here, enough to make what you have at home seem like a poor
imitation. So better not to compare. Just take a look and be satisfied.

You see, ifs
a different world. It's as if every possible object and surface has been
touched by a magic wand - glittering, frosted, reflected and trembling in the
baubles weighing down the branches of Christmas trees greener than the real
thing. It's a shop turned into fairyland. Those aren't walls any more, dividing
one display from another, but banks of holly, or is it ivy? You could be in a
garden, a garage sale in paradise.

Then there
were the toys. You wouldn't believe them. Toy cars buzzing underfoot, toy
trains chugging through papier-mâché mountains, lights winking at you, tiny
silver wheels moving, and from elsewhere, the gleam from the polished sides of
robots. Everywhere you look, something seems alive. You have to stand back a
moment, with the solid wall behind you, and remind yourself it's all clockwork.

Did I say it
was paradise? Not quite. You see, there were the kids, hundreds of them it
seems like, screaming and bawling, running riot as you'd expect when parents
turn their back on their responsibilities and let the rest of the world take
the brunt. They'll bring the place down, these kids, treating it like a council
playground, and no-one, not even the shop assistants, raising a finger to stop
them. If I weren't in such a hurry, if I didn't have a good idea of what I'd get
in return, I'd be tempted to say something, really I would...

Well, no
matter. At least I was here, and the thing to do now was find and take the best
of it home with me.

Only once
again, and how often had it happened now? I had to get my bearings, think about
why I was here. Young and innocent as a child she may be, but that didn't mean
I had come in search of a nurse's outfit or a box of Lego. That would have been
daft. I wasn't here to buy a toy, so much as something that was going to
reflect back at her the very essence of what she was, something to remind her
of her own true nature. And it certainly wasn't going to be here, amongst the
remote-control toys. So what I had to do, having somehow stepped right into the
middle of them, was get away. But even a simple move like that turned out not
to be so easy. The blasted things followed you around. I hadn't gone five steps
before a chieftain tank crashes into my ankles, nearly tripping me up. And
don't try telling me that was an accident. Not when there was some bright spark
not six feet away with a joystick laughing his head off. He knew what he was up
to all right.

The worst
thing  about wall-to-wall kids, though, was you couldn't navigate. It was no
good trying to walk in a straight line when they were there, every few feet,
crowded round some toy or other, blocking the way. Which probably explains why
after getting out of the robot displays, and passing through the computer
section (computers for kids - no comment) and travelling past the board games,
and taking in other bits and pieces on the way - I ended up right back among
the remote controls, where I'd started. There was even the same kid there
waiting for me, pushing his joystick in the direction of my feet.

Suffice it to
say, my one thought was to get out of there as fast as I could. I didn't stop
to choose a direction this time, half expecting a certain small thug to be
following me whichever way I went. But he didn't, which was one thing to be
grateful for. On the other hand it hardly looked more encouraging here. Now I
found myself walking between walls of babies' toys, or rather one hundred
different species of rattle for the nipper who has everything. All the same,
the further along the rows you went, the more the rattles and tops started to
give way to things that had faces and hands. And with that, an idea began to
dawn. In other words, something deep down began to sit up and take notice.

You see, I
was coming to the place where they kept the dolls. A few more steps, and they
were all around, and that vague inkling hardened, turned into something you
could almost describe as hope.

Now, don't
laugh, you don't have a clue of what I had in mind. Neither did I for that
matter. All I knew was underneath my vest there was a faint pitapat that told
me I was getting warm. Something was out there, out of sight, maybe, but
waiting for me. All I had to do was find it. So I slowed down, and started to
use my eyes.