Flashback

She is standing in the midst of a small group just outside the crematorium. I’m late and they have just come out. I’m relieved that I have not missed them completely.

She’s dressed in black of course. She often was. Her hair is, as always, long, but now an even silver-grey. Her dark eyes still flash, though today they are tear-red. As I approach, I can make out one daughter, Melanie, I think. The spitting image of her mother at that age. She has that trademark jet black hair, long, straight and shiny. I haven’t seen her since she was a toxic teenager ‘In the tunnel’, we called it. Now she must be, gosh, almost in her fifties. There’s something familiar about one of the other people in the cluster but nothing immediately comes to mind.

Molly has just seen me approaching. I’m embarrassed because in my rush, I didn’t even change into something more respectable but I only saw the message this morning, nestled for some reason among junk emails. I’m in jeans. Clean but still jeans. She turns slightly from the group and holds out an arm in invitation. ‘I’m so pleased you came,’ she says, her voice slightly hoarse, after we have released each other from a long, firm hug.

‘You remember Melanie, of course, and Ben.’

Yes, of course, Ben, that’s who it is. Like all of us, he looks older. Much. Maybe the years have not been kind to him.

I explain why I am so late. ‘You didn’t miss anything,’ Melanie says, leaning towards me, her mother wincing slightly. ‘The celebrant tried her best but she didn’t know him. She was only fed the good bits and…’

‘You’ll come back to the house,’ Molly interrupts, halting her daughter’s bitterness, still there, even after all these years.

Melanie asks if I know the way. I tell her my phone probably does.

They have set off ahead of me because I’m fiddling with my mobile, trying to find out where I can buy some flowers. Lush Lillies, Petal Perfect or The Flower Pot. Florists are like hair salons, competing for the corniest name.

I have been reminiscing all the way down in the car and I still am.

I first meet Tony at college. He’s been at the grammar school. Able, articulate, attractive. I have exhausted the secondary modern. Average, amiable, acquiescent. Molly is already his girlfriend, and if I’m honest, we have really stayed friends because of her. I don’t always like him that much, but I always like her. A lot. A group of us meet most weekends at one of our homes. Quite often Ben’s. It’s flooding back. His parents had that easy-going approach that always made me feel welcome, if they were still up when we got back from the pub. Music is put on, not too loud, and the girls dance, sometimes me too. But mostly we play cards.

Three-card brag is a much scaled-down version of poker, simple and easy enough to learn and harmless enough if you only play for pennies. One of us usually hits a winning streak at some stage and ends up in the small hours a few quid ahead, but never more than a round of drinks might cost. But suddenly, for the first time, I am wary of Tony. Molly, her dancing over, has bought in to the card session too, a purse-full of coins emptied in front of her. ‘Deal me in,’ she smiles. And we see it. He cheats her out of the winnings. Not a fortune but a decent pot. We all notice it but she seems oblivious. Trusting him when he tells her ‘two aces’. We know it is a lie. There are three other aces open on the table. He has lied about his un-shown brag. Cheated his own girl. We talk about it later, stunned in disbelief. On the scale of things, it is a small incident perhaps, but my skin creeps with the realisation. A bit later, Ben tells Molly that we’re all sure she’d won that pot. ‘That’s Tony,’ she laughs.

And now I’m off on another daydream. I’ve recently got a job on a paper. It’s my twenty-first. Key-to-the-door and all that stuff. Mum and Dad have stayed at Gran’s house to keep out of the way. They’ve given me a Conway Stewart fountain pen, engraved with my initials to celebrate my birthday. Gold plated nib.

We all dance a lot, talk a lot, drink a lot, smoke. Quite a few are staying over. Tony and Molly are in one of the upstairs rooms. Most of us are in sleeping bags on the floor. And now it is morning and Molly is cooking us all a big fry up. Tony’s still in bed. We have opened all the windows to clear the air. Ben is here, too. We clean up pretty well. No complaints when my parents get back. I vaguely wonder about finding my new pen.

And now their wedding. Molly is already pregnant but only she and Tony know yet. Tony is working for the BBC. He’s got this job linking sports reporting with news. We see him on TV. He is very good. Becoming a ‘name’.

And what about that time he and I meet at a race-course? Kempton Park. He is recognised by everyone. They make a fuss of him. I think he gambles quite heavily that day.

We’ve always stayed in touch, the odd get-together, a Christmas card, phone-call out of the blue. Helen and Molly get on OK but she doesn’t like Tony much. Says he made a pass at her. I thought he would. I should have warned her, shouldn’t I.

They have two daughters, same as us. Melanie and Bethany. I used to refer to them as the ‘four ees’ – Ton-ee, Moll-ee, etc: get it?

Actually, I haven’t seen Beth yet today. Maybe she’ll be at the house. I’ve got the address but I’ve not been to where they live now. They were always around this part of Surrey, downsized when the girls left home.

I can tell more or less where no. 85 is when I get there because of the cluster of cars. Gravel drive; generous between-wars semi; window blinds. I don’t need to ring the bell because the front door has been left ajar. Molly is in the kitchen. I give her the roses and a kiss on the cheek. She is busying herself with some food prep. A woman in a wheelchair comes in after me and says my name. It’s Beth. It has to be. In a wheelchair? She catches my confusion as easily as a professional outfielder. ‘Didn’t Mum tell you about my MS?’ she says, making light of it, no hint of reproach. ‘Beth, I didn’t…’ I start, but she knows how to deal with people’s embarrassment. ‘I have good days and bad days. They’re bad at present. Probably won’t last.’

I remember Bethany as the able, younger daughter. Tony’s features, love of sport, played netball at county level. Married an accountant, if I’m not mistaken. Can’t remember anything else, really. Helen probably would have, she was better at that than me. Not any more. Off with the fairies, poor woman. In a home at 73! Beth asks after Helen – she’s heard from Molly about her Alzheimer’s. ‘It must be awful for you both,’ she says.

We go through into the lounge which is full of people, a few sitting but most of us standing. I didn’t see that many at the crematorium. Maybe they had already left. There are quite a few I recognise from the telly – newsreaders, Jack Hazeldene, who does those popular documentaries, Sally Garner who used to front up everything. Ben is leaning against the bookcase, next to the fireplace, talking to someone I don’t recognise. I hover and he smiles at me and introduces me to ‘Doug’. I listen in for a minute or two before Doug sidles off for a refill and Ben and I face each other, the bond now remembered.

‘I couldn’t recall your name,’ I admit.

‘I know. It must be all of forty years,’ he says. ‘Sad to meet up like this.’

‘Molly’s looking good, considering,’ I offer.

‘She always does,’ says Ben. We were both in her fan club. Still are.

We chat for a bit. He’s still ‘keeping one hand in’ to a bit of legal work. I wish I’d remembered he was a solicitor. He could have done our wills. Made a better job of it than our local firm.

‘Do you remember when we went to watch Liverpool?’ he reminds me. It’s coming back to me now. Three of us in the car. Tony gets the tickets. Wimbledon in the FA Cup. First time I’ve been to Anfield.

‘Tony never made it to the match, did he?’ I recall.

‘Linford Christie broke a world record that day. Tony was on that story.’

But what I remember most is the shock I feel when I see a woman coming out of Tony’s room at the Adelphi at night. The way she is dressed and the look on her face tells it all. We’ve always known he is a terrible flirt but seeing it there in the flesh is very different.

I remind Ben of it. He shrugs it off in the way only a lawyer can after he has handled so many divorces. ‘That’s Tony for you,’ he says matter-of-factly. We’re still talking about him as if he’s around.

And now Molly approaches with a serving plate of ‘things’. Ben takes a couple. I decline.

Dutifully she offers it around the room, calm, serene, in control. It is as if she’s had years to get used to being a widow. Actually, Tony’s demise was anything but predicted. His car came off the road at that bend on the hill. The one we all know to take carefully. Nothing wrong with the car. He had just been over-doing it. A case of the Tiger Woods. The similarities don’t end there, either. Like Tiger, there had been ‘another woman’ in his life for quite some time. None of us is really surprised. Perhaps not even Molly.

But this is not how I, we, any of us need to remember Tony. He could be kind and generous. It is he and Molly and the girls who squeeze up in that house and take in a family of Vietnamese refugees. Not for a week or a month. They stay for several years before they get on their feet. Tony pays for the garage and two rooms to be converted. Fights the council when he falls foul of the planners.

Tony who has rung me almost every day, sometimes from abroad, when Helen is first diagnosed. Tony who has sent me a case, a whole case of a dozen bottles of very good Pomerol, when he hears I’ve won a Press award. Tony who buys me a flight and a ticket to the Monaco Grand Prix for my fiftieth, comes with me, gets drunk with me, eats the best food France can offer, and who pours me back on the plane home. Generous with his time as well as his purse.

I have wormed my way out into the garden now where the two sisters are talking under a large tree, still in flower. Melanie’s eyes are watery as she talks about ‘dad, the love rat’. Beth and I listen quietly, a daughter’s pain cascading down like the pink petals of the cherry. I try to offer some words of comfort, but she’s not having it. ‘He even made a pass at one of my schoolfriends,’ she spits. ‘Did he think I wouldn’t know?’

‘Some men…’ I start, not quite knowing what I’m going to say next.

‘Some men should be castrated,’ she interrupts, perhaps unaware of the irony. As often is the case, Bethany is left in limbo, aware of her sister’s anger, conflicted with her own more nuanced feelings towards her father and the sadness of the day.

‘You could have married my mum,’ Melanie says accusingly. It is a thought I have quietly harboured and suppressed for half a century now.

Regrets, I have a few…

We wander back inside, Beth’s wheels making scars in the soft lawn. More scars… Still more.

There’s a pile of coats in one of the downstairs rooms and I’m digging through it to find my donkey jacket. Yes, even now, in the twenty-first century I still wear one – part of the uniform of the 70s and 80s. I find it and put it on, looking for Molly to say my goodbyes.

I’m not the first to leave, but certainly not the last. I have said my bit to both daughters and made a tentative arrangement with Ben… maybe something will happen. Then Molly is behind me, something in her hand. We hug again for a long time before she passes me a metal cigar tube sealed with tape. ‘Tony always said you were to have this,’ she says. ‘It has been in his desk for years.’ We hug again. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ I offer. And now, suddenly, the sadness of the day catches me unawares and I fill up, fiddling in my pocket for car keys.

I am in the car, sitting behind the wheel, trying to compose myself. I’m not ready, or safe, to drive just yet. I take the cigar tube from my pocket and slowly peel back the tape, brittle and no longer sticky. Carefully, I unscrew the cap and tip out the contents into my other hand, expecting of course a flaking Havana cigar. What is this? A Conway Stewart fountain pen, engraved with my initials…