David Nobbs - The Second Life of Sally Mottram

It was in fact twenty-seven minutes past eleven when she arrived home, and there was still no sign of that strange boy Ben Wardle at the Wardle home in Pomfret Crescent.

Marigold had soon come round after her panic attack, but she had flatly refused to go to the hospital. Her remark, ‘They come out of there feet first,’ had not gone down well with the doctors and nurses who had been rewarded for their generosity by being invited to the party. Councillor Stratton had pointed out that it was obvious that Marigold was unwell and was spouting careless gibberish in her embarrassment and shame. He would see that the hospital got a written apology from her asap.

Marigold had said that she felt perfectly all right now – it was just the stress of recent days, coupled with the heat of the room, that had made her faint. The only place in the world she wanted to be was in her own home. Councillor Stratton’s secretary, fairly high on champagne, had been forced to type a report stating that Marigold had been offered an ambulance to take her to the hospital, and had refused, and that she knowingly accepted responsibility for any unfortunate consequences that might possibly occur as a result of her decision. Marigold was hurt by this, contemplated refusing to sign the description of her refusal, then suddenly couldn’t be bothered and signed without protest, at exactly the same moment that, in Ellie’s bedroom, Sally Mottram stood up, making the first move in what might well be a lengthy departure.

Sally didn’t want to leave. She was terrified of entering her empty house. Ellie didn’t want her to leave. She dreaded every night. But there is a convention in social life. You just don’t call round uninvited, and stay till two in the morning. Leave she must.

By twenty to twelve she had reached almost to the front door of Ellie’s house, and the girl with the golden hair had arrived home, had slipped in silently, had tiptoed through the door of the lounge, where her mother had fallen asleep in her chair, as she did most nights, and was snoring her head off and inhaling the alcoholic fumes of her own breath. The girl was asleep within five minutes.

Ben’s father felt far from sleep. He was sitting at the kitchen table in his dressing gown, scowling, when Ben arrived home at last.

‘What time do you call this?’ his father demanded.

‘Eric,’ said Ben.

‘What?’

‘I call this time Eric,’ said Ben. ‘Though of course time is moving on, and it’s no longer Eric. Aren’t you going to ask me what it is now?’

‘No, I am not.’

‘It’s now Eric plus one.’

‘Well, I call it late.’

‘Pretty dull name, Dad, to be absolutely frank.’

‘I do my best with you, Ben.’

‘I agree. I think sometimes I’m infuriatingly infantile, to be honest. But I’ll grow up, Dad, sadly. And I don’t happen to think I’m remotely late. I am sixteen, you know. You’re so out of touch, Dad.’

‘It’s school tomorrow.’

‘School’s crap.’

‘So what have you been up to?’

‘I don’t see why I should tell you, but it’s true, you do do your best with me, so I will. Nothing. Sod all. No clubs. No films. No alcohol. No drugs. Nothing to eat.’

‘And where have you not done all this?’

‘In the allotments.’

‘The allotments?’

‘Yeah. It’s nice there.’

‘It’s cold.’

‘Yeah. Cool. We’re all obsessed with cool, aren’t we?’

‘Why is it nice in the allotments, Ben?’

‘Because it’s dark, so you can’t see Potherthwaite.’

‘You love running Potherthwaite down, don’t you?’

‘I don’t actually. I don’t enjoy it at all. I bitterly regret that I wasn’t born in a beautiful cathedral city with lovely old houses, a thriving arts scene, a Premier League football team and a beautiful estuary leading out to a warm southern sea.’

‘Better do something about it then, hadn’t you?’

‘Maybe I will. Maybe I just will.’

‘So what have you done all evening in the allotments?’

‘I’ve told you. Nothing.’

‘You must have done something.’

‘Well, yeah. Talked. About nothing, though.’

‘So you weren’t alone.’

‘Sharp, Dad. Very sharp.’

‘Don’t patronize me. We feed you, we look after you. We don’t deserve to be patronized.’

Ben actually looked shamefaced.

‘Sorry.’

There was a brief pause. Tick-tock of the kitchen clock, which was slightly askew – the cleaner had been.

‘Who were you with?’

‘Tricksy.’

His father tried so hard not to make any noise, but the very faintest sigh emerged from his mouth. Or his nose. Ben wasn’t quite sure where sighs did come from.

His parents didn’t like Tricksy. He knew that they wondered if he and Tricksy … did things together. On allotments. At night. They believed in equal marriage, although they couldn’t really think it was worth all the time and money the House of Commons had taken up with it when the sea would boil in twenty years and the oil would run out next Thursday and seven million illegal immigrants were arriving at Dover every three days – Ben’s dad was given to exaggeration. Ben had once told his dad that he exaggerated 367 times a week, and his dad hadn’t seen the joke.

They were enlightened people, but they didn’t want Ben to be gay. For his own sake, you understand. Mind you, it wasn’t just that. They didn’t even know if he was gay. They didn’t know if Tricksy was gay. They would just have been happier if their only child was showing signs of having more than one friend.

Ben had heard the sigh and it made him very angry. Earlier, when he’d been teasing his dad, it had been all right, but now, over Tricksy, he couldn’t tease. He could explode, or go to bed. He made a surprisingly sensible choice.

‘Right. I’m off. It’s bedtime.’

‘It’s past bedtime.’

‘Whose fault is that? You’ve kept me talking.’

‘Point taken. Guilty as charged.’

His dad suddenly smiled. It was entirely unexpected, and it threw Ben. He turned at the door, and said something he hadn’t said for several years, and had had no intention of saying that night.

‘Love you, Dad.’

He wished he hadn’t said this. Saying it shocked him. He realized that it was no longer true.

It was three minutes past twelve as Ben set off upstairs. Sally Mottram hadn’t reached home yet. She didn’t want to reach home. She was walking increasingly slowly along Oxford Road. There were no lights on in Dr Mallet’s, no lights on at the Sparlings’, no lights on at the Hammonds’, no lights on in Oxford Road. The council had recently started to switch the lights off at midnight, perhaps so that murderers couldn’t see their victims well enough to stab them or shoot them accurately enough to kill them.

Sally opened the gate, walked slowly up the path beside the lawn, put her key in the lock, turned it, opened the door, went in, and closed the door carefully from long habit, so as not to wake anyone, although there was no longer anyone to wake.

She decided to go straight upstairs, get it over. She didn’t know how she would find the courage to walk past where he had been. But she had to. She had to start.

She climbed the stairs at a steady pace, quaking but resolute. She tried not to look, but she had to take a quick peek, and there he … wasn’t.

She crossed the landing, opened the bedroom door, went in, and closed it.

She thought back to the strange words that she had thought to herself at the bottom of the stairs. ‘You have to start.’ What had she meant? Start what? She had no idea what she had to start. Just to live the rest of her life? Just to survive?

Or something more?