For once Annie resisted thinking sensibly. Arriving back in Cairns Road she asked the cab to wait and went inside. She emptied the housekeeping jar into her handbag and shot to the bedroom, grabbing a pink shawl in an attempt to de-funeralise her clothing. She found Stuart’s sports holdall and stuffed in a pair of corduroys, a clean white blouse and a brown pullover. Without considering why she added her wedding underwear and a red shift dress she’d never worn.
14.54 on the day Father became dust, Annie stood awaiting the fast train from Temple Meads to London Paddington. Ticket bought and platform checked, she at last allowed herself to think. Davey had after school gym club and would need fetching at 4.30pm. Standing in the broken glass of the telephone box, she dialled the office number.
‘C. J. Hole Westbury! Can I help you?’ sang a familiar voice.
‘Please don’t transfer me, Rachel.’
‘Annie? Is that you? Are you okay? Stuart’s on a –’
‘Look, Rachel’, said Annie, enjoying the forcefulness of her own voice, ‘I need you to give him a message: to meet Davey from school at half four. It’s important. Just tell him I’ve had to go away for a couple of days.’
‘What – is it the funeral Annie? Are you –?’
‘Just do that for me, will you? Half four?’ said Annie. ‘Please.’
‘Of course, I – ’ Annie replaced the receiver, satisfied that the message would get through. She’d left no note. She didn’t yet know what she wanted to say. She abandoned the seedy warmth of the phone box and breathed.
The journey passed quickly. In between reading and rereading Davey’s letters, Annie picked up a discarded Woman’s Own and became lost in other women’s dilemmas. Each one was advised to ‘follow the gut feeling’. Annie had no feeling at all in her body except that of sickness.
You’re the only girl I was ever able to talk to, he wrote. In 1963 his dad had died and his aunty returned to live with her travelling friends. But he’d done okay at school and found himself work in a jam factory. He lived in a small bed-sit by himself. If you were here it’d feel like a palace, Annie R.
Five years passed by: I still hope one day my princess’ll return to her castle… Course, you’re most probably married by now? But if you weren’t… Oh what did it mean in any case? A foolish marriage to a lifestyle she despised.
I will never stop wishing we’d run away together that day. The phrase was occupying too much space in her head, turning itself over and over. It wanted to burst out of her and scream, is it too late?
‘Oi – watch where you’re going, Miss!’ She’d been looking around for a street map, or a sympathetic face; she realized a hurried man had been attempting to manoeuvre her dithering body.
‘Sorry.’ She smiled guiltily at a face that possessed not even half the fierceness of its voice.
‘Not from round ‘ere, eh?’
‘No, I –’ She took out from her handbag one of Davey’s letters, as if she had not memorized the address. ‘I’m looking for 15A Byrne Road.’ The gruff man escorted her out of the station and signalled her directions.
It was raining in Balham too, and very dark, but she found the street quickly. Looking at the rows of London terraces, she suddenly felt out of her depth, heavily aware how crazy a thing she was doing. Would Davey want her after all this time? Would he even let her in? The last letter had been sent a good few years ago and surely he’d given up on her by now. Would he recognise the twelve-year-old child whose heart still beat for him?
She approached number eleven. The next house was boarded up and in total disrepair. Good old unlucky number thirteen, she thought. But then she saw how the superstition ran even deeper; the next house was not fifteen at all, but seventeen. As many such thirties streets, there was no number thirteen. And so it was Davey’s house that was deserted; for the second time in her life she was too late.
She sat down on the roadside doorstep. Once again she was inconsolable Annie whose world had fallen apart. The rain poured on down.
Commuters began to arrive back from city jobs. Smart suits, briefcases and black umbrellas: the London uniform. A couple passed her by, riffling for their keys. A crack of thunder woke her up and she became frantic.
‘Where’s he gone? Mr Grace. You know where he’s gone?’ The Londoners eyed her with mild interest and said nothing. They carefully stepped across the pathway so as not to be too near her.
A smartly dressed African lady with a baby strapped to her back turned into number eleven. Annie followed her.
‘Please’, she said, ‘I know you think I’m nuts. Maybe I am…’ The woman was hunting in her purse hurriedly, turning around to place herself between Annie and the child. ‘Please, Ma’am, I’m looking for Mr Grace – you know him? Can you tell me where he’s gone?’ Having finally located her keys, the lady pushed them into the lock, but then held them still.
‘You meaning Davey Grace – used to be living in this bedsit?’ she said. Annie nodded and the lady moved around to shelter her baby in the doorway. ‘You really not know?’
‘Know what?’ asked Annie, lighting up with desire at the mention of his name, eager for news whatever sort it might be. But she just hadn’t thought –
‘They say he done kill hisself. Two year ago.’ Annie froze. ‘I not believing it, mind. He did many drugs and owed much money. The Lord knows it make more sense he not mean to do this thing.’ Annie had forgotten again how to breathe.
‘You very wet’, said the lady, examining Annie from head to toe. ‘You need hot drink?’
‘No. I mean, no thank you’, said Annie, ‘I – I think I should get back.’ Picking up Stuart’s sodden holdall she moved in the direction of the station, aware of the lady’s prayerful eyes upon her until eventually the door gently shut.
On the Underground journey back to Paddington, Annie noticed an elderly woman reading a battered copy of The Boy Next Door by Enid Blyton.* Maybe Davey’s neighbour had been mistaken? Any of the mid-thirties men in the carriage might be a potential adult version of the boy-next-door she had adored. Could she really have lost her soul mate today so finally, after all these years?
But Annie could mourn all she liked. She had made her choices and she would continue to make them. The decisions Davey had made were his own and she was foolish to believe he could have made any for her; he couldn’t in ‘57 when he moved away, and he couldn’t now, dead.
Across from her, a small boy asleep on his mother’s lap reminded Annie of her own little Davey, the boy who needed her and in whose life she could still make a difference. She had to be brave, allow her heart to beat a little louder. If she was going to leave Stuart, she would have to do it for herself, not for a mythical man who’d left her behind. And if she was going to leave Stuart, she would take Davey with her. She owed it to him not to give up so easily on the life she had valued once upon a time. She would value it again.
It was nearly 1am by the time her cab pulled up outside 23 Cairns Road. The light was on in the living room, and as Annie walked up the drive she braced herself for an irate Stuart to emerge. But the house didn’t stir. Turning her key in the door, Annie felt a sudden surge of adrenalin through her nerves. Today could be a beginning after all.
Stuart sat in the living room reading the paper. He looked up when she entered and smiled strangely. ‘Everything okay, Bunny?’
‘Yes, thanks’, said Annie, not really knowing how to respond to this calm acceptance of her disappearance. But inside she remained resolute. ‘You know, I’d really like you not to call me that’, she said.
‘Alrighty’, said Stuart, shining eyes fixed on her bedraggled body. ‘By the way, thanks for the message earlier. Saved you some dinner in the oven.’ Annie put the holdall down and went out into the kitchen for a cigarette. She didn’t recognise her husband, and yet he probably didn’t recognise her right now either. She almost didn’t recognise herself. His presumption that she would return irritated her; his spooky kindness both concerned and exhilarated her.
She took the mashed potato and fish fingers he’d put by into the living room.
‘Hard day, eh Bu - er, Annie?’ said Stuart, this time without looking up.
‘Yes, I –’
‘Just next time Sweetheart, please don’t take my holdall, there’s a love. I needed it for squash.’ Annie stared at her husband for a moment.
‘Okay’, she said. Next time she would pack her own suitcase, and Davey’s too.