The house smells of stale smoke and strangers. The police left a little while ago, Bill shortly after. He asked if I needed him to stay, bless him. He looked so relieved when I said no. Now it's just me, sitting in the dark in the empty parlour.
I get up to make a drink, pick up his mug from the draining board, pour milk into it before I even realise what I'm doing. I can't seem to put it back on the shelf, but finishing the job, making his milky tea and leaving it to cool in the mug seems even worse. I can't go on and I can't go back.
Instead, I sit at the kitchen table, in his chair. Looking at the world from his point of view, seeing what he saw. The scarred table top looks like the surface of the moon; Old burn marks for craters, the criss cross marks of the bread knife, jagged teeth tearing deeply into the old teak. I lie my hands on the raw wood and stare at them for an hour. Maybe I fall asleep. Maybe not. The hour passes. My hands age. The skin tightens, the knuckles swell and thicken as the fingers lose their nimble dexterity. It doesn't show on the outside. I stare at them untill my eyes sting, but I don't see it. No-one could. But with every hour that passes - every minute and second - we get closer to the end. To the last walk into the night.
Mustn't dwell on it. Got to keep thinking positive thoughts. They don't know for certain. Think it through: They only found his jacket. The Legion is nowhere near the canal. There's no need for him to go anywhere near it. There was only a little blood. Dad was in the army. Old soldiers don't just fall into the canal.
I know; He was attacked on his way to The Legion. Someone attacked him, they fought and dad got a black eye and a bloody nose and lost his coat. His attacker ran away with it, went down to the canal to rifle through the pockets and throw anything incriminating into the water. Any moment now, dad will come staggering through the front door, singing his awful old songs, shivering in his shirtsleeves, wiping his nose on a scrap of bloody tissue and trying to roll a cigarette with one hand. He'll shout at me for sitting in his chair, and if he ever finds out that Bill sat in the parlour holding my hand then I'll really be for it, and it would all be worth it just to hear his voice. Even if he lapsed into German, which just makes him ever more angry because I don't understand it...
Except it's almost three O'clock and dad would never stay out later than midnight, even on a weekend. The Legion closes at half past eleven, and even in his worst states, it would never take him half an hour to make his way home. It's not like he's got any friends to visit. I don't think he ever did, even back in Germany.
I notice that a couple of my fingernails are starting to bleed. I've been scratching the table top; there are tiny splinters in my fingertips, under the nails. I can't feel them, but I can see them. Everything's numb. I bet I could take the bread knife and...
I see where the thought is heading and push my chair away from the table, legs scraping on the bare quarry tiles, screeching loudly in the silent night. I stand and head back into the parlour. The policeman smoked those terrible liquorice paper cheroots. The room reeks of them, the wet, twisted butts sitting in the ashtray look like miniature dog poops. I think of tiny poodles walking around the glass dish, doing their business, and I can't hold my laughter in any longer. After a good five minutes I realize that it wasn't laughter. I look up and find that I'm kneeling on the hearth rug, my face wet from tears which have soaked the seat of dad's armchair. I stood here, on this same spot, when I was a little girl, clinging to his trouser leg, listening to his stories. I didn't understand a fraction of what he was trying to tell me. Now I never will.
Back then, when I looked up at him, I saw a giant, his head in the clouds, with a booming voice and great rough hands that would scoop me up and lift me into the smoky nimbus which hung around his shoulders. We were in a different world up there. I can still smell the strange home mixed tobacco he bought from the old woman in Cooper Street. Sometimes there was a trace of cherrywood, sometimes something more like tar, sweet and rich or thick and black, all tangled up with the smell of his hair oil, the axle grease ground into his hands and the occasional nip of whiskey on his breath.
I crawl up onto the armchair, close my eyes and press my face against the worn material, breathing deeply. I can almost believe that he's still here. I can smell him, feel his warmth. I press myself into the indentation of his form on the cushions, trying not to think of the fact that it's a hollow, a negative space formed by his absence. For now it's enough to get me through the night.
I sleep, finally. The dreams respect my boundaries, for one night only. No silver stars, no burning fields, no steppenwolves or soldiers. Just oblivion. Peace. I sleep in the space carved out by my father's life, the echo of his arms around me, the ghost of his breath on my face. And then I wake to a new world.
The sun is rising and my father is dead.
Showing posts with label Sarah Schnitzler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarah Schnitzler. Show all posts
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Saturday, 20 June 2009
The Word Is...
Hearing the front door slam, Sarah slipped into the front bedroom and peered through the smoke-tinged net curtains that hung over the grimy window. Her father was already at the front gate, shuffling out into the night. He had a flat cap clamped down tightly upon his head, a ratty old scarf wound around the lower half of his face, leaving only the hawk nose and the dull eyes exposed to the cold. It was a safe assumption that he was out for the night then; He wouldn't wrap up for a simple trip to the corner shop, but The Legion was right across town.
Sarah fought the urge to race straight to her own room and waited until the old man lit a cigarette and drifted to the end of the road, around the corner and out of sight. As soon as he disappeared from view, she ran across the narrow landing and pulled her tiny record player from its hiding place beneath her bed. She was running late already, and she still had to change, but there was always time for music, especially when she had the house to herself and no need to worry about the volume levels. Rubber Soul was on the top of her record pile, as it had been for the last few months, and she once again slid the shiny black disc from its stiff paper sleeve and lowered it reverentially onto the spindle. On her knees, she wiped the stylus with a square of yellow cotton to remove even the faintest trace of grit which might damage the precious LP, then lowered the needle into the groove with practised ease. She still tensed herself against the harsh crackle of a mis-cue, but there was only the slightest hiss as the diamond stylus slid into the silent valley between tracks. Then the driving beat and throbbing baseline of her favourite cut began to reverberate in the plain plaster echo chamber of her room. She turned the volume up as high as it would go without distorting and began to bop her head in time to the music, singing along as best she could.
Have you heard, love?
It was hard to keep up, and if she tried to mimic John's snarling disdain for too long she started to cough, but something about the song caught her up and dragged her along in its wake. This was real music, the purest, strangest sounds around and the exact polar opposite of the maudlin old German love songs her father murmured to himself when he staggered home from The Legion, when he'd had one too many and got to thinking about Sarah's mother. For a moment there, kneeling before the red leatherette altar, Sarah had a momentary glimpse into her father's mind; For the first time, she understood the way the half-remembered melody could lift him out of the world and carry him back to a better time. It shook her, a shock of recognition; In her own way, Sarah knew, she was just like him, spending six days of every week in stasis, holding on for those few hours when they could live, when the music set them both free. The rest of the time they were trapped in the house together, back to back, her father with his gaze fixed firmly on the past, Sarah looking ahead.
That was the difference, she decided. She was facing the future. Her father's hatred of the modern world, with its long-haired singers and coloured actors on the telly, it was all part of his desire to hold the past as tightly as he could, to claw his way back into it. Always back. Back to the war, to the time when he had a job, a purpose and a wife, to the days when he did more than smoke an endless series of cigarettes and wait for Friday nights. Sarah was heading in the other direction, straining for a tomorrow which hung just beyond her grasp, racing towards the future at thirty three revolutions a minute.
Deep in thought, her forehead dipping towards the threadbare carpet, Sarah felt rather than heard the music, a pulsating beacon in the centre of her mind. Lamplight on the bridge of thoughts as the way opened once more. She rolled to one side, sprawling on the floor, gazing up at the cracked ceiling, focussed at some point far beyond it. A blink of her eyes and the point was internalized, deep within. Another blink flipped the perspective and put the point somewhere out beyond the stars, and in an instant she was travelling with it. She felt the familiar weight on her chest, the heavy presence of a Mara pushing her physical form back even as it drew her soul upwards and out. Her muscles locked in place, a hypnagogic paralysis that would restrain and protect her body until she returned to it. Drifting away, she glanced down at herself, appraising and examining her sleeping self from a fresh vantage point, then turned and headed out into the higher realms.
A knocking at the front door brought her back with a bump. Her mind reeled in the backwash of departing dreams; A silver star, a red forest, the zones of alienation and isolation, an earnest young man sitting on a lonely hillside clutching a book of poetry. The moments drifted apart and she pushed up onto her elbows, looking around uncertainly. Had she been asleep? The steady thrrrp... thrrrp... thrrrp... of the stylus at the end of the LP suggested that at least ten minutes had passed, and her back ached as if she had been lying on the floor for a good deal longer. The knocking came again, louder and more insistent, and she struggled to her feet and made her way down to the hall. She should never have allowed herself to be tempted by the music, she thought. She was already running late when her father had left, and then she went and fell asleep! She knew that it would be Bill at the door, ready to give her a dressing down for standing him up, and she almost turned and crept back up the stairs. Then the hammering began again, and she heard an unfamiliar voice calling her name.
With growing trepidation, she slipped the chain onto the door, then opened it a crack and peered out into the darkness.
"Yes?"
The policeman standing on the doorstep looked down at her with mute despondency. His colleague held up a warrant card which might have been cut from the back of a cornflake packet for all the attention she paid it.
"May we come in miss? I'm afraid we have some rather bad news about your father..."
Sarah fought the urge to race straight to her own room and waited until the old man lit a cigarette and drifted to the end of the road, around the corner and out of sight. As soon as he disappeared from view, she ran across the narrow landing and pulled her tiny record player from its hiding place beneath her bed. She was running late already, and she still had to change, but there was always time for music, especially when she had the house to herself and no need to worry about the volume levels. Rubber Soul was on the top of her record pile, as it had been for the last few months, and she once again slid the shiny black disc from its stiff paper sleeve and lowered it reverentially onto the spindle. On her knees, she wiped the stylus with a square of yellow cotton to remove even the faintest trace of grit which might damage the precious LP, then lowered the needle into the groove with practised ease. She still tensed herself against the harsh crackle of a mis-cue, but there was only the slightest hiss as the diamond stylus slid into the silent valley between tracks. Then the driving beat and throbbing baseline of her favourite cut began to reverberate in the plain plaster echo chamber of her room. She turned the volume up as high as it would go without distorting and began to bop her head in time to the music, singing along as best she could.
Have you heard, love?
It was hard to keep up, and if she tried to mimic John's snarling disdain for too long she started to cough, but something about the song caught her up and dragged her along in its wake. This was real music, the purest, strangest sounds around and the exact polar opposite of the maudlin old German love songs her father murmured to himself when he staggered home from The Legion, when he'd had one too many and got to thinking about Sarah's mother. For a moment there, kneeling before the red leatherette altar, Sarah had a momentary glimpse into her father's mind; For the first time, she understood the way the half-remembered melody could lift him out of the world and carry him back to a better time. It shook her, a shock of recognition; In her own way, Sarah knew, she was just like him, spending six days of every week in stasis, holding on for those few hours when they could live, when the music set them both free. The rest of the time they were trapped in the house together, back to back, her father with his gaze fixed firmly on the past, Sarah looking ahead.
That was the difference, she decided. She was facing the future. Her father's hatred of the modern world, with its long-haired singers and coloured actors on the telly, it was all part of his desire to hold the past as tightly as he could, to claw his way back into it. Always back. Back to the war, to the time when he had a job, a purpose and a wife, to the days when he did more than smoke an endless series of cigarettes and wait for Friday nights. Sarah was heading in the other direction, straining for a tomorrow which hung just beyond her grasp, racing towards the future at thirty three revolutions a minute.
Deep in thought, her forehead dipping towards the threadbare carpet, Sarah felt rather than heard the music, a pulsating beacon in the centre of her mind. Lamplight on the bridge of thoughts as the way opened once more. She rolled to one side, sprawling on the floor, gazing up at the cracked ceiling, focussed at some point far beyond it. A blink of her eyes and the point was internalized, deep within. Another blink flipped the perspective and put the point somewhere out beyond the stars, and in an instant she was travelling with it. She felt the familiar weight on her chest, the heavy presence of a Mara pushing her physical form back even as it drew her soul upwards and out. Her muscles locked in place, a hypnagogic paralysis that would restrain and protect her body until she returned to it. Drifting away, she glanced down at herself, appraising and examining her sleeping self from a fresh vantage point, then turned and headed out into the higher realms.
A knocking at the front door brought her back with a bump. Her mind reeled in the backwash of departing dreams; A silver star, a red forest, the zones of alienation and isolation, an earnest young man sitting on a lonely hillside clutching a book of poetry. The moments drifted apart and she pushed up onto her elbows, looking around uncertainly. Had she been asleep? The steady thrrrp... thrrrp... thrrrp... of the stylus at the end of the LP suggested that at least ten minutes had passed, and her back ached as if she had been lying on the floor for a good deal longer. The knocking came again, louder and more insistent, and she struggled to her feet and made her way down to the hall. She should never have allowed herself to be tempted by the music, she thought. She was already running late when her father had left, and then she went and fell asleep! She knew that it would be Bill at the door, ready to give her a dressing down for standing him up, and she almost turned and crept back up the stairs. Then the hammering began again, and she heard an unfamiliar voice calling her name.
With growing trepidation, she slipped the chain onto the door, then opened it a crack and peered out into the darkness.
"Yes?"
The policeman standing on the doorstep looked down at her with mute despondency. His colleague held up a warrant card which might have been cut from the back of a cornflake packet for all the attention she paid it.
"May we come in miss? I'm afraid we have some rather bad news about your father..."
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Another Girl
Sitting on a bench in the shadow of the war memorial, Sarah pulled her mac tight against the early evening breeze and lit another cigarette. She had been waiting half an hour now, and there was still no sign of Bill. She thought about giving up and going home, but the idea of one more night in her room playing her 45s so quietly that her father wouldn't get annoyed seemed worse than being stood up. At least on Fridays he went to the Legion so she could increase the volume enough to hear the words.
But this was a dreary Tuesday night, and her father would be sitting up at the kitchen table like always, listening to the World Service news and rolling his cigarettes one after another, lining them up like little soldiers, a regiment to be consigned to the flames at five minute intervals. So she sat out by the cenotaph, smoking her own shop-bought fags and waiting for Bill.
What made it worse was the fact that she didn't even know where he was taking her; If she had, she could have gone there and waited for him. She checked her watch and mentally crossed off another activity from the list of possibilities. Half past seven - Too late for the main feature at The Imperial. That left the danceclub or the coffee bar at the church hall. The excitement was positively underwhelming. Not for the first time, she wondered if she really belonged with Bill. They had been together for so long now that it just seemed like a habit instead of a relationship. She knew that the films weren't real; She was no Doris Day, and Bill wouldn't pass for Rock Hudson even at a distance in the dead of night, but shouldn't there be more than this? Wasn't there a world where people lived real lives, full of excitement and passion, aspiring to something more than a job at the plant? Sometimes, she could almost feel it, reaching out to her, drawing her to the gateway. Every Saturday, when she got paid and the plant let out at lunchtime, she would head straight to Woollies and then rush home with three or four fragile plastic discs under her coat, hidden away from her father who would want to double her keep if he found out how much of her wages went on records. Smuggling the precious 45s and long players up to her room, she would pull the tiny record player out from beneath her bed, feeling the static tingle in her fingers as she opened the lurid red leatherette case. It was the greatest sadness of her life that she had to wait a whole six days before she could move the volume dial up beyond two, but even so, she would drop the needle into the groove and roll onto her back, lying with her head next to the speaker, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling as she strained to listen to the latest tune. Sometimes, if it was an LP, she would gaze at the cover and imagine the faces smiling at her, singing the songs just for her. She read the song titles over and over, reciting them like magic words; Help, The Night Before, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away... They were more than songs, more than words; They were a key to another place.
"Penny for 'em?"
Sarah jumped, startled out of her thoughts by the voice behind her. She craned her neck to see who it was and groaned inwardly when she recognised the intruder.
"Hello Cynthia."
Cynthia Wilson smiled and tottered around to join her on the bench, dropping heavily beside her and letting out a belch and a drunken giggle.
"Whoops a daisie. Y'alright duck? You were well away then. Your fag's burnt down to the cork. Got another?"
Sarah looked at the filter which she still held, forgotten, then tossed it into the gutter and took out a new pack. Cynthia watched with great interest as she lit one, then beamed at her as she passed the pack across.
"Ta love. So what were you thinking about then? Must have been good - I shouted you from across the road and you didn't budge."
"I'm not sure. Just daydreaming about music."
She shrugged, then held out a hand for her cigarettes, which Cynthia was about to slip into her handbag. Cyn smiled and handed them over with a sheepish grin..
"Sorry, forget my head next. You really like that stuff don't you? I don't know how you tell them apart. That Freddy and the Peacemakers fella looks just like Buddy Holly to me."
Sarah winced at the mistake, but she knew there was no point correcting her; Cyn had always been the same, ever since they had been in infants school together. She wasn't stupid, just scatterbrained, far more interested in her own happiness than anything else going on around her. They had been the best of friends up until Sarah got into the Grammar School and Cyn didn't, and they had gradually drifted into different worlds in the six years since. Sarah occasionally saw her about town, usually from a distance, and she sometimes wondered if their paths would have continued along similar lines if she hadn't done so well on her eleven plus. Seeing the stain on Cynthia's blouse, the clumsily re-applied lipstick and the cigarette burn on her far too short skirt, she gave silent thanks that she had done so well.
Cynthia waved a hand in front of her face.
"You're off again!"
"Sorry. I'm just really tired. I was up half the night listening to the new Beatles LP."
"Now there's a bloke I could go for, that John Lemon. I know a girl who worked in the Cavern for a while and she says she went into the dressing room by mistake one night while he was in there. The sort of mistake any woman would make if she had the chance, right? Apparently, he's got the biggest John Thomas you've ever seen!"
Sarah turned crimson at the thought of her greatest idol in the altogether. She wasn't the sort of girl Cyn had turned out to be, but it wasn't exactly the first time she had pictured it.
"Oh my God! What did she do?"
Cynthia leered.
"She didn't do anything, but he turned round to her and said, have yer come to change the barrel, or d'yer just want a look at the pump?"
The two girls erupted into gales of laughter, and for a moment or two, they were almost best friends again. Then Cynthia straightened up and smoothed out her blouse, ran her fingers through her peroxide-brittle hair and sighed, looking up at the cenotaph standing stark against the darkening sky.
"It's a shame, what happened. People just change. They leave, move away, start new lives, you know?"
Sarah nodded soberly, thinking of how true that was, how one test result had dictated the course of their lives. She naturally assumed that Cyn was talking about them.
"That doesn't have to be the end of things though, does it?" she asked.
"No, but you wind up on different sides of the world, it gets harder and harder to get in touch, to apologise. You live your life, seeing where it's all going wrong, seeing what your old friends are up to, and you can't get it back on track. You can't get back to where you used to be. And then one day, on your own doorstep, it ends. No more second chances."
She smiled ruefully, took a final drag on her cigarette, then held it up to watch the line of orange burn down to the filter.
"I know what people think of me. What you think of me."
Sarah started to protest, but Cynthia shushed her with a wave of her hand and carried on.
"Don't pretend that you don't; I know you too well for that. You pity me, and you wonder how I could have wound up like this. You wonder what it would take to put you in my place, and it scares you that it might be so easy. But it's not so bad, being me. All the choices you make for the best possible reasons, all the decisions that are forced on you by other people... You just have to try and live with them the best you can. This world wants to grind us all down, force us all into little boxes with our names on - Mother, Father, Soldier, Slag. But names aren't who we are or what we are. I'm not proud of some of the things I've done or some of the men I've been with, but it's alright. Whatever gets you through the night. Remember that Sarah. You might think you understand it now, but give it a few years and it will start to make a whole new kind of sense."
She flicked the fag butt into the gutter, then stood up and pulled the hem of her skirt down to somewhere approaching modesty. She placed a hand on Sarah's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "Take care love. I'll see you later."
Then she turned away and tottered off across the road on her wobbly heels, weaving slightly as she made her way through the saloon doors of The Feathers, off to look for someone to buy her a nightcap. Sara sat in stunned silence, watching her go, then just staring at the empty street until Bill finally turned up. He was an hour late, full of beer and apologies, but for once, Sarah couldn't bring herself to blame him. For now, it was enough that he was there.
Notes
But this was a dreary Tuesday night, and her father would be sitting up at the kitchen table like always, listening to the World Service news and rolling his cigarettes one after another, lining them up like little soldiers, a regiment to be consigned to the flames at five minute intervals. So she sat out by the cenotaph, smoking her own shop-bought fags and waiting for Bill.
What made it worse was the fact that she didn't even know where he was taking her; If she had, she could have gone there and waited for him. She checked her watch and mentally crossed off another activity from the list of possibilities. Half past seven - Too late for the main feature at The Imperial. That left the danceclub or the coffee bar at the church hall. The excitement was positively underwhelming. Not for the first time, she wondered if she really belonged with Bill. They had been together for so long now that it just seemed like a habit instead of a relationship. She knew that the films weren't real; She was no Doris Day, and Bill wouldn't pass for Rock Hudson even at a distance in the dead of night, but shouldn't there be more than this? Wasn't there a world where people lived real lives, full of excitement and passion, aspiring to something more than a job at the plant? Sometimes, she could almost feel it, reaching out to her, drawing her to the gateway. Every Saturday, when she got paid and the plant let out at lunchtime, she would head straight to Woollies and then rush home with three or four fragile plastic discs under her coat, hidden away from her father who would want to double her keep if he found out how much of her wages went on records. Smuggling the precious 45s and long players up to her room, she would pull the tiny record player out from beneath her bed, feeling the static tingle in her fingers as she opened the lurid red leatherette case. It was the greatest sadness of her life that she had to wait a whole six days before she could move the volume dial up beyond two, but even so, she would drop the needle into the groove and roll onto her back, lying with her head next to the speaker, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling as she strained to listen to the latest tune. Sometimes, if it was an LP, she would gaze at the cover and imagine the faces smiling at her, singing the songs just for her. She read the song titles over and over, reciting them like magic words; Help, The Night Before, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away... They were more than songs, more than words; They were a key to another place.
"Penny for 'em?"
Sarah jumped, startled out of her thoughts by the voice behind her. She craned her neck to see who it was and groaned inwardly when she recognised the intruder.
"Hello Cynthia."
Cynthia Wilson smiled and tottered around to join her on the bench, dropping heavily beside her and letting out a belch and a drunken giggle.
"Whoops a daisie. Y'alright duck? You were well away then. Your fag's burnt down to the cork. Got another?"
Sarah looked at the filter which she still held, forgotten, then tossed it into the gutter and took out a new pack. Cynthia watched with great interest as she lit one, then beamed at her as she passed the pack across.
"Ta love. So what were you thinking about then? Must have been good - I shouted you from across the road and you didn't budge."
"I'm not sure. Just daydreaming about music."
She shrugged, then held out a hand for her cigarettes, which Cynthia was about to slip into her handbag. Cyn smiled and handed them over with a sheepish grin..
"Sorry, forget my head next. You really like that stuff don't you? I don't know how you tell them apart. That Freddy and the Peacemakers fella looks just like Buddy Holly to me."
Sarah winced at the mistake, but she knew there was no point correcting her; Cyn had always been the same, ever since they had been in infants school together. She wasn't stupid, just scatterbrained, far more interested in her own happiness than anything else going on around her. They had been the best of friends up until Sarah got into the Grammar School and Cyn didn't, and they had gradually drifted into different worlds in the six years since. Sarah occasionally saw her about town, usually from a distance, and she sometimes wondered if their paths would have continued along similar lines if she hadn't done so well on her eleven plus. Seeing the stain on Cynthia's blouse, the clumsily re-applied lipstick and the cigarette burn on her far too short skirt, she gave silent thanks that she had done so well.
Cynthia waved a hand in front of her face.
"You're off again!"
"Sorry. I'm just really tired. I was up half the night listening to the new Beatles LP."
"Now there's a bloke I could go for, that John Lemon. I know a girl who worked in the Cavern for a while and she says she went into the dressing room by mistake one night while he was in there. The sort of mistake any woman would make if she had the chance, right? Apparently, he's got the biggest John Thomas you've ever seen!"
Sarah turned crimson at the thought of her greatest idol in the altogether. She wasn't the sort of girl Cyn had turned out to be, but it wasn't exactly the first time she had pictured it.
"Oh my God! What did she do?"
Cynthia leered.
"She didn't do anything, but he turned round to her and said, have yer come to change the barrel, or d'yer just want a look at the pump?"
The two girls erupted into gales of laughter, and for a moment or two, they were almost best friends again. Then Cynthia straightened up and smoothed out her blouse, ran her fingers through her peroxide-brittle hair and sighed, looking up at the cenotaph standing stark against the darkening sky.
"It's a shame, what happened. People just change. They leave, move away, start new lives, you know?"
Sarah nodded soberly, thinking of how true that was, how one test result had dictated the course of their lives. She naturally assumed that Cyn was talking about them.
"That doesn't have to be the end of things though, does it?" she asked.
"No, but you wind up on different sides of the world, it gets harder and harder to get in touch, to apologise. You live your life, seeing where it's all going wrong, seeing what your old friends are up to, and you can't get it back on track. You can't get back to where you used to be. And then one day, on your own doorstep, it ends. No more second chances."
She smiled ruefully, took a final drag on her cigarette, then held it up to watch the line of orange burn down to the filter.
"I know what people think of me. What you think of me."
Sarah started to protest, but Cynthia shushed her with a wave of her hand and carried on.
"Don't pretend that you don't; I know you too well for that. You pity me, and you wonder how I could have wound up like this. You wonder what it would take to put you in my place, and it scares you that it might be so easy. But it's not so bad, being me. All the choices you make for the best possible reasons, all the decisions that are forced on you by other people... You just have to try and live with them the best you can. This world wants to grind us all down, force us all into little boxes with our names on - Mother, Father, Soldier, Slag. But names aren't who we are or what we are. I'm not proud of some of the things I've done or some of the men I've been with, but it's alright. Whatever gets you through the night. Remember that Sarah. You might think you understand it now, but give it a few years and it will start to make a whole new kind of sense."
She flicked the fag butt into the gutter, then stood up and pulled the hem of her skirt down to somewhere approaching modesty. She placed a hand on Sarah's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "Take care love. I'll see you later."
Then she turned away and tottered off across the road on her wobbly heels, weaving slightly as she made her way through the saloon doors of The Feathers, off to look for someone to buy her a nightcap. Sara sat in stunned silence, watching her go, then just staring at the empty street until Bill finally turned up. He was an hour late, full of beer and apologies, but for once, Sarah couldn't bring herself to blame him. For now, it was enough that he was there.
Notes
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