The Reunion
Somerset. April 1962
I first met Miriam Lambert when I was eighteen. My Nan had sent me over to help out our neighbour’s farm. She heard from Mrs. Mercer in the butchers, that Tony’s boy had measles. Our neighbour, a Mr. Borgin as I knew him, said he would pay me if I worked there for two weeks. Mr. Borgin had always scared me as a child with his shaggy beard and tiny eyes, so I agreed. The work was not hard; it mainly involved collecting the apples and loading them into crates. And there was a significant advantage; Mr. Borgin’s farm bordered that of the private, all girls’ school – a Mrs. Greystone’s. If I took the long route home, through the village I’d see a lot of them. Their hair was always neat, tied with brightly coloured ribbon and it swung from left to right in heavy curls. Most of them had creamy skin that I could fantasies about for hours. Their shirts seemed a little on the small side and clung to their chests. Most of them would smile at me, a few would tilt their heads shyly and say ‘Hello’ – I labeled these girls, the flirts. It was rather nice being so close to Mrs. Greystone’s Grammar.
Ten days into my job I was walking back to the village, hoping to see one of the flirts when I heard a cry. It sounded like a trapped animal, the farmers round here laid a lot of traps for foxes. Then I heard small moan, and I knew it was human. I could not see anything in the bushes or trees that boarded the path, but I knew there was a dip further on that was easy to trip in. I ran forward. The bicycle was the first thing I saw. It was cherry red. A couple of feet away lay a girl holding onto her ankle. She was crying, and red faced.
“Hello Miss. Can I help?”
“What’s your name?” She looked up at me and stopped crying. She had dark hair that was not nearly as neat as the other girls, but even so, even with her bloodshot eyes, I thought she was pretty. She had freckles, big eyes and a fringe. She wore a think green scarf, that none of the other girls had. “I’m Miriam.” She said. She wiped hurriedly at her face.
“I’m Clive.” I knelt and offered her my hand.
She extended her own, and we shook hands. The movement seemed to wobble her, and her position on the ground. I thought she was going to faint. I put my arm around her shoulders, and one hand under her armpit and pulled her up.
“Shall I help you back to the school?” Her dress had ridden up and I could see scratches that had torn her tights and the left side of her leg, “or I could take you to my grandmother’s house? It is much closer.”
I took Miriam back to my Nan’s, put her in the chair nearest the door, and called the doctor. Miriam had banged her head when she had fallen off her bicycle, and had ended up telling me quite a bit about herself. At first I tried not to listen because I thought it impolite but it was hard not to. I now knew that she lived in south London, and had a terrier named Franklin. I knew she was Jewish. I knew she didn’t have a boyfriend. I knew she liked ballet. She had a brother and sister, who where called Simon and Alison. I knew her favourite actor was David Niven. I knew she was going to be seventeen in five months time. She said she hated school, especially the grey pleated skirts. She liked sherbet lemons. She missed London and she wanted to study philosophy and French at Oxford like her pa. Then she’d sort of fainted. Thankfully we had almost been at the house, so it had not been too hard to drag and then manhandle her through the front door.
The doctor had said he would be twenty minutes, and to give her some water while we waited.
When I got back to her with the water, she had stopped slumping in the chair and was gazing around the hallway.
“Hello again.” She smiled up at me, “where is your grandmother?”
“She’s in the village. Come on. I’m going to move you, so we can wait for the doctor in the sitting room.”
The doctor arrived and then drove her back and I did not see her for a week or so. Actually I knew it was a week because I counted the days. I tried to work out how I could see her, but then I realised I did not know her surname.
I was finishing work at Borgin’s when she found me. She must have walked miles because her legs and skirt were covered in mud.
“I slipped over,” she said when she stood in front of me. She bent her head and fiddled with the stained skirts.
“Hello.” I could not help smiling at her.
“I found out your name from the doctor but when I called at your grandmother’s. She said I could find you here.”
“I’m glad you found me.”
“I want to thank you properly.”
I walked her back to her school and then just before we reached the light from the school’s porch way, she turned and kissed me.
*
Heathrow, September 2010
Airports and their seating areas all looked the same to Clive George, give or take the adverts that they had stuck on the walls. They all seemed to have grey carpets with the occasional red line running through them and a general lack of sunshine due to the planes that blocked out the light. The mild annoyance Clive had felt had only grown, he was now thoroughly bored of Heathrow and the whole prospect of his daughter’s wedding. What was the appeal of marrying abroad? The magazine, the newspaper and even the novel that he had brought with him, none of these were a good enough to distract him.
The lined up, back-to-back chairs were virtually empty. Clive sat close to the entrance gate, gazing hopefully up at screen. Even to him, his tapping foot was annoying. He wished he hadn’t rushed, stupid delays, but the older he got the more he worried.
There were a couple sat a few seats away, kissing and slopping all over each other. They had matching spiked hair and the both of them wore t-shirts with swear words on them.
Clive glanced past them, to the almost empty foyer, where there was a coffee shop – Costa or…. he strained his eyes; yes it was a Costa. He had considered walking to it, but that would involve standing, searching for coins, and he could already hear his limbs complaining at the thought.
A woman emerged from the lift, and Clive watched her approach, since it was better than looking at the couple or trying to read his book again. He was short sighted, so she blurred and appeared younger than was she. He saw her real age when she drew nearer and he realised she was in her sixties, like him. Her features were softened by fine lines, and obscured by darkly rimmed glasses. But the way she moved her legs almost over each other stuck out in his mind. How she swung her bag in her hand and finally the way she wrinkled up her nose a little when she saw the kissing duo, but how she also smiled a little to herself, and then he recongised her.
“Miriam?” He had got to his feet, he was sure that it was her, aged and different but still her.
She looked up and frowned. “I’m sorry how-”
He walked towards her, “It’s Clive. Don’t you recognise me?”
“Clive…”
“Clive George?”
She nodded; her face looked a little slack, probably from surprise. He drew closer to her, still taking it all in – her face, the duffle bag she had dropped and the graying tweed suit that she wore. God, it really had been years. She was so much older. Which he knew meant, that he was too. Her face was criss-crossed with lines and hung slightly at the edges. But her eyes were dark brown like he remembered, and he could see the birthmark she had close to her right eye. Her nose tilted up slightly at the end. Her hair was as curly as he remembered although far lighter than before. Nearly forty years he had missed. That’s what divorce will do to you, or rather what it had done to him.
He sat down and she joined him in the adjacent seat.
“It’s been a long time.”
“It’s good to see you.”
She took his hand, and gripped it.
“I heard that you married Louisa Gretchen.” She looked down at his other hand and noted his wedding ring. “It seems to be going well.”
“She died five years ago.”
She let go of his hand, “I’m sorry. I would have – ”
*
Somerset, May 1964.
I had not intended to propose to her. I had been seeing Miriam for nearly two years, while I trained to become an electrical and while she studied. It was today that her offer had arrived back from Oxford, in one of the largest paper envelopes I had ever seen. She had been too scared to open them on her own, so she had rushed to share it with me.
Part of me wanted them to be poor, so she would not leave Somerset and we could carry as we were. But of course she had gotten in, just like her sister and father. She still wanted to read French. All I knew about the French was that they smelt of cheese, had lost to the Germans and that we had beaten them at Waterloo. I could not think of a reason why anyone would want to study them or anything they said.
I was sure that if she left Somerset - if she left me – she would meet some glorious dandy, who smoked cigarettes, wore dapper suits (not that I knew what these were) and who caused riots in the streets. She would forget all about me, and marry one of those chaps.
Her voice had grown animated with what course she should focus on, and she moved quickly, half circling me as I sat on the rug that we had placed on the ground. Her skirt of her dress kept brushing my shoulders.
She had taken off the cream cardigan that I had brought her for her birthday, and underneath it, she wore a mint coloured dress with buttons up the back. Her neck arched as she bent to pick something up. I wanted to undo the buttons at the back of the dress. She sat down next to me on the rug, and her hand came to rest on my knee, I could feel it through the material of my trousers. It felt like no one had touched my skin for months. I stared at the back of her neck. Her hairline was not completely smooth, there were curls or even stray bits of hair that dipped down; one even reached below the collar, close to that button that I could undo so easily. I curled one of my hands around her waist; I could feel the muscles and flesh of her stomach through the thin cotton. She leant back against me, having dropped the book that she had been flicking through. I tugged at the collar of her dress, so that I could kiss her neck.
“Clive,” she liked to be kissed there, right behind the lobe.
I can see her bra strap and my hands were awkward as I began to undo the buttons. My fingers were pressed between her back and my chest, but finally the material gave way and I pushed it open.
I stopped myself and jumped to my feet, “Miriam?”
I grabbed her by the arms, and pull her into a standing position. The dress gaped open around her shoulders. I should have probably gone done on one knee but our picket blanket was behind her and it got the better of me. After all I did not have a ring. “I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay here, with me …will you marry me?”
*
Heathrow
“Where are you living now?”
“I’m still in London, but I live in Wandsworth now. It is much bigger place than,” she was thinking of the last time she had seen Clive, in her sister’s flat in Peckham just before they had gone to the lawyers. That was the last time they had spoken.
“You would not recognize the farm anymore. Louisa made so many changes.”
She actually had known his deceased wife, if only as nodding acquaintances. Louisa had been the daughter of their neighbour in the village. She was sweet dreamy girl, Miriam had always thought, when she’d thought of her at all.
“Do you want some coffee?”
“I’ll come with you,” they got to their feet. “Excuse me,” Miriam said to the young couple; who had started to untangle themselves when she spoke, “could you watch our bags?”
They had nodded, and Miriam and Clive had walked slowly down the corridor.
“So why are you going to Greece?”
“I’m off to my daughter’s wedding. She’s marrying a Greek.”
They joined the two-man queue. They both ordered tea with milk. “Let me pay,” Clive said as they reach the till, “it will make my grandson think I understand collection cards or points, or whatever they are called.”
“Thank you.”
Miriam went over and sat in one of the fudge coloured chairs, and watched him. She had always thought him so handsome. She remembered when she’d fallen off her bicycle and been lying there on the road hoping that someone would come. And then finally he had skidded down in front of her. He had been so tall, tanned and blonde and so unlike anyone else that she knew. Her school friends said he was a country bumpkin, but they’d just been envious. He had faded somewhat, his colouring had aged him and he seemed less talkative. The suit he wore hung off him, but his eyes and manner they hadn’t changed. He still looked like he might be able to throw a reasonably impressive punch. Although she had not admitted it at the time, or perhaps not correctly understood it, Miriam could now say the fact that he had looked strong had been one of the more appealing factors about Clive. That was what she had told herself after the divorce, that it was no more than the merely physical.
He placed her tea before her, “I bought sugar just in case.”
*
Somerset, September 1964.
I was standing around in front of Clive’s farmhouse greeting the guests as they arrived from the Church, feeling a little daft because I still wore my wedding dress. Clive’s nan stood behind me, whispering the names of the people I did not know in my ear, which I was kind of her. On the whole I hated Clive’s nan. She was deaf in one ear, but it was never the same one. I swear she would switch them to wind me up. She did not like me to wear heels or make up. And she was convinced the only reason Clive was marrying me, was because I was pregnant, which I was not.
When Clive had dragged me back to tell her we were going to get married she had pretended to be happy. We all stood in the living room, and she ordered him to go to the larder and find champagne. As soon as he left the room she jumped up from her chair and scurried forward. “How soon before you show?”
At first I had not understood her, well not until she had pressed her hand up against my abdomen. Her nails had dug in, as she felt the curve of my stomach.
She moved inside the house when she saw my family approaching.
My mother was first to arrive before me. She kissed me on the check, leaving behind I am quite sure, a smudge of lipstick.
“It was a lovely ceremony. You looked beautiful,” her hand wiped absently at my check. In her mindset, this was the way of things; I was the pretty one and my sister the smart one. It did not matter what we did, we still ended up in these boxes.
Her scent of almonds and talcum power was strong, and for some reason she wore a hat that was shaped like a sweet-box with bits of lace sticking out of it. She made to move past me, she held onto the back of my little brother’s shirt collar as she went. “So proud,” she said near my ear. In her heart she was conservative. My brother wriggled and nudged my dress; and mother made a pursing noise with her lips and dragged him off inside. I do not think she knew what else to do, after all she had succeeded – I was safely married, which left her with my embarrassing sister to deal with.
My sister approached me next. She was wearing black. Sometimes I found myself agreeing with my mother’s opinion of Alison. It would have been nice if she could have made an effort. “I’m so glad you made it.” I hugged her. She had written to me this summer and asked what college I was going to attend. I had to written back to say, no I was not going to Oxford, I was going to marry my lover and live in the countryside. Alison sent me a book written by Friednan and told me to read it. I think my mother must have found it because I never saw it again. Alison did not like Clive. She thought he was ‘Mellors’ type and I had asked her what that was, she said perhaps it was better that I was not going to Oxford if I did not know any D.H Lawrence.
“I like your dress.” She reached out and lifted one of the pleats of the skirt. She slowly traced the pattern of the lace, “It was our grandmother’s?”
I am sure that we are simply too close in age to get on. “Yes.” I broke away from her, “Father.” I hurried across the lawn towards my papa. I would have liked to think I was his favourite. I use to be sure of that, but when I told him I was marrying Clive, he had not seemed pleased. He had not been sad either, and he just had not said much and then he had gone back to his conservatory, without inviting me, as he normally did, to come with him. It had been a lonely summer. But he had walked me down the aisle.
“Papa –”
“I was talking to Clive, here, and I think we can help fund a trip away for you two. You tell her all about it,” he patted Clive on the shoulder and walked past me to Alison. He put his arm around her waist and neither of them looked back at me. I was left alone in the garden with my new husband.
“He said he would pay for us to go to the lakes for ten days. That is great new, isn’t it?” He looked down at me, and saw that my eyes were running. “Come on,” he had taken my hand and we had gone for a walk, across several fields and down to the duck pond, leaving all the guests and my family in the living room, to stew in their own juices I thought vindictively. I told him that my family did not approve, and I knew I should not care but I did, and that I was angry with them, why could not they see how happy we were? They were fools in my eyes for not seeing how lucky I was. Then I had cried and got snot on his waistcoat.
Clive had told me that he would make it better he swore he would. That we were each other’s family now. I believed him.
*
Heathrow
The tea was finished far sooner than either of them expected. Miriam fiddled with one of the packs of sugar.
“This is them,” Clive had fished out the embarrassing wallet that he had filled with his family photos. He pointed and flicked and mentioned names. “…. And that’s my youngest, Caroline. It’s her wedding that I’m going to.”
“She’s lovely.” The girl who Clive had indicated looked like him. In the photo her blonde hair fell down her back and she wore a pink hair band. She had freckles and a gap between her front teeth. Clive and Miriam had spent days naming and then renaming their children. She had wanted two girls and a boy, and wanted them to be as fair as Clive, even though she knew it was not likely, not with her colouring. He wanted a two boys and a girl, and from the photos Miriam could see he had got his wish. They agreed on four names just in case, she was rather glad he had not used any of them, for Louisa’s children. She wondered if he remembered that their favourite girl’s name had been Rose.
“Shall we go and check the gate?”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
They walked back silently. It still read delayed. They sat.
“Can I ask you something? If I don’t, I know I’ll regret it.”
“Alright.”
“Can you explain it to me…. Why did you leave?”
*
Somerset, November 1967
My sister, Alison ended up teaching in London. She became a doctor in women’s literature and an expert on the growing feminist movement. She wrote books and sent hers and other feminists’ books to me. One I used as a doorstop. But one I stared to read, and I liked it. It talked about the limitations of staying inside. The limits of being married. How children limited you. I tried to put it down but it was as if there was a compulsion inside me, and I had to finish it. With each page I turned I promised myself it was just to see what the author would say next, but truthfully I was addicted.
I hated the book because it criticized everything I had built up with Clive. When it said that it was foolish to take pride in your dishwasher or really any appliances because it was swallow, I could not help it I started to loathe my kitchen. When it said that my husband was the reason I could live somewhere, the reason I could buy a car… he was the reason I could define myself. It made me start to hate him. The book said it was the society’s fault, but I blamed Clive.
I threw away the book.
But the idea stayed with me. I was driving up to Wells, which was the nearest town to us, to collect Alison from the station there. I reached it and saw her get off the train. Her hair was short and dyed – like a model’s in Vogue. She wore trousers and carried her own bags, one of which was slung across her body like a man’s. Even though Clive’s nan had died in April I still wore dresses or skirts. I wore them because she said they were ladylike. But my sister looked good, and much warmer than me.
She told me as we drove back that she was sleeping with a married man. I scolded her but I was truthfully curious, I had only ever made love to Clive.
She told me about her flat, in Peckham. She had painted her bathroom blue, and there were gold tiles and thick carpets. She had had parties with people I had heard of and mother had sworn to never visit her flat.
When we got back to my house, I felt bad that it was so plain in comparison. Alison was polite, admiring of my home. She was enthusiastic about the bookends and the Aga. But even I was bored. It was not as if I lived here, nothing was really mine; it all belonged to Clive. But I spent my time just thinking about how I could improve his house. How the tacking was falling of the curtains in the living room. That the spare bed really should be replaced soon; and that the sheets needed stitching. That we needed more black shoe polish. What time I should start dinner. None of these things, none of these chores interested me, and yet I kept doing them.
The only thing I really liked doing was reading the papers. I would buy them in bulk every Sunday and read about places I could not say. I wanted to see them. And write about them. And meet the people who the correspondents referred to. I would cut out the occasional picture and stick in my diary because, even if it were just a view of a lake or an old building, it was more interesting than anything I was doing.
Finally I said this to my sister. She told I should leave Clive if only for a bit and to come with her to London. I would see things clearly there. I packed a suitcase, and I left a note saying I was sorry.
*
Heathrow
“…I did regret leaving you, but I stayed away. London then, you can’t understand how it was…how different it was. I missed you,” Miriam touched his hand for a moment. “I’m sorry I didn’t explain it very well in my letters, I suppose I didn’t know what to say.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Wait. Do you want me to say I’m sorry?”
“No–”
“I thought about coming back even after we divorced. But then you and Louisa….”
Clive got to his feet, having seen that the gates had opened; Miriam got to her feet too.
“Why don’t you sit next to me on the plane?”
