“Mara, I can’t do this now,” she says, and then I hear the crying closer to the phone as I imagine her scooping up Sophie and holding her closer to her chest. The idea of that contact, human contact filled with such warmth and protection, makes me feel like someone has grabbed my heart in their fist and lifted me off the floor.
“What can’t you do? You wanted to talk?” I say, confused. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she says, “Idid.”
“Was it something urgent? I’m here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t anymore,” she says now.
“What have I done?” I say, and with a huge, dramatic sigh, the weight of the weekend coming down hard on me now, I add, “How have I let you down, Charlie? Tell me all about it.”
“Don’t be so over-the-top,” she says.
“Why not? It’s who I am.”
“Why are you angry with me, Mara?” she replies.
“I’m not,” I say. “You’re clearly angry with me.”
“You know what? Forget it,” she says, and then, for the first time in ten years and for reasons I cannot understand, Charlie hangs up onme.
Part Three
AUGUST
25
It’s a few dayslater, and Lynn is making an impassioned speech at the Broadgate Working Man’s Club, a fiercely loyal Labor crowd, most of whom are tanked up on cheap ale and frustrated the racing has been turned down.
“Hurry the fuck up!” shouts one rather inebriated man leaning against the bar with a fistful of pork scratchings. His arm is tattooed from his Rochester City football shirt to his fingers. Skinny. Ferocious.
Lynn is commanding the stage, though. She looks out across the room and holds both her hands up.
“Lads,” she says, “I know you don’t want to miss the three thirty-five in Cheltenham—and while I’m here I recommend My Lazy Heart; he’s showing great speed on these longer courses.”
That shuts them up. They all glance down at their slips and double-check the listings in their papers, circling, with blue biros,their new tip from Lynn, Broadgate’s independent candidate for council. Lynn turns to me and winks. This is it.
Her maiden speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this community was built by people who wanted something special along our stretch of the coast,” Lynn begins, “but in the past few years, the elite have taken control of our town and turned a good community—ourcommunity—into acommodity.”
Ooh, this is a good start. I am very proud of my speech; although it is cobbled together from some I found online, there’s no way the men will know.
“City boys—and girls—with deep pockets have swooped into this stretch of the Kentish coast, bought seafront properties, converted our oldest pubs into boutique hotels, and ripped the heart and soul out of our town.”
There is a boo from one of the round standing-height tables by the stage, and I realize they are agreeing with Lynn. It’s working.
“We want progresswithoutprofit for the few,” she says, “the few from bloody London, am I right?”
She is freestyling already. Still, in here, they hate London, so there is even a whoop from the bartender.
“There are plans to sell our lovely lido and turn it into luxury apartments. Our lido, the cornerstone of Broadgate since its construction in the 1930s. If I am elected to the council I will seek funding to restore Broadgate Lido to its former glory, while updating it and making it once again the center of life here in this small town.”
No one responds. And for a moment Lynn looks around the room, looks down at her paper and then at me. She tugs on the bottom of her blazer and coughs into the microphone and frownsat the speech in front of her. She glances over at me, and I wave her over.
“Tell them you’ll seek funding for this club. Something like an upgrade to the tables or subsidies on parking,” I say.
She nods, slides back onstage.
