‘Les?!’
‘Well, of course, he couldn’t shave his head or anything like that– his boss would have had a fit. But in the evenings and on weekends, he spent hours spiking his hair up and he had these ripped trousers with safety pins and an old leather jacket. He looked a right sight, I can tell you.’ Betty is still laughing.
‘But you must have liked him, if you agreed to go out with him again?’
‘Well, he was Les, wasn’t he? He couldn’t hide that.’ Betty grins. ‘But it was a while before I would go anywhere but the cinema. No one could see us there in the dark. By the time I agreed to go to a disco with him, I had persuaded him to buy a nice pair of Wranglers and to stop spiking his hair. The leather jacket I always rather liked,’ Betty remembers fondly.
‘I’m sorry about what I said earlier, Betty.’ She can’t bear it if this woman thinks she was trying to be unkind to her.
‘What was that, love?’
‘About you … talking.’ Getting the words out is excruciating but Emma ploughs on. ‘Sometimes I think something in my head and when it comes out, it sounds all wrong.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about that, love. We all do it.’
‘Really?’ Emma asks, doubtfully.
‘Well, look at me rambling on about singing in the shower. As I was saying it, I was thinking, Emma doesn’t want to hear all this.’
‘Really?’ Emma repeats, with more confidence this time. She says tentatively, ‘Les gave me some interesting advice– well, he sort of made me think of it. He mentioned that one of his old bosses spoke a lot of languages and that it was what language you thought in that mattered, and so I’ve been trying to think in Spanish before I speak, but I’m struggling to get it right.’
‘Les is good at advice,’ Betty says proudly.
An image of Les as a punk comes into Emma’s head, and she laughs out loud.
‘What?!’
‘Was Lesreallya punk?’
Betty joins in the laughter. ‘He certainly was.’ Her laughter stops abruptly.
It is Emma’s turn to ask, ‘What?’
Betty lets out a long sigh. ‘I suddenly thought of Tamas.’
Emma’s own laughter drains away. ‘He mentioned his daughter to me– Greta?’
Betty’s voice loses all of its gaiety. ‘Oh, yes, dear. That was terrible for him and Berta. I’d say it was two years ago now. She died of cancer. She had only just turned twenty.’ She pauses for a while, looking out of the window. ‘I never really know how Tamas is getting on– we only ever see him for a few minutes here and there. But I do worry about him and Berta.’ She looks back at Emma. ‘I think Tamas feels he has to keep everyone’s spirits up, and I imagine that can be a little wearing. On both of them.’
Emma finds herself wondering about the unknown Berta. Maybe grief has to take its own course, find its own level. She is not surprised by Betty’s next question.
‘How did your husband die, love?’
Emma takes in a deep breath. ‘It was a heart attack.’
‘That’s so sad, love. What was he like?’
What can she possibly say? She uses the time it takes to negotiate a busy roundabout to order her thoughts. How can she distil all those years, emotions and memories into a few sentences? Let alone what has happened since.
In the end, she decides on one story to tell Betty.
‘He was the sort of man who took the vicar out and got him drunk.’
‘What?!’ Betty exclaims.
Emma smiles. ‘Yes, I know. Will wasn’t a regular church goer, but they were both keen cyclists, and so they got to know each other a little. Will noticed that everyone dumped on the vicar. You can’t say “no, I don’t want to listen to your problems” if you’re a vicar, and no one ever asked how he was or listened to him. So, Will would take him to London, where he didn’t know anyone. He never said what they talked about– probably sport– but at least the vicar could just be a man having a drink with a mate.’
It’s a good memory– it was one of the many reasons she loved her husband– but it is as much as she wants to say. So, quickly, she asks Betty another question, a question about flowers– a safe place to be.
