20 Moving

‘We’re ready then?’ asked Gerald.

‘Yes,’ Selene nodded, looking around the empty room. The removal lorry had gone five minutes before, carrying their furniture and possessions to a new home, and leaving them to say farewell to the hollow house. The echoes, as well as the conflicting emotions, made conversation difficult.

‘Bernard will be here soon. He said ten thirty.’

‘Good.’

‘Are you tired? Do you need to sit down?’

‘Not really.’

‘You could sit on the stairs.’

‘No thank you.’

They stood, in their overcoats, listening to the silence of the house. Normally that would have meant they listened to the throb of the fish tanks, the ticking of the clocks, the hum of the electrical appliances. Now the house was truly silent. Its life-support machines had been unplugged and it had stopped breathing. They heard only street noises coming from outside, but the street noises of a deserted place. Soon they heard two cars pull up at their front gate.

‘Ah, it’s Bernard. And the other car.’

Selene had never seen Bernard before. She took an instant dislike to him as soon as she saw him spring out of this sports car. He was too young. He wore a blue three-piece suit and tinted glasses. His hair, though not short, seemed to have been cut and permed into place only minutes earlier. As he walked round the front of the car he pulled down the white cuffs that, to Selene, seemed to clash so unhappily with the deep blue of his shirt front.

‘Come in, Bernard,’ said Gerald, opening the door.

‘Thank you, Gerald. You’re all set?’

‘Yes, indeed. Come in and meet Selene.’

They walked through to the front room. Without curtains, without furniture, with the wintry sun splashed onto the bare walls, the room looked strangely bright and airy, and Selene, standing in the middle of the emptiness, herself seemed to cast a pale glow.

‘Selene. Bernard Williams.’ Gerald introduced them to each other with a swish of his hand. Bernard strode easily across the floorboards, arm outstretched, and took Selene’s reluctant hand.

‘Delighted to meet you, Selene. I’ve heard so much about you.’

‘Really?’ she replied. ‘I’ve heard so little about you.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Gerald.

‘Perhaps we can put that right sometime?’ suggested Bernard.

‘Oh, there’s really no need,’ Selene said. ‘I’m sure I know all I need to know.’

There was an awkward silence. Selene, though, felt rather proud. Memories stirred of the way her mother had put people down, effortlessly, almost in a whisper. Perhaps she was, after all, with maternity looming before her, her mother’s daughter.

‘Bernard has been an enormous help,’ said Gerald. ‘Invaluable.’

‘I’ve had things made easy for me. Your experience has seen to that.’

‘Tell me then, Mr Williams. What is your part in this?’

Gerald butted in before Bernard could begin his answer. ‘We are business associates, Selene. In a firm called GAF Holdings. A small company, with property interests. Bernard has looked after our financial affairs.’

Selene smiled, wryly. ‘I see.’

‘I’m sure we should both be very grateful to him. After all, we shall be very comfortable.’

‘Oh, I’m sure,’ Selene said. ‘I’m sure the whole neighbourhood owes a lot to Mr Williams.’

Bernard stood at the window, staring out. Further down the street a van was being loaded with belongings.

‘The street was already run down. It took very little to give it a final push.’

‘It is right, then, to push?’

‘I don’t know about right. I do know that everyone will now be better housed.’

‘Oh, of course. That will be progress.’

‘Things have to move on.’

‘And people, so it seems.’

‘But of course. We all have to move with the times.’

‘Or else be moved by them.’

‘Life is about making adjustments, making the right moves at the right time.’

‘Wonderful, I’m sure, if you can choose the moves. But not if you are caught in a game of chance.’

Bernard looked at her. ‘Chance? We’re all in it. It’s the same game for all of us.’

‘Yes,’ Selene conceded. ‘I think you are right. But you manage to win the game.’

Bernard smiled, in agreement. Gerald stood between them, puzzled by the exchange, like a spectator at a tennis match unable to see the ball.

‘Anyway,’ said Bernard. ‘Your car is waiting. He’s a careful driver, but it’s a long journey so you’d best be on your way.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Gerald. ‘It will be night before we get there.’

‘I’ve arranged a stop for lunch en route.’

‘Thank you. Will you be down next week?’

‘I’ll probably run down on Wednesday, and we can clear a few things up then.’

‘Good. We’ll expect you.’

Gerald stood with his hands in his overcoat pockets, shoulders hunched, a woollen scarf knotted at his neck. He nodded to himself, unsure how to put an end to things. He raised his eyebrows at Selene, looking for help.

‘I must have one last look around,’ she said. ‘Just to say goodbye properly.’

‘I’ll come too. Join us, Bernard, please do.’

So the three of them stumped up the stairs. The empty house rang with footsteps as they moved from room to room. Selene’s bedroom window looked down the street. Here they paused, gazing out at the houses on either side, the looming factory on the right, the boarded up shop, the pub on the corner; the van, still being loaded by two men further down the road; occasional cars crossing their vision as they were driven down Malvern Road, outside; the tree in the garden, whose branches threw a pattern across the whole scene.

‘Desolate, isn’t it?’ said Bernard.

‘We’ve seen better days in this street.’

‘Oh, it’s easy to run it down,’ said Selene. ‘As you know. But it’s been home.’

‘For a long time too.’

‘It’s always easy to find fault. People do, without trying. But we should try to find things to praise, otherwise too much is needlessly destroyed.’

She led them from room to room, not in search of things to praise, but in demonstration. The house glowed in the sunlight, it rang beneath their footsteps, it stood erect and solid for them all to admire.

‘Here, Gerald, do you remember it was here, in this box room, that I used to sleep when I was young. But often, having nightmares, I would creep into your room to sleep, because mother and father kept their door locked at night.’

They went downstairs. Selene even looked under the stairs. She wanted to see everything, for she would never see it again. At last it was finished.

‘We must be going,’ said Gerald, embarrassed. The house, stripped of so much, had been full of secrets and suppressed memories. Too much lay exposed.

Selene drew a tissue from her coat pocket and blew her nose. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve found it all…it’s been very moving. Oh dear. I didn’t intend that.’

But they all laughed. It was a relief. Selene and Gerald got into the back of the saloon car that had been waiting for them outside, and without further ceremony they were driven out of Ophelia Street, with only Bernard to watch them go, giving a cursory wave.

That’s the lot then, Joe,’ said Keith, rubbing his hands where they were sore.

‘Thanks a lot, Keith. I’ll just get Edie.’

Joe disappeared into his flat for the last time. The postman dropped two envelopes through the letterbox, and Keith picked them up. One was for the Wheatleys, the other was for himself. He opened his own, and put the other on the first step of the staircase. It was a Christmas card from his mother and father, which he read and put back into its envelope. Christmas, dreaded Christmas, was just over a week away.

Joe and Edie came out from their flat. ‘Well, that’s it, we’re off.’

‘Good luck,’ said Keith.

‘Come and see us,’ said Joe. ‘You know where we are.’

‘Yes, come and see us, Keith,’ added Edie.

‘I will do. Settle in first.’

They all shook hands.

‘Look after yourself, Keith. You know what I mean.’

‘Ah well, you know.’ Keith shrugged.

‘You’ve not been too good. Try and get out more.’

‘You know how it is. I’ve got a bit run down. I’ll be all right.’

‘Hope you move soon, Keith,’ said Edie.

‘I’ll have to, won’t I? Or the roof ’ll start falling on me.’

Joe and Edie got into the cab of their van, and Joe started up the engine. ‘I’ll send on your post,’ Keith called out. The van pulled away, turning left at the corner into Malvern Road, and, except for Keith and except for me, the street was deserted.

I owe you an explanation. But I’m not sure I can give it. I have no answers. I had none then and now, with the wisdom supposedly acquired through a further thirty years of experience, I can add very little. We all have a tendency to romanticise the past, particularly to romanticise our own past, and perhaps that tendency runs more strongly in me. But what, you might ask, was romantic about Ophelia Street and its people?

I can answer only through Keith Russell. In those final days of the street’s decline we were drawn together, perhaps even thrown together because we were then the two remaining residents. If you live in a place under siege, you cling together, you find comfort in the continuing presence of another person, you feel the need to protect the existence of that other person. We moved from nodding to each other, to brief inconsequential exchanges, to soul-baring conversations which drifted deep into the early hours of morning. I grew to like Keith and I thought he liked me, but I came to know him well enough to know that he always held affection in reserve. It would be the last thing to be surrendered.

Mainly we talked about Ophelia Street. Without ever having seemed to attempt wide acquaintance, Keith knew a surprising amount about most of the people in the street. Because of my journalism, I knew a lot too. So we pooled our knowledge, and we found ourselves rounding out a full picture. Of each other as well as of others.

‘I envy you your name,’ said Keith. ‘I always wanted that kind of name, one you can change to be whatever you want. You can be Mike to be friendly, Mick to be one of the boys. Or Micky when you’re a little kid. Then if you want to be really grown up you’re suddenly a Michael. That’s the way I see you, it won’t be long now.’

‘How d’you mean?’ I asked.

‘I can see you now.’ This is Michael Constantine, ITV News, reporting from Peking. Standing there with explosions all around you and not blinking an eye….’

It was unimaginable then that the changing world would transmute a name as familiar as Peking into Beijing. I cannot decide if this makes the world a more or a less exotic place to be. Just as supermarkets have introduced into our everyday life fruits as unfamiliar then as Beijing - kiwi, mango, sharon, lychee, passion, guava, physalis. I remember offering Keith some fruit but it could only have been an orange or an apple.

‘Haven’t you got anything to drink? I could do with a drink?’

Some people thought Keith was aggressive. And I suppose he was. But there was more to it than that, or perhaps less. He meant less by his aggression than others read into it. It was mainly, I came to understand, a defensive mechanism. It was also Keith’s way to get you to reveal more of yourself to him than you might feel comfortable with. And that’s why people were disconcerted by him. All this was reinforced, of course, by the physical details. There was the thinning blond hair, whose thinness he almost challenged you to notice, and the voice which spat words out, as if he hated having them hanging around too long in his mouth.

For a drink I got out a wine box from my food cupboard. Wine boxes were new at the time, and cheap. I couldn’t afford proper wine then, and wine boxes offered a supply day by day, glass by glass, of exotic fruit in alcoholic form. But, in Keith’s terms, this was a poncey drink.

‘Haven’t you got any beer? What is it?’

It was late by then, turned eleven at night, the pubs and off-licenses were shut. It was the wine box or nothing. Keith accepted the wine box, and we drank our cheap white wine from tumblers.

Drink loosened our tongues. We exchanged stories about the people whose lives had each touched ours. Joe. Edie. Gerald, Selene, Robert. Elaine, Derek, Eileen. Ernie. And Brenda, of course, and David. I became Keith’s therapist, listening to whatever he wanted to say, deciding for myself what was true and what was not, and filling the gaps in between. Not that Keith would see it like that. Or not that he would say it like that. In the end, I achieved the almost impossible, coaxing him to tell me more about himself than he managed to get me to say about myself. And that, I guess, became a later source of resentment.

At least, in those long evenings of wine boxes and party beer cans, we managed to move towards each other emotionally. We made contact, we came to understand each other and not feel completely betrayed by our mutual understanding. Whether it did us any good is another matter, but it passed the time between the old and the new, between the familiar places we were leaving together and the unknown territories we were heading towards in our separate ways.