Chapter 22
Lettie hadn’t slept well enough to face the onslaught that she expected. She had lain awake playing scenarios over and over in her mind. In one, she stomped up the stairs and calmly asked Alan to leave. In another she was quietly eating her breakfast in the conservatory whilst reading a broadsheet and pausing only to peer over it for long enough to make him feel small and remove himself from her house. In the third, she slunk out of the house and headed for the beach so that she missed him altogether.
The night was cold and it narked her that Alan was snuggled under her duvet, whilst she was cramped up on the sofa, covered only by a throw. Her jeans were uncomfortable and therefore she had removed them and wrapped them round her feet for warmth. Lettie lay there and listened to the church clock slowly counting its way through the night in quarter hour chunks. She’d always enjoyed the sound of the bells, but this time they were bells portending doom and she felt helpless – lying there not knowing what to do for the best, but knowing that it would be to her disadvantage to be lying there when he eventually awoke.
But that is just what did happen, and the row that ensued the next morning left her shaking and in emotional tatters. Waking alone, Alan was angry and felt perfectly justified in showing it. He crashed down the stairs and into the sitting room waking her from her eventual deep sleep. She was curled up on the sofa, wishing she had kept her jeans on so that at least she could stand and not be at such a physical disadvantage.
The row started with, “What the hell are you doing here?” moved through, “You ask me back here and then you change your mind? What game are you playing, Lettie?” and ended with, “You’d better just decide what the hell you want. You can’t mess people around like this, Lettie. Think of other people for a change will you? You’re just so bloody selfish; get a bloody grip.”
As in accordance with her usual behaviour, simply sitting there, the throw defensively pulled up to her chin, provoked exasperated anger in him. Not getting any response from her, particularly one that he felt he deserved, he looked about him in his frustration for a suitable vent. The shelf that had once held heavy glass bottles of sherbet lemons and Foxes’ Glacier Mints now just carried some of Lettie’s books. They swept off the shelf with ease and Alan found he was able to get his arm behind them and launch them quite a distance.
They landed on Lettie and around her, and the arms she put up pitifully to shield her head painfully deflected a couple onto the floor at her side. Not being able to find the right words to express his anger, Alan lifted his arms in exasperation, squeezed out another grunt of rage and stormed out of the room.
He grabbed his jacket, stomped down the hall and wrenched the front door open. He slammed it as hard as he possibly could behind him and the crash reverberated through the house. Lettie dissolved into shaken tears – of frustration as much as of despair and fear. And that is how Lisa found her twenty minutes later, her face swollen and puffy with a violet bruise emerging from where an encyclopaedia had hit her. She had the blanket pulled tightly up to her chin and her hands were still shaking. Books lay scattered around her like monster confetti.
Dougie was feeling lucky. Even the north-facing kitchen seemed to let the sun in that morning and he sang along as Tom Petty’s “American Girl” blasted from the radio – although Tom himself may not have been particularly impressed with the tone of the harmonies. He scooped the collection of old coffee cups from around the house, some with just cold coffee, some with cultures growing on them and a couple that had been hidden for so long that even the mould had dried up and gone away. The remnants of last night’s pizza were swept into Alfie’s bowl and, being a Labrador, he crunched greedily through them, regardless of whether he was actually hungry or not.
Dougie passed the mirror in the sitting room and stopped his singing and gazed at his reflection, an old cornflake bowl and spoon still in his hand. What would she see? Would she like it or would she just walk quietly by as had been their joking agreement. But, many a true word was said in jest and suddenly Doug was scared and tried to see himself as others did. Black, wavy, coarse hair with a nice smattering of grey in it. He rubbed his free hand over it – a bit bushy perhaps? Yes: barber’s.
The eyes, yes, everyone commented on his eyes. Deep blue with thick dark lashes that all his aunties said were wasted on a man. Not tonight they won’t be, he thought, I need every bit of help I can get. Eyebrows – bushy. Actually, perhaps eyebrow would be more accurate? Should he do something about it – or would that be too vain?
Dumping the bowl and spoon he went to the bathroom and rooted around in the cabinet that contained his grooming and first aid kit: razor, shaving foam, an old comb, a packet of out of date paracetamol and some tweezers. Taking the tweezers in his large hands, he pulled a few of the worst offenders from the bridge of his nose. The activity brought tears to his eyes and, as had many men before him, he wondered in admiration at the pain barrier of the many women to whom such plucking and waxing is routine. Perhaps in hindsight she’d think him vain; he would be better to present himself as he truly was, but just a bit cleaner and neater.
Doug settled himself in the comfortable leather chair at the barber’s and said, “No. Not the usual, thank you. Do it properly this time. And please ask if I want something for the weekend, Sir.” Hairy Twm was the most unlikely person in Dougie’s school year to have gone into hairdressing, being big, burly and not a naturally well-kempt man, but he was good at his job and therefore his checked shirts and saggy jeans did not put off his loyal clientele. Doug relaxed back as he was lowered to the right level, prepared to catch up with the local gossip and coerced into providing every facet of his own. Hairy Twm obviously already knew everything about Doug’s life – probably more than Doug did – but didn’t feel it was his place to let on.
Time in Twm’s chair was always pleasant and it didn’t matter that above the neat shelves, nineteen seventies’ bamboo wallpaper was peeling quietly from the walls, or that the pictures of the models had nineteen eighties hairdos and rolled up suit sleeves. This was Hairy Twm’s and you got what you paid for. A haircut. What was the need for any additional trimmings?
Doug stopped on the way home at the chemist to buy hand cream. Previous girlfriends had insisted on it, but the habit of applying it tended to dry up, usually about the same time as the conversation did. It would never get rid of the rough pads of leathery skin that had grown on his hands over the years, to protect them from the heavy chainsaw, but it would demonstrate good intentions.
His hands were definitely those of a labourer, swollen and clumsy, but strong. However, he’d always felt that it wasn’t the softness of the hands that counted with a woman, but the softness of the man attached to them. And he could be soft – if he were allowed to be. Anyone who had taken any notice of Doug that morning would have detected an air of sprightliness about the usually quiet man…a lightness of step and a cheeky smile ready to break out, even though he was walking alone.
Reaching home, he checked his watch, plenty of the time for his shit, shower and shave routine, and then he’d be ready. His new shirt hung on the back of the door, the creases from the packaging carefully ironed out. His trousers were clean and his boots polished so that they appeared nearly new – although necessarily retaining some essential character.
His work partner, Rob, and Rob’s wife, Mandy, called round to wish Doug luck and to snigger at his nervousness on their way into town. They handed him first one condom, then Rob said, “Oh, go on – you’d better have two,” and Mandy added, as per the obvious rehearsal, “Have you not heard his reputation, no, he needs at least three.”
“And, no, they don’t go over your bollocks as well, mate,” said Rob and all three laughed at the memory of Wayne Roberts who’d done just that and had then foolishly confided in one of his fellow sixth formers to ask why sex had to be so painful.
Rob ruffled Dougie’s newly cropped hair, Mandy straightened it again and pretended to spit on her hanky and polish his face clean. “And to think they say,” said Rob, “that you can’t polish a turd.” They laughed their good wishes and walked away, hand in hand. Dougie laughed, waved his hand in farewell and closed the door.
The sound of the door very nearly drowned out the bleep, bleep of his phone, indicating the arrival of a text message, but not quite. His heart leapt, as it always did at the sound; no one ever sent him text messages, or indeed ever phoned his mobile, apart from Lettie. In fact, it had been her that suggested he get one and now it rarely left his side.
Yes, it was her. His large thumbs carefully worked their way through the menu to read the message about five times slower than it would take the average teenager.
“Dougie – sorry, something has happened. Tonight is off. I can’t explain, but am so sorry. Take care of yourself, Lettie. I am now turning my phone off; please don’t contact me.”
Dougie sat down slowly, his heart thumping, and read it again, but it still said the same: “Please don’t contact me.” So, was that it? Over before it began? He felt sick to his stomach as he contemplated what it meant. No more Lettie. No more having something to look forward to, someone to receive post from – no one had ever sent him nice things in the post before, and now it was over. There was no ambiguity in that message. All over.
He took a deep sigh and tossed the phone casually onto the table and didn’t care that it slid across the polished surface and dropped onto the tiled floor. Standing wearily up, he saw his ironed shirt hanging, mocking him, on the back of the door and he batted it gently to the floor. He tiredly put away the old iron and the rickety ironing board, picked up his jacket and went resignedly out of the door.
He didn’t know that Lettie was sat weeping in the small park by the Leper’s Well, a pathetic figure of sorrow amongst the beautiful flowers. He didn’t know that her feelings of shame and inadequacy were too great for her to handle meeting him. He wasn’t to know that she felt so hideously ugly with her bruised cheek, eyes puffy from crying and so little sleep that she felt he would hate her anyway. He just felt rejection. He’d felt it before, he knew the signs and, to him, the signs were as clear as day.