The Forever Girl (29 page)

“How do you get a new man?” she asked Ella one evening when she was cleaning up the breakfast plates that Ella had left unwashed.

Ella laughed. “You joking?”

“No, I’m not.”

Ella shrugged. “How did you meet the last one?”

“He came up to me and told me his name,” she said. “It was at a party.”

“There you are. Parties.”

“If you get invited to them. What if you don’t?”

“Internet dating,” said Ella. “Haven’t you seen the figures? Apparently that’s where everybody meets these days. You go on an internet dating site and you say something such as ‘likes eating out’ or ‘into jazz’ or whatever, and then you get your replies. You take it from there.”

Clover frowned. “I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

“Then you’ll have to go to a pub or a coffee bar and sit around.
Somebody will come and talk to you if you’re there long enough. It’s easy. All you have to do is look as if you’re looking for a man. Then they come to you. That’s the way it works.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Then you’re not going to get a new man, Clover.” She paused. “Do you really think you
need
one? Men can be overrated, you know. Okay, they may be useful for one or two things – sometimes – but not for the whole weekend.”

They both laughed. Then Ella said, “But isn’t there one in the background? I thought there was some guy somewhere you were keen on. Didn’t you tell me once?”

“There was,” said Clover. “Not any more.”

“Is he with somebody else?”

“Probably. Yes, I think he is.”

Ella looked up at the ceiling. “Frankly I don’t think that’s always an obstacle – know what I mean?”

“You mean: detach him?”

“Exactly. Prise him away. Steal him.”

“I couldn’t,” said Clover.

“Then you’re never going to get a man, Clover. We’ll be old maids together. How about it? We can stay here until we’re fifty, bickering. We can go to the cinema and pilates classes together. We can talk about the men we knew a long time ago and about what happened to them.”

“No thanks.”

“Then you’re going to have to be more proactive. Steal him – the one you always liked.” She grinned. “Trap him. Or …”

“Or what?”

“Or spend the rest of your life regretting what you didn’t do. That’s how life is for lots of people, you know – it’s made up of
things they failed to do because they were too …” And here she gave Clover a searching look. “They were too timid.”

“Is that my problem?”

“Could be. I’m going to say it once more: steal him, this … what’s his name?”

“James.”

“Sounds sexy,” said Ella. “Steal him.”

She wrote to her father: “I know that you said I could use the money for anything – and I really appreciate that. But I thought I’d just check up with you, in case you thought that I was throwing your money around. Everything is sorted out for Nepal, but it’s not going to happen for a while yet – not until February, which still seems like a long way away – I’m counting the days. I’ve been working, as you know, in a delicatessen. It’s been quite busy recently but I’m enjoying it. They’re paying me just above minimum wage, which is not meanness on their part but because they’ve just started the business and they don’t have much money themselves. I don’t mind. What I earn there more than covers the rent for my room in the flat.

“What I wanted to tell you is that I want to spend some of the money on a ticket to Australia. I want to go to Melbourne for a few weeks – maybe three, I think. I’ve met a girl here who’s with a drama company doing something on the Fringe – it seems like the whole world is here at the moment. She’s a member of a group called Two-Handed Theatre and they’re putting on a couple of plays at the Fringe. She’s invited me to come to see her in Melbourne when they go back there in a couple of weeks and I thought: I don’t get many invitations to Australia. So I thought I’d go. I can get a ticket through Singapore for under a thousand,
and since you’ve been so generous I can afford it. But I didn’t want you to think I was being … what’s the word – profligate? Yes, profligate. Is that okay with you?”

It was. David wrote back: “The whole point of a gap year is that you can do things you can’t do at any other stage in your life. Of course you should go to Australia. Going there has been on my list for years but I’ve never done it. And that’s another point to a gap year – it gives you the chance to do things that your parents would have liked to do but have never had the time to fit in. Like visiting Australia. Or Nepal. Or anywhere, really.”

The invitation from Frieda, the Australian actress, had been repeated more than once and so Clover knew that it was not one of those casual “you must come and see me” invitations that nobody really intends to be taken seriously. Frieda had been coming in for morning coffee since Two-Handed Theatre had first arrived for their run on the Fringe, and Clover had engaged her in conversation. Frieda was seven or eight years older than she was, but she liked the Australian’s easy manner and enthusiasm; Edinburgh, said Frieda, was a box of chocolates that she intended to consume entirely before returning to Melbourne. Her attitude to her show also intrigued Clover; while most Fringe performers had about them an earnest intensity, founded, perhaps, on their conviction that their contribution to the Fringe was on the cusp of artistic greatness, Frieda was realistic. “We’re enjoying ourselves,” she said. “I’m not sure if the audience is, but we are.” And on her own ability: “I can’t really act, you know. I sort of play myself all the time but since the audience has never met me before they think I’m acting. It seems to work.”

After the second invitation, Clover said, “I could come to Melbourne, you know.”

“Great. Come.”

“For a few weeks? If I came for a few weeks? Just to see the place.”

This would have been the time for Frieda to claim to be too busy, to say that she was going to be elsewhere, but she did not. Instead, she suggested that Clover could stay in the converted fire station that she shared with five of her friends. “Contribute something to the rent, and you’re in. You get one shelf in a fridge. Not to sleep in, you know; you get a sort of cupboard for that, but it’s not bad. It’s quite a big cupboard. You don’t exactly get a bed – you get what used to be a bed and is now a sort of mattress on the floor of the cupboard. But as fire stations go, it’s not all that uncomfortable.”

“It sounds irresistible. I’ll come.”

Frieda seemed genuinely pleased. “I’ll show you round Melbourne. We may have a show on – you can help with front of house if you like.” She paused, looking around the delicatessen. “What about this job? Will they hold it for you?”

Clover explained that it was not an issue, as she thought that the owners could manage without her or could easily enough find somebody else. And that proved to be the case.

“It’s a relief,” the husband said.

“It’s not that we don’t appreciate what you do,” the wife explained. “We do, but paying you is difficult. We just can’t manage any more. We’ll get somebody more part time.”

She confirmed the ticket with the travel agent, arranging to arrive a couple of days after Frieda would have returned home.

“One thing interests me,” said Frieda. “Why are you coming? Sorry to sound rude – and I’m really pleased that you’re doing it – it’s just that I wondered why.” She gestured to the street
outside. “This place is so exciting. It’s like living on an opera set. Why Melbourne?”

Clover hesitated. She had not admitted it to herself yet, and now she was being asked directly. If she found it easy enough to deceive herself, it was not so easy to deceive this new friend of hers, with her trusting openness.

“There’s somebody I’d like to see there. I suppose that’s why.”

Frieda smiled. “A boy?”

Clover nodded.

“I guessed as much,” said Frieda. “I thought there was something.”

“But people can want to go to Melbourne for plenty of reasons.”

“Oh yes,” said Frieda. “That’s true enough. But it wasn’t just the fact that you wanted to go to Melbourne. It’s something about you. There was something in your manner that made me think …”

Clover waited for her to complete her sentence. She found the observation rather unsettling.

“A certain – how shall I put it? Sadness. Yes, I think that’s it. You know, when I saw you first – here in this place, operating that coffee thing over there with all that steam and hissing and so on, I thought: that girl’s sad about something.”

Clover looked away.

“I’m sorry if this embarrasses you,” said Frieda. “I’ll shut up, if you like. We don’t like to hear about ourselves. Or at least most of us don’t. It disturbs our self-image because how other people see us is often wildly different from how we see ourselves.” She shuddered. “The truth can be a bit creepy, I think.”

“I don’t know …”

“Oh yes, it can be. Most of us have a persona we project to the outside world – it’s the part of us they see. And then there’s the bit behind that, which is the bit that remains with us when we turn the lights out. You know what it is? It’s what people used to call the soul. But now, we’re not meant to have souls.” She smiled. “It’s
really
old-fashioned to have a soul, Clover. But there’s this … this
thing
inside us that’s the core of what we are – what we are individually, that is. And in your case …”

Clover waited. “In my case …”

“In your case, that bit is sad. It’s sad because it’s incomplete. It’s seen something that it wants more than anything else in the world, and it can’t get it.” She paused. “Okay, I sound like a New Age freak going on about auras and so on. But it
is
there, you know. That sadness. I’m sorry, but it’s there.”

“Maybe.”

“Good. You’re admitting it. Plenty of people won’t.”

“I don’t want to conceal anything from you.”

“That’s good to hear. But listen Clover – this boy, tell me about him.”

The owners were looking at her. Conversations with the customers were not discouraged, but there was work to be done.

“I can’t now,” said Clover. “But there’s this boy I loved, you see. I’ve loved him ever since I was six, I think – or thereabouts.”

Frieda beamed. “That’s really romantic. I just love that sort of story. Eternal love. Enduring love. It’s great. We need more of that. Roll it on. Roll it on.” Her smile faded. “But he …”

Clover nodded.

“He’s in love with somebody else?” Frieda probed.

“I don’t know.”

This brought surprise. “You don’t know? How come? Haven’t
you asked him?”

“No. Not really.”

Frieda looked incredulous. “What’s wrong with you people? Are you so uptight? Is this something to do with being English?”

“I’m not English,” said Clover. “My father’s from here originally and my mother’s American.”

“Then you’ve no excuse for being so English,” retorted Frieda. “Listen, so this guy’s in Melbourne?”

“Yes. He moved there quite recently. His parents live in Australia now – his mother’s Australian.”

“But he’s in Melbourne, right? This … what do you call him?”

“James.”

“This James is in Melbourne. Well … well, that’s where you need to be, Clover. Welcome to the Old Fire Station.” She fixed Clover with an intent look. “Do you need some help with this? I think you might.”

“Thanks, but I don’t see how you could help me.”

“You don’t? Well, you’ll see.”

The following morning, Frieda showed her a picture of the Old Fire Station. “Friendly building, isn’t it?”

Clover said that she liked the look of it.

“That’s where the fire engines came out,” said Frieda, pointing to a large window. “It used to be a door. And we’ve still got the pole inside, you know, that the firemen used to slide down to get to the engines, but nobody slides any more. Somebody did when he was drunk, though. He forgot to hold on. You have to grip the pole quite tightly as you go down, or you go down too fast. He broke his ankle.” She paused. “I can’t believe you’re coming, Clover. It’s going to be great.”

‘Thank you.”

“And that little problem with that boy. We’ll deal with that. We’ll get it sorted.”

She swallowed. I’ve made a mistake, she thought. She wanted to say:
You can’t sort things out just like that
, but there was something about her new friend that made her feel almost helpless.

Frieda reached out and patted Clover’s arm affectionately. “Still sad?”

Clover shook her head – an automatic response to an intrusive question.

“I think you are,” said Frieda. “But we can sort that out.”

She noticed Clover’s expression. “You don’t believe me?” she said, smiling. “You don’t believe I can sort boys out?”

30

“Did you think it would be like this?” asked Frieda. “Is this how you saw the fire station? Of course, I showed you that picture, didn’t I – when we were in Edinburgh. But reality’s always a bit different, isn’t it?” She made a face. “Thank God for that too. When I look at a photograph of myself I think: reality’s different, so no worries.”

Somebody had created a door as well as a window within the large double door at the front of the building. This led into the hall in which Clover now found herself standing.

“Is this where the fire engines …” she began.

Frieda lifted Clover’s backpack from the concrete floor. “Yes. That wall over there blocks off the main garage – and it’s all changed, of course. But this is where they parked them. Actual red fire engines – as advertised. Big hoses. Bells – the works.” She was an actress, and it seemed she could not resist. “The calls came through.
Big blaze over at the Convent of the Good Shepherd
.” She imitated the nasal tones of a telephone voice. “Nuns on fire! Come quick! Girls escaping left right and centre!”

Clover stared at her.

“Only joking, Clover.”

“Of course.”

“We did a play about those nuns, you see. They took in girls thought to be in moral danger. That was the expression. Girls in moral danger, and I played one of them on stage. Most of them weren’t in real moral danger – whatever that is. Having affairs with boys, perhaps – off to the convent with you. I’d love a bit more moral danger in my own life.”