I think about the fact that older women are invisible. He won’t remember her, I think. But he puts a finger up, as if he has something.
‘I think I might know the one you mean. Partial to my steak and kidney, if it’s the woman I’m thinking of. She’s here most weeks.’
‘You don’t happen to know where she lives?’
It’s so unlikely, and even if he does know, he shouldn’t tell me.
‘No idea, but she usually comes by here around lunchtime.’
‘I’ll wait,’ I say.
He looks at his watch. It’s a little after ten. ‘Suit yourself. I could take a message for her, if that’s easier?’
How would I express it, in a note? I shake my head, but he’s already talking to the next customer, and I back away, wander around, always looking.
A couple of times, I see a white head in the distance, or bent over looking at something on a stall, and my breath catches, but it’s never her. I ask a couple of people, always the older ones, whether they know her name, but they shake their heads. Do they really not know her, or are they simply protecting her from this stranger who’s on the lookout? I could be anyone. I could have a score to settle.
I buy some things I haven’t had since Arthur died: camembert, blueberries, sourdough bread. Arthur used to tease me for being conservative about food, used to say you can’t live off ham sandwiches and conference pears, but he was wrong about that. You can live off so little, can avoid variety and texture. It just makes for a boring life. I don’t want to do it any more.
When it’s coming up for twelve, I go back to the pies. The man is serving someone, but he sees me and shakes his head, presumably to let me know I haven’t missed her. I hang around, choosing a small pork pie to take home and queuing up to pay. The cold is getting to me, now. I feel like it’s crept inside my bones and spread out. I give in, go back to the bus stop. I’ll try again next week, come a bit later, now I know what to expect.
I’m still cold when Julie turns up, though I’ve got the gas fire on full.
‘Nothing from Charles,’ she says.
‘Maybe he hasn’t seen it yet.’
‘Maybe.’ She gestures with her head towards my hat and gloves, which are drying on the radiator. ‘Have you been out?’
I fill her in. She offers to come with me next week, as I knew she would.
‘Exciting to have two irons in the fire, isn’t it?’ she asks, rubbing her hands together.
‘It’s still a long shot,’ I say.
Because it is. Even if I find Joan, what are the chances that she’s stayed in touch with Dot all these years? I hear Arthur’s voice, saying she knew Dot ‘a bit’。 What does that mean?
‘Have a little faith,’ Julie says.
And I’m amazed she still does, to be honest. Martin’s in the process of moving out again. And yet, she’s nothing like she was when I first knew her, when he’d just gone for the first time. She’s stronger, more capable. Still sad, but she’s been sad through it all, beneath the surface.
‘Heard anything from Erin?’ she asks. ‘She served me when I went in for teabags and cheese this morning, but there was a queue so we didn’t chat.’
I haven’t seen Erin since she left, and I’m trying to be understanding about that. She’ll have a lot on, settling back in. No news is good news, I think. If it had gone badly, she’d have been back here, I’m sure. But it hurts to think that she doesn’t need me any more, so she’s disappeared from my life. It hurts to think of myself as a stopgap more than a friend.
‘Nothing,’ I say.
‘That’s sad, after all you did for her.’
And though it’s exactly what I’ve been thinking, I’m not ready to hear her criticised, so I make excuses for her.
‘It’s a whirlwind, being seventeen,’ I say.
I hope I’m right, hope she is too busy revising for her A levels and going to parties and meeting girls to think of me. I hope she isn’t miserable, and on her own, and feeling like she outstayed her welcome.
‘It is that. Do you remember it, Mabel? All the emotions. God, I don’t miss being young.’
I do. I remember it, but unlike Julie, I do miss it. The way my body moved however and wherever I wanted it to, the way I felt like there was more life ahead than behind, the way people noticed me. Would I do it all again? I would, but I’d do it differently. Go back to those years with Dot and take it from there.
34
One week on, and it’s a different day entirely. The kind of February day where you can feel a whisper of spring on the breeze. Not here yet, but on its way. And I have Julie with me this time, which makes me feel bolder.
‘I’m back on the dating apps,’ she says.
She’s trying to put a brave face on, and I want to tell her she doesn’t have to.
‘He’s gone?’ I ask.
I turn to look at her in the bus seat next to me and she does a stiff little nod. ‘Gone.’
‘Do you wish he’d never come back?’ I’m looking for forgiveness, I suppose. But the answer is obvious, isn’t it? Surely it would have been better if he’d stayed away.
‘No,’ she says, surprising me. ‘Because I would have always wondered. But this way, he came back and it wasn’t right, so now I can move on.’
Moving on. It’s a thing people talk about these days. Next person, next love. I don’t know where they find the strength for it, the courage.
‘When I met you,’ I say, ‘I could see that you were sad, and I thought it was all about Martin, but it’s not, is it? There’s something else, too.’
She doesn’t answer at first, and when I look at her there are tears on her cheeks. I unzip my bag, rifle through for a tissue. It’s a bit dogeared, but clean. I pass it to her, and she takes it but just holds it in her hand, as though she’s not quite sure what it is, what it’s for.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it,’ she says, eventually. ‘I just don’t think I can.’
One day, she’ll be ready. And I hope I’ll be there. I wonder whether Martin recognised it, whether he knew. Whether he did what he could to fix it. Or whether he just thought it was part of her, unfixable. I reach across and put my hand over hers, and we sit like that for the rest of the journey.
‘You again,’ the pie man says. There’s a smile in his voice. ‘You must really want to find this Joan person.’
‘I do,’ I say.
And it’s just then that I see her. Quarter to twelve on a Tuesday morning, walking towards the pie stall with purpose. She spots me and puts her hand up in a wave. She has no idea, I think, that she might be the key to this mystery I’ve been puzzling over for months.
‘Hello, Mabel. No Arthur today?’
I’m thrown, so caught up with Dot. But of course, the last time I saw her, I was with Arthur. She couldn’t know that he’s gone.
‘Arthur passed away,’ I say. ‘A few months ago, now.’
Her face drains of colour and she puts a hand on my arm, and I think I can just about feel the warmth of that human touch through the layers of my blouse and cardigan and coat.