Meeting Lydia Read online

  Meeting

  Lydia

  Meeting

  Lydia

  Linda MacDonald

  Copyright © 2011 Linda MacDonald

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador

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  Kibworth Beauchamp

  Leicester LE8 0LQ, UK

  Tel: (+44) 116 279 2299

  Fax: (+44) 116 279 2277

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  ISBN 978 1848768 574

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset in 10.5pt Aldine by Troubador Publishing Ltd, Leicester, UK

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  To Mum and Dad

  Acknowledgements

  I owe a debt of gratitude to the following friends and colleagues: Marie Carver-Hughes for her critical reading of the first and final drafts and encouragement to continue throughout; Brian Hurn for his commentary, editing, and enthusiasm; Pat Hewitson for her theological input; Elizabeth Brett for Latin consultancy; and Anne Jackson, Sally Nadori, Marion Foster, Steve Tingle, Alan Czarkowski and Robert Bewley, each for their unique contributions.

  The following students whom I have had the pleasure of teaching also deserve special thanks: Deyanse Along, Bola Bakare, Ashley Clarke, Elizabeth Dehinbo, James Ferguson, Nancy Freeman, Henry Isamade, Damian Kent, Zibi Nyathe, Miriam Okerejior, Connie Roche, Teresa Sam and my U6 classes of 2010-2011. The chapters depicting students are dedicated to the memory of Jenny Spain.

  The Matador team have been invaluable and I would like to thank Amy Cooke and Sarah Taylor in particular for guiding me through the publication and marketing processes so efficiently. Friends and family have also patiently supported me throughout.

  I always recognised that the explosion in emailing and the controversies surrounding Friends Reunited and other forms of social networking would inevitably lead to a proliferation of novels and dramas with this as the subject matter. I did not read any of these works until after my manuscript was completed and any similarity of theme is purely coincidental.

  Prologue

  December 1967

  Lydia and Lucy sit on a late eighteenth century settee, primly posing for the photographer.

  Lydia, so pretty in pink chiffon, with brown almond-eyes, cute upturned nose and smiling mouth; a rosy-apple blush, confident and self-assured. Lucy is gawky and awkward, pale and drawn despite the greasepaint. A nervous expression and big round saucer-eyes speak of hidden sadness. Lydia and Lucy … aged eleven.

  They have never sat so close before, so intimately, and after much anxious thought, the girl who is Lucy ventures to speak.

  “Are you excited about tomorrow?”

  Lydia nods.

  “I’m excited, but scared too …”

  “Yes,” says Lydia, staring straight ahead.

  Lucy tries again. “Mr Russell said it’s always better on the night.”

  “Yes.” There is the flicker of a half-smile, but no warmth, no eye-contact, no hint of friendship. If anything, uneasiness.

  Lucy sighs and averts her gaze, once more focusing on the man from the local newspaper.

  1

  August 2001

  Searching

  Marianne Hayward spent the first seven years of her education at a boys’ prep school. Ever since then a hundredweight of baggage had lurked in her shadows like a Moray eel, snapping at her emotions when her defences were low. Of course almost everyone who is nearly forty-six has baggage, and it wasn’t as if her baggage was particularly special. Indeed it was fairly standard, mass-produced, flat-packed baggage; the sort that comes from being teased mercilessly by school bullies and made to feel worthless. But baggage is baggage, and to each individual concerned it is of limited consolation that others have baggage too.

  At forty, she had thought it was time to face her demons, but it turned out not to be simple. She told a few chosen friends about some of the bullying but this had done nothing to lessen the hurt. In any case, the worst moments were still hidden in a locked box, too painful even for her own scrutiny. Sometimes she thought about opening the lid just a fraction and peeking through the tiniest gap to see if perhaps there was nothing alarming in there after all; that it was all a mistake; that she needn’t have spent a lifetime of avoidance. But always she faltered, frightened of what she might find, and the box remained shut. Now almost six years later, she wasn’t much further on in her quest.

  Two weeks ago Holly had breezed in, “Heya, Mum!” accompanied by the slamming of the front door, the chink of the key as she dropped it in the glass dish on the table in the hall, then the familiar pad, pad, pad, of rubber-soled sandals across the wooden floor. “Where’s Dad? Would you like to see the Friends Reunited thing now? Michelle’s mum has just found her best friend from Primary and they’re going to meet next week. I’m just so jealous … Wish I could lose somebody so I could find them again! It would be so extra! Our generation never will. Not like yours. Not with email and texting. No excuse for losing touch. I’ve got half an hour before Jodie comes round.”

  This was what it was like with a whirlwind daughter only a month away from her first term at university and fledging the family home.

  Marianne was ironing in the kitchen. She hated ironing. Her mother ironed everything, even knickers. Marianne found folding was a perfectly suitable option for many things. Her mother was from the school of ‘clean vests in case of accidents’. “Your father is playing snooker with Dave.” She always said ‘your father’ when she was displeased.

  “You mean he’s at the pub?” Holly’s tone was accusing.

  Marianne breathed in deeply. “He said snooker.” The now-familiar knot in her stomach contracted slightly and reminded her of its presence. If he wasn’t playing snooker, then what? Might he be with her?

  “Snooker … pub … whatever.” Holly shook her head and a cascade of dark hair shimmered around her shoulders. She was dressed in the casual uniform of the typical sixth former – flared denim jeans cut low on the hip and a quirky cerise top with an elephant embroidered on the front.

  “I do wish you�
��d stop saying ‘whatever’.” As Marianne said the words she thought how unlike her they sounded. Perhaps she was turning into her mother. The one thing women say they never will, but often do.

  “Friends Reunited, Mum … Come on!”

  Marianne’s own dark hair was tied up high in a youthful ponytail and she was also wearing jeans. Like mother; like daughter. “I should really finish this ironing.”

  “Aw, Mum! You can do that anytime.” And Holly pulled the plug on the iron and went upstairs.

  Marianne abandoned the pile of clothes and followed her to the guest bedroom that was also an office and housed the family computer in the corner opposite the bed. She pulled up a chair and watched her daughter expertly clicking away until the Friends Reunited website appeared.

  “I’ll register you so you can browse,” said Holly. “Think of a password. Type it in that box … I won’t look.”

  Marianne suddenly felt very hot. “I hate thinking of passwords.” She used the same word that she had for most of her online shopping, but prefixed it with a number.

  “What was the name of your secondary school?”

  Marianne told her and Holly began to search. North of England … Cumbria … Derwentbridge … Derwentbridge Grammar School. She watched intrigued as the page for her school came up on the screen.

  “What year did you leave?”

  “1975. It was a good year!”

  “I thought the seventies were all about miners’ strikes, petrol shortages and the Cold War … And Glam Rock Yuk!” Holly selected the relevant year and a dazzling blue register appeared on a green background. There were about twelve people from Marianne’s own year group.

  She scanned the list, fascinated as the names from long ago prompted a range of assorted memories and emotions. Danny Froggatt with red hair who fell off a stool when he fainted in a biology lesson during mouse dissection; Josh Casey who was a liability in chemistry practicals … Rob Tallison! We called him Useless because he couldn’t kiss!

  “Any old boyfriends here?” asked Holly mischievously.

  Marianne ignored the question. “Oh look, there’s Sasha Clement!”

  “But you’re still in touch with her anyway.”

  “Only just. Christmas cards and the odd email. Pity she married the deadly Graham Simpkins. It’s awful when husbands get in the way of friendship.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Little clammy hands. An intellectual bore who thinks he’s interesting. And Grandma always says you can never trust a man who wears red jumpers!”

  Holly pulled a face. “She was the pretty blonde one wasn’t she? Why did she marry him?”

  “He had connections in the legal world. She thought he would help to promote her career.”

  “Did all your friends keep their original names?”

  “Sasha was the first. Sasha said adding Simpkins would make her sound like – to use her words – ‘one of those anthropomorphised Beatrix Potter characters.’ Not befitting a lawyer, she said. We thought at the time it was very progressive and feminist. Grandma was incensed when I did the same.” Marianne peered at the screen.

  “That symbol next to the name means information about the person,” said Holly. “And, if you want to send someone an email, you’ll need to upgrade your registration and pay five pounds. Then just click on the envelope and follow the instructions. Dead simple.”

  And simple it was.

  Now two weeks on, Marianne expertly clicked on the Friends Reunited links and it had become an almost nightly ritual to sit and search for anybody she could remember from the past. It was an addictive pastime for a pub widow in her college holidays. The optional notes that people could add to their listing were interesting to read. Some were funny, some were sad. Most were tediously factual. The insecure waxed lyrical about their rise up the corporate ladder and the millions of pounds for which they were responsible. ‘Haven’t I done well?’ they boasted from the page. ‘No need to get in touch with me unless you are similarly successful.’ The most amusing were self-effacing and apologetic. ‘Don’t bother to write unless you have had an equally disastrous life of two divorces and long periods of unemployment.’

  It took Marianne three attempts before she decided what to write about herself. At first she wrote a detailed life history. Next, she was more succinct. ‘Happily married with one 18-year-old daughter about to study Law at uni. Two cats. Living in Beckenham and teaching psychology at North Kent Sixth Form College.’ Then after some thought, she deleted the ‘happily’ – it sounded smug. In any case she doubted it was still true. If they wanted to know more they could email.

  But it wasn’t just her secondary school that caught her attention on the Friends Reunited website. What about the boys from the prep school she attended; the boys from Brocklebank Hall? What had happened to them?

  The Moray eel peered out from its hiding place and flexed its jaws. Revenge!

  Barnaby Sproat was a name that sprang to mind and filled her with hostile thoughts. Top of the pecking order, he threw his weight around and made the lives of other boys miserable. And being a girl, the lowest of the low, the boys that he tormented exacted their frustrations on her. Of course she wasn’t the only girl in the school, but boys outnumbered girls by about ten to one, and girls were scattered so thinly through the classes that they were never going to provide enough of a force to challenge the mighty Sproat and his minions. Yes, it would be fascinating to know what had become of the bullies.

  She clicked through the links but found there was no page for Brocklebank Hall. At first she was relieved, but the eel was restless, a grey shape hidden beneath the rocks, hungry for salvation. She entered the details of the school and sent them off for verification. Once the school was on the site, surely people would rush to add their names. Perhaps he would add his name; the one boy in the school who had never been horrible to her.

  Edward Harvey.

  Even thinking his name made her tingle with half-remembered childlike giddiness. Dear Edward Harvey; the only one from Brocklebank to whom she might write if she found him.

  There might be others on the site from later years. First-boyfriend Nick, who called her a ‘mad-alcoholic-horsewoman’ on account of her equestrian interests and a bout of giggling after two half lager shandies. Nick, who really liked her and even loved her just a little. She wanted to find him to apologise. To say, ‘Hey Nick, I was only sweet sixteen, I didn’t know that after you I was going to meet a succession of bastards. If I had known, I wouldn’t have treated our romance so casually. Would have given it time to see how it all worked out. I’m sorry Nick. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Didn’t believe, deep down, that you really cared.’

  What if he was married now? Bound to be. Bound to be attached to some competent, not-a-hair-out-of-place woman who could rustle up an impressive supper for unexpected guests without a trace of panic. Someone sophisticated, beautiful and clever, who effortlessly produced a couple of well-behaved children called Charlotte and Annabelle; someone who enjoyed making cup-cakes and ironing shirts. She would take a dim view about her beloved being emailed by some ex-from way back when. It might upset the apple cart and Marianne didn’t want that. Didn’t want her own apple cart upsetting either for that matter, though some would say the apples were already on the slide.

  Edward Harvey, on the other hand, was a safer option as there was no romantic history to cause alarm. Perhaps they might meet again at a Brocklebank reunion?

  Marianne had seen tales of school reunions on the TV that brought her baggage to the surface and made her cringe. The quiet and the shy coming face to face once again with the key characters who were still loud and confident and operating as a pack.

  ‘Great to see you after all these years! What are you doing now?’ they gushed, full of bonhomie as if their unkind deeds were mere nothings in the life gone by.

  I remember when you dragged me backwards across the asphalt of the netball court by my green plastic team-identifying ba
nd. Dragged me until I fell disorientated in a humiliating heap and then you laughed in my face.

  No matter that Marianne was now an efficient and overtly confident mature woman. Put her back in the same company as them and she was sure to revert to frightened mouse.

  She would love to find Sarah Strong from riding school days in the seaside village of Allonby. Sarah did impressions of Tommy Cooper. They had such fun every summer helping out at the stables and being ‘pony girls’: rounding up the horses, saddling and unsaddling, feeling important under the gaze of the paying customers who watched from the other side of a high whitewashed wall.

  The August light was fading fast and Marianne grieved for the passing summer. Soon she would be plunged into the predicable ritual of the academic year. How much time for idle surfing then? She got up to draw the curtains, momentarily glancing at the breeze rustling the trees in the garden and the full moon glinting through the branches. She could sense there was a chill in the air and could almost smell the damp onset of autumn. Holly would be leaving soon; the end of the childhood journey. It made her feel sad.

  Then back to the computer.

  No luck tonight in the hunt for Nick or Sarah, yet every day it seemed new people were joining as newspaper column centimetres and breakfast chat shows advertised the web site and precipitated a snowball effect. She sighed and typed ‘Edward Harvey’ into the Name Search box.

  Then she felt that heat again: a sudden rush, enveloping most of her body. It had been happening for a week now, every time she was ever so slightly stressed. Waves of warmth the like of which she had never experienced before. Even thinking about getting out of bed in the morning brought it on. Surely she was too young to be going menopausal, but a quick exploration courtesy of Google last evening suggested not. Forty-five to fifty-two was the average age of onset. So if that was it, it was early, but not too early. And her period was late.