Sally (29 page)

W
hatever possessed Sally Lomax to pack her bag and take the high road to Scotland without telling a soul?

As the M1 unfurled ahead of her, she felt no pang of guilt, not even the slightest twinge. She was too busy singing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water', the choice of that week's castaway on Radio 4's
Desert Island Discs
. As she neared Milton Keynes, Sally was revising her eight discs for the second time but just could not choose less than nine. By the time she joined the M6, she decided that, along with Shakespeare and the Bible, her book would be a Robert Burns anthology and, as she passed Birmingham, she chose ballet shoes as her luxury. As Lancashire slipped into Cumbria, Sally decided she would have rather a good time on her desert island, dancing away to Beethoven, Stravinsky and Genesis, and would not feel a ‘wee sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie' in the slightest. Switching the radio off, she motored at a steady seventy and smiled at the hills as they loomed. It was a fine day, the sky seemed very high and the early-spring sun hung large and low, like a luminous pink sweet; Sally could have licked it. She felt an exhilaration she had not felt for a long while, an intoxicating mix of solitude and freedom. Glasgow lay three hours away, Oban an hour or so after that, then there was just the Firth of Lorn to cross to Aunt Celia. She was at last taking a journey whose destination was known and desired. She could not wait to arrive.

Diana was livid, Richard was not amused, Catherine was nonplussed.

‘Richard?'

‘Hullo, Diana.'

‘I think something's wrong.'

‘Whajoomean?'

‘Have you spoken to Sally?'

‘Well, er, no. I'm er, letting her call the tune – you know, at her own pace. I took some calamine round a few days ago but I haven't heard from her since. What is it, for heaven's sake?'

‘I think she's gone. I've been ringing her, on and off, for the last two days – nothing. So I popped round half an hour ago and looked through the letter box.'

Our letter box
, thought Richard. ‘And?' he enquired.

‘Well, it was all eerily silent. I couldn't really see anything at all because the curtains are drawn. Thing is, I have her spare keys but I'm a bit nervy about going in by myself.'

‘I'll be right there.'

With a quick call to Catherine and Bob to say he'd be late for dinner, Richard drove to Diana's with a strangely empty head. Parking at the end of Sally's street, they walked slowly to her flat, noting as they walked that her Mini was nowhere to be seen. Diana unlocked the door and Richard went in first and rushed back the curtains. All was predictably spick and span and a faint smell of polish hung in the air. The bed was without linen, its mattress turned on to one side; there was nothing perishable in the fridge; all the plants were well-watered and the bathroom and kitchen smelled of bleach.

Well, these were the clues, but where was the proof?

‘Bingo!' muttered Richard. Diana swung from the window where she had been looking at nothing in particular in the hope of infiltrating Sally's psyche. From Richard's fingers a small piece of paper dangled. She took it from him and read in a voice soon tinged with tears and threaded with anger:
‘Gone to Scotland. Back soon. S.L.'

Unable to speak, she looked at Richard but saw his face blank and stony. She tossed the note aside and Richard retrieved it, carefully placing it back on the mantelpiece where he had found it.

‘
Scot
land?' Diana's exasperation, though barely audible, filled the room.

‘That's what it says,' replied Richard flatly. There was a loaded silence as they wondered how best to react. Diana went for spontaneity.

‘Stupid, ungrateful, insensitive cow!' she spat.

Richard chose silent contemplation.

Bitch
, he thought.
Why? When? Stupid cow indeed.
There was silence again as each wondered what to say to the other.

‘Diana,' Richard soothed at last, ‘there must be an explanation. Maybe something cropped up.'

Diana was aghast.

‘Cropped up? Like what? The only person she knows in Scotland is her old aunt who lives on Skye or Shetland or somewhere.'

‘Mull,' mulled Richard.

‘That's
not
the point,' Diana growled, ‘she can go to Timbuk-bloody-tu for all I care.' The force of her anger quite took Richard aback. Her mood was as black as her jumper, her face the same furious red as her leggings. ‘But the fact is I
do
care,' she yelled. ‘Am I worth so little to her that she can just up and leave without a backward glance? Without even the tiniest phone call? Without even a scribbled note posted with a second-class stamp?' Diana stood scowling with her hands clenched to her hips. She stamped her foot and grabbed her hair. ‘Who does she think she is? She's needed me and I've been there – unswervingly,' she fulminated. ‘Even a “piss off” to my face wouldn't be as hurtful as this couldn't-care-less disappearance.'

Fearing that Diana was on the verge of tears, Richard eased towards her and put his arm around her shoulders. She looked up at him, wide-eyed and wounded.

‘But, Richard, what about you? How on earth can this make
you
feel? Can you bear it? Will you tolerate it?'

He shrugged in a non-committal way.

‘It can't possibly
not
have crossed her tiny mind that we would worry, that we would be hurt,' Diana concluded. Richard remained silent and pensive – it seemed safer that way. The hurt he felt was so deep it was nauseating. How
could
she indeed? Why Scotland? Why the secrecy?

There was no need for it – it's not as if I would have been in a position to say ‘Hold on, Sal, I'm coming too'. What can have filled her head? What did she think as she locked the door? As she hit the M1?

The horrible thing is, I'm almost certain she did not think at all, let alone twice. Thoughtless. Ungrateful. Tedious. This is the last straw, the short one, and Sally has just pulled it.

Not knowing what to do with his thoughts, much less how to express them, he gave Diana a squeeze and then ushered her out, taking a last look around before he closed the door on Sally's silence. Though the flat was clean and fresh, its cosiness had disappeared with her and he now felt an intruder, a stranger. Knowing that its inhabitant did not want him there – or anywhere – cut straight to his heart. He closed the door and double-locked it dejectedly. Driving Diana home, they said of course they would keep in touch, with or without the slightest news. Yet as they parted, it dawned on both with some displeasure that Sally, the very cause of their suffering, was holding them captive, that they were at her mercy, at her beck and call. Their worlds, at which she had seemingly stuck two fingers, were still revolving around her.

Was that it?

Did she want the world to turn because of her?

Sally? Manipulative?

Surely not!

Both Richard and Diana felt beholden, and the very realization was thoroughly repugnant. At last, they hated her for it and felt fine about it.

But ask Sally why she did it.

Did what?

Ask her what went through her head as she shut the door on all around her and headed carefree for Scotland.

This time tomorrow I'll be with Aunt Cee!

Do you believe her? Mention Richard and Diana to her. Why did she not call either? Ask her if it really did not occur to her that they would be hurt, worried, confused.

See. She cannot answer.

She may falter:
I'm a burden. They've done so much. I don't want to bother them, to trouble them.

She may limp:
I've been so unbearable, spotty and sorry for myself, I just want to creep away and return restored.

But you will not hear her say:
I'm sure they won't mind. I know they'll understand. I would too, you know.

Nor will you hear:
I know it'll probably land me in trouble, but I've got to do it; there's something fun about it, jetting off in secret! I wonder what they'll think when they find me gone! Will they worry? Might they be angry? What'll go through their minds? Will they care?

You will not hear this from Sally because she cannot yet hear it herself. Banished to the back of her subconscious is the nub of the matter:
God, I shouldn't be doing this. I should at least call, leave a note. But I want to do it – just to see.

We certainly will not hear Sally say it out aloud for a while longer. Not until she has played this, her last hand in the game. It is a game to her, and though no one else is playing, she does not seem to realize that just yet.

So, Sally must lose if she is to have a chance to win.

To Catherine, Sally was an open book. A mere glance at the pages was enough; she had read it before and it was all very familiar. She knew well the form, the semantics, the beginning and the middle. Did she know the end? She thought so. Should she divulge it?

What – and spoil it for everyone? Tell them the punchline before the joke?

Only this is not very amusing.

Read them the last line when they're but half-way through? Tell them what'll happen in the end? I have no right to do such a thing!

Catherine's dilemma was threefold. She was torn between her concern for and loyalty to Richard, her solidarity and understanding for Sally, and her soreness that she too had been rejected. However, she did feel equipped to shed light on the syndrome and believed it was her responsibility to all concerned to do so.

Bob had alleviated a portion of Richard's melancholy with a particularly frenzied game of squash. Catherine, who had spied a bumper but half-empty bottle of HP Sauce next to a jumble of takeaway cartons in Richard's kitchen, was now trying to reason the remainder away.

‘Richie – er, sorry, Rich
ard
. Please believe me, please trust me – I know women.'

‘Catherine, how pretentious,' Richard retorted. ‘
You know women
,' he mocked. ‘What on earth does that mean?' Catherine took her time.

‘What I mean is, I've
been
there,' she declared with gentle confidence. ‘You know the saying – seen it, done it, bought the T-shirt?' Richard grimaced at her. She took no offence and clarified, ‘But Sally, I think, is right
in
there. She's
seeing
it,
doing
it, she's
wearing
the T-shirt. She's just got to throw it away.'

‘I do
not
understand,' Richard said tersely, his voice brittle and pinched, ‘what on
earth
you are talking about.'

‘I know you don't,' eased Catherine, ‘that's why
you're
hurting so much, while
I'm
merely nonplussed. I
know
what's happening to Sally, it happened to me too. I've done it before – most women have, or will. I
know
the book she's reading, I
know
the game she's playing.'

‘That,' declared Richard, ‘is precisely it. I am thirty-five years old. I have grown out of playing games.'

‘Richard,' pleaded Catherine, ‘if you can just hear me. It's not malicious, it's not vindictive. It's like she's testing the water before she leaps on in.'

Still his face was pale, his brow furrowed, his eyes hollow.

‘Richard,' she cooed, ‘Sally is doing this to reassure herself. You know: “will he love me if”: “could he love me if”.'

She could see she had made no inroad into Richard's melancholy, so she pulled out her trump card.

‘Look, don't you remember how I was with Bob? How I'd sometimes flirt at parties? That I'd often be late? Sometimes I'd be aloof, sometimes downright moody? Remember when I jetted off to Corfu with two girlfriends giving Bob just a day's notice
and
expecting him to drive us to the airport to boot?'

A glimmer of a smile crept into Richard's face. ‘You were a prime cow, Catherine. I remember saying to Bob, “bin her”.'

‘And?'

‘I remember how he'd just shrug it off and smile. I couldn't work him out. I thought he'd gone soft.'

‘See!'

‘But
why
, Catherine? I don't feel soft at all. I feel livid, absolutely livid.'

Catherine could now wrap it up.

‘Look,' she said kindly, taking Richard's hand, ‘Sally is teetering on that diving board.
Teetering
! I bet every time she motions to leap something leers up at her: be it that awful bloke, the one who hit her; be it wedding dresses and
“I do”s
'; be it saying sorry to you, to Diana – to me! After all, what is it that she'll dive into?'

Catherine's questions hung in the air as the light began to break for Richard. She answered methodically: ‘She must forsake all for a responsible, grown-up, death-do-us-part existence.'

Richard nodded. ‘Normality!' Catherine exclaimed. ‘Mundanity!' she declared. ‘Gone will be her little flat, her total privacy, talking to herself, eating a tub of ice-cream in bed – she'll have to trade all that in.' Richard's face was softening and he continued to nod.

‘Richard, the girl's got to find herself by losing herself,' Catherine announced with conviction, ‘and what better place than Scotland – all those lochs, all that heather! I'm not belittling the situation and you might not like what she might find. This is the make or break. Whatever the outcome, it will be for the better; for both of your futures. Sally may be playing a game of sorts, Richard. But the prize she's pursuing is Truth.'

‘I
t's at times like this,' said Sally out loud, drumming her thumbs on the steering wheel, ‘that I wish you were a Jaguar and not a Mini.'