The Sense of an Ending

On the train up to town, there was a girl sitting opposite me, plugged into earphones, eyes closed, impervious to the world outside, moving her head to music only she could hear. And suddenly, a complete memory came to me: of Veronica dancing. Yes, she didn’t dance – that’s what I said – but there’d been one evening in my room when she got all mischievous and started pulling out my pop records.

‘Put one on and let me see you dance,’ she said.

I shook my head. ‘Takes two to tango.’

‘OK, you show me and I’ll join in.’

So I stacked the autochanger spindle with 45s, moved across to her, did a skeleton-loosening shrug, half-closed my eyes, as if respecting her privacy, and went for it. Basic male display behaviour of the period, determinedly individualistic while actually dependent on a strict imitation of prevailing norms: the head-jerking and the foot-prancing, the shoulder-twisting and the pelvis-jabbing, with the bonus of ecstatically raised arms and occasional grunting noises. After a bit, I opened my eyes, expecting her to be still sitting on the floor and laughing at me. But there she was, leaping about in a way that made me suspect she’d been to ballet classes, her hair all over her face and her calves tense and full of strut. I watched her for a bit, unsure if she was sending me up or genuinely grooving along to the Moody Blues. Actually, I didn’t care – I was enjoying myself and feeling a small victory. This went on for a while; then I moved closer to her as Ned Miller’s ‘From a Jack to a King’ gave way to Bob Lind singing ‘Elusive Butterfly’. But she didn’t notice and, twirling, bumped into me, nearly losing her balance. I caught her and held her.

‘You see, it’s not that difficult.’

‘Oh, I never thought it was difficult,’ she replied. ‘Good. Yes. Thank you,’ she said formally, then went and sat down. ‘You carry on if you want to. I’ve had enough.’

Still, she had danced.

I did my errands in the haberdashery, kitchen and curtain departments, then went to the brasserie. I was ten minutes early but of course Veronica was already there, head down, reading, confident that I would find her. As I put my bags down, she looked up and half-smiled. I thought: you don’t look so wild and whiskery after all.

‘I’m still bald,’

I said. She held on to a quarter-smile.

‘What are you reading?’

She turned the cover of her paperback towards me. Something by Stefan Zweig.

‘So you’ve finally got to the end of the alphabet. Can’t be anyone left after him.’ Why was I suddenly nervous? I was talking like a twenty-year-old again. Also, I hadn’t read any Stefan Zweig.

‘I’m having the pasta,’ she said.

Well, at least it wasn’t a put-down.

While I inspected the menu, she carried on reading. The table looked out over a criss-cross of escalators. People going up, people going down; everyone buying something.

‘On the train up I was remembering when you danced. In my room. In Bristol.’

I expected her to contradict me, or take some indecipherable offence. But she only said, ‘I wonder why you remembered that.’ And with this moment of corroboration, I began to feel a return of confidence. She was more smartly dressed this time; her hair was under control and seemed less grey. She somehow managed to look – to my eye – both twentyish and sixtyish at the same time.

‘So,’ I said, ‘how’ve the last forty years been treating you?’

She looked at me. ‘You first.’

I told her the story of my life. The version I tell myself, the account that stands up. She asked about ‘those two friends of yours I once met’, without, it seemed, being able to name them. I said how I’d lost touch with Colin and Alex. Then I told her about Margaret and Susie and grand-parenthood, while batting away Margaret’s whisper in my head of ‘How’s the Fruitcake?’ I talked of my working life, and retirement, and keeping busy, and the winter breaks I took – this year I was thinking of St Petersburg in the snow for a change… I tried to sound content with my life but not complacent. I was in the middle of describing my grandchildren when she looked up, drank her coffee in one draught, put some money on the table and stood up. I started to reach for my own stuff when she said,

‘No, you stay and finish yours.’

I was determined not to do anything which might cause offence, so I sat down again.

‘Well, your turn next,’ I said. Meaning: her life.

‘Turn for what?’ she asked, but was gone before I could reply.