The Headland: The Ending

John looked at the toolbox that stood by the door of the shop. His van was parked outside, rear doors open, waiting to be loaded. He was supposed to be fitting new locks for a customer. It was sheer happenstance that he was standing by the phone when it rang. He loathed the telephone. He mostly ignored it, which was not good for business, he knew. Alice felt the same. She was fond of quoting Dorothy Parker whenever her phone rang, ‘What fresh hell is this?’ He couldn’t remember her ever calling him before. Ever instigating a meeting. There was a distance about her. She seemed so cool, still and self-contained, a marble statue in an empty museum on a darkening afternoon. He, on the other hand, lived in a state of perpetual turmoil, a magnet wildly swaying between opposing poles of tenderness and rage, optimism and despair, love and loneliness. He thought of Alice’s voice on the telephone. He had ached when he heard its bright eagerness. And its falseness. He suspected he had hurt her. He could not explain or untangle his thoughts. When he stood outside himself he knew several things to be true. He was more at peace when he was with her than with anyone else he had known. He could speak of the girls to her and to no one else. He would tell her stories about them. He would sit on her sofa and she would lie with her head in his lap, her hair curling down to the floor. ‘My girls. . .’ he would hear himself say, ‘My wonderful girls. . .’ and he would speak of them fondly, like an old man by a fireside relaying well-loved fables. Alice had been everything he had wanted and needed, and yet was still not enough to quell his torment. He was glad she had called. He was glad he would soon be in her presence, which so quieted and fascinated him. But he had no idea what he would say to her. How he could explain himself to her. When he tried to formulate thoughts or sentences, his mind felt silent and inert, like a street awaiting the arrival of a hearse.

When he reached the headland, he sat on the edge of a cliff above a shimmering and dreaming sea. It was a perfect late-spring day: cloudless and golden. The stirring grasses, so dry and brittle during winter, were now feathery green and spangled with wild flowers. Alice would be able to identify them. She would know them all. And just as he thought of her, there she was, walking towards him. The long flowing skirt she was wearing wrapped around her legs in the soft breath of the wind. She carried a posy of blue and white woodland flowers. As she walked, the long grass trembled and swirled and tiny brown, white-bellied birds darted around her. 

‘Hello petal. Look at you. I always said you had a touch of Mary Poppins about you.’

She sat on the grass next to him and took a deep breath of sparkling air. They sat together in spellbound silence. ‘I’ve missed this place,’ she said.

I’ve missed you. John thought, but the words were tangled, caught and couldn’t break free. ‘Where’s Hetty? Is she okay, flower?’ 

‘She’s fine. She’s with Mabel, next door. This walk is a bit too far for her now, that’s all.’

‘Fucking hell. I thought something had happened to her. I’m glad she’s okay, flower. Truly. She suits you. You suit each other.’ 

 ‘This place seems duller, flatter without her. I miss having her trotting alongside me. We just have a sedate stroll around the village green and churchyard these days, like a couple of elderly spinsters. I picked these bluebells and garlic for her to sniff when I get home, so she can remember her walks here.’ She plucked a long strand of grass and began wrapping it like ribbon around the little bouquet. ‘I thought you might be working.’

‘Aye, should be actually. I’ve let down eighty-four-year-old Mrs Francine Stephenson of 6 Rowlandson Terrace for you today, flower. She’ll have to wait till tomorrow for her new front and back door-locks. I’m sure she won’t mind. Burglars rarely come back two nights running,’ he smiled wryly. ‘She wasn’t really burgled. I don’t think, anyway. Christ, I hope not.’

Alice ran her hands through the silken grass and, as by some unseen enchantment, the tiny brown birds fluttered around her again. 

‘How do you do that?’ John asked.

‘Sand martins,’ she said. ‘They’ll have just arrived from Africa. When we walk or move, we disturb insects in the grass. That’s why they appear. It’s not really witchcraft, I’m sad to say.’ She looked at John’s face, dark and weathered and sombre. He was looking at the pit wheel which turned slowly in the distance. It never stopped. It was the community’s totem, symbolising endeavour, courage and loss.

‘You’ve seen the news about the mine?’ he asked. ‘Closing next year. Imagine that. All those families, all that tradition.’

‘I saw it. It’s terrible. Devastating.’

‘Aye. How’s school? Have you met Mr Gibson’s replacement yet?’

Alice shook her head sadly, ‘Yes. She’s delightful. Mrs Margaret Westahope. Picture Margaret Thatcher, but take away her warmth, humanity and wit and you will get the general idea.’

‘That’s not good.’

‘Apparently, we are inefficient. The budget’s in a dreadful state. We need “taking in hand.” Things have got a bit “slipshod” I always thought we did very well with our children, they were loved and inspired and happy. Apparently, that is not enough. I am not optimistic about next year. The school will lose its heart.’ 

John reached over and touched her arm. ‘I’m sorry pet. The school still has you. It hasn’t lost everything. Fancy a walk?’

Alice felt suddenly tired, her limbs leaden. ‘No, can we just sit? Hetty’s not the only one feeling her age and this is such a lovely spot.’ She hugged her knees to her chest and loosened her hair so it curled and lifted in the currents of air.

‘Are you wearing a skirt with foxes on, flower?’ John asked. Alice smiled and spread out the fabric of her skirt, cream cotton printed with tiny red foxes and leaping grey rabbits. Her gold bangles sparkled and chimed. ‘I am. Esther made me this. She’s getting good at sewing. She finds the most amazing fabrics. She said this fabric made her think of me. Do you like it?’

‘I do. You’re lovely, you know.’ John said quietly. 

Alice felt herself blush. She tucked her hair behind her ears, lay back in the prickly grass and looked up into the unending sky. ‘Esther’s going to Newcastle University in October. Well, she’s got a place anyway. English Literature. She’s a bit jittery about it, but I think she’ll make it. She’s already made a start on the reading list, which is a good sign.’

‘You’re changing the subject. You’re lovely.’

Alice felt her breathe tremble. She glanced at John. He was watching her. When you met someone new, they became more lucid and tangible as time passed. Like a mosaic, shard after shimmering shard is added until you finally got to see the whole person in sharp focus. It was not like that with John. He seemed ghostlike to Alice. Over time he’d become paler, sadder, more blurred and distant. 

‘Obviously not lovely enough for you,’ she said simply. 

‘That’s not true. That’s not true at all. Don’t ever think that.’ 

Alice closed her eyes. She focused on the ebbing of the waves, the murmuring of the grass and the crying of the gulls. ‘Why did you come today, John?’

‘I wanted to see you.’

‘You could see me anytime. That’s been your choice.’

‘Aye. I know. I know that.’

Alice sat up. Pale blue butterflies were fluttering between fuchsia sea thrift flowers. The sun was high in the sky. She realised she could not live with uncertainly any longer. She needed to know how he felt about her. ‘John?’ she said. She saw him turning a grey pebble in his hand. It was the small, round pebble he had picked up on their first walk at the headland on Christmas day. ‘Say something, John. What is happening with us?’

 He put the pebble in the pocket of his jeans and looked towards the horizon. It was a bold, sharp line separating the sapphire sea from a watery blue sky. ‘Do you love me?’ he asked. 

This was the moment. The moment when all Alice’s carefully constructed defences would be tested. The question seemed huge, dangerous. It hovered in the air between them like the promise of thunder. Yet the answer came with a surprising certainty. For once, the words were easy to find. ‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ she said.

John just nodded. Alice waited. She willed him to speak. To respond. She closed her eyes again. This time, the silence felt pallid and uncomfortable. Love had come casually, with the artless naivety of a child. Months ago, she had wandered into John’s shop on a mundane errand. She had found love, and hope and tenderness and companionship, and to give voice to those feeling had felt liberating. Yet John did not speak. As the minutes passed, Alice realised his words would never come. The silence surged louder and louder. She heard its message clearly. The invisible currents from the past were too strong to fight. 

Alice stood up and looked at the vastness of the sea and the limitlessness of the sky. She turned and began to walk back towards the hallowed stillness of the dene, leaving John behind. He was rootless, but she was not. Her place existed in the tiny cottage on the green and in the little grey school. Their pathways curled in different directions. She made her way home.