‘Love it. I like Fleetwood Mac, do you like Fleetwood Mac?’
‘I love Fleetwood Mac. I like the song… what is it… the one from the new album… “Dreams”? I like that one best.’
‘That’s my favourite too!’ Her voice had risen both in pitch and volume. She flapped her hand in excitement, her engagement ring flashing next to her wedding band. She turned to him for a second and smiled. One of her front teeth crossed the other – he had not noticed that until now – and it was all he could do to stop himself from reaching over and drawing his thumb down the squint line made by the overlap.
She grasped the steering wheel, laid her arms around its rim and rested her head against her hands.
‘I’m not sure I can drive,’ she said, and laughed. ‘Just give me a minute.’
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I could drive now either.’
‘Thanks.’ After a moment, she pulled herself upright and rubbed her forehead. When she spoke again, her voice shook. ‘Dig around in the glove compartment,’ she said. ‘I think the Fleetwood Mac’s in there. I need Stevie Nicks to calm me down, I think.’
Christopher opened the glove compartment. Three cassettes fell from the jumble onto his lap. They were mostly BASF, all copies, all with labels scribbled in black felt-tip pen: the Best of Motown, the Bee Gees, Billy Joel. Phyllis had let down the handbrake and was now edging out of the car park, into the traffic. All the while, she drew in short breaths, making a soft whistling sound, blowing out those breaths again as if after a shock. Though all he wanted was to drink her with his eyes, he made himself look away, wanting to leave her some privacy in the height of emotion seemingly too raw, too powerful to conceal. He understood – more than she could know. He’d had to flatten his feet to the floor to stop his legs from trembling.
He busied himself with the tapes and found a grey TDK with Rumours scribbled on the label.
‘This is only just out, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘You’ve got hold of a copy very quickly.’
‘That’s David does those,’ she said. ‘A right old pirate, he is. Terrible.’ She was negotiating a roundabout, glanced at him as she turned left and onto a dual carriageway. She had taken off her hat, and against the sun her hair spun a wispy halo.
‘I can’t believe you’re in my car.’ She seemed to have recovered her voice and her tone had levelled. ‘I just… I can’t believe you’re here. My baby. My baby, Martin.’
‘I can’t either,’ he said. ‘But I am.’
‘You are.’
They had been together less than fifteen minutes and already happiness had flooded into him, warmed his insides like wine. He wondered if he had ever felt so happy. He doubted it.
‘I think we have the same nose,’ he said.
‘Do you? You know what they say about noses. Run in the family, don’t they?’ She laughed, and he laughed too, conscious still of keeping himself in check, aware that if he didn’t, he might howl for the near pain of such joy.
Minutes later, they came to a bridge: pale green, industrial looking – steels, rivets, arches. It held the road that they drove over now, another bridge to their right, its sandstone blackened with soot. To their left, what looked like a town; beneath, a river shone brown.
‘That’s the railway,’ she said, gesturing at the blackened stone bridge. ‘The Leeds train doesn’t stop there. The road we’re on now is called the Runcorn–Widnes Bridge,’ she said. ‘David’s grandfather had a hand in it. Literally. Lost his hand when one of those beams hit him. T’other side is the estuary, and that’s the old town further on. We were in Widnes just now, and when we reach the other side we’ll be in Runcorn.’
‘Is that Runcorn?’ he asked, nodding towards the town.
‘That’s what I meant when I said the old town, sorry. But yes it is, love.’
Love.
They drove off the bridge and onto another dual carriageway.
‘The Mersey,’ she said, anticipating his question with, he thought, a kind of telepathy. ‘The Runcorn–Widnes Bridge is like the Golden Gate Bridge except with twice the fog and half the sunshine. Just kidding. The canal’s down there, did you see it? One of the teachers where I work lives on a barge somewhere along here. I’ve never been on it though. The barge, I mean.’
‘Do you live near?’
‘Not too far now.’
In the wing mirror, the pale structure of the bridge shrank behind them. They left the dual carriageway, turned right and right again – Christopher lost track until Phyllis turned left into a road of semi-detached houses, about the same size as his parents’ but with leaded bay windows and larger front gardens, dwarf walls, hedges. She pulled into a driveway, at the end of which was a garage, set back from the house.
‘Home sweet home.’ She turned off the engine and opened her door.
He got out and followed her back up the drive and around to the front of the house. Phyllis chattered as she let them both in. Inside, it was warm, almost hot after the cold of the outdoors.
‘I left the heating on,’ she said. ‘Take your coat off and hang it with the others.’
He did as he was told, putting his jacket over a child’s anorak since there was no free hook. His hat and gloves he stuffed into the pockets. She was already in the kitchen; he could hear her clanking about, the flush of water.
‘Tea?’ she called to him.
‘Thank you, yes.’
She was singing to herself: ‘Dreams’. The song had stuck in her mind, no doubt after they’d listened to it together in the car. He sang it too, softly, while he took off his ankle boots. On the floor underneath the coats were a pair of men’s walking shoes, two pairs of boys’ football boots and a pair of women’s tan leather boots with a heel. His own boots he placed neatly on the end, in the row.
Minutes later, he and Phyllis were sitting at the small Formica kitchen table, hot tea in ivy-patterned china mugs before them. He had imagined this moment so many times but had not been able to envisage the sight of her until now, smiling at him as she was through the lazy steam, her hair a little fuzzy from the damp air. There were fine lines at the edges of her eyes. Her skin had pinked a little, making her look like a schoolgirl. She put her hand over the mug to warm it. The house smelled sugary, as if she had been baking. He could feel his toes throbbing as they warmed up.
‘David’s taken the boys to the football. It’s Liverpool at home, not sure who they’re playing. I thought it’d be better if it was just the two of us today.’
Phyllis sighed. For a moment neither of them said anything. As if synchronised, both placed their lips to the rims of their cups, despite the obvious fact that the tea was too hot yet to drink.
‘Can you tell me?’ The question came out before he had a chance to stop it. ‘I mean, do you think you can talk about it – about me, that is?’