‘I think perhaps it’s me,’ he continued. ‘I don’t seem to be able to get these things right.’
‘Oh, love, it’s not that. There’s all sorts of reasons why these things don’t go right. And this Ripper has got us all frightened stiff, got us all looking at the men we know, thinking, Is it you? Not over here so much, but up where you are, no one knows what they’re up to. I heard from one of the other teachers at work that there’s women accusing their own husbands. Brothers, too. The police are inundated. It’s no wonder girls your age are jumpy – and it’s not just working girls he’s after now, is it?’ She bit her lip and shook her head, seemingly lost in thought, before returning to him with another squeeze of his hand. ‘And as for you, the right girl will come along – you’ll see.’
She raised his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. ‘Some people are still kids when they fall in love or when they step into the world of, you know, sex and all the rest of it. I was fifteen, and look what happened there. That’s no good either, is it? Being made to give you up like that when you belonged with me. That’s cruel. So it may be for different reasons but I used to think the same as you – that I’d got it all wrong, that I’d not understood something fundamental about how these things work. Other girls seemed to be getting their kicks without getting into trouble, but muggins here believed him when he said he couldn’t wear a sheath. Allergic, I think he said he was. Told me not to worry, that he could control it – by which he meant pull out, I know that now, of course. And I believed him because, well, because he was older, he seemed experienced and of course he had lovely dark hair like yours and… well you can imagine.’
‘Yes,’ he said, in wonder. She was so frank, so honest, so modern. He could not imagine Margaret talking in this way, to anyone. Phyllis was the best kind of friend. Brave and generous enough to reveal herself with no more reason than to make him feel better.
‘But then I met David,’ she went on. ‘I hadn’t realised there were men out there who let you take things at your own pace. But by then I was in my twenties, don’t forget. You’re still only nineteen, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘There, see? Plenty of time for it all to come right. So don’t be worrying about all that. If this girl doesn’t want to talk to you, let her get on with it. There’s nothing you can do and it’s her loss. There’s no rush. You concentrate on getting your qualifications, and I promise the rest will fall into place, all right?’
And it was all right. He felt all right. Phyllis knew what to say. Sometimes when they parted, or even when he put the phone down, it was as if there was a physical tearing of flesh, a ripping pain such that he imagined, if he looked, he would see an open wound in his chest, blood on the ground at his feet. This was how he once described his intense love to me. I wonder now if these violent images came from this intense love alone, or from the premonition that such a love could only end in wounding, in blood. In death.
* * *
Back in Leeds, he called Jack and Margaret from the payphone in the Union. Jack never came to the phone, never had. Once she’d told him how Jack Junior and Louise were getting on, and about any changes in the road or down at the seafront, Margaret seemed to struggle for anything else to say. For his part, he told her nothing of Phyllis and his other family. He had not told her at the time, and now it was too late – the words were too difficult to find. Besides, to tell her after so much time had passed he feared would destroy her.
Christopher worked five shifts a week in the Fenton, a dingy place populated by alcoholics whose complexions ranged from red to purple, by lost young men who often left with men considerably older than them, and by lonely middle-aged women who sat all night on high stools at the bar, only to go home alone. Between times, he went to the Brotherton Library, trying to steal a march on the following year’s reading list. He went out with Adam when Adam wasn’t meeting a woman – once to Bradford for a curry, which they ate with their hands, once to a reggae night in Chapeltown and once to Le Phonographique, the club in the Merrion Centre. This last was a Saturday night, a night when locals emerged into the city and students, now that it was the summer holidays, were, as Adam put it, rarer than nuns in a clap clinic. At Le Phonographique they played disco music, songs and bands whose names he knew, of course, within a few bars of them beginning.
That night Adam had revisited his flared jeans and a new black shirt Christopher hadn’t seen before, along with a silver pendant necklace. The two of them stood at the side of the dance floor, drinking cheap lager and watching the predominantly female crowd.
‘ “I Feel Love”,’ Adam shouted into his ear, bobbing about, managing to somehow smoke, talk and smile at women all at once.
‘That’s nice,’ Christopher replied and was thrilled to see Adam laugh.
‘Donna Summer,’ he shouted. ‘It’s bloody magic, this one.’
Christopher felt the beat, which seemed to his ears frenetic, like panic rising. He thought of Angie, her skin. He thought of Phyllis and the way she held out her arms to him, the relief he felt whenever he was by her side.
‘Ah, love this one,’ said Adam. ‘Go on then, who is it?’
‘Parliament,’ said Christopher.
‘In one. Hold that.’ He passed Christopher his drink and headed for the dance floor.
Christopher watched his friend slink through the dancers, the rhythm informing his every move. The women responded to him as if he emanated a kind of glow, like the kids on the Ready Brek commercials, and before long, he was shouting into the ear of a woman with blonde hair flicked out in rolling waves. The next song was Blondie. Christopher sang along, under his breath, picturing Debbie Harry’s mouth, wondering what it would be like to have sex with her. He was normal in this, at least, he supposed.
Adam returned, a sheen of sweat on his brow. He took his pint and drank half.
‘Love this stuff,’ he said. It was unclear whether he meant the beer or the music. ‘What’s this one?’
‘ “Boogie Oogie Oogie”,’ said Christopher.
‘Now that’s what I call a title, man. Is that the band?’
‘That’s the song. A Taste of Honey, the band.’
‘Page the bloody Oracle.’ Adam took his cigarettes from his back pocket, offered one to Christopher, lit first his own then Christopher’s, inhaled deeply, tipped back his head and blew the smoke up towards the ceiling.
‘So tell me, oh lanky one,’ he said, ‘how come you didn’t go back home for the summer?’
‘You got us a job.’