Plot One - First love, the most poignant of all.
Howard And His Wife - Even the most content suburban life has its moments.
Flashback - It's funny how those little things spark memories.
Pigeon Song - Like every great source of power, love can be good or bad - or both.
Egg - In our modern rational world, we often underestimate the power of symbols.
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Sarah Oldfield was the most beautiful girl in England.
Peter Walton had been giving the matter some serious thought and after much consideration, (he had thought of little else that morning) this was his conclusion.
He had studied his subject with great care. The flowing soft brown hair, the pretty pink face with that delicious button nose. And her body. Her slim figure, long legs and, his heart skipped, her breasts small and pointed. Oh God! It was Gym next period. She would soon be quite naked, in the shower.
His clothes were shrinking. His collar was uncomfortably tight, and his trousers were positively dangerous. The lesson would be over soon and it would be more than embarrassing to have to waddle to the door bent double to conceal the results of his erotic musings. He had better try to concentrate on what Old Soapy was saying.
Too late.
In the Fifth, in deference to the alleged maturity of its members, it was the custom to give pupils their full title. Mr Percival P Olive BA (Oxon) Head of English, used the honorific as a rapier to impale his victims.
"Well Mister Walton, the rapier pricked Peters ear "Perhaps you would like to give the class your view on this important subject." Peter Walton wriggled on the blade.
"I don't think I quite heard." He tried hopefully.
"Yes Mister Walton," Oops...Soapy is onto me, thought Peter; he's going to make mincemeat of me
"In fact Mister Walton, the reason you 'did not quite hear' is because ... you did not quite listen. Am I correct?"
The rest of the class was snickering with relief that Old Soapy's sarcasm was slashing away at someone else. But the background twittering had now reached sufficient volume to save Peter from further humiliation. And at least his trousers had returned to their normal size.
"Now pay attention all of you." Mr Olive addressed the class. It is often said that there are only five basic plots in all of literature. Consider. In all the billions of books, plays, poems and songs, only five basic plots. These plots are reworked, developed and a million million variations are played upon them.... but the five basic plots remain. In fact a single plot dominates all literature. Just one plot! Can anybody tell me what that single most important plot is?
No? Well, your assignment, to be completed before tomorrow's lesson, is to discover and write down at least one of these five basic plots."
A bell rang somewhere in the corridor outside. Peter Walton's thoughts strayed briefly to the girl's changing rooms, but he put them quickly out of his mind as a familiar warmth crept into his trousers. He turned his attention to more practical matters.
"Has everybody got that?" Mr Olive shouted over the rising hubbub, "One of the five basic plots by tomorrow." There was a general mumble of assent. "Very well. Class dismissed"
Peter hustled his way through the class milling its way down the corridor and mingling with the other dispossessed tribes heading for their new homes. He finally, almost casually (he hoped) found himself beside The Most Beautiful Girl in England.
"Hi Peter, old Soapy really went for you didn't he?"
"Er, well, I suppose he did a bit,"
"What on earth were you doing?" This was not the direction he had planned the conversation would take.
"Look, this project thing. You know the five basic plots stuff. It looks a bit hard to me"
"Shouldn't be too difficult, I reckon if. . ."
"Yes, well." He interrupted rapidly "I thought maybe we could work on it together. Sort of form a team. What do you think?"
"Oh - I see." She looked at him appraisingly. "O.K. Sounds like a good idea. I'll see you after Gym. We can talk about it then."
"All right. See you."
Sarah Oldfield shimmered away, down towards the Girls Gym. And he looked quickly up and down the now deserted corridor.
"YEEESSSS!"
Peter Walton jumped into the air and shouted as loudly as he dared. Then scuttled quickly away to his next class, before somebody came to investigate.
They met briefly after the Gym period and arranged to go together to the big Central Library in town. An ideal place for research and. Peter thought, nice and secluded. A good place to dazzle Sarah with his wit and charm.
They had little success with the five basic plots. Even the librarian at the enquiry desk seemed never to have heard of such a concept.
"I think Old Soapy must have made it up" said Peter disgustedly. "It's a trick question. When we go in tomorrow he'll say 'Well class I expect you all had a little trouble with the Five Basic Plots. There is a very good reason for this. They don't exist. Ha Ha Ha!'" It was a good imitation, and Sarah was a perfect audience. But the stares of other patrons made it clear that the library was not the ideal forum for impressions, even good ones.
At the local MacDonald's over a Big Mac and Coke, Peter Walton discovered he was in love.
He walked Sarah home, and outside number 37 Boston Drive he experienced, in a small way, the fleshy pleasures of sex. After a relaxed and funny evening, they both grew suddenly shy at their leave taking. But their lips brushed briefly and honour was satisfied.
Peter tasted those soft lips long into the night.
He was still euphoric as they filed into English Class the following day. They had exchanged few words but many eloquent glances that morning. This was the first class they had shared.
"Now Class, how did we progress with our assignment?" Mr Percival P Olive addressed the company. There was no response.
"Come on. Come on. Who will be first? The five great plots of English literature." There was an uncomfortable silence and a little shuffling of feet as Mr Olive's gaze ranged around the class in search of a suitable victim.
"Mr Tate. What have you got for me?"
"I've got Adventure Stories, Science Fiction, Westerns, Detective Stories and Murders. Sir."
Old Soapy looked death upon the unfortunate Tate.
"So; Mister Tate, after two years in my English class, you have not yet learned to distinguish between a plot. . .and a genre. Well done!"
Around the classroom several pieces of paper were shuffled quietly out of sight.
"Miss Hopkins. What is your contribution to this seeming mystery?"
"Don't know Sir"
"You do not know Miss Hopkins." Aghast; then sadly and slowly, "You Do Not Know." Then, more in sorrow than anger; sote voce: "Class. . .You are due to sit your GCSE examinations in less than 2 months. You are supposed to be our intellectual stream. The flower of our youth, our hope for the future." The Form was intent, if slightly shamefaced, straining to hear each softly spoken word.
When he was sure he had their complete and absolute attention, Mr Olive bought his hand down flat against the desk with a deafening crash.
"AND. . . I WILL ENSURE YOU PASS THAT EXAMINATION; IF IT KILLS YOU!"
They fell for it every time. Tough kids jumped six inches in their seats and went pale.
"Now...Cretins; let us examine the great themes of literature through the ages." He turned to blackboard and began to write. "A very simple but fundamental plot has appeared in nearly every story since the beginning of recorded time. One can describe it in many ways, and there are probably more variations and permutations of this one simple plot than any other. We shall call it simply, 'Boy Meets Girl'
He wrote the phrase on the blackboard in his elegant rounded script.
Peter Walton was not really listening. He was studying his chosen subject. Miss Sarah Oldfield, The Most Beautiful Girl in England.
Why are mornings always such a disaster? I'm sure it can't just be me. Maybe there are some paragons out there who always get up with plenty of time to spare, whose children always leap out of bed ready to meet the brave new day, who always have plenty of dry towels in the bathroom and who never, ever, raise their voice above a refined and well modulated 'Good Morning'.
But not me. As usual Howard was calmly drinking his coffee and finishing his toast in the eye of a storm. It swirled around him, occasionally even brushed against his tweed jacket, but never really touched him. I opened the window to clear the smoke from the last batch of toast, and strode purposefully to the foot of the stairs. In passing I accused Howard.
"We really must get a new toaster!" He mumbled something, but I had reached the stairs.
"Mary!" I bellowed, "it's 8.I5 you're going to be late! And you, Robin! What on earth are you doing up there, stop that banging and come down NOW!" A voice behind me spoke.
"I'm off, Dear. Council tonight. Back about 9.30, unless that bloody fool Ericson starts rabbiting on. O.K?"
"Fine, see you later."
The perfunctory kiss and he was gone. From the kitchen an anguished howl said that Susan had bitten the dog again, and from upstairs a familiar whine,
"Muuum, I can't find my socks."
Eventually Mary and Robin were hustled kicking and screaming from the house. After the usual commotion nearly all the things they needed for a day in the halls of academia had been finally uncovered from the nooks and crannies into which they had mysteriously crept. These scandalously expensive gewgaws had been shoved roughly into bags, flung carelessly across shoulders and lugged through the door with all the care of the dustmen toting their bins. Howard would have gone white to see his hard earned cash so abused.
Still at least they were gone. Susan had stopped biting the dog and had taken instead to carrying one of the cats about. She had it under the arms so its body appeared hunched up around its shoulders and its long back legs just brushed the floor. It had a look of resigned misery on its face when I rescued it and slunk of under the table for a good solid sulk that would probably last all day.
"Nice pussy," Sue said, as she made a lunge for the disappearing tail
"Now my young lady," I said, "It's time for nursery."
Susan has always loved the nursery school and as we drove down the street where the school stood she started to bounce up and down on the seat with excitement. This morning I knew exactly how she felt.
Once I had dropped her of and finally got back home, the morning rush hour was officially over. The children had all gone and I felt quite, I don't know, a kind of freedom. Not that the children restrict me, well not in any way that matters. It's just that sometimes it's hard to be a Woman and a Mother if you understand. Most of the time I'm quite happy to be a Mother, but today, well, today would be different.
There was plenty of time so I drove to Marks and Spencer's in the next town. It's slightly bigger than ours but also, in a small country town, you can't be too careful. Howard is hardly famous, but a local councillor's wife does sometimes get recognised. In any case buying lingerie is always a very personal thing. Especially the sort that I had in mind. Not exactly Janet Reager I suppose but then I only wanted to seduce the man, not frighten him to death.
I drove home with my prizes and changed in front of the mirror. Not bad for Forty, putting on a little weight maybe. But not really fat, more plump, curvy. In any case men like Frank prefer ladies a bit on the cuddly side. At least that's what he always says.
I first met Frank at one of those immensely tedious civil functions, the Mayor, the local luminaries, the boredom. Howard seems to love them! Poor soul I suppose they are the most exciting thing in his life. He spent most of the evening with the local school mistress discussing the state of the outside lavatories. God, what a bore. She is such a dowdy little thing too, and with a reputation as a strict disciplinarian. She always reminds me of one of those anonymous little brown birds you see fluttering round the bird table.
Frank on the other hand is a starling. Not all that handsome but with a certain something about him. Strutting about confident and assured. I knew he was on the council of course, and I knew he was on the 'other side'. He asked me to dance and after we went to the bar. He was so funny. It was all a game to him. Were these really the same issues that Howard discussed so earnestly? Were these the same people that Howard seemed to hold in such awe? He picked up my hand and held it in a casual nonchalant way, so ripe with meaning that I knew the phone call would come.
Not that knowing helped my nerves. When the phone rang the following morning my heart pounded in my chest. I knew if I picked it up, a chain of events would begin. I would be pushing over the first domino. Who could know where the last one would fall. The warbling phone drew me with a hypnotic fascination. I lifted the receiver and unconsciously held my breath.
It was Howard's Mother. The disappointment must have showed, I had a fifteen minute tirade on how she never saw Howard, the children and, as an afterthought, me. After about three ¬quarters of an hour I got rid of her, Frank rang soon after. He had the decency to sound a bit embarrassed but I accepted his invitation to lunch quite calmly. After Howard's Mother even the most bizarre situation seems rather restful.
It was the first of several wonderful lunches. We met at a car park out in the country then he drove to a beautiful country inn. After that first meeting we parted with a circumspect kiss on the cheek. But soon our initial shyness passed and after lunch we would park in a quiet spot, and fall upon each other with teenage ardour. The extraordinary excitement of first love can never quite be recaptured; but this was so close. A pounding heart, a special sensitivity that flushes the body, the sweet dread of a taboo made to be broken.
When Frank said he had booked a table at the Whiteleaf Hotel I somehow knew he had also booked a room.
We drove back slowly to the place were we had left my car. It was a lovely afternoon, cool and autumnal. The pale sun dappled the ground through branches still clinging to the memory of their last leaves. Frank had put Mozart on the CD player and we didn't speak much. I felt fulfilled, warm and drowsy. The last domino had fallen and the game was complete. The question of a new game, or the next round of this one, remained. But that could be answered tomorrow.
We kissed long as we parted, Frank wanted to ring me the following day but I said no. I made some excuse about going out. I could see he was just a little hurt, but I needed some time. I had a family and a loving husband, a good life. I could not simply plunge recklessly into something that, no matter how beautiful, might destroy me. The next move in the game must be careful and controlled. I kissed him again and told him what a wonderful day it had been. He gave me the Mozart CD.
As I drove home I had to admit to myself I was in love. With Frank, or perhaps with the notion of being in love again after so many years. Either way, the effect was the same. I still loved Howard of course, but being in love that's quite different. And much more dangerous.
As I approached Susan's nursery I realised it was re entry time. I was hurtling towards normal life much too fast and would burn as I hit the atmosphere unless I could adjust. Another of passion's shooting stars, I had known plenty who had gone that way. Families broken beyond repair. The Mozart went off and I put on Sue's favourite, 'Tilley Goes To Town'. She was so pleased to hear it again, and she had made me a beautiful shining sun from a paper plate.
It was feeding time again. Sometimes my life seems an endless round of meal times. It's not as if anybody seems to appreciate them. Mary has decided she is vegetarian, although it's spasmodic and seems mainly designed to make cooking her a meal as difficult as possible. Robin has gone very ecological and seems more interested in the packaging than the food. Although he quotes E numbers like a draft E.E.C. directive he still manages to consume prodigious quantities of food, complaining all the while about the additives. I have explained that he is not being poisoned just preserved. Howard just shovels it away without much enthusiasm.
Susan really enjoys her food, but it's mainly because of the menagerie that waits hopefully around her chair waiting for the odd chunk that 'accidentally' falls to the floor. I must be a failure as a chef.
That evening I had run out of tinned tomatoes. I searched around suitable substitutes but finally resigned my self to a trip to the local shop. I borrowed the Volvo for the trip and noticed an odd thing on the back seat. A long cane. Howard said it was for the sweet peas, but it was curled over to form a handle at one end. It looked just like the sort that school teachers used to have.
It was late. The rain fell heavily from the blackness against the windscreen. The windscreen wipers flung themselves across the screen in an effort to clear the torrent. The headlights of the oncoming traffic made starbursts on the glass. The car, normally peaceful, was noisy with drumming rain, swishing tyres and thumping wipers. The concentration was making him tired.
In the distance he saw the lights of a roadside cafe. A clean and wholesome place. An island of welcome light in the surrounding darkness. He swung the car into the car park, turned of the engine and sat a moment in the ringing silence. Then huddled against the rain, he hurried to the cheerful interior.
It was not busy. A few diners were scattered around the tables. As he waited to be shown to his table, it was the families that caught his eye. A mother wiped the mouth of her resisting son. A father's hand brushed his daughter's hair. After the isolation of the drive, it was a warm and human place. At home his wife would be waiting. His daughter would be nested in her cot, his son protesting his way to bed.
He glanced briefly at the menu, then watched the rain beating at the window. The lights from the cars flashing like silent lightning.
"Good evening. Can I take your order?"
The waitress was plump and homely. But something caught his attention. Something drew his mind back to a time he had forgotten. or tried to forget. The scent she was wearing was a fresh light perfume. It was the scent that Erica had worn.
"Yes, I'll have a coffee please." He smiled.
"Will that be all?"
"Yes thank you."
How long was it now? must be five years. So long. Yet the memory was strong. Not so much for the events. There were precious few of those. But the taste of it, the memory of being in love, had stayed. And that was the perfume she had worn. Strange how a scent could bring it all flooding back.
They met at a conference in Taunton, 'The Impact of The Computer on Accounting'. She was single, dark and attractive. She was also the most exciting woman he had ever met. They sat, that first night, and exchanged their lives. He was married with children. She was a single career woman. As they spoke he realised, with devastating suddenness, that he was in love. His wife, his children were not forgotten. But in that short conversation, a new perspective was added to his life.
Joy and sorrow were somehow mixed up inside him. He only knew he needed to be with this woman. She had no plans to become involved with a married man. At her bedroom door they kissed chastely and parted.
After that conference they met several times. He called and invited her for dinner.
While he ached for her presence he was never quite sure about her. She clearly enjoyed their meetings. She laughed and sparkled in his company. It was almost a relief when she rang to say she did not think they should meet again.
But he had never quite forgotten.
In youth, love is a commonplace. As one becomes older and less wise it is rare. Such an unusual visitor is remembered. The memory is cherished.
"There's your coffee, my dear." The waitress had returned. "It's a nasty old night out there, isn't it?" She peered through the streaming window.
"Yes it certainly is. Very nasty. Thanks." He looked into the darkness. "I shall be glad to get home tonight."
Albert's pigeon loft was a minor monument in Jubilee Gardens. It dominated the small row of terraced gardens in a way that quite overshadowed its owner.
Unlike his loft, Albert was small and compact. Wiry and hardy, like a northern whippet. In his loft he found refuge. Refuge from the Mine, refuge from his large and powerful wife, refuge from an endless tribe of relatives, and, of course, refuge from his friends. He also found a considerable collection of Whiskey bottles. Streaked white with the droppings of thirty fine racing pigeons, he was more proud of his Scotch collection than any flock of mere birds.
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A bird was merely a faithful friend, in alcohol a man could find freedom.
His wife was naturally dismayed by his drinking habit, and would try in an exasperated way to remedy him. But through long habit, or some northern race memory learned at her mother's knee, she could only minister to him with harsh words and one-sided conversations ripe with blame. Though she knew as surely as he, it would drive him to the pigeon loft and the solitary solace of the bottle, it was all she had. And the harder she clutched at him the more surely he slipped away, into the particular hell that only drunkards know.
It was not always so. When the Boys were young, it was different. On Sundays mornings he would take them, scrubbed and rosy, to the recreation ground. As the church bells chimed for the faithful they would run and tumble, kick the ball, fight the dog and hot and weary, return with ice cream faces to their neat terrace. His wife would watch their return with pride from her door, and sweetly chide him for ruining their appetite. And there were winter evenings around the fire, while the rain, complicit in their cosy comfort, beat down the black and shining street.
Not that Albert was an angel, even in those simple distant times. Friday nights were nights with the boys, rowdy drunken sessions at the Miners Welfare Club. Men who worked in the ground, sank their personalities in a sea of beer and became one. More than just comradeship, it was love of a kind. They were not concerned with the larger world, only the life they knew. Comprehensible and complete; safe against the danger of the mine.
He was part of it, with his family. This was life in the village where he had been born and raised, had been schooled and married, had raised and lost his sons to a larger world, and where he would probably die. It was cycle of life as predictable as the seasons. But, as he watched his pigeons wheel and circle in the sky, Albert had always felt as content in his world, as the birds riding wind air above him.
He had taken one of the boys to the library. It was a weekday, and there were few people to disturb the reverent quiet. Eva was there, and somehow they had started talking. The boy had found his Atlas and was rapt, studying the Rift Valley. Eva was German, a strange exotic creature from another world. Her Husband had been posted to his company's factory in the new industrial estate on the edge of the village. They had moved from Hanover.
Although Eva was not beautiful, Albert knew she was the most wonderful thing ever to have entered his life. At first he was diffident, and suspicious of her motives. He could not understand why this shining creature should be concerned about him. In reality, his honest, bluff northern character, clear and true, were like a beacon in a confusing foreign ocean to a simple German girl. Soon, as it must, their pleasure in each other became trust, and trust became love. They mostly met in the countryside that pressed close to the village. In such a small community, discovery was an ever-present danger.
Albert saw himself flying like a bird. Like his pigeons, he and his lover rose on the wind, spiralling upward in tight circles, exhilarated with the pure joy of being alive. Like Friday nights at the Miners Welfare he was drunk, but unlike that soft blurring of life's hardness, this was brilliant clarity. From this height he could see far beyond the village and, like a birds eye, he could see colour, preternatural in its sharpness.
Eva told him she had to return to Germany. Her husband had been recalled to Hanover. And he knew she wanted him to ask her to stay.
Albert was rooted deep in the village. It was not just a place, it was a system of living that went to his heart. The boys were still young then. His duty and the fealties that bound him stopped his mouth. He was never sure whether he had performed an act of courage or cowardice. Perhaps, he thought, the difference is less important than we suppose. Eva left for Hanover; and Albert tumbled from the sky.
But he never forgot the view; the spread of a wider world below and kinship with his pigeons. Though now he walks stolid earth, and searches in a bottle for love he will not find.
It was not until breakfast that Martin May realised his marriage was over. A small symbol that indicated the end more clearly than words sat on his breakfast plate.
He felt a stone, large and cold, in his stomach as he watched twenty-one years of his life fall to the ground before his eyes. Sally did not scream or cry or, as he feared she might, interrogate him ruthlessly. She was as quiet as a snowy landscape.
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Richard and Lucy had left for school and he was alone with a stranger he had known and loved for years. Loved? he wondered. Yes, he had loved her, in fact did love her. It was burning, consuming passion he reserved for Denise.
Denise worked in the despatch department. Normally their paths would not have crossed. Montrose PLC was a large corporation. But at the Sports club all men (and women) were equal. She was not conventionally pretty, but her bright birdlike eyes and the incandescent youth that transcends mere beauty captivated him.
He thought back, and realised to Sally, the rest must seem like just the same sad old story. A man searching for his past in the bed of a young girl. Perhaps it was just the same. But how could he ever explain his story. Every human tale is unique and for good or ill will be told. His was different. To him.
How could Sally understand, in the quiet of their twenty-one years, how he felt. The pounding heart, the fluttering stomach and the almost painful longing, just from thinking of their next meeting. How could she understand from the calm of number fourteen Forest Drive, the thrill of danger, the exaltation of conquest, the soaring joy of new love. And the delicious, bitter tang of guilt.
He had been alive.
Now it was time to pay the Piper. He could offer no excuses. Even if he could bring himself to beg forgiveness he could see none was available. Breakfast was laid on the table with its usual precision. Coffee was made and in its pot. Toast filled the rack and the marmalade jar was correctly in place. His boiled egg, cooked, no doubt, to its usual three and a half minutes was in its eggcup on his plate.
How many times had they laughed about shelling the egg? He had lost count. Over so many years it had become the family joke. A ritual that enshrined the once unbreakable bonds that held them all. Mum could not stand the way Dad chopped the top off his egg, she always peeled it for him. Always. . . How they had played that game, the jokes, the puns, the warmth of a silly secret shared.
His egg sat before him perfect. The shell smooth and round. Its innocence unsullied, its shell unbroken.
