Page 5 of The Notecard
‘Right. Wedding dresses, please. I literally need suggestions now,’ says Laura.
Laura gets out her wedding folder. Yes, she has a wedding folder. Colour coordinated and divided up into categories and sub-categories. It’s six months until the big day and the folder is full. Laura definitely falls into the category of Woman-Who-Has-Been-Planning-Her-Wedding-Since-She-Was-A-Little-Girl. Only then I had to pretend to be her groom. She used to dress me up as a boy and make me tell her how much I loved her and why. I’m about to dive back into the world of Perfect Wedding, when my phone beeps with a message. It’s from Dad.
I’m outside. Can I have a word?
I don’t say anything to Mum or Laura. Mum and Dad aren’t talking. The last time they were in the same room, they had a shouting match. Mum called Dad ‘a boring old git with a shit taste in knitwear’ and Dad said she was acting ‘like a proper slapper’. Both valid points. Laura has enough on her plate with the wedding and being a virgin again. I see the bottle of wine is almost empty. I tell them I’ll pop to the shop and get another one. I put my shoes on and head outside where I see Dad’s black Hackney cab parked across the street.
Nick
Things I have learnt about Dotty over the course of the past hour. Dotty Muriel Hathaway was married to Derek Hathaway for forty-seven-years until he passed away six years ago. It was cancer. They used to live in a three-bed terrace house nearby, but after he died, she moved into the flat. In the 1960s, Derek played in a band, and Dotty became a roadie, and they travelled all over Europe. Derek played drums, and Dotty was a hippy, and they enjoyed smoking marijuana a lot. She’s met all The Beatles except Ringo. In later years, Derek became a music teacher, and Dotty raised three children, although one died. She doesn’t talk much about that. She grew up in north London and she’ll die in north London. She doesn’t believe in God, thinks the Queen could ‘lighten up a bit’ but is otherwise ‘a wonderful old dear’ and that Brexit is ‘a load of old tosh’. I also learn she’s quite gung-ho with advice. I’m in the kitchen making more tea, and when I walk back in, I hear Dotty say to Mum.
‘You should meet Michael upstairs then. You’d like Michael.’
‘What’s that?’ I say. ‘Why should Mum meet Michael?’
I sit down on the chair opposite the sofa where Mum and Dotty are sitting looking like two naughty school children.
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ says Mum with a stiff smile.
‘Dotty said you should meet Michael. Why should you meet Michael?’
Mum looks at Dotty and Dotty looks at Mum. They look guilty. I’ve clearly walked in on something. Something to do with Michael from upstairs. I don’t know much about Michael other than I hear him leave the house at the same time each afternoon. I caught a quick glimpse of him once. He’s about the same age as Mum, with grey hair, and a beard. He looked a bit of a mess if I’m honest. I have a peculiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. It feels like nerves, or maybe it’s the rising reality of what I think they’re talking about. I want Mum to tell me. I need to hear her say the actual words out loud. After a few more furtive glances between Mum and Dotty, Mum says.
‘I was just saying to Dotty that maybe I’m ready to, you know, think about the possibility of perhaps dating again,’ says Mum finally. ‘That’s all, Nick. It’s nothing. Honestly.’
‘But Michael?’ I say, slightly flabbergasted.
I have nothing against Michael, but it’s Mum. Michael is hardly one of life’s winners. He lives by himself in a small one-bedroom flat and from what I can tell is basically a recluse. A messy, unkempt one at that. Mum could do a lot better than Michael from upstairs. I don’t have a problem with Mum dating again. I want her to be happy. I just assumed that when it happened, it would be with someone more like Dad.
‘He was in a band,’ says Dotty. ‘They had a big hit in the Eighties.’
‘Oh really, what song?’ says Mum.
‘That one. What’s it called? Everyone loved it,’ says Dotty, who spends the next minute staring into space. Mum and I look at Dotty, waiting for the name of the song. Dotty hums a few tunes to herself. Finally she remembers. ‘A Call To You. Yes, that’s it. Do you remember it?’
‘Of course. It was number one for weeks,’ says Mum excitedly.
‘I call to you, these words,’ sing Mum and Dotty together. ‘Nothing in life makes me feel alive like you, like you. Nothing in life makes me feel real love like you, like you. I call to you.’
I remember hearing it. An Eighties classic. All New Romantic big hair and synthesisers. I can’t believe that was Michael Byron from upstairs. He’s now grey hair and not romantic in the slightest.
‘Rumour has it he made enough money from that, and then just disappeared,’ says Dotty.
‘Disappeared in this flat?’ I say.
‘Who knows,’ says Dotty. ‘He doesn’t say much. He’s a bit of a quiet one. Handsome though, and about the same age as you.’
I look at Mum. Fifty-seven-years old. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost ten years since Dad passed away. Since we got the news in January of that year that he had pancreatic cancer. Dad was a surgeon at the height of his career. I was at university, and life was good. Mum and Dad were happy. They were supposed to grow old together and live out their days in north London. That was always the plan. Over the course of the next few weeks, the reality of the situation hit us like a speeding train. Dad had one of the most aggressive forms of cancer with a terrible survival rate. The chances were he would die. It was hard to believe because he had always seemed invincible to me. Like a superhero. He was a top surgeon, and top surgeons didn’t die like the rest of us. Cancer couldn’t kill him. He was strong and said he would fight it and it wasn’t going to get him. He had the best doctors and treatment you could get. Mum rallied, and got all stoic about it, bashing out Churchillian lines down the phone to me at university. ‘It won’t beat us, Nick. We need to keep positive because a positive attitude is worth more than all the medicine in the world, Nick. We must have courage, Nick, because without that we are nothing.’
I don’t know whether it was being far away, or whether I really thought Dad was invincible, but I didn’t believe he would die. I genuinely thought he would somehow pull through. It was dad. I went home every weekend and saw him. I’m sure he did his best, and Mum did too, of making it seem not as awful as it was. They put a brave face on it so I wouldn’t worry all week at university. Even then, at the worst time of their lives they were putting me first. The phone call came in early May. Dad had suddenly got worse. I had to go home. I was going home for summer anyway. A summer I had planned on spending with Dad. Mum told me how much he was looking forward to it. It was the fillip he needed to get better. I rushed home full of panic and fear. He didn’t look good. He didn’t look like Dad anymore. The dad I had seen on New Year’s Eve just five months earlier with a cigar and a Scotch, telling me he loved me. Bright, big, cheerful Dad, full of life and love. When I saw him in bed, I knew he was going to die. I knew then that life would never be the same. That we wouldn’t get our summer together. One last summer of us. Even Mum had changed. Her spirit, her bullish Never-Say-Die attitude was gone. Instead she seemed small. Meek, which is never a word I’d use to describe Mum. We sat by Dad’s bed and held hands until the inevitable moment came. Dad passed away. Dr Stephen Clark was gone. Mum and I were alone.
I spent the summer at home with Mum. Long days of drinking tea, sorting through Dad’s things, and making decisions. I offered to take the year off from university, but Mum said I had to carry on. It’s what Dad would have wanted. She would be alright. She was tough. I remember she told me that a lot, probably as much for herself. That was all ten years ago. Mum has been single since. I don’t think she’s been on a single date, and she’s never mentioned that she was even thinking about it. Dad was the love of her life. I can’t imagine her with anyone else.
‘Like I said,’ says Mum. ‘It’s just something I’m thinking about. It’s been ten years, Nick, and recently I’ve been feeling lonely. I’m still young, and I think it might be nice to find someone, a companion, to help pass the time with.’
I look at Mum and at Dotty, and I understand. I’m not an idiot. She needs someone. We all need someone. I’m about to say something, but Dotty beats me to it.
‘And sex. We all need a bit of sex from time to time, or what’s the point?’
