Lisa left the hospital later than expected. It was by then already dark. Kate, her daughter, was fine and so was the baby.

It was Lisa’s first grandchild and she had travelled a long way to see him. She had brought her best camera and taken his photograph. He was just one day old.

Lisa had travelled alone. She believed she was well able to look after herself; she had set out in life to do just that. She had driven down that very day and intended to make at least some of the long journey back before booking in at a hotel. Thanks to her marriage and the money it had brought, she had just the car to make any long journey. But there were no parking privileges at the hospital. The Toyota Celica was waiting for her on the far side of the car park, standing tight to the wall on the other side of which was The Blue Anchor.          

It was not particularly late but it was dark and cold in that part of the city. It was also a lonely place to be. Because Lisa had arrived later than most of the visitors, hers was the last car.

She had always been an alert woman - alert and able to take care of herself. She did not like to admit that the sight of two men resting by the wall near her car unsettled her. One of them was slumped with his back against the back wall of The Blue Anchor; the other was relieving himself against the same wall only yards from where her Celica was waiting.

She looked to either side; no one else was about. The man had finished pissing against the wall. He picked up a bottle and eyed it thoughtfully. Lisa was reassured. They were tramps; meths drinkers or some-such; there was no doubt of it.

The man had nothing left to drink. He looked wistfully at the bottle. Then he saw Lisa walking swiftly and purposefully towards him; she was tall and stately with her white raincoat showing up clearly in the shadows; her long, red hair was made dark by the flare of the lights coming from the other side of the wall.

The man with the empty bottle did some turning of his own; he was looking about for his friend; but his friend was still slumped by the wall.

“Paul,” he said in a stage whisper. “Hey! You listenin’ ?”

But Paul, though not actually asleep, was gazing vacantly at something else; so the other had to act without him. He was not particularly bold, but he had been drinking, so he decided he would chance it.

“Good luck to yer, nurse! Good luck to yer! Could you spare the price of a cup of tea?”

Lisa had worked in London, Manchester and Glasgow. Now that she had heard him speak, she did not feel so concerned. She had been chased twice and attacked once in her big city career. Something told her that she had nothing to fear from these two. Something also told her that she should give him a pound or two. Her bag was on her shoulder. She opened the flap and fiddled about looking for her purse. She was wearing gloves and decided she would have to remove one to get what she needed. Fortunately there was the light attached to the back of the pub close by to let her see more clearly. Even so it was enough to make her pause. Could she really be bothered when all she wanted was to be away from there? The tramp seemed to sense it.

“You’re a good girl, nurse!” he said. “You’re a good girl. Paul and me haven’t had a cup of tea all day and that’s God’s truth!”

“What a story!” she replied. “I bet you tell that to everyone.”

“Never! Good luck to yer! You’re a pretty lady.”

This was true. At fifty, Lisa was a beautiful, desirable and accomplished woman. She tossed her hair at the compliment even though he was a man whose compliments she could hardly care about.

“It’s God’s truth, ma’am, and I bet you’ve a kind soul to go with it.”

“You and your blarney!” she said. “You sound with that voice as though you must be Irish!”

“Got it in one! Michael Conran of Cork at your service.”

“O, well , here’s something for your tea then. If you spend it there! (She pointed at The Blue Anchor ) it’ll do you no good! Get some chips! Promise now!”

By now Lisa had given the tramp a two pound coin; but, even as she was giving it to him, she thought herself stingy. She had married a business executive and become one herself. Secretly she was proud of the way she had managed to be a mother ( now grandmother) and develop a successful career at the same time.

She knew she was being mean. The thought had already made her change the idea of a pound into two. This poor bastard had nothing and here was her chance to be his angel. He was being friendly and chivalrous and presented no danger at all. What was a two pound offering to her ? What could he buy with it anyway? Here was a chance to touch the other extreme of life, an extreme she would never know, a state of ruin that she had always been able to avoid. She had made it a point not even to contemplate failure and to eschew from her life anything and anyone who might bring her anywhere near such a notion.

“What about your friend?” she said carelessly. “I s’pose he’d better have something too.”

“You mean Paul, ma’am. He’s had a hard life, you know. A hard life; and, between just the two of us, lovely lady, a harder one than me.”

“Well, at least he’s got someone to do his talking for him!”

“No, no! He’s a good enough talker. Believe it or not he was at university once upon a time!”

By this time, Lisa’s plan was to give Conran another two pounds and be gone. As she fished for the coins, the  cool touch of her car keys brushed her knuckle; Conran turned away while she was busy so as to rouse his dreaming friend who was still slumped against the wall with his face in the shadows. In those seconds she thought, suddenly, of her grandchild sleeping safely in the maternity wing. She thought of that tiny face captured for ever, her first grandchild caught in the safety of sleep and she prayed that he might never come to know anything of what these two derelict men had come to know. It could never be. The risk of even the glimmer of such a development would be ruthlessly eliminated. She would teach the growing child how disaster could be avoided.

The dreamer by the wall had been stirred from his world of fantasy. Conran pulled him forward into the yellow light and was saying with affected shyness, “Here’s Paul, pretty lady,” when an extraordinary thing happened.

Lisa needed just one look at the face to make her utter a cry, a cry of frightened surprise, a stifled cry, a sound which utterly baffled Conran because he had never heard one like it before.

In her fear Lisa dropped some money and Conran was sure she said, “It’s yours!”

Then she was gone. Long strides to her car. Almost running. A fumbling with keys. A roar of the engine. The sports car gone in a flurry.

“Did you see that, now? Did you see that?”

“See?”

Paul had been drinking too - a lethal cocktail he did not even remember. In the flare of the yellow light his face was almost young again. It was his eyes that were alight.

And then the picture rapidly decayed and he was once more thin and frail and wasted and ready for death.

“Did you see that? Did you see her?”

“I dunno.”

The dreamer had finished with being revived. He went back to the wall. He did not care.

Conran scrabbled in the shadows for the money she had left.

“You know,” he said, “there’s four quid here! Four pounds twenty! Not bad for a minute’s work! Not bad comin’ from me! You know, I allus thought I had a certain charm with the women.”

No response.

“Are you O.K. now, Paul?”

“I don’t care.”

“You know somethin’ ? You should look after yourself better. You really should. How many times do I have to tell you? Now then, how about a drink?”

“Piss off!”

“I mean it! Are you lookin’ or aren’t you? Look here at what she gave us!”

“Who’s buying, Con?”           

“Me.”

“As if  Piss off!” Actually Paul seemed only vaguely conscious. They had that day consumed enough to kill some people.

“Well, didn’t you see her? You know somethin’, there are times, seriously now, when I wonder whether they’re right in what they say - that you’re not all there. Seriously now!”

“Fuck off, Con!”

“Come on, matey! Don’t be like that! Didn’t you think she was good lookin’ now? Sort of like Princess Di don’t you think?”

The dreamer’s eyes were open, though it was impossible to say what they saw.

“Anyway, Paul, matey, she knew you right enough.”

“What’s that?”

“Will you stop keep sayin’ ‘what’ ! I’m tellin’ you once and for all whatever you say. She knew you! I don’t give a fuck if you didn’t know her, she knew you! You scared the light out of her! Once she saw your face, it was enough for her! Not that you’re quite the good-lookin’ chap you once was, but there was more to it than that! She saw your face and it scared the shit out of her! She knew you, boyo! Face it now! Had you been payin’ attention we might’ve got a lot more out of her!”

“I don’t care.”

“I can see that! I should think anyone can! I bet - I mean it now - I bet you didn’t even see her! Admit it now! Four pounds twenty as well!”

“You’re crazy, Con! Leave me alone! “

“Just look at you, mate! The state of you now!”

“Piss off! Do what you like! You don’t even make sense!”

“Now that’s just where you’re wrong, Paul.”

“Yeah? You don’t make sense! Four twenty? What the fuck does that mean, anyway /”

“Four twenty, four twenty - as in four pounds and twenty pence!”

Conran’s eyes turned to the sign of The Blue Anchor. But it never occurred to him to leave Paul. He realised that the boy hadn’t long to go; the boy had the look of death on him and yet Con had liked his friend for all of the six months they had been together. Paul didn’t seem to care about anything one way or the other, and yet Con liked him. After all, in the early days, Paul had paid for everything, even a night at the dog track once; and Con had not often received kindness.

But now the old boy - Paul could not be much older than forty, say forty five at the outside - was all but spent; heroin and drink and a broken heart. In the early days his brains were still working - but not now.

“Come on, matey! It’s not closin’ time yet!”

But Paul, slumped against the comfort of the wall, was busy with something else. Conran always noticed what Paul did but especially on this occasion, because he had not seen his friend so animated for a long time . Paul had dug something out of the pocket in the jacket they had given him at St George’s.

“What’s that then?”

“Nothing.”

“O, aye!”

But when Con leaned forward to see, Paul snatched away from him and held the picture close to his body.

“Come on now, matey,” said Con coaxingly. “Who is there to trust, if not me?”

Paul’s grasp relaxed as quickly as it had formed. There was no fight left. Con deftly but not unkindly took away a tattered photo.

He was surprised. He had thought and hoped that it might be money but who could read this man’s mind? Paul had talked to him about so much of life but never so much as a word about his own. There could be no understanding him. Con had tried often enough to do so.

Con went closer to the street light leaving Paul slumped against the wall. Truly he was ill. Perhaps he really did not care after all. Somehow Con had never quite believed it. We all care about something.

In the flare of the light, Con looked at the picture. His eyes had not dimmed any more than the camera’s had.

Now it was his turn to be startled. Tattered or not, the photo was that of a beautiful, red-haired woman, a younger version of the lady whose own moment of astonishment he had witnessed only five minutes earlier.

 

*

Lisa did not travel far that night. She parked in the yard of the hotel she found close by the motorway. She planned to do no more journeying that day

She sat alone in the safety and privacy of the car for several minutes. She fought hard to keep the image of her first grandchild before her.

Then she turned to the seat beside her. Lisa’s handbag lay open just where she had flung it. It was a useful bag with lots of pockets and pouches. From the privacy of one such pocket she took out a photo she kept concealed there. She had made a resolution long ago that she must throw it away, but here it was to haunt her.

She brushed his face with her gloved hand. He had not changed. Not really. She had known him immediately.

Then she put the picture back into its secret place.

And then she needed the same gloved hand to brush away a tear.

 

14.8.92 Blue Anchor