The way it was Rose Boucheron’s story looks back at young love It was a mistake, Lottie thought, I should never have come. What on earth possessed me — after all these years? The journey had been a traumatic experience. All those fast roads, and one-way streets — everything was different. Now, having turned off the highway and on to the heath, she stopped the car to catch her breath. The heath itself was unchanged, timeless, even to the small pond where, as children, they had sailed paper boats. The houses that ringed the heath looked the same, too, and she was caught in a wave of nostalgia. Having come so far, she decided, there was no point in going back now. She turned the ignition key in the lock and was again on her way. Crossing the heath, she drove down into the wide, tree-lined road which had been quiet and shady and cool on long summer evenings. Dingy now, and littered with leaves and scraps of paper, it was obvious that most of the houses had been turned into flats. Dustbins stood in forlorn groups in neglected front gardens that had once been green lawns, edged with roses and azaleas. She drove on through the warm, sunny September morning, past the church and down Laburnham Road towards her old school, deserted now — perhaps the children were still on holiday. Strange to think she was born here, had lived in this area for twenty years, from childhood into young womanhood. Getting married and moving away had been a wrench at the time, but soon forgotten when one’s life was to be spent making homes all over the world. She wouldn’t have missed any of it. But she had always promised herself that when she did finally return to London she would make a nostalgic visit to the place where she was born. She had made up her mind on the spur of the moment today, for no other reason than that the radio announcer had said “Tuesday, the seventh of September.” and from the deep recesses of her mind a voice had answered automatically, “Leslie Gallagher’s birthday”. Leslie Gallagher — she hadn’t thought of him for years. Her first love — how she had adored him..... Now, sitting outside the empty school play-ground, her eyes were unseeing. She was remembering. Some of the houses in Lahurnham Road had tall golden daisies with dark brown centres like predatory insects. She had never liked them. It was a quiet, tree-lined road of terraced houses, and on one corner stood the Parish Hall of St. Giles. It had a green tin roof and church windows and in the garden surrounding it were some more of the golden daisies; every Sunday they went to Sunday school there. Once there was a new curate, a Mr. Holliday, who took them on an outing to Ashstead Forest, but soon afterwards he left. She never knew why until much later, but some mothers had sent a petition to the vicar requesting that Mr. Holliday should make a hasty retreat on account of something one of the girls had apparently told her mother. Opposite the Parish Hall lived Mrs. Mathews, Lottie’s mother’s dearest friend. Mrs. Mathews ran a clothing club to which her mother paid a weekly sum. Mrs Mathews’ living room was always littered with boxes of liberty bodices and grey school knickers and chair backs and table runners. There was a photograph of Mr. Mathews hanging on the wall, with eight separate views of his head merging into one picture. She had always been drawn to this picture, which repelled her and fascinated her at the same time. Mrs. Mathews had died when she was thirty-eight, and Lottie’s mother had wept. She remembered the great tears rolling down her face, how terrified she had been of the sobs which had shaken her mother’s small frame. By then she was fifteen and passionately in love with the boy across the road, Leslie Gallagher. His mother kept the corner off-license, and all the women in the road were a little wary of her. She was Irish, with a crisp bright accent, and she wore long beautiful earrings of topaz and garnets and jade. She had bright eyes and a handsome face, and wore dresses which were smart and expensive. She was a widow with three children — Leslie, her son, who was nineteen, and two pretty daughters called Dorothy and Louise. Every day Lottie walked past the off-license on her way to and from school, hoping to catch sight of Leslie. She hardly ever saw him, for the shop was never open until ten-thirty in the morning, and closed from two until five-thirty, when they rolled up the green blinds and unlocked the double doors to let the customers in. Outside the shop were two heavy trap doors, and on Mondays, Duncan, Mrs. Gallagher’s burly assistant, could be seen heaving crate after crate of liquor down the steep slope into the cellar. Duncan was an immense man with a round, shiny face, whose eyes were like slits in the folds of flesh, and he had a great hairy chest and arms. He wore a leather apron and a cloth cap which hid a tightly cropped mass of red curls. People said Mrs. Gallagher had brought him from Ireland with them, and gave a small smile or brief laugh when they talked about it. She had a fancy man too, who called every Saturday and Sunday after the shop closed. A racing man, they said, but nobody really knew because Mrs. Gallagher kept herself very much to herself. Lottie adored Leslie, loved him so much that it made her heart go fast just to look at him. He was tall, with shining golden hair and a bronzed smooth complexion. Once, just once, when she was about thirteen, she had to go into the shop for a bottle of Guinness when her Aunt Nell came to visit. When Leslie came out of the small back room, Lottie thought she would die of excitement. She had been looking through into the room, her heart quaking at the thought that Leslie might serve her, and wishing she could go inside that room, just once, to see where he lived. From where she stood she could see the green plush tablecloth and the bowl of roses, and it looked dark, and cool —when suddenly he appeared, Leslie himself… Lottie had stared at him, her mouth dry; no words would come, and she felt so stupid as the tell-tale blush flooded her face. He looked at her kindly, distantly. “Yes?” She heard herself say in a cool tight voice she didn’t recognize: “Please, would you mind, can I have a small bottle of Guinness, please?” Lottie waited in agonized silence as he wrapped it smartly, took the money, clicked the till, and handed it to her with the change, his arms leaning on the counter as she turned miserably to run out of the shop. She felt near to tears as she ran home and banged the bottle down on to the table, running straight upstairs. “Now what?” she heard her mother say, as she flung herself down on the bed and wept bitter tears. Why, oh, why had she behaved so childishly? She was thirteen, a young woman, she knew that because she was tall and had started her periods and her breasts had grown and pushed out her dresses. Why, after all that time, did she have to be so stupid? He was so — so handsome, so beautiful. He must have thought her a silly street child, going in for Guinness, indeed. Please, sir, please, sir, three bags full, sir…. After that, he went away to sea for two years, and when he came back, Lottie was fifteen, and due to leave school. Now he was even taller, and broad-shouldered, and better looking than ever. But his nineteen to her fifteen couldn’t have been a wider gap. Sometimes on summer evenings he would stand outside the shop, hands on hips, or he would stretch as though to get some fresh air, and Lottie sighed deeply. She hung out of the window behind the plane tree, her hair tucked behind one ear, the other side falling across her face like a heavy gold curtain. Would he notice her, would he ever notice her…? “Charlotte!” It was her mother’s voice. “Come in this minute. What do you think you are doing?” Lottie ducked inside, covered with confusion, whilst her mother banged the window down behind her. “I don’t know —hanging out of windows —whatever will people think?” She shook her head, looking at Lottie in bewilderment, at her swelling breasts and skinny legs and her hair over one ear. “And take your hair from behind your ear. If you knew how common you looked…” This was the end. You could be anything, have every fault under the sun, but the unforgivable sin was to be common….. “Like some, like some…“ She pushed Lottie ahead of her, not quite daring to slap her, but anxious to make a point. “I don’t know what your father would say.” Lottie knew he wouldn’t say anything, even given a chance. He was such a mild, kind man. He always said “She’s all right” or “He’s all right” or “That’s all right.” I shall never love anyone else, not ever, Lottie thought. She said so to her best friend Maggie as they sat in the park on long summer evenings. “Never,” she said dramatically, hand on heart. “Oh, what do you want to go with boys for?” wailed little Lucy, who always followed them everywhere. “I hate boys, and I hate him.” So what had happened to the beautiful Leslie? Maggie had gone away to be a nursing sister, Maggie who had been so strong and firm in her views, and never in any doubt about anything. Not like Lottie — and poor little Lucy. Timid little Lucy, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose and who admired them so much because they dared to do what she could never do. “It’s a shame,” Lottie’s mother used to say, “you only take her with you so that you can boss her around.” Which was untrue. Well, she asked for it. Little grey mouse. She brought herself back to the present, and gave a last look at the school, starting the engine again, and turning at the corner into Darlington Road. Everything seemed smaller. The terraced houses were minute, with tiny front gardens, and the house on the corner, which they had thought very grand indeed because it was detached, now looked like an office of some kind. She could see tall blocks of flats rising into the sky at the rat end of the street. This end, so far, remained untouched. The shape of things to come, she thought grimly, and wondered if the off-license was still on the corner. She drove slowly past, and there it was. Not only that, but in the doorway, surveying the morning scene was Leslie. She stopped the car a few yards on, her heart beating with a strange kind of excitement. That enormous man with the balding head, the immense stomach, the brilliant shirt, oh, it couldn’t be! Oh, why had she come? And his birthday, too! She didn’t know whether to cry or laugh — at herself, mainly. Then a sense of devilment came over her. It had been so long he wouldn’t know her anyway. Now, what could she buy...? She got out of the car and crossed slowly over the road. Above the door she read “Gallagher’s Wine Stores” and Leslie was by now inside, waiting to serve her. The shop had changed from what she remembered. Carpet covered the floor and the decoration and fitments were very luxurious. Then suddenly he was in front of her, and he looked like a total stranger. “Twenty cigarettes, please,” she said, pointing. “Those,” and as he turned she looked inside to the inner room. To the woman who didn’t raise her eyes, arid who sat reading at a table, looking not unlike Leslie’s mother had looked all those years ago. Her fingers strewn with fine glinting diamonds, loud scarlet nails, hair perfectly coiffured, wearing an exquisite suit. In a matter of seconds Lottie realized that, less than four yards away from her, sat Lucy. Little Lucy, little grey mouse. “Twenty ciggies,” he said, taking the money and placing the change in her hand, squeezing it ever so slightly, with a glint in his eye. Lottie turned and hurried back to the car, and as she drove away she began to giggle. Well, what about that? Why couldn’t she have let well alone? It was a mistake to go back. Yes, she had a shrewd suspicion that today would disappear into the mists of time because she wanted it to, and she would remember it all only the way it was.... THE END