‘Who?’
‘Maximus Cretinous! Roh-ger Fen-ton,’ Dominic stressed as though spoken italics would assist, ‘seminal nineteenth-century photographer? Crimean War?’
‘Right, right,’ hurried Max. ‘She’s not related to James either.’
‘Who he?’
‘Jay-ums Fen-ton, dickhead,’ Max relished. ‘Come on – landmark British poet, journalist, critic? The Memory of War?’
Dominic regarded his brother slyly. ‘Swot!’ he declared, with a friendly punch to the biceps.
‘Back to Polly?’ Max, ever the pacifist, suggested; so they chinked glasses and toasted her health and Max’s very good fortune.
‘Get you, Max!’ mused Dominic. ‘Is she tickling your fancy or melting your heart?’
‘We’re not talking marriage here,’ Max had laughed, standing and stretching, and offering his brother a choice between a frozen lasagne ready-meal or beans on toast.
‘She’ll be half-way through her journey now,’ Dominic remarks, listening to his watch, checking it against the time on the video and phoning the talking clock to make absolutely sure.
‘Oh, and I asked her to marry me,’ Max says to Dominic, as if informing him merely that he had invited Polly along to the cinema with them.
‘Oh yes?’ says Dominic, keeping a straight face but unable to do anything about the sparkle in his eyes.
‘Yup,’ says Max, ‘just before she went through passport control.’
‘Did she, er, accept graciously?’ asked Dominic, all wide eyed and winsome.
‘Not in so many words,’ said Max slowly, ‘what with all her sobbing and hugging me. And her nose all blocked up.’ He proffered the crumpled section of his shirt as proof.
‘Ah,’ said Dominic, further convinced that all women were soft. And so, it now transpired, was his brother. ‘Bet she made off with your diamond!’
‘Actually,’ said Max, burping lightly under his breath and passing his glass for another refill, ‘it was all a bit spur-of-the-moment. The words sort of tumbled out. Anyway, she’s having to make do with the plastic jigger from a small bottle of fruit juice. Until she comes home.’
With eyes shut and further concealed by the eye-mask; body wrapped, chin to knee, against the controlled chill of aeroplane air-conditioning by a thin, synthetic blanket, Polly concentrates on forgetting the whirr and smell of the plane, the words and pictures of the Hubbardtons brochure, to transport herself back to the then and there of her departure from Max. And his words. And their meaning.
Marry me.
Me?
Who else.
But I haven’t really thought about it – not outside the context of a soft-focus day-dream. We’ve never spoken seriously about it – like we might be tempting fate if we did. But there again, who else would I marry?
She wriggles in her seat and retrieves the orange plastic neck-ring from the back pocket of her jeans. She places it on her finger, under the blanket, eyes scrunched shut even behind the eye-mask, desperate to recreate the sensation when Max did so. It is too large, of course. Somehow, its symbolism is almost too big for her to contemplate as well, thousands of feet up in the air, on her way to foreign climes. For a whole year. She’ll think seriously on it anon of course, perhaps on the banks of some lonely stream, under the bough of some lofty maple, when she feels alone and a million miles away.
I’m bound to, frequently.
God, a whole year. And so far away.
The eye-mask forces her tears back against her eyes. The noise of the aircraft prevents anyone hearing her sniff. She returns the plastic neck-ring ring to the back pocket of her jeans. It’s serrated.
Sharper than you’d think.
The glut of emotions enveloping her at Heathrow had been complex: the pain of parting from Max; the apprehension of leaving kin and country; a fear of flying; the love of the job she was leaving; concern for the position she was exchanging it for. Not to mention the bombard of emotion subsuming her when the man she loved proposed marriage. Out of the blue.
So spontaneous – very un-Max. Wonder if he thought about it, whether he really truly meant it?
‘Oh dear,’ she wails suddenly, out loud, tasting the blanket inadvertently, ‘I didn’t actually say “yes”.’
The shock of it!
THREE
Polly was immensely excited to see Cape Cod from the aeroplane window.
‘Do you know, it looks exactly the same as it does on a map!’ she exclaimed to her neighbour who was still wearing the blindfold. ‘Look!’ Polly urged, with a gentle but insistent nudge, ‘it’s like an arm, a crook at the elbow, a hand cupping the sea against it. Look!’
Her fellow passenger did indeed look and then retreated back behind his eye-mask hoping sincerely that no other cartographical features would solicit his neighbour before they landed in Boston.
As Polly waited at the luggage carousel, she suddenly had absolutely no idea who would be meeting her. In the event, she would have made a bee-line for Kate Tracey anyway, whether or not she had been brandishing the enormous board emblazoned with Polly’s name. Amongst the sea of faces and the barrage of name signs, Kate’s easy smile reached out to Polly immediately. As she approached, she marvelled at the coincidence that the name on the sign was indeed her very own.
‘Polly?’ the woman mouthed, from some distance.
‘Yes!’ Polly mouthed back, nodding and grinning.
‘Polly!’ the woman declared when they were close to, ‘hi there!’
‘Hullo,’ said Polly, a little breathless, ‘how do you do?’
‘I’m Kate Tracey, welcome,’ the woman said, gripping the placard between her knees so she could shake Polly’s hand heartily, ‘how you doing?’
‘Oh,’ said Polly, ‘absolutely fine, thank you.’
‘Good! This is Bogey. Bogey say hi.’
Polly hadn’t even seen the dog, having been preoccupied with Kate’s glinting eyes behind red-rimmed owl-frame spectacles.
‘Hullo Bogey!’ Polly declared, flopping to her knees and encircling her arms about the oversized Airedale’s neck while he slurped at her cheek. ‘As in Humphrey?’ she asked Kate.
‘Sure thing,’ Kate confirmed, trading the dog’s lead for Polly’s trolley.
‘I’m Fenton as in Roger and James,’ Polly explained, jigging to keep up with Kate who was slaloming effortlessly through the concourse towards the exit, ‘although I’m related to neither. Unfortunately.’
‘That’s too bad,’ rued Kate kindly, coming to a standstill, cocking her head and nodding at Polly, ‘I’m kinda partial to British photographers and British poets.’
Polly was most impressed.
‘I’ve had rampant affairs with both species,’ confided Kate through the side of her mouth while she walked. ‘Rampant!’ she all but growled. ‘In the sixties,’ she said, by way of justification.
Polly laughed.
I like this woman!
What’s she like then?