‘You’re something else,’ he said. And when she turned it was as if the holiday spirit rested with her.
‘It’s a nice night. Can we go down?’
You could hear voices on the street. You could hear the crowd gathering and the car horns. He picked out one of the books and it fell open at a place held by a Glasgow train ticket. It was something he’d loved when he was eighteen, ‘The Snow Man’, a poem by Wallace Stevens that he’d never forgotten. ‘One must have a mind of winter,’ it said, ‘To regard the frost and the boughs of the pine-trees crusted with snow.’
THE ILLUMINATIONS
They weren’t in a hurry to cross the road. They let people pass in front of them, moving faster, girls with buggies, men with beer. Anne was actually laughing: she pointed to a cockles-and-mussels van as if wonders would never cease. She said the Tower Ballroom was once on fire and if you wanted to know a nice shop in Blackpool it was the Camera Corner. She moved in and out of
lucidity, in and out of herself. They strolled along the dark street and she appeared completely unbothered by the darting children and the girls in cowboy hats.
‘Mods and rockers,’ she said. He didn’t know why she said it but it didn’t matter. The tower soared above them. The crowd poured into the road and the kids were excited. Luke found a bench on the promenade with a good view of the bandstand, the compère and his teeth and the microphone up to his chin. ‘Quiet, everybody!’ he shouted and you could hear the bleeps of the coin machines behind the sudden hush. ‘Welcome to the world famous Blackpool Illuminations. With one switch, ladies and gentleman, we will light the city from Squires Gate to Redbank Road, over one million individual bulbs and strips of neon!’
Luke had once seen a lit-up Ferris wheel on the cover of a book, the yellow lights revealing a face in the dark blue magic of the sky, and he thought of it again on the prom at Blackpool. He was sure that the lights were made to reveal them all. Waiting for the switch-on, the crowd grew nostalgic and swayed as one, seeming to sense an unknown social purpose in the loveliness of the spectacle. The everyday street lamps of Blackpool appeared in those final minutes to concede their own dullness in the face of what was coming, and they dimmed. ‘Have a wee drink, missus,’ said a drunk young man behind them. Anne smiled up at him and took the cup and stared at it.
‘Is this mine?’ she said.
‘Pear cider. Top gear. Get it down ye, missus.’ Anne put the cup to her mouth and the man seemed pleased and Luke just shook his head and laughed. A blonde pop singer jumped up and down on the stage and blew a kiss to the cheering crowd. Luke put his hand down to take Anne’s when the countdown got low,
squeezing it gently. The crowd was familiar with this annual spectacle, the Illuminations, yet the sense of anticipation seemed palpable, as if it was happening for the very first time. The pop singer hit the button and light travelled up the tower and spread from there like a beautiful, endless halo over the whole city. Anne stood up. The bulbs going towards the sea were perfect dots of red and they swung above the crowd. Luke’s stomach lurched to see them, the red dots going into the dark, but when he looked in other directions he only saw people laughing and hoisting their kids. Gold light was falling from all the buildings and it fell on Anne, too: he could see it reflected in the wet surface of her eyes. Her face showed not only the happy time she was having but all the happy times she had ever had. He leaned over and put his arms around her. ‘I’m so glad you came with me. So glad.’
‘It’s nice here, isn’t it?’
The sky was something else. As they walked on to see the illuminations beyond the North Pier, Luke thought of how the sky had looked above Kajaki the night they finished. He’d heard the last of the grenades and the fighting was over and when he looked up he felt there was nothing but cold stars.
They went through the crowd and Anne put both hands on his arm and they walked slowly. Children darted past them and around them and the movement seemed to please her, as if this was what children should do on a night like this. They came onto the North Pier and he felt the heat of the many bulbs. They walked among the old slot machines, peep shows, one-armed bandits. How to Choose a Sweetheart. What the Butler Saw. Ghost Story. She touched each of the booths as if she knew them. And the one called The Gypsy she especially liked: a lady with a headscarf of coins dispensing predictions from behind glass.
Look at the sunset, Harry. And she says, she says … You don’t need a camera for that.
Some things you just remember.
Life isn’t a photograph, Harry.
Isn’t it, darling?
They walked further down the pier and stopped to look back at the tower and the lights. Luke could see blue reflected light on the ridges of the sea. A man was playing a tin guitar next to one of the sweet kiosks and Anne pointed to him as they passed and squeezed Luke’s arm. ‘We used to go and see all the groups that played,’ she said. ‘Those four boys with the haircuts. The drummer was nothing to look at.’
‘Did you go to the pubs?’
‘Harry loved the bars,’ she said. ‘One of them used to put a monkey on the counter and you’d feed it nuts.’
They sat quietly watching the lights.
‘Do you want chips?’ Luke said.
She nodded.
He brought them back and they sat down on one of the white iron benches. Up on the promenade a tram was passing encased in neon and it was playing the kind of tune you used to hear on the radio. She didn’t look up and Luke could see she was all about the chips. With the colours around them and bulbs lit for miles up the coast, Luke wondered if Blackpool could be seen that night from the moon. A minute later the fireworks burst over the Irish Sea. She looked up, laughed again. Luke felt himself melting away, a snowman on the bench, sitting in for someone else. There was nothing beside her but the essence of Harry.
He breathed out. She would never know. But he’d learned from the letters that they weren’t married and that she had spent
many of her holidays waiting for him. Harry Blake was married to another woman and they had three children and he lived with them in a house in Manchester. All the stories she built around him came from a hope she had, a dream she made, but it was really an affair that proved impossible. He only came to the bedsit when it suited him. It then occurred to Luke, sitting on the bench amid the lights and the smell of vinegar, that the letters had stopped when Anne was pregnant with his mother. Harry Blake, his grandfather, the great Harry, had left her in the lurch, and that was the thing she could never say.
BOSSA NOVA
Anne wanted to remain in the bar downstairs with Sheila’s family. She wanted to ask Luke if that would be all right, but instead she just smiled at the mirror and walked down the hall while he was hanging up the coats. They were about to go upstairs when Sheila emerged and took Anne’s hand and said she was having none of it. ‘We’re a long time dead, aren’t we, Mrs Blake? Come into the lounge and have a glass with the girls.’
Anne sat with a vodka and tonic. The bubbles were nice and she liked the voices of the people. Sheila’s family were all good at laughing and they sat at a round table, balloons taped to the wallpaper, while a man played an electronic keyboard. Anne said: ‘Bossa Nova.’ Then she stared at the beer mats, wondering if Harry would know where to find her. Behind the bar was a popular print of a crying boy and Anne fixed her eyes on it and felt it was a cold winter painting like ones of New York. Luke asked Sheila whether she’d mind if he went out for a couple of hours.