Warren
by Andrew Lee-Hart

 

 

I remember lying naked in a field in France with Diana.

“Look up” she told me, “look at the darkness all around, and the silence. Don’t you feel lonely?”

“No, so long as you are with me I will never be alone.”

She said nothing, and then I kissed her, knowing that I had found my heart’s desire and that nothing else in comparison was important; that I was part of her, and she of me.

 

And yet as time goes on, as death comes closer, loneliness is exactly what I feel, and as for Diana, I have no idea how she feels, or what she thinks about when it is dark and I am lying next to her.

 

One

We were talking about irony at the library, and I mentioned Mrs Thatcher repeating the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, in her speech after she was elected Prime Minister, “where there is discord, may we bring harmony….” &c.

“Who is Mrs Thatcher?” asked Dean.

“Oh for Heaven’s Sake, she was Prime Minister for donkey’s years.”

My friend Marie laughed, “when was she around?”

“1979 until 1991, the whole of the 1980s” I told her, “I remember her resigning, and my tutor at University cheering.”

“Dean wasn’t born then, and I hate to tell you this, but neither was I”.

 

I looked at her, beautiful, funny, and incredibly young.

“Oh god” I muttered, “but you must have heard of her.”

She smiled, “I am sure I have heard my parents mention her.”

I know her quite well, and realised that she was being kind and that she too had no idea who Mrs Thatcher was, any more than Dean had.

“They mention Roy Jenkins a lot, I think he was Prime Minister twice, and there was some Tory bloke who was everyone hated.”

“No, Roy Jenkins was never Prime Minister, he was Home Secretary but then he left the Labour Party, and led the SDP for awhile I think. And after Mrs Thatcher it was John Major, maybe he is the ghastly Tory who everyone hated, but I doubt it, he did not arouse strong emotions as far as I remember, quite likeable in fact.”

 

Marie smiled, she was not that interested in politics, and anyway the Mayor was due in shortly and Marie and Dean needed to make sure that the lending library looked tidy and busy, whilst I also had stuff to get on with upstairs, so we got on with our allotted tasks.

 

Later on, after the Mayor had been and gone, Marie and I had a kiss in the basement, where we kept the rare books which smelt of leather and damp.

“You are so old” she told me.

“I know and I am sorry.”

“Don’t be silly” and she bit my lip softly, she tasted and smelt of blackcurrant. 

“I love you” I told her.

“I love you too, despite your great age,” and she hugged me tight, as if she could not bear to let me go.

 

That evening I rang my brother Ian and told him about the conversation.

“Who is Mrs Thatcher?” he asked, “I don’t remember her either; it was Roy Jenkins who was Prime Minister when we were growing up, and then that awful Warren Hawksley.”

My brother has a strange sense of humour, so I laughed and as there was a match about to start on television, I ended the call.

 

As I sat watching Leicester City playing out a drab draw with Stoke City, I wondered who the hell Warren Hawksley was; a name that sounded familiar, as if I had heard it a long time ago. And then eventually I remembered him; he had been our M.P. when we were growing up in Shropshire during the 1980s. A Conservative backbencher of the “hang ‘em and flog ‘em” variety; something of a nonentity who was never in danger of becoming a member of the cabinet, let alone Prime Minister. How on earth, had Ian remembered him? And then think it funny to suggest that he could have become Prime Minister?

 

Later I rang my mum as usual; she is eighty next year but still keeps busy, working for CAB and travelling the country on her free bus pass, to visit her friends and family – much to their horror I suspect -.

“Ian just rang, he is worried about you. Are you all right?”

“Yeah, just feeling old.”

“Try being me.”

“You are still young” I told her, and arranged to meet her the following weekend as usual. For some reason I did not tell her about my colleagues not knowing who Mrs Thatcher was, I was scared that she too would have no idea who she was either.

 

Marie sent me a text, just before I went to sleep.

“Good night, see you tomorrow.”

“Love you” I replied with lots of xxxxs.

And yes I was glad she was in my life, but the fact that I had not told any of my family or friends about her suggested that deep down I realised how inappropriate the relationship really was. And perhaps to her it was just a friendship; nothing too serious, just a bit of excitement at work. And yet without her, the loneliness would overwhelm me; nobody to hold me and kiss me, nobody to care about me, nobody to wish me goodnight, and to say that they love me.

 

Two

I looked up Mrs Thatcher the next morning on my laptop, the same one I am using to type up this memoir (?), story (?) or whatever it is. Wikipedia mentioned about her being secretary of State for Health under the Conservatives but apparently after the 1974 election she was sacked by Ted Heath and stayed on the backbenches, retiring from politics after not contesting her seat at the 1978 General Election. She went back to being a Scientist, working for Lever Brothers, eventually divorcing her husband after “having lived separate lives for several years” and then died ten years ago in 2005.

 

I know that the internet is not reliable but this was ridiculous. I then typed in “Warren Hawksley”, and yes according to Google he was Prime Minister 1983 until 1987. And I looked at his face; rather chubby, with messy hair, the same man I remembered from my school days, as a Right Wing populist, who we loved to hate. Was I the one going mad, or had Ian altered things on Wikipedia? Ian is no more IT savvy than I am but he had friends who could probably do it for him. But it sounded all a bit over the top.

 

I needed to set off for work and I hadn’t even had a coffee let alone a shower, but I was hooked on my laptop. I looked up Gary Hackett, my favourite Shrewsbury Town player, one of the stars of the team that punched above their weight during some impressive seasons in the old second division in the mid-1980s. A player who after he left the Mighty Shrews never really fulfilled his potential but who was still my footballing hero.

 

And yet reading his Wikipedia page, it was as if they were describing a different player, and in fact I had to check that I had not clicked on the wrong person. According to the Website, he had been part of the “magnificent Shrewsbury Town team, who got promoted in 1984 and stayed in the old First Division for two years”.  Apparently he had then joined Liverpool being part of the successful Leeds United team of the late 1980s early ‘90s, before becoming player manager at Carlisle United, and was now a highly regarded football pundit on Sky Sport.

 

This was ridiculous; pure fantasy. Had my brother really gone to town on Wikipedia; editing all the pages I was likely to look at?  He knew I supported Shrewsbury Town, as did he in a nominal sort of way, but I doubted he had heard of Gary Hackett, or knew that I was likely to be looking him up. I realised that he had time on his hands, but was he really spending his leisure time editing Wikipedia to create a fantasy world where Shrewsbury Town were one of the best teams in the country and a little-known Shropshire M.P. was Prime Minister.

 

Feeling confused I was tempted to go back to bed but instead I had my coffee and got dressed, arriving at the library just a few minutes late. I probably wouldn’t have bothered going in at all as I was feeling most peculiar, but I wanted to see Marie; knowing that I would be with her for the next few hours, made everything seem saner.

 

Three

Warren Hawksley, perhaps I do remember his time as Prime Minister after all. That awkward first speech as a Prime Minister, where he looked sweaty and nervous, with his wife anxiously stroking his arm as he spoke. Warren never did get it completely right. The man who defeated the Labour/ Liberal alliance proved a bit of a bumbling fool as Prime Minister, whilst hidden away in her laboratory, Margaret dreamed of what might have been.

 

All these memories; what will happen to them when I die? When I was growing up, there were a few people around who had fought in the First World War, and then suddenly they had all gone, with their memories and their trauma. And now on Remembrance Day only a few are left who fought in the Second World War.  Soon even our veterans from our ill-advised adventure in the Vietnam War will be gone. Of course there will be history books, films and even photographs, but nobody who was actually there, who can say “this is what it was really like.”

 

And yet even those who are alive; their memories go or they are told what to remember. Things I thought I knew seem to have been pure fantasy. Did Gary Hackett really score goals against the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United, and how could I have forgotten it?  I could look through my old football programmes, but I had thrown them out when Diana and I moved last time around, so I had no proof to ease my confusion.

 

Four

Marie came to see me one Saturday morning. She had messaged me to ask if I was free, I was about to go and do my shopping but that could wait. She did occasionally visit me at home and she even had a key, although she rarely used it.

 

I let her in and she kissed me hard and we ended up in bed, as wonderful as it was unexpected.

“This is a lovely surprise” I told her.

“Good”, and she kissed me, and I drew her towards me.

“Wait, before we….well there is something I need to tell you, that’s why I came round. I am engaged.”

“Engaged?”

“Yes, to Mark, I am going to announce it at work on Monday but I thought that you should know first.”

 

I was not sure if she had mentioned Mark to me before, but then she had had a few men in her life since we got to know each other; and I never enquired too much as to what these relationships were. Clearly she needed more than our (at best) semi-romance.

“He asked me to marry him last night, and I said yes.”

“Do you love him?”

“I think so. He is kind and funny. And my parents like him.”

 

She kissed me, and stroked my chest.

“I do love you, more than anyone really, but one day I want to have children and perhaps travel….”

“Couldn’t we do that?”

She looked at me pityingly and I knew that I was too old, that I would never have children now, and never travel the world.

“I still want you in my life” she told me, “you mean so much to me” and she pinned me down and took me with all her might.

 

After she had gone I was feeling lonely and sad, so I decided to get out and visit Ian. He has a flat by Victoria Park in Leicester, so I drove over and parked nearby. The park was busy, with families wrapped up against the end of the winter cold. I wished that I had brought a hat, because my ears became very cold.

 

I sat by the lake and watched the geese and swans, wondering what would happen with Marie and me. But already the whole relationship felt unreal, as if it had happened to somebody else, despite my having been naked with her only a couple of hours ago. I sighed and got up, and headed towards my brother’s flat.

 

There was a series of bells by the door, but none had his name on, but I knew his was the flat right at the top facing the park, so I rang that buzzer and eventually a man answered.

“Hi, I am after Ian.” I told him.

“You have got the wrong flat mate, this is the top one.”

“I know, oh well. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

 

I shrugged bemused, Ian did tend to move about fairly frequently, having lived in different flats and bedsits in the city, ever since his illness, but he always let us know where he was living, knowing that we would be worried about him. Perhaps there would be an email when I got home letting us all know about his change of address.

 

I drove home, wondering whether I should also move house, I had been here for many years, and perhaps it was time I made a change as I nothing to hold me. Well there was my mother of course – I had almost forgotten her – but she was happy living her own life. Perhaps I should move to London, where there was people and music, who were young and alive. Not like here where nothing was at it seemed.

 

Five

Once home I checked my emails, but there was nothing from Ian, in fact there was nothing from anyone. My emails were devoid of any personal missives at all, it was as if I did not exist. Then I remembered all the emails that Marie had sent me, loving and sometimes sexual. I had kept them all and now they were all gone; not even in my “Deleted Folder”. Perhaps my laptop had a virus, which destroyed emails and turned websites into nonsense, sent from China or Russia, although I had heard nothing about this on the radio.

 

I felt like listening to something stirring, and tried to find Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony on Youtube, but nothing turned up; one of the great pieces of Western music had disappeared, as surely as all my emails. There was no other music by Beethoven either, until I found an obscure mid-Western college performance of a string quartet; although they described it as “a recently discovered piece by an unknown German composer.” I listened to it anyway, but fell asleep before it had finished.

 

Six

I dreamed about Diana, she was crying and I didn’t know why, or how I could I stop it. Where had she gone? And when I woke all there was left was a distant memory of a field in France and her tummy white in the moonlight. Who was Diana anyway? Was she real, or somebody else that I seemed to have conjured up?

 

The next morning, Spring had come all at once, and I sneezed on the pollen as I walked down the drive and got in my car. I felt odd; and kept having to check where I was going, and yet I must have driven to work hundreds of times. Several times I had to stop and figure out which road to take next. And for awhile I was actually lost, having driven down the wrong road without realising it.

 

Due to my stupidity I was late for work, something that was unheard of for me. I walked upstairs into the Reference Department where I worked. Marie came up on the way to the staff room, and I gave her a grin, as she walked past me, but she just looked at me as if I were mad.

 

I felt like a cup of coffee and so joined the rest of the team in the staffroom. As I walked in, there was a sudden silence and when I sat down I noticed staff looking at me curiously, but I am sure this is where I normally take my coffee break.  Slowly there was a bit of muttering amongst the other staff, but it was obvious they did not want me there, perhaps something had happened in the lending department and they wanted to talk about it amongst themselves. So I quickly drank my coffee and went back on the desk to continue with the database that I was working on.

 

Later I saw Marie heading towards the basement, so I waited a few minutes and followed her down. She looked nervous as I stood by her, and she called me Doctor Williams. She had an old book in her hands, which she held in front of her chest, as if for protection.

“Sorry Miss Price” I said, ironically, “I thought we were friends.”

She looked at me oddly.

“Have you told them the news?” I asked.

She looked at me very confused, and edged away, “what news?”

“Engagement.”

 

She stared at me, “what are you talking about?”

“Last night, you said you were engaged to Mark.”

“I don’t know any Mark, and I need to go back upstairs” she told me, and tried to push past me.

“Oh Marie, what is going on?” and I pulled her into me, and then she screamed and scratched my face. In shock I let her go, and stood there bewildered as she rushed up the stairs. My face was sore and when I checked it in the mirror a few minutes later, I could see that there was a deep red mark on my cheek.

 

As I came out of the bathroom, Mike, the head of the Library was waiting for me, and he led me into his office. We had never been close, and he glared at me, as I sat down opposite him, without being asked.

“What the hell happened with you and Marie?” he asked, “she said you grabbed her and tried to kiss her. What on earth were you thinking?”

I sat there staring at him for a moment; the day was becoming more and more incomprehensible and I felt as if I was in shock.

“But we are in a relationship” I explained, “we often kiss, she even has the key to my house.”

He looked at me incredulously, “I find that very hard to believe. She is a married woman for goodness sake, with a little child.

“Married, what on earth are you talking about?”

“I can assure you that she is. And even if she wasn’t….well you are old enough to be her father. I know you have had your troubles with your brother, and we all have tried to support you through that, but really…this is very serious you know.”

“It is true, I know it sounds unlikely, but it is true.”

“Well as of now you are suspended and there will be a disciplinary meeting. If you are not a member of a Trade Union, I would join one.”

 

“Can I ask you something?”

He looked at me without saying anything.

“Do you remember Mrs Thatcher?”

He just stared at me, “do I need to call security or will you come with me quietly” he asked after a moment.

I stood up and he escorted me out of the building, making sure that I did not speak to anyone on my way. But then I was too stunned to know what to say or do, and followed him, touching the walls of the building to give me some sense of support.

 

Once home I tried to text Marie, but she was not listed in my contacts. I sat on my bed and I thought about Warren Hawksley again. I pictured him on television, the day he resigned from being Prime Minister, he had unexpectedly lost the election, and looked – well peeved is the right word - , as if we had somehow let him down by not voting for him.  And then he had headed back into 10 Downing Street, with his wife following him, presumably to finish their packing.

 

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered and decided to ring my mother. A refined sounding voice answered the phone.

“Who is it?”

“It is Andrew, your son.”

“But I don’t have a son. Please stop bothering me, I have told you before.” And she put the phone down, and I sat listening to the dialling tone, and then must have fallen asleep.

 

Seven

When I awoke there was a message from Marie which said “sorry, I will explain. I love you.”

I did not answer it, and blocked the number. Then I made a cup of tea, and Googled things on the internet; the name of the Prime Minister, the President of the United States, Andy Murray and David Beckham. None of it made sense, and I put my head in my hands, when a woman walked into the house and kissed me on my neck.

“Andrew, are you okay?” she asked, in a tone of utmost weariness.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Oh not this again” she said, as she took off her jacket.

 

She walked upstairs, I followed her up and watched, as she undressed and put on jeans and a blouse.

“Diana?” I asked.

“Yes, Diana, your long suffering wife. Now are you going to make dinner, whilst I pick up the children? Or shall I cook for a change?”

“Children?” I looked at her in utmost confusion.

“Yes, David and Lisa, our children.”

 

“Okay, I will go and get them”, and so I sat in my car and stared into the distance, having no idea where I was going, or who I was going to meet.

 

Rate this story.

Copyright is reserved by the author. Please do not reproduce any part of this article without consent.