Chapter 15

Friday 18th to Sunday 20th December 70

On the evening of Friday my phone rang. It was Sandra.

“Lovely to hear your voice again,” I said. A bit flowery, but I wanted to encourage her.

“Graham, can I take you up on your offer? Is your offer still open?”

“Of course you can. When? How will we organise it, you’ll have stuff to bring? I’ll come and collect you.”

“Will you? That will be so good. Mary said she’d be around as well. He’ll be at the match tomorrow afternoon. He’ll leave here about two, so we can load up about three if that’s all right. I’m sorry to ruin your Saturday. It’s not too soon?”

“No problem. The sooner the better. I’ll get to Mary’s about two. You can direct us from there.”

“Graham, I can’t believe this. This is the first bit of luck I’ve had in a long time.”

“I hope you’re a good cook and washer-up. That would be real luck!”

She laughed. It was good to hear that musical sound from her. Perhaps she was already free of this other man in spirit.

“I’ll come to Mary’s when he leaves. I’m so excited. You’re sure you want me as a flat mate?”

“I’m looking forward to having you here, and the people you phoned are looking forward to meeting you. Two of them already think you’re lovely!”

There was the sound of a sob at the other end. Then, a sniff. “You people are so kind.”

“Come on Sandra, none of that!” I said, getting embarrassed. “Tomorrow we’ll get everything sorted out. Have you much stuff?”

“Not that much, but we’ll probably need Mary’s car as well.”

On Saturday afternoon I arrived at Mary’s. She kept me at the front door.

“He slapped her about last night,” she said. “I think that’s what decided her. Most of the bruises are under her clothes, but don’t be too shocked by her face.”

Sandra was waiting in the living room, and I immediately understood what Mary meant. One cheek was red and a little swollen, but she had the widest smile so far to greet me. She had no hesitation in hugging me hello. I stepped back and raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” she said. “Last night. I’m so relieved to be out of there.”

She directed me to the house in which she was living. It was a terraced house, paintwork peeling, windows unwashed, generally neglected, a typically cheap rented place with a landlord who spent nothing on upkeep.

She let us in and we emptied her dingy room in fairly short order. It went like clockwork: most of her belongings went into my car, and the rest into Mary’s. She wrote a note to ‘him’ and we were off.

Once again, Sandra rode with me, and we drove in convoy back to my flat. Sandra sucked in a breath when she saw the block. It was a typical 60s new build, square, and fairly featureless, but compared with where she’d been it must have looked palatial. It helped that the modest gardens were well kept and there were plenty of young trees and bushes. She looked a little overawed.

We climbed the stairs, I opened the door and we entered the hallway.

“Kitchen immediately to the right,” I said. “Living room next, bathroom dead ahead, two bedrooms to the left. Yours is the first one, here.”

“Nice place,” said Mary. “The rooms are really large; it’s light and airy.”

Sandra moved forward, exclaiming over each room in turn. Then we began unloading the cars. We unloaded everything into Sandra’s bedroom. It looked quite cluttered with boxes and carrier bags all over the bed and the floor but I surmised it would all fit quite snugly into the wardrobe which ran the length of one wall. She really had very little property of her own.

We had tea and biscuits (cookies) and then Mary left, giving both Sandra and myself a hug. Then we were left alone.

“I think we’d better have another cup of tea, and try to sort ourselves out,” I began. “You will want to stow your stuff as well.”

She nodded, suddenly shy and nervous.

So I poured more tea and we sat in the living room.

“Let’s talk round living here together,” I said reclining in my armchair. “First of all, do you want to live as a lodger, doing your own thing, living in your room, because if you do, I’ll need to get some more furniture for you, and a radio, or do you want to live as a flat-mate and share the common areas all the time, just keeping your room as a bedroom?”

She stared at me, confused. “Graham, I don’t think it’s my place–”

“Sandra,” I broke in, “you’re wrong. This is now your place, your home. You decide how you want to live.”

“I don’t contribute, I have no money.”

“If you want to contribute, until you get a job, how can you do it?”

“Well, I can cook, clean (after all I was a cleaner at the hospital), wash clothes, do the shopping.”

“So you can contribute. What’s more you could contribute by chatting with me, by eating with me, by simply being here – you’ll be company for me.”

She sighed. I did not understand why.

“So I ask you again,” I said. “Do you want our relationship to be lodger and landlord, or flat-mates?”

Still flushed she stared at me for a long while, as if trying to find a hidden agenda.

“Flatmates,” she said decisively with a real smile this time, a smile I could get used to. It made her face ten times more beautiful.

“You know,” she added, “you could have added sex into the mix but you didn’t, you excluded it. Harriet said you took her out, hugged and kissed her, but never made a move on her, until she made the first move. You did that for months.”

She paused, then there was that devilish smile again. “She said she knew you weren’t gay because you were busy with one of her friends.”

“That brings me to another point,” I said. “I told you I have a sometime girlfriend. Sometimes I stay the night with her, sometimes she stays the night here. If that makes you uncomfortable, and we do tend to get quite noisy, if that upsets you I’ll go to her place every time.”

“Harriet said you were...” Here she coloured up and stopped, then giggled.

“I was what, Sandra?” I smiled wickedly, putting her on the spot.

She shrugged then said defiantly, “OK, she said you were good in the sack. So there!” She tossed her head and looked triumphant, daring me to go further. She looked so pretty with that playful, defiant look on her face.

“Enough sex talk,” I said authoritatively, I was getting not a little aroused. I realised she was very open about sex, and she was very sexy.

She relaxed; it was a real look of relief. For the first time since she had entered the flat, she really relaxed.

“That’s better,” I said. “Now you’re settling in. You happy?”

“You’ve no idea,” she smiled.

“Oh, I’ve just thought of something else,” I said. “Now don’t get the wrong idea, but there is only one bathroom, and the loo is in the bathroom. We are going to surprise each other – there’s no lock on the bathroom door. If you want I’ll go out now and buy a lock.”

“I’ve no problem with you seeing me naked, Graham. Have you a problem with me seeing you?”

“No, not at all.” I said, “What about sharing the bathroom, say I’m showering and you want to pee or to wash?”

“No, I’m fine with that.” she said, “Perhaps I’d draw the line at shitting. I like to do that alone.”

“I understand that and yes, I feel the same way.” I agreed, then I had another idea.

“Back to money.”

Her face clouded immediately.

“No, listen, while you’re at home you said you’d go shopping for us.”

“Home,” she said wistfully, and drifted a little, then shook herself, “Well, yes, of course I will do the shopping.”

“So we need to set up housekeeping money. I’ve kept cash in my wallet up to now, but you can’t keep coming to me when we need to shop, so we’ll need to keep an amount in the flat for you to use. I have a cash book I use to keep count of my own spending. We could use that as well.”

“You’d trust me? Graham you don’t know me.”

“Sandra we live together. I trust you. In any case you can only spend what I put in, so I don’t see a problem.”

She smiled at me again, a warm smile. She got up from the sofa, came over to me, bent over and hugged me, kissing me on my lips.

“Thank you,” she said. “I can’t believe the change that’s happened to me.”

“You’ll get used to it,” I laughed. “Wait till we have our first row.”

She shook her head. It was clear she thought that would never happen.

I went to the pot on the mantlepiece and retrieved the spare keys to the flat, one for the flat door and one for the door to the block. I presented them to her. She stared at them and her eyes filled with tears.

“What?” I wondered out loud. Once again she was puzzling me.

“I’m being stupid.” she sniffed. “I’m so happy!”

I took her in my arms and hugged her, and that brought on some sobbing. Women!

“I’d better unpack,” she said, with another sniff.

“Good idea. I’m going shopping,” I said. “I suggest you go right through the flat, including my bedroom, and look in all the cupboards and drawers. Then you’ll know where everything is.”

I thought it best to leave her to gather herself together, but when I returned after two hours, I found her room untouched, and Colette sitting in the living room with Sandra having a cup of tea. On the sideboard there was a big bouquet of flowers in my favourite vase.

“You told Zena that Sandy was coming today,” Colette said with a smile.

Sandra was looking somewhat dazed. “She brought those lovely flowers,” she almost whispered. Then she smiled wickedly, “She’s been telling me more about you.”

“I’d better make a start feeling guilty already.”

Both women nodded, with big grins on their faces.

It was the beginning of a hectic weekend for Sandra, and by implication for me. Colette invited us out for dinner. Sandra looked a little worried, and I did not understand why, but Colette patted her arm, and told her everything would be fine.

I walked down the stairs with Colette.

“Interesting talk with her,” she said. “The girl left home under a cloud – didn’t say why – and went to London. She had a really bad time there, it became too much and she saw an advert for a cleaning job in the hospital in Bolton and came north. She got the job but had nowhere to live. So one of the porters offered her a room, and she was back in the same situation she’d been in while in London.

“He took all her money as part rent and her body for the rest. Graham, she’s got very little in the way of clothes or even shoes. We are the same size, near enough. I’m going to bring her a frock to wear tonight, but we’ll all have to chip in and get her a new wardrobe. I’ll talk to Zena and Harriet.”

Colette was a good as her word, and brought a suitable dress for Sandra, nothing too extreme but good quality and an even better fit. I’ve no idea how she did it. Sandra was completely at a loss. She looked superb in the dress, and I told her so. More embarrassment!

We had a good evening and Colette came back with us to the flat.

“I won’t stay over,” she said over a coffee. “Let Sandy get settled.”

“It’s all right for you to stay,” Sandra asserted. “I know about your ‘arrangements’.”

“Another night, perhaps,” Colette said with a smile. “You get settled.”

It was after midnight when Colette left, and Sandra looked dead on her feet.

“Get yourself off to bed,” I said. “You look all in.”

“Yes,” she said, with a yawn, “I still can’t believe it. It isn’t a dream is it?”

“No,” I said, “it’s real enough. You’re getting the break you deserve. I hope you’ll be getting a lot of pleasure and happiness in the next few weeks. After what you’ve been through, you need a few weeks to rest and recuperate.”

“Colette is wonderful,” she said.

“True,” I said. “Now get yourself off to bed.”

She stood, came to where I sat on my chair, sat on the arm, put an arm round me and kissed me on the mouth. I definitely could get used to this, I thought.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said, looking down at me from her perch.