They stopped in a village and Liz bundled out, into the phone box. Cliff" sat watching her as she talked in that column of light. She was squinting at the houselights opposite, the pub lights, the closed shops. Liz was thinking: people live here; a place I might never come to again. These are people I will never meet. It made her feel perplexed, that she could dash through like this and use their phone, even if it was a public box.
In bed last night a similar thought had struck her. She mulled over all the beds where she’d fucked with Cliff just once. It seemed cavalier of them. It made her feel they were she trying very hard to keep the novelty up, under bedspread after bedspread and never the same one twice.
On the phone that night Liz’s daughter sounded non-plussed. Nothing had changed at home. “She can be ever so surly,” Liz sighed as they drove and left the village behind.
Cliff knew better than to add anything. He twizzled the radio on to a station with a request show for ninety-year-olds. Organ music from the 1920s. ‘The Sun Has Got His Hat On’. After a while they sang along.
It was one morning when they left another of their breakfasts that Liz said you could soon sicken of not having your own place.
"You can’t exactly rest your bones in someone else’s house. Not properly. I’m always on my guard.”
Cliff was manoeuvring the car down the sharp zigzag back to the main road. He snapped, “When are you not on your guard?”
She pursed her lips, deciding not to tell him about this morning. He thought it was odd that the woman from the B&B let them see themselves out. When she told them to just leave the cheque on the breakfast table he marvelled at her trust.
The B&B woman had said, "I must dash. I’ve got a dress-making class starting at ten. I’m so silly I forgot!” She hurried out in a flap and Liz and Cliff listened to her engine revving in the driveway. They stared at the table. Cliff said, “I hope I haven’t blocked her in the driveway.” But he hadn’t, and they watched her car hare across the bay.
Who has a dress-making class at ten o’clock in the morning? Liz thought. But she didn’t say anything.
They had found the bungalow in the dark last night. It had a fine, wide picture window overlooking the bay, and they could see the woman sitting at her desk, under a green-shaded lamp. She was doing her accounts in a houndstooth jacket and a white blouse with ruffled collar. All the bungalows here did B&B, Cliff said. When summer came they cleaned up with passing trade. That’s what we are, thought Liz gloomily, just passing trade.
Several years back Cliff had lived on this peninsula, doing manual work on somebody’s estate. "It’s such a close-knit community, with everyone looking out for each other. I wonder if they recognize me still!”
So far no one had. It amazed Liz that he wanted so much to be recognized here: in the petrol station, the post office and by this B&B woman. When at home, in Aycliffe, everyone knew Cliff by sight, because of his being on the buses. He had gained the easy appreciation of all the women Liz knew. She bet they still talked about him even now. What was so special about the people here?
When this woman let them into her bungalow — and it wasn’t that special inside — Liz felt condescended to. Her hackles went straight up. The B&B woman looked her up and down, as if she thought she was too dressed up for a car journey. Liz felt like a mad woman, or someone kidnapped.
“I’ve a double room, or a room with twin beds.”
“Double,” said Cliff with a smile as Liz made her way to the door marked 'bathroom’. The B&B woman called after her: “We turn the ‘occupied’ sign over on the door when we use the bathroom. That way we know. And when we leave we open the window for the condensation. All right?”
Liz smiled and slammed the door after her.
Cliff put all their bags in the double room. The bed was very high up. He was sitting on it when Liz came back. “All right?”
She rolled her eyes. He went into the living room, to be sociable.
Liz looked at a shelf of books by the bed. Everything Dick Francis had ever written and seven years of the Reader’s Digest, She picked one out and sat down on the two laid-out towels, pink and blue. On Top of a Glacier. She should be getting out her night things. She could hear Cliff mumbling away, asking about people here. The B&B woman recognized him at last. She said how last year had been bad for deaths. The weather came in and picked the oldies off. Someone’s twins had been in a road accident. The roads were atrocious. One of the twins had died and Cliff said that’s the one he’d been friendly with.
Liz changed into a black dress. Nothing too showy. She went through. “Will you have some tea or whisky before you go?”
Cliff was saying they’d go for a drink down in the village, so he could show Liz where he’d hung out for a year. The B&B woman added, “I don’t always drink whisky by myself, you know.” She tilted her wine glass, full to the brim with gold. "Only when I’m doing my accounts." She chuckled.
“Ha!” laughed Cliff, over-eager, and Liz shot him a glance.
In the car Cliff said, "She didn’t remember me at all.” He waved vaguely at the picture window.
“Should she?”
"She used to come and cook for the old bag I
