It was over half an hour’s drive across the Williamsburg Bridge, through Little Italy and Chelsea and on to Upper West Side. At mid-afternoon the streets were crowded with vehicles and the journey was hard work. As they crossed the East River, Arthur attempted to strike a conversation with his passengers but was slapped down with a ‘Shhhh, not now, dear,.’ and suddenly he was a child again, asking his Aunt Sylvia a question, and being told to hold his tongue. Disgruntled, he turned the volume up on the radio and attempted to listen to a discussion on the failing fortunes of the Yankees. A splurge of excited words buzzed over the airwaves, and he switched off again, irritated.
Along 9th Avenue they witnessed an ambulance weaving its way through the traffic, its siren blaring as it cut in front of them and swung down West 57th Street. The women behind him craned their necks to get a better view. ‘What do you think of that one’s chances?’ asked Tina.
‘Not great,’ replied Lara. ‘There’s a traffic jam down that street that will keep them from arriving at the hospital on time.’
Arthur adjusted his rear-view mirror with a deliberate tug until he’d framed all three women within it. Chloe had produced a copy of Howdy magazine from somewhere, its cover identical to the edition that had lain on the office table next to the National Geographic. ‘Oh look!’ she said to her friends, ‘there’s a picture of that nice Vincente Toro chap. Do you remember him? He’s the singer we met a few months ago.’
‘Oh, the one with the pencil moustache? Wasn’t he struggling to compose a song?’ Lara attempted to imitate the same merengue Arthur had drummed along to on the way back to the office.
‘That was the one, yes.’
Tina giggled. ‘He was a lovely man. Such a charmer. It was a pleasure meeting him. I bet he’s had lots of success with that tune now.’
Arthur slowed the cab down at traffic lights. While they waited, Chloe raised her eyes from the magazine, and caught him watching her. She gave a twisted little smile and said, ‘Oh! Here’s an article on Melanie Ambrosia.’
He would have crashed the car had it not been stationary.
‘It says,’ the woman continued, ‘that she’s made a great life for herself since moving to Chicago. She quit the drink…which was killing her…and started her own business and… oh! She’s getting married!’
Her companions cooed their approval. ‘Is that not lovely news?’ Tina clapped her hands in enthusiasm and continued, ‘I do love a wedding. Everyone is so happy and pleased with life at weddings.’
‘And she’s so pretty,’ said Lara.
Tina agreed. ‘She is, oh, she is. The move out of New York was the making of her, right enough.’
Arthur was gobsmacked. They were talking about Melanie, reading about her from an article in a gossip rag… It was, well, it was so improbable that she’d be in such a magazine, but if she’d become a success story in Chicago, then good luck to the woman. It was great that she’d gotten her life together.
He pulled away from the lights as the women continued their mutterings. Their voices jumbled behind the soup of noise that was the city. Only when Arthur slowed at another set of lights did their excited voices become audible again. This time, it was Chloe whom he heard speak first. ‘Thelma Olmstead has picked up an award for her work with rare dog breeds. It says here that she’s set up a charity where abandoned and rare pedigree dogs can stay until homes are found for them. And she has sponsorship, too. So, she has no problem with funding. Good for her.
‘It’s a lovely picture. The photographer captures her essence beautifully. He knows what he’s doing with a lens. All the pictures in this journal are wonderful.’ She paused and cast her eyes at Arthur’s mirror, smiled when she caught him spying through it, and continued, ‘And that little dog with its paw on Thelma’s lap is gorgeous. We should get a dog. What do you say ladies? How fantastic would that be?’
‘We will do no such thing. I’m not leaving a canine in our home while we go to work, with dog hair getting into everything, and poo all over the place,’ Lara said.
Arthur’s mind raced. First Melanie and then Thelma. This was too strange. He never ventured inside that sort of magazine and was hazy about their contents, but he suspected he was more likely to win the lottery than for two of his ex-girlfriends to appear side by side in the same issue. Well, maybe girlfriend was a bit too generous a term when it came to Melanie – dinner date being more appropriate – but he knew what he meant.
He moved the cab forward as the traffic started up around him. He had to concentrate. He wasn’t about to have another near miss after what happened on the return from JFK. He was a safe driver, a good one, not some flake who would crash his cab because a girl he’d dated a long time ago had something written about her in a trashy magazine. He was a professional and wasn’t about to get flustered.
Thelma, though, refused leave his mind and, despite ordering himself to be more attentive, he drove distractedly. She’d been a special part of his life, and he’d spent a long time getting over their separation. When she’d broken up with him, she’d left a huge hole.
A few minutes passed, then Chloe exclaimed, ‘Here’s a piece called My Life by Maisy Roper! I bet that’s interesting.’
This time Arthur slammed the breaks with a force that jolted the women forward in their seats until their belts locked in place. He was pulling at the passenger door before they had a chance to rub their necks and complain of whiplash. ‘Let me look at that,’ he said, and tore the magazine out the woman’s hands.
There, in the centrefold, was a large picture of Maisy, all grown up compared to the schoolgirl he remembered, but recognisable nevertheless as the gap-toothed, slender girl Arthur went to school with. His eyes fell on a passage which read, I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for an incident in high school. I was attacked by a bully at the end of a games class, and a boy rescued me. It was one of many attacks I suffered from this girl. She left me with no self-esteem, no self-worth. This boy witnessed some of those attacks. Not all of them, but enough. He would flinch whenever I got punched. On this one occasion I was struck with such force I fell to the ground. Cleary, this angered him. He pushed this bullying girl off me when I was on my knees, and thumped her once, good and hard. She never came near me again.
God sent that boy to my aid that year. If he hadn’t performed that act of bravery, I would have killed myself before summer ended. I was close to it by then, I was so low, and everything else in my life at that time was so awful…
It’s so sad. I haven’t forgotten his name but I did lose touch with him. He did me such a favour, and I’ve never been able to repay him.
Arthur read the words again and again. ‘That was me,’ he whispered. ‘I was that kid.’ He’d never been certain his actions had been the right ones: taking a swipe at Barbara Perlmann had been a massive risk, even if he had been unable to stay on the sidelines while she shit on Maisy. After all, Barbara was a girl too, and boys didn’t hit girls.
Tina said, ‘You took the pressure off this Maisy, and gave her the chance to breathe and live. And the one you punched, you bet she deserved it.’
‘Even if the repercussions were tricky to manage,’ Lara added. Her words didn’t make much sense, but there was pride in her tone.
Barbara Perlmann had been a monster then, and remained one now. It was Arthur’s misfortune to have her grow up in the apartment below his. She may have moved out of the flat she’d shared with her mom, but she was always around. Indeed, her visits had become more frequent when her mom took ill, and Arthur knew Barbara spent her time feeding and cleaning the old woman. He should have sympathy for his classmate, while she conducted these most thankless and unforgiving of tasks. Yet, he wasn’t able to conjure up such emotion despite his experience tending Aunt Sylvia during her last days. After all, Barbara still found the time to greet him with insults whenever their paths crossed.
Perturbed by Maisie’s story, he flicked through the magazine. There was the article on Thelma, right enough. She smiled back at him, beautiful in her green veterinary scrubs. And there was Melanie’s story. He rifled through more pages: past the piece on Vincente Toro whom Taylor loved singing along with, to an article on the businesswoman, Erica Barnes, whom his boss idolised; and on further, to articles about women who had once been in Arthur’s life: Carmen O’Hare, Vivien Rondel, Julia Rice. Ex-girlfriends, all of them.
‘How?’ His head spun. Unable to comprehend, he thrust the magazine back into Chloe’s hands.
Tina chortled. ‘Life, that’s all. I wouldn’t worry about it. Everyone has a past.’ That was no sort of answer. Arthur pulled a face to show his dissatisfaction but was greeted by mirth. The woman called Tina lent out of the cab and patted him on the arm. ‘Honestly, please ignore it. The future is a more interesting place than the past. Return to your seat and drive. We have an appointment to keep.’ Arthur complied, slipping back behind his wheel, his mind racing.
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