Past Perfect
by Karen Jones
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: Sometimes the past is best left alone.
_____________________________________________________________________
Billy Fairlie cradled the perfectly formed dog turd in his hand as though it was a precious item to be cherished and protected. When he reached Lisa Denton’s door he hid his surprise behind his back and rang the bell. The varnished door opened.
Mrs Denton shuddered when she saw Billy’s mud-smeared face and stringy hair, then turned and yelled her daughter’s name.
Lisa leapt down the stairs, her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders. She came to an abrupt halt when she saw him, eyebrows raised quizzically over blue, glistening eyes. Billy smiled.
Mrs Denton could wait no more. “What do you want?” She hissed the words, afraid the neighbours would hear a Fairlie at her door.
Billy grinned, produced the dog turd and split it in two. He handed half to Lisa, then bit into his portion. Lisa smiled and followed suit. Mrs Denton’s screamed. Billy grabbed Lisa’s hand and they ran, howls of laughter escaping their brown smeared mouths.
They were six years old. The dog turd was a chocolate fake. She had passed the test and he would love her forever.
Approaching Glasgow airport, Billy smiled as the thirty-year-old prank came to mind. Twenty years had passed since he’d last seen Lisa – the girl for whom he would never be good enough. The teenager whose every word, every move could make Billy catch his breath: as if not breathing would freeze her in that moment. Twenty years since he’d run away from the pain of losing her.
Until he received the letter he’d believed that his parents had been right to send him to live with his aunt in Toronto. He hadn’t argued with their decision – he’d welcomed it. If he couldn’t be with Lisa, then what did it matter where he lived? His life in Canada, his marriage to Ellen, his business – the letter had made it all melt away. He’d packed a bag with old clothes his wife wouldn’t miss, added a couple of good suits he kept at the office and travelled first class, Toronto to Glasgow.
Why now, he wondered? After all these years, why had she written? There was little detail in the letter; she hadn’t even given her address, just a phone number. What stood out, what made him buy a ticket and head for home, was the line, ‘I’ve thought about you constantly Billy … all these years.’
As Billy re-read Lisa’s letter, the descent began.
Her family had moved when she was sixteen; moved to get away from him. ‘Scum from the scheme,’ her mother had called him. How he wished he’d been smart enough to call her ‘trash with cash’. The Dentons came from nothing – rumour had it they’d won the pools – but she treated him and everyone else from the council estate like dirt under her feet. She couldn’t separate them, so she took Lisa away. It was only to Perth, but it might as well have been the moon for someone in Billy’s position. No money, no family car, no address to look up. Her mother had been careful to leave no trace. But Lisa could have contacted him; he had stayed in the same house for months after she left – why hadn’t she tried?
He got a taxi from the airport to his parents’ house. They had remained in the village, bought their council house, retired into a comfortable existence. The house looked different – smaller, somehow – but his key still took him back to his childhood.
“Billy! Ellen’s been on the phone, she’s worried sick. What’s going on? Ach, come here and give me a hug.”
Billy smiled; his mother would, thank God, never change. He grabbed her and cuddled her, breathing in the talc, the Ellnet hairspray, and the sausages she’d cooked for tea.
He laughed. “I just had a sudden hankering for some square sausage, Mum.”
She couldn’t help laughing with him, but then shoved him away. “Seriously, what’s up?”
His father called from the living room. “Is that our Billy? Come in here.”
Billy smiled, did as he was told. His father dropped his newspaper on the table, looked Billy up and down and shook his head.
“Well, look at you.” He grabbed Billy and almost squeezed the life out of him. “It’s good to see you, son – been a while, eh?’ He released Billy from the hug, but held on to his shoulders and nodded. ‘So, you’ve come looking for Lisa?”
Billy didn’t know who looked more surprised at the question, him or his mother.
“Lisa? Lisa Denton? Why would he be looking for her? Is there something I don’t know? Something Ellen doesn’t know?”
Billy felt a pang of guilt. His mother thought Ellen was perfect; so how could he tell her their relationship had been hanging together by a frayed thread for the past couple of years? Arguments over starting a family, over the hours he worked, over the time he spent in the pub, followed by silences that could last for weeks. He’d tried to love her – he had loved, as best he could - just not the way he’d always loved Lisa.
“Dad, how did you know I was here for Lisa?”
His mother wasn’t giving up. “What’s the point to all this? We don’t even know where she is now. She stopped sending the letters…”
“Agnes, the boy has to do this. Every phone call, he’s asked about her.”
Billy stared at them. “Letters?”
“Way back, son, she used to send letters here, wanted us to forward them to you. Your mother and I couldn’t see what good it would do.”
“So you just didn’t bother to tell me she was looking for me? Unbelievable.”
His father raised his hands in surrender. “We were wrong, son, but I’m trying to help you now. I saw her last week, gave her your address – I take it that’s why you’re here? She wrote to you?”
“Yeah, she did. Am I supposed to thank you?”
“Well, we’ll see how you feel about that later. Are you going to see her?”
“I haven’t got her address – I’ll have to call her first. I’d rather just turn up – surprise her.”
“No, she wouldn’t have given you the address – but I have it.”
His mother looked fit to burst. “You’ve got her address? Why would you…?”
“Agnes, you can shout at me when Billy’s gone. Let’s just get this over with, let him get it out of his system.” He handed Billy the address. “She’s not the lassie you knew, just don’t expect too much.” He settled down into his favourite chair. “We’ll be here for you when you get home.”
Billy took a taxi to her address, not surprised she hadn’t written it in the letter – if the area was anything like it had been in his youth, he’d need an armed escort. His father’s words annoyed him: get it out of his system, get it over with. Like Lisa was some sort of disease, some sort of poison or chore.
The taxi pulled up in front of a grey tenement. Some of the windows were boarded up, some had steel shutters. Kids played in the streets; filthy kids whose clothes were too light for the late September chill; kids who should have been in bed hours ago. He paid the fare and the cab shot off into the distance.
He climbed the urine stained stairs, the smell catching at his throat, and found the number he was looking for. He wondered if Lisa’s story might be better told than seen but he wasn’t quick enough. The door opened and a woman carrying a full bin bag fixed her dead eyes on his.
“What do you want?”
It was her voice, but someone had stolen it. It couldn’t be Lisa.
“Billy? Christ, Billy – is that you? Look at you, all poshed up. You must be doing well for yourself, eh? It’s so good to see you.” She patted at her greasy hair, smoothed down the stained shirt and tried to hide the bitten nails by shoving her hands into her pockets. “Wish I’d known you were home. Come on in…actually, no, don’t come in, I’ve not had time to tidy up. C’mon we’ll go for a drink, eh? Catch up on old times? What do you say?”
He wanted to say no. This wasn’t his dream, the scene he’d played out in his head all these years.
“Yeah, that sounds nice, Lisa.”
“Okay – I’ll stick this bag in the bin cupboard on the way out.” She started to shut the door behind her.
“Don’t you want to get changed? I mean, if we’re going for a drink?”
She smiled - the teeth, at least, were still perfect. “Sorry, pet – but this is as good as it gets.” She grabbed his arm and held it tight. “I knew you’d come eventually.”
He thought he detected a break in her voice, a tear in her eye. He wished he’d never found her, never broken the spell.
In the pub they reminisced, briefly, then she launched into the story of her life. He didn’t really want to know, but she was determined to tell him.
“When we moved to Perth I couldn’t do anything without my parents’ permission – there was no way I could get back to Glasgow to see you. They put a lock on the phone, monitored my calls – it was like being in prison. And then, my mother, the witch – do you know what she did, Billy? She left us. She went away with the local barman. Not the landlord, mind – the barman. He was a total lowlife, only after her money, but she couldn’t see it.”
The revelation stung Billy in spite of himself. “So, the woman who kept us apart because I wasn’t good enough for you, left you and your father for a guy who worked in a pub? You’ve got to be kidding me?”
“I know – it’s mad isn’t it? My dad turned to the drink and then gambling. Within eighteen months we were homeless. My hopes of university were gone – my hopes of anything were gone. I came looking for you, Billy, but you’d left. Nobody would give me your address.”
Billy’s anger at his parents’ duplicity surfaced again. He knew Lisa saw it. It was as though she was reading his mind, just like she used to.
“I think your dad would have passed on a message but your mum didn’t want to know. She thought it was for the best – that you were happy as you were, that you’d maybe get hurt again. Can’t really blame her, I suppose. I’d do the same for mine.”
Billy nodded. “So, you’ve got kids?”
“Aye, four. Can’t even afford one, truth be told. But what can you do, eh?” She shrugged and laughed.
Billy tried to smile. You can use contraception, he thought. You can use a bit of sense. “And your husband?”
“Barlinnie. Third time in twelve years. Housebreaking. He’s got a habit to feed, so me and the kids go hungry, but at least he’s not around much.” She clung to his arm. “You’ll love the kids, Billy – they're at their aunt’s house for the night but you’ll meet them soon. They’re good kids; I’ve brought them up well. You’ll love them.” Her eyes brimmed with tears and desperation. She got up. “I just need to nip to the toilet – I’ll be right back.”
He sat for a moment and thought about the wasted years and now a wasted journey. What had he expected? Lisa waiting at the airport, her fluffy blonde hair swaying, laughing as she offered him a homemade chocolate turd? He’d lived the dream for so long he’d never contemplated the possibility of a flawed reality. He was in love with a twenty-year-old memory – not this wife of a drug-addicted criminal, mother of four children, remnant of a romantic notion.
He reached into his pocket and took fifty pounds from his wallet. He hesitated then put the money back: better to post it to her - make it a hundred – and add a letter where he’d try to explain things he wasn’t quite sure even he understood. He left before the guilt made him change his mind.
In the taxi he thought of all those years he’d blamed the Dentons while his parents were just as bad. If only they’d passed on her messages. And what then? His parents couldn’t have put him through university the way his aunt had. He’d probably have ended up in a dump just like the one Lisa called home. Would she have been worth it? Back then he wouldn’t have doubted it.
Had he grown hard? Maybe – or maybe he’d just grown up. He’d go back home, tell Ellen he’d lost the plot for a couple of days, blame it on stress at work, make a real go of their life together, maybe even think about starting a family, finally get on with his life - forget about Lisa.
He caught sight of his reflection in the taxi window. There were no traces left of the boy who loved pranks, the boy from the scheme, the boy who loved Lisa Denton. He realised he couldn’t hold the new Billy Fairlie’s gaze.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Sometimes the past is best left alone.
_____________________________________________________________________
Billy Fairlie cradled the perfectly formed dog turd in his hand as though it was a precious item to be cherished and protected. When he reached Lisa Denton’s door he hid his surprise behind his back and rang the bell. The varnished door opened.
Mrs Denton shuddered when she saw Billy’s mud-smeared face and stringy hair, then turned and yelled her daughter’s name.
Lisa leapt down the stairs, her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders. She came to an abrupt halt when she saw him, eyebrows raised quizzically over blue, glistening eyes. Billy smiled.
Mrs Denton could wait no more. “What do you want?” She hissed the words, afraid the neighbours would hear a Fairlie at her door.
Billy grinned, produced the dog turd and split it in two. He handed half to Lisa, then bit into his portion. Lisa smiled and followed suit. Mrs Denton’s screamed. Billy grabbed Lisa’s hand and they ran, howls of laughter escaping their brown smeared mouths.
They were six years old. The dog turd was a chocolate fake. She had passed the test and he would love her forever.
Approaching Glasgow airport, Billy smiled as the thirty-year-old prank came to mind. Twenty years had passed since he’d last seen Lisa – the girl for whom he would never be good enough. The teenager whose every word, every move could make Billy catch his breath: as if not breathing would freeze her in that moment. Twenty years since he’d run away from the pain of losing her.
Until he received the letter he’d believed that his parents had been right to send him to live with his aunt in Toronto. He hadn’t argued with their decision – he’d welcomed it. If he couldn’t be with Lisa, then what did it matter where he lived? His life in Canada, his marriage to Ellen, his business – the letter had made it all melt away. He’d packed a bag with old clothes his wife wouldn’t miss, added a couple of good suits he kept at the office and travelled first class, Toronto to Glasgow.
Why now, he wondered? After all these years, why had she written? There was little detail in the letter; she hadn’t even given her address, just a phone number. What stood out, what made him buy a ticket and head for home, was the line, ‘I’ve thought about you constantly Billy … all these years.’
As Billy re-read Lisa’s letter, the descent began.
Her family had moved when she was sixteen; moved to get away from him. ‘Scum from the scheme,’ her mother had called him. How he wished he’d been smart enough to call her ‘trash with cash’. The Dentons came from nothing – rumour had it they’d won the pools – but she treated him and everyone else from the council estate like dirt under her feet. She couldn’t separate them, so she took Lisa away. It was only to Perth, but it might as well have been the moon for someone in Billy’s position. No money, no family car, no address to look up. Her mother had been careful to leave no trace. But Lisa could have contacted him; he had stayed in the same house for months after she left – why hadn’t she tried?
He got a taxi from the airport to his parents’ house. They had remained in the village, bought their council house, retired into a comfortable existence. The house looked different – smaller, somehow – but his key still took him back to his childhood.
“Billy! Ellen’s been on the phone, she’s worried sick. What’s going on? Ach, come here and give me a hug.”
Billy smiled; his mother would, thank God, never change. He grabbed her and cuddled her, breathing in the talc, the Ellnet hairspray, and the sausages she’d cooked for tea.
He laughed. “I just had a sudden hankering for some square sausage, Mum.”
She couldn’t help laughing with him, but then shoved him away. “Seriously, what’s up?”
His father called from the living room. “Is that our Billy? Come in here.”
Billy smiled, did as he was told. His father dropped his newspaper on the table, looked Billy up and down and shook his head.
“Well, look at you.” He grabbed Billy and almost squeezed the life out of him. “It’s good to see you, son – been a while, eh?’ He released Billy from the hug, but held on to his shoulders and nodded. ‘So, you’ve come looking for Lisa?”
Billy didn’t know who looked more surprised at the question, him or his mother.
“Lisa? Lisa Denton? Why would he be looking for her? Is there something I don’t know? Something Ellen doesn’t know?”
Billy felt a pang of guilt. His mother thought Ellen was perfect; so how could he tell her their relationship had been hanging together by a frayed thread for the past couple of years? Arguments over starting a family, over the hours he worked, over the time he spent in the pub, followed by silences that could last for weeks. He’d tried to love her – he had loved, as best he could - just not the way he’d always loved Lisa.
“Dad, how did you know I was here for Lisa?”
His mother wasn’t giving up. “What’s the point to all this? We don’t even know where she is now. She stopped sending the letters…”
“Agnes, the boy has to do this. Every phone call, he’s asked about her.”
Billy stared at them. “Letters?”
“Way back, son, she used to send letters here, wanted us to forward them to you. Your mother and I couldn’t see what good it would do.”
“So you just didn’t bother to tell me she was looking for me? Unbelievable.”
His father raised his hands in surrender. “We were wrong, son, but I’m trying to help you now. I saw her last week, gave her your address – I take it that’s why you’re here? She wrote to you?”
“Yeah, she did. Am I supposed to thank you?”
“Well, we’ll see how you feel about that later. Are you going to see her?”
“I haven’t got her address – I’ll have to call her first. I’d rather just turn up – surprise her.”
“No, she wouldn’t have given you the address – but I have it.”
His mother looked fit to burst. “You’ve got her address? Why would you…?”
“Agnes, you can shout at me when Billy’s gone. Let’s just get this over with, let him get it out of his system.” He handed Billy the address. “She’s not the lassie you knew, just don’t expect too much.” He settled down into his favourite chair. “We’ll be here for you when you get home.”
Billy took a taxi to her address, not surprised she hadn’t written it in the letter – if the area was anything like it had been in his youth, he’d need an armed escort. His father’s words annoyed him: get it out of his system, get it over with. Like Lisa was some sort of disease, some sort of poison or chore.
The taxi pulled up in front of a grey tenement. Some of the windows were boarded up, some had steel shutters. Kids played in the streets; filthy kids whose clothes were too light for the late September chill; kids who should have been in bed hours ago. He paid the fare and the cab shot off into the distance.
He climbed the urine stained stairs, the smell catching at his throat, and found the number he was looking for. He wondered if Lisa’s story might be better told than seen but he wasn’t quick enough. The door opened and a woman carrying a full bin bag fixed her dead eyes on his.
“What do you want?”
It was her voice, but someone had stolen it. It couldn’t be Lisa.
“Billy? Christ, Billy – is that you? Look at you, all poshed up. You must be doing well for yourself, eh? It’s so good to see you.” She patted at her greasy hair, smoothed down the stained shirt and tried to hide the bitten nails by shoving her hands into her pockets. “Wish I’d known you were home. Come on in…actually, no, don’t come in, I’ve not had time to tidy up. C’mon we’ll go for a drink, eh? Catch up on old times? What do you say?”
He wanted to say no. This wasn’t his dream, the scene he’d played out in his head all these years.
“Yeah, that sounds nice, Lisa.”
“Okay – I’ll stick this bag in the bin cupboard on the way out.” She started to shut the door behind her.
“Don’t you want to get changed? I mean, if we’re going for a drink?”
She smiled - the teeth, at least, were still perfect. “Sorry, pet – but this is as good as it gets.” She grabbed his arm and held it tight. “I knew you’d come eventually.”
He thought he detected a break in her voice, a tear in her eye. He wished he’d never found her, never broken the spell.
In the pub they reminisced, briefly, then she launched into the story of her life. He didn’t really want to know, but she was determined to tell him.
“When we moved to Perth I couldn’t do anything without my parents’ permission – there was no way I could get back to Glasgow to see you. They put a lock on the phone, monitored my calls – it was like being in prison. And then, my mother, the witch – do you know what she did, Billy? She left us. She went away with the local barman. Not the landlord, mind – the barman. He was a total lowlife, only after her money, but she couldn’t see it.”
The revelation stung Billy in spite of himself. “So, the woman who kept us apart because I wasn’t good enough for you, left you and your father for a guy who worked in a pub? You’ve got to be kidding me?”
“I know – it’s mad isn’t it? My dad turned to the drink and then gambling. Within eighteen months we were homeless. My hopes of university were gone – my hopes of anything were gone. I came looking for you, Billy, but you’d left. Nobody would give me your address.”
Billy’s anger at his parents’ duplicity surfaced again. He knew Lisa saw it. It was as though she was reading his mind, just like she used to.
“I think your dad would have passed on a message but your mum didn’t want to know. She thought it was for the best – that you were happy as you were, that you’d maybe get hurt again. Can’t really blame her, I suppose. I’d do the same for mine.”
Billy nodded. “So, you’ve got kids?”
“Aye, four. Can’t even afford one, truth be told. But what can you do, eh?” She shrugged and laughed.
Billy tried to smile. You can use contraception, he thought. You can use a bit of sense. “And your husband?”
“Barlinnie. Third time in twelve years. Housebreaking. He’s got a habit to feed, so me and the kids go hungry, but at least he’s not around much.” She clung to his arm. “You’ll love the kids, Billy – they're at their aunt’s house for the night but you’ll meet them soon. They’re good kids; I’ve brought them up well. You’ll love them.” Her eyes brimmed with tears and desperation. She got up. “I just need to nip to the toilet – I’ll be right back.”
He sat for a moment and thought about the wasted years and now a wasted journey. What had he expected? Lisa waiting at the airport, her fluffy blonde hair swaying, laughing as she offered him a homemade chocolate turd? He’d lived the dream for so long he’d never contemplated the possibility of a flawed reality. He was in love with a twenty-year-old memory – not this wife of a drug-addicted criminal, mother of four children, remnant of a romantic notion.
He reached into his pocket and took fifty pounds from his wallet. He hesitated then put the money back: better to post it to her - make it a hundred – and add a letter where he’d try to explain things he wasn’t quite sure even he understood. He left before the guilt made him change his mind.
In the taxi he thought of all those years he’d blamed the Dentons while his parents were just as bad. If only they’d passed on her messages. And what then? His parents couldn’t have put him through university the way his aunt had. He’d probably have ended up in a dump just like the one Lisa called home. Would she have been worth it? Back then he wouldn’t have doubted it.
Had he grown hard? Maybe – or maybe he’d just grown up. He’d go back home, tell Ellen he’d lost the plot for a couple of days, blame it on stress at work, make a real go of their life together, maybe even think about starting a family, finally get on with his life - forget about Lisa.
He caught sight of his reflection in the taxi window. There were no traces left of the boy who loved pranks, the boy from the scheme, the boy who loved Lisa Denton. He realised he couldn’t hold the new Billy Fairlie’s gaze.
About the Author
Karen Jones is from Glasgow. Her work has appeared in various print anthologies, in magazines including The New Writer and Writers’ Forum, and in several ezines, most recently in The Waterhouse Review and UptheStaircase. She was short-listed for the 2007 Asham Award and took third prize in the 2010 Mslexia short story competition. One of her stories received an honourable mention in The Spilling Ink Short Story Prize 2011, and two poems (she’s not sure how that happened) have appeared on Every Day Poets.