Confronting The Elephant

For too many years, Johnny had been the elephant in Scott and Ellie’s marriage. The lurking shadow preventing honest conversation, always the one who came before. Yet somehow, they papered him over, the man between the cracks.

“Johnny.” One day, out of the blue, Ellie tentatively raised his name as if testing where it might land. For Scott, hearing it was like being thrown in the wake of a tsunami. By then, Ellie was in the last months of her life and reshaping boundaries.

“What are you going to do about Johnny.”

Scott didn’t know what to say to that one. He really didn’t want to think about it, let alone do anything. Anymore than he wanted to have a conversation about what would happen after Ellie was gone. That was the biggest elephant of all.

“Let’s go to the sea,” Ellie piped up, suddenly.”

“You want to visit the sea now?” His wife’s illness had taught Scott to expect the unexpected. It was as if cancer had its own set of rules. It ripped open everything held dear, tearing down the battlements that had once kept them safe. As the arrows continued to strike, the time for niceties was over.

“Yes, now!” No one loved the sea more than Ellie.

“If, you’re sure.” Scott was worried the two-hour drive might prove taxing, but she was insistent.

“I’ll manage it. Bring the wheelchair. I want a last glimpse.”

***

They had almost reached the coast when Ellie flicked the window switch and the cool air blasted in.

“Shush. Listen.” She was enraptured. “Can you hear them?”

“Hear what, love?”

“The seagulls. How they cry!”

The next turn revealed the line of blue-grey sea in the distance. Ellie breathed in the tang, wanting it to last forever.

Once the car was parked, Scott wheeled his wife along the promenade. Every so often the sun peeked out from behind the clouds highlighting the distant helter-skelter, complete with flag no longer in use.

The pair stopped under the Big Wheel where Ellie got a vicarious thrill from watching people in the carriages. Not long ago, she’d have thought nothing of riding the Micky Mouse Big Dipper further down the coast, rising and twisting along the rickety track at breakneck speeds, her hair fanned out, screaming in Scott’s ear, before plummeting back down.

**

Scott was determined to savour every moment with his wife. She seemed to find pleasure in small things such as the train that puttered along the sea front. She loved the trundling horses complete with blinkers and their buffed-up carriages, the faces within smiling out like royalty. Even the shops delighted her with their host of holiday must-haves which included buckets and spades and miniature windmills twirling gaudily in the breeze.

It had been an effort to reach the beach, but it had been worth it. Now, lying back in a striped deckchair, Ellie rested her legs. The sea’s breakers were lapping the shore in an endless cycle of foam.

“There’s nothing like the sea to get things into perspective,” she said, breathing deeply.

Scott took a picture wishing to preserve the memory. The sun was just crossing the horizon point when she turned to him.

“Do you remember the night we first met?”

How could he not? He’d never seen Johnny so smitten.

Even now, the memory stung as Scott replayed the scene. Ellie had been perched at the bar sipping her drink, laughing with the bartender in the abandoned way Scott would come to love. He’d been about to join her when Johnny beat him to it. The friendship between them went back to when Scott who was the senior by three years, had rescued him from school bullies. Yet all that withered when Johnny saw Ellie. Rendered helpless as an open clam, Johnny had fallen instantly and hopelessly in love.

Now they were talking about it. Kind of.

“At the time, I was looking over Johnny’s shoulder hoping you’d speak to me,” Ellie said.

“And I was pretending not to notice.”

Scott recalled Johnny asking Ellie if he could get her a drink.

“Seeing you’re asking, a rum and coke please. Oh, and make it a dark one.” Had he imagined her winking at him, rather than Johnny, when she said this?

Ellie shifted in the chair.

“It wasn’t easy watching the pair of you head into a corner to get better acquainted,” Scott said.

“You didn’t seem interested.”

“You got that one wrong. Anyway, the next time you turned up arm in arm with Johnny, it was a moot point.”

Ironically, not long after Johnny had stalked out, the band had been snapped up by an agent, given a recording contract, and began touring Europe. Johnny must have been devastated at the lost opportunity, but too much had happened to ask him back.

**

“Fancy some candy floss?”

Ellie pulled a face. “I’m not sure I can face it. Maybe an ice cream?”

They had passed a van further back along the promenade. “I’ll go and get you one. I won’t be long,” Scott promised.

“No need to rush. It’s not as if I’m going anywhere, is it?”

The sky was a deepening shade of amber, and the tide was fast going out. Ellie’s mind flicked back to the early years when between touring she and Scott had managed to sneak in a holiday on a Greek island. That was when she’d discovered she was pregnant with twins and wanted a more settled life. She’d insisted Scott continue doing what he loved while she brought the children up in England, but it had been a wrench. For both of them.

**

Scott made it back before the ice creams melted.

“Here you go, love. I got you the strawberry one. Just in time. They’d nearly run out.”

“That tastes good.” For a few minutes, Ellie forgot she had cancer.

“Johnny used to like mint ice cream with chocolate chips. He used to always ask for two flakes as well.” Ellie found herself reminiscing.

So, they were back to the elephant.

“Yeah. He had a sweet tooth.”

“You must have missed him when he left the band.”

“Of course I did.”

***

It was one of those things Johnny should never have seen. It had happened the night when the band were due to play, and Johnny’s dad’s car had broken down. Johnny had rung explaining he’d be late, if he made it at all.

Ellie had seemed out of sorts and Scott had asked her if she was worried about Johnny.

“I’m thinking of ending it with Johnny. It’s not working out.”

Scott was about to reply when the landlord tapped him on the shoulder.

“We’ve waited long enough mate. You’ll have to start without your pal.”

“Right.” Scott touched Ellie’s arm. “We’ll talk later. This isn’t a good time.”

“There’s never going to be a good time.” Impulsively she reached across and kissed him. He returned her kiss, knowing nothing was ever going to be the same.

On stage, the band made the best of things without Johnny. It might have been alright but during a quick interval, Ellie joined Scott in the car park. Neither were aware of Johnny’s late entrance, nor realised he’d been watching them in the moonlight. Until it was too late.

That was the last time Scott had seen his friend.

***

There was something cathartic about the sea; the way it could never be tamed. On the beach Ellie was captivated by three neglected sandcastles. She might have dismissed them had they remained intact, but the breakers had collapsed their indulgent peaks.

“I want you to promise me something Scott.” Her voice rose above the waves like shards from a broken vase.

“What?”

“That you’ll consider getting back in touch with Johnny. You were good friends before…”

The gap yawned like a chasm. The elephant cast its bleak shadow, but Ellie persevered.

“Please! Do it for me. You’re going to need a friend in the months ahead.”

“Don’t say that. You can still pull through.”

“We both know that’s not true. At least, promise me you’ll think about it.”

**

After his wife passed, Scott tried to busy himself with tasks as a distraction from his loss, but he felt stuck like a limpet on a rock, longing for the tide to come and free him. Still, he found comfort in talking to Ellie – even if she wasn’t physically present.

In the attic’s dimness, Scott was repairing a broken truss when he came across an old case. He climbed down the ladder and pulled it towards him. Mostly filled with his wife’s keepsakes, he discovered a batch of letters tied together with ribbon. A number of them were written in Johnny’s hand. The one that most interested Scott was dated only two months before Ellie’s death.

“I still miss Scott,” Johnny had written. “He was like a brother to me when we were growing up, always looking out for me.”

**

One day several months after reading this, Scott gathered his courage and made the journey to the hometown where he and Johnny had grown up and now agreed to meet in.

As he drove, familiar landmarks tugged at Scott’s heartstrings. Apart from the gasometer which he was absurdly pleased to find still standing, everything seemed compressed. Young trees which had been planted as part of a nature project near the shopping centre sprouted vigorous new leaves. He hadn’t actually visited the place since his parents had passed. In the intervening years, new buildings had worked their way into the town’s fabric with varying degrees of success.

Johnny was waiting in a booth inside the town’s oldest restaurant. It still had the original fireplace in the corner. Scott recognised his old friend immediately. Johnny’s hair was still thick and dark, though now flecked with grey, but the once vivid blue eyes were laced with a worldliness entirely lacking in youth.

“You haven’t changed mate,” Scott said.

The two men stepped forward, shaking hands and patting one another on the back.

“Neither have you, Scott. Well, not much anyway.” They both laughed.

Closer inspection on Johnny’s part however, revealed features that were drawn. Scott was a haunted man.

“Er, I heard about your recent success,” Johnny said, attempting to break the ice.

“Oh, that!”

“You don’t sound as happy as I’d have expected.”

“After the song was posted on U Tube, things went viral. Just luck.”

“A bit more than that, I’d have thought.”

“Yeah, well…”

“So, apart from worldwide internet success, how’s life treating you?”

But Scott seemed reticent. When he’d contacted Johnny via social media saying he’d like to meet up, he hadn’t mentioned about Ellie. But it was unlikely Johnny wouldn’t have known about his loss.

“Ah, you know… More importantly, what about you?”

“Yeah, you know.”

By discussing their love of music, the friends deftly managed to sidestep the elephant hovering in the room. 

“I never found a bass player to match you, Johnny,” Scott said seriously.

“Yeah, I was pretty awesome.” They laughed again. “But seriously mate, that can’t be true,” Johnny said. “You must have played with loads of great people since our glory days.”

“Not really. We had a kind of magic. You can’t replicate that.”

After a while, the years spent apart melted away.

“With hindsight, maybe me leaving the band wasn’t such a great idea,” Johnny admitted.

“Why did you?” Scott had the grace to blush. In the background, the elephant loomed large. “I mean, I know why you did, but…”

“Like you say… you know why.”

“Ellie?” Her name hung in the air like distressed velvet.

“Why else would I have left?”

“I know you really liked her.”

Liking didn’t come close.

“I’m sorry about all that, man. We hated having to hurt you. We just couldn’t help falling for one another. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, I know how it is.” Johnny smothered a bitterness he’d spent a lifetime trying to repress. Although he’d married a girl everyone said was a gem and they’d built a successful business, and were about to have their first grandchild, he secretly felt he’d never found anyone to match Ellie.

“The thing is…” Scott played around with the cutlery, unable to meet his old friend’s eyes. “I wanted to tell you in person.” His voice broke. “Ellie died three months ago.”

Johnny’s eyes clouded over.

“I know, mate. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to put my foot in it and say the wrong thing.”

“The thing is I know the two of you kept in touch. I found one of your letters in an old case. It made me wonder if you held a torch for her, even after…”

“You mean, after I lost her to you? Say it like it is. “Yeah, for a while. No, nothing ever happened. Nothing beyond friendship.”

“In the letters, you talked of our friendship. When we were growing up and our times in the band.”

“Yeah.”

The silence was broken by a waiter dropping a plate, followed by raucous clapping from a table of young guys enjoying a stag night.

“It’s noisy in here tonight,” Scott said. “Remember when we were like that?”

“Yeah. Seems a lifetime ago.”

“Young men trying to find their way in the world. Some things never change.”

“Ellie was special,” Johnny said, when the hubbub finally died down.

Scott bent his head. “She was the best, man. Do you think I’d have risked our friendship for anything less?”

“Nah, probably not.”

“I heard through the grapevine you’d got married and built up a business.”

“In between having children and Bev’s teaching career. Yeah, I settled down in the end.”

“Sounds great.”

“I should never have left the band like I did,” Johnny burst out vehemently. “I should at least have left the dust settle. But hindsight is a wonderful thing. I couldn’t deal with seeing you and Ellie together.”

Scott was pensive. “You know, it wasn’t always roses for us two. I spent months away touring. She wanted the kids to have a normal life as possible! She had her doubts.”

“Doubts?” Johnny’s ears pricked up. “About what?”

Scott laughed mirthlessly. “Do you really need me to spell it out? About whether she’d chosen the right man, you mug. Don’t forget, she loved you before me.”

But not enough to stay with me.

“You know, I always thought your Bev was pretty amazing.”

“I didn’t know you knew her,” Johnny said, surprised.

“She was there at the last two gigs, remember? Everyone could see she only had eyes for you.”

“Yeah.”

The elephant was receding, but Scott decided to take a risk. “Do you honestly think you and Ellie would have worked out if things had been different?”

Johnny exhaled noisily. “I dunno. Maybe not.”

“If you don’t mind me saying, you always did have your head in the clouds, mate. Dreaming about the perfect band, the perfect world, the perfect woman.”

“Ellie seemed liked the perfect woman.”

“I loved her, but she wasn’t perfect. No one is.”

“That’s what my Bev often says.”

Scott sighed. “I’d give a lot to swap places with you right now, man.”

“Hands off,” Johnny said, and his friend smiled.

**

“How did it go with Scott?” Bev’s voice at the other end of the phone was a tonic to Johnny, the realisation all the sweeter for being unexpected.

“It went alright. I’ll tell you more about it when I see you.” Johnny had stopped at the roadside to call his wife before he made the drive home. The wipers were fighting to keep up with the sheets of rain pelting across the windscreen.

“Are the two of you going to keep in touch?” Bev asked.

“We said we would.”

“That’s good. It’s sad about his wife.”

“I’d forgotten you knew her.”

“Only a little. But I felt I knew her well.”

***

When the rain eased, Johnny stepped on the gas. With each passing mile, the gap between past and present widened. Scott’s words about him being a dreamer rang true. Maybe the time had come to reassess his life. To stop wondering about what might have been and learn to focus on what was. His Bev had always been there for him, come rain or shine. He doubted whether Ellie would have done the same when the chips were down. In reality, she and Scott had been well-matched. For too long he’d seen her through rose-tinted spectacles, clinging onto the vision of what might have been.

On the last leg of Johnny’s trip home, the rain abated. The sun’s tendrils were breaking through, bathing the sky in a warm glow.

“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight,” Johnny murmured to himself.

On impulse, he drew up at a twenty-four-hour supermarket and seized the biggest bunch of flowers he could find, carefully placing them on the back seat. The lilies bloomed, their exotic yellow trumpets reminding him of music and the feeling of being young.

Then he drove home without stopping.