Mara
The first time I saw her was a Tuesday evening in June 1963, I was 20 years old. It’s amazing that I can remember 1963 like yesterday, but can’t for the life of me remember if I’m waiting for dinner or breakfast…
I was just finishing my shift at the train station (carrying bags for old ladies), and rushing to go and clock out, when I knocked her down, literally. Swept her feet from under her with my overloaded trolley and left her in a crumpled heap on the floor.
That was the first time I saw the eyes that would haunt me for the next fifty-five years. They were the greenest eyes that I had ever seen (we didn’t have coloured contact lenses back then, you were stuck with what God gave you), and she laughed as I helped her up, a tinkling sound that gave me butterflies and made me babble like a fool while trying to apologise.
“Thank you.” she said, “It’s fine, no harm done”.
“Can I buy you a coffee?” It was out before I knew I’d thought it, “ I mean or a drink or something, by way of apology…”
I was kicking myself for being too forward, when she laughed that tinkling laugh and said “Why not?”
We went to a nearby hotel; this was not the kind of girl you took to one of the grotty pubs near the train station.
We worked our way through two bottles of wine (which cost me about a week’s wages), and talked about everything and nothing at all; all I can remember is how unbelievably beautiful she was and that her name was Mara.
At around 10.30 she looked at the clock and sighed, it was an oddly melancholy sound to come from the same person as that wonderful laugh.
“I have to go, sorry. Thanks for a lovely evening”.
She kissed me, a sweet, lingering kiss that could/should have led to something, then she walked out. By the time I came to my senses and followed her outside, she was just getting into a taxi.
“Can I see you again?” I called after her, but the taxi was pulling away and then she was gone.
I thought of her many times over the next few years, wistfully wondering where she might be and what might have been.
But this is not a tale of pining for a lost love; I didn’t waste away. Life happened, I met a girl, married and had two sons. We may not have been Anthony and Cleopatra, but we were content with our lot.
It was about 10 years later that I saw her again, or I thought I did. I saw her across the street in a group of people, but by the time I crossed over she was nowhere to be seen. I searched the side streets and shops nearby, but no sign of her.
It’s happened many times over the years. After a while I stopped chasing her, believing myself mad, but every so often a glimmer of her, or a tinkle of laughter and I could swear she was nearby.
Years passed, the boys grew up and went to college, then to homes of their own, with wives and children. But somewhere in the back of my mind was Mara, always.
When my wife became ill 6 years ago, I cared for her at home. The days dragged into months and we moved her bed downstairs into the lounge. I watched a lot of television at her bedside, with the volume down low.
There she was, I thought I’d finally lost it completely, because there was Mara’s incredibly beautiful face looking at me from the TV screen. She was exactly as I remembered her in 1963. I fumbled the remote and all thumbs and elbows, I finally got the volume turned up.
I couldn’t breathe, the name of the TV show was “Women Killers”. I stared in horror and disbelief, as the story unfolded. Apparently, one Tuesday night in June 1963, Mara Louise Jones had returned home from college, taken a shotgun from the cabinet and shot her father and brother to death. Then called 999 and made a pot of tea.
She confessed right away, but her motive was not discovered until an author interviewed her in prison. Her father had been a monstrous character who had tormented and tortured Mara and raised his son in his own image. I remember thinking that I was glad I had not known all this in 1963, or I may have been in prison all these years as well.
Sadly, the story ended ten years later, when Mara opened a vein with a sharpened toothbrush. I hope it was quick and not too painful.
So, I couldn’t have been seeing her all this time, could I?
I’m a sick old man now, I’m waiting to die. The staff here are nice enough, but it’s not home. I see her a lot here, walking the corridors and sometimes, when I’m drowsing, sitting on the end of my bed.
I sent away for a boxset of the entire series of that show, just to keep a copy of that episode (and invested in something called a blu ray? I got my son to set it up for me). I fast forward the painful parts and go to my favourite; there’s a scene where they show some of her sketches and journal entries, mementos of her 10 years in prison. There in her sketchbook, she’s drawn an overloaded train station trolley, beside it there’s a note:
“To Sweet Billy, who swept me off my feet.
I’m sorry I couldn’t stay,
there was something I had to do xx”
It won’t be long now, I know she’s waiting, and I think she’s waited long enough.
