The Madness of Grief
Page 24
GRRR…
The sooner she set off again the sooner she’d find help, and the sooner she’d be home getting ready for Bob. Even in her state of extreme dehydration she couldn’t help feeling aroused, not in any narrow, purely sexual way, but holistically. The thought of Bob sustained her in a primal, elevated state in which she felt complete.
She leaned over to wind down the other front window, but again she changed her mind. If the rush of hot air became stronger when the car began to move, like sand from the desert a vortex of dryness would envelop and desiccate her totally. Now feeling her thirst more intensely, she lowered the handbrake, and after indicating switched to “DRIVE” and pressed the acceleration - her traitorous Mercedes had the decency to at least be automatic.
Even with three windows shut, the arid whirl of wind from outside brought home clingingly the wetness of her blouse, which had now become fully transparent; Lily looked down at it aghast but then quickly snatched her eyes back, to fix them again on the road. This lapse of concentration was a sign.
Perhaps she should try and turn around after all. Barely half an hour had passed since she had last looked at the clock; if she followed the road back to where she had taken the wrong turn, which should take, give-or-take, another half an hour, she could then turn the other way and be home half an hour after that. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, now it was the clock inside her head that was ticking, harshly, bewilderingly, paralysingly, and yet not muffling by any fraction of a decibel the constancy of that infernal GRRR.
Gemma
GRRR…
Lily drove towards the sky still unable to decide. Bob had made her morning momentous, and he would make her night momentous, too. By not even the most tawdry, spiteful persecution could the day retract the gift that unexpectedly it had bestowed on her already. If anyone had dared suggest to her that Cerberus, the horny bulk who had so colourfully catalogued his fetishes on come-to-woody.com, could have ever turned out to be the needle in the haystack – at her age the first man in her life she would be able to trust – she would have cynically laughed in their face. Well, how wrong she would have been. As the length of road in front her shortened, making it unsafe to turn around until the horizon had levelled again, all the certain consequences of today opened up in front of her in a cascade of hopefulness. She had much to make up for, so much to atone for…
Her first concern was Gemma.
‘Mother, I hope you’re not being serious!’
‘But it’s so much safer if you know who I’m meeting.’
‘Who you’re meeting to have sex with in a wood?’
‘A very special wood.’
‘I mean, what kind of people do that?’
‘Do what, dear? Have fun?’
‘But you’re not having fun, you’re having sex with total strangers in bushes.’
‘Oh, it’s so much more than just sex, and I am having fun, believe me!’
‘For God’s sake, Mother, you’re hardly a young woman any more!’
‘I’m as young as the young men who feel me. They don’t have a problem with my age, and I don’t see why you should. Please don’t tell me I’ve raised you to be a prude.’
‘I’m not a prude. I just can’t see the attraction.’
‘The attraction of what?’
‘Of meeting up with perverts in some godforsaken forest for sex.’
‘And that’s not being a prude? Anyway, it’s not exactly a forest. And these “perverts”, as you call them, are perfectly respectable professional men who are carefully vetted. Not just anyone has access to come-to-woody.com, it’s a very exclusive site.’
‘If they’re all so “perfectly respectable”, then why do I need to know who you’re meeting?’
‘Because no amount of vetting is foolproof; it’s a risk one has to take.’
‘No, Mother, it isn’t.’
‘So you’d rather I was safely tucked at home, drinking Bloody Marys on my own and feeling old.’
‘If you want to meet strangers, do what normal people do - meet them in a restaurant for dinner.’
‘Darling, that’s just so last century. And obviously I’m doing that as well. But while I wait for Master Right, I don’t see what’s so wrong…’
‘With having fun.’
‘Precisely.’
‘And these… men you meet, do they offer you drugs?’
‘Sometimes, but I usually say no.’
‘Usually?’
‘I may have had the odd snort of something.’
Silence.
‘Gemma dear, are you still there?’
If Lily had mentioned her habit to Gemma, who was a prude, that was how the conversation would have gone. Not surprisingly she had decided not to, and how glad she was now that she hadn’t. Meeting Bob had changed everything. In her new state of wholeness, she had grasped that the wood was already behind her, a thing of the past.
Lily’s relationship with Gemma had always been strained, and given the complexity of “the circumstances” it was hardly surprising. To protect her, there were so many things Lily hadn’t told her, so many things she had allowed Gemma to blame her for unfairly. Which wasn’t to say that she thought herself blameless. Lily was aware of her shortcomings. Life had made her hard, and there were things – unspeakable things - Lily had kept to herself out of self-preservation.
GRRR… VRRUM, VRRUM…
The engine of the aging Mercedes, maroon (almost aubergine), with a dashboard of chrome and solid wood (probably walnut), and luxurious leather seats that absorbed neither heat nor perspiration, was revving on and off underfoot, as though of its own, impertinent accord. VRRUM, VRRUM, the engine revved, while GRRR, the broken air-con continued to gush heat indefatigably. VRRUM, VRRUM, until at last Lily came to with a start at the top of the hill, where she had brought the wild Mercedes to a standstill she wouldn’t have been able to say when. Struck by unimaginable awe, against the vivid brightness of the day she gaped with bleary eyes at an incomparable vista. It was worth getting lost to have seen it.
Its magnificent beauty was curiously not in the detail. It was another indivisible wholeness, like a painting. This was the day when everything was coming together: Lily’s past, for so long suppressed, was uniting with her present to encompass her future. Without Bob, everything would have remained apart, in compartments held separate by grief and subterfuge and lies.
VRRUM, VRRUM…
‘Your foot, Lily, off with your foot, you silly fool!’
She had spat the words out in a hiss, but the action they required seemed like an impossible task.
VRRUM, VRRUM…
‘Bob!’ she said loudly, and then, ‘Bob!’ she said again, and as though Bob had waved a magic wand from afar, her foot at last was off.
Her head was heavy now, but not far ahead, in the foreground of that beautiful pointillist painting, there seemed to be a place where she could turn. Soon she would be driving in the right direction; soon she would be home; soon she would be having dinner with Bob. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she wondered if she mightn’t have fallen asleep. The heat had exhausted her, and the monotonous GRRR was hypnotic.
End of excerpt from Finger of an Angel.