The Age of Discretion

by Virginia Duigan

  Viv decides to trust Danni, although she is under no illusion that she has made a decision on the matter. Being in a salon such as this one reminds her of having a surgical procedure: you consign yourself to a total stranger’s capable (you hope) hands. Danni’s small hands, sporting black nail polish and diamante studs, prove to be deft and capable. When Viv is out of them she is passed on to Ramona’s. But it doesn’t feel like an impersonal production line. The process is accomplished with professional attention and panache.

  Three hours into the afternoon she is pleased with the result; her revamped hair now has a discernible contour, thanks to Danni – mid-length, between jaw and shoulder. To complement the shape of your face, right? It has reverted to a discreet mid-brown, much like its old colour. Only now it has texture and interest rather than being plain mousy, says Ramona, because we want to avoid the boring old mouse, do we not?

  Viv agrees that we want to avoid this, although she wonders aloud about the qualifications of an interesting brown. Something that is neither drab nor timid, Ramona explains, as this is not your personality, dear, and our hair should always be an expression of our personality. This is one of the advantages we ladies have over our menfolk, age-wise. Ramona wears her dark auburn hair tellingly, Viv now perceives, in a French roll.

  She has impressed on Ramona the need for the colour to look natural (as far as this is possible, age-wise) and to be sure to leave in some artful hints of grey for verisimilitude. I know, pet, you don’t want your wee hubby to notice a thing, Ramona says cheerily. Oh, I’m sure my hubby won’t notice, replies Viv, not a thing. And anyway, she adds, sotto voce, it’s not for him. Ooh, is it not, then, says Ramona with an upward inflexion, I see. But she is experienced enough to see that Vivien is not inclined to go there. Nor does Viv yet know where she is going, as she would be the first to admit.

  The bill seems astronomical, especially with the tip for both Ramona and Danni that Jules said was mandatory, but Viv has to admit the end product is an improvement on that wrought by her local salon. A distinct upgrade. She might even make it a habit, once every four to six weeks, like some of the smarter, more elegant women she knows. But what an expensive habit that would be. Perhaps once every three months is more like it.

  Jules, meeting her outside a wine bar in Belsize Park, performs an operatic double-take. There, she says, didn’t I tell you Ramona knew her onions?

  She said my hair needed to be tamed, Viv tells her, or it would end up ruling the roost. She also said, unprompted, that my personality was neither drab nor mousy.

  Of course it’s not, says Jules. I’ve told you that, any number of times. She examines her friend, walks round her in the street, head on one side. Jules herself, in gradations of pink and black today with a fuchsia scarf and pert black fedora, looks as if she is off to a photo shoot.

  ‘Yes, it’s a big improvement, Viv,’ she says. ‘Not that it didn’t look all right before, but it’s got style now. And the colour’s great.’

  ‘Years off my age?’

  ‘Years off. Absolutely.’

  ‘You’d never know?’

  ‘Never.’

  Viv says that’s just as well, because the whole operation could have bought a month at the Waldorf Astoria. They enter the wine bar, very chic, very upmarket. Just as Jules has contacts who can wangle a table at The Ivy and practically every hot ticket in town, Viv imagines she also has a network of informers whose business it is to suss out exclusive little haunts like this. She feels she’s living, albeit temporarily, an alternate life. A diverting life of daily luxuries, great and small, and one in which her name and face are recognised on the international artistic circuit.

  Viv often has this feeling when out with Jules. It is not at all unpleasant and sometimes quite heady, although she has always returned without a thought to her own less ritzy existence. Still, Julia’s life, seen from close quarters, has been a source of wonderment.

  Do you ever cease to be a celebrity once you have been one? Not in your own eyes, she suspects. There must be an enduring part of your self-image that sees you as more special than your fellow humans. That sees you as a creature apart. Though Jules does not give herself airs, and never has. And we are all creatures apart in our own eyes, aren’t we, as Viv has said to Geoff.

  Julia’s demeanour is subtly different today. Viv was expecting this. In her own flat, in an intimate one-on-one situation, surrounded by her own possessions, Jules tends to be more toned down. More real, Viv might have said much earlier in their acquaintance. She now thinks that the other side of Jules, the public aspect, is just as genuine. It’s the flip side of her personality.

  She toys with the idea of asking Jules how she is feeling about the future, and decides against it. She doesn’t want to risk altering her mood too dramatically, not before she has had the chance to air her own edgy revelation. Jules hasn’t referred to their last meeting. She seems upbeat, or relatively so. Her agent called earlier to schedule a lunch tomorrow. Jules feels that he may have something up his sleeve.

  What’s your poison, Viv, she asks as they commandeer a couple of armchairs in a dark corner of the bar. Jules always goes for the dark corners and the far tables. Viv prefers to be in the centre of a room, in the thick of the action. How curious, to prefer to be in the middle where everyone has a good view of you, when you are, from the point of view of a smart restaurant, a non-event no one is interested in watching.

  ‘I’ll have a dry martini with a twist,’ she says, surprising Jules, who has never known her to order anything other than tea, or at a stretch white wine, at the relatively early hour of four in the afternoon. But Jules had selected this wine bar over a cafe for good reason. I thought you might need a drink to loosen the lips, she says complacently. All right, out with it, I’ve been on tenterhooks all day. Stop dropping coy little hints and let’s have the full disclosure. What is it with Thursday?

  ‘With Thursday? An appointment is scheduled,’ says Viv. Her stomach flutters. ‘An in-depth interview with an agency offering discreet personal introductions.’

  Julia’s expression undergoes some rearrangement. She wasn’t expecting this. Is that right? she says slowly. You don’t say.

  ‘For those whose carnal relations are a thing of the past, and for whom rumpy-pumpy is a distant memory. For those, in short, whose intimate relationship is not meeting their needs.’

  As one of a select few in the know, Jules is up to speed with Viv’s personal difficulties over the past two years. Her eyebrows shoot up. ‘Good god, Viv. You daredevil.’

  Viv prefers to call her action a constructive response to criticism. She is pleased with Jules’s reaction. Both pleased and, if she is honest, a touch more destabilised than she was already feeling. Julia’s mobile face is unusually eloquent. At the present moment it is communicating, as Viv correctly identifies, an element of admiring surprise together with some perturbation.

  What brought this on? I mean, Jules says, is it just two years of accumulated frustration boiling over? Or, and she regards Viv with a keen eye, has something else happened to change things?

  ‘Well, you might say that.’ Viv takes a deep breath. ‘There has been an unforeseen development. Words were said. A sentence was uttered. A sentence of some – of some import.’ She stops. She is finding it surprisingly hard to get to the point.

  ‘Viv, you know you can tell me,’ Jules says, gently. And then, when this fails to do the trick, ‘Come on. Spit it out.’

  Another deep breath. ‘Geoff said: men are hard-wired not to find older women attractive.’

  ‘He didn’t.’ Viv can see that Jules needs no assistance in processing the implications of this. She gets them, in their mind-blowing entirety, right away.

  ‘I’m afraid he did.’

  ‘Geoffsaid that? To you?’ She drums her feet on the floor. ‘But that’s terrible. That’s a truly terrible thing to say.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? It happened a few days ago. Out of the blue, really. Although
I had brought up the subject yet again. I suppose he could have just said it out of exasperation. But that doesn’t excuse it.’

  Why the hell hadn’t she said something about this before?

  ‘Because it seemed a bit of a bridge too far when I saw you. On top of, you know, your own problems. Which are really much more—’

  Jules cuts her off with a snort. ‘You mean my interminable whinging and ghastly self-pity? You should have told me to shut up, Viv. You should have told me to shut the fuck up in no uncertain terms.’

  She glances down the bar. It is thinly peopled at this hour, two singletons and three other couples their own age or younger conversing in low voices. At least one of those couples in a bar like this at this time of day, Jules thinks, is probably having an affair, and it is just as likely to be the oldest couple of the three.

  ‘Let me tell you something, Viv. It’s quite absurd to say all men are like this. I can vouch for that personally.’

  They exchange a droll glance. Viv knows that Jules will not elaborate. She thinks, but you are a famous woman. In certain elite circles, at least. One cannot pretend that’s not going to influence things.

  She says, ‘You also know perfectly well, Jules, that given the choice of two, and all things being equal, a man would prefer to shag the younger woman.’ Viv has always grappled with the word fuck, and uses it sparingly.

  Jules has no such reluctance. ‘Answer me this, then. All things being equal, who would you prefer to fuck, given a one-off choice with no repercussions: a paunchy old misery-guts or a gorgeous young hunk? Excuse me, Viv, but an assertion like Geoff’s is balderdash. It puts all men in the same basket. It takes into account nothing about anything.’

  She draws breath, sensing that Viv is unconvinced. ‘It’s on a level with those hoary old claims they used to make about women. You know, how all women were biologically geared to have babies and so they were too emotional to fly planes and too dim to vote. You can’t assert that all men are hard-wired to do anything much, except the basics.’

  Jules, who has ordered a slimming white-wine spritzer, pauses to sample it. ‘Besides, they don’t talk about their feelings, hard-wired or otherwise, so how would anyone know? From a scholarly point of view the statement is grossly sloppy, for a start. As someone who’s supposed to be a scientist, Geoff should know that.’

  Viv thinks there may be a grain of truth in it. She also thinks that Geoff was really talking about himself, and not necessarily about every other man in the world. But apart from whether it’s scientifically accurate, there is the fact of it being said at all. They both agree on one thing, that the sentence is an example, a comparatively rare one, of something which, once said, can never be taken back, or forgotten, or even overlooked. It’s a point of no return.

  Jules is still dealing with the point at issue. As she sees it, this is the matter of Geoff’s holistic competence.

  ‘You know him better than me, but it’s unlike him to say something as unkind and hurtful. He’s a bit depressed, isn’t he? You’ve suspected that for quite a while. It could be hormonal. Men have hormones too, they tell me. Is he having mood swings? It might be the manopause. This has always existed, as we know, but could this be a new strain, in which a sophisticated, tertiary-educated man relapses into the chauvinist attitudes of his youth? Well, a moderately sophisticated man. Or a strain of Tourette’s, where he emits offensive statements without warning? A blokey version of the hot flush? It could well be that.’

  Viv is rapidly regaining her equanimity, under the influence of the martini and Julia’s particular approach to deep and meaningful conversations. Julia’s temperament is buoyant, overall. Conversations rarely get bogged down in depth and meaningfulness for long.

  Rather late for the hot flush, Viv observes, bearing in mind Geoff is sixty-nine. Well, it could be a rare manifestation, says her friend, undeterred. ‘Or, perhaps even more likely, it’s a midlife crisis that’s been developmentally delayed. All men being developmentally delayed to a greater or lesser extent. As is well recognised in the literature.’

  ‘Since we’re in the business of non-evidence-based generalisations.’

  ‘You know it makes sense.’ Jules shakes her head. ‘What on earth was he not thinking?’

  ‘I can only assume he finds my ageing self physically repulsive.’

  This pulls Jules up, hard. She lifts her hair with both hands and lets it drop abruptly. ‘Whoa, Viv. You look great for your age. Great, period. Don’t say that, please. Of course he can’t.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  Jules breathes out through dilated nostrils. ‘Why? Because it’s crap, that’s why. Because it’s not true. Because you’ve had such a good relationship. Because he loves you.’ Her shoulders sag. ‘Because any bloody number of things.’

  ‘He doesn’t touch me anymore. He’s definitely not incapacitated. What more proof does one need?’

  An affair might explain it, Jules supposes, at last. They have worked this painful idea over, well before now. Geoff has denied it, of course, but it’s quite possible. There are obvious candidates. Geoff belongs to an eccentric circle of sci-fi buffs. Mostly men, but the odd bright young woman. There are mixed teams at the croquet club. It can’t be ruled out. All in all, it seems the most likely scenario.

  But it still doesn’t quite add up, Viv says. I mean, I think I’d know. Although they all say that, don’t they?

  ‘You’re both out a fair bit, what with his sci-fi loonies and croquet. And your quilting circle and refugees, and so on.’

  ‘Yes I know, but even so … Maybe it’s his roundabout way of saying he wants a divorce.’

  She can see that Jules has thought of this, but hasn’t wanted to say it. Nor does she want to talk about it now.

  ‘Listen, Viv, I think we may be barking up the wrong tree. We may be looking for some esoteric explanation when it might just be a straightforward case of loss of libido. As simple as that. A consequence of age, let’s face it. For some people, that is. I believe some people experience a consummate loss of interest in sex as they get older, pardon the pun. Not you, obviously.’

  And what, Viv thinks, about you? On this subject you are as opaque as always.

  ‘Men don’t like it when it happens to them. Death blow to their masculinity, and so forth. And the whole thing’s got Geoff down, so to speak. He’s not himself anymore.’

  ‘I’ve only told this to one other friend, so far,’ Viv says. ‘A younger friend. She told me on the phone that I had four options. One, ignore it and do nothing. Two, leave him. Three, murder him. Four, have an affair.’

  Which friend is this?

  ‘It’s Joy. Of all my friends she is far and away the most practical. I think it comes from writing for children.’ She thinks about this. ‘Although that does sound counter-intuitive.’

  Well, Jules thinks Joy’s advice is spot on. And the fourth option does have a lot going for it. The others are less immediately appealing. And bumping him off could land Viv in very hot water.

  Jules sips her drink delicately. ‘So, an affair it is. I could probably rustle up a tenor or two, but they’re always travelling, so they’re not ideal liaison material. Why not select a nubile male of your acquaintance? Wouldn’t this be a more sensible way of going about it? Cheaper, too, presumably.’

  Viv says she doesn’t know anyone suitable. Or anyone suitably nubile who is also unattached. She doesn’t want to cause any ructions. She’d rather everything was organised and above board.

  Above board? Jules gives her a jocular look. She wants to know about the agency. ‘Since the subject will be off limits at dinner, I take it. What have you found out? I’m mesmerised, Viv, to put it mildly. I’m also mildly trepidatious. Have you checked out their bona fides? It might be a mistake to assume they recruit purely from rarefied literary catchments.’

  ‘The clientele might not all be pseudo-intellectuals, you mean?’

  ‘There could be a danger of undesirable blow-ins is wha
t I mean. Eager to sample the genteel erotic wares of the literati.’

  Viv is inclined to think the literati’s erotic wares might be a fictional creation. In any event they’re unlikely to be a stand-out attraction. Jules shakes her head. ‘You could get any senile, out-to-pasture old fart foisted on you, mark my words. The bottom line is, you have to be a bit careful at our age, to be brutally frank.’ This will not be music to Viv’s ears, she knows, but it’s strategically sensible in these matters, where she is proposing to pick up total strangers—

  ‘At our age?’ Viv interrupts. ‘I thought you were keen to convince me we were not yet parked in the departure lounge?’ Anyway, she doubts if a person’s degree of social desirability would be among her criteria at all. How would one even measure such a thing? ‘And furthermore, Jules, I am not proposing to pick up total strangers, that’s the whole point.’

  Julia hears her out with growing disapproval. Viv really does need to keep a sensible handle on this issue. I’m being your mother, she says firmly, and telling you to be careful who you choose to go to bed with. How is Judith, by the way?

  ‘My mother wouldn’t be seen dead saying anything so bourgeois.’

  ‘Well, there are basic safeguards to adhere to. It’s not like the sixties, when you could jump in the sack with whoever you fancied, by and large, and all you had to fear was herpes or crabs. Or a mild dose of the clap. These days the dangers are a lot less benign.’

  Please don’t get on to drugs and safe sex and women being dismembered and disembowelled, Viv murmurs. Please don’t go down any of those roads. I didn’t come down in the last shower, and I’m not a spring chicken. Which is part of the problem.

  But Jules is in no mood to be put off. Take vetting. Viv needs to know that people have been thoroughly checked to weed out the con artists, as well as the weirdos and psychos. She looks sideways at Viv as she says this, wishing to put the wind up, but not wishing to put it up too much. What Viv is contemplating doing is unorthodox, it’s under the radar. What she must never do is lower her guard. She shouldn’t imagine that an agency like this one is a form of insurance. It cannot buy safety.