by Fiona Gibson
The sun beamed down on us as Antoine took my hand on a walk through the forest. We were on our way to visit his friend Jacques, whose family kept goats and made cheese from their milk. As we picnicked in their untended garden, Antoine kissed me properly for the first time. It was like an electric current shooting through me. For days, we had just been friends hanging out, and now we were lying in each other’s arms, snogging fervently in the long grass while his friend – thank you, Jacques! – wandered off to help his father with the goats. No one had kissed me that way, ever. It felt as if my hormones, which had been lying dormant like a pan of cold soup, had been turned up to a rapid boil.
When Antoine took me deeper in the woods, I was a little nervous; he was eighteen, he’d have kissed hundreds of girls not to mention having done it – of course he had, you could just tell. But I felt safe with him. We kept stopping to kiss some more, and he whispered that he couldn’t believe I didn’t have a boyfriend back home. I could have floated then, like dandelion fluff. I still couldn’t believe that a boy like Antoine wanted to be with me in this way, when I suspected all of Valérie’s friends fancied him.
We reached a lake, deserted and glittering with a wooded island in the middle, and stripped off to our underwear and swam. Me, Lorrie Foster from Yorkshire with a body the colour of rice pudding, swimming in my bra and knickers with a boy! ‘You’re so beautiful,’ Antoine said afterwards, gallantly offering his T-shirt for me to dry myself. He praised my skin (‘like cream’), my eyes (‘dark, mysterious’) and even my mouth (‘so pretty, like a flower’). If he even noticed my chubby thighs or wobbly bottom, he didn’t seem to view them as faults – and soon, neither did I. It was as if I was seeing myself differently, like the way you adjust the settings on a TV. Finally, I was seeing myself in full brightness.
My cheeks glowed and my badly highlighted hair seemed to acquire a new sheen that had never been apparent under drab Yorkshire skies. Every cell in my body seemed to shimmer from all the kissing we were doing. Because, of course, following that afternoon at the lake, we spent every possible moment in each other’s arms, swiftly graduating onto the kind of ‘petting’ the sign at the swimming baths warned you not to do. Oh, we petted all right, but there was no pressure to ‘go all the way’ (as it was quaintly known back home), even when we were alone in the apartment, because the unspoken message seemed to say: this is perfect.
Every night, as I drifted off to sleep on the pull-out bed in Valérie’s room, I could still feel Antoine’s kisses hovering on my lips. I was madly in love, changed forever. The ‘View to a Kill’ lyrics remained untranscribed.
My last day in France loomed like a darkening cloud. We could hardly bear to talk about it. ‘You’ll come back,’ Antoine kept saying, as if to reassure himself as much as me. ‘Or I could visit you. I need to find a job anyway – anything’ll do. I’ll save up and come to Yorkshire!’ Try as I might, I couldn’t picture him in our chintzy living room back home, being fussed over by Mum.
On the day I was leaving, we all squished into Jeanne’s tiny car and drove to the railway station, where she and Valérie hung back awkwardly as Antoine and I hugged goodbye. I love you, he mouthed as the train pulled away. On the plane, I was crying so much the lady in the next seat gave me her embroidered hankie and said I could keep it.
Back home, I’d expected Mum to notice a difference in me immediately – to comment on my new, more sophisticated appearance and demeanour. I was certain she’d say something about the understated make-up I’d started to wear. However, she seemed more eager to tell me about Sue down the road who’d been coughing up bile, and how we’d have to cut back for the rest of the summer due to the exorbitant cost of my trip (I didn’t notice any cutting back where Mum’s make-up purchases were concerned). Only when I told her about Antoine did she sit up and take notice. ‘He can come here for a holiday!’ she enthused, and I wondered if it might actually be possible.
We wrote to each other, declaring our love, and then from a couple of letters a week, his airmailed missives dwindled to perhaps one a fortnight, then monthly, followed by a gaping void, during which I felt hollow and tried to tell myself the postmen must be on strike. However, the rest of our mail – the endless bills and Freeman’s catalogues – seemed to be arriving without any problem. Maybe the French postmen were striking?
They weren’t, of course. Antoine’s life was simply continuing without me; I had faded to him, like a newsagent’s neglected window display. The occasional letter read more like an exercise in rudimentary English: We played good at football on Saturday. Our apartment is painted outside. How is the weather in Yorkshire?
Even at sixteen, I knew that asking about the weather suggested he was no longer obsessed with my creamy skin or mysterious eyes. Valérie had stopped writing too – my visit had been the death knoll to our ‘friendship’ – apart from to dash off a hasty note, informing me that Antoine was now ‘madly in love’ with Nicole, my make-up tutor. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I stared at her last flippant sentence (‘I just thought you should know!’). Well, of course he’d end up with her; she was stunning. Yet I’d believed him when he’d said he loved me, and convinced myself that he was oblivious to the charms of his sister’s friends. I could almost hear Valérie’s cruel laughter as I screwed up her letter and threw it into my bin.
As autumn slid into a cold, wet winter, another letter arrived from France. ‘Ooh, is it from that boy at long last?’ Mum cooed, as I charged upstairs to my room to read it in private.
Dear Lorrie,
I hope you are well.
Valérie learns karate but broke shoulder.
Quite busy next few weeks.
Antoine
And that was the last I ever heard from the beautiful boy from the Massif Central.
Chapter One
30 Years Later
He’s done that thing.
That thing of using a really old photo on his dating profile. How long ago was it taken? Ten years? Fifteen? This could be a fun guessing game. As if I wouldn’t notice that his hair isn’t in fact a lush chestnut brown as it appears in his picture but actually silver.
‘Lorrie? Hi!’
‘Ralph, hi!’ Force a smile. Don’t look shocked. Don’t stare at the hair.
‘Lovely to meet you.’
‘You too …’
‘Shall we go in then?’ he asks brightly.
‘Yes, of course!’
As the two of us stride into the Nutmeg Gallery, I try to reconcile the fact that the man I’ve had lodged in my head – with whom I’ve been corresponding via email all week – isn’t the eerily youthful-looking Ralph I’d expected to meet. Dressed in a crisp white shirt, new-looking jeans and a blue cotton jacket, he is a perfectly presentable man of forty-eight. He has striking blue eyes, his teeth are notably good – shiny and white, probably flossed – and he’s in pretty decent shape, suggesting that he does a bit of light jogging and goes easy on the booze. So why dig out a picture from something like 2002? When someone does that – and it contravenes the trade descriptions act really – it doesn’t matter how attractive they are, because it’s all you can think about.
And you feel sort of duped.
It was Ralph’s suggestion to meet here, outside the gallery tucked away by a pretty stretch of the canal in Islington. Ideal, I thought. The art bit would feel pleasingly grown-up. I know I shouldn’t still regard galleries in that way, being forty-six myself. I mean, I am mother to two teenagers, for goodness’ sake. I shouldn’t need to do certain things – like look at art – in order to feel like a bona fide adult. Then, after we’d sped through the gallery, we could get to the part I was really looking forward to: a chat in the cafe he’d mentioned, with tables overlooking the canal. ‘Amazing home baking,’ he’d said.
I’d had a good feeling about today, and not just due to the cake element. Ralph had been chatty and interesting in his emails: a solicitor – again, pleasingly grown-up – with hints of poshness and a warm, lik
eable face. After a couple of dud dates with other men I’d allowed myself a glimmer of hope. But now, well, he’s just not what I expected.
‘I didn’t even know this place existed,’ I tell him as we wander into the first gallery room.
‘Oh, I’ve been here a few times. It’s a charming little place.’
As we study the paintings – at least, I pretend to study them – a sense of awkwardness settles over us.
‘So, how’s it been so far?’ I ask lightly. ‘The whole, um, online thing, I mean?’ An older couple are perusing the artworks, and my voice sounds terribly amplified in here. Perhaps it wasn’t such a great choice of venue after all.
‘Oh, I’ve just started really,’ Ralph says. ‘In fact, you’re the first person I’ve met.’
‘Really? Well, I’m flattered.’ Silly thing to say, I know. He probably just hasn’t got around to meeting anyone else yet.
‘What d’you think of these?’ He indicates a row of small paintings, all in similar beigey hues. They are close-ups of various body parts – a forearm, a thigh, a rather septic-looking finger – each bearing a plaster.
‘Not crazy about them,’ I admit. ‘It’s all a bit medical, isn’t it?’
Ralph chuckles. ‘Yes, it is a bit. The permanent collection’s much better – let’s go take a look.’
We stroll through to an airier room filled with bright, splashy abstracts which are far more pleasing with their cheery colours. Ralph makes straight for a still life depicting a wobbly yolk-yellow circle on a sky blue background.
‘That’s quite striking, isn’t it?’ I remark.
He nods. ‘Yes, it was always Belinda’s favourite.’
‘Belinda?’ I give him a quizzical look.
‘My wife,’ he explains.
‘Oh, right.’ This floors me even more than the hair colour shock. From our email chats, I learnt that Ralph enjoys reading thrillers, cooking Asian food and jaunts to the south coast: reassuringly unremarkable stuff. One cat, no kids – ‘Just didn’t happen for me’. However, although a couple of relationships have been mentioned, no wife has popped up in our communications. I study the painting, wondering how I’m supposed to respond. Really? Well, I can see she has excellent taste … Or, How about showing me more paintings Belinda loves?
Now I can barely concentrate on the art at all as a terrible thought hits me. He said wife, not ex-wife. Surely, if they were separated or divorced, he’d refer to her as his ex. I mentally scroll back to the email where Ralph mentioned his situation, relationship-wise: ‘I’ve been on my own for just over a year …’ Not single, but on his own. Plus, the painting was Belinda’s favourite; past tense. Which can only mean one thing: Belinda is dead.
I throw Ralph a quick glance as he finally tears himself away from the yellow circle painting and moves on. Is this why he suggested meeting at the Nutmeg Gallery – because Belinda loved it here? It makes sense, too – the vintage profile photo, I mean. He’s still so deranged with grief, he couldn’t get it together to find a more recent one – or perhaps she was in all of them, hugging him. God, how tragic. This is probably the first date he’s been on since she died.
As we drift into the next room, I run through possible ways of broaching the subject sensitively: So, erm, if you don’t mind me asking, what happened with Belinda? Is Belinda still, er … ‘around’? Neither sounds quite right.
Ralph starts to stroll around, hands clasped behind his back as he gazes thoughtfully at the artworks. It’s not paintings in here, but a collection of grubby old baskets with bits of frayed rope attached, dotted around on the parquet floor. On closer inspection, because I’m trying to appear suitably fascinated – and not like some heathen who only likes paintings of thatched cottages or kittens – each of the baskets has a small item inside. Nothing precious or beautiful, but the kind of stuff you might have crammed in the cupboard under the sink: rubber gloves, a bottle of Cif, a pair of rusty Brillo pads sitting snugly together as if they might start mating.
Although I know I should be open-minded, just as I’m trying to be open-minded about Ralph, I’m starting to think we should wrap up the art bit now and head to the cafe. That unmentionable thing – Belinda, his dead wife – hovers between us, but right now, with the elderly couple still lurking close by, isn’t the right moment to bring it up.
‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ Ralph remarks.
‘Oh, er … yes, very.’ Be positive. It was his idea to come here and the poor man’s bereaved. ‘What d’you think it’s all about?’ I ask.
My stomach growls as he gazes around. I was too intent on getting ready – black and white spotty dress, patent heels, full face of make-up and a ruddy blow-dry – to think about lunch and now it’s gone 3 p.m.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘I think it could be interpreted in lots of ways.’ He pushes back his neatly cropped hair. ‘I don’t want to sound pretentious. You know how people can be about art …’
‘Oh, yes,’ I say, warming to Ralph a little now, but wary of over-warming to him out of pity. ‘It’s all cleaning stuff, isn’t it, trapped in baskets? So I think it’s about that terrible hemmed-in feeling you have when you’ve got the kitchen nice and shiny and then everyone storms in and messes it all up and you think, Christ, it’s like Groundhog Day – bloody endless.’ I smile, feeling pleased with myself.
‘Oh, I don’t think it’s quite that.’ He chuckles patronisingly.
I sense my cheeks reddening. ‘No, well, I was joking. To be honest, this kind of art isn’t really my—’
‘I think,’ Ralph interrupts, ‘what we’re seeing here is a comment on the permanence of the enclosed objects, juxtaposed with the impermanence of the lobster pots—’
‘Oh, is that what they are?’ I glance at a galvanised bucket in the corner with a mop propped beside it. Are they part of the art as well, or did the cleaner just dump them there?
‘Well, yes, what did you think they were?’
Rustic storage solutions? Quirky hats? As I’m not a fisherman I had no idea … ‘Um, I knew they were something nautical,’ I fib, not that it matters, as Ralph doesn’t appear to have heard me.
‘… And as you’d expect, they show distinct signs of weathering due to the erosive effects of the sea. And what the artist is alluding to here is …’ I phase out, ceasing to listen for a few moments. ‘… Then again,’ he chunters on, ‘it could be more about the concept of cleanliness, of sterility in a world literally milling with germs and bacteria …’ He stops and blinks at me. ‘Do you think?’
‘Yes, that could be it,’ I remark, wandering towards the small white card on the wall, hoping that’ll settle things once and for all. But all it says is:
I AM NOT A CRUSTACEAN by Thomas Trotter, 1991
Lobster pots and household objects
Which tells us nothing more, apart from the fact that the artist was born in the nineties, suggesting that he has never acquainted himself with a Brillo pad in any kind of useful way.
Now, close to the exit, Ralph is surveying a small pile of brownish tweed fabric lying on a wooden plinth. ‘Another Thomas Trotter piece,’ he observes. ‘Hmmm … what’s this one saying?’
I look at it dispassionately. It’s saying: What were you thinking, not even finding out if he’s a widower or not? And now, because you pity the man, you’re frittering away your precious Sunday afternoon with someone who insists on throwing around fancy words, which would be fine, maybe, in other circumstances. But who says ‘juxtaposed’ on a first date? Actually, I fancy going straight home and juxtaposing my arse with the sofa, thank you very much …
In fact, if it wasn’t for my kids, I wouldn’t be here at all. They’re the ones who forced me to join datemylovelymum.com in the first place. ‘Me and Cam were talking, Mum,’ ventured Amy, my fifteen-year-old, fixing her wavy dark hair into a no-nonsense ponytail. ‘We just thought you should … get out more. Do stuff. Enjoy yourself.’
Christ, they were worried about me. Didn’t they think I was man
aging, holding down my full-time job in the beauty hall of a department store, whilst keeping things ticking along at home? I wasn’t keen on the implication that I was anything less than a vision of contentment.
Cameron, who’s seventeen, pitched in. ‘We just thought you should, er, try one of those dating things …’
‘Like Tinder?’ I spluttered.
‘No! God no. Tinder’s for our age. There’s others – ones for older people. It’s what single women your age do. They have no way of meeting people any other way.’
‘But I meet people all day,’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s my job—’
‘Yeah, we know about that,’ he conceded. ‘It’s called traffic stopping …’
‘But actually,’ Amy cut in, smirking, ‘it’s taking innocent people hostage and forcing them to sit on your stool so you can plaster them in foundation.’
‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘I tie them up and gag them. I never told you that part.’
Cam tossed his choppily cut brown hair back from his handsome, angular face. ‘Stop changing the subject. We’re not talking about customers at a make-up counter. We mean, you know …’ He winced slightly. ‘Meeting a man.’
‘Oh.’
‘And we’ve already written your profile,’ Amy added, her dark eyes glinting with amusement.
‘What? All this plotting and scheming’s been going on behind my back?’