Made in Heaven

by Adale Geras

  ‘We don’t have to see them much, I shouldn’t have thought. I don’t ever want to see him again, to tell you the truth. Not after what you’ve told me. They’re down there in Guildford and we’re up here. We’ll just keep out of the way.’

  ‘But what about Zannah’s wedding? We’ll have to see them for that.’

  ‘Fuck the wedding!’ Bob stood up, red in the face with the fury he’d managed to suppress till that moment. ‘I don’t know what you want from me, Joss. You seem to think that I’m meant to get over this in a civilized manner and move swiftly on to thinking about Zannah. Well, I’m sorry. I refuse to worry about that now. Of course we’ll go through the motions. I’m not going to mess up Zannah’s day, but let’s just say it won’t be a barrel of laughs. Nothing strange about that. They say that many weddings end in a fight. Punch-up between the families.’

  ‘Stop it! This isn’t a time to be frivolous.’

  ‘I’m not being frivolous.’

  Joss said, ‘I’m exhausted, Bob. I think I’m going up to bed, if you don’t mind. We can unpack tomorrow.’

  ‘Joss, sit down. You can’t go to bed now … I’m still … ’ Bob ran his hands over his face, as though he were trying to wipe away the stress of the day. ‘What you’ve said … it’s knocked me out. I’ve always thought we had … I thought we were … well, I’ve never said as much, I suppose, but I’d always taken it for granted that we were … are … happy. Aren’t we happy, Joss? Haven’t things been okay?’

  Joss thought for a long time before she answered him. Okay … yes, things had been that. How long had it been since they’d spoken of anything more serious than family matters? How long since Bob had been impulsive in any way? Taken her out on a whim, brought her flowers? That wasn’t quite fair. Their relationship hadn’t been a flowery one, even in the beginning, but in those days, he’d regale her for hours about this or that interesting aspect of his work, and she still read the articles he wrote even though she didn’t understand the fine detail. But they didn’t laugh as much as they used to. She’d assumed it was simply that they had been together so long that they each knew one another’s opinions backwards. Briefly, she remembered a meal at Fairford with Gray, and how they were so happy that anything seemed funny. She’d described a well-known poet as being like a cross between a geography teacher and a vampire and Gray had snatched up his knife and fork and made a rudimentary cross with his arms out in front of him at chest-height as he intoned, in a good imitation of every geography teacher Joss had met: The main tributaries of the Nile, Dulcie … what are they? Pay attention, gel! It had been completely silly but it still made her smile to think of him with his eyes crossed, leaning sideways in his chair as he spoke. Bob was staring at her, waiting for her answer.

  ‘Of course we’re happy. I’ve explained what happened. I’m sorry if you’re hurt. Truly.’

  ‘Then you must promise me something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Promise me you won’t see this Ashton except on family occasions ever again. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t want to see him. That’s the last thing I want, honestly.’

  ‘And we’ll be okay?’

  ‘Yes, Bob,’ Joss said and allowed herself to be held. She let him kiss the top of her head then hurried out of the room and up the stairs to her study. She knew he wouldn’t follow her at once. His own study was in the basement and he’d check his computer before he came to bed and quite possibly become absorbed in reading something or other. He thought the crisis was over. He thought everything was at least on the way to being shipshape and tickety-boo, as he used to say to the girls when they were small. He didn’t like it when things were troublesome for too long and always moved straight on after a row or a crisis. She was safe for a while.

  She closed the door and went to the filing-cabinet. She unlocked it, found the little phone and her hands trembled as she touched the keys. Three messages. She listened to each one over and over again, drinking in the voice, feeling warmth return to her heart.

  ‘Lydia, my darling … know what you’re thinking. I can explain everything. Call me. whatever time it is. Call me.’

  ‘Are you there? Ring me, Lydia. How could I possibly know you were Zannah’s mother? Please, please phone me.’

  The last message had come in only a few minutes ago.

  ‘Are you there? Please call me now. I’m alone. I must speak to you.’

  Joss sent a text message: Can’t speak now. Will phone you in the morning. Time?

  Almost instantly, the answer came back: 11.30. I love you.

  And I love you too, Joss thought, but what’s going to happen now? I’ve promised Bob I won’t see you. You lied to me. You’ve been lying to me since I met you. She hid the phone again and sat at her desk, looking at the small tokens of his love all around her and seeing none of them. She was remembering a conversation from their first and last, their only night together.

  *

  ‘You with someone else.’ Gray was staring at the ceiling. ‘I don’t think I could live with that. What’s going to happen to us?’ They’d made love for the second time and Joss felt as though her body was being pressed down against the sheets by something huge and overwhelming: a weight of love so consuming that she didn’t know how to breathe. Before they’d kissed, before they’d gone this far, she’d told him this was all there would be, ever. They couldn’t do this again. This was never going to happen again.

  ‘I can’t leave my husband,’ she’d said. ‘I can’t do it to the girls. To my granddaughter. This is not something I can do again. I shouldn’t be doing it now, but I can’t help it. D’you understand, Gray?’

  ‘I’m not asking you to leave your husband. I just want you to stay tonight. To be here now.’

  ‘I could go now. I can still leave.’

  ‘No, I want you, Lydia. What do you want?’

  ‘You. Oh Gray, I want you.’

  At that moment, she would have stepped on hot coals to touch him. She couldn’t stop herself. She leaned towards him and they clung to one another, touching, breathing, panting, and Joss could feel herself plunging into sensations that she’d never been even close to imagining before.

  *

  Those were the conditions, she told herself. Everything that happened that night was something I wanted and I’ve been remembering it and reliving it and inhabiting it ever since. I was the one who laid down the terms. I was the one who said we must never meet again, and not because I didn’t love him. He knows how much. I’ve told him over and over again: in words, in poems, in thoughts, in everything but my presence. He’s had the best part of me. It’s only my body that’s here with Bob. I’ve been thinking of him, dreaming of him, wanting him every day and every night. He’s never asked me to leave Bob. Joss felt blind fury all over again. I thought he was being unselfish, not making me give up my life, when all the time it was him, his life, his career, that he was worried about. We’re as bad as one another: happy to keep our love in a sort of secret drawer. But he knew my circumstances and I didn’t know his. Would it have made any difference to anything? It might. Perhaps if I’d known he was married I’d have felt guilty. Was he trying to spare me that? That’s the kind interpretation.

  Tomorrow, she’d go out for a long walk and phone him and let him know it was over over over. Really and truly. No phone calls. No emails. Nothing any more ever again. It was the only way she’d be able to deal with this new situation. There was a telephone kiosk about a mile from the house from which she made the calls she knew would take a long time. This one would be hard. Gray would try to persuade her … try to change her mind. She picked up the tiny silver phone and listened to his messages again, before deleting them carefully. By the time she left the study, there were tears in her eyes. She wiped them away and took a deep breath, preparing herself to face Bob, who was making his way up the stairs to their bedroom.

  Sunday

  Order was important to Graham Ashton. He’d succeeded
in organizing every part of his existence to his entire satisfaction, and what had happened yesterday when he caught sight of Lydia sitting in a chair outlined against the light coming through the French windows was something he couldn’t begin to describe. A wave of emotion swept suddenly up and over and into his everyday concerns and he wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

  His life. It was a bit like a filing-cabinet and he had a talent for keeping the various bits of it nicely separate and tidy: Maureen, their house, their friends and children in one drawer, his work and colleagues in another, and Lydia in a locked compartment all of her own, just above the one in which he kept everything to do with his poetry. He didn’t hide the fact that he wrote it, but he didn’t mention it either. Graham Ashton was a common name and he hadn’t published enough to alert anyone in the medical establishment. No one he knew in the hospital was into poetry, as far as he was aware. What he liked about it was the pleasure of finding the right words, and organizing them into sequences that could illuminate something: make the reader see better. He liked the limitations of poetry, too: the rules. He didn’t approve of those who blurted stuff out without even counting the syllables or worrying about the form. Lydia wasn’t one of those. One of the things he loved about her was the way she paid attention to every word she wrote, and managed to express deep feelings without a hint of soppiness, or veering into the hello clouds hello sky school of verse which he hated.

  On his desk, within reach of his hand, was his secret phone. He picked it up and went downstairs. Only Lydia knew the number. It was a pay-as-you-go mobile: the twin of one he’d sent her for her birthday last year. Every call between them went from one silver handset to the other and he took care to delete not only any messages, but the entire call history, so that if anyone happened to come across it, there’d be no trace of her. Nothing would remain of the thousands of words of love and desire that flew between them.

  Seeing Lydia there, after so long, looking so beautiful, so like the woman he’d dreamed about, turned him for a few moments into a kind of statue. He’d stood there and tried to take in that she was Zannah’s mother. Everything they’d said to one another, everything he’d been fantasizing about in the privacy of his mind night after night came back to him. Maureen had stared at him as though he were ill, and he was in a way. He’d pulled himself together eventually, and Lydia had left the party at once, which made things easier, but all through the evening, during a meal that seemed never to end, with Adrian and Maureen discussing what had happened, he’d sat there wanting to hit both of them.

  He thought back to that first course at Fairford Hall. Although they’d done poetry workshops and cooked the communal meals together, he’d circled round her from some distance till the second evening, when they’d talked alone for the first time. The following day, they went for a walk through the wintry landscape. Later, it occurred to him that he should have said something at the beginning of the walk. It would have altered what they said to one another, how they were with each other. Gray cringed now to recall how shy he’d been. They’d discussed that morning’s poems, the tutors, a couple of course members who were more than usually annoying: trivial things. I didn’t care. I just wanted to listen to her voice. I would have gone on chatting like that for a long time. But then it had started to rain. They’d taken shelter in the porch of a small, grey, architecturally undistinguished church. There was no one around.

  ‘I knew I ought to have brought an umbrella,’ he said. ‘We’re stuck here for a bit, I’m afraid. It should clear up quite soon.’ He had no idea how soon it would or wouldn’t clear up.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘At least there’s a bench. And maybe we can go in and have a look. Do they lock churches round here? It’s such a shame when they do.’

  He tried the heavy wooden door and it opened. The interior of the church wasn’t memorable in any way, but there was the hush and the chill; the stained glass, the smell of winter greenery in the vases near the altar, and the unexpectedly fine carvings on the lectern. They spoke softly as they went round, and he took her hand. She didn’t pull it away. They walked down the nave together and sat in the front pew.

  ‘I never go to church,’ he told her. ‘Are you religious? Am I allowed to ask you that?’

  Lydia shook her head. ‘Not religious at all, but I do love churches. I love the thickness of the silence. I like organ music, too.’

  When they emerged, the rain had stopped.

  ‘We can go back now,’ he said.

  If she’d said, Okay, let’s go, it was entirely possible that he wouldn’t have kissed her just at that moment. But she hesitated, peering out at the graveyard as though reluctant to go back, and turned to him. She started to say something and he stopped her. He simply leaned forward and took her face between his hands and kissed her. His first thought was how different it was from kissing his wife. Maureen smelled of make-up and tasted of lipstick. She often giggled when they kissed; wriggled herself up to him in a suggestive way, almost forcing him to respond. And he did, too. No one could accuse Maureen of not being sexy. Lydia wore lipstick too, but that first time, all he could taste was her, her skin, her mouth. The kiss went on for a long time, and she didn’t move, didn’t step forward. He had the feeling that she was a source of something he needed, like water, like breath. When she took a step back at last, he couldn’t think what to say. He was profoundly grateful for the thigh-length jacket that hid his erection. Was she aware of that? He was blushing again. What would happen now? He wasn’t used to such intensity of feeling and therefore said nothing. Neither did she. They began to walk in the direction of Fairford Hall, not speaking. What am I going to do if there are people around when we get there? he thought. I want to kiss her again.

  No one was in the entrance hall when they reached the house.

  ‘Lydia?’ he said, not knowing how to ask, suddenly awkward.

  She reached up to gather him into her arms. She pulled him down to her, her hands on his neck, in his hair. He could feel how much she wanted the kiss. If she hadn’t done that, hadn’t reached out to him, would he have stepped back? No, no way, but things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did, perhaps. I’ll never know, he thought, as he stared out at the road unrolling in front of the car and tried to ignore what Maureen was saying.

  She obviously couldn’t leave the subject of Lydia alone. She’d chattered on till his teeth hurt. ‘Whatever d’you think was the matter with her? Menopause, I shouldn’t wonder. She’s quite nice, isn’t she? I wish I had the dressing of her, though. Somehow unfinished. And like Zannah, a little too thin. But very pretty, really. And I like her husband. And Adrian likes them.’

  Sometimes he wondered why he’d married her, but now, back home, looking around the morning room, he recognized that her love of order matched his. Her gift for household management, her capacity for seeking out the very best, exactly the right thing for whatever they needed in the house or garden was something he admired and appreciated. And she’d been a knockout when he first met her. Naturally blonde in those days, and with breasts that she managed to display to their fullest advantage while at the same time being dressed as soberly and neatly as befitted a hospital receptionist, she’d made no secret of her attraction to him and he … well, as someone once said: she threw herself at him and he didn’t exactly step out of the way. She’d made him feel drunk with lust. He hadn’t even minded Adrian then. At the time, he was a toddler whose father had walked out. Gray was moved by the plight of the gallant single mother, struggling alone to keep up standards and get her life together, and her pretty son. He thought of himself as their rescuer and it felt good.

  Maureen had been so lovely as a young woman. And she flirted with him in a way he liked. You had to hand it to her. As soon as she saw he was keen, she’d started inviting him round to her house. Adrian was only a little kid then, and Maureen made much of how good he was and how much he needed a father. They used to go to the cinema and snog their way through the film
s. No question of going back to her place, and his room in the hospital wasn’t much better.

  ‘It’s not exactly home from home,’ Maureen used to say.

  He didn’t mind. They’d start taking their clothes off as soon as the door closed and he couldn’t have cared less where they were. Maureen was so enthusiastic, such fun, so full of laughter and so uninhibited that he wanted to make love to her all the time. He’d slept with a few women before he met Maureen, but no one who enjoyed it so much, and responded so quickly.

  ‘Oh,’ she’d say, and her eyes would roll back in her head, ‘oh my God, I can’t get enough of you, my darling. I wish I could gobble you all up!’

  Afterwards, her talk often turned to her little boy. She started to drop hints about how ghastly it was living where, she did. And she began to paint pictures of what life could be like if they moved in together.

  He’d soon fallen out of love with Adrian, but Maureen was a different matter. What he felt for her now was complicated, but some sort of love was still bound up in there somewhere, and denying it wasn’t going to help matters.

  Their wedding had been very low-key. A couple of the nurses from the hospital as witnesses and that was it. Maureen had worn a blue suit with a wide-brimmed hat to the register office. He’d bought her some flowers. Nothing as grand as a bouquet, but a small bunch of yellow and white roses. There were a few photos of the occasion, taken by one of the witnesses on his very basic camera and that was it. Where were those photos now? He had no idea. Maureen would know but he had no desire to look at them again.

  For the honeymoon, they’d sent Adrian to Maureen’s mother and gone to Paris for the weekend. Maureen found fault with the hotel in the short intervals between fucks. We’ll stay at the Ritz one day, darling, won’t we? she’d asked him. He’d agreed. He’d have agreed to fly to Mars, just to get her to stop talking. Just to see her waiting for him, opening herself, legs, mouth, arms, everything, wanting him and nothing else. Remembering those days, he felt uncomfortable. Guilt, regret … it was difficult to put a name to it. All he knew was, seeing Lydia again had stirred up all kinds of complicated emotions and he wasn’t sure he knew how to manage them. Maureen was sharp, too. The last thing he wanted was for her to discover the truth. But would it matter if she did? If she left him?