Made in Heaven

by Adale Geras

  ‘Men,’ said Emily, ‘are primitive. Hadn’t you noticed? Fred Flintstone, the whole bloody lot of them. Behind that investment banker’s exterior, under the most spiffy and impeccable of Turnbull and Asser shirts there beats the heart of a wild creature. Me Tarzan you Zannah! Trust me.’

  ‘I’m going to speak to him. And I’ll watch him very carefully from now on, you can be sure of that.’

  ‘What about Isis? What’s she feel about him? Have you ever asked her?’

  Zannah shook her head. ‘I’ve always thought she likes him. She’s very smiley and pleasant around him … I’ll ask her, too.’

  ‘D’you remember the coffin carving in Manchester Museum of Isis the goddess? Pa showed us when we were not much older than she is.’

  Zannah remembered it exactly: the carving still touched with pink and green even after centuries; the goddess holding out her wings, protecting Osiris. Perhaps it was seeing this at an early age that had put the name Isis into her mind when she was pregnant. That had made her love it so much. I’m the one, she thought. The one who has to do the protecting.

  *

  ‘Weddings,’ said Val, ‘are one thing. I love weddings. Marriage is quite another. Don’t like that much. Mind you, I suppose I had a bad experience.’

  Charlotte, Val and Edie were sitting round the kitchen table. They’d just washed up after a pleasant evening of bridge with Nadia and were having a glass of red wine together before bed.

  ‘I’d have agreed with you if I hadn’t met Gus,’ Charlotte said. ‘We didn’t bother with a wedding and concentrated on our marriage. Probably the sensible option, when you come to think of it. No one came to our wedding except Joss. There’s part of me that does still think the whole thing’s a waste of money. But Zannah deserves to have what she wants this time. She was so … so wounded when Cal … when she divorced. She seems to want all this, the dress, the service, the reception, to make up for the pain she felt then. She said she wanted to do everything properly this time.’

  ‘She’s young,’ said Edie. ‘It’s only when you’ve lived through a marriage that you know whether the ceremony was a wonderful prefiguring of your happiness or a really bad joke.’ She took a sip of wine. ‘They’ve been to see Geoffrey at the church. He thought they were a lovely couple and he’s spoken to them at length about music and the order of service and so forth.’

  Charlotte looked searchingly at Edie. Whenever she spoke of the vicar, a proprietorial and affectionate note crept into her voice. They used to call it ‘soppy’ when she was a girl … Was Edie getting soppy over the Rev. Geoff? He was a widower, and although he was a few years younger than Edie, a relationship wasn’t out of the question. The trouble was, an unattached vicar who wasn’t completely revolting attracted the attention of a great many women and this parish was particularly stuffed with widows and unmarried ladies of a certain age who, by Edie’s own account, were falling over themselves in their eagerness to snaffle him. That the church was always so clean and well provided with flowers was witness to those ladies trying to outdo one another in their devotion. Well, Charlotte thought, this wedding’ll bring Rev. Geoff and Edie closer together, but of course she isn’t going to get involved with him. Edie had a dim view of relationships between men and women. The way she put it was: My experience of the two sexes has shown me how incompatible we are. She said, ‘I’ve been in touch with the marquee people. It’s all going to be quite straightforward. I have to give them final numbers soon, but Zannah told me the other day that they were in the process of finalizing the guest list.’

  Val picked up Joss’s book, which was lying on the dresser. ‘You must be so proud, Charlotte! Isn’t it wonderful? A poetry book … I love the picture on the cover. But why doesn’t Joss use her own name? It’s as if she’s hiding, isn’t it?’

  ‘She told me she likes being someone else. Being able to say things she maybe couldn’t say as Joss Gratrix. I can understand that.’

  Val leafed through the pages. ‘You don’t mean …’

  ‘No, don’t worry.’ Charlotte laughed. ‘Nothing she’d be ashamed of saying as herself, just … Well, she described it to me as a kind of dressing up. You pretend to be another person. There are love poems in there, but nothing too shocking.’

  Charlotte wasn’t telling the truth. She had been a little startled on reading some of the things Joss had written. Ever since her niece had brought Bob back to this house to meet her, all those years ago, Charlotte had been of the opinion that he was good and kind and pleasant and entirely unexciting. When Joss had told her she wanted to marry him, Charlotte concluded that she was looking for security. Ever since the death of her parents, and even with all the care that Charlotte and later Gus had devoted to her, Joss had been tentative. She’d gone through life giving too much attention to what might go wrong with it. She didn’t dare to do things most young people wouldn’t even have thought of as risky. Bob was safe. Bob had a good job for life, and if they’d never be rich, they’d never be poor either. He must have seemed a good prospect to Joss and she did love him, there was no doubt of that in Charlotte’s mind. It was the quality of the love she sometimes wondered about, and reading some of the lines in this book, she simply couldn’t imagine them applied to Joss’s husband of so many years. These were words that went with a new passion. She could feel, when she read them, the force of an ungovernable longing, a lust that surely couldn’t still exist after thirty years. Perhaps she was recollecting emotion in tranquillity and remembering how things were between her and Bob in the first few years of their marriage, but somehow that wasn’t the impression Charlotte took from the verse. Of course, Joss and Bob must once have felt passionately about one another, even if she hadn’t been able to see it. Joss had never displayed her emotions to the world, but she felt things deeply, and it was impossible to imagine her staying in a relationship that wasn’t physically satisfying. Still, these poems didn’t feel as though they were about Bob. Perhaps Joss was having an affair, but with whom? And when? As far as Charlotte knew, her life was spent either working in the library, or at home, or in London visiting her daughters and Isis … Maybe she was simply projecting her fantasies into her work. That was more likely, Charlotte decided. In prison, she remembered, many women spent hours writing verse. Her cellmate, Wilma, had been a pallid, skinny, greasy-haired, middle-aged woman who looked like a wrung-out mop. She was in for theft and used to cover pages and pages with poems about stars and fields, seashores, puppies and kittens. Why don’t you write about your feelings? Charlotte asked her once and Wilma looked at her pityingly. What’s the point of that? Shitty, that’s what my feelings are. Poetry’s not about shittiness, is it? You want to get away from yourself, doncha?

  Charlotte wondered whether Joss, too, was getting away from herself. Perhaps that was the way she kept her marriage going: by escaping into a fantasy world in her poems, where she could be Lydia Quentin who burned with desires Joss Gratrix couldn’t admit into her own life. Well, if that was the case, nothing was wrong. She must have considered what Bob’s reaction would be if he read some of them, Charlotte thought, and then something struck her. Bob would no sooner sit down and read a book of poems, even if they were by his wife, than spend his holidays in Disneyland. This made it safe for Joss to write exactly what she wanted, however erotically charged her work turned out to be. And if it was all a fantasy, no one would be hurt. She said to Edie and Val, ‘This is the book I told you about. Did I tell you that the Madrigal Prize is worth two thousand pounds?’

  Edie and Val were impressed and astonished. Clearly, they’d underestimated the book’s worth.

  ‘Well,’ said Val, ‘that’s something to wish for, isn’t it? It would be so lovely if she wins. Let’s drink to that.’

  *

  Maureen would never have said so to anyone and felt a little guilty admitting it to herself, but when Graham was away, things in almost every part of her life became instantly easier and altogether more enjoyable. For a few moments,
as she lay propped up against heaped pillows in the double bed with her lists, magazines, notebooks and other wedding paraphernalia taking up the space her husband would normally occupy, she considered what her life would be like if she were single. In many ways, she thought, it would be much improved. Did that mean she didn’t love Graham? Nonsense, she told herself. Of course I do. But I don’t miss him when he’s not here. Also, I’ve had a lovely day, doing exactly what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, without stopping to think about a single other soul.

  Unfortunately, she needed the money Graham provided to maintain the house and garden and her own wardrobe in a decent state, and she’d miss the sex. Still, she was sure – because there had been enough rather thrilling and unconfessed little kisses at various parties over the years and sometimes even a bit more, though never outright infidelity – that there were plenty of men out there who’d be willing, more than willing, to share her bed. She was, after all, only fifty-two. Just last week at the tennis club, the young and quite dishy coach had been positively flirtatious. She would only have needed to encourage him a teensy bit and he’d have been raring to go. She sighed, and scrabbled in the folds of the duvet for her pencil. The guest list needed doing, but she couldn’t resist reading again the details of four houses she’d picked up that afternoon from the best estate agents in town.

  She’d been to meet a firm of caterers who’d turned out to be useless, but on her way home she’d passed a house that had a for sale sign outside. It wasn’t very big, but it was pretty and on a tree-lined street where all the other properties had owners who cared. She’d looked at the hanging baskets, the shaved lawns and closely trimmed hedges, and thought, how lovely if Adrian could live here, close to me, in such a sweet little house. Away from London and all those ghastly security alerts. She’d vaguely thought about it before but now the idea seemed to her both so exciting and so somehow right that she’d parked the car and got out to have a closer look. She’d walked up to the front door and rung the bell, but there was no one at home.

  While the cats are away … Maureen said to herself, and walked all round the property, staring in through the windows. Parquet floor in the living room and dining room. Small garden at the back with lots of possibilities. Modern kitchen … She’d felt quite breathless as she made her way back to her car. The house would be perfect for Adrian and Zannah. As she drove to the estate agent’s to pick up the written details, enchanting fantasies unfolded in her head: Adrian and his children playing in that garden, the whole family coming over to tea on Sunday, Adrian transferred to the local branch of his bank, Zannah teaching at the local primary school … The house was just round the corner from theirs. Maureen felt quite elated.

  At the estate agent’s she took the details of several other houses as well. You wouldn’t want to rush into anything recklessly and it was better to consider all options before committing yourself. I’ll email Adrian, she thought. I’ll invite the two of them down for the weekend, maybe at the beginning of October. She didn’t want to give the game away. Subtlety was important. This whole thing had to be done so that Adrian and Zannah didn’t think she was interfering. The best thing would be if they could see the place and think they’d discovered it. She could arrange to drive past it. Maybe they’d fall in love with the house just as she had. The wedding wasn’t until next year, true enough, but Adrian could apply for a transfer right away. He could move in down here before the wedding. Zannah and Isis could join him after the honeymoon.

  Now, as she re-read the details, it seemed an even better idea. Zannah must have faced the fact that she’d need to move out of that grotty flat. It was big enough and in quite a reasonable location, but there was something terribly graduate-student about it and the decorative state they kept it in made her shudder. There was no way Adrian would put up with living there after the wedding and his place wasn’t big enough for all three of them. This seemed the ideal solution. She had sent an email to Adrian inviting him and Zannah down for the weekend, and couldn’t wait for his reply.

  She got out of bed and went downstairs. In the kitchen, she assembled a little picnic on a tray: biscuits and Stilton, a nice ripe pear and a glass of red wine. She intended to eat in bed. No Graham there to wrinkle his nose and moan about crumbs. Utter bliss!

  Thursday

  Russell Blythe and Joss were having an after-lunch drink in the local pub with half a dozen of the course members. Gray was one of them. The Admiral was only a short walk away and because the day was pleasantly warm, Russell had suggested that the workshop adjourn there. ‘Otherwise,’ he said, ‘I don’t know about all of you, but I’ll fall asleep after that lunch.’

  Joss had made a point of walking next to two women, and the talk was about children and husbands and, because Joss had mentioned Zannah, weddings. When they reached the Admiral, she took a seat as far away from Gray as possible because she wanted to indulge in something she’d learned was completely pleasurable: watching him without talking to him. Watching him talk to other people. She wouldn’t have been able to explain it, but being separate from Gray and thinking of how they’d been last night, how they’d be again tonight, made her aware of every nerve ending in her body: almost painfully aroused. She watched in silence as, further down the table, his mouth moved in laughter and speech. Remembering how that mouth had felt on her skin, breathing words into her ear, opening under the pressure of her lips brought a flush to her cheeks that had nothing to do with the relative warmth of the sunshine.

  Gray didn’t usually say much in company. Bob was a jovial person and liked to be the centre of attention. He often did what Em called ‘holding forth’, but Gray usually sat quietly as the talk buzzed round him. Joss had noticed this during meals at Fairford. He knew how to listen. That must be one reason why he was so good at his job. She could imagine how soothed his patients must feel, how comforted to have him beside them, knowing he was attending to them completely.

  Now Gray was discussing rhyming verse, which always got poets steamed up. He said, ‘It’s true, rhyme isn’t necessary but I bet you’ve sometimes thought this or that poem was only a piece of prose cut up. Haven’t you? Can you swear you’ve never thought that?’

  Russell laughed. ‘You’re right, of course. Some poems are about as poetic as … well, as some very unpoetic thing. But it’s not rhyme that makes a poem, because then what’s in a Hallmark card would be poetry and we know it’s not.’

  ‘Okay, that’s true. But you have to have that extra … I don’t know. Not just description. And not just nonsense going under the banner of surrealism.’

  ‘My skin tells me,’ said one of the other course members, a shy young woman called Maggie. ‘If I get goosebumps, it’s real poetry. And if I don’t, it’s not.’

  ‘That can’t be right,’ said Blake, a dark-haired man who was just a fraction too old to be wearing the punkish clothes he favoured. ‘Funny poems don’t raise goosebumps, nor does political satire, but you’re not saying that Dryden’s not a poet, are you?’

  ‘I agree with Maggie,’ said Gray, smiling at her. Making her feel better. Protecting her from Blake’s ill-disguised scorn. ‘You have to be moved. And not necessarily in a sentimental way. You can be … I don’t know. Stirred. Thrilled.’

  Blake sniffed. Came back with some remark about humour. Joss smiled to herself. She wasn’t going to get involved in the general chat, then wondered if that would seem unfriendly or strange. She decided to speak and said, ‘I read a novel once where the characters spent a few pages discussing what a poem was. The punchline was: you know it’s a poem if it has the name “Ted Hughes” at the end. Or any other poet would do, I suppose. T.S. Eliot. Yeats.’

  Everyone laughed. Maggie said, ‘I get goosebumps when I read all of those. Who said poetry was the right words in the right order?’

  ‘Coleridge, I think,’ Russell said. ‘My round.’

  The talk went on. Laughter rose into the air. Russell went inside to get more drinks. Joss was start
ing to count the hours until she could be alone with Gray, but she was sharply conscious of how happy she was now, this minute. I wish this afternoon would go on for ever, she thought. I want it never to stop: this delicious waiting for the day to end.

  *

  It must be nearly morning, Gray thought, and groped for his mobile on the bedside table. Just after five o’clock. I should go back to my room. Lydia – she’d asked him to call her Joss, but he couldn’t think of her as anything but Lydia – was still asleep beside him. Everyone at Fairford always went to bed late, after wine and talk and laughter till the early hours, and then he’d had to wait until it was safe to slip along the dark corridors to her room. He smiled into the darkness as he recalled the hours that had elapsed since she’d opened the door to him. When they’d been together in public, he’d been careful not to give anything away. He’d been polite, smiling, signing up like all the other course members for his time alone with her, when they would pretend to be talking about his poems, chatting to Russell – a chubby gay guy with a wicked sense of humour – about music and cricket and how wonderful it had been to see England getting the Ashes back after so long and who was sleeping with whom in the world of poetry, joining in with the writing exercises and volunteering himself for the first group in the kitchen and all the time dreaming about what would happen when they were alone. Today at the pub he’d felt her trying to not-watch him, which made him smile because he was also trying to not-watch her.

  ‘Gray?’

  ‘You’re supposed to be asleep. It’s only just after five-thirty.’

  ‘I woke up,’ Lydia said, and turned to him. He opened his arms to her and held her naked body close, close to his. She was warm and fragrant and he didn’t want to leave her.

  ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ he whispered.

  ‘You must. There’s always someone who’s up before the others. It’s not safe.’