Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers

by Marika Cobbold

  Friends with children told me how they envied me. How humdrum and plain exhausting their lives were, how unfair it was that the brain is the only body part that shrinks when not exercised. They pointed to my Betty Jackson jacket and my Gucci handbag and told me that the last time they’d been on a holiday that did not involve sand-castles and tonsils was so far back in time that they’d forgotten what it felt like to visit an art museum or read a book in the sun. And yet, behind all the tales of woe, lay a basic fulfilment they could not hide. That fulfilment was at the core of them. What was at the core of me? More chic suits and must-have handbags and holidays in the sun with my dwindling group of single, childless friends.

  Another lonely Sunday dragged on and I phoned Scott and asked him if he felt like going to the cinema. We ended up watching some art-house film that had received prizes and rave reviews. It was dreadful so we left halfway through, squeezing our way out, apologetic and giggling. With anyone else, I thought, I would have felt the need to stay watching until the last credit had rolled and the camera faded out of another rainy urban street.

  We had dinner round the corner and he took my hand as we walked back down the King’s Road to get a taxi. As one pulled up, he gave my address and jumped in after me. We didn’t speak for the entire journey. He got out first, paid and walked me in through my own front door. It was a new side of him, this decisive, silent man.

  He put his hand over mine as I reached for the light switch.

  ‘Leave it,’ he said.

  That night we ended up in bed together. And it was good.

  We woke in the morning and there were no dramas or questions. He got up, whistling, comfortably naked, leaving me to admire his legs that were straight and strong. He went to the bathroom and appeared again, still whistling, a towel around his waist, and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  On his way he said, ‘You like tea in the morning, don’t you?’

  He brought breakfast and the papers back to bed and we remained there side by side, reading and sipping our tea, the morning sun shining through the windows.

  After a while he said, ‘We should treasure this: once the kids start arriving we won’t have any mornings like these for a long while.’

  Rebecca

  ‘I HAVE WONDERFUL NEWS.’ It was Dorothy, my editor. ‘You are on the shortlist for the Great Romantic Read of the Year!’

  Coco immediately began to practise his acceptance speech.

  Judges, sponsors, Ladies and Gentlemen, losers, I stand before you the winner of this prestigious award. Obviously, less prestige and more money would have worked just as well, if not better, but …

  Shut up, Coco.

  I phoned Maggie Jacobs to ask, ‘What should I wear?’

  ‘Not black.’

  ‘Really? I want to feel comfortable, and anyway I don’t want to look like a cliché romantic novelist.’

  ‘Nor would you want to look like a romantic novelist trying hard not to look like a cliché romantic novelist.’

  Antonia Lavender would not have had this problem, I thought, being a six foot three rugby player whose real name was Reg.

  My agent phoned to congratulate me.

  ‘This should spur you on to finish the new novel,’ Gemma said. ‘How is it going, anyway?’

  ‘Not well.’

  ‘That’ll change now, you’ll see.’

  And for a few days it seemed that she had been right. The monochrome winter that had ruled my soul for months gave way to colourful spring. I woke in the morning smiling before I had even worked out I had something to smile about. I sang as I made my breakfast. I sat at my desk for hours. I even played the piano, Liszt; it went with high spirits.

  On the fifth day I read through the pages that I’d written. They were terrible. On the sixth day I reread my collection of books on writing, not for tips or instruction, as most of them were aimed at beginners, but because they were the nearest thing to a chat around the office water cooler that a person, stuck alone in a room for three hundred and thirty-two days a year, could get.

  Right now the talk around the cooler went like this:

  Rebecca: Hemingway shot himself when he could no longer write.

  Writing book: If I were to give you only one piece of advice it would be to keep writing. That’s the difference between a real writer and an amateur: a real writer writes.

  Rebecca: What if you have nothing to say any more?

  Coco: It never stopped you before.

  Writing book: Ignore the clown. Just keep exercising that writing muscle and something will take shape.

  I had turned the gas fire on earlier as the evening had felt raw but now the room was airless and far too hot. Instead of rising from my chair, turning the fire off and opening a window, I stayed where I was, getting some kind of sick pleasure from the throbbing of my head and my dry throat. It was a relief to have my body finally catch up with the discomfort of my mind.

  I looked at the blank screen and then I told myself that I could either kill myself like Hemingway or I could write. Coco wanted to know if he would live on when I was gone.

  Don’t be ridiculous, I told him. I mean how could you? You’re just a figment of my imagination.

  He appeared above the desk, floating on a white feather.

  The soul goes on, he said.

  Very possibly, but only if there’s a soul in the first place; so trust me, if I go, you go.

  Coco gave me a reproachful look as he dropped to the floor.

  I leafed through my notebooks, one for each of the novels I’d written, searching for inspiration. If I had done it six times then surely I could do it again. Maybe if I revisited the embryonic characters, the quotes and research, the suggestions for plot lines. I would unearth an idea. Maybe I would find something I hadn’t noticed before amidst the scribbles I had produced at night, those thoughts that appeared in that halfway-house between wakefulness and sleep, masquerading as the musings of a genius.

  But the notebooks seemed to belong to someone altogether different, someone who wilfully and illogically still believed in happy endings, someone most definitely not me.

  I had to leave that person behind and, by two in the morning, by persevering, sticking with it, just NOT GIVING UP, I had the first page of a new novel:

  The Stream

  I shop. After work. On Saturday mornings. And when Sunday comes I parcel up my two small children, although they come with no receipt and cannot be returned. We brave summer heat and autumn storm and winter snow and we forgo the healing touch of spring sunshine to worship at our temple. Our temple is a drive away. As you approach, burger fat and deep-fried chips beckon you like incense. We evacuate our vehicle, having parked and paid and displayed our law-abiding compliance with a small, white, black-printed square left on the window.

  A human tide, rootless, faith-divided, streams along the dirt-stamped walkways, past altars heavy with gaudy sacrifice.

  I follow, a true pilgrim, with my little ones at my side, closing my mind’s eye to pictures of pleasures past: swings and skipping ropes, sandcastles and hide-and-seek and air and sun and rain. These were answers then to different questions asked. We burrow deeper into a hive of colourful necessities, for the home, our haven, the things we cannot go another day without: a slow-cook pot for busy days, six tall glasses for lazy afternoons, a tower of colourful boxes to store the things I thought, just yesterday, that I could not get through another day without. And on the refrigerator, adhering magnetically, are lists of further wishes reminding you that however much you have you will always need more, more to silence the cacophony of questions: Why? What for? What then?

  Exhausted yet exhilarated, I went to open a bottle of wine. I brought a glass back with me to the study and read my new pages. Perched on my shoulder, like Long John Silver’s parrot, Coco laughed and then he cried and then he paused to ask which response I thought was most becoming.

  Sad happy, happy sad, sad happy … puke?

  You’re right, I
said, and pressed the delete key.

  Like a spurned lover gazing at the object of her affections, I stared at my laptop with longing and resentment and an ache for how things used to be.

  Rebecca

  ‘THIS YEAR’S WINNER OF the Great Romantic Read is no stranger to accolades,’ the chairman of the judges said. ‘Take this from a recent review, I quote: “A writer seemingly able to mainline into the hearts of her readers, who allows us to believe in the power and mystery of romantic love and that out there is someone for everyone; all we need to do is believe.”

  ‘Praise indeed and typical of the kind of response our winner will have got accustomed to by now. And from our winner herself this impassioned defence of the genre in an article in the Guardian: “Whereas crime and science fiction have attained a certain literary credibility, romantic fiction remains the genre that dare not speak its name, at least not at smart dinner parties. Why is this? Could it be because the main readership for this kind of fiction is female and that stereotypically female concerns such as love and relationships are somehow seen as trivial, fluffy and downright pink? How can that be, when the three basic needs of any human being – no, in fact, any sentient being – are food, shelter and love? The words ‘woman’, ‘writer’ and ‘romantic’ do not usually make the literary pundits reach for their superlatives. Instead it seems that those three little words add up to one big embarrassment. The literary editors and the festival organisers, the judges and the critics ask themselves, what are we to do with a genre that will go on selling … and selling … and selling to a public who evidently doesn’t know any better?”’

  ‘Gosh, it’s you!’ Gemma nudged me in the ribs. She turned to Dorothy. ‘It’s Rebecca.’ And back to me. ‘It’s you? You’ve won!’

  I nodded.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So why are you smiling like a woman being serenaded by a restaurant violinist?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered back.

  ‘Come on, this is wonderful.’

  The chairman said, ‘It gives me enormous pleasure to announce this year’s Great Romantic Read – in case you hadn’t already guessed – Suburbs of the Heart by Rebecca Finch.’

  I stepped down from the podium clutching a cheque for twenty thousand pounds and an inscribed silver fountain pen, the kind that was perfectly balanced in your hand and made a muted click, like the door of a small safe, when you put the top back on. I had thanked the judges and sponsors and, of course, my agent and my editor. People were clapping and smiling, none harder than the four other shortlisted authors, and I looked left and right and smiled and nodded in return.

  Jessica, my publicist, diverted me from my route back to the table.

  ‘Good Evening, Britain wants to speak to you. We’ve got a car waiting to take you to the studio.’

  I watched the interview on disc in Gemma’s office:

  Tina Fuller, presenter of the programme (smiles to the camera, then turns to RF): Welcome to the programme.

  (Rebecca Finch acknowledges welcome with a return smile and small nod)

  TF: You must be delighted?

  RF: I’m thrilled, of course. It’s a great honour.

  TF: Despite all the doom and gloom from the publishing industry it seems reading is actually on the increase. In fact, more books are published in this country than ever before (turns to co-presenter Hugh Williams).

  HW: You’re absolutely right. Reading has become sexy, hasn’t it? It’s happened with knitting too, hasn’t it? It used to be reserved for little old ladies and now look who’s at it: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Keira Knightley, Angelina Jolie. All the big stars are at it, knitting away …

  TF (frowns then smiles brightly to the camera): There is real affection for you from your readers that seems to go beyond the fact that they like your books. We’ve been having a little read on Amazon. This review … we’ve printed a few off … (picks up a small pile of papers) … from Corinne Sanderson of Oxford is typical. Corinne writes of your award-winning novel (holds up a copy), ‘This is Finch at her wonderful best. Like all her books – yes, I have read every single one – this one will be my friend and companion through the good days and bad. Finch writes intelligently and sensitively about love, allowing us, her readers, to escape into a happier place.’ (looks up with a smile and a nod) Great enthusiasm there.

  HW: And Georgie Brookes from Eastbourne writes, ‘Rebecca Finch seems to know things about me I didn’t know myself. Reading her books I feel I’m not alone and that somewhere out there there is someone for me too.’ You must feel very touched by those kinds of reactions?

  RF (shifts in her chair, looking increasingly uneasy): Indeed. And unworthy.

  HW: Surely not (crosses one long slim leg over the other). Although there is, it has to be said, a certain snobbism about romantic fiction. You yourself have not been spared. In fact, one reviewer described your work as ‘escapist trivia and skunk for the masses’ (turns to camera). Skunk of course being a particularly potent and addictive form of marijuana (turns back to RF). Harsh words indeed. What have you got to say to those critics?

  RF: For a start I would like to ask, what’s so wrong with escapism? We all of us spend most of our time trying to escape. We try to escape the fact that we are all born to die, that, in the end, all our endeavours will have proven to be futile, that mostly we are irrelevant and that the world can get on very well without us (stops abruptly).

  TF (nods, her expression sympathetic): Yes, indeed.

  RF (suddenly animated): Critics, publishers and booksellers are all far too hung up on the idea of categories, when there are actually only two, or at least there should be only two, good books and bad books. For writing to be good it has to be truthful, and truth and romantic fiction are not usually compatible (leans forward in her seat). You see, the great artists always knew the truth about love. Romeo and Juliet had to die so young and so soon after falling in love because, if they had been allowed to live, instead of the greatest love story of all times we would have had ‘Romeo, Romeo, wherefore do you have to leave your dirty clothes in a heap on the floor?’ and ‘Lady, by yonder blessed moon I’ve had enough of your nagging; I’m going out with the lads.’ Shakespeare knew that what was so touching, so intensely moving, was that un-shakeable and utterly misguided belief in love, which only youth and innocence can, or should, harbour.

  Shakespeare again is spot on when, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he has Duke Theseus speak of ‘the lunatic, the lover and the poet …’ all in the same breath. I’m not saying that romantic love is irrelevant but I am saying that we are profoundly misguided when we allow it to be the cornerstone of our existence. We are in danger of turning the means into the end and biological imperatives into a religion, a religion on whose altar some of us sacrifice everything: family, the happiness of our children, duty, work, friends, sense, brain. So what I am saying is that it’s time we put Cupid in his rightful place.

  HW: Which is where?’

  RF (looks straight at the camera): The periphery, of course.

  TF: But some of our greatest writers wrote romantic fiction. The Brontës, Jane Austen …

  RF: They wrote about romantic love, yes. And they are frequently used to give the stamp of literary legitimacy to romantic fiction. But Jane Austen is no romantic, not really. She wrote about people falling in love and we know, with delicious anticipation, that the book will have what we think of as a happy ending: a wedding. But most of her alliances are formed out of good sense as much as sensibility. Back then, romance knew its place: as a passing diversion from the important issues like a home, raising a family, working, handing something down. Romantic love is the icing. The trouble comes when you eat the icing and throw away the cake. It seems to me that being in love has been added to our ever-growing list of ‘rights’. Going back to Jane Austen … look at how she portrays the actual marriages. These are not filled with romance but, in the best cases, with friendship and mutual interests, a feeling of pulling in the same
direction, though more frequently the couples in question view each other with bemused, sometimes irritable, tolerance. If you want the truth about love, look for it in the works of Shakespeare and Tolstoy, Strindberg, Ibsen and Flaubert …

  HW (raises two quizzical eyebrows): So where does all this leave your own books?

  RF: I have begun to wonder if they should carry a safety warning: ‘Handle with care or this book may seriously damage your chances of leading a sensible life.’

  TF: You are advising our viewers not to buy your books.

  RF (catches eye of publicist, who is smiling in the manner of a hostess who has forgotten to turn on the oven): No, I wouldn’t go as far as that. But these kinds of books, my books, are simplistic fairy tales. There’s no real truth or depth to them.

  TF (turns to the camera): So there you have it, from the horse’s mouth. Unfortunately we are running out of time, but thank you to award-winning novelist Rebecca Finch for this … this candid exchange. Next week on the programme …

  Gemma switched off the DVD player and turned to me.

  ‘I think we can safely say that with that little effort you will have managed to alienate just about every one of your readers.’

  Coco clapped his white-gloved hands.

  I told you it had gone well.

  ‘That was never my intention.’

  ‘So what was your intention?’

  ‘To be truthful.’

  ‘Does the name Gerald Ratner mean anything to you?’

  ‘The guy who said his shops sold crap?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Dorothy?’