Wise Follies

by Grace Wynne-Jones

  They were ‘at it like rabbits’ – the couple who ran the B&B in the coastal village we’d all gone to for a ‘bit of peace’. Aaron had come with us. I was eight at the time and I shared a bunk with him in a small room. The couple in the next room, Mr and Mrs Allen, the B&B’s owners, fascinated us. They bounced up and down on their bed far more than Aaron and I had ever done. And they speeded up real fast before they stopped. Mrs Allen made great big yelps in the middle and Mr Allen grunted. ‘They’re having sex,’ Aaron said.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sure, but I know it’s noisy,’ Aaron replied. It became clear that my parents had also heard the sounds of passion from the flinty look Mum gave Mrs Allen when she asked her how she liked her egg.

  Mr and Mrs Allen seemed to like each other a lot. Sometimes, when Mrs Allen was going upstairs with a pile of clean washing, I’d see Mr Allen giving her bottom a quick pinch and she’d squeal with indignation and delight. When I told my father about it he said that kind of thing happened when you were newly married. Romantic love only tended to last about four years, he said. You had to find a new kind of love after that, if you could, but it didn’t tend to be ‘so giggly or obvious’.

  ‘What is romantic love?’ I asked him. ‘That,’ he’d said, pointing to the cover of a slim novel my mother was reading. It was called Moonlight and the cover featured a man and woman who looked like they wanted to eat each other. He was handsome and she was beautiful. Their skin was tanned and they were staring deep into each other’s eyes. There were foreign-looking flowers in the foreground.

  Mum only read that kind of book on holiday. I turned it over and read the big bright words on the back: ‘When Posy first met Tarquin Galbraith, the dashing millionaire oil tycoon, she disliked him immediately. With his thrusting arrogance and glinting dark eyes he…’ Then my mother appeared and said, ‘Give me that, Alice,’ rather brusquely, so I never found out why Posy had obviously come to find Tarquin Galbraith less repellent.

  We had some sunny days on that holiday, but there were some damp grey drizzly ones too. The kind that can make one traipse off to places and then, having traipsed there, sit down and stare out of cafe windows for rather too long. Aaron and I would, frankly, have been far less fidgety if we had been allowed to stay in the B&B’s cheery sitting-room and watch TV, but my parents did not approve of that kind of aimlessness on holidays, so we had to go along with their adult type of aimlessness instead. It was on one of these days that we met Gilbert, my mother’s first love.

  It happened after Dad had poured himself four cups of tea from the Seaview Restaurant’s capacious cream teapot. When he tried to extract a fifth just a dark brown stewed dribble emerged. Aaron and I had long since finished our fizzy orange drinks and had started to campaign for candy floss. ‘Oh, all right,’ Dad had sighed, lifting his mac wearily off the back of a bentwood chair.

  My mother, who had been reading ‘Stress. Ten tips to help you relax’ in her women’s magazine, also rose and then we spent some minutes hunting for a bag of pot-pourri she’d bought and which eventually turned up in Dad’s pocket.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d taken it?’ she’d demanded. ‘Why didn’t you?’ And, as we trudged along the seafront her words seemed to follow us and generalize, until I began to wonder if our neighbour was remembering to feed my tortoise. Then Aaron shouted that he thought he’d seen a humpback whale, and we didn’t wait to hear someone say that this was most unlikely, but scampered over to where the sand was wet. And standing there with him it suddenly didn’t matter that the day was wet and damp and drizzly and that though we stared for ages we didn’t see a ‘cetaceous mammal’, as it was called in one of Aaron’s big books. The wind was fresh and was blowing all that didn’t matter from us. It was full of lovely sea smells and helping to turn the waves into white horses with flying manes.

  I wrote ‘Alice’ and he wrote ‘Aaron’ in the wet sand with a stick. We found a huge rock pool and stared in at the anemones and crabs and shrimps and fish. We’d almost forgotten we weren’t on our own when my parents called us.

  ‘Did you see the whale then?’ my father smiled. We didn’t answer. I looked at my mother. Her face seemed frozen. She was staring at a man who was walking towards us. Then she turned around and started to scurry off in the opposite direction.

  ‘Frances,’ Dad called after her. ‘Frances, the B&B’s this way.’ She didn’t seem to hear him. She darted into a concrete shelter, which I knew from my explorations contained a long wooden bench.

  ‘Did I say anything?’ Dad addressed me perplexedly. ‘What on earth made her rush off like that?’ And then, looking up at the man who had now almost reached us, he knew.

  ‘Hello – er – Gilbert,’ he said.

  ‘Hello – er – Benny,’ the man replied.

  The interesting thing about Gilbert was that he seemed to be wearing a brown dress. I could just see the hem of it peeping out from under his big grey mac. He had a long serious face, windswept dark hair, big eyebrows and eyes as brown as my father’s fifth cup of tea. They grew even darker, yet somehow more shiny, when they looked past us and saw my mother, who was now emerging from her concrete shelter and approaching us with an expression I suspected she’d been practising. Even though I was only eight I knew that, sometimes, one needed to go away and prepare a face for certain situations, such as being called upon to explain why one had scrawled ‘Monsieur Thibaud is a nit’ on the underside of one’s desk. But I couldn’t work out what it was about Gilbert that had made this necessary.

  ‘Hello, Gilbert,’ Mum had said, holding out her hand in a jolly fashion. ‘How strange bumping into you here. Are you on holiday?’

  And the conversation went on like this for some ruthlessly cheerful moments until Mum said, ‘Well, Benny, we’d better be off, if we’re going to – you know…’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ my father agreed forcefully.

  ‘Bye then,’ Gilbert said.

  ‘Yes, bye then,’ Mum replied. And we set off at such a brisk pace away from him it began to feel like a getaway.

  ‘Why are we rushing?’ I asked.

  ‘Be quiet, Alice,’ Dad replied. And when I looked at Mum I saw her eyes were shiny, but not in the way Gilbert’s had been. My mother wanted to cry. She looked so sad. So full of yearning. Once she looked back quickly, wistfully, at Gilbert as he walked away in the opposite direction. ‘She doesn’t want him to go,’ I thought. ‘She wants to be with him. With him instead of us.’ I reached out and held her hand tightly.

  My parents let us get on the dodgems on the way home, and the roundabout, and the pretend train, and the big swings. The candy floss was a doddle too. Gilbert had come in very handy, somehow. They gave us the coins as we asked, hardly even counting them. They laughed and waved as they watched us. It didn’t fool me.

  ‘Who is Gilbert?’ I asked, as we walked back to the B&B with the bouncing bedsprings. ‘Why does he wear a frock?’

  ‘He’s a monk,’ Dad answered tersely.

  ‘Is that why you talked to him?’

  Dad sighed. ‘We talked to him because he was once your mother’s boyfriend.’ Mum looked at him sharply.

  ‘Was he a monk when he was Mum’s boyfriend?’

  ‘No. That happened later. He found he had a “vocation”. That’s why he and your mother parted.’

  ‘Were Mum and Gilbert in love?’

  My mother and father glanced at each other warily. ‘Let’s all just stand here quietly for a moment,’ Dad announced suddenly. ‘Let’s see if we can hear the mermaids singing.’

  ‘OK,’ I agreed, while Aaron giggled. We knew what mermaids were. We’d seen them in books. Mum was fidgeting a bit and when Dad tried to put his arm around her she pulled away. I knew this mermaid thing was a ploy to stop me talking about Gilbert but I still listened earnestly.

  Yes. Yes. I could hear something. A small sweet song with no words amongst the waves. ‘I heard them. I heard the mermaids singing!’
I almost said, until I looked around and saw Aaron had wandered off and was looking for flat stones to skim across the water. My mother was consulting her watch. And my father was picking up an ice-cream wrapper.

  Some years later I discovered my mother and Gilbert had once visited that very same seaside village together. Perhaps that is why she had wanted to go back there. And maybe that’s why Gilbert had also found himself walking along the seashore on that drizzly afternoon and Mum, Dad and I had seen him instead of Aaron’s whale.

  Mum left her novel, Moonlight, half-read that holiday. I even snuck it into my bunk one evening and was reading about sultry looks and passionate embraces and Tarquin’s hard manly thighs when my mother came in and confiscated it.

  ‘You’re too young for books like that,’ she told me.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I replied. ‘It’s interesting.’

  ‘Women like me read silly books like that to cheer them up,’ she replied sternly. ‘They’re not meant for girls your age.’

  ‘Why do women need to be cheered up?’ I asked.

  ‘Because – because some things aren’t quite what we thought they’d be.’ She smiled gently. ‘Look, you two scamps settle down now. I don’t want any chattering. It’s been a long day.’

  As she turned off the light and left the room I thought, ‘It hasn’t been a long day. Not really. Maybe she just felt it was because she didn’t listen for the mermaids or even look for Aaron’s whale. “Some things aren’t quite what we thought they’d be.” That’s what she said women felt.’ I clenched my teddy fearfully. ‘She doesn’t even believe in Posy and Tarquin really,’ I thought. ‘Is that what happens when you get old and marry?’

  I saw Moonlight peeping out from the rubbish basket on the day we left. I decided to nip back and retrieve it when my parents were loading up the car, but when I went back into their bedroom it was gone. ‘Mrs Allen must have taken it,’ I decided. ‘She wouldn’t find it silly.’

  ‘How long have you been married, Mrs Allen?’ I asked her later, as she stood on the porch to wave us all goodbye.

  ‘Don’t be so nosy, Alice,’ Mum chided, though I knew she and Dad had mused over this question themselves and decided Mr and Mrs Allen must have married recently. Their love was still so very giggly and obvious that it must be new.

  ‘Mr Allen and I have been married for ten years, dear,’ Mrs Allen answered cheerfully and my parents grew very still for a moment and stared at each other. They were obviously completely mystified, but I was smiling. I was smiling for Posy and Tarquin and myself…and Aaron. But I’m not smiling now, as I remember all this, curled up under my duvet. Salty tears are coursing down my cheeks like tiny waves. I’m crying. I’m crying for Posy and Tarquin and myself…and Aaron.

  Yes, though he has gone, I am crying for Aaron too.

  Chapter 13

  Mira says we’ve got to find a name for the cat. ‘He’s obviously decided we’re his owners,’ she said at dinner. ‘He’s not a stray anymore. What about calling him Fred?’

  ‘Oh no!’ I protested. ‘That’s far too ordinary.’

  ‘Well, that’s what he is. He’s an ordinary cat.’

  ‘No, he isn’t!’ I exclaimed. ‘He’s special.’

  ‘Really. In what way, exactly?’ She smiled at me.

  ‘He’s intelligent, and very sensitive to moods,’ I explained earnestly. ‘He’s sympathetic and can be very understanding. Look at him now, he’s listening. He doesn’t want to be called Fred. I know it.’

  ‘Well, what name do you suggest?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Tarquin,’ I announced. ‘I think Tarquin would suit him.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ Mira frowned.

  ‘It’s got a nice ring to it.’

  ‘It’s fecking stupid.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. Tarquin Galbraith, the dashing Texan oil millionaire…’

  ‘What?’ She frowned at me.

  ‘He was a character in a romantic novel my mother wouldn’t let me read.’

  ‘Well, she has my sympathy on that one,’ Mira smiled. ‘You’ve quite enough romantic notions as it is.’

  ‘Oh, come on – let’s call him Tarquin. Just for fun.’ She didn’t reply and I knew she was relenting.

  Tarquin is being rather naughty actually. He’s frightening Cyril. I know this because as I pop by to have a chat with Mrs Peabody I notice him staring at Cyril hungrily through the sitting-room window. Mrs Peabody can’t see him because of her poor eyesight, but Cyril obviously has. He’s looking nervous and glum. Maybe he knows budgerigar is Aboriginal for ‘good eating’. He hasn’t said ‘bollocks’ for ages.

  ‘Perhaps you should move Cyril upstairs, Mrs Peabody,’ I say. ‘He might like a different view.’

  As I return to the cottage Tarquin follows me. He’s definitely become more friendly lately. He stares at me even more frequently. Sometimes he even cavorts flirtatiously at my feet, looking up coyly. He miaows if I’m late home. He brushes his tail against my legs when I please him. If I lean gingerly towards him he sometimes reciprocates, letting his pink nose briefly touch my own. Yes, he definitely is special, but he must stop frightening Cyril.

  ‘Posy wouldn’t approve of you scaring a poor little budgerigar,’ I tell him, recalling Moonlight and its steamy jacket.

  Suddenly I am remembering the cover of that book very clearly, only now Tarquin Galbraith seems to have turned into James Mitchel and Posy is myself. We are staring into each other’s eyes as if we want to eat each other. Dear God, I still haven’t forgotten about James Mitchel. What on earth am I going to do?

  I head grimly for my word processor. Sarah has asked me to write a feature on sex out of doors. ‘Sex Where They May See You’ – that’s what she wants to call it. I sit down wearily. I really must get out of the habit of bringing these articles home but there tend to be a lot of interruptions in the office. The phone rings imperiously almost every five minutes and people tend to pause and chat as they pass my many partitions. Then of course there’s Cindi, who seems intent on keeping me up to date with office politics. Apparently Natalie, the one with the nice niche in celebrity interviews, has her eye on Sarah’s job, and Cindi herself would like Natalie’s if this vacancy occurs – which is most unlikely. There’s also a rumour going round that I myself am interested in poaching the ‘Male Matters’ column from a woman called Edna, which is completely untrue. I think it started at an editorial meeting when I actually spoke up and mentioned an up-and-coming landscape gardener because I hoped Sarah might ask me to interview him.

  ‘Sounds a possibility for our “Male Matters” section,’ Sarah replied. ‘It’s been getting a bit stale lately. Could you look into it, Edna?’

  Edna glowered at me and I think that’s how the rumour began. The edited version of this interchange seems to involve me implying that the column has got ‘a bit stale lately’ even though, of course, it was Sarah who said it. That’s how ridiculous the office can get at times. We’re all supposed to have a hidden agenda and I don’t, which people find very hard to believe. Conspiracy theories are so much more entertaining. Every time I see Edna now I have to say how riveting her last column was and this is mollifying her very gradually. I dearly wish Sarah would try to mollify me and stop asking me to write about sex.

  I stare glumly at the screen of my computer. The ‘Sex Where They May See You’ article is needed by tomorrow. ‘Bring a light blanket with you as pine needles and dry grass can be quite prickly,’ I type. ‘Try to find a secluded spot where there won’t be interruptions and you can feel at ease. Men sometimes like the idea that they may be spotted, but women tend not to. This, of course, is not a hard and fast rule. Some women find the idea that they may be seen a turn-on too…’

  Hard and fast…that pretty well describes the way Eamon did it. Did it in that field and on that beach and by that hedge and under that pine tree. He pestered me. Pestered me until I relented. He has a thing about ‘sex close to nature’. It’s his only unusual feature,
and one I could do without. It can be very uncomfortable and chilly. Ireland just doesn’t have the climate for that sort of thing. And it’s too small. Even at midnight in the wilds you might bump into someone you know. But Eamon loves the subterfuge. When he saw figures way in the distance he’d speed up, obviously excited. ‘It’s all right. They can’t see us,’ he’d pant. ‘We’re rabbits, that’s what we are. Little creatures in the wild.’

  Now that I think about it, maybe a bit of outdoor bonking was what Eamon got up to when he ‘disappeared’ earlier this year. It would certainly account for his weariness and the mud on his clothes and the tent in his car. Eamon often brings a tent along on such occasions in case it rains. He even plans passion methodically, though it would be unlike him to go away without telling anyone…unless…unless he was desperately in love.

  I bite the top of my biro so hard that it splinters. Could it be that Eamon is wildly, madly, hopelessly in love with someone else and wants to marry me just because he cannot have her? People do that kind of thing sometimes. I’ve read about it. No, of course not. I sit back in my chair and smile at the very suspicion. He’s not that kind of person. If he thought his feelings for someone were getting that intense; he’d play squash. He is a well-ordered, sensible man and likes things to be neat. His feelings for me are neat, I’m sure they are. They’re not all jumbled up with memories and longings and wistful glances at the past. I used to resent his linearity but now I almost admire it. Maybe if we do marry I can learn to be more like him.

  This thought is supposed to calm me, but somehow it doesn’t. In fact, as I type out the article I find myself feeling increasingly angry. I’m remembering how Eamon coaxed and cajoled me into doing something that went completely against my wishes. He only seemed to be concerned about his own pleasure as he peeled off my undergarments eagerly in some corner of a field. Suddenly, unaccountably, I am almost hating him. If he was in this room now I’d be tempted to give him a good kick. How dare he. How dare he reduce the act of love to something so lonely. So bleak. He didn’t even care if the blanket underneath me got damp. He was completely wrapped up in his own urgency. As I lay beneath him, bewildered tears sometimes misted my eyes. He didn’t seem to notice them. ‘You are so lovely, Alice,’ he’d moan, but he wasn’t saying it to me. There was some other Alice there in that field, lying on that blanket with him. He didn’t see the real one with tears in her eyes who was staring at the stars.