Jane always left it to Gerald to phone her. She knew that that was best. And though not naturally manipulative, she felt her coy caution was paying off. Because he’d started to call her when he was away, on business, for his bank. He’d rung twice from Glasgow and once, even, from Paris. At this she’d been quietly thrilled. And as they’d chatted she’d imagined him standing at a window overlooking the Place Vendôme with the Seine glinting in the autumn sun. Oh yes, he’s keen all right, she’d thought as she stepped on to the train. And that’s why he was taking his time. But now she felt like applying just a little pressure to the button marked ‘FF’.
Gerald was forty-five. Ten years older than Jane. He didn’t talk much about his past. Jane knew only that he’d been divorced for eight years (high time he took the plunge again then!) and that he regarded his ex-wife, Susie, as a ‘moron’. This had dismayed Jane a little. She’d felt her heart sink when he’d said that to her, over dinner, on their second date. She’d looked at him slightly reproachfully and gently murmured, ‘Oh Gerald.’ Then he’d guiltily explained that he’d left Susie because though she was ‘absolutely gorgeous’, she was ‘thick’. And it had surprised Jane that Gerald had been married to someone gorgeous as he wasn’t exactly gorgeous himself. But on the other hand, yes, on the other hand … on the other hand, he was rich.
For her part Jane strenuously avoided talking about herself, though sometimes Gerald would probe. She rather liked it when he got a little bit inquisitive like this, but took care to keep her replies breezy and light.
‘Oh well,’ she’d say airily, ‘I suppose I’ve just never met the right one … you’ve just got to get it right, haven’t you?’ she’d add. She never admitted that if she ever, ever laid eyes on her ex, Philip, again she’d probably fell him with one smart blow from her bag. ‘Oh yes,’ she’d go on, with a regretful little smile, ‘it’s just got to be right.’
As the train rattled southwards Jane checked her make-up once more, pushed her hair behind one ear, and removed a piece of fluff from the velvet lapel of her coat. They were going to the opera – to see Hansel and Gretel at the Coliseum. As always, she’d got the tickets, and he’d take her for dinner afterwards. ‘I’ll take care of the entertainment,’ she joked at the start, ‘and you can be in charge of catering.’ And though she knew he earned a fortune, she was always careful to pay her way. Jane stepped on to the escalator at Leicester Square and floated up, and out. Through St Martin’s Court, then sharp right, and now she could see the opera house, and the crowd hurrying up the steps. And there was Gerald. By the box office. Waiting. She spotted him before he saw her and was pleased to see that he looked slightly concerned.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she breathed as she proffered her cold cheek for him to kiss. ‘The phone just wouldn’t stop ringing – couldn’t get away!’ This wasn’t so much a white lie, as a flashing fluorescent pink and green one. No one had rung her at all. She glanced at Gerald’s suit – a Prince of Wales check. He looked good in it, and though he was far from handsome, at least he always looked smart. She dropped her coat off quickly, as the two-minute bell began to clang. Underneath her coat she was wearing a pale blue cashmere cardigan and a short, bronze-coloured velvet skirt. She smiled at Gerald, ran a manicured hand through her hair, then they made their way upstairs to the front of the dress circle.
‘I love this,’ she thought as they took their seats and the house lights dimmed. ‘I love this moment when the curtain goes up and the hush comes down, and I’m cocooned in the darkness with him.’ Convinced that her right profile was more attractive, she always tried to sit on Gerald’s left. She crossed her legs, aware that he could hear the gentle rasp of expensive tights. She hoped too that he’d notice the soft gleam of her velvet skirt as it stretched across her thighs, and inhale the warm, vanillery sweetness of her scent. ‘Tonight,’ she thought as the music swelled. ‘Tonight, maybe. Tonight.’ Sometimes, when they went to the theatre, she’d place her right elbow on his armrest. And if he did the same, with his left arm, then they could feel each other’s bodies rise and fall. Up and down. Up and down. Then one of them would shift.
In the interval, Gerald was in raptures: ‘Post-Romanticism … Wagnerian harmony … folkloric melodies … Richard Strauss very keen …’ Jane listened with a warm glow inside as she sipped her red wine, happy to be with this clever man; happy, happy, except… At dinner, afterwards, she decided that she’d drop a gentle hint. But Gerald was still waxing lyrical about nineteenth-century music. But then, as the waiter brought coffee, there was a moment when their eyes met, across the table, in sudden silence. Courage surged through Jane’s veins with the white Bordeaux.
‘Gerald …’ she began carefully. ‘Gerald, there’s something I …’
‘Schoenberg!’ he exclaimed.
‘What?’
‘Sorry. Schoenberg. At the Barbican. I’ve just remembered,’ he said. ‘Next Thursday. Shall we go?’
‘What? Oh. Yes. Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Schoenberg would be great.’
‘You were going to say something,’ he apologized. ‘So sorry. Do go on.’
‘Was I?’ she said, vaguely. ‘Oh, it was nothing important. Er … I was just going to ask you whether you were keen on Liszt?’
Afterwards, as always, Gerald walked Jane to the tube. He always walked her to the tube, before getting a cab himself to his mews house in Earl’s Court. They’d stroll along, side by side, Gerald walking on the outside of the pavement because he was always very ‘correct’.
‘Another wonderful evening,’ he said happily, as she rummaged in her bag for her pass. ‘Another splendid evening. Splendid. What fun.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘Schoenberg,’ he repeated cheerfully. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, Jane. Bye.’
‘Bye,’ she replied with a watery smile as he turned away. On the train, she avoided looking at the infatuated young couple sitting opposite her, their limbs entwined, like rope. And though Jane could always keep a stiff upper lip, her lower one was giving her trouble. So she breathed deeply – in and out – and held her book up in front of her face. Leaving Kentish Town tube she stared down, hard, at the paving stones as she walked along. Then she arrived at her flat, closed the front door, shouted ‘Jesus CHRIST!!!’ and burst into tears.
The next day, after lunch, the phone rang.
‘Jane. It’s Gerald. How are you?’
‘I’m … confused,’ she replied, before she could stop herself. Oh God. Oh God. Too late.
‘Confused?’ he repeated. ‘About what?’
‘About you, Gerald,’ she said quietly.
‘Oh. Oh dear. Why?’
‘Well … because …’ she went on, inhaling slowly, ‘… I’ve been seeing you for three and a half months now – and you haven’t even held my hand!’ There. It was said. She had knocked a hole in the dam and now the water was going to pour through.
‘Ah …’ he began awkwardly.
‘I just don’t know what you want.’
‘What I want? Er … ah …’ he stuttered. ‘Well … well … this is most surprising,’ he expostulated, recovering now. ‘Yes! This really is a most surprising conversation.’ Jane took a deep breath.
‘Well I find it surprising’, she went on calmly, ‘that you keep asking me out, but never do anything.’
‘Do anything?’
‘We go on all these dates,’ she added wearily, ‘week after week after week, and you don’t even, you don’t even … Look, it’s no good if you’re going to be shy.’
‘Shy?’ Gerald exclaimed indignantly. ‘Shy? I’m not shy!’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘No!’
‘Well, you are with me,’ she replied.
‘Am I?’
‘Yes. Though you weren’t to begin with. When you picked me up at the RA.’
‘I didn’t “pick you up”,’ he said wonderingly. ‘I was just making conversation. Being polite.’
‘Oh. Well then why did you ask me out after that? And why did you
keep on asking me out? That’s my problem, Gerald. I don’t understand what you want.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘I assumed you were interested in … you know …’ she sighed. ‘In getting to know me better.’
‘Well, I was. I mean, I am,’ he corrected himself.
‘But I think you know me quite well by now, Gerald. And to be honest I’ve been finding your 33 r.p.m. approach a little …’ – she avoided saying ‘frustrating’ – ‘slow.’
‘Ah. I see. Well Jane, this really is a most surprising conversation,’ he said again, now sounding almost amused. ‘My dear, I simply didn’t realize you felt like this,’ he added. ‘I … I …’ Words eluded him. ‘But now I know what I have to do!’ he suddenly exclaimed. ‘Yes! I know what I have to do. And I’m going to do it!’
By now Jane regretted her emotional candour. She felt her insides twist and coil.
‘Yes,’ he went on, excitedly now. ‘I know what I’ve got to do and next time I see you, I’m going to hold your hand!’
‘Look, Gerald,’ she said wearily. ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do …’
‘Oh, but I do!’
‘All I’m saying,’ she added patiently, ‘is that I’d just like to know whether you see our friendship as just, well … friendship?’
‘Well, we do have to be friends first,’ he said. ‘That’s very important. I mean I was friends with my last girlfriend for a year before we …’
‘A year?’ she repeated. Good God!
‘… but now I know how you feel I’m going to … well,’ he concluded darkly, ‘I know exactly what I’m going to do.’
Jane replaced the receiver with a leaden heart. Having a conversation with Gerald about whether or not he was going to hold her hand was not quite what she’d had in mind. She just wanted him to do it. She’d been wanting him to do it for weeks. She just wanted him to quietly take hold of her hand, at some suitable moment, and hold it in both of his. But there’d been nothing. Not so much as a touch. Just these endless cultural excursions in which they sat side by side, like intimate strangers, barely brushing sleeves. She’d sometimes wondered if he was gay.
‘He isn’t gay,’ she reassured herself again, as she headed down Harley Street later that day. ‘He’s just a bit awkward with women. Very brainy men often are. But at least now, he knows how I feel. I can’t let it go on for too long.’ She went upstairs to Dr Sharp’s waiting room. Dr Sharp was her gynaecologist. Jane was too embarrassed to take ‘those’ sorts of problems to her GP because he was an old family friend. Dr Sharp’s name suited her, Jane thought, as she lay back on the examination table, staring at her stirruped feet.
‘It’s probably candidiasis,’ she said, briskly. Well, I have been candid recently, Jane thought.
‘Commonly known as thrush,’ Dr Sharp went on as she prodded Jane’s nether regions with a latex-gloved hand. ‘A bit itchy, are we?’
‘Yes.’
‘Had sex recently?’
‘No,’ said Jane ruefully.
‘Ever had it before? Thrush, I mean, not sex.’
Jane shook her head.
‘However,’ said Dr Sharp, judiciously, as she picked up a swab, ‘it could be bacterial vaginosis. I’ll just …’ Jane winced,’… get it looked at. It’s called Gardnerella vaginalis, if you want the Latin name.’ Jane rather liked that. It sounded like a type of clematis.
‘Gardnerella’s often linked to anxiety,’ Dr Sharp explained as Jane pulled up her tights. ‘But it’s nothing to worry about,’ she added. ‘And it’s easy to treat. I’ll write to you with the results.’
On Tuesday, Jane received a letter from Dr Sharp informing her that she had a simple case of thrush, and that it would clear up in no time with the enclosed prescription. On her way to meet Gerald at Frederick’s that Thursday Jane took it to a nearby chemist’s.
‘Do read the instructions carefully,’ advised the pharmacist as Jane slipped the slim package into her bag. Then she made her way to the restaurant, breathing deeply. She and Gerald weren’t going to the Schoenberg. They were just going to have dinner, and talk. And though Jane was glad she’d cleared the air, she felt like Gary Cooper in High Noon. She’d dressed carefully. Nothing too sexy. Just a smart grey Jasper Conran dress. She opened the door and there was Gerald, sitting on a dark blue sofa by the bar. Jane had imagined he’d be looking nervous. But he wasn’t. He was all smiles.
‘Our table’s not going to be ready for fifteen minutes,’ he explained, as he got to his feet. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Yes please,’ she said as the waiter took her coat. ‘I’d like a glass of white wine.’ Gerald gave her order to the waiter, and sat down. Then he looked at Jane, cocked his head to one side, and patted the sofa in a flirtatious way. Jane felt her entrails begin to knot. She sat down at the other end of the sofa and put her bag in the space in between. Now Gerald was just looking at her, smiling, knowingly. She found herself wishing he’d stop.
‘Have you had a busy day?’ she asked. He nodded. She sipped her glass of wine nervously while he talked about some merger he’d been doing.
‘And have you had a good day?’ he enquired with an amused smirk, as though there were some secret between them.
‘Er, yes,’ she said, ‘I did,’ and she babbled on about a project she was taking to Channel 4 about men who have plastic surgery. And all the while she spoke Gerald sat with his body turned right in towards her, one eyebrow raised, smiling.
‘You see, the proportion of men having plastic surgery has gone up hugely in the past ten years,’ she explained. ‘In fact it’s gone up by 20 per cent and many of the men who have it say they’re doing it to please their wives or girlfriends so I talked to the commissioning editor at Channel 4 – he’s very nice by the way – about maybe a three-part series in which –’
Suddenly, Gerald’s hand shot out and his chubby fingers clamped themselves round hers. I have been hoist with my own petard, Jane thought, as her face began to flame.
‘Gerald …’ she began. ‘Gerald, when I said …’
‘You’re right, Jane,’ he interrupted, oblivious to her polite resistance. ‘It’s high time I held your hand and may I say …’ he gave it a squeeze – ‘what a charming hand it is.’ Jane wished she could return the compliment but his own hand felt clammy and hot. He was still smiling at her. She felt her bowels shrink as he now interlocked his short, thick fingers with her own.
‘Look, Gerald … this wasn’t quite what I meant, I…’ But he continued to hang on to her as though she were about to run away. And then, to her horror, he began to incline his face towards hers …
‘Another drink, madame?’ It was the waiter. Thank God!
‘Oh yes, yes, please, yes,’ she said. But, despite the presence of the waiter, Gerald continued to paw her with his broad, damp hand.
‘Please, Gerald,’ she said softly, aware that they were beginning to attract strange looks.
‘Do you know what I’m going to do now, Jane?’ he whispered, hoarsely, as he shuffled along the sofa towards her.
‘No,’ she said truthfully. Oh God.
‘I’m going to kiss you!’
‘No, Gerald, please don’t,’ said Jane. ‘Not here. It really isn’t the right place, I …’
‘Ahaaaa!’ he was grinning now. ‘You’re embarrassed,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘You’re discomforted. You are – might I add – discombobrulated even! But I don’t care, I’m going to ki –’
‘Sir!’ It was the waiter again. Thank God. Jane wanted to kiss him. ‘Your table’s ready now. Please follow me.’
Jane was overwhelmed by feelings of relief as she sat down opposite Gerald – with the table a buffer in between. Furthermore he could hardly grope her whilst wielding a knife and fork. She swallowed the rest of her wine, too quickly. Gerald was talking about T. S. Eliot.
‘I really want to get into the Waste Land,’ he announced, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘Can you recommend
a good critical guide?’
‘Er, well, I think the Helen Gardner’s the classic one,’ she said. ‘It’s called The Art of T. S. Eliot, I remember reading it at college it’s … oh, thanks –’ the waiter was refilling her glass. Gerald looked at him as he did so, indicated Jane with a flourish of his right hand, and said, in a theatrical whisper, ‘Don’t you think she’s gorgeous?!’
‘Gerald, really …!’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the waiter politely. And as he retreated Gerald reached across the table and grabbed Jane’s hand again. I have only myself to blame, she thought bitterly, as she felt a little pool of sweat start to collect in the runnel above her upper lip.
‘You’re embarrassed!’ he said again, gleefully. ‘Aren’t you? Ha!’ There was a faint layer of steam on his glasses. He leant forwards across the table and grabbed her hand again, and she wanted to shout, ‘No, Gerald! No, Gerald! Down!’ But now he was forced to let go again as their plates of sea-bass arrived. Jane found it hard to eat, so she drank instead. By the time the bill came, she’d had the best part of a bottle.
‘Cab …’ she mumbled as they collected their coats. ‘Need a cab …’
‘We certainly do,’ said Gerald, with a smirk. ‘My place or yours?’ he added with a knowing grin.
‘What? Look, sorry … I’ve had too much … drink. G’ld. Iss been … great … but … Oh God … gotta go home.’ They walked out on to Upper Street, and Jane flung out her right arm as an amber light came into view.
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