To my consternation, Michelle, when cleaning the bathroom, had put my special rubber non-slip bathmat to dry on the radiator outside – it had got mouldy underneath, she said, and she’d had to bleach it to take the marks off – and I’d only managed to get rid of this evidence of infirmity, shoving it under my towel on the rail, just before Louis rang the bell.
Naturally enough, when he arrived he didn’t give the books a second glance, but walked right through to the garden. Even though it was starting to look a bit like I feel these days – rather creaky and barren – he still raved.
‘This is really neat!’ he said. ‘That’s the problem with New York. No gardens, and not enough green. Jesus Christ, what the hell is that?’ He’d spotted James’s installation that I’d recently heaved into its ‘special setting’.
‘Er … um … it’s by a friend,’ I said apologetically. ‘It’s an installation … er, I put it as far out of the way as possible. It’s meant to be me.’
‘You?’ said Louis, puckering his brow. ‘All that barbed wire? It’s not the you I know. With friends like these who needs anemones, as they say?’
‘Oh, someone … he’s very nice and kind, I’ve known him a long time … had to keep it … ghastly …’ I mumbled disloyally.
But it had clearly made a great impact on Louis, and not in a good way.
‘Marie, you can’t keep that … that … that thing around, however much you like the guy,’ he said. ‘It looks like … like …’
‘Something out of Bitter Quinces, Poisoned Souls?’ I suggested. And he laughed.
As we came in to the kitchen, we passed an old walking stick I’d propped up in the corner to use after I’d had my second fall.
‘Whose is that?’ he said, slightly alarmed. ‘Not yours, surely?’
‘Oh, no, er … it’s for visitors when they can’t manage the er …’
Suddenly I saw the whole house as if he were appraising it in the way that I looked at Marion’s house. Minimalist it is not.
Finally he said, ‘You got a lovely home here. It reminds me of Mom’s home. Very English.’
And at that my heart sank. For ‘very English’ read ‘very old-fashioned’. Or, even worse, ‘geriatric’.
I was glad when we drove out to Burnham Beeches. I’ve loved the area since I was a child. We parked the car and walked along a public footway through the woods, the beech leaves crunching under our feet. To start with, we didn’t say much. But he put his arm round me occasionally as we walked, and squeezed me close.
It was one of those strange walks under the trees when you feel utterly in communion with your companion. Or at least I felt utterly in communion with him. I have no idea whether he felt in communion with me. He may have been thinking about the credit crunch or the foreign secretary for all I know. Sometimes I sneak little glimpses at him when he’s not looking. And oh, his skin is so smooth and firm – and there’s something about the back of his neck that just makes me melt. The truth is that the skin of older men just isn’t quite so lovely. Even Archie’s. Nothing one can do about that.
Halfway through our walk, we sat down on an old tree trunk and he looked at me.
‘Look, I know I told you I didn’t want to know, but now I do. I’ve been thinking. If this is going to go any further, we’ve got to be honest with each other. How old are you?’
‘Well, I’ve tried to tell you but you wouldn’t listen!’ I said indignantly. Then I took a big breath. ‘I’m sixty-five!’
And as I said it, I could see the surprise in his face. ‘And I’ve had a facelift,’ I added. I felt like someone owning up to cheating in maths at school.
‘I hope you didn’t tell Martha!’ he said, laughing. ‘She’d have had a fit!’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘No, I tell most people, but I thought in Martha’s case it might be best to keep quiet. But look, sweetie, you see the age difference is ridiculous … I have tried to tell you …’
‘Oh Jesus!’ he said, putting his head in his hands. ‘What a mess! Oh why wasn’t I born ten years earlier? Or you born ten years later?’
‘Well, I wasn’t,’ I said, rather peremptorily. ‘You’ve got to find a nice woman your own age, and start a family.’
‘Couldn’t you jet off to Italy … isn’t there’s some clinic where you can go and get pregnant, whatever age?’
The awful thing was I didn’t really know whether he was joking or not. There was a sort of amused flirtatiousness about everything he said, but at the same time I could see there was genuine sadness and longing.
And for one absolutely awful moment I suddenly wished I were younger and could have another baby … the feeling of the loss of all that flooded my entire body, and I could have wept. He could see I was upset and, looking into my eyes, he reached out and held my other hand.
‘Gee, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s not fair on you. No, you’re right.’
‘But why aren’t you married already?’ I asked. ‘You’re pushing it yourself, if you don’t mind my saying so. You’d better get a move on.’
It was odd how easy it was to slide from the role of lover, or potential lover at least, into the role of mother. Sometimes with Louis I feel as if I’m with Jack.
‘There was an African girl I thought of marrying, when I was doing my PhD,’ he said, looking into the distance. ‘But then she was always going to go back to Kampala and one day she never came back. I think she got married. She was the love of my life, to be honest. I was crazy about her.’
Wasn’t sure what to say, after that. So we just walked on. He gave me another huge hug when he dropped me off, and then he suddenly said, ‘When’s your tree thing?’
‘Week after next,’ I said. Surely he wasn’t going to offer to climb up with me.
‘Well, the week after – you won’t be up all week, will you? – you said you were going to visit … who was that old guy you told me about … Archie? I’ll still be at Mom’s in Oxford, so why don’t you come down, meet her, on your way? I know you’d get on. And it would relieve the tedium. I’m working most days, but the evenings … there’s a limit to how many times you can play Canasta!’ he added. ‘And you know, whatever age you are, my sweetheart, it hasn’t changed my feelings … you do know that, don’t you?’
‘I do know, darling,’ I said. Rather a risk, that ‘darling’. But I didn’t want to admit to myself that it was a blatant lie. So I tried to kid myself. ‘And I’d love to come to Oxford,’ I added. ‘Assuming I haven’t stayed up the tree and started talking to the birds and turned into Doctor Dolittle,’ I added.
He laughed. ‘And that’s the other thing about you,’ he said. ‘You’re so funny.’
Felt rather bad not telling him that the Dolittle gag wasn’t mine, but what the hell.
Meet his mother! Funny, though, it didn’t sound ‘meet my mother’ in a ‘meet-my-mother-so-I-can-introduce-you-to-heras-my-latest-girlfriend’ kind of way. It sounded more as if he thought the pair of old dears would get along just fine.
That whole conversation has made me feel pretty bleak. But there’s no getting around it. It’s one we had to have. Though where it leaves us now, I don’t know.
Later
Suddenly felt a bit creepy. I didn’t like the way he referred to Archie as ‘that old guy’. Oh well. Try to put it out of my mind.
29 November
Tomorrow evening is the time when we’re planning to do this tree thingy. I am getting extremely worried about it. I mean, could it be against the law? I’m sure it’s not, but I would really hate to be arrested and put in prison. I mean really hate.
Harry’s hauling equipment has arrived, and apparently Ned and James have got this kind of platform they’re going to haul up and nail to a couple of branches, and they’re going to put a sleeping bag and a bottle of water and some chocolate bars up there as well. But they say I mustn’t drink too much water in case I want to have a pee. They estimate I can go for twenty-four hours without going to the loo, and if I’m d
esperate I’ll just to have to come down, rush behind a bush, and then whizz up again. (Since these days I have to rush to the loo every ten minutes at night, I’m not too sure about this, but I’ll just have to cross my fingers. Not to mention my legs.) I’m not to eat anything, either, for obvious reasons, but again, I’m sure I can last twenty-four hours without anything to eat.
We’ve now decided on a rota of people to go up, because no one can stay up longer than twenty-four hours, so Penny’s going up the day after me, and then Marion and a couple of other doughty old girls from up the road. Sheila the Dealer said she wouldn’t go up for love or money, and Father Emmanuel said he had a lot of church work to do. What a wimp.
I’ve got to sleep well tonight, but of course I’m writing this at three in the morning because I’m stricken with panic about it all. However, I can’t wriggle out of it now. As long as the papers get a picture, that’s all that matters.
Courage, old girl!
DECEMBER
1 December
Well! What a night! Although it was a triumph, I still feel a gibbering wreck!
We snuck out at 11 p.m. and there was only one drug dealer around (it being a bit early for drug dealers) and he was very much up for the whole thing. He thanked us for telling him what was going on because if there was going to be a media explosion he wanted to warn all the other drug dealers to steer clear until it was all over.
Somehow Ned and James had managed to get the whole thing rigged up. Ned had shinned up the tree as it got dark, without anyone seeing, and had fixed up a platform up there about the size of my front door. Then he’d let down a rope ladder for me to clamber up. James had to come up after me, pushing me from behind. They’d already got the banner into position, so I didn’t actually have to do anything, except be there. Then they both went down, and I pulled the rope ladder up to the top. Frightfully heavy. It was an absolutely freezing night. I was glad I’d brought several extra jerseys, a pair of thick socks and an exceptionally warm, woolly hat with earflaps.
The odd thing was that I’d had no idea that up there the whole thing would move so much. You don’t think of trees moving but when you get up as high as I was, there only has be a tiny breeze and the whole thing, even though it looks really sturdy, sways slightly. And the noise of those branches rustling together! There must be a tremendous racket when the leaves are on. Of course it was incredibly scary but terribly exciting at the same time, and James and Ned had very sweetly pitched a tent at the bottom and they were going to sleep there so if I got panicky in the early hours I could yell down and they’d reassure me, but it was all okay. I was slightly nervous of rolling off in the night. But Ned had put planks around the structure so it would have been a bit difficult.
I’d been hoping to get on with some knitting up there – I’ve only got the arms left to finish – but of course I’d stupidly left it at home, so I had nothing to do but look out over the world below me.
It was so beautiful. As the night’s blackness increased, the street lights glowed with their sodium brightness below me and soon I could make out the pattern of the roads. Cars roared by in the distance. Police sirens wailed. And far away I could see, incredibly, the outline of the London Eye and, even further away, the blinking light at the top of Canary Wharf. It was difficult not to be overwhelmed by this treetop panorama. I felt a wave of love for London, and a sense of belonging and, indeed, for the first time in ages (and Martha would be delighted to hear this) a real sense of wonder. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep at all, because every few minutes something new happened. New noises. New lights, on and off. New stars winking. The moon moving, ever so slightly, through the sky. The birds shifting around. An aeroplane passing. If it hadn’t been for the loo arrangements I could happily have stayed up in what I gather is known as ‘The Canopy’, for a week.
It was also rather odd being inside a tree that I’d actually painted. I felt I was being intrusive in a way. Like asking a life model out for a date.
With a pang, I suddenly wished Archie could have been with me. He’d have been so up for it, bless him. And I knew he’d be just as touched as me, to see all this stretching out to infinity. And, in a funny way – though it sounds dreadfully sentimental – in a funny way I felt he was there with me. I started to cry. Not with misery, not with joy. Just because I was so utterly overcome by the … everythingness of everything. I can’t put it into words.
I did finally get to sleep, however, and woke early, to see the dawn creeping up over the buildings. An hour or so later, James and Ned crawled out of their tent and started whistling to me.
‘Are you okay?’ they shouted.
‘I’m fine,’ I shouted back to the two tiny figures far below. ‘It’s brilliant up here.’
‘We’ll get you down by lunchtime! Just keep your legs crossed for another few hours!’
Luckily, though I’d taken a bottle of water up with me, I’d not had anything to drink for hours before I went up, and had also taken an anti-diuretic pill prescribed by my doctor five years ago that I had, very sensibly, kept in my medicine chest.
At eleven the local paper came round to take a picture, and, amazingly, even the Daily Rant turned up. That day must have been particularly disaster-free because normally something like this wouldn’t make a story in a national paper. But apparently they’re doing a big campaign about how local councils don’t pay any attention to residents’ wishes, so this is a brilliant illustration of it.
Local neighbours had arrived in support, too: mums with children in pushchairs, and their own banners, drug dealers, even the lovely Indian from the corner shop put in an appearance and gave me a wave, and Ned and James handed out cups of tea and home-made cakes to the journalists and cameramen. Even our local MP came along to lend his support – he’s a different party to the council of course – and then I had to yell quite a few interviews from my treetop eyrie, and after a while they drifted off.
I remained up there, feeling like a weird tree nymph – a tree nymph who was desperate to go to the loo, I might add – and then at about one o’clock, Penny was ready to take over.
When I got down there was an enormous cheer and everyone wanted to congratulate me, but I was so bursting to go to the loo that I first had to rush to the nearest house and ask if I could use their toilet. After that, I came back out, and I felt like – well, I felt probably rather like Annie Noona must have felt at the height of her career, poor girl.
Several neighbours asked me over for a celebration supper, and I had no idea there were so many lovely people in the street. People I’d never met, people who lived across the road were all coming out of their houses and slapping me on the back, and even the drug dealers were giving me high fives and saying ‘F’real, sister!’ Sheila the Dealer gave me a thumbs-up, the height of praise from S the D, and Father Emmanuel insisting on getting on his knees and thanking the Lord that I’d come down safely. Almost felt like joining him in prayer, I have to say.
Alice gave me a special card she’d made with glitter on it, and a drawing of me up the tree – so sweet! – and Brad and Sharmie insisted on asking as many people round as possible for champagne. Even though it was the middle of the day.
A couple of glasses and – because I’d had so little to eat up there – I felt pretty woozy.
‘I must get some proper rest,’ I said, as I left the party to go back to my own house. ‘But thank you so so much! Let’s hope the papers do something about it tomorrow!’
‘Make sure you sleep like a log!’ said James, unable to resist the joke – and everybody groaned.
And I did.
2 December
Louis sent me a text saying I c u star! But knew that already! xL (Notice there’s only one x this time. Hmm.) And there, on one of the inside pages of the Daily Rant, was a photograph of me in the tree, with the headline ‘TREE-MENDOUS! OAP IS ECO-WARRIOR! Pensioner reaches dizzy heights in her bid to support Rant’s campaign against councils’ lack of concern for reside
nts!’
And underneath it reiterated the fact that the council was going to have a rethink about the whole scheme. And added that several environmental agencies we hadn’t been in touch with were up in arms. The upshot seems to be that there’s very little chance of the trees being cut down or a hotel being built after all.
As we’d got all that coverage, we decided there was no point in prolonging the protest and hauled Tim, the latest in the tree rota to have been hauled up, back to earth. He, like me, had been enjoying his tree-top experience, and I think was rather put out to find his services were no longer required, but it was difficult for anyone to be grumpy when they saw the enormous amount of coverage we’d got.
‘Weren’t we just brilliant?’ Penny and I said to each other as we prepared a celebration drinks party for the committee this evening.
‘I love that Inkspots number,’ said Penny as I put it on to encourage us in our work. ‘But I never know – what is a Java jive?’
I put all the pictures I’d done of the trees around the room – it was like a mini-exhibition and I must say, though I say it myself, they didn’t look at all bad. I must keep at it, though, to complete the cycle.
We’d also asked all the other people who’d helped, which meant there was a huge scrum and the party went on till about midnight. Unfortunately I’d said everyone could bring their children, and the result was that all the kids came, offered to hand round the food, and then disappeared down to the end of the garden, accompanied by Pouncer, with the plates of sausages, smoked salmon sandwiches and crisps, leaving the grown-ups with nothing but olives. Except Alice, of course. She very sweetly handed round the olives and the few remaining quails’ eggs.
No! I Don’t Need Reading Glasses! Page 25