Of course, one of the hardest things to bear was that she and Jay could never go public as a couple. Alice had to put up with the pitying comments of married — or at least, coupled — friends. One or two even asked her why she had never married, as though her age had put any marriage prospects firmly in the past. Occasionally, friends would probe, suspicious at her continued single state and apparent lack of interest in the opposite sex, and one or two had even hinted that she might be gay. Alice had fended off any questions as politely as she could, but found their intrusiveness puzzling. Why was it apparently perfectly acceptable for people to ask about her sexual proclivities when they would be unlikely to question her politics? On several occasions she had been tempted to confide in a close friend, but she knew only too well that a secret shared is all too often a secret spread, and she couldn’t afford to take that risk. One day, when Finn was older, she would tell him. But not yet. He was too young to understand, and besides, what with exams and spots and the alarming surges of testosterone that went with being fifteen, she felt that he had enough to cope with.
So she and Jay continued as best they could, snatching the odd meeting, phoning often, and trying to live in the moment. Because that was all they had, wasn’t it? A relationship such as theirs didn’t have a future, or not the kind that could be planned or worked towards. They loved, they laughed, they had rows, and when they could manage it, they had great sex. It had to be enough.
But of course, it wasn’t. Or not always. There were times when Alice ached for Jay’s company, for the feeling of his arms around her, for his smell and the sound of his voice. She longed for the luxury of a night together or simply the exchange of news at the end of a busy day — the ordinary things that so many couples took for granted. Flowers and candlelit meals no doubt had their place — and goodness knows, she’d had few enough of those — but they were fripperies compared with the day-to-day stuff of marriage.
Oddly enough, while she was rarely jealous of Angela, Alice did occasionally envy Jay’s patients. She knew this made no sense, but when she thought of the amount of time he spent with them — talking to them, touching them, looking after them — she couldn’t help experiencing the odd pang. For while Jay did his best to dissemble, she knew how much he cared about them, and she hoped they realised how fortunate they were in having him.
Alice tried not to share these thoughts with Jay. Things were hard enough for him as it was, without her whinging. Besides, their time together was precious, and she didn’t want to squander it on complaints and if-onlys. She had gone into the relationship with her eyes open, she had known the risks and the difficulties, and she had never been one to waste time on regrets.
Did she feel guilty? At the beginning she had certainly felt very guilty, and more than once she had thought of ending the relationship. But as time went on and she became accustomed to the situation, the pangs of guilt became less frequent. Angela had her husband and her home and her career as a solicitor (that much Alice did know), and provided she never found out about the affair, little harm would be done. In a way, they were all three of them victims, and while Alice didn’t try to absolve herself from her own responsibility, it could have been worse. She could have been younger, more demanding, wanting marriage and children. As it was, all she asked for was what she suspected Jay and Angela could no longer give to each other; love, intimacy, and a little happiness. It could even be that her relationship with Jay was helping to keep his marriage together.
Alice was glad that she wasn’t dogged by the Catholic guilt that had beset her fellows in the “theology” group. But then, Alice was not a Catholic. Her attendance had begun purely coincidentally when she had been invited to write a piece on marital infidelity and had been put in touch with Father Cuthbert. Under conditions of strict confidentiality and with the permission of the group members, Alice had been allowed to attend a single meeting, but she had been so taken with the freedom they experienced in being able to discuss their relationships that she had asked — and been permitted — to carry on attending. She suspected that Father Cuthbert saw her as another opportunity for bringing about redemption — and, who knows, even introducing a new convert to the One True Faith — but for Alice, the meetings had been, quite simply, a life-saver. The opportunity to talk about Jay to people who would neither judge nor dissuade her (she didn’t count Father Cuthbert; it was his job to judge and dissuade) was a revelation, as well as an indescribable relief, and she quite quickly realised that she was becoming dependent on the meetings. She would save up little anxieties and other aspects of her relationship with Jay to share with the other members, and she invariably received the understanding and sympathy she longed for.
But now they were on their own, the three of them: Alice, Gabs, and Mavis. Three very disparate women who all shared a very big secret. They had agreed to meet every two months, taking turns to host the meetings, and tonight’s would be their first one.
Alice smiled to herself. Quite apart from the fact that it might provide material for a most entertaining article, she was looking forward to her evening.
Mavis
Mavis Wetherby knew enough about men to know that left to themselves, they were perfectly capable of choosing their own clothes, but give them a wife or girlfriend, and the job was invariably delegated. This particular wife was taking an inordinate amount of time to choose a shirt and tie for a birthday present, and Mavis was anxious to get away on time in order to prepare for her meeting.
“I think the blue shirt and the striped tie…?” the woman said, but without conviction. “On the other hand, stripes look so like school ties, don’t they? Perhaps spots would be better.”
“Or this nice paisley?” Mavis held up another tie. “This one’s very popular, and it’s pure silk.
“It doesn’t quite match the shirt.”
“Perhaps a different shirt, then? It’s easier to find a shirt than a tie, I always think.”
“Maybe you’re right. I suppose I could always get him socks, but they’re so boring, aren’t they? Everyone gives him socks.” The woman laughed. “And then one sock always gets lost in the wash.”
Mavis had often heard about the missing sock phenomenon, but never having lived with a man and rarely wearing socks herself, she had not come across it.
“Hankies, perhaps? We have some lovely Irish linen hankies, gift-boxed.”
“He uses Kleenex.”
“A cashmere scarf, then? You can’t go wrong with cashmere.” She fetched one from a drawer and laid it out on the counter. “Pure cashmere, and a lovely gift.”
“Cashmere always bobbles, I find.”
“Our cashmere never bobbles.” Mavis bridled. “If it does, you can bring it back for a full refund.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“Perhaps you’d like to think about it?”
“His birthday’s tomorrow. I’ve left it rather late.” The woman looked wildly round the shop, as though seeking inspiration. “Do you have any Swiss Army knives? He’s always wanted one of those.”
“No, I’m afraid we don’t.” If Mavis had been married to a man who had always wanted a Swiss Army knife and if she’d cared for him at all, she would certainly have made sure that he had one by now.
“Oh — I’ll have the scarf, then,” said her customer with the reckless air of someone who was about to bungee jump off a cliff.
“Any particular colour?”
There followed a further fifteen minutes of discussion, in which everything from the husband’s eye colour and personal preference to the wife’s own taste were taken into consideration, and she finally left the shop with a neat parcel containing a cashmere scarf in a rather insipid shade of green.
On her way home, Mavis reflected upon this conversation and the many similar conversations she had had over the years and wondered, not for the first time, how it was that she had got herself into this particular job. She had had a good secretarial training in the past and had started her w
orking life as a PA, holding several responsible — not to say interesting — posts, and she was not unintelligent. But following an unpleasant incident of what would now be called sexual harassment, she had fallen into this job almost by chance. It had come at just the right time, the pay was reasonable (her secretarial skills were taken into consideration and even, on occasion, used), and for the first time in a while, she felt appreciated.
Ten years on, she was stuck with the job, and knew that at her age, she was unlikely to get another. Besides, she had since taken responsibility for her elderly mother, and Mr. Strong (such an inappropriate name for such a dapper little man) was a reasonable if rather fussy employer. A further advantage was that she lived only ten minutes’ walk away, so she could always pop home if her mother had one of her little crises. The job was, above all, convenient.
In a funny way, she’d come to believe in the shop and what it stood for. Gentlemen’s outfitters were a dying breed, and she shared some of Mr. Strong’s pride in keeping this one going. It wasn’t so much the gentlemen or even the clothes; it was more the idea of the survival of a small business under the threat of mass-market competition, of not allowing the old traditions of personal service and individual attention to be sacrificed on the twin altars of progress and profit. She liked the old-fashioned handwritten till receipts and the brown paper parcels in which the goods were despatched, and so, it seemed, did the customers, for enough of them continued to patronise the shop to justify its continued existence. The whole experience reminded her of a bygone age of courtesy and decorum, which was, for the most part, long gone, and although she wasn’t quite old enough to remember a time when this kind of service was the norm, she still felt a sense of nostalgia. She experienced similar feelings when she heard the voice of Vera Lynn or the speeches of Winston Churchill, or the Pathé News giving bulletins of the war effort in its clipped, oh-so-British accent. Nostalgia for a Britain long gone, a Britain that was unlikely ever to return.
Some time ago, a friend had told Mavis that she had been “born to serve,” and she had been unsure how to take what had probably been intended as a compliment. It made her sound like something between an army officer and a doormat, and since she had never imagined herself in either role, she hadn’t managed to take it in quite the spirit in which it was meant. But now, she rather liked the idea. Service. To be of service. That had to be good, didn’t it? Serving her customers, helping them to choose exactly the right gift or garment; the job had its compensations, and people often came into the shop asking particularly for Mavis’s assistance.
Another recipient of her services was, of course, her mother.
Mavis loved her mother and was prepared to do her duty by her (she was an only child), but when the old lady could no longer manage on her own, it was with some reluctance that she had welcomed her into her own home. Never having married or lived with anyone since she was a girl, she had initially found it hard to have to sacrifice a downstairs room, as well as her independence and much of her privacy. But in the end, the deed had been done with minimal fuss, and Mother had duly moved in, together with a few bits of furniture, an enormous and very dusty rubber plant, and a bad-tempered cat, who had been bought from a rescue centre and who rejoiced in the name of Pussolini (the name had been Mavis’s idea, and her mother, failing to make the necessary connection, had thought it rather sweet). The plant had mercifully died, but Mother (and the cat) lived on, and five years on, Mavis could no longer imagine life without her.
Old Mrs. Wetherby was an uncomplaining soul. She was good-natured, cheerful, and continent; she ate what she was given and slept a great deal. But she was becoming unsteady on her feet and had had several falls, and she was also becoming alarmingly forgetful.
“Alzheimer’s?” Mavis had asked the doctor fearfully the last time he’d called.
“Oh no, I don’t think so. It’s just her age.” The doctor was young and spoke with the careless insouciance of one for whom old age was still a long way off, and only happened to other people and patients. “Make sure she has plenty of mental stimulation, and she’ll be fine.”
But it is hard to stimulate someone who refuses to leave the house when you yourself have to be out all day, and Mother, with nothing but daytime television and the cat for company, continued her slow decline. A kindly neighbour used to pop in once or twice during the day to see that all was well, and Meals on Wheels had been delivered by the cheery ladies of the WRVS, but the neighbour had moved away, and the WRVS ladies had made their excuses after one of them had been ambushed and bitten by the cat, so once again, everything was left to Mavis.
Mavis reached her own front door and took out her keys. On her way home, she had purchased wine and cheese straws and crisps, and a small fillet of plaice for her mother. As she passed through the hallway, dodging the malevolent advances of Pussolini (Pussolini was a one-woman cat, and sadly, that woman was not Mavis), she went in to check on her mother.
“All right, Mother?”
“Fine, dear.” Her mother had a particularly sweet smile, and the kind of blue eyes whose colour becomes increasingly striking as the face around them ages. “I’ve just been to Mass.”
“No, Mother. I don’t think so. It’s Friday.”
“Is it, dear?”
“Yes.” Mavis kissed her papery cheek. “I’ll take you to Mass on Sunday.”
“That’s kind.” Her mother paused. “Isn’t it time I went to confession?”
“You went last week, remember?”
Her mother loved confession. Mavis had no idea what this gentle woman could have to confess, since she never went anywhere, met no one, and was invariably kind to the few people she did come across. She even managed to help a little round the house, peeling potatoes or doing a spot of dusting. What sins could she possibly conjure up out of the recesses of her increasingly muddled brain, even if she were able to remember them? Mavis suspected that she simply rehearsed old sins of long ago, and she would love to have been a fly on the wall when these sins were recounted, but she would have to remain in the dark. Her mother would leave the confessional with a contented smile, do her penance (three Hail Marys), and then they would come home together.
Mavis herself eschewed the confessional. There had been a time when she too used to like going to confession: the quiet murmuring of the priest, the whispered sins (the more serious sandwiched between the milder, so as to escape notice), the familiar rhythm of the prayers of penance, and the feeling of a slate wiped clean, with everything forgiven and forgotten. But that was a long time ago. That was before Clifford.
Mavis had met Clifford over twenty years ago, when she was a young woman and he a middle-aged married man. Alas, she was no longer young, and Clifford, who was now retired, remained married, but they were still together. Like all these things, it was a long story.
At the time, Mavis had been engaged to be married. Tim had been a nice Catholic boy, and she had been fond of him — perhaps even a little bit in love. But then she had met Clifford, and he had shown her that while there was nothing wrong with nice Catholic boys, a mature, sophisticated man had other, better things to offer. At the time, Mavis was both naïve and inexperienced. Flattered by Clifford’s attentions and overcome by a surprisingly strong physical attraction, she had broken off her engagement, and the affair had started. It had been going on ever since.
Mavis would have been the first to admit that it was Clifford’s looks that had first attracted her. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, but he had fine eyes, an endearing, almost apologetic smile, and at the time, a good physique for his age. Also (and Mavis considered this to be almost as important) he was kind, and a perfect gentleman. He opened doors, walked on the outside of the pavement, pulled out her chair for her in restaurants, and pampered her with flowers and chocolates and expensive silk underwear — all the things that young men of her own age no longer seemed to bother with. Mavis’s late father had been just such a gentleman, and Clifford had reminded her of him.
That perfect gentlemen didn’t sleep with people other than their wives and that her father would most certainly have been deeply shocked had he known about the affair were facts that Mavis chose to ignore. Love, as everyone knows, can be astonishingly blind.
From the start, Clifford told Mavis that he had long outgrown his marriage — a marriage that, he said, no longer gave happiness to either party — and that he would leave Dorothy to be with her. Not yet — never yet — but one day, when the time was ripe. But as the years rolled by and the time remained as unripe as it had been at the beginning, Mavis gradually lost first hope, and then, oddly, the inclination to take Clifford away from his wife and family. For what she slowly came to realise was that, contrary to what she might have expected, in this relationship she was the strong one, while Clifford was weak, and without the secure backdrop of a conventional marriage — without that little stake in society — he would find it hard to carry on his day-to-day life. This didn’t make her love him any the less — if anything, it increased her affection for him, for she liked feeling needed.
Clifford needed her reassurance, both as a man and as a lover, and she was able to give it to him. This was all the more surprising since Clifford had been a successful businessman and should have had every reason to feel confident, but outside his field of expertise, he remained strangely diffident. As for their sexual relationship, Mavis had had little experience of sex before they met, while Clifford, with all those years of marriage under his belt (so to speak), might be expected to know his way around the female body and be able to give as well as to receive pleasure.
The Frances Garrood Collection Page 29