by Isabel Wolff
‘Than they,’ I corrected her.
‘What?’
‘So much more intelligent than they,’ I explained sweetly. ‘The subject of the subordinate clause is they.’
Citronella shot me an evil look. ‘It was…awful,’ she said with a lachrymose expression.
‘Poor you,’ I said. I couldn’t resist. She looked at me with loathing then lifted her head, like a cobra about to strike. She drew back her thin lips and I found myself momentarily distracted by her teeth. They were large, square, yellow and strangely grooved, with a wart in the centre of the top gum.
‘Mind you, Rose,’ she whispered with a smile, ‘you’ve had your problems, haven’t you? I mean, with your husband leaving you like that after, what—only seven months? And for a marriage guidance counsellor,’ she added spitefully. ‘So unfortunate. Especially in your position.’ Right.
‘But your husband left you for a hairdresser, Citronella.’
‘He was an international hairdresser!’ she shot back.
‘Well my husband left me for his secretary,’ said Mavis Sackville tearfully. ‘After thirty years. He broke it to me at the airport. What do you think of that?’
‘My mother used to smack me for no reason,’ said Mary Kreizler.
‘My father beat my mother,’ said June Snort.
‘That’s nothing, my father ate my mother,’ said Lana McCord. And as the competitive misery restarted I suddenly realised what the collective noun for agony aunts should be—a ‘torture’. I blotted their voices out with more booze.
‘—My parents never said they loved me. Not once.’
‘—My parents loved my sister more than me.’
‘—Well my parents loved my hamster more than me!’
‘—My mother said she wished I was dead.’
Right. Enough of their self-pity. They didn’t know they were born. That was it. I stood up.
‘Well then just wait till I tell you what MY mother did to ME!’ I shouted.
The table fell silent, and everyone looked at me, agog. My legs felt shaky, and my head was spinning. I suddenly knew I’d had too much to drink.
‘What did your mother do to you?’ asked Stephanie Wyman wonderingly.
‘Yes, what did she do?’ said Katie Bridge.
‘Yes, tell us,’ they all demanded. ‘Go, on, Rose. Tell us.’
All right then. I would.
‘She…’I sighed. ‘She…’Oh God. I was pissed and I was miserable. There was a pit of blackness in my chest. ‘She…’ I could have told them there and then. I could have just said it out loud and finally got it off my chest. But I didn’t. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I croaked. ‘Doesn’t matter. Gotta go. ’S getting late.’ Feeling slightly sheepish we paid the bill and staggered out into the street, waving a little too energetically at passing cabs in the way that inebriated people do.
‘Vauxhill Bridge please,’ I said. ‘The Agalmagated Newspapers building.’
‘The Amalgamated Newspapers building?’
‘That’s what I said.’
I slumped back in the seat, watching the Aldwych spin by in a blur. Suddenly my mobile rang.
‘Rose! It’s Bella.’
‘Hi!’
‘How are you?’
‘I’m okay. Just’ad lunch. How was Christmas?’
‘It was fine. Look, Rose, I can’t talk for long as we’re busy doing up the shop, but will you have dinner with me next week? I want you to meet Andrew,’ she added. Who the hell was Andrew? Oh yes, Andrew; of course, her new man.
‘The Jackson Pollack?’
‘That’s right. He’s terribly nice.’
‘So iss all going well then is’t?’
‘Oh yes—which is why I haven’t called. So will you meet us for dinner next week? On Wednesday?’
‘Yeah.’ Course,’ I said.
‘Rose, have you been drinking?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Have I been dr’nking? Yup!’
‘Well, if I can give you some advice.’
‘No!’S my job!’
‘Well, just…go easy a bit.’
As I put my mobile away with a tipsy sigh I realised that Bella was right. I do drink too much these days. Any excuse, and it’s down the hatch. I’d say I’ve been like that since my parents died—I’m not really sure why. But I’ll have to take myself in hand, I told myself as we crossed the Thames. That was one hell of a lunch though, I reflected as the taxi drove down Lambeth Palace Road. Although I thought Katie Bridge was talking bollocks about how we’re all agony aunts because we’re suffering inside. Speak for yourself why doncha, Katie! I’m an agony aunt because my readers need me I reminded myself as the cab stopped outside Amalgamated House.
‘How much issat?’ I said as I groped in my handbag. It wasn’t quite as tidy as usual: my standards are slipping; I couldn’t find my purse. ‘How much?’ I tried again as I rummaged amongst the receipts and sweet wrappers.
‘Nothing,’ the driver replied. ‘Wha?’
‘Nothing,’ he repeated. ‘I know who you are. You’re Rose Costelloe.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I listen to your show when I’m doing nights. And I phoned in six months ago and the advice you gave me was great. In fact, I don’t mind telling you that it saved my marriage.’
‘Really? Oh. I’m ver’ glad.’
‘That advice was free, Rose, and so is this cab ride.’
‘Well…thass really kind.’ There! What did I tell you? I am needed. I can make a difference. I’d rescued a marriage. My heart sang.
‘So, thanks then, Rose.’ He smiled at me, and I felt my eyes fill with grateful tears.
‘No. Thank you,’ I replied.
Chapter 10
‘This is Radio Four,’ announced Rudy warmly on Thursday. ‘Now—Desert Island Discs!’ He’s been saying that all evening, silly bird. ‘And your first record?’ Hmmm. I stared at my list. Should my choice be posh or populist? A healthy mixture would go down best. On the highbrow front I definitely wanted the slow movement of the Scriabin Piano Concerto, and the ‘Fair Winds’ Quartet from Cosi. A Schubert lied would be lovely, and one of those gorgeous ‘Songs From the Auvergne’. Something Latin would go down well with the punters, maybe the ‘Buena Vista Social Club’. That’s how many records so far? Five—so I’ve another three to go. Popwise I like ‘Stars’ by Simply Red and I love ‘Here Comes the Sun’. I’d also be expected to choose some piece which really means something to me. I glanced into the garden, then laughed a bitter little laugh. ‘Bye Bye Baby’. Of course. Or maybe, if I was really going for it on the heavy irony front, ‘Mamma Mia!’ Oh yes. Not that I’d want to go into too much detail with Sue Lawley—I mean, it’s not In the Psychiatrist’s Chair. And what piece of music would tie in well with my career? Hhhmm…‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’! Perfect. That would have them in floods. I reappraised my choices with a deep sense of satisfaction, it was a nicely eclectic mix.
Obviously I wasn’t going to be invited onto the programme quite yet but it’s good to be prepared. Mind you, Edith Smugg was nearly eighty before she got on, so I hoped I wouldn’t have to wait as long as that. Maybe I should get Serena to put out a few subtle feelers? And then there was This is Your Life! Suddenly I heard the click of the key in the lock, and Theo came in. I’d been a little frosty with him since his impertinent interventions on New Year’s Eve but, buoyed up by my pleasant encounter with that taxi driver, I was feeling indulgent and warm.
‘Hi. Nice day?’ he enquired pleasantly.
‘Yes thanks. Not at all bad.’
‘Still working?’ he asked with a nod at my list.
‘Er, that’s right.’
‘It’s crazy, Rose—you never stop. I’ve never met anyone—apart from my wife—who works quite as hard as you. What is it about the women in my life,’ he muttered. ‘They’re all such workaholics.’ Women in my life? I smiled.
‘Well,’ I said, with another sip of white wine, ‘I can’t let the letters pile up.
When someone’s taken their courage in their hands and written to me, then they should at least get a prompt reply.’ Theo put the newspaper on the table then got out a saucepan. ‘Oh, I didn’t know you read the Daily Post.’
‘I don’t,’ he replied as he opened the fridge. ‘It was left on the bus. I read your column by the way.’
‘Oh yes. And…?’
‘Well I thought it was grand. But I don’t think Carol from Coventry should give her boyfriend another chance.’
‘Oh?’
‘He’s been unfaithful to her.’
‘I know. But they’ve got three kids and he had been under terrible stress.’
‘That’s true…’
‘And she had that fling five years ago, remember?’
‘Mmm,’ he murmured. ‘I guess.’
‘I’m normally very hard on infidelity,’ I said, ‘but sometimes couples have to look at the wider picture and see if they can’t get over it.’
‘Maybe. But I also don’t believe that joining a twelve-step programme is necessarily going to crack Lisa from Luton’s codependency problem.’
‘Oh really?’I said. ‘Do let me know if you need any help with your black holes or quasars or anything won’t you?’ Theo raised both hands in playful surrender, then smiled. ‘Do you want a Becks?’ I added.
‘Thanks. It must be strange trying to sort out other people’s lives all day though,’ he said as I poured him the beer. ‘Doesn’t it get boring after a while?’
‘Boring?’
‘Dealing with the same old issues again and again.’ He opened the newspaper at Ask Rose. ‘I’d have thought there’s a limit to the amount any one person can write about eating disorders, infidelity, alcohol and thinning hair.’
‘Actually, Theo, that’s not true. When you’re a connoisseur of human frailty, as I am,’ I said with mock grandiosity, ‘believe me, it is never dull.’
‘But don’t you get tired of it?’he asked as he got out a saucepan.
‘No,’ I said, shifting in my chair. ‘That’s like me asking you if you don’t ever get tired of staring at the same old planets, or the same old meteor showers?’
‘I find astronomy infinitely interesting,’ he said serenely.
‘So is being an agony aunt. It’s so human,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s the stuff of people’s lives. Whereas, with respect, what you do, however fascinating, has no personal dimension at all. You are actively looking away from your fellow beings onto the cold and lifeless stars.’
‘They’re not cold, they’re incredibly hot actually,’ he said as he shook out some rice. ‘And as for lifeless—who knows…?’
‘I know that what I do can make a difference,’ I went on, ignoring him. ‘I’m at the coalface of human distress.’
‘But you don’t get to meet your readers, do you?’ he said as he stirred the pan. ‘Being an agony aunt is not as human as being, say, a doctor or an aid worker, or a nurse. It’s all too easy to dish out advice to someone if you’re never going to meet.’
‘But I worry about them,’ I pointed out. ‘I lie awake at night wondering if their lives are going better now, and whether what I said to them helped.’
‘But you never actually come into real contact with your readers do you? There are no “close encounters,” as it were.’
‘Hmmm. That’s true. But it’s precisely because we don’t know each other that they feel able to confide in me in the way that they do.’
‘You know, the wonderful thing about astronomy is that it’s based on precise mathematical laws,’ he explained, ‘which means that there’s always a solution.’ There’s always a solution? How nice…‘I’m making risotto,’ he added suddenly, ‘would you like some?’
‘Oh, I —’
‘Go on, Rose, you hardly eat. I hope you’re not dieting,’ he added with an appalled expression.
‘No. I’m just not that interested in food. But I take vitamins to make up for it,’ I said indicating the shelf upon which, neatly lined up in their plastic bottles, was an alphabet of supplements from A to Zinc.
‘Taking vitamins is not the same as eating properly. I’ve never even seen you cook.’
‘Can’t cook, won’t cook,’ I said loftily. ‘I haven’t cooked since eighty-eight.’
‘So how did you manage when you were married then?’
‘Oh, ready-prepared stuff from M and S. Ed used to complain about the cost—well it is expensive—but it was quick, and I didn’t have time. There’s this big Aga in his kitchen but I only ever used the microwave. It used to drive him mad.’
‘You’re just like my wife,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘She didn’t cook either, because of the long hours she worked, so it fell to me. I had to learn and I found I enjoyed it. I’ll teach you if you like.’
‘Well…okay. Thanks.’ He turned and smiled. And in that instant I felt suddenly, overwhelmingly happy. This was the kind of domesticity I liked. Sharing my space with a young man who was neither my husband nor my lover and whom I didn’t have to impress. There was no sexual or romantic tension between us to spoil things. Suddenly his mobile rang.
‘Hello pet!’ he exclaimed. Oh. Who the hell was that? ‘Yeah, I’m just having a bite to eat. I’ll be with you in half an hour.’
‘Got a date?’ I enquired nonchalantly as he put his phone back in his pocket.
‘Not exactly. I’m going next door. Bev needs a few lightbulbs changing.’
‘Can’t Trevor do it?’
‘He won’t go up ladders.’
I laughed. ‘That’s very neighbourly of you,’ I said casually.
‘I’m happy to help. Beverley’s a grand girl,’ he said warmly. ‘She’s special.’ I felt a sudden stab of fear and pain: and now, as he spooned the creamy risotto onto the warmed plates, I entertained this despicable thought. I hoped that Theo wouldn’t hit it off with Beverley too quickly—because then, well, he might leave me. Isn’t that low of me, even to think it? But, as I say, you get used to people, don’t you, and I guess I’d miss him if he wasn’t around.
‘It’s my wife’s birthday,’ he announced as he sprinkled on parmesan shavings.
‘Her thirtieth?’
‘Ooh no.’ My heart sank. She was obviously even younger than he was. Twenty-five quite possibly. Or even twenty-three. I braced myself.
‘She’s thirty-eight.’ My fork stopped in mid-air.
‘Your wife’s eight years older than you?’
‘Your maths is brilliant. Yes, that’s right. So what? That hardly makes me a granny-snatcher does it? Anyway, it’s the person that matters to me. Most of my girlfriends have been my age or thereabouts, but with Fiona there was a bit of a gap. Haven’t you ever gone out with anyone younger, Rose?’
‘No I haven’t.’
‘But you could easily attract a man of my age.’
‘Could I?’
‘Yes,’ course you could.’ Oh.
‘Can I ask you a really personal question, Theo?’
‘Why not? I’ve been blunt enough with you.’
‘Didn’t your wife want kids?’
‘Nope,’ he replied as he passed me the salad. ‘But that’s not what broke us up. I’d have lived with her decision although, if I’m being honest, I would like a family. And what about you?’ Hmm…what about me?
‘Well, it’s never really been on the cards. I was always so busy and Ed wasn’t bothered—he said that being one of five had put him off. The constant struggles with his siblings; the noise; the chronic lack of space. Plus he said he was worried about the expense.’
‘Oh.’
‘Well I guess children do cost a lot. I used to want them,’ I went on. ‘When I was a kid. But then everything changed.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Well…because it just did, that’s why.’
‘Because of what you found out about your mother?’ he asked softly.
‘Anyway, I’m thirty-nine so time’s running out.’
An awkward silenc
e descended upon us as we finished the meal, then Theo stood up.
‘Well I’d better love you and—sorry,’ he corrected himself. ‘I’d better get going, I mean.’
‘I’ll wash up,’ I said. ‘Thanks for supper. Send Bev and Trev my love.’
Theo picked up the newspaper, which was still open at my page, and I thought he was going to take it upstairs. Instead of which he folded it twice, went over to the pedal bin, and flipped up the lid.
‘Don’t!’ I said.
He looked up at me. ‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t throw it away.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t want you to, that’s why.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I thought you liked things tidy.’
‘That’s not what I mean.’
‘Oh, do you recycle them? I didn’t realise.’
‘No,’ I said, flushing. ‘No. It’s just that…’
‘What? What is it? Rose?’ My eyes had suddenly filled with speechless tears, and now my voice was thin and high. ‘My column’s in there!’ I wailed.
‘I’m sorry—I wasn’t thinking. I assumed you’d have your own copy.’
‘I do have my own copy.’
‘Oh.’ He looked completely nonplussed. ‘Then why can’t I throw this one away?’
‘Because…well…I just don’t want you to, that’s all.’
‘But why not? I mean, you’ve got one.’
‘Yes, but that’s not the point.’
‘What is the point then?’
Oh God. How on earth could I tell him?
‘Rose what is it?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’ll think it’s silly, that’s why.’
‘No I won’t.’
‘You will!’
‘Try me.’
‘Erm…’
‘Go on,’ he added softly.
‘Well…’ My throat was aching and I could barely speak, ‘…it’s just a sort of thing I have…’