by Isabel Wolff
I sighed as I saw the illuminated sign for London FM on the corner of City Road. I remembered how the day had started with Jon’s letter. I’d ring the hospital first thing. Tonight all I had to do was to concentrate on my phone-in, but I found it terribly hard. I heard my own, slightly bored voice with a kind of detached interest as I took the listeners’ calls.
‘Yes, I’m sure your mother-in-law is a “vicious old trout,” but calling her one is not exactly going to make relations more cordial is it?… Well, let’s face it, the fact that he’s taken out a restraining order on you is not a good sign, no… Just clapping your hands over both ears and shouting “I’m not listening, I’m not listening,” is not a good way to resolve conflict with your partner… Yes, I’m afraid that the lack of sex IS going to be an impediment to your getting pregnant…’
Their voices droned away in my headphones like bees; or rather they whined like mosquitoes, and were just as irritating. Why can’t they sort out their own bloody problems I thought angrily. I felt like a gigantic ear.
‘And on line five,’ said Minty, just back from maternity leave, ‘we have Jean from Croydon, whose husband is making unreasonable demands on her.’
‘What does he want you to do, Jean?’ I asked wearily.
‘He wants me to…’ She paused, then coughed with embarrassment. Oh God. It was obviously disgusting. I braced myself for something sick. ‘He wants me to wear a wetsuit,’ she said delicately. ‘And I kind of don’t mind in one way, but I feel a bit silly in it. Do you think I should agree?’
‘Well if you’re going scuba diving or wind-surfing it’s probably an excellent idea,’ I said. ‘Otherwise, I don’t recommend it. No.’
‘And, er, now,’ said Minty, looking at me oddly, ‘we have Derek from Luton, whose marriage has just collapsed. Go ahead, Derek.’
‘It’s awful,’ he said in a nasally voice. ‘My wife’s just gone off with her blooming tennis instructor. I ask you! He’s only twenty-eight, and she’s forty-five so I don’t know what she sees in him.’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea either,’ I said. ‘But maybe they have great sets. And who’s our next caller, Minty?’
‘Er, well, it’s Margaret from Wimbledon who has a problem with her neighbours,’ Minty replied uncertainly.
‘So what’s the problem, Margaret?’
‘Well, for a start they don’t keep their front garden tidy,’ she said censoriously. God I hate women like this. ‘But what is really annoying me,’ she went on, ‘is that when they’re in their back garden they keep throwing snails over the fence onto my side! What can I do to stop their anti-social behaviour?’
‘What can you do? Well I suggest you strike back with a few of your own. The giant African Land Snail would be very good for this purpose, but do be careful, Margaret, as they weigh about ten pounds and you could be done for GBH.’ Minty gave me another odd look, then glanced at the computer screen again.
‘Right,’ she said brightly, ‘and, er, just time for one more question.’
‘Hi my name’s Natalie, I’m from North Fields. And I want to know whether or not I should tie the knot. My partner wants to, but I’m perfectly happy to continue cohabiting, so I’m wondering what to do.’
‘So you want to know whether or not you should marry your partner?’
‘Yes.’
‘You want me to tell you.’
‘Yes, I do.’
I looked down at the e-mail print-outs on the desk. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I can’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’
‘I mean exactly that. I don’t know. If you don’t know how the hell should I know?’
‘Because you’re an agony aunt. I thought you’d be able to advise me.’
‘I’m sorry, Natalie, but I can’t. You marry him if you want to; and if you don’t want to, don’t. But it’s your life. You decide.’
‘But I need you to help me make that decision. That’s why I’m asking you.’
‘Well don’t ask me. I haven’t a clue.’
‘Can’t you help me then?’
‘No, I can’t. My life’s a complete shambles at the moment, so why should I be able to help anyone else?’
‘But that’s why we ring in,’ said Natalie. ‘To ask you. That’s what it says on your column. “Ask Rose”.’
‘Well don’t Ask Rose,’ I said. ‘Don’t Ask Rose anything any more, because quite frankly, Rose doesn’t want to know.’
Minty’s eyes were like satellite dishes. And now, all of a sudden, it came back to me in huge pink, flashing neon letters. What Katie Bridge had said. We’re only agony aunts because we’re trying to heal some damaged part of ourselves. It was true, I now saw. It was true.
‘Today, I was accused of being an agony aunt for the wrong reason,’ I said quietly. ‘Not out of altruism—but out of egotism. I was very indignant about this. But actually, as I sit here now, this evening, feeling not the slightest interest in any of your problems, and in fact wondering why you don’t just take responsibility for your own lives, and make your own decisions, I realise that it’s quite true. I’m an agony aunt because I’ve enjoyed feeling needed—that’s probably why I’m not really that good. I thought I was good,’ I went on wearily. ‘In fact I thought I was a brilliant agony aunt. I thought I had such intuition and insight—that I was so skilled at reading between the lines. But the truth is, I’m not that good at it, because today I’ve discovered just how many big things I’ve missed. In fact, if I’m really being honest, when it comes down to it, I’d say I’m pretty second-rate.’
‘Er, I think you’re being very hard on yourself, Rose,’ said Minty, her face flushing.
‘No, I don’t think I am. I wanted to help people—and I thought I could. I even fancied that I was rescuing them from their problems’—I suddenly thought of Theo—‘but the one who really needed rescuing was me.’ I looked at the e-mail print outs in my hand, then slowly ripped them in half. ‘I’ve had it with agony,’ I said. ‘I’ve really had it. I don’t want to be in agony any more.’
‘Well, that, er, brings us to the end of the programme,’ said Minty brightly. ‘So thanks to everyone who’s called in. And do join us again next time for Sound Advice with Rose Costelloe of the Daily Post.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t join me, because I’m sorry everyone, I won’t be here.’ I slowly turned and looked through the glass partition at Wesley who was gawping at me like a stunned cod.
‘What the hell are you thinking of?’ he demanded as I pushed on the heavy studio door.
‘I’m really sorry, Wesley,’ I croaked. ‘I know that was unprofessional of me.’
‘Yes! It was!’
‘But you see I’m under so much pressure at the moment. I’ve got so many problems—I just can’t cope.’ I dropped the ripped-up e-mails into the bin. ‘I’ve had it, Wesley. I just can’t do it any more.’
‘But you can’t leave us in the lurch like this. I mean who the hell am I going to get instead of you at such short notice?’Who? Well, it was obvious.
‘Beverley McDonald. She’s a natural,’ I said.
Chapter 24
I don’t sleep well at the moment, but then I’ve got a lot on my mind. I lie there, staring into the dark, aware of the comfortless silence of the house and the slow tick-tock of my clock. If the World Service hasn’t sent me off by two, I count stars—it’s better than sheep. I picture the constellations—thanks to Theo’s book I know lots of them now—then tick them off. Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Cassiopaeia, Capricorn…Cygnus, Aries, Lynx…Aquarius, Perseus, Pisces, Pegasus…the Pleiades, Sagittarius, Grus—only another ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine billion or so to go I tell myself; then I list the brightest ones. Sirius, Canopus, Vega, Aldebaran…Capella, Polaris, Crux…Rigel, Betelguese, Alpha Centauri…then I go through the galaxies and their type. I start with the Milky Way (spiral), Andromeda 1 (elliptical
), Small Magellanic Cloud (irregular), Large Magellanic Cloud (irregular spiral), NGC 6822 (irregular), M33 (spiral). And if I get stuck on those I list all the famous comets—Halley’s, Hale-Bopp, Shoemaker-Levy, Temple-Tuttel, Ikeya-Seki, Comet Schwasmann-Wachmann—then I list Jupiter’s moons. Io, Europa, Calypso, Ganymede…
Adrastea, Metis, Thebe…Himalia, Elara, Lysithea, Leda… Ananke and Pasiphae. If I’m still conscious, I run through Saturn’s moons too, but I’m usually out by then.
Heavenly Bodies has done very well. It’s at number five in the non-fiction top ten and is apparently selling two thousand a week. I’d like to congratulate Theo, but I haven’t heard from him and I can’t bring myself to get in touch. And I know what you’re thinking, but I just can’t help it—I’m afraid it’s the way I am. If I feel that someone’s hurt me I retreat into my shell, like a snail drawing inward. Then I mentally lock the door.
In any case Theo’s very busy. I know that from Bev. She said he’s doing publicity for his book, and sorting out his flat and writing a pilot for a new series, Star-Struck, on Radio Four. But I’m not busy myself—far from it—because Ricky heard my phone-in last week.
‘Well…’ he said, as I sat in his office the following morning. ‘Well, well, well.’ He lightly bounced the tips of his fingers against one another other. ‘That was quite a little performance last night.’
‘Yes,’ I said quietly, ‘I know. I’m…sorry, Ricky. I was in,’ I sighed, ‘…a bit of a state.’ And I waited for him to tell me to remove myself and my belongings from the building forthwith. But, to my surprise—and relief—he didn’t.
‘I’m not going to sack you,’ he said with uncharacteristic sympathy. ‘You’ve done the Post too much good for me to do that. But you’re clearly having some kind of a crack-up, so I suggest you take three weeks off.’
I was only too happy to oblige as I hadn’t taken any leave for fifteen months. And with all that’s happened—and with my looming birthday—I’ve been glad to have time to think. So Beverley’s been looking after the column, with the help of a temp, and she’s been doing the phone-ins too. I tuned in on Thursday and she was brilliant. I imagined her sitting there in the studio, with Trevor, both wearing headphones, both making notes, as Betrayed of Barnes or Balding of Brighton phoned in to have a good whine. I imagined Henry listening too, dressed in velvet and high heels, beaming with partnerly pride. Henry and Bev. Bev and Henry. How come I never spotted that? But then, as I’ve discovered recently, there are lots of things that I’ve missed.
I haven’t decided what I’ll do next: Ricky says we’ll talk when I go back to work. But while I reflect on my future I’ve been decorating the house—nothing radical, just a paint job—and I’ve been doing the garden as well. I’ve had the patio repaved, and I’ve bought some terracotta pots and I’ve put in a pergola and some new plants. I’ve been to a few exhibitions, and some films and plays and I’ve been reading a lot. Yesterday, in between coats of paint in the sitting room, I read A Brief History of Time. And I was thrilled because I actually understood it—or at least I think I did. Did you know that if you were to get sucked into a black hole you’d get ‘spaghettified,’ all the atoms in your body stretched into infinite strings? And if you were to survive that, it’s perfectly possible that you’d get sucked through a wormhole at the bottom and find yourself in another universe. Because our universe might not be, well, the centre of the universe: I mean, it might not be the only one. There might be a multiverse, like a honeycomb, or like adjoining bubbles in the bath. For all we know there might be as many universes as there are stars in the sky, each with its own physical laws. So I’ve been contemplating the cosmos in this way, and chatting to Rudy, and trying not to think about my mother or about the fact that I’ll be forty next week. Four.Oh…
I used to think of forty as being a bit like Tierra del Fuego. One knew that it was there, on the map somewhere, but that it was a very long way off. And now, to my surprise, there I am.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Bella a few days ago as I wandered around Mothercare with the twins. Her bump’s just beginning to show now.
‘What do you mean, what am I going to do?’
‘Well you’ve got to do something,’ said Bea.
‘You should celebrate it,’ said Bella as she looked at tiny sleep suits for newborns.
‘What’s to celebrate?’ I said.
‘Forty’s only a number, Rose.’
‘Rather a high one,’ I pointed out bleakly.
‘It could be a lot worse.’
‘Yes,’ said Bella as we looked at soft toys. ‘It could be fifty, for example.’
‘Or sixty.’
‘It could be eighty-three.’
‘Hm. That’s true.’
‘Forty’s nothing these days,’ said Bea confidently. ‘In fact forty’s the new twenty.’
‘No, it’s the new thirty,’ Bella corrected her.
‘It’s the new twenty now, actually. I read it in Vogue.’
‘It is not.’
‘It is!’
‘It isn’t.’
‘It is!’
‘Don’t argue,’ I said. ‘Forty’s still forty as far as I’m concerned.’
‘We’ll be forty next year,’ said Bella blithely as she picked up a white bunny, with a blue ribbon round its neck, ‘and we won’t mind at all. We’ll tell everyone our age, and we’ll have a huge party, won’t we, Bea?’
‘We certainly will.’
‘We’ll invite at least a hundred people.’
‘No, that’s too many. We’ll have fifty.’
‘A hundred.’
‘Fifty.’
‘But I want a hundred!’
‘Fifty’s plenty,’ said Bea vehemently.
‘Oh all right then, fifty it is.’
‘You must have a party Rose,’ they said, in unison.
‘Why?’
‘Because we say so.’
‘But there isn’t time. My birthday’s next Saturday—who’ll come at such short notice?’
‘The people who love you, that’s who. Have a party, Rose,’ said Bella.
‘Have a party,’ added Bea.
‘Have a party, Rose,’ they chorused.
I looked at them. ‘Okay. I will.’
So I am. I’m having a small drinks party, or rather a ‘Fortification’. I’ve e-mailed fifty people about it, of whom over half have said that they’ll come. Then I thought I’d better get in caterers but they’re all already booked up—or they’re too expensive—so I’m going to have do the cooking myself. When I say ‘the cooking,’ I don’t mean proper cooking—I mean heating up. Canapés. Bought ones for speed, and two crates of champagne, and several gallons of Pimms. And we can all spill out into the garden if it’s not raining—the twins are right. One shouldn’t ignore one’s fortieth—one should face it with fortitude.
Yesterday morning, I received a couple of early birthday cards and, to my surprise,Sky and Telescope magazine too. Theo’s mail has been redirected, but this had clearly slipped through the net. As I scribbled in his address I wondered about putting a friendly note on. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and in any case there wasn’t room. Theo clearly doesn’t want to talk to me, because if he did, he could easily have called me or e-mailed me or dropped me a line. And he hasn’t.
I’d like to have invited him to the party, but I just can’t face him: it was so awful when he left. I keep thinking how tactless he was—and how vile I was—it makes me cringe; and that’s why I haven’t been sleeping well, although, for some reason, last night, I did. Because when I woke and put on the radio, I expected to hear the Today programme, but instead it was the end of Excess Baggage. I glanced at the clock. It said ten-thirty; I’d been asleep for eleven hours. Given my recent insomnia I’d have been glad about this but I had so much to do. All the food shopping, for example. I’d left it until that day as I don’t have a very large fridge. I shot out of bed, pulling on the first things to hand, with
out even showering, then set to work. I frantically hoovered and dusted, then tidied the garden, then drove to the big Sainsbury’s on Dog Kennel Hill.
Being Saturday, it was heaving of course, and there was no-one to ask where the party food was and when I did eventually find the right section, which was about two miles away, the shelves had run desperately short. Then I had to look for someone to go and get me some more cocktail sausages and mini-roulades, and they took an age to come back: and then the queues for the tills were interminable and the woman in front had a problem with her switch card so that took twenty minutes to sort out. So by the time I staggered out with my sixty-two carrier bags, it was already five past three. And then I had to go to the off licence to get the booze and the glasses, and by the time I’d finished there it was four, and my guests would be arriving at seven. So I phoned Bev as I drove back to Hope Street and asked her whether Henry might be able to help.
‘No,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘No. He can’t. Sorry. He’s busy. He’s terribly busy this afternoon and he can’t help you.’
‘Oh. Well, it’s only for an hour or so, just to lend me a hand; or maybe you could come a bit early, Bev…?’
‘No. I’m sorry. I can’t. You see, I’m very busy too.’
‘What about Trevor?’
‘He’s busy as well. He’s out shopping.’
‘Oh,’ I sighed. ‘Right. Well, see you later,’ I said, hoping the brightness of my tone masked my hurt and disappointment, then I phoned the twins. It was engaged, so I had to try three times before I got through.