Virtual Strangers

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  I unfolded my arms. I needed to move. ‘Sure you wouldn’t like tea?’ I asked. Somehow, conversations of this nature were more palatable with a side dish of routine domestic pottering. I pulled my sleeves up. ‘I’m having one.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, while I slopped out the teapot. ‘I have to be getting back. I have a...well, it’s of no consequence really, is it? Charlie, look. Did you really mean what you said? Were you already thinking we should, you know, call it a day? Because I feel pretty bad about…well, we’re neither of us getting any younger. It’s not as if we...well, I just hope you don’t feel I’ve...Well. The thing with Karen and me, well, it’s never really gone away, has it? I mean, I know we’re divorced now but, well... Well, it’s never really been sorted out, has it?’

  How would I know? It had never even been alluded to, as far as I could recall. What a very dark horse. I shrugged. He sighed. ‘And I feel bad about that,’ he went on. ‘I would hate to feel you’re just putting a brave face on things.’

  He paused (for breath, presumably) and then slid from the stool. I took a mug from the dishwasher and wondered how best to deal with this slight. It was one thing to have your control of the situation usurped by a pre-emptive strike; quite another to be assumed not to have had any in the first place. But to say ‘yeah, well, I’d gone off you anyway’ seemed, though compelling, rather needlessly juvenile. So I settled for,

  ‘Not at all. It’s the right thing for both of us. I think we both knew it wasn’t really going anywhere, didn’t we?’

  I’d stressed the ‘both’ - and the ‘didn’t’, and he nodded gravely. Then tipped his head to one side.

  ‘I suppose we’re all looking for that elusive something, aren’t we? Doesn’t matter how old, how wise, how pragmatic we get, we still want perfection in our relationships. And why shouldn’t we? But the problem is, have we a right to expect it?’

  Which strange and unsettling piece of wisdom was not only the most profound exchange of thought we had ever shared as a couple, but also seemed to signal the end of our brief entanglement, as he then re-sited the fridge magnet again (why? With what significance?) and made all the movements that herald a parting; saying ‘anyway’, ‘right-ho’, and patting his keys. I followed him back through the hall, still digesting his words.

  ‘I think we have every right,’ I said. ‘But whether we find it or not is quite another matter. I hope you do, Phil. I hope things work out with Karen this time.’

  Her name felt unfamiliar on my tongue, and I half wished it didn’t. Why had we never talked about this?

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘We’ll see.’

  I opened the front door and watched him stride down the path. In retreat mode he seemed somehow more elusive and desirable, but even as I stood and absorbed the loss of a man I never really had in the first place, I knew the feeling to be treacherous; as borne out by the memory of countless failed re-kindlings of teenage affairs. I brought to mind our brief history of sexual encounters. His flat. My house. His flat. My house again. Two beds. Two bodies. Two very separate people. No rush of desire, no wild passion, no great need. I’d never really desired Phil as wholeheartedly as I ought to have done. Just convinced myself I had, in the way that you do when you face the stark possibility that fluttering hearts are the exclusive domain of the young.

  We did all the waving and earnest cheerio-ing that the situation called for, then I shut the front door on the dour winter night.

  Back in the kitchen, two things occurred to me. One was my magnet - now positioned top left - and the peculiar part it had played as we talked. The other, and altogether more...more... well, something, was the feeling that skirted the edge of my stomach when the words ‘Adam Jones’ floated back into my mind. Not a fluttering exactly, but a definite stirring. Affirmation, at any rate, of a functioning heart.

  My father slopped in. (Oh dear. Men in mules. Yeuch.)

  ‘Look at that,’ I said, pointing. ‘Take a set square to that magnet, you’d be hard pushed to better it. Perfectly perpendicular with the top of the fridge.’

  ‘Do what, my love?’

  ‘Right angles, Dad. Their importance in the scheme of things. Or lack of. Just thinking about the big picture. You know?’

  Anal. Just like I’d said all along.

  Midnight.

  A half dozen hours down the line and I look into my heart and do not like what I see. I suppose I expected to feel something a little more meaningful than just plain old non-plussed about Phil, but why? Why should I? I was non-plussed with him; now I’m non-plussed without him. No big difference there. The real trouble is the something else that’s whizzed in where the feelings of loss and aloneness should be. Hmm.

  In short, I have taken to bed an emotion that I don’t quite know what to do with, plus cocoa in a stupid, difficult to drink out of, lump-of-chocolate shaped promotional mug. Plus I’ve also taken to bed a print out of email from Dan to Ben (Hi Short! How you doing? Twisted Mum’s arm yet ?etc. etc.) and (ohmyGod) another email from griffith. Or Griffith? Or Clam Digger From Tenby, perhaps? Every incarnation is markedly less stressful-to-deal-with than ‘Adam Jones; friend, shag listee, General practitioner, boss’s husband’ etc. Whatever.

  The email reads; Charlie, don’t quite know what to say, except how sorry I am. And that it seems such a shame we have to stop all this now. It’s been fun, hasn’t it? Thank you. Adam.

  I experience a smidgin of irritation at that specific underlining. Thank you for what? A good laugh at my expense?

  I creep mournfully under a blanket depression at the futility of hearts stirring/fluttering (indeed doing anything other than that which is strictly necessary for pumping blood about ) per se. And Benalmadena is clearly impossible due to big lack in Everest/MFI fund. No. Everest fund, period. I am an unstructured free spirit and have no need of round nosed granite effect worktops or shaker style pale mustard cupboard fronts. Rose? Canterbury? Ben/Dan reunion? I think yes.

  Chapter 9

  Monday. Lunchtime. Bah!

  Why would anyone want to be an Estate Agent? Bad press, bad stress, and now a really bad uniform, to boot. So bad that I’m worrying about being seen in public and considered part of some obscure religious sect. Together, hip, young Metro Homes staff must be laughing their socks off. And I cannot believe some people. Actually, I can, if I’m honest, as the person in question is Minnie Drinkwater, who though very much my most favourite local octogenarian and friend, is also completely barking. I arrived on schedule to facilitate the continued forward motion of her house sale, and spent a unproductive - though utterly predictable - ten minutes trying to persuade her to allow the surveyor to complete the full, structural, costly etc. survey that the situation demanded. Failed even to negotiate access to the property, as Minnie was determined upon her immovable non-sale intentions - again.

  I’ve known Minnie a couple of years now ( because we’ve already visited this whole debacle once) and as much as I have grown to love her - and I’m still bemused that there’s (literally) on-one else, to my knowledge, who does - I couldn’t help but want to throttle her.

  ‘The thing is,’ I explained carefully, ‘is that you’ve told the Applebys that you’ll sell them the house. You’ve accepted their offer and you are about to exchange contracts with them. And they’ve spent lots of money on legal fees already, and they’ve got someone to buy their house. If you change your mind now it will make things very difficult for everyone and may cost you a great deal of money. And besides, you’ve got your place at The Maltings all sorted. You’re due to be moving in next month. What’s the matter, Minnie? What’s brought all this on?’

  ‘Changed my mind,’ she said. ‘My hellebores are just sprouting. And who said anything about The Maltings? Dreadful place. They have radioactive carrots.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Send that man away. He’s throwing a shadow on the doorstep. I’ll not have moss in my flagstones, thank you very much.’

  Drat. Sometimes
I wonder why I bother. Computed that today made the eighth offer accepted and then rejected, though (uurgh) the first this close to contract exchange. Do I need all this right now? Do I? Doesn’t matter how much I care about Minnie Drinkwater. I do not need this. Do not know the next best move. Back in the office, cowering under a Davina generated dust-storm, I was struck once again by the apposite ‘baggage’ tag. Very uncomfortable at the thought of a heap of incriminating/ embarrassing material on the hard disk of a computer in my scary boss’s very own house, plus extremely nervous about making eye contact with her on the first day post my realisation of the griffith identity - indeed, decided that I would perhaps have to develop a mirror sunglasses habit.

  And/or a new job habit.

  This was all I needed.

  Took the stroppy phone call from Austin Metro himself.

  ‘What the hell are you people playing at?’ he barked. ‘I’ve got the Applebys absolutely apoplectic here. What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I told him. ‘Minnie’s an elderly lady, and she gets a little confused at times. I’m absolutely sure we’ll be able to sort things out. When I’ve got some cover in the office, I’m going to go back and see her. My colleague should be back in an hour or so. He’s...’

  ‘Bah! This is ridiculous! Why can’t you people ever do a job properly? Jesus Christ - you are so inefficient! Just get Davina to call me. Okay?’

  ‘Not inefficient,’ I told him, as politely as the bellyful of abuse he was heaping upon an elderly confused lady with hardly a friend in the world would allow. ‘As I said, she’s rather old, and she gets very muddled, but I’m sure it’s absolutely nothing to worry about. I will go round there my colleague gets back from his viewings. And I’m going to speak to her social worker, and between us we’ll get it sorted out. I’ll ring you as -’

  There was an exhalation large enough to propel spit fifty yards. ‘Sorted out? SORTED OUT! I’ll give you bloody social workers. I’m trying to run a business here, in case you haven’t noticed, and I don’t give a stuff about mad old biddies. D’you hear? Not a stuff!’

  What a Scumbag.

  I said, ‘You’ve made that much clear. But ranting at me isn’t going to help any, is it?’

  He snorted. ‘Helps me, darling. And that’s why I’m here and you’re there.’

  By which I presume he meant as in sitting behind a mock georgian shop front in town while I languished in a mock stagnant swamp in the sticks. But still... ‘I know where I’d rather be, thank you. Bullying senior citizens isn’t part of my brief.’

  ‘Oh, it will be, love. It will be.’ He snorted again. ‘But then again your brief might be shorter than you think, love. Just get the boss for me. And soon. Okay?’

  ‘Very happy not to have to talk to you any more. Byeee.’

  Oh dear. Oh dear. Davina-wrath imminent. Still, sod her. Sod him. Sod the whole bloody lot of them. How dare they treat Minnie with such disrespect! Still, I was happy to note that I had suddenly discovered a whole uncharted area of abandon and pleasing que sera sera sanguinity. Sod the old buzzard and his grab-a-pad jingles. Whichever way you looked at it, Austin Metro was a very silly name.

  I went back to Minnie’s at tea time and took a packet of jam tarts plus cat food supplies.

  She was really such a very sweet lady. A proper Gran, deprived of her duty as such. She was ripping the ‘2nd pre-paid’ corner from an envelope, to put in her little pot of stamps for the blind. ‘Hmm,’ she said, grimacing. ‘Bad goings on at the Maltings. D’you know what I heard on the radio earlier?’

  She moved back to the elderly wing chair she habitually sat in. It had, I suspected, been with her for decades. ‘Not as yet,’ I said, taking the stool. ‘But I’m prepared for the worst.’

  ‘And it is,’ she said, pulling a tart out and sniffing it. ‘Three people dead in an ambush, apparently. A bad business.’

  ‘I think that was actually in Africa somewhere.’

  ‘They say that. Of course they do. That’s how they do it. These from Tesco? They’ve got a most peculiar flavour.’

  ‘It’s only apricot. Shall I feed Kipling for you?’

  ‘Blinking foreign jams.’ She waggled her finger. ‘ That’s what you get for accepting that funny fifty pence piece they minted. You see? I’ve always said, if everyone had just said no at the time, then none of this would have happened. You all right dear? You look drawn.’

  ‘I’ve come to see what we’re going to do about selling your house, Minnie. You have to move. You know you do.’

  She flexed her index finger. ‘I know diddly squat about that, young lady.’

  I nodded. ‘You know you do, Minnie. You can’t manage here. Have you heard anything from Edward?’

  She shook her head and stroked the cat. ‘And never you mind about that. So. Tell me all your news. I don’t see a living soul from one week to the next. How are those babies of yours?’

  ‘Daniel’s left home now, Minnie.’

  ‘That was careless of you.’

  ‘To go to medical school. And Ben’s thirteen now -’

  ‘And no better than he should be, I’m sure. And what will you do now? Have some more?’ She took another jam tart out of the packet.

  ‘Heavens, no!’ I said. ‘I’m going to climb Everest, aren’t I?’ Even with Minnie, such lofty ambitions sounded silly and pointless and trumped up, somehow. I recanted. ‘Well, not really climb it exactly. But visit it. Trek there. To Nepal. It’s always been an ambition of mine.’

  ‘It was just outside Delhi I lost Iris, you know. A Cobra.’ Her gaze shifted, then returned to the packet. ‘Will you have a tart? I just had them delivered this morning.’

  I shook my head. Iris. The name of her daughter?

  ‘A Cobra?’

  ‘Oh, yes, dear. Straight into the pram. The heat, you see. Shade. Tart or not? Eh?’

  I took this to mean that the subject was closed now. ‘Jam and I have fallen out big time,’ I told her. ‘Now. Moving. We’ve got to get that surveyor back round as soon as possible.’

  She shifted in her armchair and pouted at me. ‘Must we?’

  ‘We’ll both be in big trouble otherwise.’

  ‘Oh, well. He can take what he likes. I’ve no strength left to argue. And I wouldn’t want you having to go to prison on my account.’

  ‘I won’t have to go to prison, Minnie. And he’s not coming to take anything. He just needs to look at the house itself to make sure...’ I stopped. ‘What are you doing?’

  Minnie had got up and was wrestling with the loose cover on her armchair. She gave it a sharp tug and it finally sloughed off.

  ‘Ah!’ She said, feeling beneath the seat. ‘Still here. You never know, do you?’

  I shook my head. ‘Never know what?’

  ‘Who’s around. What might happen. You’d do well to get away, my lovely. There. Well, go on, then. Take it.’ She pressed a coin into my hand.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Twenty pence, silly. Towards your fare to Nepal.’

  On my way home, I looked in on Mr Williams at number seventeen. Minnie wasn’t allowed to take Kipling to the Maltings, so Mr Williams was supposed to be having him for her. He had a cat of his own, an arthritic old tabby, which I suspected Kipling would comprehensively terrorise.

  ‘’ow do,’ he said. ‘How’s the old boiler today?’

  ‘Boiling,’ I said. ‘And particularly truculent. But I think we’re winning.’

  He sucked on his dentures. ‘Then you’re as batty as she is.’

  But perhaps not quite as astute.

  Midnight.

  Everest fund now seven hundred and forty two pounds and twenty pence. Very, very touched.

  But I’ve been thinking about the ‘baggage’ tag some more. Being a baggage is generally a symptom of hormone imbalance (in which case, cyclical), pathological persuasion (in which case, terminal) stress at work (in which case, actionable) or unhappiness generally. In which case.....in wh
ich case, is it a symptom of marital dysfunction? In which case is it a symptom of infidelity? Childlessness? Disharmony? Boredom? Ideological Drift? In which case is griffith in the grip of a relationship crisis? Is griffith, in short, unhappy too?

  Dangerous, stormy seas speculative avenue.

  Click icon; re-read email you’ve already read.

  Email reads; Charlie, don’t quite know what to say, except how sorry I am. And that it seems such a shame we have to stop all this now. It’s been fun, hasn’t it? Thank you. Adam.

  Hmmm.

  Okay. Bottom line. End of cyber-friendship.

  Very, with a very capital V, fed up.

  Tuesday.

  And then some. Am in receipt of the largest domestic phone bill on the entire planet. Must compute the exact distance between North Cardiff/Everest as it looks like I will have to walk the entire way.

  But have, at least, enough petrol for London.

  ‘Right,’ said Daniel, once it had been established that though it was completely illegal to have Ben sleep on the floor of his hall of residence room, it would, in fact, be absolutely okay, because the warden of the hall of residence was, in fact, Dan’s mate, Simon, who was doing the job part time for the year as he was seriously strapped for cash, and had, in fact, said he wouldn’t tell anyone, and if anyone was suspicious he’d say Ben had been taken ill at the station or something and that it would, in fact, have been irresponsible to let him travel home alone. (Which patent fiction I went happily along with. Being, as I seemed to be, such a sub-standard parent.) ‘This is the plan. You drive here with Ben after work on the Friday, have the curry, dump him, head off to Rose’s, then pick him up when you drive back on Sunday night. Sound cool?’

  I resisted the urge to enquire about pants. But would definitely pack some anyway.

  Wednesday. Sad or what.

  ‘It’s ridiculous, Rose! I can’t stop thinking about him. And how embarrassing this all is. And how I’m going to get into such a state next time I see him somewhere. Can you imagine? I shall be scarlet! And what do I do? Do I pretend nothing happened? Do I wink at him or something? And what about Davina? It’s hard enough as it is having to face her at work!’