‘At least there are no children to dispute custody of,’ she said, staring at Flossie.
I’d learned not to look upset when people say this sort of thing to me, as if I hadn’t desperately wanted children. ‘No, there is that, and Matt has always hated Flossie, so we won’t be disputing over her.’
‘So everything’s all right? Matt says the first part of the divorce will go through in a couple of weeks, and six weeks after that, it’s finalised. Isn’t it quick?’
‘That’s because I didn’t contest anything – I haven’t even got my own solicitor – and we can’t go for mediation because we are in different countries.’
‘Matt says you don’t need a solicitor, because the house is in his name, and remortgaged to the hilt anyway, and there are lots of debts, so there isn’t much to share. But I’m sure he will be generous with maintenance. You will be fine.’
‘Yes, though I do suspect any mildly generous impulses he has now will dwindle away, like in Sense and Sensibility.’
She looked blank.
‘You know, Angie, where the widow and her daughters were going to be looked after by the son who inherited everything, only the allowance sort of dwindled away to the present of the odd duck?’
Angie isn’t much of a reader. She carried on staring at me with her mouth open for a full minute.
‘The odd duck?’
‘Not literally, in Matt’s case. How could he send me a duck from Saudi? Or Japan, which he’s supposed to be going to next. What an awful lot of students want to learn English.’
‘Just as well – and Greg’s been offered a Japanese contract too. I quite fancy it.’ She looked around her vaguely. ‘What are you doing with everything? You can’t take it all back with you to Upvale, can you?’
‘No, but I wouldn’t want to anyway – I’ve never thought of most of the furnishings as mine. They are all Matt’s choice, and most of them were already here when we married. There’s very little we chose together. Unless Matt wants any of it, I expect I’ll sell it. There are places that come and pack it all up and take it to an auction for you.’
‘Yes, but I don’t think you get much for it. Doesn’t Matt want it stored?’
‘Apparently not. He must have been plotting this long before he came home for his last holiday, because he’d already removed all his personal stuff into storage without me noticing.’
‘You’re not the most observant of women are you? Head in the clouds. Or the plants.’
‘I might want a few bits and pieces, because I don’t think I could live at home again for very long, not after living in my own house for years. And I need somewhere to put my plants.’
‘I don’t think Upvale sounds very exciting. Matt said it was just one steep cobbled road like a Hovis advert, with three street lights, half a dozen houses, your Parsonage, and a lot of dirt tracks leading to farms.’
‘There are a lot more houses than that in Upvale, but they are spread out. And the only cobbled bit is about a hundred yards in front of the pub.’
‘I didn’t know there was a pub. Civilisation!’
‘Yes, the Black Dog, after the local legend. There’s Blackdog Moor, too haunted by this huge, hideous fanged creature, with blood-red eyes and jaws dripping with—’
Angie shuddered. ‘No more, please. What with noises in the attic and demon dogs I won’t sleep a wink tonight all on my lonesome.’
‘Oh yes – the noises in the attic. Are you haunted, Angie?’
She should be, by the ghosts of all the creatures who died in animal experiments on cosmetics.
‘No, it’s squirrels.’
‘Squirrels? You’ve got squirrels in your attic? What colour? Those nice little reddish Squirrel Nutkin ones, or the big grey ones?’
‘What does it matter? They’re all vermin, and they’ve chewed the furniture I’d stored up there to bits! Squirrels! They’ve eaten all the wooden parts of the chairs and the grandfather clock, and a nice tallboy. I suppose I’m lucky it wasn’t rats, which is what I thought when I got back on Wednesday and heard all those funny thumping noises. Isn’t that what you’d have thought, Charlie?’
‘What?’ I said, dragging my mind back from my own problems with some effort. ‘I’m the madwoman in the attic, I think, or will be. Perhaps I should join your squirrels.’
‘Who mentioned madwomen?’ she demanded crossly. ‘Do concentrate, Charlie. The little tree rats have eaten all the lovely furniture Mother left me. I mean, what am I going to say to the insurance company? “Squirrels ate my furniture”?’
‘“Weasels Ripped My Flesh”!’ I exclaimed, perking up. ‘I’d forgotten all about that song. Wasn’t it Frank Zappa and the Mothers? Or no – maybe it was Jethro Tull.’
Angie sighed. ‘Not weasels, squirrels,’ she said in cold, clipped accents.
What a matron she would have made if she hadn’t got off with Greg and left the nursing profession! Or a wardress.
‘Sorry, it just reminded me of that song and … but do go on. Squirrels ate your furniture?’
‘Yes. Grey ones.’
‘How did they get in? There must have been a hole somewhere.’
‘A tiny one, but they found it. Still, I expect the insurance will pay up in the end.’
‘Unless squirrels are an Act of God, Angie.’
‘Don’t be silly. How can squirrels be an act of God?’
‘You never know. When our garden wall fell down that time, they said it had been undermined by moles, and that was an act of God, so—’
‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ she asked warily.
I smiled encouragingly: ‘I expect they will pay up – and what a shame about that furniture. I really liked some of it, especially that knobbly triangular chair. Although bottoms aren’t that shape, are they? And with all those bits sticking out it wouldn’t have been very comfortable, and although it would fit right into a corner of a room, you don’t usually want to sit right in the corner, do you? So I expect you can replace it with something more practical when you get the money.’
‘You do go off at a tangent.’
‘I’ll have to go off altogether, Angie – I’ve got my hairdresser’s appointment.’ Which I absolutely loathe; but my roots were showing.
‘That dead-black Goth look with the dark eye make-up and purplish lipstick is very out of fashion,’ she said, scrutinising me severely.
‘I know, but Matt insists, and—’
Suddenly I realised that it didn’t matter any more what Matt liked or didn’t like. He wouldn’t be here to throw a major wobbler if I stopped dyeing my roots, wearing heavy black eye make-up and vampire-style black clothes …
It was a look that seemed less and less me as I got older. I mean, it was what I was into at seventeen, but I didn’t think I’d be stuck in a timewarp forever afterwards.
But now I could do what I liked.
‘I can do what I like,’ I told Angie.
‘You always did,’ she said sourly. ‘Wasn’t that part of the problem?’
‘Only in the major things, the ones that mattered, like the painting. In little things Matt had it entirely his own way. And I hadn’t realised we had a problem.’
I was about to add that until the morning Matt asked for a divorce I hadn’t realised how old he was either, but just managed to stop myself in time: like Matt, Angie and Greg are a good ten years older than me.
Greg is an awful, red-faced old roué who tries to jump on women the moment he’s alone with them. He’s Father’s type, I suppose, but without the leonine good looks – and Father does go in for his mistresses one at a time, as a rule.
‘Greg will be home in a couple of weeks, if you want any help,’ Angie offered.
‘Oh, no thanks Angie,’ I said hastily. ‘I’m sure I can manage.’
Her eyes fell on the stack of magazines she’d brought, and she pounced on the top one. ‘Now what’s that doing there? I didn’t mean to bring that old copy of Surprise!. I only kept it because it had
photos of that gorgeous Mace North in it.’
‘Who?’
She exhibited the magazine, and I scanned the man on the cover with no recognition whatsoever, although it was a very distinctive face. His slightly oblique, hooded dark eyes seemed to be staring back at me assessingly. (And probably finding me wanting.)
‘You must know him! He’s a well-known actor, and he’s got this deliciously plummy voice, a bit like Jeremy Irons.’
‘You know I don’t watch much TV. But it sounds an unlikely combination with that face,’ I commented. ‘He looks a bit – barbaric.’
‘It’s the Tartar blood.’
‘Oh? I thought tartar was something you found on your teeth,’ I said disagreeably.
‘Not that sort of tartar – it’s a place in Russia. Mongolia? The High Steppes, or Chaparral, or something? His great-grandmother was a Tartar and that’s where those fabulous cheekbones come from, and the come-to-bed eyes…’ She gazed at the magazine and sighed. ‘He’s sort of like a young Bryan Ferry crossed with Rudolph Nureyev.’
‘Rudolph Nureyev’s dead.’
‘You must have seen photos.’
‘Yes, but I don’t find men in tights very appealing. I’d never have made Marian.’
After a minute she smiled weakly: Sunrise over Yellowstone Canyon.
‘You will have your little joke,’ she said, hoisting herself to her feet and tucking the copy of Surprise! firmly under her arm. ‘I’d better go and sort out the roof rats. I’ll have the little buggers out of there.’
Her car was parked opposite, outside Miss Grinch’s, who would not be pleased: she likes the front of her house kept clear so she has a better view of what her neighbours are doing. Had Angie been a man visiting me while my husband was away she would have been straight across with a milk jug or sugar bowl to try and catch me out in some imagined misdemeanour.
I don’t think I’ve ever done anything yet to surprise her – I must be such a disappointment. You’d think she’d have lost interest by now. Apart from Angie and Greg, Matt’s friends don’t bother me when Matt’s away, and if Greg comes to the door when I’m on my own I pretend I’m out.
I always check from the landing window first, after one nasty experience soon after I married Matt, when Greg found me on my own and was horribly overfriendly in a near-rape kind of way.
He’s even like that in front of Angie at parties, and she doesn’t seem to mind particularly. Maybe she thinks he’s all mouth and no action. Maybe he is all mouth and no action when it comes to the crunch – I don’t intend finding out.
* * *
When she’d gone I finally phoned Em, the Ruler of Upvale Parsonage, told her about the impending divorce, and asked if I could come and live at home for a while.
‘Okay,’ she said.
‘Will you tell everyone? Father?’
‘He always thought Matt was a waste of space. Anyway, he won’t be very interested – he’s got a new mistress.’
I groaned. ‘Is she in the Summer Cottage yet?’
‘Not yet. She’s renting a house down in the valley. But she’s always round here, and they’re all over each other. It’s revolting. And she’s got twin little girls who sit about giggling. She leaves them here when she goes out with Father.’
I suppose it’s better than leaving them in an empty house, but not much – Em doesn’t like children, so she will not see their presence in the house as being anything to do with her.
‘He’s never had one with children before has he?’
‘No, unless you count Bran’s mother, and that was unintentional. He’ll probably get tired of her, if she won’t move into the cottage. You know how he likes everything convenient.’
‘Flossie says hello,’ I told her.
Em’s voice immediately softened to a medium baritone that was positively sugary. ‘Give her a big kiss on her shiny black nose from me, and tell her Frost can’t wait for her to come and live here.’
Flossie is petrified of Frost, a giant grey lurcher with questionable habits (a bit like Father, really), but I appreciated the sentiment.
‘I will – and thanks, Em.’
‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘You’re just – there.’
‘Where else would I be?’ she asked, sounding puzzled.
Chapter 3
All Panned Out
I didn’t turn up for my hairdresser’s appointment yesterday, which made me feel like I was bunking off school. I need never sit in one of those foul-smelling torture chambers again.
Things are moving so quickly now that I’ve decided to start packing things up. I’ll put the things I don’t want in the small spare room: it’s half-decorated as a nursery, a place of abandoned hopes, so entirely suitable. The things to take with me can be stacked at one end of the living room.
* * *
I’ve been looking at the heap of magazines left by Angie, and I’m feeling extremely irritated: none of them seem to have any connection with reality as I know it. They might as well all be called ‘Rich Young Brain-Dead Anorexic London-Based Fashion Victim Magazine’, and have done with it. Where are the magazines aimed at women like me? ‘Skint Old Northern Woman’, perhaps? I’ll have to write my own:
SKINT OLD NORTHERN WOMAN: ISSUE 1
Our motto is: Every Woman For Herself!
Welcome to our new magazine for the older, more frazzled reader. While written primarily for the Northern woman, it may also prove invaluable for those Southerners harnessing their huskies ready to brave the Frozen North, containing as it does many cultural hints.
To any peripheral Skint Old Southern Women, why not write your own issue, addressing the topics you find important?
We welcome readers’ letters, except those sycophantic ones saying how wonderful our magazine is: we already know that, so for God’s sake write about something. If you have an embarrassing personal problem write in to Sister Charlie’s ‘In Confidence’ page: she will only share it with the entire readership …
I think I’ve discovered a fascinating new hobby.
* * *
The house is now on the market, and Matt, via his solicitor, has said he will give me half of any profit, but I can see that it will all be eaten up by these mysterious debts and the overdraft. It’s never felt like my house anyway, so I don’t care.
He says he has stored everything that he wants from the house, and he doesn’t mind what I do with the rest.
What a busy boy he must have been during that week at home – and how unobservant of me not to notice.
He is going to carry on paying the mortgage and utilities until the house is sold, but for some reason he has not transferred any extra money across this month for food, etc. Is this a mistake, or have I already dwindled to the present of the odd duck?
Seeing that I would have to start selling the furniture now (however odd an appearance that will give to prospective house purchasers) I went out to the supermarket and removed as many cardboard boxes as I could fit into my ancient 2CV.
I also laid in a large supply of long-life consumables, like baked beans, jars of olives, red wine and dogfood, before the money ran out altogether.
* * *
Em phoned: the mistress has got into the house, and is laying waste like Angie’s squirrels.
None of the others have managed to sidestep the Summer Cottage like this, and Em has begun an offensive against the invader. Em does offensive very well. She hopes to have them out before I move back, but in the meantime the mistress is domiciled in my room! I was highly indignant, even though Em has removed all my personal belongings from it and stored them in one attic, and the two little girls in another.
She would have much preferred squirrels, and so would I.
Why did it have to be my room? Why not Bran or Anne’s? Having foreign bodies in my only remaining sanctum is the last straw. Think the aliens are now taking over Yorkshire.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get them out,’ Em said grimly. ‘Father
won’t be able to stand them around all the time once the sexual novelty’s worn off – you know what he’s like. Then I’ll put your room back as it was.’
‘But it will never be the same again,’ I said sadly, for now I really do feel like a dispossessed person. I’m blowin’ in the wind.
I told Em about Skint Old Northern Woman, and she said it was a wonderful idea, and she would write some inspiring verse for it, or maybe cookery hints, like: In Yorkshire We Eat Faggots.
Em has a knack for writing doggerel verse, which is very saleable: practically every greeting card seems to contain one of hers. Now she reminded me that we all had old portable typewriters. Father bought them when it became clear that we weren’t going to write Gondal-type stories in the minute notebooks he kept giving us. Perhaps he thought we needed a bit of twentieth-century apparatus?
When I found mine, the ribbon had dried to paper tape, and trying to buy a new one proved to be a vain quest, for the computer age had overtaken me.
When I eventually did track one down it was the wrong sort and I had to hand-wind it onto the old spools. I may have red and blue hands for the rest of my life. Still, it works.
Skint Old Northern Woman
In this issue:
Tart up that skirt
Normal women bulge
Superfluous hair
Bulimia for beginners: what to do if your body doesn’t want to part with the food
My roots are turning slowly silver as the divorce proceedings trundle tumbrel-like towards the final division. I’ve always had long hair, but I don’t think all that dye will come out. It looks quite interesting, though – more badgerish than Cruella.
My clothes I can’t do much about at the moment, since they are all black; mostly culled from charity shops and jumble sales. And there are one or two floaty Ghost things, purchased at who-knows-what-price or with what credit card by Matt in London, but they are black, too.
Since I’m not the same person who eloped with Matt, it doesn’t seem right that I should look the same, especially if I’m moving back to Upvale. I’m going full circle on my life, but surely it should be a different me that returns?
Every Woman for Herself Page 2