Unsuitable Men

by Pippa Wright

  ‘Oh, I think it might have been me who was unsuitable this time,’ I said, remembering Sebastian’s lip curling in disgust at my failed joke.

  ‘You, unsuitable? I should think not, Rory,’ said Percy loyally.

  ‘Can I get anyone a drink?’ I offered, hoping that I could distract them from further analysis of the state of my love life in front of our resident plumber.

  ‘I think we’re fine,’ said Jim. ‘Why don’t you come and sit down?’ He had an infuriating manner which, while sounding as if he was including me, effectively excluded me by making it seem as if I was the outsider here.

  ‘Why would you think you were unsuitable, darling?’ demanded Auntie Lyd, putting down her cards and lighting a new cigarette. She squinted at me across the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, I’m just joking, it was fine really,’ I said. ‘Bit of a non-starter though.’ I wanted to sit down at the kitchen table, but I didn’t want it to look like I was doing it just because Jim had said so. Instead I put the kettle on for a cup of tea that I didn’t want.

  ‘Oh come on, dear,’ said Eleanor, her face radiant from proximity to the plumber. ‘You can’t leave us in suspense. You know we all positively live for the stories of your dates. Always so entertaining! Do tell us about this one.’

  ‘Yes, do, Dawn,’ said Jim, his eyes twinkling over the top of his hand of cards. He was sitting with his legs spread wide apart, a hand on his thigh. That alpha-male pose that says, I’m in charge here.

  ‘Was this the war correspondent, darling?’ asked Auntie Lyd.

  ‘Yes. Sebastian,’ I said. They clearly weren’t going to let me get away with not talking about him. ‘I’m sure he’s a nice person, but he seemed to find me a bit too lightweight and frivolous. I expect he needs a girl who’s rather more serious and cerebral.’

  Auntie Lyd’s brow furrowed as she inhaled deeply on her cigarette.

  ‘Whatever do you mean? You’re perfectly intelligent, Rory If Sebastian couldn’t see that in the space of one evening it’s hardly your fault.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said, shrugging. ‘I should have realized a tough war correspondent wasn’t going to be comfortable in the poncy bar I chose. It was a bit stupid of me not to think it through.’

  ‘Well, he should have had the manners to at least pretend it was okay,’ said Jim, interrupting my conversation with Auntie Lyd. ‘Sounds like a tool to me.’

  Who was he to comment on my love life?

  ‘He’s damaged,’ I said, goaded into defending Sebastian even though I thought he was a tool as well. ‘He’s damaged and complex from all the terrible things he’s seen.’

  Jim raised an eyebrow.

  ‘If you ask me,’ declared Auntie Lyd in the voice that presaged a wise pronouncement, ‘war zones are full of people who were deeply damaged long before they got there. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the sort of man who masks his own psychological issues by burying himself in dangerous physical situations instead.’

  ‘Such as dates with Dawn,’ offered Jim, chuckling at his own joke.

  ‘Ooh, you are terrible,’ giggled Eleanor, squeezing his arm for a little too long.

  ‘Rory,’ said Auntie Lyd, ignoring them both, ‘remember your column is called Unsuitable Men; you are not the unsuitable one.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. It seemed strange that she should be so defensive of me, so ready to ascribe the worst motives to Malky and Sebastian and any of the men I’d been seeing, and yet so blind to the way Jim was using her.

  Percy’s eyes had adopted the faraway look that indicated a theatrical quote was imminent. I saw that Eleanor could see it too; she rolled her eyes at me.

  I decided against sitting down. ‘I think I’m going to go to bed,’ I said.

  I didn’t go to sleep for a long time. I couldn’t hear the voices of the others from all the way in my attic room, but I knew they were all down there and I felt like they would be talking about me. Then I berated myself for being so self-centred as to imagine they had nothing better to discuss. More likely Jim was being molested by Eleanor while eyeing up Auntie Lyd and her financial assets, such as they were. Somehow the knowledge that all four of them were downstairs laughing and joking and playing cards made me feel impossibly lonely. My chin began to tremble as I thought of Martin. I had never felt lonely with him. Even when I was on my own, the very fact of his existence had reassured me that I was loved and needed. I knew who I was when I was in that relationship. Trying to please one man was so much easier than trying to please a different one every time I embarked on a new date.

  There was no sign of Jim the following morning and I couldn’t work out if this was a good or a bad thing. Maybe he was finally getting a life of his own. Maybe the plumbing job was finished at last. Percy and Eleanor were hissing insults at each other across the table as usual. I tried not to get involved in their morning disagreements, which could be set off by something as minor as someone failing to pass the sugar with sufficient speed. Today’s, from what I could glean without looking interested enough to be dragged in on one side or the other, was a reprise of the longest-running argument of all: whose fault it was that Auntie Lyd allowed neither of them to do any cooking. It was one of the few house rules, and the most sternly enforced. Although both were welcome to help themselves to anything from the fridge at any time, use of any electrical or gas appliance (with the sole exception of the kettle) was forbidden. Percy blamed Eleanor for setting fire to the toaster one morning in the distant past, claiming she had done it on purpose to necessitate a visit from the firemen at the station on the other side of Elgin Square. Eleanor insisted it was an accident and that Auntie Lyd had instigated the ban after enduring the odour of Percy’s preferred kipper breakfast once too often.

  I suspected the actual answer was that Auntie Lyd feared her elderly residents might do themselves some harm when handling her heavy Le Creuset pans, but, whatever the reason, it meant my aunt stood at the stove, as she did every morning, stirring the porridge. I chose to join her there rather than enter the fray at the table.

  ‘Did you sleep?’ she asked, correctly diagnosing, from the dark circles under my eyes, that I had not.

  ‘Not really,’ I shrugged. There was no point trying to hide it from Auntie Lyd; she would winkle out the truth if I tried to lie.

  ‘I hope you weren’t losing sleep over that silly man from last night,’ she said, pulling me towards her with one arm while stirring with the other.

  ‘No. Just thinking about Martin,’ I muttered into her shoulder, half wanting to talk to her about it and half hoping she wouldn’t hear me.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ she said, pulling away to look at me. ‘Martin? Not still?’

  ‘I know,’ I said, my eyes cast down to the floor. ‘Stupid, isn’t it? I’m just tired of the unsuitable men. I miss being with someone.’

  Auntie Lyd put down her wooden spoon and took me by the shoulders. ‘Aurora Carmichael, you are missing being in a relationship, you are not missing Martin. There is a big difference and you need to be clear about that.’

  ‘I know,’ I mumbled. Of course I knew that, but however unsuitable Martin might be, at least he wasn’t vastly my senior, or socially incompetent or a flaky musician, or, worse, one of the ‘U R hawt’ internet possibilities. Next to these unsuitables even the man who dumped me for another woman began to look like a prince.

  ‘Rory, I mean it,’ said Auntie Lyd, looking at me sternly as if she could actually hear my internal dialogue. ‘Martin is a cheater. Worse: a cheater and a bore. You are well shot of him. Trust me, you should be feeling sorry for his new girlfriend instead of yourself.’

  ‘I know,’ I said again. And I did – in my head. It was my heart that was the problem; no matter how much I tried to embrace the mission of unsuitable men, my heart yearned for just one, very specifically suitable one.

  ‘Lydia,’ called Percy, turning around in his chair to plead with her, ‘do you really permit this woman to insult me thus in my own home
?’

  ‘It is every bit as much my home as yours, you ridiculous old drama queen,’ hissed Eleanor.

  ‘Thou vile serpent,’ insisted Percy.

  ‘Porridge, anyone?’ offered Auntie Lyd, smiling from her position at the stove as if she had heard none of it.

  ‘Sometimes I think dear Lydia should get her ears tested,’ muttered Percy.

  ‘She’d probably prefer to hear nothing at all than have to listen to you,’ said Eleanor. ‘Wait, is that the doorbell?’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Auntie Lyd.

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ said Percy under his breath.

  ‘I’m sure it was the doorbell,’ said Eleanor, hopping off her stool and moving towards the stairs with whisky-fuelled agility. ‘It might be the postman. I’m expecting a few things.’

  She returned a few minutes later with her arms full of parcels.

  ‘Who are all of those for?’ demanded Percy. ‘Is there anything for me?’

  ‘For you?’ asked Eleanor, keeping her arms jealously wrapped around the parcels as she lowered them on to the kitchen table. ‘Why would there be anything for you? Have you done any shopping on the broadband?’

  ‘Shopping?’ asked Percy, sneering.

  ‘Yes, shopping, Percival,’ said Eleanor. ‘Or have you yet to realize there is more to the broadband than just endlessly looking up your own name?’

  Percy coughed uncomfortably and didn’t answer.

  ‘What have you been buying, Eleanor?’ asked Auntie Lyd. She brought the porridge to the table and Eleanor, less paranoid with her in close proximity, released her grip on the parcels.

  ‘Oh, just things,’ said Eleanor. ‘Jim showed me how to go on something called the eBay, and you would be astonished at what you can pick up there for next to nothing.’ She picked up one of the parcels and weighed it in her hand speculatively.

  ‘Why don’t you just open it?’ said Percy irritably. ‘It’s not Christmas, you know. You’re allowed to open it without guessing what it is as if you were a child.’

  ‘I think this one might be for you, Lydia,’ said Eleanor, tearing open the brown paper and lifting the lid of the white box inside. Her watery eyes opened wide with delight as she pulled out an absolutely hideous green marble table lighter. Carved out of a block of stone the precise colour of the avocado bathroom suite Jim had just removed from upstairs, it was heavy enough to make her hand tremble as she held it. She passed it over to Auntie Lyd and reached back into the box to bring out a matching ashtray.

  ‘Goodness, Eleanor, you really shouldn’t be spending your money on me,’ said Auntie Lyd, turning the table lighter in her hands, probably considering how long she would have to have it on display before donating it to the charity shop.

  ‘It looks lethal,’ said Percy, his eyes narrowed in suspicion, no doubt believing that the treacherous and untrustworthy Eleanor, despite the fact she could barely hold the lighter, would find a way to stove his head in with it.

  ‘This one is for you, Rory,’ said Eleanor, pushing a large opened parcel across the table towards me. ‘I hope you like it, dear.’

  Inside the polystyrene curls nestled an enormous yellow and brown flowered lampshade, fringed with brown tassels. Eleanor must have hit a rich vein of seventies cast-offs in her eBay explorations.

  ‘Wow,’ I said, lifting it out to see it more clearly, but it was no more attractive out of the box than it had been in it.

  ‘Your room is so bare, dear,’ smiled Eleanor sweetly, and I felt a painful stab of sadness as I realized how true this was. I had thought I would only be in the attic bedroom for a few weeks so it hadn’t seemed worth making an effort. And yet I had already been there for nearly two months. And it felt like I might be there for ever.

  ‘There is nothing in there that shows your personality, dear, no personal touches,’ Eleanor continued. ‘I wasn’t sure what to get you, but dear Lydia said you just love anything that is a bit old.’

  Auntie Lyd made a face at me behind Eleanor’s back which I think was an attempt to deny all responsibility for the choice of the lampshade.

  ‘Must be why Rory doesn’t mind living with you,’ said Percy. ‘Seeing as you’re so old yourself.’

  ‘Percy,’ admonished Auntie Lyd, frowning at him.

  ‘If you speak to me like that, Percival, I shall keep your present for myself,’ declared Eleanor. She picked up her whisky and sipped at it, her watery eyes issuing a mild challenge to Percy, whose expression changed from indignant to grudgingly expectant. If I were him, having seen the presents Auntie Lyd and I had received, I would have let her keep it.

  ‘I do apologize, Eleanor,’ he said at last. ‘Quite unnecessary of me.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Eleanor agreed, putting her whisky down. She reached into the pile of parcels for the smallest one; a short brown tube with plastic caps fixed on each end. Placing it in front of her on the table, she appeared to scrutinize the label for a few minutes.

  Percy coughed and crossed his legs, obviously itching to grab the parcel out of Eleanor’s reach, but attempting to be patient.

  ‘Here you are,’ she said, finally pushing it across the kitchen table. It rolled towards Percy, stopping when it hit his bowl of porridge.

  He picked it up with such studied nonchalance it might have been a drama-school exercise: pretend you are an excited elderly thespian who doesn’t want to admit he is dying to see what his female nemesis might have bought him. Do not let your nemesis suspect your interest in the gift.

  Opening the tube, he pulled out a battered magazine. He unfurled it, smoothing the pages out in front of him to show the cover. I could just read, upside-down, the Radio Times.

  ‘Eleanor,’ Percy said, in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘Is it . . . ?’

  I raised my eyebrows at Auntie Lyd, but she just shrugged. Clearly she had no idea what was happening either.

  ‘It is,’ said Eleanor, settling back in her chair with triumphant satisfaction. ‘It is the Radio Times from the 14th of May 1979.’

  ‘May 1979?’ I asked, trying to decipher the looks that were passing between Eleanor and Percy. I was astonished to see that the deep lines around Percy’s eyes were wet with tears.

  ‘The first ever broadcast of Whoops! There Goes the Neighbourhood,’ he said in an unsteady voice. All of his usual bluster and pomp had dissolved, replaced with a hesitant excitement. ‘I’m not certain, but I think in this issue there might be . . .’ He started to flick through the magazine.

  ‘A full profile of you?’ said Eleanor. ‘Page twenty-six.’

  ‘Eleanor, what an absolutely lovely thing to do,’ said Auntie Lyd, beaming at this rare moment of residential harmony.

  ‘I know,’ said Eleanor, looking immensely pleased with herself. ‘I even outbid the Ashby-de-la-Zouch branch of Percy’s fan club to get it.’

  ‘I have an Ashby-de-la-Zouch fan club?’ sighed Percy, blinking away more tears. His white-knuckled hands gripped the tattered copy of the Radio Times as if he would never let go of it.

  There was a sound from the stairs, and the kitchen door swung open to show Jim standing in the doorway, beaming as if expecting a rapturous welcome.

  ‘Morning, all,’ he announced. I felt unkindly pleased that everyone was too engrossed in looking at Percy’s Radio Times to pay Jim the attention he thought of as his due. He seemed to think we’d all start genuflecting just because he’d walked into the room.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Jim asked, sauntering over to the table where Percy had opened the magazine to the full profile. ‘No way, Perce, is that you?’

  We all stared at the glossy photograph of a much younger Percy Granger, smiling confidently from under a bird’s-wing sweep of chestnut-brown hair that pre-empted Princess Diana’s feather cut by years. He wore a lemon-yellow V-necked jumper that would not have shamed the wardrobe of Lance Garcia, but which, unlike Lance’s, was worn without a hint of irony. A golden chain glinted from within a tangle of dark chest hair.
/>   ‘In my prime,’ whispered Percy, gazing at the photograph. ‘In my prime.’

  ‘Christ, you were a good-looking man, Perce,’ said Jim, leaning down to look at the picture more closely. ‘Still are, I mean. But look at you there – I bet you were mobbed by the ladies wherever you went.’

  Percy sat up a little straighter in his chair, a lone tear drying on his cheek. ‘I certainly didn’t want for female company,’ he agreed.

  ‘Oh, he was absolutely gorgeous,’ said Auntie Lyd, pulling the magazine towards her to look at the photographs. ‘I remember when Linda and I were filming the first series of Those Devereux Girls, we got thrown off the set of Whoops! for trying to sneak into Percy’s dressing room.’

  ‘Auntie Lyd!’ I said. ‘You stalked Percy!’

  ‘Did you?’ asked Percy, regarding Auntie Lyd with great interest.

  ‘Oh yes, but you were far too grand to be bothered with two silly girls like us,’ she laughed. ‘Lin ended up going off with one of the security guards instead and I— Well, never mind what I did.’ She laughed again but it seemed that, for just a second, her face darkened.

  ‘Well,’ declared Percy, his chest distended with pride. ‘I am very flattered. Very flattered indeed. Stalked by Linda Ellery and Lydia Bell.’

  ‘There are men all over London who’d love to have been in your shoes, Perce,’ said Jim, nudging Percy’s shoulder.

  ‘Oh honestly, Jim,’ said Auntie Lyd, blushing. She picked up her porridge bowl and took it over to the sink. It wasn’t an act – she didn’t seem to enjoy talking about her time as an actress, unlike Percy and Eleanor, who could speak of nothing else.

  ‘It’s true, you know, Lydia dear,’ said Eleanor, nodding her head in agreement. ‘I tried to buy you a copy of the Sunday Times Magazine from 1983 with the big mud-fight photo shoot of you and Linda Ellery, but it seems it’s a collectors’ item these days. I simply couldn’t afford it.’

  ‘Really?’ said Auntie Lyd, looking over her shoulder. ‘How bizarre.’

  ‘It was such a shame you retired from acting so young, dear,’ said Eleanor.