by Mavis Cheek
In one of the photographs of Lorna I used to see a plea for vengeance - if not a characteristic of hers in life, then certainly one that I allowed to her in death. Now, suddenly, I saw Saskia's eyes in hers - not surprising since they were now not far apart in age - and Saskia's eyes were pleading for something altogether different.
No more housework today, I decided, and took myself out into the fine warm air instead.
Colin and I had lunch in a pub by the river. I said that the metaphor it presented of the flowing water of life was made more appropriate by my sitting with one old flame and discussing the new. 'Come off it,' Colin replied, with a dismissive - and offensive - wave of his hand. 'You can't dress this up so lyrically.'
I reminded him that Ovid had used a river several times to illustrate just such a fantasy, and that he had been among the most pragmatic of poet/lover combinations going.
' "Rivers know all about love themselves.
Inachus pined, we're told, for Melia the Bithynian
At her touch his icy shallows thawed."
'He gives a whole list of tough cookies whose lives are reborn by the eternal water's flow.'
'Knickers to that,' said Colin, raising his manly pint. 'All I'm saying is that you got this man out of a newspaper and you can't go turning the prose of that into poetry. You can try' - he swigged again - 'but even you won't be able to succeed with that. That's poetry, this is life.'
'I can succeed with anything, Colin,' I told him, 'because this is my fantasy. And since this is my fantasy - ' I stared out over the water, gleaming seductively in the sunlight, the brightness hiding any noisome objects that dipped and bobbed through its surface - 'it will be exactly as I say.'
'It'll end in tears,' he said defiantly. 'You should come a little more up to date in your literary leanings and think about Emma. Couldn't see the wood for the trees.'
I laughed. 'Do you mean Roger's new lady?' I asked innocently.
'I mean Jane Austen's female blind spot. As well you know.'
'You just don't want me to be any different from you and the hundreds of others who just muddle through instead of taking their destiny in their own hands and doing something positive.'
'Emma Woodhouse,' he said. 'Would you like another half?'
While I waited, closing my eyes to the warm sun and feeling very much better now that I was out and about and not up in Sassy's room dealing with history's dust, I suddenly thought about the Nicaraguan question. There is absolutely no point in a man telling a woman that there is something pertinent to his modus operandi which he is obliged to keep from her. She may well sit there and nod sagely and appear to keep thinking only of the lasagne verde, but eventually she will be mighty curious, as I was now. What happened to his wife? What made him choose to go to the very depths of hell like a character out of Waugh? He was so nice - such an ordinary seeming man, really. So what could it be?
Colin's advice was to forget all about it. Concentrate on the here and now. If he was going, he had a reason. If he didn't want to talk about it, he also had a reason. 1 envy-men their simplicity. He was right, of course, and to concentrate on the here and now was exactly what I aimed to do.
'Talking of which,' Colin said, 'how is the here and now?' He winked across his cheese roll. I told him that we were saving that for a more romantic setting, so that we got it absolutely right first time. He stopped chewing and eyed me in amazement.
'You've gone soft,' he said.
'Romantic,' I corrected. 'And in a relationship between two mature people, it's perfectly easy. It's only when you mess about with giggly things fifteen years your junior it gets messy.' I leaned across and fixed my eyes on him. 'Why not try someone a little nearer your age? It could be fun. You could advertise. It does work ...'
Colin's eyes bulged. 'Not on your life,' he said. 'I'm staying just the way I am.'
'You'll be wearing a condom in your nineties,' I said scornfully.
'I certainly hope so,' he laughed. 'And I am not being Emma Woodhoused out of it.'
When I got home, I wrote to Jill. Because I didn't want to lie to her, my letter was fairly restrained. There was a new man in my life and I was bringing him up with me. I knew she would be pleased. Then I lay on my unseductive bed watching television, feeling pretty smug. It was nice to have a man out there for a while. And Colin, content in his bimbos, was absurd. Emma Woodhouse, indeed. I was surprised he had even read it.
Chapter Twenty-one
It isn't very pleasant but Judith and Dad are just about managing to do it gracefully. All her things have been collected.
What went wrong? Judith says he just never let her get close. Dad just smiled when I asked him. Things move on, he said. It doesn't seem to affect his work. Nothing does. Now there is a
lesson.
Jill stands, holding the letter, staring out of the window, dazzled by the morning sun. David puts his head round the door and says that he is going now. Back at seven. Don't forget the oil in the car. She hears the door bang, watches this husband of hers walk across the gravel of the drive, open his car door, struggle with it slightly in the fierce wind, sit, close it and start the engine. Gone at last. She sees the fields, the new growth, buffeted and sparkling in the cold, sharp sunshine. Beyond their land the sheep track up the mountain is clearly delineated, as if spotlit. 'Might go for a walk this afternoon,' she mutters to herself, putting the letter down, scratching the back of her hand, which does not really itch. She looks out of the window again and shivers, for although the month is May. it is cold out there. I will remind Margaret to bring warm clothing, she thinks, and she will have to remind him too. She dials her friend's number. She puts the phone down before it can be answered. No, she does not want to talk to Margaret yet. She must assimilate. The tone of the letter has the half-suppressed excitement of involuntary delight - as if it were written by someone who could say more but daren't. In fact it is both half-suppressed and bald in its information. 'I met him very recently,' it says, 'and I think he is A Good Thing. I think you'll like him, and David as well. And - yes - we sleep in the same bed! Just to save you asking. I thought about putting you through the embarrassment of deciding what to do etiquettically, but didn't think it was fair on him. Well, you old romantic, what do you think? I think he's someone you'll approve of at last. He makes Roger look like what comes out of the tap when the washer's gone . . .'
Jill ponders this last as she zips up her anorak and slips her feet into her Wellingtons. She does not want to go out there today, she really does not, but the activity will be good for her, help her to think, help her to come to terms. Ye gods! she thinks, as she strides across to where the others labour, what have I got to come to terms with? This is my friend, this is my friend who has been lonely, unaroused, self-sacrificing, afraid, and who has now, finally, found something romantic and exciting. So why do I need to come to terms? I'll get over it. It has just been a bit of a shock, that's all ... How cleanly these carrots come out of the ground. As she moves along the line, bending low, grunting, feeling the satisfactory ease of the culling, she tries to put out of her head thoughts of being unarouscd, lonely, self-sacrificing ...
Gradually, as she moves bent-peasant fashion, she catches up with Sidney. 'Just damp enough, the ground,' he says, and she watches his huge raw hands which work swiftly at the task. If only he were less bucolic, more rugged, she might be able to have some kind of fantasy about him. She agrees the ground is easy today. And then finds herself saying, because she is still puzzled, 'What comes out of the tap when the washer has gone?'
He looks at her. More woman's madness, she reads in his face. He sucks his pipe. Humour the boss. He would much rather work for a man. He considers. Then says slowly as if he were Solomon, 'Drips.'
She stares. Of course. Drips! How very, very funny. She stands up and laughs and this time she makes no excuses for herself. Let them think what they like. It is funny. That is precisely what Roger was - a drip. She returns to the soil. I wonder, she thinks, what
this one will turn out to be?
Later, after supper, when David is sitting in the settee -she considers it as 'in' instead of'on' because he sort of sinks into it and becomes a living extension of it - she tells him about Margaret's news. David's first and only question is 'What does he do?' And on hearing that he is an architect, David says, 'Good. I can ask him about that pitched roof on your storehouse.' He is satisfied with that. What Jill thinks is that while the men are off doing men's things, she will be free to discuss this new and interesting phenomenon with her pal. She has put off telephoning her for some preliminary discussion - the normal procedure - because she wants to sound full of enthusiasm and approval, and she hasn't quite got there yet.
'They sleep together,' she says to the newspaper.
David reveals himself and laughs good-humouredly, but he doesn't close the pages, merely peers over them. 'I should bloody well think so. Better put them next to Giles's room or they'll be keeping us awake all night.' He laughs again and folds the paper ready for the crossword.
'They've only known each other a short while.'
'Earplugs then,' says David.
He is nice, thinks Jill. My husband is a very nice man and I am very fond of him. She goes and sits beside him and they peer at the clues.
'Some G & S to get you in the mood for housework?' he says.
'Pinafore. Clever me.'
He pats her shoulder. 'Woman's clue,' he says. She checks his expression. It is almost innocent. 'I'd better go and get their room ready.'
'Whose room?'
'Margaret's . . . and .. . er. . . his.'
'Bit soon, isn't it? You've got over a week. Do we know his name?'
'Simon. But she seems to call him Oxford.'
David does not look up but he says, so that she could smack him for his percipience, 'You don't sound as if you approve. Any thing's better than that other bloke.'
'Roger.'
'I shouldn't think he could.7
'Could what?'
'Roger,' said David smugly.
'Oh, you only didn't approve because he showed no interest in the Flymo.'
'Rubbish. Besides, everyone likes riding on the things. And a help with cutting the grass wouldn't have come amiss. No spunk. What's feminine and royal in pink beads?'
'Pearly queen.'
'Where would I be without you?'
But she has already gone, out of the door, padding up the stairs, into the large bedroom at the back of the house, window half covered with cautiously budding wisteria that trails its tendrils in the wind. The room smells of old rose petals from the dish by the bed. The coverlet is smooth, dark red silk, something someone brought back from China, inherited from David's grandmother. It was their first double-bed cover, now relegated to the spare room to make way for the new Italian print from Conran. She runs her fingers over its cold sheen. It feels infinitely sensual. She bends her head and touches her cheek against it. The nice thing about this kind of silk is that it doesn't show the creases after lust, she remembers. It billows like a conjuror's robe and lies back smooth and flat and innocent afterwards. She had forgotten that. She goes to the top of the stairs and calls her husband. 'Come and help me test something out,' she says, and goes back into the room to lie on the bed. The scent of the petals is erotic, so is the touch of the silk and the memories.
Downstairs the telephone bleeps. David answers it and she can hear the resonance of his voice. She lies there, waiting. When the resonance has gone, she lifts her head and listens. Far away she can hear the tinnier sound of the television. She draws up her knees and lies there for a while longer, staring at the ceiling, smelling the scent of the petals, trying to think enthusiastically about Margaret's lover, until David calls to her that the news is on.
Chapter Twenty-two
Judith wanted to know about Dad's past because, apparently, he would never speak about it. I decided to respect his silence.
He's making some curious paintings at the moment, really exuberant and colourful, with a lot of joy about them. He says they are to do with me. Also lots of drawings.
It was a very funny hotel. A bit of a risk, he said, but we agreed afterwards - or was it during? - that it was worth it. An old manor house just south of Hexham and Corbridge, set in (according to the guide book) an area of outstanding natural beauty. This part was true; it was the description 'hotel' that was eccentrically wanting. For the place was much more as if we had stumbled upon a country house weekend. As new - or prospective! - lovers, it was not the place to choose if you had the hots.
All the things that Oxford had chosen it for were correct --the view from the bedroom, the four-poster bed, the antique furniture and paintings, the good food and wine served in an oak-panelled dining-room, its individualism — but we were more like guests in the true sense of the word than anonymous arrivals who had come here for a romantic coupling before paying and passing on. This helped to heighten the anticipation of our lovers' denouement. We were kept on our toes from arrival to bedtime, and opportunities for groping or game-playing were few.
We arrived later than intended because of a puncture. That neither of us got cross boded well. He got out and got under while I sunned myself at the side of the Al and read up on Hexham Abbey and Roman Corbridge, just supposing we had time to go there . .. Part of me, watching him perform that quintessential male task, was titillated - God knows when liberation will truly overtake the soggy inner pleasure of being looked after - and part of me was embarrassed, for he had removed his shirt and lay on a rug. I kept turning my eyes from Hexham Abbey's Saxon crypt and fifteenth-century paintings to his chest, ribs and hairy bits, and I couldn't help but think that soon they would be less a distant view and more a sensual fact. . .
Our conversation going up was fairly general. We talked about the hospital project he was working on in Oxford, joked about Verity, pointed out things of interest along the way. For some of the time we listened to Tristan and Isolde -not very appropriate perhaps, but beautiful. The weather, which had been sharp and cold and blustery, had turned kind and there was an air of holiday happiness about the jaunt. At one point, after we had been stuck behind a pig truck for several miles and he demanded that I held his nose, the laughter nearly made me say, 'Lovers who laugh together stay together,' but I stopped myself just in time. No doubt Mr and Mrs Crippen shared a few jokes in the early days . . .
'How are you feeling?' he asked, as we turned left at Darlington. 'Fine,' I said, and wished I could add, 'Except for the tom-toms in my solar plexus when you ask me questions like that. . .'
Probably the only irritating aspect of our journey northwards was that he seemed to be a great deal more relaxed about everything than I was. Something to do with having taken control, I suspect. So when we finally arrived and stood holding hands and staring at the ivy-covered frontage of Marston Manor, I was amused to see erupt from the peaceful portico a tall thin man of latter years, in tweed jacket and beige cavalry twill. He rubbed his hands and strode towards us, saying, 'Welcome, welcome. Bit late but never mind, never mind . . .' Then he extended one of the rubbed hands to shake Oxford's, then mine, and to take finally both our overnight bags. True, I thought, as I followed his jolly gait into the building, the sign saying 'Hotel' was very small and discreet - but this was much more a scene from Brideshead than a touristical exercise.
Oxford signed us in and mine host led us up the heavily carved staircase to our room, called by him the oriel room, which was more like a dowager's boudoir than a guest room. The bed was a tapestried affair and had certainly not been bought at recent auction. The two armchairs matched the hangings of both bed and window and the walls were panelled. Panic set in that we were not going to have a bathroom but the heavy wooden door to this was merely half hidden by an old brocade curtain. What I love about traditional ownership is that it always includes wonderful fabrics just draped casually about as if organic - faded certainly, threadbare perhaps, but gorgeous stuffs nevertheless. The bedcover was straight out of a
Veronese dusty, rich washed-out pink, embossed with silk embroidery, and so heavy that when I lifted a corner and let it fall back against the pillow it made a satisfying flump.
Mine host did not do anything with the gentle demeanour of paid staff. He strode to the curtained door, flung it wide and revealed a large white bath, black and white tiled floor and contrastingly rich tiles on the walls.
'Edwardian,' he said, when I went 'ooh'. 'Bit OTT, but at least they did it out before the local authority chappies slapped a preservation order on it. Rather have plumbing than a Victorian Gothic dressing-room any day. What?'