by Mavis Cheek
Epilogue
Rivers move on.
Mark ditched Verity as soon as she had sold her script. No man, not even one so down on his luck, could sustain his honour under such punishing limelight. Verity said that my meeting Oxford had given her hope, which was crushed when he left me. Mark seemed an angel by comparison. What could I say?
Jill came to stay and Verity said afterwards that she was undoubtedly haying a very unhappy affair. Verity, I thought, you drink too much, but Jill confirmed that it was true. She said Oxford and I had just looked so romantic and she had wanted a little piece of heaven too. What could I say?
Joan and Reg married. When I asked Joan how she dared risk something for ever when she used to reckon a year was too long, she merely said that he was where she could keep an eye on him. 'Only one?' I nearly said, but forbore and handed her a rubber band instead.
Oxford wrote a few times and I replied. But my heart wasn't in it. And neither, it seems, was his. We'll exchange Christmas cards, and then one day those will cease. He will be free of the reeds, and that will be the last of Aunt Margaret's Lover. At least, the last of that one.
'Si latet ars, prodest,' says Ovid. 'Art is a lie that makes us see the truth,' says Picasso, two thousand years on. 'Look at me,' says the Matisse, as it hangs in its constancy on my wall.