by Sue Margolis
“Behave. You are a very attractive woman.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind.”
“Kindness has got nothing to do with it. It’s true.”
He leaned in, cupped my face in his hands and kissed me. After a moment or two, I pulled away. “Come on. Let’s drive back to your place and go to bed.”
“Not tonight. See how you feel after you’ve got rid of the clothes.”
• • •
Despite my protests, I know that Mike is right to insist we take things slowly. He is giving me time to arrange my emotions so that I can make room for him, without forcing Brian out. I’ve asked Mike if he’s jealous of my feelings for Brian.
“A bit maybe. I’m only human. But they’re precious. I wouldn’t dream of getting in the way of them. If things get serious between us, I am going to have to learn to live alongside all that.”
His kindness and generosity are just two of the reasons I’m falling for this man. He’s also a very good listener. I can’t stand those older men who proffer loud opinions about the state of the world and how to fix it. Brian’s dad was like that. He seriously wondered how the planet would carry on spinning when he was gone. In many ways Mike is like Brian. But I try not to compare or contrast them. Mike is who he is. I don’t want him to think he’s competing with a dead man.
We see each other once, maybe twice a week. Mostly we go out to dinner—occasionally to a movie. But movies get in the way of talking and we talk a great deal. If Mike’s free during the day we might take a drive and have a pub lunch by the river. It’s all very comfortable and middle-aged. And I love it. That said—I didn’t love it the other night when Mike sat me down and made me listen to Led Zeppelin. My thoughts hadn’t changed since the seventies. “It’s just a racket,” I told him.
“Come on—‘Stairway to Heaven’ isn’t a racket.”
“No, it’s a monotonous dirge. And the guitar solo is just showy and affected.”
He shook his head, called me a philistine and acknowledged he was never going to change me. So far we’ve discovered only two things that we disagree on: Led Zeppelin and the merits of chocolate-coated orange peel. I’m a fan, whereas he considers all candied fruit to be the work of Satan.
• • •
It’s not just my growing friendship with Mike that dares me to think my life could be looking up. In other news, Rosie and Sam are getting along much better and Rosie is sleeping properly. Without the pressure of so many after-school activities, they’re starting to relax. Sam is still seeing Bogdan, which to my mind is far from ideal. The man still yells, but not so often or as loud. The chess competition is in a couple of weeks. Sam is nervous, but he’s holding up. The gossip about him setting off fireworks has yet to die down. A couple of mothers have canceled playdates. But Sam is so taken up with preparing for the tournament that he hasn’t noticed.
Ginny and Tanya also seem to have turned a corner. Tanya has stopped being a focus of school gossip—which gives me hope that soon Sam will do the same. She’s working from home again and back at the school gates.
Ginny’s big news is that she’s speaking to Emma. They made up because Ginny got stomach flu on the day of the spring fair. She called me first thing to say she was throwing up every few minutes and that she was scared because she kept feeling faint. I offered to come over, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Tanya and I were her deputies—which was news to me and, I suspect, to Tanya—and were needed to help set up stalls and generally direct operations and rally the troops. “I’ll call Emma and ask her to come and sit with me.”
Even though Ginny was at the fair in spirit only, it couldn’t have gone better. We raised ten thousand pounds for the school fund and Mum won a goldfish, which she named Topol. But Topol wasn’t long for this world. A week later, poor Topol was no more and Mum had flushed him down the loo. She thought it was OK to overfeed goldfish the way she overfeeds people.
Everybody attributed the fair’s success to Ginny’s exceptional organizational skills. I couldn’t argue with that. On the day, thanks to her printed instructions, everything slotted into place. Afterward, she received a large thank-you-slash-get-well bouquet from the PTA.
Most important of all, Abby and Tom think they might be back in a few weeks. The typhoid and cholera epidemic is pretty much under control. I couldn’t be happier. Each time we Skype, they look and sound exhausted. They’re ready to come home.
On the downside, the kids have nits. Abby recommended an organic lotion. If that didn’t work, I was to buy chemicals. She was quick to remind me not to mention the infestation to any of the mums. The unofficial line is that children at private school don’t get nits.
Mum has also fallen out with Estelle Silverfish. As I feared, she dug in her heels and refused to change her mind about going to Estelle’s granddaughter’s wedding. Despite her protestations about not being up to such a long day, I’m convinced that she couldn’t face it because Estelle Silverfish had decided to take Big Max. But whatever the truth, they’re not speaking.
Ditto Claudia and me. At the moment we’re happily avoiding each other. She has no idea I’m dating her father. I still think he should tell her on the grounds that she’ll be even more furious if she finds out by accident. Mike says what he always says, that it’s none of her business. But I think he’s playing a waiting game—betting that I will eventually cave in and call Claudia to initiate peace talks, just like Mrs. S.J. suggested. I am ashamed to admit that I have considered it. Loath as I am to countenance it, I could see a situation in which I might be forced to swallow my pride in order to protect my relationship with Mike.
• • •
“Ginny to Judy. Come in, Judy.” Ginny is waving at me from the back door.
“Sorry, hon. I was miles away.”
“Just to say that we’re done. Everything’s been bagged up and loaded into my car. Now, are you sure you don’t want to take a final look?”
I make my way across the lawn. “I’m absolutely sure.”
“Oh, and FYI,” Tanya says, appearing beside Ginny, “I’ve dusted the dresser drawers and the bottom of the closet. So there’s nothing for you to do.”
As I step inside, I call for a group hug. “Thank you so much. I don’t know what I would have done without you two.” I hand them each a box of posh chocs. Tanya says I shouldn’t have.
“Yes, she bloody should,” Ginny laughs. “I can’t remember the last time I tasted chocolate that wasn’t a Snickers or a Kit Kat.”
After Ginny and Tanya leave, I make a point of not going upstairs to look at the row of empty hangers and cry. Instead I get ready to go out. Mum’s day center is having its annual open day—the mayor is coming—and I promised I’d drop in as soon as I could get away. Since Rosie and Sam are still on spring break, she’s taken them along to show them off. They seemed happy enough to go. Unlike me, Mum doesn’t believe in bribing children, so I can only assume that she persuaded them to go by playing her “Do it for your old Nana, who’s not long for this world” card.
When I arrive, most of the old folk and their families are in the lounge. An amateur choir is performing songs from the shows. The upright, pee-proof armchairs have been arranged in rows and everybody’s singing along to “Second Hand Rose.” I look for Mum, but she’s not there. It’s odd because when she’s in the mood she enjoys a good singsong. Maybe she and her friends are teaching the kids how to play rummy in the games room.
I should go and look for her, but I don’t. It’s not the third-rate singers that keep me rooted. It’s the audience. I know I’m staring, but I can’t help it. Lately I’ve developed a morbid fascination with advanced old age. There’s plenty of it here: shuffling men in baggy track suit bottoms and pee-spattered Velcro trainers. Whiskery old ladies hunched over their walking frames. Twenty-five years from now, that could be me. Mum has told Abby more than once that she wants to be put down if she gets like that. Abby assures her she’ll die in her sleep after making a roast chicken dinner for the entire fami
ly and changes the subject.
I can’t believe I’m getting old. OK—older. I know I shouldn’t complain. I’ve made it this far. Brian didn’t. I’m lucky. Even so, aging has taken me by surprise. I find it hard to believe that I was once this right-on student who could quote long passages from The Female Eunuch. I wore tie-dyed Tshirts and knew all the words to “Suzanne” and the Monty Python parrot sketch. Hell, I even owned a Pet Rock. (When I told Mike about the Pet Rock, he said he’d had one, too. He decided to buy me one as a memento. Turned out people were selling them on eBay with the original carrying cases for nine dollars. It’s now sitting on top of the cistern in the downstairs loo. The kids call it Dave—after the mailman).
I think about dying a lot. It’s a new thing. After Brian died I was too busy mourning him to consider my own demise. It’s the aches and pains that get me going. When I wake up in the morning, my body feels stiff. If I walk too far, my back aches and my hips feel sore. Sometimes my thumbs hurt for no reason. I haven’t told Mum because it would turn into a competition, which she would have to win. But I’m aware that my bones and joints are starting to wear out. Whenever I think about dying, I’m reminded of when I was a kid and I used to lie awake at night, trying to imagine infinity. It caused pandemonium and panic in my brain and I’d call out to Mum. The same happens now—minus the mum bit—when I think about ceasing to be. What’s more, for an atheist, it sucks not being able to look forward to the afterlife. Oblivion doesn’t have quite the same allure as eternal bliss and resurrection. I’ve told Mike I’m considering downgrading to agnostic. He called me a wuss. I said I didn’t care.
• • •
Eventually I wander into the games room, which is quieter. A few men are playing chess. They’re not as old as the ones in the lounge. They’re wearing flannels and pastel-colored sweaters and they’ve taken the trouble to shave. One of them is playing Sam. There’s a small group gathered round watching and discussing Sam’s technique. “See how he plays for king attacks? Now he’s moved his bishop at f-one to c-four. Perfect setup. Unless of course he’s left his queen exposed—which he hasn’t.”
Every time Sam makes a move the old men cheer. “Great move. Face it, Bernie, you don’t stand a chance against young Kasparov here. The kid has you licked.” Sam is beaming, lapping it up.
I decide to leave him to his game. By now I’ve spotted Rosie. She’s chatting to a particularly frail-looking old lady who is sitting alone at a card table playing patience. Her veined, knotty hands are shaking so much she can barely hold the cards.
“So, if you were a fruit or a vegetable, which one would you want to be? I’d want to be a potato because they have eyes … geddit? My teacher told us that joke… . So, you know you’re going to die soon, right? Well, my nana Frieda says that in the olden days people used to be buried with a bell to let people know in case they were still alive. I think you should ask for a bell and a phone. Then you could text people to tell them you were alive. Also I’ve got nits. Do you want to see? My head is really itchy. I asked Grandma if I could have one as a pet, but she said no.”
Luckily the old lady appears to be deaf.
I’m about to tell Rosie to leave the poor soul in peace when I spot Mum. She’s sitting on one of the sofas at the far end of the room, surrounded by half a dozen of her friends, who have pulled up chairs in a semicircle in front of her. More to the point, she’s weeping into her handkerchief.
“What on earth …”
I feel a hand on my arm. It’s Pam. She runs the center. Mum always refers to her as “Pam, the head one.” “If I were you,” she whispers, “I’d leave her.”
“But she’s upset. What’s going on?”
“Don’t laugh. They’re having an intervention.”
“Excuse me?”
Pam sits me down and explains in the most diplomatic terms she can muster that Mum’s friends are fed up with her.
“I’m not surprised. She never stops moaning about her health. She must drive them crazy.”
“No, it’s not that. They don’t mind Frieda complaining. They’re used to it and they love the fact that she’s happy to Google all their symptoms. They’re upset because of the way she treated Mrs. Silverfish. She’s so hurt that your mother didn’t go to her granddaughter’s wedding. The feeling is that your mum’s jealous of Mrs. Silverfish because she’s got a gentleman friend. I think Frieda would love a companion, but she’s convinced she’s too old.”
“Tell me about it. I keep telling her to join Estelle’s dating site. But she won’t.”
“And it’s this stubbornness that’s driving her friends mad. So they’ve decided to call her on it. I’m keeping an eye on things. They’re being very gentle with her. She’s got a bit emotional, that’s all.”
“I’m not surprised.”
I find a place to sit where Mum can’t see me, and Pam fetches me a cup of tea from the kitchen.
“But how long has this been going on? I can’t stand seeing her so upset.”
Pam says only about twenty minutes and that if I can bear to, I should give it a bit longer. “I’ve got a feeling they might be getting somewhere with her.”
I tell her I’m doubtful, but I agree to keep out of the way.
“Your grandson seems to be in his element over there,” Pam says. “When he was younger, Bernie had quite a reputation on the chess circuit. He won dozens of tournaments.”
“Really? But his friends seem to think he doesn’t stand a chance against Sam.”
Pam laughs. “I think you’ll find that was for Sam’s benefit.” She taps the side of her nose. Then she makes her excuses and leaves me. The mayor is due any minute and she needs to be in the lobby to greet him. Once she’s gone, I go back to watching the kids. Rosie has produced a Kinder Egg from her pocket and is unwrapping it for her old lady. Sam has just beaten Bernie, but he’s not pleased. “Why did you do that? I wasn’t controlling the center of the board. You know I wasn’t. You could have taken advantage, but you didn’t. You let me win.”
“I did no such thing,” Bernie says, doing his best to sound indignant.
“Yes, you did. Now we have to play again and you’ve got to promise to play properly.”
“OK, young man. You want a fight? You got one.”
They start setting up the chessboard. Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Mum is blowing her nose. Afterward Estelle Silverfish gives her a hug. Her friends are queuing up to give more hugs.
I’m torn. I don’t know whether to let her know I’m here and that I know what’s been going on or to disappear, give her a few minutes to compose herself and then show up as if nothing’s happened. I decide to make a quick exit and leave her with her dignity.
• • •
On the way home Mum goes on about how mediocre the singers were. “Off-key, the lot of them. But it was a good turnout. The mayor came with the mayoress. Would it have been too much effort for her to get her roots done for the occasion? But Sam and Rosie had a good time. Everybody went crazy for them.”
“Ladies kept pinching my cheek,” Rosie said. “And it hurt. And one of them said I was shiny.”
“She didn’t call you shiny,” Mum says, laughing. “She called you a shaineh maidel. It’s Yiddish for ‘pretty girl.’”
“I enjoyed playing chess with Bernie,” Sam pipes up. “He’s a great player. He beat me. Then afterward he showed me where I went wrong. It was good fun. Can I play him again?”
Strange as it may seem, this is the first time I have ever heard Sam refer to playing chess as fun.
“Seriously?” Mum says. “You want to play chess with an old man? Wouldn’t you rather play with kids of your own age?”
“Uh-uh. Bernie’s an amazing player.”
“OK. If you’re serious, I’ll ask him.”
• • •
I put off looking at Brian’s closet until bedtime. I open the double doors and stare into the emptiness. It’s done. The clothes are gone. But I haven’t destroyed h
is memory. Brian will be with me for as long as I live. I know that now.
I surprise myself by how well I sleep.
The following morning, I’m having a lie-in with coffee and the newspaper when my phone rings. It’s Mike. He wants to know how I’m feeling now that Brian’s clothes have gone.
“Surprisingly OK.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. I know I needed help doing it. But it was the right time.”
“OK … so would it be too soon to ask if you’d like to come to my place one night … I mean, for a sleepover?”
“Finally. I thought you’d never ask.”
It’s only after I’ve come off the phone that I realize a sleepover would mean leaving the kids with Mum. I can hear her pottering around downstairs. I reach for my dressing gown, which is lying beside me on the bed.
Mum is clearing away the kids’ breakfast things. They’re in the living room watching TV.
“Mum, Mike’s asked me to spend the night at his. How do you feel about that?”
“And good morning to you, too,” she says without looking up from the countertop she’s wiping.
“Sorry, but I wanted to ask you quickly, before the kids come barging in.”
“Fine. Go. You’re hardly likely to get pregnant.”
“No. I don’t mean how do you feel about it morally. I mean, would you be up for looking after the kids?”
“No problem. But you should tell them if I suddenly drop down dead from a heart attack they should run to a neighbor or call the ambulance.”
“You are such a ray of sunshine.”
“I’m just being practical.” She pauses. “Oh … and while we’re on the subject of men, I’ve had a change of heart.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m going to take a look at that dating site of Estelle’s.”
“Really? That’s amazing. It’ll be fun. It’ll take you out of yourself.”
“And Estelle and I have made up, by the way. I apologized for letting her down over the wedding. I was being selfish.”
“I’m glad. You shouldn’t fall out with your best friend. So how come you changed your mind about dating?”