Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

by Elizabeth Buchan

  ‘But it doesn’t make it easier.’ Nathan searched in the cupboard where we kept the drinks and pulled out a half-full bottle of red wine. He reached for a glass. ‘There’s this consultant. First-class degrees from Oxford and business school sticking out of his ears and he’s been released into the organization like a ferret.’

  ‘Don’t be so jumpy. You’re more than capable of outflanking him.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ he asked. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was easy to say.

  Nathan stood behind my chair. ‘I wonder…’ His hand briefly stroked my hair and came to rest on my shoulder. ‘I wonder how long it will be before the axe falls.’

  This was not the Nathan I knew. I covered his hand with mine. ‘Listen to me. You’re not to give in.’ I removed my hand. ‘What does Minty say?’

  ‘I don’t know, Rose. I just don’t know.’

  My chair scraped along the floor as I stumbled to my feet, ‘Oh, Nathan, after all this, you aren’t happy’

  He leant back against the sink and cradled the wineglass. ‘I want to say that I’m out of my place, out of my depth, but I can’t. I can’t order time to reverse. I can’t say that I want some peace and breathing space, when I chose to pursue precisely the opposite. I can’t say to Minty that she shouldn’t have a baby because I should be concentrating on grandchildren. I can’t turn to you, Rose, and ask, “What do I do?” I can’t ask to come back.’

  No, it was not possible. Try as I might, I could not slot everything back into place. Leaving a marriage was not as simple as walking out of the door. It destroyed something so deep, so built into the blood and bone: the love that comes after bruising desire has faded, trust, familiarity, the pleasure from commitment, and it could not be rebuilt.

  But something might be salvaged… with luck. With generosity and pity too, which both of us must find.

  I put my hand over his mouth. ‘Don’t.’ His lips moved under my fingers. ‘Listen to me, Nathan. We’re already getting used to not being with each other. It will become easier. Anyway, we won’t lose each other entirely. How can we?’ I slipped my arms around him and held him, as I might have held Sam. ‘You hurt me so much that I thought I was going to die, but that’s over. I’ve come to see that love flows and adjusts into different shapes at different times. Meeting Hal the other day,’ Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, ‘also made me see that the people who matter never leave you.’ I shook him gently. ‘Nathan, look at me. Open your eyes. You were right in that respect. They are there.’

  Nathan whispered, ‘I made the mistake of thinking sex was something it wasn’t.’ He looked up at me, tired and baffled. ‘Or perhaps I’ll never know why I did what I did.’

  Perhaps neither of us would ever know. And that was life.

  I made the joke – much as the little mermaid, who made her way with bleeding feet towards the man who did not want her, might have made it. ‘At least you had a good time making the mistake.’

  ‘Shut up, Rosie.’ Nathan held me as if he would never let go, and muttered into my shoulder, ‘Minty’s frightened of living here.’

  For a second or two, I held the familiar body that was no longer familiar. Then I released him. ‘Tough.’

  He dug his hands into his pockets. ‘And what about you? What have I done to you?’

  It was a moment before I managed a reply. ‘And what did I do to you, Nathan? I thought I had you precisely right and I fitted myself around that strong notion sitting in my head. But I must have missed something, the bit of you that also longed for the green grass on the other side of the fence. To travel, to do something different. I did at twenty, so why not you at fifty? But I had grown used to you being predictable, and why should you have been?’ I looked down at my hands, resolving that I must not make this gesture a habit. ‘Perhaps that’s the real trouble with marriage. The groove becomes so worn and so smooth that you forget to think about it. Properly. Painfully. Until it’s too late. But you mustn’t worry. I’ll be all right. So will you.’

  ‘Clocks don’t turn back?’

  I shook my head. ‘You have Minty to think of.’

  ‘So I do.’ Nathan picked up the wineglass, thought better of it, placed it carefully on the sideboard and began to weep. They were very final tears.

  An hour later, Nathan left Lakey Street. By then he was dry-eyed and pale. He kissed me briefly and said, ‘We’ll keep in touch, whatever happens.’

  ‘Of course,’ and I added, ‘You can move in here as soon I’ve got the flat sorted out.’

  Anything holding you up? Can I help?’

  ‘Only the details.’

  The front door closed behind him and I was left in the quiet, shadowed, changing house.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I exchanged contracts on the flat. I did not talk about it much, and Sam and Poppy were forbidden to make any reference to a new life or new beginning – which, of course, it was. Gently, gently to catch the monkey, I instructed them. I was still shaking out my damp, crimped wings, and I wanted this rite of passage to be made without fuss or grand gestures.

  I began to pack my half of the house. Soon, the landing was stacked with boxes. My study disappeared and the cream and white order of the kitchen went with it.

  In the attic, I stumbled across an old-fashioned attaché suitcase, labelled ‘Jack’s clothes’ in Ianthe’s handwriting. It was stuffed with baby clothes, the ones I couldn’t bring myself to throw away. A tiny smocked dress. Sam’s first dungarees. A pair of scuffed red shoes.

  The dust made me sneeze – or perhaps I was crying.

  Right at the bottom, hidden in tissue paper where it might have been overlooked, was a flat cap made of tweed. My father’s.

  I buried my face in it. Where’s my little chickaninny?

  I returned the dress, the shoes, the dungarees and the cap to the case, with layers of tissue paper, and lugged it down to the landing.

  A quiet spring ticked away, a healing time, punctuated by calls from the solicitor and the estate agent. I continued to work for Kim two days a week. More often than not Vee sent over a book. If you get any thinner, I’ll kill you. Neil Skinner rang up and booked me in for more research work in June, this time on arts funding. An invitation arrived in the post to the wedding of Charles Madder and Kate Frett. A note was enclosed: could I come to a small lunch party the day before because Charles would particularly like to introduce me to his children?

  Poised behind spring was summer, a riot of colour and sensual tease.

  Along with the garden, I waited too: I waited to slough off an old skin, for those new wings to dry in the sun, and to step forth clean and newborn. In a manner of speaking, I was on the road again.

  Kim and I were discussing the merits and demerits of a book on interior design. Kim was leaning over the desk and his tie was getting in the way. I was slumped in my chair, sipping cappuccino. We were enjoying ourselves arguing over whether purple walls and gilding had mainstream appeal. (Not.) We also talked figures and contracts, publishers and readers. Into this agreeable interlude came Poppy’s phone call. ‘Mum, I need to see you.’

  After work, I made the detour to Poppy’s and rang the bell in what appeared to be a silent flat. Eventually, the door opened, revealing a tearstained Poppy in glasses.

  She led me into the kitchen and I almost tripped over a pile of unwashed clothes dumped on the floor. The sink was stacked with china and an astonishing number of wineglasses. Something was boiling in a saucepan on the stove.

  ‘Grief,’ I said.

  Poppy frowned. ‘I was trying to tidy up. Richard hates mess.’ She bit her lip. ‘I had no idea that he was a tidiness fanatic. He was never like that before. Anyway, I can’t seem to get it right. Then we quarrel and he comes home even later. I have all the time in the world, Mum, and I do nothing. I don’t know where the time goes, and I get cross so I do even less.’

  I switched off the gas under the saucepan, picked up the rubber gloves and said, in a practical
way, ‘I’ll wash up if you get on with the other things.’

  Poppy did an abrupt volte-face. ‘Oh, Mum, there’s no need to go overboard.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it help?’

  Poppy flung a couple of tea-towels on to the floor. ‘I don’t see why I should give in to him. Just because he has a job, he thinks he can come home demanding supper.’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Wake up, Richard. This isn’t the nineteenth century.’

  I rescued the tea-towels and nudged the pile of laundry into a corner. ‘Darling, it’s very hard giving up travelling and freewheeling for domesticity but it can and must be done, by most people anyway.’ Poppy sniffed sceptically. ‘If you had a job you might feel better.’

  ‘I don’t seem to have cracked that either.’ Poppy had decided to aim for publishing on the editorial side. ‘Actually, I was offered one as a sales assistant but I thought it would silly to do something I had no intention of sticking to.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been better to get a foot in the door? Knowing how books sell must be quite useful, Poppy, and if you had a job you would not be dependent on Richard.’

  Ianthe’s voice, loud and strong.

  ‘You’re such a dinosaur, Mum. Richard agrees with me that it’s no use compromising.’

  I sighed. ‘Then why the upset?’

  ‘I don’t know’ Poppy hunched herself into a small, perplexed ball. ‘I don’t why I’m behaving so badly.’

  I gave in to my mothering impulse and snapped on the rubber gloves. I knew what Poppy was talking about – of course, I knew. Olive trees and a wine-dark sea. Fountains in the sunlight. They were enticing, radiant mental wallpaper. I said carefully, ‘Poppy, you chose to get married.’

  She exploded out of her torpor. ‘But I didn’t want to become dull and colourless.’ She aimed a kick in the direction of the laundry. ‘I can’t understand how Richard has changed. He wasn’t like this before. It’s as if he’s been swallowed up and there’s an impostor in his place. All this will-you-get-supper-because-I-go-to-work nonsense. I know I’m lucky, and I’m not starving and I’m not a refugee and my relatives haven’t all been massacred but, I’m sorry, that makes no difference when your spirit is sore.’

  I pulled her close enough for the rim of her glasses to bite into my cheek. My poor Poppy. She would have to flex and bend. ‘Mark time, Poppy. For a little while. Then you’ll become used to it. Don’t muck up and don’t give up yet. You’ll regret it if you do.’

  She sighed and snuggled into me. ‘What do I do, Mum? You know. You’ve been through it.’

  ‘Your father and I were lucky enough that we both knew what we wanted.’

  In my case, it had not taken rocket science and Nathan had spotted my needs at once. At our fifth meeting, he had sat beside me in a cinema and during the adverts he took my hand. ‘I want to settle down, Rose, and I think you do.’ He lifted my hand and kissed my fingers, one by one. ‘I want to marry you.’ A little later, he asked, ‘Take me up to Yelland. I would like to see where you were as a child. Then I shall understand important things about you.’

  How powerful another’s understanding can be. It works miracles. How richly the imagination can build up love with words and images. How grateful I was for it. How I latched on to the promise of order and love that Nathan offered.

  I kissed Poppy’s tangled hair and repeated, ‘Don’t give up.’

  Her eyebrows twitched together. ‘He’s a devil. What on earth made me marry him?’

  ‘Am I?’ Richard interjected from the doorway, and both Poppy and I started. ‘You didn’t think that before. In fact, I remember quite the reverse in Thailand.’

  Poppy wrenched herself free from me. ‘How dare you eavesdrop?’

  ‘If I’d been blind and deaf, I couldn’t have missed this touching scene.’ Clearly very angry, Richard advanced into the kitchen. He was wearing his office suit and some of the old bead-draped Richard was evident in the two missing buttons at the cuff. ‘I have a perfect right to be in my own home.’

  I divested myself of the rubber gloves – always a good idea in a fight. ‘Hallo, Richard.’

  Richard ignored me and addressed his wife. ‘I didn’t think you were the type that went running to Mummy.’

  Poppy put her hands behind her back. ‘I’m not. But if I did choose to do so, you couldn’t stop me.’

  ‘What about loyalty?’ He took a step towards Poppy and she backed away. ‘Have you ever heard the word?’ He wrenched off his suit jacket and draped it over a chair. I caught a glimpse of his hurt, puzzled expression. ‘Do you think you could leave, Rose?’

  Discretion is the better part of valour, and I edged towards the door.

  ‘I forbid you to go,’ hissed Poppy.

  Richard said, ‘This is none of your mother’s business.’

  ‘It is if I say so.’

  Richard grabbed Poppy by the arm. ‘Do you want your mother to watch this? Are we a spectator sport?’

  ‘Mum stays.’

  Richard flushed a dangerous red. ‘I’m out all day earning our bread and I don’t appreciate coming home to a tip and I don’t appreciate…’ he shot me a justifiably nasty look ‘… you indulging in a spot of character assassination with your mother.’

  Richard was right. This was their affair, and private. I picked up my bag and beat my retreat. As I shut the front door behind me, I heard Richard say, ‘Poppy, that was unforgivable… How could you do that to me?’ and the sound of her frantic sobbing.

  ‘Richard, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to hurt you…’

  Early the next morning Mazarine phoned. ‘I’ve sold the house. At a loss. But I couldn’t stand it.’

  It must have taken a great deal for her to part with such a valuable asset, which in the normal course of events she would have so enjoyed. I stifled a small pang of regret that something so beautiful should drop out of her hands. ‘Dommage,’ she added.

  ‘You did the best thing.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Without question.’

  Mazarine dropped her habitual guard. ‘Rose, I am glad you are my friend.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re mine.’ We pondered on this pleasurable exchange. In the background there was the sound of banging. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the gallery. The boys are setting up the exhibition. You must come. It’s on the neuro-linguistic implications of rubbish. You’ll love it. You must come and look, really look, and try to understand.’

  She sounded relieved and lightened of a burden. I promised to come over in June and wrote the date down in my diary. I also told her the news about Sam and Jilly.

  ‘Nature abhors a vacuum,’ she said.

  I had just put down the phone when someone hammered on the front door. To my surprise it was Sam. He was shocked and out of breath. I ushered him in and shut the door. ‘Mum, thank God you’re here. I couldn’t think of who else to turn to. I need your help. I’ve just been phoned by the hospital in Bath. Alice – apparently – I can’t believe this – she tried to kill herself. The cleaner found her and rang me.’

  ‘I’ll pack a bag.’

  His face cleared. ‘Would you, Mum? I need moral support.’

  ‘Where are her parents?’

  ‘In Australia. Holiday. It’ll be a day before they can get back.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘I can’t bear to think of Alice on her own.’

  The sister on duty at the hospital inquired who we were and when we explained fixed on Sam: ‘I don’t think you should see her.’ However, she was prepared to negotiate with me when I pointed out that there was no one else. ‘There should be someone,’ I said.

  Alice had been isolated at the end of the ward in a single room that managed to be both stuffy and chilly at the same time. It smelt of disinfectant and something else… If despair had a physicality, it would have been that.

  When I went in she was lying motionless with her face turned to the window. I drew up a hard hospital chair and sat down. ‘H
allo, Alice.’ No answer, and I had a vivid mental picture of the golden, glossy Alice breaking up into pieces. She looked thin and the blonde hair straggled over the pillowcase, as brittle-looking as driftwood. I tried again. ‘Alice, it’s Rose.’

  ‘What on earth made you come?’ she whispered.

  ‘We’ve known each other a little while. I thought you should have someone here until your parents arrive.’

  Her lips barely moved. ‘Why bother? We don’t have anything to do with each other any more.’

  I took one of her limp hands between mine. ‘I’m so sorry that you felt so desperate…’

  ‘What do you know about it, Rose?’

  ‘I know what it’s like to be left. It… it sensitizes you to other people in the same boat.’

  It took so little to destroy someone.

  There was another long pause and she seemed to gather herself. ‘Isn’t it funny? It’s the decent, kind ones who let you down in the end. You get so used to them being decent and kind that you forget we’re all the same underneath. That they’ll seize the main chance just like anyone else.’

  This was not fair on Sam. ‘He waited a long time, Alice, and I suppose he gave up. Perhaps he felt there’s a limit to how long you can love and wait for someone to come to heel. Or co-operate. In the end, he had to get on with his life.’

  Tears sprang into Alice’s eyes and I leant over and wiped them away. ‘I feel so bloody tired,’ she said. ‘Stupid, too.’

  ‘Alice, do your employers know where you are?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Would you like me to deal with them?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘Do as you wish.’

  After a few minutes, I left her and went to find Sam.

  Between us we concocted a story about flu, and he undertook to deal with that side of things. We agreed that I would remain with Alice until the evening, when he would pick me up.

  I returned to the dingy room. After a bit Alice seemed to doze and the afternoon ticked away.

  A trolley squelched down the corridor. Phones rang. A nurse popped her head round the door to check on the patient and went away again. Eventually, Alice opened her eyes and looked straight at me. ‘I thought Sam would be there for ever. He said he would be. I thought I could take my time before… well, before I was dragged into being a wife and all that.’ She frowned. ‘That was what Sam wanted but why should he have it all his way? I should have known that no one is ever there for ever.’