by Maeve Binchy
The other possible bed-mate had been a really loud vulgar friend of Paula’s who showed a marginal interest in Julia one night in a pub. Immediately she returned his interest a hundredfold. Since he had been making passes at her unsuccessfully for a couple of years, he was delighted. On the way home he told her what a splendid stud he was, that he wished one could get references for that sort of thing, that he loved women, big women, little women, young women, all women. Julia was nearly in a state of collapse by the time the taxi turned into her street.
‘Do you like virgins?’ she inquired hopefully.
He did, he loved them, he was very good with them. He hadn’t had one for ages now, but he did like virgins.
It was half-way through the drink before deflowering that Julia remembered an article she had read the previous Sunday about venereal disease. It would be just her luck to wait twenty-nine years and then do it for the first time with someone who was riddled with syphilis, and then pass it on the next week to the only man she had ever really wanted. Suddenly she went all funny and said that she couldn’t go to bed with him because she thought she had sprained her back. The remark sounded even more stupid than she could have believed possible.
‘Let me do all the work,’ he had said.
Julia had no idea what he was talking about, but was sure she would catch some disease if she allowed herself to find out. She shooed him out into the night, and decided it would have to be a bookshop.
She had told the girls in the travel agency that she was going to the Family Planning Association, so she would take a long lunch-hour. She had in fact been on the Pill for a month so that she was now protected. All she needed was someone, anyone, who would tell her how not to make an utter fool of herself and drive Michael away next Friday night. It was Tuesday now, for God’s sake, she really didn’t have any time to lose. She had suffered so many humiliations already, it didn’t seem too much to ask the man who looked like a head-gardener for some advice.
‘I wonder if you could tell me, do they publish any books, sort of manuals of instruction really, on how to make love . . . in an ordinary sort of way?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said the gardener, and for one wild moment Julia wondered whether he in fact worked in some other shop, and she had done something unpardonable. No, of course he worked here, she had seen him directing people towards the shelves of their choice.
‘Well, I was looking for something . . . to give to my niece,’ she said triumphantly. ‘She’s . . . er, getting married soon, and I don’t think she knows exactly what will be expected of her.’
The gardener looked concerned on behalf of the niece but didn’t see how he could help.
‘Couldn’t you tell her yourself, madam?’ he asked politely, but puzzled.
‘Oh I have, I have,’ Julia said. ‘But only basic things really, and she wants to be sort of tigerish if you know what I mean. She feels she’s going to lose out by not knowing the techniques that a man expects. She wants more than just clinical information, it’s the response she’s keen to learn really.’
‘I don’t expect her husband will want anybody to teach her that except himself,’ said the gardener, a trifle hypocritically and pompously Julia thought. What was he doing running a porn shop, if these were his views? Oh well, I’ve got as far as this, she thought in despair, I might as well wade on.
‘You see she’s in an unfortunate position. This chap she’s marrying, he’s been around a lot, and my . . . niece more or less pretended that she had too, so she’s going to feel very foolish when he discovers that she hasn’t. I said I’d try and find a book that would tell her what to do.’
The gardener still looked mystified by it all. Oh why couldn’t he understand, why couldn’t he just say that there was such a book and sell it to her?
‘But I don’t see what she can learn from a book, madam,’ he droned on, trying to be helpful. ‘If I might suggest something, you’d be better off spending the money on a couple of bottles of wine, and sitting down with her and giving her the benefit of your own experience. If it’s hard to talk about things like that, a drink often helps. She’d thank you much more for that than for just a book.’
Julia was now desperate, and desperate people say desperate things.
‘I can’t tell her anything,’ she hissed in a low voice. ‘I don’t know anything. I’m a nun.’
‘A nun?’ bayed the gardener in horror.
‘Well yes, we don’t wear nuns’ clothes these days, we work out in the world. You see, it all changed after that council in Rome, you hardly ever see nuns as nuns so to speak these days. Half the people walking around might be nuns.’
She wasn’t even a Catholic, she knew only the vaguest things about nuns, but she was banking that a man who ran a porn shop might know less.
She was wrong.
‘Well I never,’ he said. ‘My sister is a nun too. But she wears dark clothes, and a short veil like a scarf since Vatican Two.’ He looked stunned at Julia’s poncho cape and green trousers, at her sunglasses pushed back over the top of her scarf, and at her long, painted fingernails.
‘I suppose that you Sisters must be getting more and more worldly all the time,’ he said with deference.
‘Well, it’s so we’ll look more normal at work,’ Julia explained. ‘Not to frighten off the other people, and make them think we are too holy or anything.’
‘And do you teach, Sister, or do you work in a hospital?’ he asked with awe.
‘A travel agency,’ said Julia before she could help herself.
‘Why do nuns do that?’ he asked with interest.
‘It’s mainly to help send people out on the Missions,’ Julia replied, beginning to sweat, but thinking that in fact, it mightn’t be a bad side-line for their own agency. If she ever survived this ordeal she would suggest it to the others.
‘So now you see why I need that book for . . . my niece,’ she went on briskly, and hoping to give the air of a worldly, business-like nun.
‘Well, I really don’t like to suggest anything, Sister,’ he said fearfully.
‘Nonsense,’ Julia said. ‘You must learn to accept us as we are, women working in the world, like other women. It’s just that we’ve given up sex . . . or never taken it up,’ she finished lamely.
‘Perhaps a bigger store might have one of these books on preparing for marriage . . . by a woman doctor,’ he said, trying to get out of it.
‘I’ve been through those, nothing tigerish enough for my niece,’ said Julia.
‘Tigerish.’ He thought for a while. ‘We’re out of tigerish books, Sister,’ he said firmly.
‘What would you suggest?’ she begged.
‘I don’t think the fellow’s going to mind at all, he’ll like showing her around, if you’ll forgive the expression.’
‘But she’s quite old, my niece. I mean she’s in her mid-twenties, he’ll expect her to know tigerish things.’
‘Oh no, he won’t, Sister. I’d go off and set her mind at rest about that. I mean it’s not as if she was nearly thirty or something, he won’t expect anything.’
Julia walked sadly out of the shop. The man who looked like a gardener rushed and opened the door for her.
‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Sister,’ he said. ‘I hope we’ll have the pleasure of seeing you here again . . . but perhaps not, of course. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for suggesting all that stuff about the bottles of wine and the bit of chat. I mean I wasn’t to know you were a nun, Sister.’
On the way back to Tottenham Court Road tube station she saw an off-licence. The gardener was probably right, maybe two bottles of wine would work better than a book. Maybe she could pretend to get drunk on Friday and see what happened, maybe she could make Michael a little bit drunk and watch what he did.
For the first time since the whole terrible problem had begun to obsess her, Julia saw a ray of hope. Perhaps it mightn’t be as awful as she thought it was going to be. He was hardly going to get out of bed, p
ut on all his clothes and say, ‘You have deceived me.’ It was laughable, really, and that was another thing. She and Michael did laugh together about a lot of things, they might even be able to laugh one day about the thought of a nun in cape and trousers running a travel agency for missionaries and visiting porn shops in her lunch hour.
Well, it was either believe that, or ask the good-looking Italian boy who was struggling with his map trying to find Oxford Street, whether he’d like to rent a hotel-room for the afternoon with her. And, really, Julia thought that for a twenty-nine-year-old virgin, she had coped with quite enough that day.
HOLBORN
Rita sat down to make a list of all the things she needed to do. Now that she had been such a fool as to agree to the whole ridiculous idea she might as well try and get through it as painlessly as possible.
She wrote LIST at the top of a piece of paper and stared at it in rage. Why had she agreed to meet them? Normally she was so quick and firm at getting out of things she didn’t want to do, but his voice had disarmed her.
Ken had rung up last night and said he was in London, he and his new wife, they were still on their honeymoon, wouldn’t it be nice if they and Rita and . . . er . . . Jeremy, was it, could get together for a civilised meal? It wasn’t Jeremy, it was Jeffrey, he must have known. She knew that his wife was called Daisy, people didn’t forget names, he must have done it on purpose.
She said hold a minute and she’d see if Jeffrey had planned anything. It was meant to be her excuse, she was going to come back to the phone and tell some lie.
‘Right, of course,’ Ken had said pleasantly. ‘I hope he hasn’t. It’s our first time in London, and we’d love a bit of advice from a native.’
Jeffrey had said why not, it would be nice to meet them, he’d love to give them a bit of advice, he’d tell them about boat trips to Greenwich and he’d mark their card. He was full of enthusiasm. The fact that she had spent a whole year living with Ken didn’t seem to disturb him in the least. What was past was past; they had both agreed that it was silly to brood.
She had come back to the phone and said it would be fine, where should they meet? Ken didn’t know London at all, so he said he’d make his way to wherever she said. He wondered if they could make it straight after work or early evening anyway, because they’d want an early night.
‘You haven’t changed,’ giggled Rita, with a small pang of jealousy that he still wanted to be between the sheets with his bird well before midnight.
‘Oh, it’s not that,’ Ken said casually. ‘It’s just that we . . . well, Daisy gets tired easily. She’s rather frail you know, we don’t like too many late nights.’
So Daisy had turned out to be frail, had she? Marvellous, bloody marvellous, thought Rita. She was cunning to be frail, old Daisy. It meant she didn’t have to go on all those wearying walks with Ken that Rita had endured, climbing hard sides of hills instead of easy ones, packing endless pairs of woollen socks for week-ends because you never knew when the next bout of walking fever would come on. How wise to be frail. Rita went back to her list-making.
Hair, she wrote. Yes, she’d take time off at lunch, an extra half an hour, and get her hair done. Silly to try a totally new style in case it didn’t work, but she did need a cut and a conditioning treatment some time, so why not today? She decided that as soon as the hairdresser’s opened she would ring round and get a lunchtime appointment.
She had another cup of coffee to celebrate that decision being made. Jeffrey was still asleep. Most of the world was still asleep. It was only 6 a.m., but Rita couldn’t sleep.
Clothes, she wrote. They had arranged to meet at Holborn station of all places; it was the only possible meeting-point she could think of that was near Jeffrey’s work, her work, and that Ken would be able to find. Ken really did sound bewildered by the size of London, not at all like the confident man she had known in Wales. Yes, clothes. She would wear her new skirt, the long patchwork one, and she would get a very simple sweater to go with it, in a matching colour, green maybe, or dark brown. She needed a new sweater anyway, it wasn’t a question of buying anything specially for the occasion, that would be idiotic. What did she want to impress Ken for now? All that business was long over. She had ended it, she had left and come to London, she wasn’t hoping he’d still fancy her. No, she needed a new sweater. Why not get it today? The shops in the Strand opened at nine o’clock, and she needn’t be at work until half-past.
Photos, she wrote. She had a small pocket album of pictures of their wedding last year, it would be nice to show them to Ken. He would be interested, he would even recognise some of the people, her sister, her friends from Cardiff. And anyway, Rita thought, I look great in those pictures. After three months on a diet, naturally I look great. Why not let the frail Daisy have a look at me when I was two stone less than I am now? If they were still on their honeymoon, they wouldn’t have wedding pictures yet, so she could be one up.
Handbag. Her own was a bit tattered, it didn’t really go with the patchwork skirt, it didn’t go with anything. She definitely needed one. At least twice last week she had been on the point of buying one. It had nothing to do with the fact that Daisy would probably have a frail little trousseau handbag with her either. No, she must get a handbag today.
She would borrow Lilly’s cape. Lilly had a lovely black cape of fine wool with braid on the edge, which would be ideal over the outfit she was planning to wear. She must telephone Lilly at 8.30 a.m., before she left home, so that she could bring it to work with her. She had borrowed the cape twice already for parties and had lent Lilly her pendant in return. It was a gold pendant that Ken had given her. She still hadn’t decided whether she would wear it tonight. Probably not.
It was still too early to talk to people, Rita grumbled to herself. She wished that people woke up sooner. Not that she could say much to Jeffrey, he would be busy getting out his guide-books to London, and his list of pubs that served Real Ale. He was so very confident of her, it would never cross his mind that she was excited about seeing Ken again, and that she was sleepless with worrying about how to present herself in a good light. Jeffrey would laugh tolerantly and say how like a woman. Jeffrey had a good comforting line in clichés when he wanted. Rita often thought he used them like warriors used armour to avoid having to meet any real thoughts head-on. Jeffrey was always pretty predictable.
Now that’s one thing he wasn’t. He was tiresomely unpredictable, you never knew what was going to happen. She hadn’t liked it at the time and she didn’t like it now, but that was the real reason she had got up so early. For all his protestations about having an early night, Ken might easily be persuaded to come back to the flat for just one drink. Jeffrey loved people to come back and so normally did she, but if Ken was going to see her home she wanted to look at it with an eagle eye herself first.
Coffee-cup in hand, Rita walked through the sitting-room. Ken would laugh at the coffee-table, not out loud but he would laugh. They used to use the word ‘coffee-table’ as an adjective to describe things and people they didn’t like.
But what did you put things on, Rita complained to herself in irritation, if you didn’t have a table of some sort? She just wished it didn’t look so much like the kind of thing that held posh magazines and books nobody read. Well, she could cover it in things, ashtrays, knitting even. But God, how she and Ken had laughed at people who spent their time knitting. She hadn’t known then that it was quite a peaceful thing to do while you watched television or listened to records. No, it might be pushing it to leave out her knitting, even though she was halfway through another great sweater for herself, and they only took her a week these days.
When she lived with Ken they had stripped down furniture and thought that the modern reproduction stuff was so ugly that it made you want to cry. She had no stripped-down pine in her sitting-room now; in fact, quite a few little desks and corner cupboards of the type they used to laugh at. Rita shook herself and reasoned that she could hardly refurn
ish the whole flat before 10 p.m. that night for a man who might not even see it, and for one whom she no longer loved. Yes, she knew that she didn’t love him, but she wanted to think that he still loved and admired her. Having it both ways certainly, why not? A lot of people had things both ways.
Jeffrey, for example, had things both ways. He had his freedom to go racing, she never interfered with that, and he had his home to come back to. He had her as a kind of modern practical stepmother to his two sons who came to tea every Saturday. She never bothered doing the place up for them, she never wanted to impress them with tales that they could tell their mother when they got home. Funny that she never put on any show for these two silent big-eyed children, so that they could observe and note and tell their strange, silent, big-eyed mother, Jeffrey’s first and foolishly ill-considered wife.
In fact she had met Heather on a few occasions and talked to her exactly like she would have talked to a client in the beauty-salon. She regarded Heather as somebody you made conversation with, it didn’t grow naturally. A lot of the women she beautified were like that, they wanted nothing about you, nothing about them, but lots of cheery stuff on the weather, the price of shoes, the traffic jams and the wisdom of taking a holiday early in the season. Rita was very good at it. Heather had been easy.
So perhaps Ken and the dreaded Daisy would be easy too. But she could never in a million years talk like that to Ken, she used to imitate salon-chat to him when they were living together, and sometimes he and she would make up a joke salon-conversation with each other . . . the kind of one where both sides were eager to find some harmless incontroversial middle-ground to speak about. If Ken caught a hint of that in her conversation tonight . . . an accidental little suspicion of it . . . she would die. Yes, she couldn’t bear him to think she had gone over to the other side, to the enemy.
It was time to ring Lilly. Lilly grumbled and said it was raining and she was going to be taking her dry-cleaning anyway, but of course agreed. ‘I love a bit of excitement over people’s past,’ said Lilly. ‘You’ve always been so uneventful, happy, safe, married, never trying to pick up clients’ husbands like we have. I’m glad there’s a bit of drama here.’