Aunt Margaret's Lover Read online

  Verity was seriously absorbed in what was going on in my life. She did not approve and felt that I had let her down, but I calmed her by saying my various dates were just dates and nothing more. But she would come round on any pretext early in the morning and look pleased if I were still in dishabille - quite often bounding up the stairs, two at a time, to peek through the crack in the bedroom door, no doubt to behold some tousled head still breathing satedness into the pillows. She said it was jest. I knew it was not. Why, she had already given me a serious, low-voiced, gimlet-eyed chat about condoms, Margaret, condoms.

  'Tom Cruise has just gone,' I would shout. 'But Eddie Murphy's just called to say he's on his way.'

  'You should be so lucky,' she would say, coming down the stairs with a faint leer on her face. And since I had probably had a date with nothing resembling either of them the night before, I was inclined to agree.

  'But where do they all come from?' she asked me peevishly on one such occasion, and I have to say that pride upped and pinched me. Where do they come from, indeed! Anyone would think I looked like a Troll.

  'They come from their mothers' wombs, Verity,' I said. 'The same as you and me.'

  'You know what I mean,' she said waspishly. 'Where do you pick them up?' The urge to denounce myself as a hooker and say 'King's Cross and environs' was delightful temptation. Instead I patted my hair and pouted into the mirror, saying, 'Oh, here and there, you know.' A secret, significant little smile reflected back at me. 'Here and there.' I knew that would infuriate her. There was no doubt that while Verity was absorbed in my life and romantic interludes, she felt much better. Her weight had returned to normal (perhaps this was not a credit, since about the one thing she could celebrate in all her sufferings was that she had got back into her ten-year-old jeans without dieting), her eyes were bright with life rather than gin, and she was less and less inclined to speak with poetical, tear-stained yearning of the absent Mark. At this stage I still had plenty of time for her and I was sure she'd be more or less cured by the time Mr Right came along. Fondly, I saw again the tendresse of Tintoretto. Two women: one stumbles, one saves. Despite Saskia's going away, life could be fun after all. Did I hear the echo of a ghostly chuckle?

  One morning the doorbell rang and it was not Verity but Colin. A grinning Colin, holding out three letters. 'Well, well,' he said, his eyes gleaming dangerously. 'A clever cove this one. Writes you three different letters, from three different addresses, and in three different handwritings. My, my -his wife will be confused, never mind MI5!' It was a fair cop.

  I took him into the kitchen, shoved a bowl of muesli under his nose, told him I hoped it choked him, and while I made coffee explained everything. I also told him that if he broke my confidence and anyone else found out, I would consider it my duty to the feminine cause to make his future participation in muesli in my house a dangerous form of cereal roulette.

  Women are the only true romantics. They understand the dimension of the spirit which drives the soul towards the sublime and are quite ready to be pragmatic about it. They know that as the melting splendour of a perfect souffle requires some shit-hot elbow time to make the conditions right, so romantic liaisons will not arrive in their laps unless they prepare the ground. Prepared ground can be anything from fancy clothes, scented cleavage and a Marks & Spencer's dinner for two on Wedgwood, to an inner belief, en route for the canning factory in a dawn-damp overall, that today might be the day.

  Colin's bleating indignation at my calculated methodology would have made a grown feminist weep. 'How . . .' he said passionately, indeed, with more passion than I had heretofore experienced in his pronouncing presence, 'how can you set out with such a cynical undertaking?'

  What on earth is it about this 49 per cent of the world's population that when a woman says 'I know what I want and I know how to get it', she must immediately be suspect? The virtue of patience, with all its attendant passivity, is considered suitably female. To the man falls the much more muscular and outward-bound virtue of endurance. Thus, of course, did Boccaccio's final tale turn the legend of Job, who endured the wrath of a psychopathic God and was rewarded for it, into the disgraceful episode of patient Griselda, who was accorded the mere domesticated trials of a psychopathic husband to prove her worth. God, presumably, felt it was beneath him in her case. Job Endured, got rid of the boils, collected fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, a thousand she-asses and one hundred and forty years of fulfilling life, in which he produced seven sons and three entirely marriageable daughters, and finally retired, without the need of a hip replacement, to sit on the right hand of God in virtuous splendour.

  And patient Griselda? Well, you don't see her in the likes of the Sistine pecking order. She got back her supposedly murdered children (having just got through personal growth therapy to deal with their loss perhaps), her home - with the neighbours all pointing their fingers and knowing - and a complete nutter of a husband. Thank you very much.

  'Why hang around,' I said perkily, bearing all this in mind, and with perhaps a degree too much bravado, 'when it seems to be working so well?'

  'It does?' he said, supping his hamster food. 'But you haven't even opened them yet.' He pushed the envelopes across the table at me.

  Resentment rose in my beating breast. Just because bloody Colin was willing it all to be misguided, I was allowing myself to be cornered. And I was about to say so. Indeed, I was about to give a little speech, the gist of which was that I did not need his presence in order to open my mail and discover whether within there nestled the fulfilment of my cause. I was about to be terse, to tell him it was all my business, to say that if this batch of potential lovers was not suitable, I would wait for another lot. I would get it right. I would not be judged, it was for me alone to judge and he could just piss off. I would say this, I would, I would...

  And then I did not.

  For it came to me in a shaft of glorious understanding. This was exactly the spur I needed. All those weeks of meeting men and rejecting them. Too old, too young, too fat, too thin, doesn't like Cezanne, can't take a hot curry, uses a biro - why, it could be endless. I could go on for ever like that, and then, suddenly, Saskia would be home, Mr Spiteri's son would be propping up a business meeting in St Tropez, and the whole delicious game and adventure would be lost. So I decided, there and then, and with gratitude towards Colin in my heart, that one of these three would be He. And who knows if it was that decision, made in a moment of true psychological surrender, which brought me, unquestionably, to the right choice.

  I sat down opposite' Colin and reached for the envelopes, pulling them towards me. The atmosphere between us was as charged and electrical as in that sunbaked Western street in High Noon. Everything was suspended. Colin's spoon was midway twixt bowl and lip, the milk dripping into the muesli below. My hands rested lightly on the three contenders. The clock ticked, Gary Cooper walked. It was irresistible and I hummed the theme. Do not forsake me, oh my darling .. . Colin put his spoon down. He tugged at his hair. 'Open one for Chrissake,' he moaned. So I did.

  At first I thought there was nothing inside. Further investigation revealed that there was — a humiliating something. It was a short note, to which was clipped my own photograph. It said, 'Very nice picture and I hope you find what you are looking for.' It was signed 'Advertiser'.

  'Well?' said Colin.

  I put the envelope to one side. A certain number of dolorous bells began ringing in my ears. 'Not for me, I fancy,' I said brightly. 'A bit short.'

  One sentence, to be be exact. Never tell a lie if you can equivocate.

  'Can I see?' He held out his hand.

  'Certainly not,' I said and picked up another letter hurriedly. Two choices left. Fear gripped the soul. Once you set yourself on a certain course of action, you are best advised to adhere to it. One of the remaining two would have to be He.

  For a close-up it is not a good idea to be photographed from slightly below centre face. You get
quite a lot of nostril involved and nostrils are, perhaps, the least appetizing portion of the human visage. My second possibility seemed all nostril and not much else, and though I was willing not to be prejudiced by this fact alone, his attached letter had a certain nostril quality, too.

  In my letter I had stated what I wanted clearly. So it was very frustrating both to know what I wanted and to have said it and then, having done so, to be told that I actually, really, deep down, wanted something else. Someone to have a bit of romantic, full-blooded fun with for a year, I had stipulated - a serious commitment to this, rather than to a life partnership. I had given a list of my interests and characteristics, and a list of what, approximately, his should be. I had written a humorous but not unfeeling letter. It was bold, brave and rather derring-do and left no room for a sub-text. Nostrils had other ideas.

  I put the letter and the photograph to one side and Colin grabbed them. He stared at the photograph intently and then pronounced its subject as looking like a serial killer. I had a feeling that if it had been a snapshot of the Greek ideal he'd have said much the same. I snatched back the letter before he had a chance to read it, because this was, after all, the open-hearted offering of another human being and I didn't see why Colin, who ventured so little bravery in his relationships, should get the chance to laugh at someone who, though pedantic, arrogant and nostrilly righteous, was prepared to stand out there in the marketplace and expose himself.

  'What does he say?'

  'Basically that he cannot believe I know my own mind.'

  Colin laughed, 'Can't believe it in the literal sense, or can't believe you're sincere?'

  'I think he thinks I'm playing a game, carefully structured, in which the prize is him for life.'

  Colin looked at the photograph again. 'Poor sod,' he said.

  'Don't be patronizing; he isn't a poor sod at all. He's ventured, knowing the rules and the risks, and he'll venture somewhere else.'

  'Why on earth did you reply to him in the first place?'

  'Because he sounded all right.' I paused. 'And because he's got a Ferrari.'

  Colin stared at the picture anew and the compassion faded from his eyes. 'He'd need one looking like that,' he said.

  I patted his hand sympathetically. 'It was the Ferrari, wasn't it?' I said. Which made us both laugh.

  He reached for the third letter and began opening it impatiently. I took it from him and made the most of doing the job neady. I took my time. There is enjoyable power to be had even in such little things. Also, I was really worried by now. I mean, supposing this one had the body of Woody Allen, the brain of Rambo, the face of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Kevin Costner's sense of fun? I delayed. Colin hunched

  nearer across the table, staring at the envelope as if it were an Academy Award. Why had I used his address when, I suddenly realized, I could have used the shop? His breath was on my hands.

  'Oh, open Sesame!' I said, and reached within.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dad and Judith are back but all is not well. I hope it isn't because I am here. I do miss London. He says that he does too. Please send Auerbach catalogue to cheer us up. How are you passing the time?

  We sat in a pub near Oxford. It was a midweek lunch time so not too crowded, though there was the usual collection of braying salesmen and hunched locals giving out the hostile stares of those who wish they were still tugging forelocks, using spittoons and keeping the pub to themselves. I had arrived by myself, clutching a photograph surreptitiously in one hand and wearing what I hoped was an expression of complete cool. Of course everybody looked because the door banged loudly, which did for the complete cool rather well. I sometimes wonder if the masculine frequenters of rural pubs are aware that we women have the vote and are therefore allowed to enter the hallowed den of the beer pump unaccompanied and without a veil. The shadowy stares seemed to think not.

  I advanced. It would take a moment or two for my eyes to accustom themselves to the dark surroundings and make out whether he was there. Small English pubs in the heart of the countryside tend to be dimly lit affairs. You arrive in the light of the day, push open a door, and enter a twilit world of shaded faces, smoky air and talk, which immediately banishes the reality outside. The best way to counter this almost mesmeric quality is to march up to the bar and buy a drink. In this way you shed your guise as female stranger invading the community with dangerous whiffs of outside and receive a more benign acceptance. Once you have sat down with a glass in your hand, you become just another member of the Chorus. The assembly breathes easily again and goes back to its desultory ways. So for the bar I headed.

  Of course there were women in there. Two - one on each side of the bar. She of the customers' side had the look of one who seldom gets off her stool and for whom chatting to besuited chaps while sipping gin and tonic is a way of life. She was, as they say, of a certain age, but this had not tamed her approach to colour. My lemon-coloured jumper had seemed quite a singing affair when I donned it new that morning, but next to her sunset lips and nails, her unapologetically tangerine top and her gilded head, I was nothing more than a jeans and jumper wimp. Despite my drear aspect, as she shifted to let me near the barmaid, she gave me a lovely smile. I moved closer. I saw why. With a chest like hers you could afford to smile. It was the kind of promontory upon which you become fixated while wondering how it ever stays up - sort of wonderful, really. Waiting for my change, I became fixated on it and it was in that state that I felt a hand at my elbow and a voice in my ear say:

  'Margaret?'

  To which I said, 'That's me,' and blushed to be caught in such compromising contemplation. I had planned to be sitting, calmly sipping a white wine, cool and at ease. Instead I was caught, bolt-eyed, staring hard at another woman's breasts.

  He was much as his photograph had shown. Fair hair, lively face, no Schwarzenegger but no string bean. Around my age - and a good deal more relaxed about things than I was.

  'Shall we sit down?' he said, sliding amused eyes from mine to the tangerine chest and back again. It was quite clear that he had noticed how mesmerized I was by what I had seen. Probably the whole pub had. When nature has endowed you with only a pair of cherry pips you are inclined to be fascinated by dramatic mammaries. And they were definitely arranged for showing. She smiled at me as I squeezed past. It was a smile that quite clearly said she took deep pride in her equipment. So the best defence was attack.

  'What an amazing bosom,' I said as we sat down.

  He laughed, rubbed his nose, picked up his glass and said, just a little cautiously, 'Well, yes. Unmistakable, certainly.'

  I soldiered on. You know that awful moment when you feel yourself hurtling down a path you do not wish to take but can't stop yourself? Hurtle, hurtle, I went. 'I've always wanted a large chest,' I said, conversationally.

  He thought for a moment, contemplating his glass quite gravely. My entire body went slack. How could you say that? asked the remaining sensible bit of my psyche. He was by far the best bet of all my dates so far, not least because I had decided he would be, and now I had shown him in one moment of creative delirium that I was completely batty.

  He looked up from contemplating a half of bitter and said, also conversationally, 'So have I.'

  I stared at him for a moment. And then he laughed. Just a little. One of those laughs that is not sure if it should have been born. And then I laughed just a small laugh - before putting my hands over my face and saying through my fingers, 'Shall I go out and come in again?'

  To which, very nicely, he put out his hand and removed mine, looked at me and said, 'If it's any help, I'm feeling a little confused about all this too.'

  I don't think there could have been a better thing to say in the circumstances. The hurtling ceased and I put my chin on one of my hands, while extending the other. We shook on it. 'I don't normally go round staring at women's breasts in pubs,' I said. 'Nor discussing them.'

  Pushing a puddle of beer with his finger, he laughed again, a
good deal more easily. 'Women's bodies are just extraordinarily beautiful pieces of design. Everything about them seduces the eye.' He gave a sideways glance back at the tangerine chest. 'And those are - well, very ...' He was stuck for words.

  'Big?' I said helpfully.

  He gave a capitulating nod. 'Big,' he agreed.

  A lecher or Nietzsche's nephew? Neither, I decided.

  'End of subject?' I asked.

  'End of subject.'

  We both leaned back in our seats, able to relax at last. There were some ham sandwiches on a plate in front of him.