Aunt Margaret's Lover Read online

  'Hello,' she said gaily, 'I've just introduced myself.'

  I grimaced at her, righted myself, and smiled warmly over her head. The smile was returned, all innocence. How could he possibly know what Verity suspected of him?

  Now, here is a conundrum. When your new man is standing next to your friend, how do you manage to be unwelcoming to her so that he doesn't think of you as some kind of treacherous monster? Of course, I wanted to say, 'Piss off, Verity,' but instead, for the sake of my standing in Oxford's eyes, I smiled sweetly and said, 'Come in' to both of them.

  I held open the door. Oxford passed by first, but before I could hiss a valedictory message over my shoulder at Verity he turned round to say something complimentary. I had no idea what he was complimenting because my brain was entirely engaged in hoping for Verity's demise. Also because she was hissing at me that I was showing too much cleavage, which is a bit thick coming from her. Her breasts seem to start just below her collarbone in a decent set of half grapefruits, and she's never been backward in showing the pips.

  By the time we were in the sitting-room Verity was a fact of life and I had to introduce them. Verity smiled, shook his hand and scrutinized him closely.

  'You have a mole on your left cheek,' she pronounced and scrutinized it as if preparing an Identikit.

  I left them to it. 'Just going to get my coat,' I called as I made for the sitting-room door. 'Verity, did you want something?'

  'Well, I wouldn't say no to a drink,' she said, which was not what I meant at all.

  Neither would I, I thought. I fumed on the stairs and kept my voice light. 'Simon?'

  'No thanks,' he called cheerily. 'But don't let me stop you.'

  'I think we ought to go,' I said when I returned with my coat on. I sounded horribly like a henpecker, and I added that it was Simon's birthday. Verity, if you please, said that she already knew this because I had told her yesterday. Then, if you double please, she fixed him with a chirpy look and said that she and I had no secrets (That's all you know, I thought) and she knew all about him.

  'Did you want anything?' I asked her again pointedly. No, she was just passing and had been alerted by seeing a man on my doorstep, she said. 'We are very Neighbourhood Watch here,' she added significantly.

  Somehow I managed to get them out of the house. But Verity stuck close and it seemed not impossible she was going to join us. But when they shook hands, I said a very firm 'Goodbye', which gave her no chance.

  Even so, before going, she did a circuit of Oxford's car, an unobtrusive kind of vehicle, and made of it what an archaeologist might make of calcified Dinosaur droppings.

  'Hmm,' she said. 'Renault, silver grey, H reg.' She read out the number-plate slowly. 'Easily remembered,' she said to him, gimlet-eyed. He looked rather blank at this but showed himself to be game by saying, 'Yes, I suppose it is.' And I dived into the car.

  So much for the beginning, I thought, though I was rather more worried about the ending. Verity was perfectly capable of borrowing a ladder and popping her head round the bedroom window. I didn't think I would be able, if asked, to keep my mind on rampant carnality chez moi that night. Sometimes, despite myself, I yearned for Verity to get back with the dreaded Mark and just leave me alone.

  I gave him a small book of Inigo Jones sketches, usefully on sale at the Hayward that day, and a card of Turner's Tintern. 'I'm touched,' he said.

  'They'll be a bit out of place in the Nicaraguan jungle.' 'They'll be a bit of England.'

  'Wales, in the case of Tintern: And then, because I could not resist the poke, I added, 'Right continent at least.'

  Conversation was a great deal easier this time around, though a little probing about his marriage elicited a rapid shut-down. Quite nicely done, skilfully in fact, but a shutdown nevertheless. Same for 'Why Nicaragua?' Fair enough, I decided. I would not pry. This was a jaunt for a year, not an invitation for life. So I could just sit back and enjoy the simplicity of it all.

  'I never married, for which I am jolly thankful,' I said. 'Given the ratio of misery to happiness.'

  'And so you select a lover like this whenever you feel so inclined? That's enviably positive.'

  'Oh no. This is the first time. You see before you a lonely hearts virgin.'

  He laughed but with a distinct edginess.

  'I mean that I've only had one bash at it . . .' Too late, I winced inwardly at the romantic delicacy of my words. In these gauzy days of first love here I was sounding like an old colonial major. 'And you?'

  'You are the only one I have met. I liked your smile.'

  'What if I'd turned out to be horrible?'

  'I'd have gone for no. 2 reserve'

  I felt a nasty bristling sensation around the back of my neck. Damn Darwin. I concentrated very hard on the froth of my cappuccino, running the spoon back and forth - a very soothing motion under the circumstances. Despite everything there is that residual worm of possession. I had no idea what my voice would come out like when next I spoke -somewhere between a hiss and a squeak, I suspected.

  'Hmm,' I said, noncommittally, sipping the coffee.

  'Anyway, here we are.' He raised his glass. 'I don't like that side of things. A bit like a cattle market.'

  'Catalogue,' I said. 'And you have to assume that the people who go in for it are as tough as you are.'

  He nodded. 'To the year ahead.' He smiled. I smiled. 'May we both get what we want.' We chinked glasses and drank. The hackles went down a bit.

  We lingered over more cappuccino and I asked him if he had ever read Ovid on the matter of lovers. He looked a bit taken aback, as people often do when asked if they have read Roman poetry. I really do not see why. After all, there is great comfort to be had, when you are floundering around feeling like the first ever twerp, to find out that people were doing and feeling exactly the same two thousand years ago.

  'He's very funny about it all - how to get the girl, how to keep her, what she's probably thinking, how to go about giving gifts and what to expect in return, quid pro quo .. .'

  'Sounds very cynical.'

  'Not at all. It's a blueprint and honest. He says what's in his mind really, as opposed to what others pretend. In the erotic poems, he gives away great chunks of advice which is both hilarious and painful at the same time. Like if you have a married lover and must dine with both her and her husband, when it is impossible to touch or speak of love and you are on fire, you must devise a system of body language instead. He says,

  ' "When you are thinking of the last time we made love together

  Touch your rosy cheek with one elegant thumb.

  If you are cross with me but can't say so, then pinch the bottom of your ear lobe ...

  When you yearn for your husband to suffer some well-merited misfortune

  Place your hands on the table as though in prayer .. . Slip neat wine in his glass if you get the chance ... If he passes out comfortably, drowned in sleep and liquor,

  We must improvise as occasion dictates ..."'

  He leaned forward, interested. Ovid always interests people - he's so wicked. 'Could you remember to do all that? I mean, suppose you got something wrong? Pinched an earlobe when you meant to make praying hands?'

  'Doesn't matter, really. The game's the thing.'

  'Is it?' He was looking at me very steadily.

  'It is,' I said firmly.

  'We understand that?'

  'We do.'

  He leaned back, just about as relieved, I should say, as I was. 'Well one thing's for sure,' he said, as our bill arrived, 'you can't go touching your rosy cheek with your elegant thumb with me yet.'

  As Aurora Leigh, that talented orphan girl with the creditable pen, observed, 'We have hearts within/Warm, live, improvident, indecent hearts . ..' Well might she say it -and Ms Browning report it - for despite our knowing for a medical and biological fact that hearts are no more likely to be the seat of emotion than ankles, nevertheless - and at this particular moment I could vouch for it - they certainly feel
as if they are. Mine went another one of those almighty bumps and my thumb felt several stages short of elegance. As for my rosy cheek, I had absolutely no doubt it was iridescently puce as an Auerbach.

  Lord, Lord, sex is such an item . ..

  We held hands walking back to the car, which felt all right if slightly teenage. And I suppose because the Pinot Grigio had been as good as the company, I felt emboldened, and a little vino-veritassed, to say, 'You haven't commented on how I look. My hair, for instance ...'

  He stood still and stared. 'Oh yes I did,' he said, 'but with your friend there I don't think you heard. You look . . . um . . . very bold.'

  'Bloody Verity,' I growled, and the Pinot Grigio loosening the treacherous monster's tongue at last. 'She's so nosey’

  'She certainly took a lot of interest in my car,' he said. 'Odd for a woman. At the risk of being sexist, you're usually concerned with more interesting things than tail-lights and number-plates. . .'

  'Oh,' I said, 'Verity's a writer.''

  That seemed to satisfy him.

  'She was very much in evidence,' he said cautiously.

  'Ah well,' I said, 'the thing is she doesn't exactly know about the advertisements. She thinks we just sort of. . . met ... in a pub. So she's a bit suspicious. Hence turning up on the doorstep, and all that stuff about your mole.'

  He laughed. 'Why don't you want to tell her?'

  'Because she will disapprove. Because it will spoil the game.' I sounded exactly like a petulant child but couldn't stop now. 'Part of the game is that everybody else must believe in it. They really won't if I say I got you out of a catalogue. Even I might not. There's something about being surrounded by believers. You catch their faith - like measles and Billy Graham.'

  Why did 1 say that? What on earth did the Evangelical movement have to do with anything? I was appearing about as romantic as yesterday's cold crumpet. But you know how it is - here comes that incautious hurtling again. 'And then there's Jill - the one we're going to stay with ...'

  'We are?' he said.

  'Sorry. I haven't told you about that yet. But yes. She's my oldest and dearest friend and she lives in Northumberland and is a total romantic. This ...' - I gestured - 'this could probably kill her ...' I bent my elbow against the car and leaned my head in my hand. 'Well, not exactly. But it would seriously dent her.'

  'Surely not?' he said.

  'You don't know her. She has a market garden and thinks that baby leeks are the offspring of two adult leeks who are deeply in love.'

  He laughed as he kissed me, which is quite a strange physical arrangement. However, putting out of my head the thought that the kiss might be a way of shutting me up and that a restaurant car park was not exactly Venus's shrine, I responded gamely and it was a success. I got that melty feeling inside that you are supposed to get, and - perhaps the best test of all - I was sorry when it was over. Funny how men, even quite ordinarily weak men, go all strong when they clinch. It must be the muscles seizing up in reaction. I didn't mind being held tightly because my ear was against his chest and I could feel his heart doing an Aurora Leigh too. It had been very nice, producing enough glowing embers for a good blaze ahead. I was perfectly happy to stay like that for a while. So why, why did I say, through the intimate beating of his heart, 'Well, thank God that's over . . .'

  Not unnaturally he stood back and stared at me in wonder.

  I explained as best I could that I had meant only that it was yet another hurdle between us negotiated. He replied, not unreasonably, and after which I felt suitably chastened, that he had not thought of it as a hurdle himself, more as an erotic part of the ritual ... I agreed, very lamely, and then looked up at him. We stared at each other very hard, real deep-eyed stuff, forgetting the asphalt, the headlights, the accelerating cars.

  'Are we ready for this?' I asked.

  His eyes, my eyes, both held hesitancy. He thought for a bare wisp of time and then said, 'I don't know. Are you?' To which I said the same. And we went on staring at each other until suddenly he stepped back and looked me up and down, from frou-frou to dtcolleti to les cheveux oranges, and said, 'You look' - he touched my neck, which made me shiver - 'very fuckable.'

  'Yes,' I said, looking around me suddenly and realizing we were in a car park, 'but not here.'

  Of the blaze ahead we said little. In fact, driving back we said little about anything. Not a frosty silence, merely a thinking one. Once he asked me how I felt and I said the truth, which was that I felt nervous. 'Me too,' he said. I then came clean and told him all about the mundanity of my bed. It sounded extremely weird to my ears but seemed to make sense to him.

  'We do have time,' he said.

  'Yes,' I agreed, but I was sitting bolt upright, tense as a cat in danger.

  When he stopped the car at my door, he turned to me and was smiling again. 'Perhaps we'd better knock on your friend's door - to show her that you are whole and unharmed.'

  It seemed a much funnier and more welcome thing to do than pile into my house and my clean, brooding bedding. But not really practical. So into my house we went. And I suddenly realized that the problem was the house, although I was not at all sure what. Maybe it just wasn't romantic enough? Could it be something so silly as that?

  'This is a very prosaic setting,' I muttered, turning on the kitchen light, thinking that at least Verity's kitchen had an aura about it. Mine really did look dull. I turned to him. 'Know what?' I said, '1 think I have just discovered that I'm a romantic'

  He laughed and sat down at the table. He put his chin in his hand and looked at me, very sideways. 'Well,' he said,

  'you could have fooled me.' A response which, given my record to date, was hardly surprising.

  'All the same,' I said, sitting opposite him, emulating his pose, 'all the same, I am.'

  The upshot was that we had more coffee, talked some more, kissed and fumbled around a bit, let Verity speak into the answerphone - I knew she would call, I just knew it -and he suggested that since we were apparently going away to Jill's very soon anyway, we could stop off on the way at a fancy hotel. His choice. The implication was that, since I had committed him to going away without so much as asking if he wanted to (which he did), at the very least he should decide the right place in which to begin our loverhood in earnest.

  In earnest, I told the chaste pillows as I pulled back the duvet later. Silly cow, I told my reflection as I undressed. All the same, I was glad. It seemed much more of an adventure like this. And if there is one thing I do know from my experience of hotels, it's that they are very sexy places: you can be thoroughly irresponsible, quite anonymous, and somebody else has to wash up the glasses and remake the bed. As I slid off to sleep in my solitary fresh-Persilled mound, I found that I was smiling. If he didn't get sex on his birthday, then I should make sure he got a birthday of sex some other time and soon ...

  Chapter Twenty

  It was lovely to talk to you at last. You are probably right to be only cautiously optimistic about getting a show together for next

  year but I mean to try. Have a good time at Jill's. I had a sudden tickle of homesickness at the thought of the season over there. I bet you're feeling quite lonely really. You could come over here. You could see for yourself how nice he is then.

  Verity gave me a long, long lecture on how I should be cautious - to the point of not seeing Oxford any more. I got the distinct feeling that she preferred me as a female guru of the 'single and loving it' kind. I decided that the best thing would be to show her how it can work and be good, encourage her to unfold her wings and dare again. After all, even if love was not for ever, it could be good in its allotted span. I had no expectations, I told her, none whatsoever. She said, 'Hmm, I bet,' so that it was on the tip of my tongue to come right out with it and say why I had none. We reached a stalemate, or compromise, depending on which side of positivism you choose, and the days very nicely flashed by. This, suddenly, was living.

  By the most curious quirk of female response I fo
und that romantic excitement led to an outbreak of housework fever, and I spent a lot of my time tidying up. At first, I worried that it was a sign of the nesting instinct, but then I decided that it probably had more to do with clearing out the past.

  It was as if I had been asleep for many years and had to start from scratch. Pregnant air - the house contained it. The house, a somewhat prissy individual, was sitting back on her matronly bottom and waiting for me to strike at her heart. I was extremely glad to be able to report to her that at least the first night of Picasso-type romping would not take place in her admonishing lap.

  Saskia had left her room in immaculate shape, uncharacteristically, and I had only to water the plants or open a window for the new spring air to sweeten its staleness once in a while. The photographs that she had extracted from me sat in homely display on her shelves and I looked very hard at one or two of these. Somewhere my psyche seemed to sense a rush of air - as if a great and ponderous bird were slowly bearing its wings, about to take off and swoop down on me. I had felt its first faint flappings when Saskia decided to meet her father, heard as well as felt its beat as her letters and phone calls multiplied, and I knew that when she returned here, the beaten air would go swirling round, churning things up, settling them all back in a different and dangerous order. Dangerous? Why did I think it could be dangerous? To what was the danger? Stirred air settles again, in time, and leaves no trace of its motion.