Aunt Margaret's Lover Page 8

  'More to the point,' I said crisply, 'I don't find the idea of Friday night to Sunday night alone very appealing.'

  'I might be able to stay up for some of the Fridays.'

  'Julius, have an espresso and calm down.'

  'Well, I'm very disappointed,' he said. 'Very.'

  'And I am very flattered to be asked,' I said. 'But what you really need is a mistress, not a lover.' I beckoned to the waiter. 'What fun, Julius!' And I laughed.

  Nicely, I thought.

  But I also thought what a very silly view of our liberation we women have. Could I imagine myself making just such a proposition to a man and expecting him to oblige? Yet Julius quite obviously thought there was nothing at all odd in having clear demarcation lines and sticking to them. Had he done an Edward Fairfax Rochester and thrown himself at my feet, saying, 'In that case, if you won't agree to a weekday liaison, then I must and will have you for ever, I shall divorce Linda immediately,' I might have listened, or at least perked up a bit, for pride would have been restored, and there would have been the required peck of romance. But clearly real men — I counted Julius a real man - are not so impractical. This is probably why we do so badly. It may well be that Byron is right when he says that 'Man's love is of itself a thing apart, 'tis woman's whole existence . ..' In which case, Margaret old thing, I said to myself, it is certainly time to reconsider your position and break the mould . . .

  Chapter Twelve

  He snowed me some old photographs, including one of him holding me as a baby, with my mother smiling at us, which I had never seen. There was also one of you and him together -you are trying to balance a champagne bottle on your head and he is laughing. I am going to get a copy of it to bring back.

  Of course I did go to the party, but in sombre clothes and with my antennae as withdrawn as they could possibly be, and not a fin in sight. Fisher, the valuer, was there, and he was a good buffer to stick with. Sharp-witted, amusing, quite uninterested in women and excellent at verbal Rowlandsons.

  'See her?' he said discreetly from behind a canape.

  I looked at a woman with blue hair. Not granny rinse though she was granny age, but a very determined cobalt. Her eyelids were a pulsating burgundy as were her lips. She had nails like talons and wore long, clinging black velvet. In what seemed an extraordinary mismatch, she was talking to Linda, who was wearing her pastel Betty Barclay tie-neck, with a look of sweet devotion and dewy-eyed gentility.

  I nodded. 'Couldn't help seeing her,' I said behind my glass.

  'Lucrezia Borgia minus the poisoned chalice,' he said. 'And very hard at work.'

  'Hard work talking to Linda? That's a bit bitchy even for you.'

  He shook his head. 'I mean negotiating. She's buying for the chap who bought up half of Wiltshire.'

  I shrugged for it meant nothing to me.

  He took my elbow, moving us out of earshot and further into the L of the room where it was less crowded. 'A rival to the Aga Khan,' he said into my ear. He raised his glass and indicated the wall in front of us. I looked.

  'She wants that,' he said.

  'Good taste,' I said, trying to be flippant. And then I dropped the pretence and added, 'So do 1.1 love it. Always have.' It was the Matisse head.

  'It deserves to be loved,' he said softly. Then he drained his glass in unFisherlike abandon. 'She won't get it, I don't think, La Borgia.'' He looked ruminative. 'Julius doesn't want to sell - at least, so he says ...'

  'He told me the same thing.'

  'But there is the question of what Linda wants, too .. .'

  'She wants a swimming-pool.'

  He looked at me incredulously. 'A Hockney?'

  I laughed. It is funny when people are so single-minded about their work. I mimed the breast-stroke. 'Not a painting of one. A real swimming-pool. You know - tiles, sunshades, blue water, expensive . ..'

  He raised a scandalized eyebrow. 'A Matisse for a swimming-pool? He drained what little was left in his glass, brushed the sides of his hair with his hands - a curiously masculine gesture, and in this case gladiatorial I was sure -and walked with smooth determination towards the pair of conspirators.

  I saw him greet them, smiling with the honeyed lips of one bent on smarm, then put a hand on each of their shoulders, drawing them towards him. I yearned to know what was said but Julius came up at that point. He filled my glass, said very curtly that he was glad I had come, and then went off again. I was cross, because I knew almost no one. He was punishing me by not introducing me, as a good host should, and certainly he knew how to be a good host if he chose. Not very nice of you, Julius, I thought. I looked about me and tapped my glass. At the furthest end of the room was the lone back view of a grey-haired man, quite tall, neatly besuited in dark grey. He was staring at a Victorian painting of a poor but honest cottager and his winsome wife, who in their turn were staring at a ewe and her new-born lamb with tender delight. I found the painting irritating since their cottage windows were significantly cleaner than mine, their fingernails spotless and her well-rounded apron considerably more than a dolly tub white. Oh, those wretched Pre-Raphaelites!

  'The message is obvious,' I said to the back view. 'The ewe has had a lamb - symbol of the Redeemer who came to take away the sins of the world. The cottager's wife is heavily pregnant, so the painter is telling us that despite the naughty goings-on involved in her reaching that state, God will forgive . . .' The back view began to turn. I chuckled and added. 'So long as she didn't enjoy any of it, that is, and lay back praying for England throughout. . .'

  He faced me and smiled a little cautiously - nervously even - and I realized that his suit was of that particular colour called clerical grey. I realized this because beneath his chin lay the neat white band of dog collar. Quite as Persil-white as the painted pinny.

  'Charming,' he said. 'A very charming picture. You know about paintings?'

  'Well,' I said, downcasting my eyes, meek before the Lord. 'I know what I like.'

  Later Fisher returned and we went for a stroll in the garden. This was almost entirely made up of shrubs, landscaped lawn, espaliered fruit trees and conifers. Not a surprise in sight.

  'A swimming-pool would be an improvement,' he said. 'Pity.' He looked smug.

  'What have you been up to?' I asked.

  'Oh, nothing out of line. Just muddying the waters a little.' He looked up at the cloudy sky. 'May rain later.'

  I stopped walking. 'Oh, bugger the rain. Tell me.'

  He smiled skywards. 'I have done nothing dishonourable so far as my profession is concerned. Besides, I am more or less retired nowadays.'

  'I never suggested you'd been dishonourable. And that's the statement of a guilty man!'

  'I told Ms Borgia that I had heard there were several Matisses coming on the market next year. That is all.'

  'What does that prove?'

  'It proves nothing. Only, as I said when Linda skipped off to get us our drinks, they will be top notch.' 'Meaning that Julius's one is not?'

  'Only by implication. Any fool could see how good -exceptionally good - it is - but neither Lucrezia nor Linda has an eye. I have also advised Linda, who was somewhat hurt when the blue lady departed so rapidly, to wait and see what the market in general does. And that is wisdom, always.'

  'It sounds a bit skulduggery to me.'

  'Oh, not at all. Look at that blackbird- up there. He's warning us to turn back now, I think. Um, what were we saying? No, no, not at all. The point is that the best value in any sale is usually achieved with collections. Mrs Mortimer's St Ives group, her Pop Art collection - thematic, chronological. People like stories. The Matisse sticks out above all the rest - a rogue, a beautiful rogue.' He gave me a sideways glance. We were nearly back at the house. 'Easier, perhaps, to sell the Picasso suite . . He opened the door for me. 'Ah, dear, but as Linda said acidly, she - meaning you - has that

  'I'm putting it up for auction very soon.' 'Do you need the money badly?'

  'Not yet,' I said. 'I just don't lik
e the thing. And, anyway, 1 was told to sell it.'

  'Withdraw it. At least for the time being,' he said, as Linda bore down on us. 'That's my advice. A Vollard Suite went recently and not for as much as it should have. And yours is only photogravure and not good images at all.'

  'I know. I wish you'd tell Linda that,' I muttered, stamping a smile in readiness.

  He chuckled. 'Say nothing for the moment.'

  And before I could be inveigled back into the spider's web, I made my excuses, thanked Linda and Julius, and left, flaying the spotted laurel with my wing mirrors and spraying up gravel in my desire to be speedily free.

  There is something altogether irritating about a past lover finding immediate solace in the arms of another. Even if you don't want him. Quite why this is so is one of the mysteries of our human nature. Well might Rousseau argue that man - and woman? He does not say - is by nature good, and politically so he may be. But in the areas of love and emotion I suspect we will always be wanting. A dog-in-the-manger attitude seems to have a universally high profile among separated lovers, and, though I certainly did not wish to eat hay with Roger any more, neither was I truthful when I told him I was glad he had found someone new to root around the byre with.

  He came to collect his encyclopaedia of music, overlooked in the general settling up, and whistled in the hall. Roger was not one to whistle. He was also wearing a rather dashing black roll-neck jumper under his old tweedy jacket, which gave him a fashionable air. It transformed the paleness of his face and his rimless spectacles into a kind of casual aesthetic, which the whistling compounded. He called around noon, and after he had taken the book from the shelf and was cradling it lovingly in his arms, I suggested, with what I felt was conciliatory largesse, that he might like to stay and share my lunch time soup.

  'I can't,' he said happily. 'I'm meeting Emma for lunch.' He was near the front door now. 'But thanks for asking.'

  'Emma?' I said sweetly. 'A student?'

  He smiled. And maybe it was that smile which made my vascular ducts freeze, for it was pointedly complacent.

  'No,' he said. And nothing else.

  Short of realizing the delightful vision of twisting his jug ears off, I smiled too. 'A girlfriend? I am glad.'

  He smiled. That smile again. And I stuck my hands in my pocket for fear of committing the double van Gogh.

  'Yes,' he said. 'Well - lover, actually.'

  'Blimey,' I said, restraint fleeing at the sonorous beauty of the word on his hitherto dusty lips. 'That was quick.'

  'Would you like to see a photograph?' he said eagerly, and handed me the book while he delved in his breast (perhaps heart is more appropriate?) pocket. He held it up for me. It was a gummy black-and-white shot, head and shoulders only, of a not at all bad looker. More to the point, a not at all bad looker who had probably been in nappies when I took the eleven-plus.

  'Gosh,' I said.

  'Mmm.' He turned the photograph and looked at it fondly. 'You can't see here,' he said, even more eagerly, 'but she has black hair and blue eyes and a very lovely nature.'

  'Well done.' I tried to sound joyous. 'What does she do?'

  'Plays the oboe.'

  'I mean for a living.'

  He looked at me pityingly. 'Plays the oboe.' 'Oh. Ah. Well, that's just up your street. How did you meet?'

  Only then did he look a bit shifty.

  Part of this dog-in-a-manger attitude is that it can get even nastier: when you spot a weakness you press it home. And much against my better judgement, minestrone spurned, I pressed more firmly. Why should he look shifty if there was no savour to be had in the truth? 'Come on, tell me. After all, it's quite hard to meet new people. Especially' - I nodded at the photograph - 'ravishing young women like her . ..' I would, I knew, be forgiven for overweening. Ravishing she was not, but she was certainly, confound it, more than just presentable.

  'Well,' he said, backing a little, holding up the photograph as one might hold crossed sticks at a vampire. 'She sent me this. With a letter.'

  'Out of the blue?!'

  'Not exactly.'

  I waited.

  He then took a deep breath, almost visibly threw caution to the winds, and said, 'I put an advertisement in Music Week.'

  'An advertisement?' I imagined a full-page colour spread. 'Saying what?'

  'Oh, I can't remember exactly.' He shrugged. 'Anyway, she answered it and we met and ... well, that's it, really.'

  'What sort of advert? I mean - well, what an extraordinary thing to do.' I was also thinking that it had worked. 'Was it expensive? Advertising is usually an arm and a leg. At least when I did one for those pine frames years ago, it cost me at least a couple of hundred.'

  'No, no . ..' He relaxed, smiled. 'Not a big ad. One in the lonely hearts column. Eight lines for thirty quid or something. I forget.'

  I looked at the photograph. My expectation of lonely hearts was that all the advertisers must be - in the new sensitive parlance - extremely cosmetically disadvantaged.

  'I got nine replies,' he said proudly, 'and Emma was the best. There was another contender . . .'

  Contender?!

  'But she was married,' he said peevishly, 'and she only told me on our second date and even then not until the coffee.' 'Were most of them a bit ropey?'

  He looked offended, as well he might. 'Not at all,' he said with dignity.

  'And you've done all this in just a few weeks? You were shifting.'

  'And why not?' He jutted out his chin. 'I'm sorry,' I said. 'It's just a bit - well, very . .. surprising.' 'You said yourself it's not easy to meet new people.' 'Yes, but. . . advertising/'

  'Well, what would you do? Sit around saying prayers?'

  After he had gone I sat in a slump on the stairs for a long time, shaking my head occasionally, ruminating, looking for some reason to laugh the notion out of existence. And could find none. On the other hand I could not quite see myself putting an ad in the lonely hearts column of Framing Today (were there such a publication) because the last thing I wanted was to meet a picture framer. Particularly as - I gurgled at the thought - I might get Reg!

  I rang Music Week and asked if they had a trade counter for back numbers, which they did. So hopping in the car and driving a little less safely than I would have liked, I went to their Marylebone office and bought up the last three issues. I took them to a nearby cafe, and, while I waited for my tea and scones, turned to the classified advertisements. Bold and upfront as if there were nothing to be ashamed of at all was the heading: lonely hearts. It sounded so pathetic and I had a sudden horrible vision of a shelf of pumping arteries waiting balefully in line.

  The waitress brought my order. Instantly I felt furtive and plopped my arms over the magazines before she could see what I was looking at. I sat there, rigid and stupid, like a child in the classroom who does not want her work to be copied. The waitress set down my order in the small remaining space of the table, and when I looked up to thank her she was staring at me as if I were quite potty. Before departing she gave a long searching look at the magazines hidden beneath my arms and then back at my face again. As if, were the police to inquire of my whereabouts, she could be absolutely sure of giving a very good description.

  I found Roger's advert eventually, though at first I could match none of the dozen or so entries in each issue with the man I knew. In the end the bit about considering Schubert the greatest composer of art songs the world has ever known, and liking skiing, convinced me it was his. The rest of it was scarcely recognizable and it was only comparing what he said about himself with what the other advertisers said about themselves that made it clear. He had obviously done his market research. But if he saw himself as forty-four, good-looking, fit and fun with SOH (what on earth was that, I wondered? Sort of Handicapped?), then what were the ones who called themselves 'presentable, active, mature' like? 'Active', despite Colin's more salacious connection, made me think of pensioners in gardens digging furiously lest the neighbours think them senile and
call in the cart.

  However, as I idled over my tea and picked around at the crumby plate, Roger's advert inspired disturbing thoughts of how I would describe myself were I to place an advertisement (which, of course, I had no intention of doing) in this column. I came up with some funny notions.

  'Maiden (well, I was nearly) aunt seeks toy boy with whom to make sweet music' I laughed out aloud, which, as the cafe was now in a quiet period, brought my disapproving waitress back to the table to collect my empty crockery. I considered her as a contender: 'Tall temptress, forty something, into food and Madonna (she had been tapping her foot to the cafe's tinny radio earlier) seeks mature man to help her fill her sandwiches . . .' I laughed again, left a decent tip, and departed for home.

  But it is not a laughing matter, this heart-seeking business. I soon realized, as I began to read the other advertisements, that it is to be taken extremely seriously. Someone who writes, 'Fifty-something lady harp, strings all broken, needs kind, patient male restorer to prepare her for plucking again,' is not in it for flippancy and flings. If I had expected to find some amongst the advertisers who were tongue in cheek, I was disappointed. I was even, momentarily, tempted myself to answer the chap who wrote, 'Guitarist, classical. Lonely male, forty, seeks female companion for forthcoming South-East Asian tour, Sept/Jan. Considerable free time together for sight-seeing, hugs and possibly more. The lady will be N/S' - N/S? Near-sighted? Not slovenly? - 'cultivated, attractive, with SOH. And under thirty-five.'