Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers (25 page)

‘No!'

Mother loses the dreamy smile in favour of a frown.

‘What do you mean no?'

I see all my hopes for the future going down the toilet. No seat upstairs for me, possible demotion and eternal shame for Mother, and Athene and that cow Hera triumphant, all for the sake of a pretty face: John Sterling's.

‘I mean you can't drop that amazing plan you had to win the bet with Athene and emerge triumphant as the foremost goddess on Mount Olympus.'

‘You might be right, Eros.' She reaches out a slender arm and strokes my cheek with the soft back of her hand.

‘Might I?'

‘Yes, you clever boy.' Although her gaze isn't heavenly blue it's a pretty neat shade of turquoise.

‘Me, oh right.' Inside I'm calling out hurrah.

‘Then again it is a very pretty face,' Mother says, each word lingering on her lips.

Damn!

‘Only kidding.' She throws an apple at me from the bowl at her side. ‘Catch.'

I grin at her and throw it back.

‘Catch.'

BURIED BENEATH THE ANGRY missives on my website, I found the message from Lance Cooper: ‘Guess who? Long time no see! I had to get in touch and congratulate you on winning such a prestigious award. (It was my mother – you remember Margaret? – who alerted me to the announcement in the paper; she's a great fan of yours.) I'm not surprised that you've had a glittering career: there was always something special about you.'

Really, I thought, just not as special as Julie Fitzgerald's DD breasts.

He went on to say that he had returned to London after having lived in Edinburgh all these years and could we meet up.

I wrote back and said I'd love to.

‘What would you think of a man who had an affair while his wife lay dying?' Lance Cooper's large brown eyes searched mine for an answer.

We were sitting eating dinner at an Italian restaurant just off the Kings Road. We had spent drinks and the first course catching up and filling in: No I haven't seen Amy for years, not since she moved. Leonora, yes, poor girl. Yes, the usual …

Your sister died? God, I am sorry. Here, take mine, it's clean. Yes, Lily and I married.

That's great. We all thought you would …

So you're divorced … ten years ago … Anything since then? Oh an arsehole. Bad luck …

Lily died! That's awful. Poor Lily. God, how terrible for you. Five years? Is that all you had …

No, no children …

Me neither …

Yes, I did find someone else; we got married actually, but it didn't work out, we divorced a while back …

Rebound?

Afraid so. I just couldn't bear being on my own.

Lily and I had a textbook university romance, but it didn't end there, we married the summer after she graduated. Pretty much everyone told us we were too young but they were wrong. We were utterly, ridiculously happy. God, she was lovely: dark hair and creamy complexion, rosebud lips, great body, the lot. Very cool. Very laid-back. Smoking these tiny cigars. She graduated with a first, although her friends claimed that no one had actually seen her do any work. I think most people were a little in awe of her. And I continued being in awe of her even after we were married. She worked in an art gallery. Just the kind of job you would have expected her to fall into. And she was good at it. The artists loved her, of course. We wanted children but we weren't trying very hard. Things were pretty damn perfect as they were, really.

When she got ill we refused to take it seriously. Illness did not happen in our world and, if it did, you got well again. Only she didn't. She died, bit by bit over the course of two years. In the beginning I handed over a lot of work to my partner so that I could go with her to every appointment, every chemo session. I remember so clearly sitting with her in the hospital canteen as a hot summer's day slowly turned into a balmy evening. Lily had had the operation and finished her first round of chemotherapy and we were going to get the results of her latest tests.

She had been gazing out of the window at the street but then she reached across the table and placed her hand in mine. It weighed nothing, as if the substance was already being leached from her body.

‘I just wanted to see if I could do it,' she said.

‘Do what?'

‘I wanted to make sure I could touch you.'

I asked her what she meant. Of course she could touch me.

‘Because you are well and I am dying. Don't you feel how far apart that puts us?'

‘What are you talking about?' I said. ‘You're not dying.'

But when we did get called in to see the specialist the news was bad. The treatment wasn't working. She could embark on another course but quite frankly, he said, if it were him he would go home and try to enjoy what was left of life.

In the car she was calm, no tears, no why me.

But she did object to one small thing.

‘Dr Phillips said if I were you … as if we were talking about which train to catch or what book to read.'

‘He does have experience of … of this whole thing.'

‘Of dying young?'

‘No, no, of course not. But sadly he will have seen it happen.'

‘Ah,' she said, ‘but there's the rub – when it comes to dying it's all about personal experience.'

She went to a local cancer-support group twice a week. More and more it was as if she were leaving our house to go home. When I picked her up in the car I would usually find her at the centre of a group and I would watch her for a moment before letting her know that I was there, because in that room with these other people, sick people, she was more alive then I had seen her since the cancer struck. They were all ages, both sexes, some bald, some wigged, some looking quite healthy. I learnt that the healthy-looking ones were usually the ones who'd given up on treatment. Like Lily.

You know when we were kids hanging out and someone's parent would appear? You remember how we used to go kind of stiff and formal and pissed off all at the same time, exchanging glances and speaking of nothing in a stilted way? That's how it was when I approached Lily and her group after those meetings. I felt like one of our parents and I understood how annoying it must have been for them, as if they actually gave a damn what we were talking about. One woman in particular really annoyed me. She was in her fifties, clumsy-looking, big-boned. She had lost all her hair but she never covered up. I half expected her to be wearing a badge with ‘Proud to have cancer' on it. She was always talking and when I or anyone else appeared, anyone who wasn't part of the group, she'd lower her voice and draw the others in; it was this kind of
us against the world
trip.

I said something about it to Lily as we drove back home
one night and she turned on me with a look that said I was the enemy.

‘Come on,' I said, ‘it's me. We're on the same side, remember?' I took my hand off the steering wheel and put it on her knee, giving it a pat. She drew away from my touch.

Then there were the times when she just wanted me to hold her and never let go.

‘If we stay here,' she said as we lay in bed, just hugging each other, ‘maybe nothing, not even death, can find us.'

She would ask me, over and over again, if I loved her and I told her I did, more than ever. Then she wanted to know if I still fancied her.

That broke my heart because the truth was, I didn't. Obviously I never told her that. I loved her so much it ached, but that love grew more and more like the love for a child or an ailing parent. Just the thought of sex with her made me feel like some kind of pervert. Maybe she sensed it because she let me off the hook, telling me she just wanted to be held. I could do that.

Then there were the jokes. She and her cancer friends all made brave little jokes about their illness, the way it made them look, the treatment, all of it. And I had to laugh although I didn't find it funny. Friends would look at me with sympathy and say, ‘Of course you don't find it funny: you're losing her.' But actually, the main reason I didn't find it funny was because all their jokes had been done before, in the columns and blogs of all the other poor devils with cancer: ‘I never thought the day would come when I was named Slimmer of the Year.' Or, ‘At least I will be saving on the waxing.' I couldn't do it, laugh and admire their guts.

We lived in Cancerland and I had to get out.

It was the usual sordid little fling. At a conference, to compound the cliché. She wasn't even that pretty, but she was healthy. Everything about her, her wide hips and full breasts, her strong teeth and smooth skin and thick, glossy hair, exuded health. She prattled on about her plans for the future. She got pissed. Her jokes were not particularly funny but at least they weren't brave. So I fucked her.

Lily died four weeks later. I didn't tell her what had happened at that damn conference but I think she knew anyway.

The thing is, I'm not a bad guy. And I loved her. I really loved her. And that's what haunts me as much as anything: is that all I'm capable of, the best I have to give? I loved her, she was dying and I betrayed her. I haven't told many people, it's not the kind of thing you advertise, after all, but those I have confided in tell me not to be so hard on myself. That it was just a physical outlet. That it had nothing to do with my feelings for Lily. But it did. It had everything to do with her. So now I never tell a woman that I love her. How can I?

Lance and I had stayed at the restaurant until every table but ours had been cleared and laid for lunch and the waiters had taken to checking their watches each time they caught our eyes.

‘We should go,' I said. ‘They probably have a really early start.'

‘Relax, it's their job,' Lance said, but he agreed to leave.

He put me in a cab and watched and waved as it drove off.

Back home I went straight to my desk and switched on the computer. I had to work. Lily Cooper had died young. If I were to die tomorrow, did I want to leave behind unfulfilled wishes to wilt and die like flowers on my grave?

Who cares?
Coco said.
You'll be dead
.

I decided now was the time to try my hand at the crime novel I had been thinking about for some time:

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew sunlight was flooding my desk and my phone was ringing.

It was John Sterling.

‘How's the book going?'

‘The book? Oh the
book
.' Inwardly I was cursing Angie Bliss. ‘Still very much at the ideas stage, I'm afraid. There's been so much going on lately. I don't know if you've seen but I've caused a bit of an upset lately.'

‘The – my books are rubbish – statement.' He chuckled.

I sighed.

‘I didn't actually say that; the newspaper made it up. Then again, I did say something very similar.' He seemed to be waiting for me to continue speaking so I asked how he was.

‘Very well, thank you.'

‘And how is Melanie?'

‘Melanie? I'm sure she's fine.' Which was an odd way to speak about one's partner, I thought. ‘I feel our meeting was cut short the other week,' he said finally. ‘I thought I'd check to see if you needed some more information, but if you've dropped the idea …'

‘That's really kind. And I might well pick it up again. In which case I would love to take you up on your offer.'

‘Great,' John Sterling said. ‘I look forward to it.'

‘Bye.'

‘Bye.'