Aunt Margaret's Lover (15 page)

I went with the ageist flow. I saw the point. It is shopping and you aim to get what you want, So, feeling somewhat sweaty of palm and with a hint of humiliation about me, in went my advertisement, age range and all. In a way it seemed One For The Girls . . . Heaven knows there were enough advertisements from active chaps of autumnal hue for beautiful women with brains, legs, solvency and half their age.

But consequently, at the beginning of the Pursuit I wasted a lot of time having jolly lunches with the 'I may be fifty but I can act like I'm thirty' types, or 'I may be an inarticulate twenty but I can roger you rigid with my fabbo joystick'. Neither of which was remotely what I had in mind. So I learned to be quite crisp on the subject of age, even more on the subject of status. 'Just what exactly do you mean by "sort of" married, squire?' And very firm on the year's duration. An apparently callous sifting but, since the response to my advertisement was in sackloads rather than handfuls, a necessary one. I could not afford to waste time - theirs or mine - and most went into the bin.

I became acquainted with the mystery of physical chemistry: a conventionally handsome contender left me cold, while a chap with a broken nose and eyebrows that met in the middle gave me quite a frisson. Alas, this latter loved sailing and fishing, both of which activities cither required a lover who would be permanently available for splicing the main-brace, or ready to do battie, wreathed in loving gratitude, with a sharp knife, rubber apron and fish guts.

In the first week I saw sixteen different men so that my days became like the dear Queen's - lunch here, drinks there, dinner somewhere else — only I had no equerry to steer me through. In this business you are very much on your own with no consultative body to advise you. It certainly streamlines your response and removes the pleasures of prevarication. I might arrive in a restaurant looking for a 'handsome, successful lawyer of thirty-seven' only to find a crumpled or defiant-looking individual some twenty years older and heavily into Grecian 2000. I would be polite and then something glaring would happen. 'Remember Alma Cogan's frocks?' he might say and our eyes would meet across silence, saying it all. Or there were the bright-faced babies of tender years who wanted an older woman, and the prospect of instructional sex and having to be powerful all the time left me cold.

The following week was much the same, full of dates, empty of success and I began to worry that I might be getting high simply on going out with a new man every night, rather than conserving my energy and judgement for the right one. It began to feel rather hopeless - the sort of thing Angela Brazil used to call 'madcap' and which was perpetrated by girls with fresh faces, turned up noses and names like Molly. I did not want to be like a Molly - I wanted to be seductive and be seduced in a grown-up manner that had nothing to do with japes in the dorm and being called Molly.

Clearly, I could not talk to Verity about this, since she was in no state to join in the plot with rapture. Nor to Jill either, because she would have been horrified at so pragmatic an approach to what she stoutly believed should be left to Fate. When -
if -
I ever achieved my goal I should have to invent a moonlit story about how we met. She had always wanted me to get a
proper -
she really meant
improper -
man into my life, pre
ferably one from up there, probably in the same village and quite likely from the house next door. But
advertisements?

Never!

Thus, when I was not in a whirl of nail-painting and eyelash-curling, and seriously considering changing my hair colour to Gloriana's auburn for a while, I wandered around pondering the problem alone.

Shuffling rather aimlessly around the local bookshop, I began a close inspection of the jacket blurbs and found, rather dauntingly, that most books of any literary merit with heroine protagonists are either about how to keep a man once they have got him, or how to get away from him when it turns sour. Or lovers just fall, plop, into your lap. So where were the hunting heroines? Was this, I wondered, the result of thousands of years of being hunted? Was it truly not credible or seemly for a woman in print to set out deliberately to find a lover?

Elizabeth Smart did it, of course, but it was more like dementia than fun and ended in a pool of tears at Grand Central. Many heroines, Zen-like in their innocence, got their lovers without expecting it - Emma, Jane Eyre - and in most modern stuff the heroines are, somewhat understandably, attempting to be individuals rather than couples. Deliberately seeking a lover, rather than a husband, protector, father-of-my-children, was a rare concept between bindings. I read Marguerite Duras'
The Lover
in hope, but her heroine is a schoolgirl and, if laconic later, begins life by being extremely surprised to find herself with a lover while she is still in ankle socks. He just seems to drop by the school gates one day and that's that
...
I could not find one heroine who from page one declares that among her various life pursuits she intends to find herself a suitable lover to go with them and who, without a lot of mordant angst, goes out and gets one. I was still stuck on page one myself - yearning to break the literary mould but with no success.

Surely there was somebody out there with a like mind? Between thirty and forty, prepared to be transient, solvent but with free time, cultivated, attractive to me, reasonably virile, socially adept, single
...
As I ticked off the requirements my heart beat a
little
less confidently, for it suddenly seemed a very tall order, not unlike requiring some fantasy hero from
True Romance
to be made flesh. Never mind, I told myself firmly. Buck up and keep plodding on.

After all, the Brazil madcaps always did.
And
they won through.

I decided to abandon my own advertising in favour of answering advertisements instead. Perhaps that would yield better results. But before I gave my telephone number, or any way of being traced, I would request a photograph from them first. The way we perceive a good photograph of ourselves can be very telling - my chirpy smile and my knees for instance - and maybe that would help. Something had to, for I was beginning to feel quite desperate - time ticking away and all that - and also the longer the hunt went on, the more likely my friends were to find out. If I harboured unliberated prejudices about the method, what would
they
think? I could imagine introducing him (when I found him) and them staring at him silently, as if he were an exotic fish.

Not only was requesting a photograph before committing myself a good idea, but it was also sensible given my vulnerability. Apart from the one in a million chance of a correspondent being Jack the Ripper's great-grandson, there was also the possibility of an unwelcome correspondent turning up on the doorstep
..
. 'Hi, I was just passing by on my bike en route for Spud-U-Like and I wondered if you'd like to join me. My name's Kevin and my hobby is breeding goats . . .' But if I wanted a photograph I would no longer have the protection of a box number. I would need a forwarding address. I pondered. I decided. My poste restante victim just had to be Colin. And just for once, I would play him at his own game. We sat in my postage-stamp garden which was looking springlike and sweet and I put him in the canvas director's chair because I thought it would make him feel superior. It was about six o'clock and warm, with the last rays of sun playing on some pink azaleas and a feathery-white spiraea. All very feminine, I thought, and prepared to be all very feminine myself. Colin always
said
I should try harder. The director's chair was placed next to a viburnum which had caught enough warmth during the day to give ofTa rich vanilla scent, and a clump of tall, golden lilies near by decided to match this with a heady aroma of their own. I had dabbed Chloe behind my ears and was prepared for a bit of eyelash fluttering. I sat in a chair slightly lower than his so that I could gaze up at him, and handed him just about the wickedest Martini I could bring myself to mix. Despite Mrs Mortimer's ethereal voice in my ear saying, 'Just wave the vermouth bottle vaguely in the direction of the gin,' I never quite could. Just as well, because he took one gentle sip and then exploded.

'Jesus Christ,' he said, though not entirely unadmiringly, 'have you heard of vermouth?'

Flutter, flutter, I went.

He sipped again. He gave a small grimace which erred on the side of appreciation. He looked at me.

I smiled a smile that revealed the depths of my interest and friendship.

'You want something,' he stated.

"Haven't seen you for ages,' I shrugged. 'I just wondered how the holiday was.'

'The holiday was fine. Very good in fact.' He allowed a faintly lecherous light to enter the remembering look in his eyes. Normally I would have kicked him.

'Good. Nice place, was it?'

'Oh, nice enough.' He sipped again. His eyes held the unmistakable expression of one who expects to be kicked. 'We didn't go out much
...'

'Oh,' I said. 'Hotel had lots of linen cupboards, then?'

That caught him. Somewhere between a laugh, a snort and a sip of his drink. He patted his chest, his eyes watering. When he had recovered, he said, 'And what have you been up to?'

1
kept my even smile, my depths of interest and friendship. Later, when all this was over, I would tell him how close he came to being tipped out of his chair. It was bad enough, heaven knows, when my father used to come home from work and say the same thing. And I was only twelve then
...

'What
have
I been up to?' I tapped my teeth with the glass. 'Very little really.' 'You've been out a lot.' 'How do you know?' I forgot to flutter. 'Out a
lot:

'Oh,' I said airily. 'Not really.' 'Where?'

'Oh, here and there.' 'Not much here.'

'What is this, Colin? Meet the Neighbourhood Watch?' 'Out a lot and
touchy
about it.'

'Not at all.'

'So you've found a lover?'

For a moment I forgot our lunch conversation and thought he had discovered about the advertisements. Though part of me desperately wanted to confess, most of me wanted to keep silent. I mean, love is supposed to be for ever, isn't it, according to received wisdom? As they say of marriage, so read for love, it is the triumph of hope over experience -you are not supposed to go advertising for it or giving it a deadline. All I wanted was to treat a love affair as a holiday. Book in advance, go for a limited amount of time, have as much enjoyment as you can get and leave in good spirits. As I looked at Colin, my inner bravado left me. If he knew what I was doing, he would have a joke over me for ever.

He was looking at me expecta
ntly
, his head inclined slightly. The air was slightly damp now and the chill seeped into my bones. I poured the rest of the rocket fuel into our glasses and tried to recover my calm and flattering disposition. I needed this man, or rather I needed his address. I revived the hamster image and prepared to be ge
ntly
dismissive. Indeed, given the Martini, a beguiling chuckle was playing about my throat. At least, I hoped it was.

He still looked expectant, though the whites of his eyes had turned a little pink.

'Hooked one, have you?' he said, clearly wanting to throw down a gauntlet.

It was a gauntlet to which I should not have risen. I should have brushed my hair back delicately and. replied with sophisticated calm. Instead, insta
ntly
on the defensive, I said, 'No, I haven't!' with the indignation of a Victorian virgin.

'Hold on,' he said, 'I was only inquiring. I thought you would have done by now.' He looked smug. 'You're taking your time to get started.'

I let it pass, temporarily. But vowed to get even some day. A photograph of Colin next to a picture of a hamster with the caption 'Can you tell the difference' loomed comfortingly large.

'How do you know I've been out a lot?' 'I've rung. Quite a few times.' 'You didn't leave a message.' He sipped. 'I couldn't,' he said. 'Oh, why?'

'Because every time I heard your voice on the answerphone I just fell about.'

Some kind spirit put a small but strong rod down my back. I straightened, grew six inches in my chair, and our eyes were practically level. I put false
bonhomie
into mine.

'Why was that, Colin?' I asked.

'Well, go and listen to it.
Have
you listened to it? You sound like a cross between Mae West and a madam. Talking of which' - he raised his nose and sniffed - 'this garden smells like an Egyptian brothel.' Clearly amused, he smiled at a lily head, reaching out to touch it so that it nodded acquiescently. 'Sexy flowers,' he said, taking the nodding acquiescence in his hand and peering into the private waxy depth. 'All you'll need is a red light.'