Aunt Margaret's Lover (18 page)

'You first,' I said.

Until this point our contact with each other had been minimal: the initial letter with his phone number, the brief message I left on his answerphone leaving my number and the even briefer message he left on mine arranging to meet at this pub. It had all been very strange after the wealth of literature received from my others. He also gave the telephone number of an architectural practice in Holborn, in case I should want to check his credentials as a man of honour. His name was Simon Phillips, which was quite acceptable. After a Jason or two anything was quite acceptable.

I doused the madcap Molly of the Fourth in me, who wanted to say, 'Is it true that all architects are failed artists?' and clamped my jaw shut, nodding at him to begin. After my blisteringly wonderful opening, I simply did not feel safe.

'Shall I tell you about myself or do you want to ask me questions? Or would you prefer to tell me about yourself first?'

I had a terrible urge to say, 'Well, Doctor, it's like this . . .' but managed to control it. We sat there, with our drinks and his plate of sandwiches, and I thought that in my whole life I had never felt more unreal. But I argued with myself that you could meet a chap at a party and get to this point. All we had done was meet through an advertisement, and, really, going to parties in hunting mode and all dressed up was no different from advertising your availability in writing.

Then I said, straight out: 'I just wanted some fun for a year. A bit of a fling with no commitments beyond that. And no expectations.
Absolutely
no expectations.'

'Are you
..
.' He played with the puddle of beer again, considering what he was about to say. 'Is it.
..
rebound?'

Rebound would do, I thought. I nodded. 'Sort of.'

'You were very positive about it being for a year?'

So I told him all about Saskia's going and about Greasy Joan and Mrs Mortimer - even the Matisse. But not about Dickie. I was looking forward to being free of that piece of history so far as the next year was concerned. I had already made up my mind, you see, that he would do very nicely. And despite the tangerine hiccough, I hoped he felt the same. He seemed to. At least, he showed no signs of repugnance. I was fed up with the hunting - women are
not
good at it - and just wanted to get on with having some
fun.

'So you are an independent woman of wealth,' he said.

Sounded good.

'I suppose I am. And you?'

'I'm a partner in a fairly humble outfit, but I do very well considering the state of things nowadays. I have a fair amount of free time. I'm intending to wind down quite a lot over the next few months.'

'Are you on the rebound, too?'

He thought, and then shook his head. 'All sorts of reasons for doing this. Mainly because it was suggested to me by a friend. And because until three years ago I was married -no children - and since then I have had the odd one-nighter or two but nothing else. And I don't like one-nighters particularly.'

I felt a sudden disappointment and leaned back, sighing. 'Look,' I said in my best schoolmarmy voice, 'this sounds dangerously like someone who wants to
settle
down into a long-term relationship.' I took up the puddle-of-beer method of emphasis and stabbed my finger into the little wet dots. 'Commitment, expectations and all
...
I am absolutely serious. I don't want that. In fact I so don't want it that I would be prepared to get out next year's diary, if I had one, and write on a given date next year, "Affair Ends Today." And if that sounds hard, then' - I shrugged - 'I'm sorry.'

He put up his hand. He was smiling quite peaceably. 'How about April the ninth?'

I stared. 'What?'

'April the ninth. How would that do for a closing date? That's always supposing we get on well enough together to sustain it for that long.' He gave me a critical look. 'I think we might. Unless you have any peculiarities of an untenable nature - which I don't think you have. I mean, you appear to be a warm, rational, attractive human being with a point of view.' He paused, the critical look deepened. 'You're not a racist? Or a supporter of capital punishment? Or - God help me - a
veganV
He laughed. 'No, no. At least I know you're not that.'

'How? I might be.'

'Because you've eaten most of my ham sandwiches.'

I pushed the plate towards him. Only one little piece remained. There is a creeping selfishness when you live alone. 'God,' I said, 'I am sorry.'

He stood up. Just for a moment I thought he was going to depart on the grounds of my heedless greed. I mean, how would
1
have felt if I
had bought a plate of sandwiches and
he
had practically eaten the lot at our first lovers' rendezvous? Surely, at the beginning you were supposed to be on best behaviour? Munching my way through his rations without so much as a polite request was hardly that. 'I am truly sorry,' I said, half seriously. 'Truly, truly sorry. It won't happen again.'

'So I should think,' he said, and, picking up my glass, he went over to the bar.

I breathed out, relaxed as much as I could, and realized that I had scarcely looked at him. I suppose if anyone had asked me for a split-second summation I would have said friendly face, comfortable person, and neither a blazer nor a pair of well-creased flannels to mar the effect.

I sat and stared at his back view. Grey jumper, denim shirt, navy cords, deck shoes. Perfectly reasonable. But unfamiliar, the clothes covering an alien body of which I could not imagine the texture or true shape. What was his smell like, his habits, his gestures, his requirements? I went cold. This was all completely potty. And what were we going to do now? Walk out into the Oxfordshire countryside and bonk? Immediately? Walk out into the Oxfordshire countryside, get out our diaries and choose a suitable occasion some time hence when we would bonk? Anyway, I didn't
want
to bonk. I wanted to
..
. well, not
bonk
exactly .
..
and have hot sex certainly, but with a bit more than - well, with a relationship attached. Just not for ever. Oh, the whole thing was more than completely potty - suddenly it was
impossible.
And dangerous. He was clearly no philanderer - he was bound to want the normal human thing of moving from affection into love and from love into for ever, with all its sorry disillusions. No.
No.
This had gone far enough. It was hopeless. It would not work. I prepared myself to say this when he returned. The barmaid was handing him some change. She was saying she would call him when the sandwiches were ready. He was turning to come back . . . And then, as he returned, negotiating a way around the tangerine top who smiled up at him carnivorously and spoke, he glanced from her shelving bosom to me, winked, said something to her, and was back sitting down. And I thought,
To Hell with it.
He
will
be my lover. I vowed to go home that night and read my Ovid
avidly.
He is a wonderful antidote to romantic love. With Ovid, as with life, it always ends in tears.

'What did she say?'

'She said they'd be ready in a minute.'

'I don't mean her. I mean the tangerine Exocets.'

'Oh.
Her.
She said that I had a nice bottom.'

'She did?' I was struggling between a desire to appear unconcerned and an already and pronounced territorial instinct. 'And have you?' Was all I could think of to say.

He chewed the remaining sandwich and grinned. 'That's for you to judge . . .'

I was about to reach for my glass but thought better of it. In the entire time I had known him, biblically and otherwise, Roger had never said anything to give me a comparable frisson. I smiled unaffectedly and said to myself that one always played games with lovers at first - one certainly didn't let out all the secrets straight away. I didn't want him to know he had scored a bull's-eye in the frisson department.

He continued to chew for a moment, thinking. I was desperately seeking something for my hands to do, but he had taken the last sandwich and I didn't quite feel up to holding a glass straight. It seemed best just to keep them hidden under the table. The way
1
was feeling I might end up chewing the empty plate. What is it about men that they always manage to hide strong emotion? There he was, just having floated a most suggestive statement, and he was eating as if he had only said, 'Fine weather for May.' Should I have brought up the subject of bonking there and then? I mean, what was the form in these matters? Keeping an unaffected smile firmly on my lips, I said, 'Why April the ninth?'

'Well,' he said, 'that's the day I head off for Nicaragua.' He leaned forward. 'But not for a holiday.' His eyes had become much more serious. 'I'm going out there to work. Taking my engineering skills to a far-flung corner from which I may never return.' He drank some more of his beer, looking at me over the rim of the glass.

'Well . . .' I said, a bit at a loss, 'that sounds very . . . um . . . exciting.'

He leaned back, put down his glass, smiled at the beer puddle. 'Oh, it is, it is. And dangerous. Unpaid, voluntary and extremely right on. It's a commitment I made to some people I know over there - can't be got out of. That's why your year thing was so tempting. I have to go, no matter what. I am shit-scared and I expect to die in the jungle from snake bite. Or a shot from a CIA gun. Or maybe just swamp fever. Anything really.' He shrugged with artificial nonchalance. 'Suicide mission. Call it that.'

'I will not,' I said, suspecting I was being played with. 'You're talking as if you've come out of a nineteenth-century novel. Haggard or somebody.'

'That was Africa.'

'Marquez, then.'

'Right continent at least.'

'You are being extremely patronizing.'

He slapped the table with his hands and laughed. 'I am. But look at it from the Nicaraguan point of view. Torn apart by civil war, racked by poverty, disease, corruption, which has been made only worse by the West - and you sit in an Oxfordshire pub and can't even get the continent right.'

'Well,' I snapped, 'with all that going on I should think a Nicaraguan would be far too busy to notice.'

Our second order of sandwiches was waiting on the bar. The barmaid called to us and Tangerine top looked over at our table laconically. I got up quickly and collected them, giving her an affordably friendly glance as I passed, holding my head and the plate high as I sailed back to harbour.

'Well,' he said, 'that was our first lovers' quarrel. How did you like it?'

'Loved it,' I said. 'Have a sandwich.'

'I don't want to get too heavy about all this,' he said. 'I'm not a tub-thumping individual, nor a crusader, and I would be just as happy -
prefer,
perhaps - to leave that side of things alone. It's a decision I made, I'm going to go and I've done most of the talking about it that I want to do really. What I'm hoping for is a bit of fun until then, and a nice easy ride . . .'

I dared to pick up a sandwich. 'Do you mean that emotionally' - I bit - 'or sexually?'

For a split second he paused, stared, looked unsure. Good. I thought. If we were battling for control here, then I wanted, at least, to show I had some artillery. Then he began chewing, swallowed, picked up his glass, drank, put it down and said, 'Both.'

At which we each gave in and exploded helplessly with laughter.

If I had felt unreal before, it was as nothing to this - I mean, we hadn't even held hands. But then, no one had said it was going to be to formula.

He looked at his watch and for a clammy atom of time I thought he might say that he had half an hour and how about it, but he was only checking the date. 'It's my birthday on Thursday,' he said. 'Shall we do something together? I like pasta. How about you?'

Today was Tuesday. One evening to assimilate, one day to be nervous, one day to be
really
nervous and then we would meet again. 'I'd love to,' I said, and
1
meant it. Which was a nice surprise.

Without thinking too much about the metaphor, I decided to take the bull by the horns. 'Well,' I said, with a great deal more confidence than I felt, 'what
about
the sex thing?'

He looked serious. 'Well,' he said, 'how desperate are you?'

Agrippina could not have been more indignant if someone had suggested she didn't know her poisons. 'I'm not at all desperate. Not at all. I just thought we ought to . . . um . . . well. . .
discuss
it.'