Aunt Margaret's Lover (20 page)

She looks at the screen. 'That is quite enough for today,' she tells it. She knows that she will descend into cynicism if she continues. Tomorrow is another day. Oh
God,
why did she go and say
that?
She could weep. Well, she decides, if she is going to weep, she is not going to do it alone. It is six-fifteen, sun definitely over the yard-arm, and unless she is out, Margaret will be in. Verity finds her friend's burgeoning interest in the opposite sex fascinating, enlivening and -Verity is quite sure - doomed. When the doom finally reveals itself, Verity will be able to sit with Margaret and talk about it in five-minutes-for-you five-minutes-for-me style. It has always irritated her that her friend had avoided such emotional pitfalls. Female normality was to go into batde, win a few, lose a few, and then retire from the war to convalesce with an equally shell-shocked pal. Usually of course another battle soon follows, but in this case, Verity thinks to herself as she swings through Margaret's gate and up the path, she, Verity, will never start another one again. She doubts if Margaret will, either. Maybe it's the lemon juice but Verity is feeling extraordinarily sour.

While she waits for the door to be answered, she looks at the little front garden, wh
ich bears unmistakable signs of
activity. Not particularly attractive activity, but better than none. Verity's garden, like her house, is individual and stylish - stone urns, well-matched flowers and shrubs throughout the year, window boxes that do not wilt, interesting varieties. The weeds gave up long ago. Margaret has shown little inclination to garden beyond the most basic weeding, so it comes as a surprise to see haphazard polyanthuses dotted about the front patch, with slightly startled-looking salvia plonked down between them. Margaret has selected from the full range of polyanthus colours available, which is rather a lot; not all of them are complementary.

Margaret opens the door. She has on a bathcap, leggings and an ancient white T-shirt which shows sign of bloody battle. As if somebody has attempted to cut her throat. The mistress of the house is not - quite - looking her best.

'I saw it was you,' she says, reaching out to hoick Verity in, closing the door swiftly.

'You've been gardening.' Verity says it as if it is an accusation. Then she sniffs the air. 'What a beautiful smell.' She looks about her. The Hoover, clearly in the process of being used, lies in the hall, and everything has an air of neatness and cleanliness - even the hall table is polished and clear of debris save for a large blue and white bowl. Verity peers in, sniffs again. 'Wonderful,' she says.

'Pot-pourri,' says Margaret absently. 'Verity, have you got anything to unstop wastepipes?'

Verity taps the pockets of her jeans and her shirt. 'Must have dropped it on the way here
...'

'Be serious,' says Margaret. 'The downstairs sink is blocked.'

'Bleach? Soda crystals?'

'I don't have either.'

'What's blocking it?'

'Grunge - tea-leaves. I don't know. Don't just ask the quality of my blockages.
Do
something.'

Verity is frogmarched into the kitchen. Here it is not quite so pristine. Indeed, here there are signs of dementia - open cupboard doors; pans, bottles, brushes, screwdrivers all over the floor.

'Have you got a plunger?' Verity asks.

'Of course I've got a plunger.' Margaret hands it to her as if it were an ill-deserved bouquet.

Verity presses up and down at the sink. There is a rank smell and not much activity from the suction. She continues while looking over her shoulder, 'Why have you got blood dripping from your ears?'

Were it possible for someone with a hatchet in the head not to notice until a kindly neighbour pointed it out, Margaret's surprise would not seem so odd. As it is, Verity is amazed to see her friend put a hand up to her head, pat its bath-hatted horror once or twice, wail,
'0//,
my GoaV
and vanish from the room.

Verity goes on using the plunger for a little while but to no avail. She gives up and starts hunting through the floor's detritus for something suitable to poke down the hole. And in her innermost secret musings she wishes she had a man with her to do this sort of thing; in her inner innermost, secret musings she is perfe
ctly
willing to acknowledge that they are better, much better, at tasks like this. During this secret betrayal of hers the doorbell rings. Verity is encouraged by a strangled, faraway hostess's voice to 'see who the hell that is'.

'We've met, haven't we
?' Colin says, coming into the hall.

'We have,' says Verity firmly, tugging him in the direction of the kitchen, 'and we need you.'

Colin looks pleased until, as he reaches the open door, the pot-pourri's scented delight is replaced by something altogether more unpleasant.

Margaret, her towel-dried hair standing up in spikes that have a certain orange quality to them, comes into the kitchen to find Verity leaning on the sink unit, the doors of which are open to reveal the lower half of a man lying on his back with his legs stretched out.

'Oh,' says Verity, 'you've gone orange.'

'Orange-ish,' says Margaret peevishly. 'I was hoping it would look like Gloriana - a big fiery halo of auburn.'

Verity looks her usual doubtful self. 'More like London Brick Company.'

Gloriana refuses to be drawn. 'Damn stuff. I'll wash it again in a moment.' She advances, looks at the legs, cocks an eyebrow.at Verity.

'Colin,' mouths Verity.

Margaret smiles. 'Colin,' she says cheerily, bending down and peering into the cupboard, 'I'd recognize that lower half anywhere.'

His upper half is crouched around a bucket and the whole makes a picture of which Dali would approve. His smile is a grimace.

'If you're going to get yourself a man,' he says acidly, 'you might get one who's good at this sort of thing . . .'

Margaret kicks his ankle, apparently playfully.

Verity says, 'Get a man, did you say, Colin? She's been getting them - loads of them. Why stop at one? And none of them lasts. Too picky, you see!'

Colin chuckles. '"Selective" is a kinder word, perhaps.' His voice is muffled and he is clearly straining to undo something. He continues, 'I didn't actually come round here to do this. Get off, you bugger, damn thing. I came to - ah, good, it's coming now — I came round to see how you - one more turn, I think. Don't turn on the water . . .' He laughs. 'To see how you made out with that Oxford date? The one who sent you his -
i
said
don't
turn
on
the
water, you
silly
cow.' But Margaret has. Only a little. Just enough to cause a diversion. She hands him a length of kitchen towel, bending over the open door, and puts her hand over her mouth quickly to stifle her laughter. She apologizes as convincingly as she can. Colin's face is bespattered with unpleasant, unidentifiable liquid matter. She gives him a warning look which is wasted since his eyes
are
closed.

'What on earth did you do that for?' asks Verity. But she suppresses her own laughter. In fact, both women, confronting each other's suppressions, can sustain it no longer. They hold their sides in silent, uproarious mirth, bending from the waist, trying not to catch each other's eye. Margaret tries to form words of more abject apology but each attempt explodes.

Well, she counsels herself, she
told
him to be discreet. Now, as he sits up and picks U-bend detritus from his eyebrows, he will realize she was serious.

Verity is not to be dissuaded. She knew all those dates of Margaret's were more serious than she said. Verity's heart sinks. She has a nasty feeling the blood bond has completely fallen away. Clues? Margaret doing garden. Margaret cleaning house. Margaret dyeing hair. Verity smells man, and man of duration.

'What happened in Oxford?' she demands, once Colin has righted the plumbing and gone upstairs to wash, muttering about women's incapacity for technological understanding.

'Hang on,' says Margaret. 'Colin will need something clean to put on.' And she runs up the stairs after him.

'I can give you one of Roger's old shirts,' she calls through the bathroom door. 'Open up.'

He does so. She takes his dirty linen and hands him an old schoolteacher check. Through tight lips she hisses that if he so much as breathes a word about advertisements and photographs to Verity she will never forgive him and nor will he get his own shirt back, which she will tear into strips and use as bunting for the day of his funeral. Colin, disadvantaged with soapy face, grunts agreement and closes the door.

'Shall we have tea?' she says, switching on the kettle. While they wait for it to boil, she asks how Verity is. Verity says she is much more keen to know how Margaret is and what
she
has been up to - that irritating little phrase again that turns every sodding activity into playgroup stuff - but Margaret insists that Verity start first.

Although Verity is keen to know about Oxford, the bait proves irresistible. She tells Margaret all about Mark's latest sally, which they both agree is not on.

'Just tell him to leave you alone,' says Margaret.

'I have,' says Verity. She always feels a lot stronger about it when in the company of her friend.

This is their usual opening conversation on the topic. Margaret then goes on to say, 'Well, you've got to say it and mean it.' She is about to do this when Colin arrives. Counselling is immediately forgotten as Margaret crumples with laughter. 'Oh God,' she says, 'Colin, you look strangely different .
..'
Roger's shirt has defeated Colin's usual stylishness and made him look like a harassed history master. Margaret laughs again.

'What do you think about lonely hearts columns?' Colin asks Verity very politely.

Margaret stops laughing instantly and says, 'Colin, your exceptional sense of elegance is not at all diminished by my ex-lover's garment.' And she keeps her face straight after that.

'Colin?' says Verity. 'You're a man, aren't you?'

'Well, yes,' he says, amused but cautious.

'I mean - why do you all do it? Why, when you have a perfectly good relationship with someone, do you
still
go and flirt with other women and eye them up and down and then forget to tell the one you are with that she looks nice so that the whole thing disintegrates, and when it
has
disintegrated, then you want the original back?'

Colin puts up his hands. 'Whoa there,' he says. 'That's a hell of a lot packed into one sentence.' He pauses, thinking. 'I don't think all men do those things.' He thinks again. 'Do we?'

'You certainly did most of them,' says Margaret, pouring out the tea.

'What? To you?'

'Well, no. Not to me. You didn't have time to get around to it. But you did it to your wife and presumably' - she hands him a mug - 'you continue to do it since you go through women at a rate of knots . . .'

'
You're
not doing so badly,' says Verity.

'I mean
he
does it when the relationship has been going on for some time. Don't you?'

They both look at him. He is faced with two pairs of wide female eyes whose wideness requires an answer.

'Perhaps I am just looking for the right woman.'

'For fifteen years? Oh, come on, Colin,' Margaret snorts. 'Some of them must be coming round for a second inspection.'

'What was it you accused me of?'

'Well, not you in particular - just men in general.' Verity counts on her fingers. 'One. You flirt with other women even while in a stable and happy relationship. Don't you?'

Colin sips his tea. He thinks. Eventually he says, 'Yes.'

'Well, why?'

There are those eyes again.

He shrugs. 'I don't really know. Because it's fun.' He nods, as much to himself as to them. 'That's it. It's fun - and it's harmless.'

'How can it be harmless if it upsets your partner?'

He shrugs again. 'That's her problem.'

The two pairs of eyes engage each other; if eyes could sigh despairingly, these would.

'What about eyeing women up and down? You know -sort of sexual assessment? All men are potential rapists?'

Colin puts down his mug and looks unamused. 'If you are going to get all strident feminist about this, I'm not playing. I'm attempting to answer your questions honestly and just because I, or the men I know, like to look at other women, it does
not
mean we're bent on violence. Frankly I can't think of anything worse than a frightened, unwilling woman. I like mine very confident and very willing. Most of us do.'

Margaret feels a little buzz in her middle anatomy. Very confident and very willing, she thinks.
Oh crikey,
as Madcap Molly of the Fourth would say. She meets Simon tomorrow and it is his
birthday.
For some reason she remembers the old joke about men, birthdays and sex. According to Max Miller and his comic descendants, a chap in a long-term, last-gasp marriage can still expect a birthday coupling even if his wife continues to read her Jackie Collins over his shoulder while complying with natal indulgence. And like any comedy, Margaret is sure, the joke contains a grain or more of truth. If Andy Capp expects it then a new lover must certainly expect it too. They are going to do It tomorrow, without a doubt, and she had better be good. What did Colin say? 'Confident and willing'? She doesn't feel it. She wonders if Simon feels a bit nervous too. She doubts this. He didn't seem the sort who would.