Aunt Margaret's Lover (37 page)

'Ah,' said the nice wife. 'While the children are away, it is very nice to play.' She gave a coy littie smile with her plump and healthy cheeks. 'We, too,' she continued, gesturing at the cards and his smile - no one could possibly know, he did it so well, the smile of a polite new friend. 'This is our first New Year's Eve without them. We thought we'd just be the two of us and enjoy it.' And the smile went on. She was wearing some kind of kaftan - in silky black and red. Seductive gear. She'd get a poke tonight. Poke, poke, poke.

Poor Amanda. 'You need a doctor,' she had said. Her daughter was already packing up the camper van when she got back. She was setting off for home, a long drive, late at night, but she would not hear of waiting until the morning. How much she wanted to fall into her daughter's arms and tell all, seek forgiveness, understanding. But she could not. She blamed her for this inability and was less abject than she might have been. To be angry with the world is an infection - you want everyone else around you to be angry with it, too. Amanda left angry, very angry. It would take a long time, if ever, for Jill to make amends, a long time for the children, already tucked up and asleep in their mobile bunks, to
come near her again. Only David, who had not witnessed the scene, but knew it was bad, could put his arm around her as the lights of the van drew distant. She put her head on his shoulder as they walked back into the house and she let him run her a bath, give her a brandy and tuck her up in bed. The next day, when the doctor came, she asked for Hormone Replacement Therapy. Which seemed to satisfy everybody.

Giles is coming home soon, but she scarcely cares. And the little market garden which she had loved so much is gradually sliding away from her. These are critical growing times, but she has no Sidney
(
he
had even taken him away, market forces
he
had said - she had let
him
even do that) and now she had no heart for it. Spring cabbage, that is all she is now, spring cabbage.

The last bit of her heart had deserted her for that room upstairs when she had knelt, naked, weeping, clutching his knees, pushing the bones of them into her breasts. Why could they not go to Paris? Her friend was there. Look, look - see the card. She had flown down the stairs, brought it back to him.

'I think we are getting in too deep,' he said, dressing. 'I think this should finish.'

'Just a few days? A couple of nights in a lovely, wicked French hotel? Why not?' She knew if he would do that, she could capture him. Even, maybe, cause it to be discovered, so that he would have to abandon that pudding wife with her bucolic smile, and come to her for ever.

He shook his head, kissed her lightly on the forehead as she crouched on the bed, clutching the red silk to her for comfort, and left.

No, Verity's story was not funny. Not funny at all. Margaret, secure in her cocoon of love, her legitimate happiness, could get things very wrong.

Chapter Seven

We got a bit drunk on our last night. Well, I suppose we would, wouldn't we? We sat in my kitchen, across the table from each other, and shared a bottle of champagne. He had already gone, really, and the talk was almost all about the journey: what he would find when he arrived, whether he would ever be able to get letters back to England, how our meal this evening would probably be his last decent food for days, if he knew anything about inflight catering. We had already said most of the important things over the last few weeks - that it had to be, that we always knew it had to be. The panicky question 'What have we done?' was calmly answered by our reminding ourselves that what we had done was what we had set out to do. We had enjoyed so much in that very brief time, but it was a tiny piece of make-believe -and now the lights would come on again. It had been a little bit of theatre, jointly directed, our audience kept in the dark.

There was a sentimental flurry across the champagne glasses when he pushed the book of Inigo Jones's sketches towards me and asked me to write something. For a moment I couldn't think what. Absurdities such as 'Have a nice trip' or 'Best wishes' were hardly appropriate. Nor lines from Ovid's
Cures for Love -
too bitter. I stared around the kitchen looking for inspiration among the bits of paper stuck here and there. Perhaps a recipe for wood restoring? Or an article on why yoga is bad for you? Or a clipping on rose blight (why did I keep
that?).
And then I saw the much yellowed, slightly grease-spattered,
years-old Baltimore Desiderata
which Saskia brought back from a trip to Canterbury. Better than rose blight, anyway. Privately I thought that if you followed all its advice, you would never do anything except sit indoors with a blissed-out smile on your face, much less 'go placidly amid the noise and haste . . but there were some appropriate lines.

The world is full of trickery

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is -

Many persons strive for high ideals and everywhere life is full of

heroism. Be Yourself.

'I know this,' he said. 'I used to have a copy of it in my office at home.'

'Most people have a copy at some point in their lives. They stick it up, sigh over it, and then do the opposite of all it recommends.'

'That's rather cynical,' he said. 'Not like you to be so withering about the spiritual struggle.'

'No? Perhaps you never really knew me.'

'No,' he agreed, touching my hand. 'I don't suppose I did. Not the inner you. Nor you me. Certainly not the darker side.'

'I don't believe you've got one.'

'And I don't believe you've got one.'

'Perhaps we should leave the illusion that way?'

The truth was that I was feeling jumbled up and uneasy, which was less to do with his imminent departure than with facing up to Saskia's imminent arrival. Raw. I was very definitely feeling raw, an emotion which champagne and a farewell to someone I knew I could trust only encouraged.

Verity hadn't helped earlier in the day. 'I
told
you he would go away if you bought him a travelling bag,' she said triumpha
ntly
, before switching into her condescending mode. With Verity it always helps to remember Elizabeth's favourite maxim, quoted by her every time her ministers told her to wallop France or pile into Scotland: 'It is folly to punish your neighbour by fire when you live next door . .So I kept my peace.

As she had achieved the Grand Order of Foolishness by reconstituting Mark, I did not doubt that she would all too soon be suffering once again. But I had to admire the professional in her: she was already in the process of turning it into a script. I did say, hesitantly, that perhaps Mark would find it a bit
...
well, embarrassing to be the focus of such public scrutiny, but she gave me a pitying look. What, after all, did a small-time picture-framer - one who has lost her man to the fucking
jungle
- know about true creativity? Conjuring up Tintoretto was particularly hard after that; if Verity had stumbled at that point I would, quite easily, have kicked her. 'You are so brave,' was her parting shot and, as she turned on the path, she gave me a little moue of pity.

Too much to swallow whole. 'How's the legs?' I called, for the entire street to hear.

'Mark treats them with lavender oil for me every night. He is so sweet to me now .
..'

Jeezus, I thought, the illusions and delusions we can create for ourselves. It made me and Oxford look like a small-time conjuring trick.

But that little exchange was the first scratch on a bite which had been received a little earlier, when Saskia called. It had begun easily enough with her saying how much she was looking forward to getting home, how amazing that this time next week
..
. etc. All the right stuff But then the change of emphasis - I knew her so well - which set my heart beating uneasily.

She was looking forward to getting back and would look for a proper studio - just to work in - so that when her father came over he could stay in it. For the really exciting news was that Fisher had come up trumps, done his bit, and found a venue for the exhibition in the autumn. Time for healing now, was the message. So Dickie would be back - if only for the opening of the show - and it would take me back to other private views in the past, other back-slapping art events, where he had been fussed and fawned over and made drunk, while my sister cruised around with that wide, hurt smile on her face - making the best of it, always making the best of it. This time it would be worse, for it would be a hero's return. Raw, then.

We took another bottle up to bed and sat up close to each other. 'Are you up to hearing a confessional?' I asked. I knew then that we would not make love again. It was a swap. If I was to unburden myself about the past, it would leave me too open. He was no longer my lover, this Oxford man, he had passed over to the other side. If he was to be anything at all, this Oxford man, he would now be my friend.

So I told him. And suddenly it was as if the sky had been rolled back. 'So he's got away with it,' I ended. 'His daughter loves him without asking him to account for anything. Just like her mother did.'

'You don't blame Saskia?'

'No.'

'Then why not give her this happiness too?'

'Because I can't bear the thought that he should be so perfectly free.'

'You're never free,' said Oxford. 'Believe me.'

'Are you all right?' I said eventually.

'I'm thinking,' he said. 'And drinking.'

I flopped back on the pillow and raised my glass. 'Here's to success. You deserve it.'

'Hmm,' he said, noncommittally. He put his arm round me and we chinked glasses. Then he pulled my head to his chest. 'I'm going to tell you something.'

'Something you need to get drunk to say?' I quipped.

'Yup. My confession now. You wanted to know about my past, and why Nicaragua. Pin back your ears.'

This was the last thing I expected, the moment when both of us removed our masks and stepped in front of the closing curtain. I duly pinned back my ears and sat still and quiet, hardly daring to breathe.

'I was still at architectural school when I met my wife. She was doing secretarial work, as a temporary, though she wanted to be a model. She was extremely beautiful and extremely young. She, her mother and her aunt came with her when they fled the Somosa regime and they lived in a scrubby little house in Hounslow. I was twenty-four. She was nineteen, and all the students fancied her like crazy. We were a randy lot - no one dared go into morning lectures without a hangover and tales of deflowered virgins. I thought it was great. She worked there and suddenly we all found reasons to visit the office. She had a pair of eyes that knocked us out, and she was just beautifully made. Tiny. Too tiny for modelling. No flirt, but friendly. We all tried to take her out but she wouldn't. We almost ran a book on who'd succeed. Salad days.

'It went on for about a year like that and we were all due to leave. I got a bee in my bonnet about her. I had a way with women and it peeved me that she wouldn't even come out with me. It got to me. I began to court her in earnest. Flowers, walking her to the tube, giving her poetry - stuff like that. By now I was in a small practice so I bought her things. And I turned up at her house. Met the mother and the aunt, all that. Gradually Jani succumbed. But not in bed. It became such an obsession that I ended up marrying her. Everybody happy. I had something exotic to flash about with, and I messed about elsewhere. It was a great life. We were married for eight years. I didn't want children and I suppose I thought it would go on like that for ever - best of both worlds. And then she died. Brain tumour. Pop. Gone. It was only then that I realized what I'd lost.

'At the funeral her mother told me all the things that Jani had kept to herself. Horrific truths. And I began to understand that thing Lorca calls
duende,
"the blade of pain". It was a fairly standard story for Nicaragua, probably for most places that are permane
ntly
at war. Raped at twelve; father
shot in front of her; brothers missing; still some family left out there. Nobody ever spoke of it. I think she might have tried once or twice but I wasn't a good listener. I became one at her funeral, though. I knew that I, too, had betrayed her, and I began to grow up. Not at first but slowly. I had no idea what losing her would mean. Then a solution came - not a cure, but a solution.' 'Why
did
you advertise?'

He shrugged again. 'The old me surfacing? Or maybe I just wanted to let a little affection in - and out - without harming anyone in the process. I wanted to do it honestly.' He smiled suddenly, slightly wickedly, and was much more like the old Oxford. 'Once I'd made my mind up to go away, I got a huge burst of positive energy - brain and body. It's a strong force.'