Bella Summer Takes a Chance (9 page)

The Colonel didn’t look a day over eighty-five. ‘Eighty-three,’ whispered Marjorie. ‘I like men to be a bit younger. Though at my age I can’t be too picky.’ She needn’t have kept her voice down, if The Colonel’s own volume was any indication of his auditory capacity. So my friend Marjorie was a cougar. I wondered if she’d heard the phrase. I wouldn’t tell her, it’d just embarrass her. Besides, cougar or not, she obviously wasn’t using him for his body. She was smitten.

‘Here, Marjorie,’ he shouted. ‘Let me get you another pudding. That one has hardly any custard. Don’t they know how to pour custard at least? When I was in the forces…’ He tottered off to right a great wrong on behalf of his girlfriend. ‘You!’ He bellowed to phobic Jim, whose horror at being confronted by a germ-ridden old man couldn’t be more pronounced. ‘Take this back. There’s no custard on it.’ Jim made no move to take the proffered plate. His microbe-filled vision wouldn’t allow it. The Colonel wandered toward the kitchen muttering about incompetent foot soldiers.

‘He seems, er, nice, Marjorie.’ How wonderful to have someone doting on her. Whenever I saw old people holding hands it made me smile to think that, whether from habit or romance, they still did that.

‘Oh he is, very nice. He’s a bit gruff but it’s just his way. He’s career army, you see. He’s quite a softie sometimes.’

‘Did he never marry?’

‘Yes, he did. Then his wife died and he came here. Poor man, he doesn’t have the faintest idea how to take care of himself. First his mother, then the army, then his wife looked after him. He was a bit lost when she died. He has a lovely grandson who lives in London. He visits quite often. He’s wonderful to The Colonel. Such a well brought up young man.
He
wouldn’t leave in the middle of the night.’ She nodded knowingly.

‘All right, Mrs Matchmaker, thank you very much.’ I noticed the three women at the next table giving Marjorie dirty looks. ‘What’s wrong with them?’ I whispered.

‘Who, the old biddies? Oh, they disapprove. According to them I’m too old to be carrying on with The Colonel.’

‘They said that to you? How rude.’

Marjorie smiled. ‘Dear, I don’t care what they think. I’m having a wonderful time with The Colonel. If they don’t like it, they don’t have to watch. Oh, thank you,’ she said to her Knight with Shining Custard when he returned from the breach with his wobbly offering.

‘It’s nothing, my dear. Your wishes are my commands.’ He took her hand and kissed it tenderly as she turned the colour of a summer rosé.

Fact. I was too involved in my friends’ love lives. It took one short week to develop a morbid fascination with Marjorie and The Colonel. I really wanted to know, but would never ask, whether their relationship was at all physical. Were we, as a species, programmed for attraction at similar ages, even when corrugated with wrinkles and covered in liver spots? Did octogenarians look at each other’s saggy bottoms at the beach and think, ‘Mmm, mmm, mmm, I’ll have some of that’? What I found repulsive might have been catnip to someone forty years older than me. Maybe beauty really was in the cataract-filled eye of the beholder.

Marjorie was lost in her own world, reminiscing about her second husband, Charles. It was easy to see why she fell in love with him. ‘He was impulsive,’ she said with a gleam in her eye that half a century hadn’t faded. ‘I never knew a man so full of surprises.’

‘Very different from Jimmy, then?’

‘Oh, yes, the exact opposite in every way. I’ve since wondered if that was some of his appeal. After seeing your life planned out in front of you, even though it didn’t go to plan, the contrast was wonderful, exhilarating. But how much of what I felt was real and how much was that exhilaration, that sense of a new world, I don’t know. And he came into my life when I most needed him, when I was suffering.’

‘From little James’ death?’

‘Yes, from that. They say it gets better with time. They. Only people who haven’t buried a child would say it. Every morning I woke with the same hole in my heart that I’d felt the day before. Month after month, year after year. When the war ended everyone took inventory of those who’d survived and were grateful. I couldn’t find the gratitude, only the anger that my baby was taken. When I met Charles, the colour seemed to come back. I’d gone up to London to work, in the Lyons up on Tottenham Court Road, and I served him. I don’t know if it was love at first sight, but it was something. Those feelings seemed like a miracle after being empty for so long. It was exciting. The more we talked, the more we found things in common, and we laughed. Oh my, how we laughed. Jimmy was always so serious, even when we were growing up. Charles was the opposite in every way. I’ve spent a long time wondering if that was what I was in love with.’

‘The newness, you mean?’

‘Not exactly, no. When Jimmy died I was heartbroken. He was my best friend. But he
was
my best friend. My girlfriends were madly in love with their beaus. I didn’t have that. I didn’t know what they were talking about when they described those feelings. When Jimmy and I were courting I assumed that my feelings were what it felt like to be in love. It was comfort and security, and happiness. But when he died, what I missed was talking to him. There was no longing. I couldn’t muster it even when I tried. I thought a lot about that, and wondered if what Jimmy and I had was love at all, or a deep, abiding friendship. Maybe when I met Charles I was trying to be in love.’

‘But you
were
in love with Charles, right?’ She made it sound like falling in love was just a state of mind. But surely it was a reaction to the person. Otherwise we’d be able to will ourselves to be in love with whomever we wanted. We’d fall in love with the worthy, boring man who’d be good to us for the rest of our lives instead of the unemployed player who’d seduce our best friend.

‘Oh my goodness, yes, I was in love. Well, it felt like it anyway. Suddenly I understood what my girlfriends had described. It was a frightening feeling, to be so out of control, so utterly dependent on another for your happiness. Loving someone so much was terrifying. It was what I felt for my son, you see. A mother’s love is infinite, truly. But so is her sorrow. I was afraid of that, of losing what I loved most again. But I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to. I fell head over heels in love.’

‘And him?’

‘I’d never met a man so expressive with his feelings. He told me constantly just how he felt about me, how he felt about everything. What a change from Jimmy, from anyone I’d ever known. Oh, and he was romantic. He wrote me poems. I’ve saved them somewhere. They’d still make me nostalgic, even after so many years.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was a whirlwind courtship. We were married within six months. My family begrudgingly came to the wedding. They were concerned for me. After Jimmy, who I’d known my entire life, they thought it rash to marry Charles, who, as far as they were concerned, I’d just met. It was rash. But I knew within a few days of meeting him that I’d say yes if he asked me to marry him. The feelings were that strong, and that instant. Terrifying.’

‘What was it that was so scary?’ I felt like I was on the cusp of fitting a very big piece of the jigsaw into place.

‘Now I understand the feelings. Back then I thought I was afraid to give up control. Because you place your whole happiness in his hands when you fall in love. You give it to him and hope, trust, that he won’t throw it away. But it isn’t the lack of control that’s frightening so much as the fear of losing the incredible happiness you feel. When you’re in love you’re giddy with excitement, and hope, and peace. You feel like nobody else can possibly be as happy as you are. It’s only when you feel that, that you realise how much you have to lose. And you can’t imagine living without it. That’s what’s so frightening. It’s why it was so terrible when he left. He left a note but I never saw him again. I only learned that he’d moved with another woman to Australia when my lawyer tracked him down to settle the divorce.’

‘Marjorie, I’m so sorry you had to go through that.’

‘Oh, dear, thank you. It was heartbreaking but then, I did get those months of complete and utter happiness.’ She smiled. ‘I won’t say it was worth it, but it was some consolation.’

I’d never felt the giddiness she described. In my whole life I’d never really, truly been in love. Maybe there was something wrong with me, maybe I wasn’t capable of those feelings. Was Marjorie right, that we only felt these feelings if we were willing to? If so, then I’d been emotionally constipated.

‘… is nice, don’t you think?’ Marjorie asked.

‘Hmm? Sorry, I was miles away.’

‘I said don’t you think The Colonel’s grandson is nice?’

‘Yes, he’s very nice.’

We met briefly last week. He looked like a typical English public school man, dressed conservatively in a woolly jumper and collared shirt with a blazer over it. He sounded like one too. Actually, he was frightfully proper and a little bit stiff. Though given the circumstances, it was unfair to judge him.

‘It’s a shame you met him during such a kerfuffle.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You should have seen the old biddies. Eyes on stalks.’

The Grandson hadn’t planned to visit, but got a call from the care home manager reporting that The Colonel was involved in some questionable behaviour.

‘Terrible misunderstanding,’ said Marjorie. ‘And very unkind, if you ask me, to have run to the manager with it. They came back. No harm was done.’

The Colonel, allegedly, escaped from the home right after lunch, taking a date with him. How embarrassing it must have been for Marjorie to hear that her boyfriend teetered off with another woman.

‘I know. But Marjorie, promise me that you won’t run off with him, okay? In your wheelchair, anything could happen and The Colonel wouldn’t necessarily be able to help.’ He escaped with an ambulatory woman this time; it could be Marjorie next time. I had horrible visions of my friend being wheeled into oncoming traffic by her well-meaning but un-spry boyfriend. ‘If you and The Colonel want to go out anywhere, I’m sure the manager would let me take you.’

‘Maybe his grandson could come too.’

‘Sure, I’m sure he’d love to. Did The Colonel say why he, er, took his trip?’

She smiled. ‘Come here, I’ll show you.’ Fishing around in the table drawer she pulled out a book. ‘He wanted to give me a new journal to write my thoughts. He wanted to choose it himself, well, with some guidance about what I might like.’

Oh now, wrinkles or not, that was romantic. ‘Marjorie, he’s a good man. I’m happy for you. Let’s go see if he might like to go somewhere with us next weekend. I can arrange it with the manager. I’m sure he’ll be fine with it.’

As we went downstairs for lunch I marvelled at Marjorie. She wasn’t about to let convention dictate to her. While her contemporaries filled their days lamenting bowel movements and looking backwards at their lives, she was starting a love affair. Clearly she had a lot of living left to do before she got old.

Chapter 8

I was only background noise at The Boisdale, something to keep the diners from hearing dishes dropped in the kitchen. I shouldn’t have been nervous. It was just a regular gig with the usual musicians, competing as normal with the clattering of cutlery and brays and whinnies of the middle classes. Yet I was sweating like the goalkeeper in a penalty shootout. Because The Musician was there. Thank God it was my last song.

The first time I sang for money I got so nervous that I tripped over the mic stand and fell off the stage. Only my self-esteem was bruised, and I got an enthusiastic round of applause for my gymnastic talents. I didn’t even know anyone in that audience. If I had, I might have followed up with an encore, vomiting on the front row.

I felt a little vomity as I prepared to saunter as casually as humanly possible to The Musician’s table. Sitting with him was a man wearing sunglasses. It was near midnight. Indoors. He didn’t appear to be blind. There was no white stick, no dozy Labrador at his feet. Excess arrogance rather than lack of vision seemed to be the reason for the shades.

As I stepped off the stage, the booking manager’s wave caught my eye. I was more than happy for the detour, and the extra time to compose myself.

‘Hi, B., nice set,’ he said, smiling. He was a nice man, though we didn’t usually chat much. ‘I just wanted to let you know that we’re thinking of making a few changes. To the programme. This recession, you know, it’s cutting into business quite a lot, so, well, we’ll be running all-instrumental jazz evenings for a bit. I just wanted to let you know, in case you wondered why we weren’t booking you. It’s not you, you’re great and we’ve really enjoyed having you here. It’s just, well, we need to cut back, for now, and assess where we are.’

He looked terribly embarrassed to have resorted to the old ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speech. I felt myself shaking. But shocked as I was, I still felt sorry for him.

‘Wow, okay, well, thanks for telling me. I’ll be sad not to play here, but I understand. Are you able to keep the rest of the guys?’ Given that the band’s combined age exceeded that of the United States, I wasn’t hopeful that they’d find new employment.

‘Oh, yes, they’re okay, thank you for asking. Here, I’ve got your cheque. Really, B., thanks so much.’ He kissed my cheek, handing me my last music-related pay cheque. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘Well, all right, em, thanks for having me. And yes, I’d like a glass of Rioja please. You know what? Make that a vodka and tonic.’

‘Double?’

‘Please.’

I was officially an out-of-work musician. Finally it had happened. My musical aspirations had withered into sultanas. It was an uncomfortable realisation to accommodate after more than two decades of thinking of myself in a certain way, of being validated as a singer, by having a manager, by getting gigs. But really, I should have noticed my incredible shrinking musical persona before. It had been ten years since I had a manager or worked regularly. Was I really that delusional? Yes, I was. That’s what made the booking manager’s news such a kick in the gut – the distance between where I was, and where I thought I’d been. Small steps back up the ladder seemed possible. But Evel Knievel would have struggled to make the leap I was going to have to make if I really wanted to succeed. And it struck me as I stood there watching the musicians pack up that I did want it. I
really
wanted it, so much so that it made it hard to breathe. I’d lost something that was part of me. That realisation kind of put talking to The Musician into perspective. I felt ill for a whole new reason.