Chasing Men (27 page)

Her thoughts, for no obvious reason, returned to the council of war soon after her relocation to The Swallows, at which her mother and her daughter had outlined the various options open to her. The green bottles on the mantelpiece had been shifted about many times since. The dating-agency forms had been filled in and returned. A man had slept in her bed, once, and others might do so in future. Her head was filled with plays and novels, Impressionist and Renaissance art with a particular slant. Her acquaintance was no longer limited to conventional couples. And she was at ease.

It came to Hetty that, if she were ever to share her living space again, it would not be in the all-enveloping manner she had accepted before. She would not cook every evening, for a start; they would eat out far more, or grab whatever was in the fridge. Salads and cold ham were far healthier than hotpot, anyhow. A pear for afters was better than homemade pastry, so lovingly created, so quickly scoffed. How willingly she had slaved, how seldom it had been appreciated.

But the meals were only the start of it. Rather than take responsibility throughout, she would share the load. For example, as household items were used up, it would be a discipline to write them on a list in the kitchen. Then at an agreed point – Friday evening, say – whoever was first home would go to the supermarket. Not the same person each time. The Japanese had a word for it, didn’t they?
Kanban
. Just in time. Pity that dreadful Japanese restaurant hadn’t practised it.

You couldn’t teach the members of your family to be helpful by doing everything for them. Being considerate was not catching. Yet, to some extent, her own total commitment to home-making had been stubbornly selfish too. It had given her a task in life. It had stopped her seeking something better.

But the clock could not be put back. The years since her wedding day were not a television broadcast that could be edited or tidied up. The children were grown; she had little doubt that it was too late for Peter. He phoned her occasionally, as he did his grandmother, but he was making his own way without her intervention. Maybe he would be the same, in due course, with his wife and family. If he turned out a self-centred man, that was her fault, but he was beyond reform. That prompted a surge of remorse that she had not made a better job of him, then one of emptiness.

Sally, by contrast, was a bright star. Since their holiday at the health farm they had met and talked frequently. Hetty took care that their hours together should not be a mere unloading of troubles. She always chose somewhere pleasant, often a new venue, to meet up. It amused her that she now deliberately attempted to learn something new regularly, even if only the mistakes of a hopelessly run wine bar. That was the biggest step forward. Before, she would have resisted, and sought only the familiar. What a dreadfully dull stick that old Hetty must have been.

She parked her bike in the cubby-hole under the stairs and locked it. Her body was weary, but with a satisfied streak. It came to her that she would not easily abandon this independence, with its gentle, comforting solitude, this opportunity to rest, to find herself, and to be content. Despite arguing with Roger, she had understood what he meant. If the agency did turn up trumps and produced a wonderful man, she would take some persuading to give up her hard-won freedom.

As she came out into the hallway she was nearly knocked off her feet. The TV – as she now knew to call him – was half running along the corridor. The wig was the same, and the high-heeled shoes: he was surprisingly nimble, given his footwear. He was wearing a red velvet dress, old-fashioned in its cut, with a white lace collar and cuffs and fishnet tights. Quite a wardrobe: almost a ladybird on legs. But Hetty was too startled, and too conscious of the obligation not to mock, to comment. He stopped dead, and stared at her.

‘Oh! Hello, can I help you?’ Hetty stuttered.

The apparition shook its head and uttered not a sound, but scuttled round a corner out of her sight. Next minute she heard a key in a lock, the murmur of a voice, and a door slammed shut.

‘But why,’ Sally asked, ‘would she want to go to an agency? My mother, touting herself around? Isn’t it a bit tacky?’

‘Why not?’ her grandmother countered. ‘Seems reasonable to me. She’s fit, pretty and solvent. She’s looking rather good, in fact. Sexually capable, not a nun. Not anti-men. But no man in the offing. An agency might turn up trumps. I might try one myself.’

‘You’re talking about me as if I wasn’t here,’ Hetty grumbled. The three women were seated on a chequered blanket on the common, late one sunny Saturday afternoon – at least, Hetty and Sally were sprawled out, propped up on cushions taken from the sofa, Peggy had carried a folding chair and arranged herself elegantly on it, ankles crossed. Before them were the Soul Mates folder, an empty wine bottle, a half-eaten packet of Ryvita and the remains of a Brie, oozing in its plastic wrapper.

Nearby, families played mini-cricket or threw frisbees; their whoops echoed on the breeze. A football match was under way, the players scruffy in baggy shorts and tracksuit bottoms, yelling encouragement at each other. Two kites sailed high overhead, their ribboned tails fluttering wildly, controlled by thin youths with serious intent. Over by the pond older men huddled, faces and fishing rods immobile, and small boys pedalled furiously past on brightly painted tricycles.

‘I think I might take up rollerblading,’ Hetty said dreamily. ‘I’m beginning to feel that anything is possible, if only I try hard enough.’ She stopped: both Sally and Peggy were staring at her in some alarm.

‘I shouldn’t,’ said her mother firmly. ‘Broken ankles. Chasing men is a much healthier pursuit. Now what type of man are you after – what age, for example?’

‘I ticked forty-five to fifty-five,’ Hetty answered. ‘Older than that, and they’ll be a bit decrepit – sorry, Mother, but you get my drift. I’m not keen on a chap having a heart-attack on our second date. Younger, and I should feel I was cradle-snatching.’

‘If you find one much younger than that, you can send him in my direction,’ said Sally.

‘And I also thought that if a man that age is happy to meet someone my age he might have some respectable qualities. A bloke in his fifties who goes out with girls in their twenties or thirties wouldn’t be my kind of bloke anyway.’

The other women nodded. ‘Sleazebags, some of them.’ Sally munched a cracker. ‘Older men panting after totty young enough to be their daughters. Trying to regain their lost youth. They start off in the departure lounge, flirting with the crew.’

‘Do you flirt back?’ Hetty wanted to know.

‘Too damn busy,’ was Sally’s response. ‘And jaded businessmen farting all night are not the most alluring proposition. We see them at their worst.’

Peggy returned to the theme. ‘And what about compatibility, Hetty dear? Did you want somebody like yourself? Or d’you think opposites attract?’

‘I couldn’t say,’ Hetty confessed. ‘I’m not too clever at analysing myself, and I’m not accustomed to making such decisions. I go with the flow a bit. I had a real headache filling
out the section on preferences. In the end I left a lot of those spaces blank. It’ll give the agency wider scope, and I’m curious to see what they come up with.’

‘Are you after one relationship, or several?’ This from her mother. Hetty blinked, so Peggy expanded, ‘I don’t mean all at once, dear. Are you searching for a single intense long-term lover, or would you prefer several chaps of varying degrees of intensity?’

‘Haven’t the foggiest,’ Hetty answered. ‘I’m not sure mature men are into intensity, or that it’d be terrific if they were. Anyone older is likely to be trailing loads of baggage. I’ll have to sit through hours of personal history and moaning about his divorce or whatever. I shall have to make sure I don’t do the same to them.’ She pondered. ‘So, maybe more than one. Though I’m not sure I could manage more than one sleeping partner. Even consecutively, in a typical week. That could be too tiring altogether.’

Three pairs of eyes met, and three women giggled. ‘God, Mum, you have come on,’ said Sally. ‘And I’m glad to hear it.’

‘So have you. This time last year you’d have been shocked to the core at the disgusting prospect of your parent stepping out with a stranger, even though you were simultaneously urging me to replace your father as quickly as possible. If I’d taken you at your word, and popped up every month with a new man on my arm, you’d have accused me of being a neurotic nymphomaniac, or desperate. I’m neither.’

Peggy smiled as if pleased with her progeny, and sipped her remaining wine. ‘But did you despair, Hetty, of ever finding someone without paying all that money in fees?’

‘No. And I do meet men, particularly through the programme. Now that
has
been an eye-opener. They’re definitely a bit batty, though. I’m not sure I want to be Venus to an Adonis in a kilt who can’t decide whether he prefers men or women.’ She told them about Gordon. They gaped in amazement.

‘And, of course, anyone nice might be spoken for. Tied up,’ said Sally.

‘Or lying through their teeth,’ Peggy added.

‘There is that. I’m wary of becoming too fond of someone I meet socially, or at work, and then discovering he’s not available. Or that he regards himself as unencumbered, provided I accept those nights when he’s obliged to see his wife. Who, of course, does not understand him. I’m not keen on playing second fiddle to
anyone
.’

‘Your self-respect is in fine fettle, then, Mum. Another good sign.’ Sally picked up the empty bottle with regret. ‘We should have brought another. Still, I’ve got to drive. But the chaps from Soul Mates could be lying marrieds, too.’

‘They claim they do check. I’ve insisted that I will only meet men who are free. That might give the wrong message – that I’m hoping to get hitched again myself – but I’ll risk it. At least I’ll have a sporting chance of avoiding complications. I do not wish to feature in anyone else’s divorce petition. No, thanks.’

‘The best of luck, dear,’ said Peggy. ‘And now, I’m afraid, I have to get moving. The Colonel is taking me to
Phantom of the Opera
tonight. I haven’t the heart to tell him I’ve seen it three times – he went to such trouble to get the tickets. When you find the guy, Hetty – or, the guys, you could have a whole platoon – do be kind to them. Sometimes they deserve it.’

Hetty did not tell them about the letter. It had come that morning, unannounced, on crisp
white vellum, the postcode incorrect, which had delayed it a day. Its four pages were scribbled in a hand she recognised at once.

Hetty read and reread the letter, turning the pages with shaking hands. ‘He’s got a bloody nerve,’ she whispered to herself eventually. ‘Wouldn’t expect me to cook, hey? I bet he would – there’d be sighs over dinner in the restaurant about how I could do better. If I turned up with a leg of lamb, he couldn’t be more pleased.’

That, she felt, was ungracious and bitter. But there must have been other reasons for Stephen to write, nearly eighteen months after he had revealed he was in love with someone else. He was using a kind of code – ‘we are close’ meant that he could be oblique, but she would still grasp his meaning. So what was going on?

He had no pressing need to write about Peter. The degree ceremony was almost a year off. She would attend, naturally, there was no question about it, and Stephen did not need to be told. So that was an excuse, though ‘Have you anybody you’d want to take?’ must be Stephen-speak for ‘Have you found yourself another man?’ Whether she had, or not, was none of his business.

The garden, the ‘glories of Dorset’: that smacked of emotional blackmail. Look what you left behind. Look what you gave up, and for what? A small poky flat in south London, in which he obviously imagined she was imprisoned by the high crime rate. How wrong he was, how limited by his prejudices. She was half persuaded to write back to correct him on that alone.

But why would he attempt, even subconsciously, to lean on her? What could he gain, especially since she could simply ignore the letter? He was after something. Possibly he himself did not quite guess what. Neither of them had gone in for deep introspection. So his language was friendly if clumsy, the invitation genuinely meant. If she did, cautiously, go for a weekend, he would treat her with courtesy and not humiliate her.

With a friend? That was how the invitation was worded. Then Hetty grasped that a friend would cause difficulties. A woman friend – Doris, maybe – would get in the way constantly, and Stephen would be embarrassed. A man, such as Father Roger, would be even more of an unwanted appendage. A boyfriend was unthinkable, and Stephen did not mean that at all.

He wanted her to come on her own. And Natalie might not be there. Would not be there, was the implication, if Hetty was arriving. So the girlfriend, whom he had not married despite his earlier determination, was not such an absolute fixture.

He wanted her to go back.

‘You miserable so-and-so,’ Hetty muttered, crossly but with a gulp of pain. ‘Can’t you leave me alone?’

She reread the pages, crumpled them into a ball, and threw them into the waste-bin, her mind jangling. But she owed him – something, though she was unclear what. So the sheets were retrieved and smoothed out on the table, as Hetty struggled with her emotions. ‘If you hadn’t misbehaved I wouldn’t have left. But that doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. Just as I’m getting used to being on my own. Just as I’ve developed umpteen schemes for surviving alone, away from the world of coupledom. Suddenly you dangle before me the juicy prospect of returning? Of being a cosy couple once again?’

A new skin had grown to cover the scars, but his honeyed words threatened to reopen the wounds. Her former life had not been a failure, but recently she had dwelt relatively little on it. Instead her plans were focused on a different future.

‘Just as I’m about to have a bit of fun with a man from the agency, too,’ Hetty added wistfully. ‘Almost as if you’re telepathic. Oh, Stephen.’

At that, she sat down, allowed herself to feel forlorn, and to cry.

The answer to Stephen’s letter took her a week to write. Numerous times she sat down with pen and paper, then tore up the results. Eventually she found a card in a drawer from an art exhibition showing a dark-haired pre-Raphaelite woman with a solemn, saintly expression. On the back she wrote, ‘Thank you for your kind letter. I’ll be at Peter’s graduation and will
be in touch beforehand. Thanks also for the invite; I may take you up on it. Love, Hetty.’ She debated for days with herself whether ‘Love’ was appropriate, then decided that anything else would sound cold. It was less jocular, and warmer, than his ‘Lots of love.’ It would do.

It was early evening before she was satisfied and went out to post the envelope containing the card. She was still sunk in thought, head bowed, as she came back up the path and reached in her pocket for the key.

The door burst open and nearly knocked her off her feet. ‘Oh!’ she cried, startled, and clutched at the wall for balance.

‘Oh, sod it,’ came Doris’s voice. ‘Hetty, is that you? Sorry. Come on, we’ve got to get cracking.’ The stocky old woman slammed the door shut behind her and grabbed Hetty’s arm, spinning her round in the direction from which she had come. ‘You busy for an hour or two? Fine. A bit of moral support would be useful.’

There must be something trustworthy about her, Hetty reflected dazedly, to have so many people demanding her supportive presence. First Clarissa at the Swallows Home, now Doris. What was it? Trouble at the sex-shop? Hetty wondered whether to hang back, but Doris was already hurrying out of the gate and down the road.

‘What’s going on?’ Hetty asked breathlessly, as she caught up.

‘Carole’s been arrested.’