Heartbreak Hotel (30 page)

Penny was sitting opposite her, looking cool and observant. Did she know that something was up? She wore a
Virgin Airlines Maiden Voyage
T-shirt; there was a healthy, Home Counties glow to her, though Monica suspected a nip and tuck. Probably a tennis player. Anybody less like Buffy was hard to imagine.

Penny was telling one of the women about moving to the country, how it wasn’t what she had expected. She said she was writing a column called ‘Rural Moans’ for the
Grocer
, the only publication that took her stuff, she said, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Apparently her cottage was next to a field and when winter arrived an encampment of Ukrainian vegetable pickers was revealed beyond her hedge. ‘I’m sure they weren’t there in the summer, when I bought it,’ she said. ‘Their sex wagon’s right beside my potting shed. The noise they make, honestly! Like cats being strangled. I wrote a column about it, rather amusing I thought, but they considered it unsuitable for grocers and I had to write about the cuts to the local bus service instead.’

Monica was only half listening. Buffy sat at the next table, gazing pensively at his plate of cold cuts. For once he wasn’t being the life and soul of the party. Was it a hangover, or the realisation that he had spent the night with her half-clothed, ageing body?

After lunch the students trooped back into the kitchen to make fairy cakes. Monica announced that she had a headache and was going out for some air. She left Myrtle House and walked down the street, willing Buffy to have overheard what she had said, willing him to follow her. She suddenly, ridiculously, felt sick with longing.

And then the dog was yapping at her heels and she heard Buffy’s footsteps.

‘Monica!’

She stopped. Buffy wheezily caught up with her and put his hand on her arm.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he panted.

‘What for?’

He frowned with the effort of remembering. ‘We didn’t do anything, did we?’

She shook her head. ‘Not as far as I can remember.’

Buffy let out a sigh. ‘Thank God for that.’

Monica shook off his arm. ‘What do you mean,
thank God
?’ She glared at him, her eyes glittering with tears. ‘Such a repulsive thought, is it?’

‘I didn’t mean –’

‘Leave me alone!’ She pushed past him and hurried off down the street.

‘Monica!’ he called.

The dog danced around her feet, whining. ‘Fuck off!’ she snapped.

‘Wait for me!’ Buffy shouted.

Monica, stumbling over the dog, turned up an alley and broke into a run. Buffy called out, faintly.

She found herself in a back lane, behind the houses. A man was mending his car so she veered away and turned left. She hurried along the gravel, the dog nipping her ankles. Suddenly the bloody animal was under her foot. She tripped and fell heavily.

‘Are you all right?’ Buffy helped her up.

‘I’m fine!’

He brushed some leaves off her skirt. ‘Listen, Monica, I didn’t mean it like that. You know I didn’t.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she muttered, pulling away.

He pulled her back. ‘I just didn’t want you to be lumbered with my drunken advances, really too revolting for a woman of your calibre.’

‘My age, you mean.’

‘No! calibre. I had a horrible feeling I’d taken advantage of you – if I was capable of such a thing, which I rather doubt.’ Holding her hands, he searched her face. ‘Especially after all you’ve been through.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, with your bereavement.’

‘I’m not bereaved,’ Monica blurted out. ‘I’ve never even been married.’

Buffy stared at her. ‘What?’

‘I made it up.’ She shrugged carelessly, her heart pounding.

‘Why?’

‘I just felt like it. You’re an actor, you do it. I just felt like trying something else out. New place, new people. I’d be a different person.’

Why had she said that? She hadn’t a clue. Buffy gazed at her, his chest heaving. Beyond the wall she could hear the sound of a lute playing. She suddenly felt hopelessly, swooningly, intimate with him.

‘I think I ought to leave,’ she said.

‘I’ll walk back with you.’

‘I mean, go home.’

He jerked back, as if he’d been slapped. ‘Why?’

‘I’ve made a total idiot of myself.’

‘It’s not you, it’s me.’

‘See? You thought the whole thing was ridiculous.’

He searched her face. ‘Was it?’ He rubbed his beard thoughtfully. ‘I thought it was rather nice.’

Monica’s heart lurched. The lute plucked her own unsaid words out of the air. Maybe Buffy was thinking that too because neither of them spoke.

‘Who’s that playing?’ she asked at last.

‘Simon, my neighbour. A hairy, good sort of person. His wife runs a vintage clothes shop that smells of mothballs.’

‘I’ve never understood why people want to look like their grannies.’

‘We’re in a bit of a time warp here,’ he said. ‘It’s one of its charms.’

Up the lane, the engine spluttered into life. They heard it revving, over and over.

‘Don’t go home,’ said Buffy. ‘Sit with me at dinner.’

‘Do you think there’s something up with Monica and Buffy?’ asked Penny. She was sitting with Harold in the Coffee Cup.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ He pointed to the young woman pouring tea. ‘Romance seems to blossom at Buffy’s establishment. That’s Amy, she’s just started work here. She copped off with the tutor on her course. And another bloke found love at a camper-van outlet.’

Penny’s eyes narrowed. ‘There’s something going on, I just know it. I’ve got a sixth sense, you see. At school I hired myself out as a lie-detector.’

‘How much did you charge?’

‘Threepence a time. I was always right.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I’d better watch out, then.’

Penny liked Monica. There was something brittle and defensive about her but beneath it Penny could sense, with her sixth sense, a woman trembling with insecurity. Monica might not be Buffy’s type but then who was? When it came to female companionship he was catholic in his tastes. Dim, daffy, intense, feminist, glamorous, dowdy … they came in all shapes and sizes, though, to do Buffy justice, he remained faithful to each one as long as it lasted. The man was just a hopeless romantic. And no doubt he was lonely here, miles from the bright lights of Soho. Who could begrudge the chap a bit of love?

Penny could, of course. She was his ex-wife, for God’s sake. Any subsequent liaison could stir up a rich brew of feelings. Resentment, that this time round it could be more of a success. A patronising pity for the woman about to embark on that dubious adventure called Life With Buffy. Curiosity, of course. A complex sense of sisterhood, muddied by various emotions she preferred not to analyse. Surely not envy – surely not. She wouldn’t take Buffy back if he begged her on bended knee. It would be like picking up a dead walrus.

‘What’s so funny?’ asked Harold.

‘Nothing. Good luck to her, she’ll need it.’

‘How long were you married?’

‘Seven years.’

‘Were you happy?’

Penny considered this for a moment. ‘I was never bored, I’ll give him that. And we did have fun.’

Suddenly she felt dizzy with loss. How she had adored him! She remembered their early years, the physical pain when they were apart. She remembered how Buffy’s very possessions – a pair of espadrilles, the book he’d been reading – were irradiated with her passion for him.
O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
She must have been mad.

‘He really was hopeless,’ she said. ‘Drunk, self-absorbed … he was an actor, for goodness’ sake! He lived in total chaos. And then there were all those children crawling out of the woodwork.’

‘Only one, surely. He knew about the other ones.’

‘It just seemed typical, somehow,’ she said. ‘He was always forgetting where he left things.’

‘Well, he seems to be making a go of it here,’ said Harold, stirring the froth in his cup.

‘Yes, because he’s got two women to do all the work.’

‘Rather a cunning plan, though, to get people to pay him for fixing his car and sorting out his garden and whatnot. He’s going to get the DIY course to do all the repairs on his house.’

Penny paused thoughtfully. ‘So that was his idea? And cooking the dinners too? Bloody brilliant.’

Harold’s spoon stopped. ‘Don’t you dare,’ he said. ‘Buffy told me about that look.’

‘What look?’

‘That look in your eyes. The
is-there-a-piece-in-it
look. Well, you can’t have it. I’ve bagged it for my novel.’

Penny blushed. ‘I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole,’ she lied.

Harold’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’ll be threepence.’

Penny laughed. Outside it was pouring with rain but here in the cafe, with its steamed-up windows and hissing espresso machine, it felt cosy and confidential. Harold was good company, she had to give him that. Colin had been great in bed but he’d had no sense of humour at all. It had taken her a while to admit this, just as it had taken her a while to admit that moving to the country had been a disaster. Could she really face a second winter there alone?

Harold, sipping his coffee, was gazing with interest at the other customers. Beneath his moth-eaten cardigan he wore a Fudge Factory T-shirt. His ex-wife must have given it to him. By now Penny knew a little about Pia. Just for a moment, startling herself, she felt the same stab of jealousy she had felt about Jacquetta. The two women sounded so similar – arty, self-absorbed. Pia had once been a dancer. She would have a flat stomach and strong vaginal muscles. It didn’t bear thinking about.

‘What are you thinking?’ asked Harold.

‘Nothing.’

Luckily, Amy came to the rescue. She was passing their table and paused to chat to Harold.

‘Nolan’s mum’s going speed-dating tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m giving her another makeover. She’s going to look a million dollars.’

Penny said: ‘When the speed-dating craze started I signed up for one; I was going to write a piece about it. Then I discovered that all the other people were doing exactly the same thing. We were all journalists, speed-dating each other.’

Harold laughed. Then a gleam came into his eye, a gleam she recognised.

‘Don’t you dare use it,’ she said. ‘It’s mine.’

Harold sighed. ‘We’d better make a pact. You don’t use me and I don’t use you.’

‘OK.’

They shook hands. His hand was dry and warm, the same size as hers. Something shifted in Penny’s stomach. She removed her hand and inspected the sugar bowl.

Amy moved off, to serve another customer. Harold looked at her, writing in her little notebook.

‘What were you like at her age?’ he asked.

‘Ambitious,’ said Penny. ‘I would have got out of this place like a bat out of hell.’

‘Amy’s done the opposite. Given up her job, everything, to come and live here. She says she’s never been happier in her life.’

A dead-end town. That was Penny’s first impression. Now she wasn’t so sure. She watched the people in the cafe leaning back in their chairs and chatting to each other; she watched someone greeting a woman as she came in. Never in her life had she been part of a community.

She turned back to Harold. ‘So what were
you
like, when you were her age?’

‘A nice Jewish boy married to a nice Jewish girl.’

‘Of course. Doris.’

‘She turned out to be a plate-thrower but I probably deserved it.’ He scratched his head. ‘I’m a lot easier to live with now. So, I suspect, is she.’

They both fell into a thoughtful silence. Penny returned her attention to the bowl, patting the sugar flat with her spoon.

‘What do we do about it?’ Harold said at last. ‘All this history?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Do you feel that great swathes of your life have happened to somebody you hardly recognise?’

Penny nodded. ‘It’s called being sixty, I guess.’ She stopped. ‘Oh gosh, you’re not yet, are you?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘What’s a couple of years, between friends?’

‘That’s what we are, aren’t we?’ she said. ‘Such a relief, not fancying each other.’

He nodded. ‘Such a relief.’

She stood up. ‘Back to your book then.’

‘Back to your cooking.’ He got to his feet. ‘Same time tomorrow?’

She nodded. ‘You really should do something about that cardigan.’

Monica missed the pre-dinner drinks so she could have a bath; it was the only time the bathroom was guaranteed to be free. She had bought herself a screw-top bottle of wine so she poured some into a tooth mug and sipped it while she lay soaking in the meagre bubbles squeezed from her sachet.

Sit with me at dinner
. There was something startlingly erotic about that sentence. It was like
May I have this dance?
She knew she was being foolish. Buffy was probably just being polite. Besides, he wasn’t her type – his eyes were watery and he had split veins in his nose. Anyway, he was an actor and who could trust one of those?

But who
was
her type? Nowadays, to be perfectly frank, it was anybody who would have her. The slightest flicker of interest and she was theirs. Or would be, if such a thing happened at all. Monica watched a lonely wasp, a relic from the summer, drag itself along the windowsill. I’m just a sex-starved old hag, she thought.

And yet … and yet. There was something about Buffy that put a skip in her step. The lunch with him had been so larky; it reminded her of being with Malcolm – the complicity, the jokes.

How many women had Buffy entertained at lunch? There was a handrail beside the bath, installed by the previous owner who had apparently reached a ripe old age. The woman must have been madly in love with Buffy, to leave him her house. And she wasn’t even one of his wives.

Monica climbed out of the bath without the help of the handrail; she could manage
that
. The mirror, thankfully, was too steamed-up to reflect her naked body. She dried herself, returned to her room and fished out her Janet Reger underwear. This time she would be prepared – if, indeed, anything were to happen, which she doubted. But her stupid heart was pounding.
If I was capable of such a thing
, he had said. But failure could be bonding. Naked in each other’s arms, they could have a giggle. She was a woman of experience; she would understand. Maybe none of his wives or lovers had understood him. Maybe his life had been a series of false starts. She despised romantic fiction but that was the point of it, wasn’t it? The right person coming along, when one least expected it.