The Widow's Tale (16 page)

T
here's a terrific film called
The Awful Truth
– a sort of screwball comedy, with a plot not a million miles away from
The Philadelphia Story
, in as much as a woman endeavours to start a new life with a new man, only to be forced in the end to accept that nothing less than Cary Grant will do. Well I'm not about to argue with that. Anyway, there are a couple of scenes that are absolutely priceless, one of which has been rattling round my head all afternoon.

Cary Grant plays … well, pretty much the same character he plays in all his pictures. But in this instance the wife from whom he's separated, played by the lovely Irene Dunne, is in the process of hitching her wagon to some Texan millionaire who's made all his money from oil, or something equally vulgar. Anyway, the three of them happen to bump into each other in some Manhattan nightspot and Irene Dunne, despite clearly being far too sophisticated for the oilman, is doing her best to pretend she's having a rare old time. Cary Grant insists they all have a drink together, and at some point the oilman lets slip, much to Irene's embarrassment, that he's managed to talk her into moving to Oklahoma. Well, we see this big, cheesy grin spread across Cary Grant's chops. And he says how that sounds simply
wonderful
, and proceeds to
list the many benefits of such a move. Then wraps it up by saying that, of course, if it gets a little dull in Oklahoma City, you can always go over to
Tulsa
for the weekend.

It's the way he sort of coughs out the word ‘Tulsa', as if clearing something unpleasant from the back of his throat. That and the evil glint in his eye. Anyway, it makes me hoot every time I see it. I'm just annoyed that I can't think of the name of the actor who plays the oilman, who's extremely funny, and rather cast against type.

Actually, what bothers me more is the fact that I have precisely no idea why that particular scene popped into my mind today and took up such tenacious residence. If I were deluded I might think it was because the set-up – viz. a woman, her husband and her lover – was somehow similar to mine at the time that I was seeing Paul. There's no denying that I've been thinking about that particular little episode an awful lot lately. But the reason I'd have to be mad to make the comparison is because that would somehow involve my recently deceased husband, John, being represented by Cary Grant. Which is about as unlikely as me being played by Irene Dunne.

The closest John and Paul ever came to crossing paths was when Paul came down to London and stayed for a single night. Even as I write that down I can't help but think what an insanely reckless and selfish thing that was for me to do.

John was away from the Friday right through till the Sunday and it seemed that Paul still had the last scraps of appetite for a woman fifteen years his senior who
was intent on throwing herself at him. He was down in London for some meeting, but wasn't at all keen on the idea of us being together in my marital home. Which, funnily enough, was quite the opposite of how I felt. I wanted to screw in every room … on every stair … on every inch of carpet. I wanted to desecrate the place.

Rather frustratingly, once I'd finally managed to get him into the house Paul came over all coy. He wanted to shower without me squeezing in beside him. Then wandered round the rooms, studying the bookshelves and the framed pictures like a visitor to a National Trust property. To such a degree, in fact, that I began to think that him seeing the things I shared with John, far from heightening the illicit thrill of the infidelity, actually fixed in his mind the idea of me and John as a long-standing couple and, who knows, perhaps even induced in him some sympathy for the man whom he was cuckolding.

In fact, I now accept that it made not the slightest difference. The affair, by that point, was practically dead on its feet. Another huff and a puff and the whole thing would come tumbling down.

Paul came creeping in by cover of darkness. We had a bottle of wine, ate some food and watched a movie. But within an hour, I could see that having him round had been a dreadful error. At his insistence we slept in the spare bedroom. Apparently, sleeping in another man's bed crosses some moral threshold which one stops just short of when screwing his wife.

And all through the night, after our most perfunctory
and, as things turned out, final act of fornication, I could sense that he was half-awake – listening out … for what exactly? Presumably, John's car pulling into the drive. Such a thing would have entailed all sorts of hopping-about and pulling-on-of-socks and leaping-out-of-windows and other such carry on. Which, again, would have probably delighted me no end. I explained several times that John never came back early, but he wouldn't have it. Until, finally, I just left him to it. If you want to spend the whole night on tenterhooks, I thought, then be my guest.

By seven o'clock the next morning Paul was up, had tossed a cup of coffee down his throat and was out the door. Gee, I thought, this is like having a second husband. Or would have done if I hadn't been so busy flapping and fretting and getting all emotional. And, in spite of everything, still desperately trying to come up with a way of breathing a little life back into my failing affair.

John arrived back about seven or eight on the Sunday evening. As the hours passed I found myself becoming increasingly disappointed. There was no sniffing of the air (another man's sweat … another man's presence). And in the days which followed, no unfamiliar strand of hair drawn out of the shower plughole, or other incriminating evidence presented to me. No neighbours stopped John in the street with whispers regarding a certain young man seen tiptoeing into the house last thing at night, or tiptoeing out first thing in the morning. In fact, no sense of impending drama of any sort.

I finally knew that it was over when I rang Paul a couple of days later. I stood in the phone box at the allotted hour and dialled his number but the phone just kept on ringing. I must have known what was coming, but heroically refused to see it, dialling again every couple of minutes until I finally managed to get hold of him. Perhaps I should have just taken it on the chin. Or threatened to kill him, like any normal, well-adjusted gal. Instead, I decided that what was called for was a good deal more supplication and degradation (desperation always being so appealing at such times).

Under duress, he admitted that, as far as he was concerned, the wheels had indeed come off our little adventure. Actually, ‘admitted' is some way short of appropriate. He ‘announced' it, as if this was the culmination of several hours' rehearsal, distilling his little soliloquy, if I remember rightly, down to no more than three or four bullet points. And, I suspect, telling himself as he did so that in the circumstances it was the most merciful thing to do.

Apparently, the simple facts of the matter were as follows: (i) it had been tremendous fun while it lasted … (ii) we were both grown-ups (although I can't quite remember what bearing this had on anything) … and that (iii) he now had to get on with his life, without, it naturally followed, me clinging to his trouser legs.

I was informed that I really was a lovely woman – as if it might be something I'd consider adding to my CV when applying for any future extra-marital shenanigans.
But strangely, my current loveliness seemed to have very little in common with the loveliness he'd first divined in me down in Devon – a quality which so possessed him that he had no choice but to proposition me. No, the word ‘lovely' in this context was strangely neutered. The kind of word you'd use to describe a biscuit. Or someone else's child.

In fact, it took another couple of phone calls and a great deal of shouting and tears on my part, and stony silences on his, before he finally admitted that there was another factor in the equation. Which was that … (iv) the ex-girlfriend (the one whose departure had caused him such heartbreak and provoked such disingenuous sympathy from me) was miraculously back on the scene.

Within a matter of seconds of telling me – it seems to me now it was the very next sentence – he told me that I must
not
, under any circumstances, try to contact him again. And that if I did he would get in touch with John and tell him what we'd been up to. So that, in that instant, I found myself transformed from newly anointed ex-lover to fully fledged hysteric. A danger from which the new woman in his life must be protected at all costs.

I actually did ring again, a week or two later, but the number wasn't registered. He must've changed it. I wonder what complicated excuse he came up with to his ex and now reinstated girlfriend as to why he had to do that?

And, I swear to God, but it's just this second occurred to me … why I keep thinking of that little scene from
The
 
Awful Truth
. My own set-up was indeed a little triangle. But it wasn't Paul and John, with me in the middle. It was Paul and me and Paul's ex. I'm not Irene Dunne. Paul is. I'm the bloody oilman. The one whose name I can't remember. The one who longs to live in Oklahoma and whose eyes roll back in their sockets whenever he breaks into the chorus of ‘Home on the Range'.

I
'm rather taken with my new binoculars. When you've finished using them they sort of fold up into themselves, and are altogether quite ladylike – in that they're not so big that if you happen to spin around when they're round your neck you're likely to take anyone's eye out. Not that I'm ever in close enough proximity to anyone these days to have to worry about that. Having the chap in the shop hand me three different pairs of binoculars this morning was about as intimate an encounter I've had for quite some time. Close enough, certainly, for me to detect the distinct whiff of cough sweet about him as he talked.

I'd actually prepped myself with the names of a couple of wading birds, which I'd picked out from some identification chart I'd found in a drawer here at Widow's Cottage. But as I stood there among all those quilted waistcoats and Barbour jackets I explained that I was only a budding birdwatcher, so he couldn't have expected me to be especially knowledgeable. And within a couple of minutes we'd narrowed it down to two or three models and I was standing on the shop's doorstep trying to read the road signs at the far end of the street.

I found my focus drifting onto pedestrians – a couple of youths … a woman pushing a buggy … some old chap standing waiting with his dog. There's something very
pleasing (and, of course, entirely reprehensible) about observing people when they're not aware of it. Although, when you're out in the street you always accept that you are, to some degree, on show.

‘And you know the first rule of birdwatching?' the salesman asked me.

I brought the binoculars away from my face. I don't believe I did.

‘When you spot something interesting, with the naked eye …' he said and pointed across the road, as if the year's first yellowhammer had just alighted on the post box, ‘… you keep right on looking …' which he did, with great intensity, like Superman burning a hole through a piece of steel, ‘… then bring the binoculars up to your face.'

He slowly raised his cupped hands, which held a pair of invisible binoculars.

‘Otherwise, you'll lose it,' he said. ‘And by the time you've worked out where you were meant to be looking the bloody thing's halfway back to Africa.'

To be honest, this sounds like the kind of hokum only a non-bona-fide birdwatcher would be spouting. Rule number one for proper birdwatchers would, I imagine, be something to do with finding a decent location. Or not wearing scratchy-sounding waterproofs. But you got the idea that he was the kind of chap who if you did anything but agree with him you'd be there all bloody day.

Anyway, I really am very pleased with my purchase. After lunch I took them out for a little spin on the saltmarshes. I stared out towards the horizon. Then east
and west along the coast. On my way home I stopped and scanned the low hill between the villages. There are one or two large houses up there in the trees. No one was out and about. If they had been I'm fairly confident that I would have seen them. Would've probably been able to pick out a fellow human being within half a mile of me. And quite right, considering the amount of money they cost me. By my reckoning, the local exchange rate is roughly three pairs of binoculars to one second-hand car.

Physical intimacy, it almost goes without saying, has been all but absent for a little while longer than these first few months of widowhood. Over the last ten years things have been pretty quiet, carnally. There may have been the odd week here and there when we seemed to rediscover the joys of a bit of intercourse, and I'd find myself thinking, ‘Actually, this is rather good fun.' But then something would interrupt it, the ennui would creep back in, and the one night when you're in the mood he isn't, and vice versa. Even if, by then, the rejection is partly out of spite for having been refused yourself a few nights before. Until the not having sex becomes the norm again. And, all of a sudden, you can count the months since you last did it, and the years since you did it in anything but the most rudimentary way.

But we always shared a bed. From time to time, after the lights went out, one of us would whisper, ‘I love you.' And mean it, despite it sounding so desperate. Especially in the dark, when there was a good couple of feet between
us. And hearing those words would do nothing but remind us how our relationship seemed so lacking in anything like real love.

John would fall asleep in a matter of minutes. Once the lights went out there'd be the double-cough, then the long sigh/exhalation. Two minutes later he'd roll over onto his side, so that he was facing away from me. Then he'd be gone.

It's hard not to resent such a capacity. Especially when, within a couple of minutes, his snoring would be contributing to my being awake. Sometimes I'd get up and tiptoe off into the spare room, to read or listen to the radio. And, of course, if I'd wanted I could have stayed up all night, listening to some unabridged Austen or Brontë. Or making endless lists. I could've quite easily kitted out one of the spare rooms properly and moved in there wholesale. But, to be honest, it wouldn't have felt quite right. I've got friends who have perfectly loving relationships with husbands who now sleep in opposite ends of the house, either because of the snoring or the different hours they keep. But with me and John it was always important for us to maintain the conjugal bed, even if there wasn't much conjugation to speak of. It was just where we retreated to at the end of the day. And the fact that our relationship had changed, and possibly even failed, in all sorts of ways was put to one side. We just liked knowing that the other person was there.