Wise Follies (26 page)

‘Because nearly all my friends are married, and so were most of the men of my age that I used to meet. I stopped going to discos and things like that because the people were so young. I felt like their mother. I almost put myself on the shelf, and then I decided not to.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I decided to face facts,’ she says. ‘I decided to seek out people who are in the same position as myself. It felt a bit awkward at first, admitting that I was lonely. But then I discovered that it’s a very common thing.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ I agree, looking at her thankfully. It’s great when you get someone who’s this succinct with their views.

‘I’ve been to all the latest films,’ she continues. ‘I eat out a lot and do some ballroom dancing. I have company now, and that’s what I wanted.’

‘But…’ I hesitated. ‘But don’t you sometimes wish you could meet – you know – someone special?’

‘Oh, I gave up on marrying George Clooney at least ten years ago,’ she says, laughing heartily and rather too loudly. This, I realize, is one of her anecdotes. A nice way of getting off the subject, but I don’t want to…not just yet.

‘But surely you’d like to meet someone that – that you could…’

‘Love?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course I would,’ she replies quickly, almost impatiently. She glances at my name tag. ‘Doesn’t everyone, Alice? The thing is, I don’t know if I’ll find that person. Maybe I missed him. A nice, kind bloke, that would do me fine these days. Someone who likes football.’

‘Oh, so you like football?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Her face lights up. ‘Manchester United, Alice. They mean more to me now than George Clooney ever did.’

‘Good for you, Fiona,’ I find myself saying. I am deeply impressed by her. How well she has adjusted to her situation. She has ‘faced facts’ just like I’m doing with Eamon, my ‘nice, kind bloke’.

‘But if I do meet someone special, Alice,’ she is now adding, ‘I hope that I’ll recognize him. Not let him slip by without at least telling him how I feel. That kind of thing takes courage, but I think it’s worth it.’

‘Yes, absolutely,’ I say, feeling a bit better about my phone call to James Mitchel, even though he did ignore it. Her words have made me wonder if there’s someone else around who’s ‘special’ that I haven’t recognized. Sometimes I get a distant sense there is. It must be wishful thinking. I’ve done a lot of that over the years.

As I leave Fiona I notice a nice man in a navy suit is approaching her. She has such a very jolly smile. She’ll always have people round her. Some men aren’t just looking for women in clingy tops – I must remember that. Some men look deeper. They don’t care so much about the wrinkles. They are attracted to the spirit of a person. The essence. The truth. That’s what I want really, someone who sees the truth of me…but how can I share it with him if I don’t really know it myself? Who am I? I’m just not sure any more. And anyway, the only person who studies me carefully these days is my irritating new neighbour Liam. I saw him looking at me again this evening, from his upstairs window. He obviously has voyeuristic tendencies. I’m beginning to feel rather sorry for his girlfriend, Elsie. I simply must put up those net curtains in the kitchen window. The thing is they need to be altered to fit the window properly and I’m not that good at sewing. I’ll have to get them done professionally. I don’t know why I keep putting it off.

I approach some other women and continue with my questioning. All through the conversations they look around hopefully. Some are more brazen than others, fixing a man who has caught their interest with a long look, a small but significant smile. As the dancing starts they drift away from me into mixed gender clusters. Occasionally I see a man glancing at me, and then looking away uninterestedly.

Eamon didn’t look away when we met at that beach barbecue. He looked at me for so long I began to wonder if I had a bit of charcoal on my face. I wasn’t even wearing a clingy top. Just an old sweatshirt and jeans. I suddenly feel a wave of affection for him. Gratitude. I swirl it around me like a cape, hoping it will guard me from the night’s strange chill.

A tall, swarthy man with greying hair and eyebrows that command uncomfortable attention suddenly says, ‘Hello, Alice.’ I stare at him, bewildered, and then I remember my name tag.

‘Hello – er – Malcolm.’ I peer at his own name, which is stuck to his jacket.

Malcolm informs me that he is a farmer from Mullingar. He is looking for a woman with good morals who likes heifers and loud music. He’s just bought a new car and is very close to his mother. This is obviously his chat-up line, which explains the space around him. He wants to meet ‘someone’ because ‘there’s nothing to greet me when I get home. Only the light bulb I put on when I went out.’

‘So, Malcolm,’ I venture. ‘Are you enjoying yourself?’

‘Sort of, but I wish they’d put on Status Quo.’

‘Gosh – or should I say GSOH,’ I smile. ‘Slade’s more my style.’

‘Really?’

‘No. Sorry. I was just joking.’

Malcolm doesn’t laugh, but he’s a nice enough fellow, and quite snazzily dressed. He’s sincere and not as linear as he first appears. He’s doing his best, but I’d baffle him.

‘We’re not compatible, Malcolm. I’m too complicated for you,’ I say, after we’ve danced to Tina Turner singing ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’

‘Aye – you’re probably right,’ Malcolm agrees.

‘But I do hope you meet your “someone”,’ I add.

‘And I hope you do too, Alice.’ He gives me a brave grin and then moves purposefully towards a cluster of women in clingy tops.

I’ve got loads of quotes in my notebook now. Where’s Mira? She seems to have disappeared.

Mira has retreated to the downstairs bar. She’s tucked away in a corner seat. She’s still reading her book. It’s by Anthony Powell and is part of a series called
A Dance to the Music of Time
. There are twelve books in the series and she’s on number ten. That’s the kind of person she is.

‘Mira, what are you doing?’ I ask. ‘They were playing quite nice music. You could at least have danced.’

‘That fellow in the lurid shirt kept pestering me,’ she sighs wearily. ‘When I told him that I was an eccentric spinster he just laughed. He seemed to see it as something of a challenge. He wanted me to spend the weekend in his caravan on Ballybrittas beach.’

‘No one asked me to share a caravan,’ I smile encouragingly. ‘You’re an attractive woman, Mira. All my friends have said it. Even Eamon.’

‘Did he?’ She looks up at me, surprised.

‘Yes, when he first met you he said he couldn’t understand why you didn’t have a boyfriend. Of course, you were involved with Frank at the time, but I didn’t mention that.’

She looks at me gratefully. ‘So, what did you think of your first singles dance?’ she asks, as we leave the hotel and walk towards her car.

‘I suppose you could say I have mixed feelings about it,’ I reply. ‘I found it sensible, and yet somehow lonely – a bit sad.’

‘Why?’ she asks, as she unlocks the car door for me.

‘There was the feel of the marketplace to it. You know, people sizing each other up in such a very obvious way.’

‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ Mira agrees. ‘But there’s a lot to be said for those kinds of gatherings. If you have the temperament for them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s practical and simple. People are being upfront about their needs.’

‘So why did you run down to the bar?’

‘I don’t need a man, Alice.’ She smiles at me indulgently. ‘Surely I’ve made that plain by now.’

No, she hasn’t made it plain at all – but I don’t say this. Frank, her married ex-lover, has snuck into this car suddenly. I can feel him. She loved him so much. When he came to the cottage she looked so happy. Like a little girl. There was such an understanding between them. Such a closeness. The cottage felt full of kisses when he visited. They’d disappear into her bedroom with a bottle of wine and I’d hear them laughing. I could hardly believe it when she told me she wasn’t going to see him any more.

‘I can’t share him,’ that’s what she’d said. ‘I can’t be the person waiting in the background for leftovers. It’s like grabbing hors d’oeuvres, hoping they’ll make a meal, but they don’t. I love him too much just to have a little bit of him. He’ll never leave his wife, and do you want to know something really weird, Alice? His loyalty is one of the reasons why I love him.’

Yes, there was a time Mira used to talk to me about Frank. But she doesn’t any more. For example, even though he’s snuck into this car suddenly the only remark she’s made is ‘Fancy a takeaway pizza?’

‘Yeah, let’s get one,’ I reply.

Sometimes, late at night when I go by Mira’s bedroom door to the bathroom, I hear her sobbing. I want to rush in and comfort her, but I know she doesn’t want me to. So it is in these abrupt gear changes from, say, men to pizza, that we acknowledge Frank. Because what she wanted to say about him has already been said. So now he sometimes fills our silences on nights like these. He is there amid the talk of pineapple and green pepper and sweetcorn pizza topping. I really wish she’d forget about him, but it seems that she just can’t.

‘Don’t force the feeling away. Let it leave when it feels less.’ Someone told me that about grief once. They were words I needed to hear. It’s so hard, missing people. The little rituals of love and belonging – the sand to pearl accretions of understanding – had taken such time. But for what? I shed such bewildered tears. But sometimes, now, it seems that the tears Mira and I do not shed as we stay in our silences, our rememberings, are the deepest, the saddest ones of all.

‘I think we should get some jasmine and train it up the wall at the back,’ says Mira, as we drive home with a box of hot pizza in the back seat.

‘Yes,’ I agree, thinking how I should go to a jeweller’s and at least have a peek at some engagement rings. ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

Chapter
22

I’ve been looking at
engagement rings in jewellery shops. The assistants are very solicitous. Almost respectful. I’ve seen quite a nice solitaire. Just one diamond in a simple gold setting. I’m sure Eamon would like it. He’s fond of understatement. It would be nice to show off my ring. Flash it around a bit. I wonder who I should invite to the wedding… if I have one.

I wouldn’t want it to be too fussy. Just a gathering of family and close friends. I wonder if the California Cafe would do the reception. They have a nice function room which would be just the right size. I’d design the invitations myself. Do a line drawing of something suitable – though I’m not quite sure at the moment what that might be. I’d like my cream dress to have a slight pink tinge to it. I’d like it to be in raw silk and rustle a bit when I walked. I’d want it to have small embroidered blossoms that would match my sweet pea posy.

Dear God – how can I have decided all this? There is a vast conspiracy to make people marry. I see that even more clearly now I’ve shown some interest in the subject. It’s like joining in on some huge conversation that’s ‘members only’. Once the subject is broached it seems to acquire a momentum all of its own. And, of course, that ‘singles dance’ was most sobering. I rather wish I hadn’t gone to it now.

I also wish I didn’t have to go to the laundromat tonight, but I do because our machine’s being serviced. So I empty the contents of the dirty clothes basket into an old plastic laundry bag and lug it gloomily down the road. I have a book with me called
The Road Less Travelled
by M. Scott Peck. I’ve been trying to read it on and off for years. I put the washing on and settle back into a chair. As I do so a tall man who has had his back to me peers over my shoulder. I can see a bit of his jacket, but not his face. ‘Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest,’ he reads.