How Do I Love Thee? (28 page)

One man offered to take her home, insisting it was no trouble. As soon as they drew up outside the tiny flat she’d rented following her mother’s death and then her father moving into a rest home, the man grabbed her and pressed a hot, wet kiss tasting of beer and coffee onto her mouth. Surprised, Violet didn’t react for a second, but when he fumbled at her breast she recoiled, pushing him away and slamming herself painfully against the door handle.

‘What’s the matter?’ the man inquired.

‘I … didn’t expect …’ Violet said. ‘I’m sorry if I gave you the impression I … I wanted that.’ Although she couldn’t imagine how she might have done so.

‘You didn’t think I’d go out of my way for nothing, did you?’ the man grumbled. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

‘No!’ Wondering what rights he might have claimed if she had. ‘I’m sorry. Thank you for the ride.’ She found the handle that had dug into her back, and opened the door, scrambling onto the footpath.

‘You’re missing a better one, sweetheart.’ He leaned across to hold the door open as she tried to close it. She backed away and he added, ‘Don’t suppose you get that many offers, do you?’ Then he banged the door shut and took off with a roar.

Violet was shaking when she entered the cold little flat. If that was what kissing was like she wanted none of it, thank you. And why had she apologised? Should she have slapped him instead?

Or was she simply stupid, as the man had implied? Did all men believe they were entitled to payment for a simple courtesy? What would they want after a proper date, when they’d spent money on dinner or a film?

How dared they? She knew the theory of sex but found it difficult to imagine getting so close to a man. She’d seen
Gone With The Wind
and thrilled to Clark Gable catching Vivien Leigh into his strong arms and kissing her madly. She’d wondered how it would feel to be kissed that way. Well, now she knew and she hadn’t liked it.

Churned up and angry and mortified, she threw her small purse on the dressing table, tugged off the elastic band keeping her hair tightly contained at her nape, and saw in the mirror that her eyes blazed a startling amber and her cheeks were flushed; her hair, sprung from its bondage, fell about her shoulders. She looked like a stranger.

Fascinated by this new view of herself, she stared until the brilliance in her eyes died and her cheeks regained their normal slightly sallow complexion.

The illusion of elusive beauty was dispelled.

Why, anyway, would she want to be beautiful? To attract men like the one she had just left?

She had her hair cut short again. It fluffed out at ear level and looked odd, but was less trouble to wash and get dry, and she threw away the assortment of clips, bands, pins and elastics she had collected.

At the library, having served her time as a junior, she’d been appointed cataloguer, which meant a raise in salary and, to her relief, less dealing with the public. She took driving lessons and bought a Mini, even though her long legs made getting in and out difficult.

She had fewer invitations as families grew and parents became busier and their lives diverged from hers. Her circle of friends became smaller. Some were divorced, and the women attended concerts and art events with Violet when the ex-husbands had the children. Or they asked her to babysit while they went out with some new man. At first terrified, Violet found she could cope quite well if actual babies weren’t involved.

Not knowing how to treat a seven-, ten- or twelve-year-old, she spoke to them as she did to adults, and found them
equally interesting to talk with, often more so. They had a curiosity about the world and quirky ways of looking at it. Children were used to being smaller than grown-ups, and if one commented on her height it was a simple statement of a newly discovered fact or part of their endless quest for explanations of everything. ‘You’re nearly as high as the door,’ sometimes in impressed tones, or ‘Are you bigger than my daddy?’

When computers were brought into the library system Violet attended a course and, at first sceptical of their value, discovered a new talent and took on teaching other staff the mysteries of word-processing, tabulation, spreadsheets and the online catalogue.

Gradually she’d given up wearing make-up. She bought suits in black, navy or grey for work and wore them with white or cream blouses and good, low-heeled leather shoes. At home she preferred slacks, snapping up at sales any that actually reached her ankles. She briefly flirted with fashion when trouser suits and long plaid skirts were all the rage, because they suited her—several people told her so—only to have them languish in her wardrobe when they went out of vogue.

The head librarian retired and Violet was promoted in her place. Required to report to the local council and deal with the occasional unreasonable member of the public, she
joined Toastmistresses, stumbled through the first session, and the following week forced herself to give a prepared speech, earning a round of mild applause. The pity vote, but encouraging enough for her to return. She never became a star of the club but her confidence increased when she was nominated branch secretary, a position she held for ten years. She learned to speak up on behalf of her staff and her stock.

Her hair began to dim as strands of grey appeared and she refused her hairdresser’s offer to tint it. Grey hairs appeared among her eyebrows and on her chin, some of them long and curling in odd ways. She plucked out any new ones each morning. A head librarian needed to look well groomed.

Now she was invited to the weddings of her friends’ sons and daughters, and expected to provide a lavish gift to the young couple, some of whom she scarcely knew. For a time the invitations often included a list of desirable gifts, or the name of a store that held such a list, at least ensuring that whatever she bought would not be unwanted, but she couldn’t stifle a slightly resentful distaste for the idea and was glad when the custom seemed to wane. She took to buying generous gift vouchers, being thoroughly confused in the myriad ‘homewares’ shops where kitchen utensils resembled surgical instruments, and plates came in odd shapes for specific purposes.

‘What is this for?’

‘Olives,’ or ‘Tapenades,’ would come the patient and ever so slightly patronising reply from a girl surely barely out of school, or an older woman with bleached hair cut raggedly short above gleaming hoop earrings.

Violet had never developed a taste for olives and had no idea what tapenades were. She cooked dinner for herself every night with a piece of steak, fish or chicken and three vegetables, followed by fruit plus a slice of cake or a tart from the bakery down the street. She liked something sweet at the end of a meal, only forgoing it when dining with friends. It seemed insensitive to eat such things in front of women who claimed that chocolate cake or cream buns would put inches on their already ample hips.

Her retirement was marked with a formal presentation from the mayor, attended by several councillors, numbers of staff and ex-staff members, and even the local MP. Overwhelmed, Violet became embarrassingly tearful during her speech of thanks. All her remembered life she’d been told she was much too big to cry, but the laughter when she blurted this out to the guests was sympathetic and even fond, she realised with gratitude.

Looking round the assembly she saw liking and respect and understanding that made her warm inside.

In retirement she was surprised at the number of former colleagues who visited her two-bedroom cottage, which had replaced the flat. In its small garden she spent weekends contentedly weeding, pruning and sowing, and harvesting her own vegetables. She’d bought the house after her father’s death, with the little money he’d left and her modest savings as a deposit, persuading the manager of the bank where as a teenager she’d opened an account with her very first pay packet, that a single woman with a good job and no dependents to drain her income didn’t need a male relative to guarantee her mortgage.

Her hair by then had lost much of its colour and curl, and she was able to wear it just past shoulder-length and bundle it away from her face into a pepper-and-salt bun. Since she turned forty she’d been wearing glasses, but her long sight was still good and, driving her little car, she didn’t need spectacles.

While she had retained her health and strength, she decided to take a guided European tour, and had a wonderful time visiting places she’d read about or seen on TV. She met nice people and afterwards exchanged Christmas cards with some of them for many years. But it was exhausting being with a crowd of other people all day for weeks. Having done
her belated OE, she was happy to stay home with her garden and her books and records and the small treasures she’d collected over the years, and being visited by or visiting a diminishing number of old friends.

Twice a week she worked at a local charity shop, enjoying the company of the other volunteers, mostly retired but some younger, like the tattooed Samoan who helped out until someone offered him a long-awaited job, and who had flirted with all the elderly ladies in the shop, even including Violet, making her laugh. And she was fascinated by the ever-changing clientele—from young mothers looking to clothe the wide-eyed babies who watched from their strollers, to quite affluent bargain-hunters snapping up old china and glassware, and the homeless man who was sometimes asleep in the doorway when she opened up the shop, yet was always spotlessly clean and pressed-looking as he greeted her with a polite little bow.

A few of the children she had babysat in the past visited occasionally, bringing their own children, and that touched her. She kept a box of toys and games to amuse the younger ones while she talked with the older ones and their parents, who had grown into interesting adults.

The day after her seventy-fourth birthday she backed out of a parking space, forgetting to check behind her, and crashed into a passing vehicle. Her heart almost burst through
the wall of her chest at the horrendous impact. The other driver, a young woman with children strapped in the back seat, was gracious and even sympathetic, but after sorting out the insurance claim Violet turned in her driving licence and sold the car.

Once a week she walked to the nearest suburban shops and carried home two bags of groceries. Returning home one day she tripped on a brick that had worked loose from her pathway, and broke her hip.

In hospital a social worker pointed out that if it had happened inside the house she might have lain alone for days or at least hours, instead of being found by a neighbour checking his letterbox minutes afterwards. She bought a walking-stick and at home began to wear a gadget on a cord about her neck with a button to press in case of an emergency.

Two burglaries were perpetrated in her street, and shortly afterwards the papers and TV reported a ninety-year-old woman had been raped and beaten in her own home. Violet’s remaining friends expressed concern at her living alone; one sent her husband round to install extra locks on the doors.

One night Violet heard a noise at her bedroom window, open a few inches, and when she switched on the light there was a male hand on the sill.

By the time she’d struggled out of bed with the intention of slamming the window on the hand, it was gone. After the police who answered her anxious call had left, she locked the window despite a hot, muggy night and slept as best she could with the light on.

The sale of her house, plus the savings of a frugal lifetime, enabled her to move into an unexceptionable retirement home. Having seen her father demeaned and bullied towards the end of his life, Violet chose carefully, making as sure as she could that the place had a good reputation and was well run. She insisted the staff didn’t address her by her Christian name unless invited, and lodged a formal complaint when one of the caregivers made faces behind a resident’s back.

She volunteered to reorganise the home’s library. Among several residents who pitched in to help was a silver-haired retired judge whose height and soldierly carriage allowed Violet easily to look him in the eye. He was well-read and liked to discuss books and ideas.

The judge asked Violet if she’d like to join a card circle. ‘Trouble with these places,’ he said, ‘is there’s always someone popping off. We’ve lost one, need a fourth.’

‘I don’t know how,’ Violet confessed. The only card game she’d played was Snap at a friend’s place when she was a little girl.

‘I could teach you,’ the judge offered.

Why shouldn’t she learn a new skill? It was supposed to be good for aging brains. She dreaded becoming one of the poor confused souls in the home’s dementia wing, with their empty eyes and aimless, fluttering hands.

The judge seemed to enjoy teaching her, and praised her quickness at learning. During the first real game she made several mistakes, but no-one shouted or sulked, and after that she looked forward to Friday nights and their regular game.

She and the judge exchanged books they had enjoyed. At first Violet didn’t like to disagree with his often trenchantly expressed opinions, but when he was particularly scathing about one of her favourites she mounted a spirited defence that brought a sparkle to his eyes. She realised he relished a good argument.