Authors: Grace Wynne-Jones
It was at one of these dinners that Erika announced that she
was pregnant with Lionel’s baby. I should have known it. Her cats
have a maternal look to them these days. They sell far better than they used to, because of Lionel’s marketing. She now works part-time at International Holdings. She plans to leave ‘any day now’,
but she’s staying on ‘for a little while longer’ because of the cream
puffs at tea break and the wisdom of their hour-and-a-quarter
l
unchtime; those extra fifteen minutes make all the difference, she
says. Actually I think she’s grown quite fond of the place and its
numerous eccentricities – which, of course, include her own.
Once Erika shared her joyous news, I felt I had to tell everyone
about Nathaniel. I had that feeling again, that we were all in a
truth club we didn’t even know we’d joined. I said I loved a man who didn’t love me but who was a wonderful friend, and I added
that it was fine because I had completely accepted the situation
and had loads of other interests. Everyone was very moved by this
announcement, including Katya, who asked me if what I said was
really true. ‘Is it true in your heart, Sally?’ she kept persisting. After all, Sergei had given her very little encouragement, apart from the occasional fried tomato, but somehow she had known he cared for her – and she was right. These days he sometimes wants to give her his entire breakfast.
‘I haven’t asked my heart about Nathaniel, because he’s already
answered the question for me,’ I told her. ‘He isn’t even in the country any more.’
‘The oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow,’
Erika commented, and I almost fell off my chair, because she had never been able to get that quote right before. I think she just said
it to show off, because it was entirely irrelevant; after all, neither
of the trees had
emigrated.
It seems that Fiona has given her a
copy of
The Prophet
,
so she can check the wording of quotations any time she wants.
Fiona is now back at her job, and Erika and I still love her, even
though we should loathe her. Sometimes we try to feel sorry for
her because she works in software, only she loves software – and
naturally she has managed to negotiate flexible hours and occasionally works at home, so that she can have her coffee
breaks with Milly gurgling on her lap. Of course, she frequently
complains about being tired and not having enough time to
herself and missing things like going to the cinema and lie-ins and l
ong baths. She also looks extremely happy, if a little less well groomed than she used to be; I believe she hasn’t had her hair professionally styled for at least a month, and the more casual look actually
suits
her. She looks more beautiful than ever.
I’m glad Erika and Fiona have found love – or, in Fiona’s case,
managed to keep it. I don’t tell them I have given up any
significant dreams of finding it myself. What people don’t seem to
understand is that it’s quite bracing not having a romance, or indeed a partial marriage, to bother about. Love is such a complicated business, and I have so many other passionate interests that I’m not sure I could fit a man into my life at the
moment. Gospel singing with Erika, for example, takes up many
a Sunday morning; we’ve found this small church that has a great
dramatic choir. A number of the singers are black, and the whole
thing is wonderfully soulful and uplifting. I also often go to the stables to ride Blossom, and I even played one game of tennis a few weeks ago.
Everyone has been a bit different since Marie’s party. Mum and Dad, for example, are going to have their lawn back. They say it’s
to cheer up Marie, who is somewhat vigilant with us all these
days; it wouldn’t surprise her if Dad turned out to be a
transvestite and April a lesbian. (She is also the only one of my
relatives who has pestered me for details about Diarmuid’s mice.
She seemed to think he had a mouse fetish; heaven knows what
she thought he might be doing with them.) But I think Mum and
Dad actually wanted the lawn themselves. They wanted the
rhythm of it, the requirements. So now Mum sometimes goes off
to the garden centre and comes back with unusual shrubs, which
she and Dad discuss in the kitchen over coffee. Sometimes they have heated arguments about the shrubs, actually, but I suppose
that’s marriage for you. Sometimes Dad storms out of the house,
but he comes back later and they eat dinner and watch telly snuggled up on the sofa.
And I even let Diarmuid mend my music box. I also told him I
had flung it at the floor. He didn’t seem that surprised. I don’t
know quite what to do with the music box now. Sometimes I put
it in a cupboard and think I’ll give it away; and sometimes I take
it out and look at it and wonder if I should fling it at the floor again, but I don’t. Once I even got it to play its tinkling, tinny
tune. As the girl in her flouncy pink dress turned round daintily,
I found I couldn’t hate her. Her young, hopeful face seemed to
have an innocence about it that I hadn’t noticed before. Even so,
she may end up in Help the Aged along with my wedding ring. My wedding dress went to Oxfam.
Since we sold the house, Diarmuid and I don’t have much reason to talk to each other. Very occasionally he phones, and I tell him I’m busy and won’t be able to talk for long. ‘How’s
Charlene?’ I say pointedly, half hoping he’ll say she’s run off with
an Italian waiter, but it seems that she hasn’t. He isn’t insensitive
enough to add that they are very happy, but he doesn’t have to; I
can hear it in his voice. Sometimes, for moments, I find myself
forgetting all the stupid things we did to each other; but when he’s
gone I feel a sense of relief – and not just because the phone call
is over. I’m relieved that he’s happy. He is no longer the ‘poor Diarmuid’ who provoked such guilt. He is what he should have always been to me: a friend. My Tool-Belt Man. The nice guy someone else should marry.
‘How is dear Diarmuid?’ Aggie occasionally asks. Her mind sometimes wanders these days. On some visits she thinks I’m
DeeDee, and on other days she thinks I’m her mother. There are
moments when she thinks she is young again and talks about
dances and dresses and walks in the mountains. In a way it’s OK.
I’ve got used to it. It’s as if an old woman can get young again any
time she chooses.
Sometimes Aggie mentions men, young men, who make her
eyes grow bright. And one day she said suddenly, ‘I should have
m
arried one of them, dear, not Joseph. Not after what he did to dear DeeDee.’
‘But you loved him,’ I said, even though I agreed with her.
We didn’t talk about it after that. I’ve begun to understand that
knowing when to stay silent is a powerful kindness. It’s not always a good thing to push someone into an honesty they may not be able to bear. We sometimes need our white lies and our
evasions, our fibs and tender deceits. And it seems to me that the
facts are often only part of the story, anyway. There are so many
ways of seeing things; so many ways of being in this weird, wondrous world.
One thing I know, though, is that a lot of us get caught up in
dreams that aren’t our own. We are sold them expertly, hungrily,
by those who need us to believe them. We are asked to enter a trance where a new car or sofa or hot-shot job will bring us happiness. We are asked to believe that some people we have
never met are our enemies and others are our friends. More than
ever, it seems a time for questions, because sometimes they are so
much wiser than our answers. So these days, when I feel I know the truth about something, I make space for doubt; I make space for humility. I ask myself if this is just another story I am telling
myself, or being told.
Aggie is happier these days. DeeDee comes
over about once a month; it’s as if they’re trying to make up for
lost time. Now Aggie wants to meet Craig. In fact, we all want to meet Craig. Mum says she’ll hold a dinner party if he’ll attend it,
and it looks like he wants to, so there is already much talk of starters and main courses and Marie is wondering if she should make her lemon meringue pie. They want DeeDee to sing her
songs from the shows, since she didn’t get around to it at Marie’s party. I hope to God she sings better than Erika. (Although Erika
is actually learning how to play the guitar, from a book called
Guitar Playing Made Simple
. Lionel gave it to her, probably after a
number of evenings of tuneless serenading. I admire his
courage.)
DeeDee phones me regularly, and she’s invited me to spend part of the summer helping her to restore the old walled garden
in her Tuscan villa. She wants me to see the olive groves and the
orange trees and walk on that dry, wise, sun-baked earth. I like the idea of it. I feel the need to fetch stones and place them
carefully in gaps in the old walls, to tend neglected plants, to help
things grow and blossom. Afterwards DeeDee and I will sit on the
large veranda, sipping wine from the local vineyard. It would be
nice to sit in the sun like a lizard, letting it soak into me. I could scour the local shops for tips about Tuscan interior decoration –
and, anyway, it’s high time I flirted with a dangerously dark-eyed,
pert-bottomed Italian waiter.
‘Have you seen Nathaniel, dear?’ DeeDee keeps asking when
she phones.
‘No, I’ve told you he’s in London,’ I reply.
‘Yes, I know, but… but doesn’t he come over on visits?’ she
enquires. ‘He said he was going to when I saw him a while ago.’
‘He’s got a new life now,’ I tell her. But what I’m thinking is
that he doesn’t seem to miss us. He never really belonged here; he
was like a beautiful bird that landed for a while, and then just
flew away. But I’m glad I met him. I know he sometimes finds life
just as strange as I do. I know we share some of the same
questions, and that makes me feel less alone and odd. Sometimes
just the thought of him makes me smile – his banged-up old car,
his crazy exaggerations, that naughty, bright grin of his. His lightness. His wild, playful strength.
Erika says I should go over to London to see him and bring some of her wildflower liqueur with me.
‘But I don’t even really miss him any more,’ I told her last time
we spoke. ‘I’ve got a new love now.’
‘Look, forget about Mel Sinclair,’ she said bossily.
‘Oh, not Mel,’ I replied. ‘Sammy, the young fellow in the delicatessen who gives me extra cheese and huge handfuls of watercress. I don’t think he even
weighs
the hummus.’
I wasn’t lying about this. Sammy is an extremely handsome
young man with a wild, rebellious look and a passionate glow in
his eyes. His fingers look beautifully long and sensuous, particularly when they are plunging into a bowl of olives. I flirt with him and he flirts with me. If he called by for tea and biscuits, I don’t think Erika’s wildflower liqueur would be needed.
‘You can borrow my camper van and run off with Nathaniel
for the weekend,’ Erika coaxed. She now actually owns a camper
van. Lionel gave it to her when she told him about her dreams of
travelling around Europe, though so far they’ve only used it for a
trip to the stretch of strand across the road from my cottage. They
watched the sunrise and the sunset and slept to the sound of the ocean. And they were reassured by the knowledge that, if the thing wouldn’t move in the morning, they could curl up on my sofa and ring a taxi. This is because Erika’s camper van is
extremely old; Lionel couldn’t afford a new one. But Erika says it has a lovely friendly feel to it and second-hand camper vans have
much more character than new ones.