Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers (18 page)

BOOK: Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers
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That was six months ago, just after I saw Bridget and prattled on about how happy I was. He's still with Mandy. She's pregnant and, I'm told, about to go on maternity leave. I almost feel sorry for her now. She has yet to learn that this is what men do: they fall in love with a carefree girl with killer heels and red lipstick, a girl who loves fun and change and adventure. They marry her and tell her they like her best when she's in her jeans and her face is scrubbed clean of make-up. They make her pregnant. And then, when this woman, a little frayed now at the edges with her not quite flat stomach and her bare face marked by too many sleepless nights, has been forced to grow up and be a good mother, they leave her for another carefree girl.

Rebecca

I WAS STILL TRYING to finish my novel but by now I was finding it impossible to work. Every sentence of love and hope became punctuated by the memory of Nick Fuller's bitter resignation or Leonora's hands twisting and untwisting a sodden hanky. When I tried to bring about the happy ending Dominic appeared before me, scowling, shouting, turning virtue into sin, upending his dreams and mine. My mind was filled, not with sweet dreams, but with accusations and counter-accusations, betrayal and wounded, bewildered children.

‘To think that it takes my husband leaving me for us to get back in touch,' Leonora had said as we had dinner out together a couple of days after my visit.

There was no need for me to add anything; we both knew it was a poor swap.

I told the new therapist. Charlotte Jessop had left suddenly with just a letter saying she had got engaged: ‘All very sudden, I know' (three coy dots and an implied giggle) ‘But as my new fiancé's work is in Australia I have agreed to move there to be with him. Dr Angie Bliss will be taking over my practice and I have no doubt that she will be more than able to fill my shoes.'

In fact, I had taken an instant dislike to Charlotte Jessop's replacement, mainly because she was younger than I, beautiful and supremely confident. Yet by the time she had complimented me on my jacket, which was new and rather pretty, told me she could not believe I was forty-two and that she had read every one of my books and could not for the life of her understand why the reviewers had not picked up on the Brontësque sensibilities and the Austinesque wit of the last one my opinion of her was considerably higher.

We had just been discussing my recent contribution to a radio debate with a vicar, a rabbi, an imam and a newspaper columnist known for her forthright views on life in general and the ills of modern society in particular. The subject we were discussing was the disintegration of the family. The vicar, the rabbi and the imam had all agreed that society's fixation with sex and Hollywood-style romance, coupled with the emphasis on the individual's right to fulfilment at whatever cost, was part of the problem. The columnist had nodded, adding that, although she was of course a great supporter of her own sex, feminism had a lot to answer for, telling women it was acceptable to be promiscuous, have affairs, break up families and generally behave like men.

The vicar, the rabbi and the imam added that in their view the solution was a return to the adherence of the founding principles of the great religions.

No surprises there then.

At that point they had all turned to look at me, the purveyor of false expectations. Keen on the principle that if you have nothing new to say you should say it with conviction, I had replied that the sooner people realised that they were not put on this earth to be happy the better off we'd
all be. The columnist had agreed and the vicar, the rabbi and the imam said that, although that was indeed so, true happiness
was
attainable through selflessness and helping others.

I began to ask them if that meant that, in their view, we
were
actually put on this earth to be happy and it was just that we had to achieve this aim in a certain prescribed way, which seemed to involve thinking only of other people's happiness, in which case the ensuing selfless acts could be deemed self-serving as they were the sure-fire way to achieve personal happiness. At which point my microphone was turned off.

‘I thought you were the one person speaking sense,' Angie Bliss said.

‘Thank you,' I said.

‘To love others you must first love yourself.'

I nodded.

‘Although people wrapped up in themselves make very small parcels.'

I nodded again.

‘The world needs happy people. Life is a terminal condition that can be managed but not cured.'

‘That's very true,' I said. And I wished life really could be that simple. Looking at Angie Bliss's candy-coloured tweed suit, I thought I could understand how she could afford Chanel. Certainties these days were in short supply and high demand; no wonder the price was astronomical.

Coco took the opportunity to point out that I could most probably get twenty clowns for the price of one therapist.

I asked him who in their right mind would want twenty clowns.

‘While we postpone, life hurries by,' the therapist said, raising her voice as if she had noticed my attention was elsewhere.

‘Isn't that Seneca?'

The therapist shrugged.

‘Might be; he does say an awful lot.' She leant forward in her chair and looked deep into my eyes. ‘Are you paying attention?'

‘I'm sorry. It's this clown thing. It's in my notes.'

‘Don't apologise. You're paying me, remember. It's part of the problem, I think, you being so nice.'

‘I'm not really nice,' I said.

‘No, of course you're not. You know that and I know that. I should have said you appearing to be so nice.'

‘What?'

‘We both know that you're nothing like as nice as you pretend to be, even to yourself.'

‘Right,' I said. ‘I'd better work on that.'

‘Just work on your lovely books.'

‘But that's why I'm here. Because I don't seem to be able to any more. Charlotte was particularly interested in working with creative people, which is why I went to see her in the first place. I hoped she would help me back to writing.'

‘And I'm just like her,' Angie Bliss said, her voice soft and low. ‘I shall help you reclaim your creative flame. You just have to trust me.'

I looked at her and it seemed as if her eyes were changing colour. As I stared I realised that she might be right and that maybe she would be able to help.

I dabbed at my own everyday eyes.

‘I'm sorry, it's all been a bit of a strain. I don't know what I'd do if I thought I had lost the ability to write for good.' I
fished a tissue from my handbag and blew my nose. ‘However, I'm beginning to accept that I won't be writing any more love stories.'

‘Why?' The therapist's voice was sharp.

‘I've changed. I don't believe in those things any more.'

‘Those things? You don't believe in love? How can you say such a thing?'

‘Of course I believe in love. But romantic love … Yes, it is delicious, a delicious madness that cannot, indeed should not, last. Yet people enter into lifelong commitments like marriage and co-parenting on the basis of it, which is about as sensible as buying a house because you liked the pretty flowers in the hall. I've come to the conclusion that my books begin with a misconception and end in an impossibility. So what's the point?'

The therapist had listened with her lips pursed and her arms folded across her chest.

Now she said, ‘The point,
Ms
Finch, is that in order to have a dream come true you have to have a dream.'

I thought that was quite profound then I remembered it was from a song in
South Pacific
.

I said, ‘Well, I stand by what I'm saying. I tell you, that little bastard Cupid and his arrows of mass-destruction have a lot to answer for.'

‘Eros, his name is Eros. Cupid is a vulgar Roman invention.'

I was a little taken aback by how seriously she took her classics.

‘Right,' I said, ‘Eros it is.'

‘And he's not that bad: lazy, yes, sloppy in his work, yes, and come to think of it a bastard, yes, but he's a good boy really.'

‘Right,' I said again.

‘Are you worried about your age? Is that what this is all about?'

‘No. I mean obviously I don't particularly like getting older, who does? And there are times when I ask myself if I might one day regret not having had children. Forty-two is hardly ancient, of course, it's not impossible for me to have them, but to find a man I care for enough, and in time, well, it seems rather less likely.'

While I spoke, Angie Bliss had been reading a file on her lap. When someone you're addressing obviously isn't paying attention you have two options, as far as I can see. One is to stop talking and the other is to go on in an increasingly loud voice until they do pay attention. When I was younger and full of pride and confidence I had favoured the latter. Now I just shut up.

Five minutes later the therapist looked up.

‘What was that?'

‘If I recall,' I said pointedly, ‘I was saying that forty-two is hardly ancient.'

‘Getting there,' she said. ‘There's certainly no time for complacency. Cosmetic surgery and Botox can get you so far but it can't restore that youthful bloom. The bloom is important.'

‘I thought therapy was about making one feel good about oneself.'

‘Did you?'

There followed another silence. This time the therapist wasn't even reading but was simply staring in front of her. I began to shift in my chair. I felt uncomfortable, as if I had committed some social faux pas, which was obviously ridiculous
because, as Angie Bliss herself had pointed out a little earlier, she was paid a great deal to be bored. It was the same at dinner parties, not the paying, obviously: the table would fall silent and I would feel compelled to speak, to say anything, however inconsequential, to break that silence.

‘Why do I always feel as if the world might tumble from its axis if I'm not there to prop it up?' I asked.

If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times
… Coco replied.
It's because you're self-obsessed and neurotic
.

I wasn't asking you
.

Angie Bliss said, ‘Because you think of yourself as the centre of everything.'

I felt depressed. If my therapist was in agreement with my inner demons, what hope was there?

‘But you're not alone in that.' Angie Bliss gave me a kindly look. ‘Most humans feel the same, one way or the other. No doubt because it's too cruel to live fully in the knowledge of your total insignificance.'

‘Are you as sure about everything as you seem to be?'

‘While I feel what I feel I'm sure I'm feeling that way,' she said. ‘But it happens that I sometimes change my mind. Anyway, as I said to you before, loving
oneself
is essential.' She stretched and did a little wiggle in her chair. ‘I love myself.'

‘I'm not sure if I love myself very much or, in fact, if I even like myself. I'm aware though that those thoughts are self-centred, whereas your matter-of-fact acceptance and love of yourself must mean that you're not plagued by time-consuming insecurities. So, does that mean that someone who loves herself and is therefore really pleased with herself is actually less self-centred than someone who doesn't like herself very much at all?'

‘Very possibly,' Angie Bliss said. ‘Then again, maybe not. Now I trust that by the time of our next appointment you will be telling me that you're working again.' Her face brightened. ‘I have just thought of something that might help you to unblock your block. Where are you in the novel?'

‘Stuck where the heroine is about to realise that she's in love with the hero. All I want to say is don't bother, which won't really get me very far in a romantic novel.'

‘Unless she gets over such cynical and fruitless doubts.'

‘Well, she won't.' I had spoken more sharply than I'd intended but I just didn't think that Angie Bliss was that helpful when it came to writing.

‘So, start another book. Start afresh, that was my idea. Show us a woman who is going through a divorce. Don't spare us the details about how wrong and disastrous divorces are. Vent all your bitterness and spleen, then – and this is where the genius of my suggestion comes in – let her fall in love with her divorce lawyer; you can vent some more spleen when you describe his work and then you can get down to describing the touching and deep love that develops between the two, yes?'

‘I'm sorry, but it doesn't work like that.'

‘What doesn't work like what?'

‘I do need to finish this novel, I can't afford to pay back the advance, but not if it becomes some kind of cynical money-making exercise.'

‘There you go making that common mistake of thinking that your intentions matter. They don't, only the result does. If the result is good who cares, eh?'

‘I would.'

‘I thought we were going to work on you not being so self-centred?'

‘You turn everything upside down. Anyway, the result wouldn't be good: my readers would see right through it.'

The therapist got to her feet, indicating that our time was up.

‘Well, if you're going to be negative,' she said, holding the door open for me.

‘Your hair looks fabulous!' I said to Maggie Jacobs.

‘Thank you, I had it done this morning.'

One of the reasons I liked Maggie was that she inspired hope for the future. Maggie was older than I, somewhere in her mid-fifties, yet a woman obviously in her prime: radiant with HRT, shiny-haired, plump-skinned and supple of movement. We had first met when she was a student on a writer's course that I was teaching. She wanted to write a book on style. Having achieved what she had set out to achieve with the publication of
If Fifty Is the New Forty and Forty Is the New Thirty Does That Mean I'm Twenty?
, she had not written another word – apart from thank-you letters (Maggie was punctilious about those) and ‘To Do' lists for her housekeeper. When asked if she was ever tempted to write another book –
If Fifty Is the New Forty
had been a success, selling over three hundred thousand copies in paperback – she answered with a simple no. And when her friends and her publishers suggested she could have developed her writing into a career she had been equally perplexed. What would she want with a career?

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