Aunt Margaret's Lover (12 page)

Contender?!

'But she was married,' he said peevishly, 'and she only told me on our second date and even then not until the coffee.' 'Were most of them a bit ropey?'

He looked offended, as well he might. 'Not at all,' he said with dignity.

'And you've done all this in just a few weeks? You were shifting.'

'And why not?' He jutted out his chin. 'I'm sorry,' I said. 'It's just a bit - well, very .
..
surprising.' 'You said yourself it's not easy to meet new people.' 'Yes, but. . .
advertising/'

'Well, what would you do? Sit around saying prayers?'

After he had gone I sat in a slump on the stairs for a long time, shaking my head occasionally, ruminating, looking for some reason to laugh the notion out of existence. And could find none. On the other hand I could not quite see myself putting an ad in the lonely hearts column of
Framing Today
(were there such a publication) because the last thing I wanted was to meet a picture framer. Particularly as - I gurgled at the thought -
I
might get Reg!

I rang
Music Week
and asked if they had a trade counter for back numbers, which they did. So hopping in the car and driving a little less safely than I would have liked, I went to their Marylebone office and bought up the last three issues. I took them to a nearby cafe, and, while I waited for my tea and scones, turned to the classified advertisements. Bold and upfront as if there were nothing to be ashamed of at all was the heading:
lonely hearts
. It sounded so pathetic and I had a sudden horrible vision of a shelf of pumping arteries waiting balefully in line.

The waitress brought my order. Instantly I felt furtive and plopped my arms over the magazines before she could see what I was looking at. I sat there, rigid and stupid, like a child in the classroom who does not want her work to be copied. The waitress set down my order in the small remaining space of the table, and when I looked up to thank her she was staring at me as if I were quite potty. Before departing she gave a long searching look at the magazines hidden beneath my arms and then back at my face again. As if, were the police to inquire of my whereabouts, she could be absolutely sure of giving a very good description.

I found Roger's advert eventually, though at first I could match none of the dozen or so entries in each issue with the man I knew. In the end the bit about considering Schubert the greatest composer of art songs the world has ever known, and liking skiing, convinced me it was his. The rest of it was scarcely recognizable and it was only comparing what he said about himself with what the other advertisers said about themselves that made it clear. He had obviously done his market research. But if he saw himself as forty-four, good
-
looking, fit and fun with
SOH
(what on earth was that, I wondered? Sort of Handicapped?), then what were the ones who called themselves 'presentable, active, mature' like? 'Active', despite Colin's more salacious connection, made me think of pensioners in gardens digging furiously lest the neighbours think them senile and call in the cart.

However, as I idled over my tea and picked around at the crumby plate, Roger's advert inspired disturbing thoughts of how I would describe myself were I to place an advertisement (which, of course, I had no intention of doing) in this column. I came up with some funny notions.

'Maiden (well, I was nearly) aunt seeks toy boy with whom to make sweet music' I laughed out aloud, which, as the cafe was now in a quiet period, brought my disapproving waitress back to the table to collect my empty crockery. I considered her as a contender: 'Tall temptress, forty something, into food and Madonna (she had been tapping her foot to the cafe's tinny radio earlier) seeks mature man to help her fill her sandwiches . . .' I laughed again, left a decent tip, and departed for home.

But it is not a laughing matter, this heart-seeking business. I soon realized, as I began to read the other advertisements, that it is to be taken extremely seriously. Someone who writes, 'Fifty-something lady harp, strings all broken, needs kind, patient male restorer to prepare her for plucking again,' is not in it for flippancy and flings. If I had expected to find some amongst the advertisers who were tongue in cheek, I was disappointed. I was even, momentarily, tempted myself to answer the chap who wrote, 'Guitarist, classical. Lonely male, forty, seeks female companion for forthcoming South-East Asian tour, Sept/Jan. Considerable free time together for sight-seeing, hugs and possibly more. The lady will be N/S' - N/S? Near-sighted? Not slovenly? - 'cultivated, attractive, with SOH. And under thirty-five.'

Pride would not let me answer and pretend I fitted the age category, though I did feel like writing to say I considered it very ageist of him to want a woman younger than himself, and
so much younger
than himself.

I idled around the kitchen until about six and then rang Verity. She sounded morbid. Very well, I thought, this will cheer her up. And clutching the magazines and a robust red wine, I went up the road to visit the patient.

Things were obviously not going well in the 'I did the right thing' department. Verity had the slump of an ageing and discarded courtesan about her and she was wearing black from top to bottom. The only bright moment in the proceedings was her face when she saw the bottle. It lit up.

'Oh good,' she said, 'I could do with a drink. I've made a rule to only drink with someone else present, otherwise I should probably become an alcoholic. And all for a man . . .'

She grabbed the Cotes du Rhone and had the cork out before I could say something suitable like 'Pen the men'. And she was halfway down her firs
t glass before I had even smelle
d mine.

T should have brought one each,' I said drily.

'Never mind,' she said in innocence. 'We can always go to the off-licence for more.'

Realizing this was serious I shoved the magazines, open at their relevant pages, towards her. She read them gloomily, slugging away at her glass, the very picture of dissolute womanhood.

'Christ!' she said. 'What a depressing scene.' She pushed them away. 'It's hard enough to get shot of the buggers without advertising for another one. Who in their right mind would do that?'

I put on an air of mature indifference.

'Quite so,' I said.

She looked at me suspiciously. 'So why
did you
get them?'

Smooth as water I said, 'Because Roger has done it -apparently su
ccessfully - and I wanted to see
how.' I pointed out his advertisement. She read it, peering with astonishment, mouthing the words. And then she threw back her head and hooted. I felt, oddly, offended.

'I suppose it
is
rather amusing,' I said, attempting mature indifference again. Despite my rejection of him, I didn't take kindly to seeing someone else ridiculing my ex. After all, by association it was ridiculing me for having been his woman.

'Good-looking?!' she spluttered. 'On a dark night with the gas turned down!' She poured some more wine. I felt like my smile had got stuck somewhere between my nose and my eye bags. 'Fit and
fun!’
she went on, still hooting. 'What arrogant shits the entire bunch are. You must have had a real laugh when you read this lot.'

She looked at me.

I gave as hearty a guffaw as I could muster. And changed the subject. Verity's views on the notion of lonely hearts advertising were clear and unequivocal. She, being of sane disposition and sound mind, despite the temporary hiccough in her love life, could be speaking only for the majority of personkind. I replaced the magazines in my bag and we talked about her erstwhile lover for about two hours. Pretty well non-stop. And then I went home. I tried to put the magazines in the rubbish sack, but they intended, and succeeded, in staying on my kitchen table. Then I went to bed, fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamt I had brought my harp to a party and nobody had asked me to play.

My first thought on waking was unpleasant. It was: the year is slipping away and you have made no progress in finding a lover. What are you going to do about it? I got up, went to the kitchen, ground the beans and, while waiting for the coffee to brew, idled through those tantalizing advertisement pages again. But I didn't
want
a musician. And then another advertisement, in a display box, caught my eye. 'If you do not find what you want here,' it said, 'try the dating pages of
On Sight,
the weekly magazine for Londoners.'

Whatever I was going to do, I decided, wincing at the memory of Verity, I would definitely keep it a secret. Women may be women's best allies if Euripides is to be believed, but I was fairly convinced that the Elizabeth and Mary sisterhood would always stop short of a man. Pity, a thousand pities, but there it was . . .

The coffee was cold by the time I got back. Nevertheless, I sipped it, my heart thumping strangely, as I opened the pages of my new purchase and began running my finger down the column headed
men
.

They were an interesting and assorted bunch. There was the chap who very nearly stole my heart after two jolly lunches, but who announced after the second that he was, er, actually still
in
a relationship of sorts.

'How "of sorts"?' I asked primly.

'Well, we're not married.'

'But you live together?'

He nodded and suggested that, surely - and he put his hand very li
ghtly
on my waist where I felt it like lead - it need not matter.

'Refer to Julius,' I said, then skipped off, leaving him puzzled and cross.

His view, appare
ntly
also shared by some subsequent encounters, was that he needed a fulcrum to leave his dead relationship and so had advertised in the hope of finding one. Hone
stly
, when will the chaps out there learn that it is
all right,
it is perfe
ctly
OK,
living on your own? And considerably better than staying on in the yoke of vapid unlove.

Loneliness is a rite of passage, but it passes once you get the hang of social individualism. I was hardly going to stand in line for a man while he made up his mind whether or not to go. And if he
did
go, the chances were there would be ordure in the cooling system to which I would, one way or another, be recipient.

In any case, experience and observation have shown me that there are very few genuinely dead relationships unless one or other partner has found someone new. Refer back to me and Roger: there is always the dog-in-the-manger problem: galling to see what you could not make work, work well with another. And the better it works the more inclined the dog in the manger is to become an albatross. I am inclined to think that ex-wives and mistresses are worse than their

masculine counterparts at not letting go. Practical dependency rather than an emotional one, perhaps? Who will mend my washing machine now that he has someone new?

So of course I wanted someone who was completely free. I might require a lover for only one year, but I jolly well wanted him to be a full-blown lover and not some 'Now you see me, now you don't'. He had to be prepared to enter the game fully and openly, or not at all. If I had gone for that fulcrum seeker, it would have been like going into a china shop wanting a jug and coming out with half a teapot. Not what I wanted and completely useless to me. And, knowing my luck, one that was minus the spout.

After that near miss I tried to be more discriminating. I bought the magazine, read through the advertisements, circled any that appealed - I had to keep them hidden from Verity, under my pillows, so they became as seductive and secret as pornography. I soon learned to go for those who were looking for 'fun, romance, good company', rather than those who said they were serious and wanted a relationship and perhaps 'more' - presumably marriage and children. Anyone who advertised for a 'broad-minded woman' was definitely out - I was all for a decent sex life, but
not
hanging upside down from a chandelier with yoghurt smeared all over me. I also ignored those who said they had SOH, Sense of Humour, because anyone who has to advertise that he has one, probably hasn't. You have to be firm in these things. I then wrote out a letter introducing myself and saying what I wanted. A lover for one uncomplicated year.

I enclosed quite a nice photograph that Sassy took of me on holiday last year, which showed the knees and my sunny smile but not much else. I gave only my telephone number and my forename and sat back waiting for the phone to ring. And ring, it most certainly did. Pretty well constantly. I was glad I had sorted out all my cupboards and given up my job for a year in order to pursue this notion, because its pursuit took up almost all of my time. It never occurred to me that the whole thing was distin
ctly
bizarre.