Aunt Margaret's Lover (31 page)

Half an hour later, when it is clear that the wall has had enough, Verity retires to bed, only to sit up suddenly, remembering that she has had nothing to eat. Down she pads into the kitchen to make herself a sandwich out of two old Ryvitas and what there is left in the fridge: a half lemon and a past-sell-by packet of Primula Lite. In the back of her brain Verity finds this funny. She also thinks that were one to carry on like this, one might invent a new kind of sandwich filling - through the mere serendipity of it. As she chews on the piquant combination, she thinks that it might make a fun article. 'What secret sandwich fillings do the stars of stage and screen prefer?' Aspects of Verity
are
, she considers, still working very perfectly. Ah well, roll on Christmas - at least she has been invited down the road for that. Only another six weeks or so away. And a lot could happen in that time. Seven weeks and it will be the New Year. Verity sucks at the pithy rind - and bursts into tears at the thought.

Chapter Two

We must make sure that we speak to each other on Christmas Day. What are you doing? We are spending it here on our own. And then we're goin
g skiing. Why don't you come off
er?

You can cram an awful lot into quite a short space of time if you are determined and if you have few responsibilities. And I began to understand why by far the most keenly sought requirement among lonely hearts advertisers is someone to go travelling with. Enjoying the reflected experience of a close companion's eye is a charming way to spend time. And if you fetch up in bed together and get on well there too, you've almost hit the jackpot. Of course, we were blessed by total harmony because neither of us had to make ground, establish lasting rules or feel insecure about saying what we wanted. Madrid and the Prado, Nimes and the Norman Foster building, were fine. My Murder Mystery Weekend, his suggested few days under canvas, were not.

The other thing about all this dashing about and hedonistic activity was that it afforded very little time for serious soul-searching conversation not that there was any need. Once I did ask him if he would ever want to talk about his wife to me, but he only shrugged and said maybe, so I left it alone after that. Wait for the Zen, I counselled my curiosity, and maybe one day it will rise. And if it didn't? Well, after all, I didn't want him to dig into my skeletons. It seemed a fair compromise.

Because of the transient nature of our relationship, I neither expected nor sought to meet his friends and family. What we did as a couple we did alone - apart from the eternal Verity. Most of our time together was spent at my house - his flat being in the uncomfortable state of packing up required for a complete life change - and that seemed to suit us both. We would meet a couple of times during the week and at weekends, though we took nothing for granted. We never quite got back the extra dimension of fun and theatre that Marston Manor, Hexham and Jill and David had provided, but it was still pretty good.

By the time Christmas hove into view, I was ready for some peace and staying put. Our last trip of the year was a silly couple of days at the Metropole in Brighton, that place so apocryphally renowned for adultery and illicit weekending. Here quite the reverse of Marston Manor was true: if you didn't sign in under different names and rush off to your room immediately, you were definitely suspect. By now we were less inclined to pulverize the bed linen at every opportunity, and more inclined towards companionship. It did not seem too remote a possibility that one day we would simply be friends even if oceans and continents separated us, so it was somehow even more amusing and bizarre to be staying in such a hotbed of scandal. Brighton is the perfect place for rude rompings. Not only do you have the Metropole with all its salacious history, but the newly tarted-up Royal Pavilion as well. With its exquisite bad taste and oriental sham, it made the perfect companion to our hotel.

Oxford was very informative about buildings and style, and pointed out small things that I would not have noticed if he hadn't been there - aspects of structure, why certain fittings worked, what the function of something that I took as purely decorative might be. He was also very good on furniture. At the Pavilion, as we were going through the rooms, both aghast and fascinated at so much hideous junk, I pointed to an interesting and rather nice plain wooden recliner. It had a sloping back and a long, narrow seat and was a little lower than normal chair height. 'That's a nice sort of daybed,' I said, and he laughed. 'It's nothing of the kind. It's a rogering stool for when you want to take your mistress from behind.' The woman to
our
rear gave a small squeak but, notwithstanding, lingered a while staring at the object fixedly and holding on to the hand of her escort very tightly. When we first met, I thought, we would have been dashing back to the hotel after something like that to practise the suggestion for ourselves. We seemed to be moving towards a conclusion quite nicely, despite Colin, prophet of doom.

Afterwards, by way of relief from the tinsel and trash, we went to look at the sea, grey and churning in the cold December light, and I saw that Oxford's eyes were far away as he looked out to the horizon. There had been a barely perceptible change in him over the last couple of weeks - a kind of flexing up to the future. We were going skiing for New Year and had made no plans after that. From then on we would be winding down. Saskia would be home before I knew it, and he would be gone. To everything there is a season, as they say, and an allotted span.

The big fly in the ointment concerning the End of the Affair was Verity. But when I said to Colin at one of our lunches that she would most likely crow and crow, he came out with one of those amazing shards of enlightenment that men occasionally manage. 'Why not let her?' he said. 'It might do her good
..
.'

Perhaps I will, I thought. It
might
do her good. But I compromised: if she was to crow, then I wasn't going to let her begin until he had actually gone. Otherwise I should have weeks and weeks, if not months of it. I would just tell her, very quietly, once he
was safely away. By then her cr
owing would be a welcome diversion before Saskia came back. Verity might be good at real-life jigsaws, but I rather fancied I was better at the metaphysical ones.

Then Fisher rang and arranged for me to come to his office with my Picasso portfolio, which quite took any other thoughts from my head. He had sounded
so
wicked and mysterious.

'Linda and Julius will be there. Eleven sharp. And I'll take you out to lunch afterwards.'

'What on earth do you think it might be?' I asked Verity over coffee the next morning.

'I
don't know,' she said, 'and I can't think because I've got a hangover.'

'Don't drink, then,' I said, with my mind still busy on Fisher.

It was only afterwards that I thought perhaps I had been a shade too sharp. The trouble was that I had just sat through another of those tedious
stichomythia
sessions, where she'd say something like, 'What's the part of you he likes best, do you think?' And I'd say something flippant back, like, 'My toes.' And then she'd sigh, and take on her Mark look -- far away, sad and dewy - and say, 'He used to massage my feet. It was lovely.' And then I'd say, 'Yes, sex is wonderful.' And she'd say, calling her eyes back from the dewy wastes, 'I'm talking about
love,
Margaret.' And I'd say, 'And I'm talking about
sex,
Verity.' And then she'd say, 'You are such a hard case sometimes.' And I'd get worse and say, 'Better than melting away. Oxford and I have an understanding.' And she'd say, 'You can't have an understanding about love, it happens.' And I'd say, 'Not to me, I hope.' And she'd say, 'Mark and I were just meant to fall in love. Couldn't stop ourselves.' And with great self-denial I'd
not
say, 'Yes, and look at you now . . .' but make coffee or something and change the subject. But it would inevitably come back again. 'Tell me about that first hotel. It's so romantic' And I would. And she would say, 'Mark and I did
it
in Green Park up against a tree at night. It was wonderful
..
.' And back would come the dewy mistiness.

I had to keep thinking of the Tintoretto very hard to overcome such mordant sentiment and not say, 'Well, why not go back with him, then?' Which really would have been letting the side down. Quite clearly he was as good for her as a drink of arsenic.

Chapter Three

Happy, happy Christmas, dear Aunt M. I wish we were together, and I send you lots and lots and lots of love. Missing you like crazy. PS. I've written to Fisher about the show. Isn't it exciting? Love you.

When you are feeling very secure in yourself - that one-millionth part of your life if you are lucky - any coldness fr
om someone you care for can unsettl
e you. On the other hand, any coldness from someone you don't care for at all can be quite refreshing. And that is how I felt about meeting up with Linda and Julius again at Fisher's.

They were sitting side by side in a pair of art nouveau rosewood chairs, the kind with arms and elaborately inlaid backs which are generally held to be very comfortable. But from their posture you might have been forgiven for assuming they were perching on a Fakir's bed. Rigid was the first word that came to mind, followed by angry. Much of this latter was, I suspected, between themselves, though they were maintaining a stout effort to transfer some of it to me. This only made me feel all the sunnier, although it was a sharp and frosty December day. I absolutely beamed at them as Fisher gave me a glass of sherry and gently guided me into a third chair, which was set to one side of them. Julius stared at me over his sherry glass in silent displeasure. True to my estimation of his character, desire had changed

to opprobrium. I crossed my legs, let my skirt move up fractionally without rearranging it, and gave him a bright, open smile.

'How nice to see you again, Julius,' I said, recalling the answerphone velvet voice.

'Mmm,' was all he said, a little uncomfortably.

'Linda!' Transference of gummy smile. 'How well you look.' People, I find, usually take this to mean that they've put on weight.

She returned the compliment with such a rictus that it was hard not to laugh. As a matter of fact she
did
look rather well, for anger had added some colour and vitality to her usually pale complexion.

Fisher stood at his huge desk opening the portfolio, touching it with surprising reverence. Then he said, even more to my surprise, 'Ah, the work of the Grand Master. A rare and lovely thing . . .' I caught his eye. It had an innocence about it that looked wholly unnatural. 'Come and look, you two,' he said, gesturing at the spread before him. 'A feast indeed.'

I downed my sherry in one. Now this really was a piece of theatre.

Linda and Julius stood next to Fisher as he began to expound on the treasure before him. 'See,' he said grandly, with unpardonable creepiness, 'the flow of the masterly line. This is the work of perhaps the greatest modern artist of all time - at the very end of his life and yet showing no hint of faltering
..
.'

Fisher!
1
wanted to cry. How can you
say
that?

Julius was nodding in that way people do when they wish to ape the cognoscenti, and Linda's eyes were snapping over the pages as Fisher turned them, and she was clearly uneasy with the rudeness of the images but determined not to flinch. My evil imp overtook the Good Angel of Reason and I sauntered over, popping my head casually between theirs. Fisher gave me a quick look of warning. I smiled at him as if to say it was all right.

'Hmm,' I said. 'Priapic art - perhaps the finest interpreter of the style. Why, I think he could even teach those old Greeks a thing or two
..
. And just look how reverential he is towards the joy of sex - sex, that is, as the procreative principle. I should say that, if anything, these etchings display the wider theme of Essential Progenitive Ardour. What do you say, Fisher?'

'Absolutely.' I could see he was now thoroughly enjoying himself. 'You should have been an art historian,' he said wryly.

'Oh no. Me? I just like to look
..
.' I leaned further towards the open portfolio and began pointing at things that especially took my fancy. 'See,' I said, 'how delicately those buttocks melt down on to the Bull-man's glorious phallus -wonderful - I can almost feel it myself.'

Julius had gone completely rigid. Forced to stare at the image which I was pointing at, he could only do so with the pop-eyed glaze of a regimental sergeant-major who has just discovered his wife
in flagrante
with the colonel.

'Just look at the marvellous strength of the image, the tenderness of the drawing, the way he has thickened the line at the base and around the balls, and then thinned it again as he takes it up towards the -'

Linda looked at her watch. 'I have a lunch date,' she said. 'Do you think we could move on? In fact' - she looked at Julius - 'I think we've probably seen enough.'

'Oh no,
¹
I said. 'Fisher, may I?' And I turned the pages gently until I came to the one that I remembered from the exhibition. 'Your mother liked this one, particularly,' I said to Julius. If Mrs Mortimer was listening up there, she would have laughed at my impudence. It was true that she had whizzed her wheelchair up to it and made a long and defiant speech about why it was such a ripping image, but it was more an exercise in her telling me off than in art appreciation. The picture represented a group of leering goat-men, hiding Bathsheba-style, huge penises in their hands, peering through some rushes as a group of nubile girls frolicked in the water or washed each other on the bank. In short, it was the absolute male fantasy of voyeurism and one hell of a masturbation party. Some of it was very badly drawn (perhaps the Grand Master did it one-handed?), but some of it was very beautiful indeed. The girls were expressive - not
quite
innocent angels, and their gestures as they touched each other were palpably tender.