Aunt Margaret's Lover (5 page)

'And then I am going to Mrs Mortimer's will reading. She's left me something and I don't know what.'

That stopped her precocity in its tracks. 'Ah,' she said. 'It could be anything. How exciting.'

'It'll be something small, I expect. Just a token.'

'It might not be,' she said. 'It might be something huge and valuable. She might have left you her entire collection. Or the house .
..'

'And dumped Julius?'

'I forgot him.' She was wistful.

'You may have done, but his mother won't. Nor her grandchildren. No. It will be a keepsake, which is all I expect and is perfectly fitting.'

'You can be really pompous sometimes, Aunt M. Why don't you just say how much you would like her to have left you something really smashing and desirable?'

'Because,' I said, and put my fingers to my lips, then to hers. I remembered how she had looked as a child and how a genius had once captured its spirit on paper.

Chapter Six

And Greasy Joan doth stir the pot,
I
thought.

In she came. There was that lank fair hair a swathe of which hung like a curtain over one eye ready for
le flick — le flick
being the occasional sweeping back of its fall so that
–
voila!
-
the face revealed two eyes after all, but only for a moment before it flopped down making her a Cyclops once more. Yet in that time of deliverance, in that short time of both eyes being out and about, the viewer, me, felt such relief, such joy, that its loss, so soon, was depressing.

Details, I was in no mood for such details. The early morning quayside chill had entered what I was thinking of, disloyally, as my old bones. I waited. I was polishing glass ready to be slipped into a frame and fixed down. Polishing has a waiting quality about it. Rhythmic, slow, silent. I said, 'Hi, Joan.'

She said flatly, 'Hi. Sassy get off OK?'

'Yes,' I said, doing soft circles now.

'Good,' she said.

I took the irremedial step. There was nothing else for it. 'How's things, then, Joan?' I waited.

While I waited, knowing the tone if not the content of what was about to be revealed, I was thinking that she
must
wash that bloody hair sometimes - but when? Did she rush home on a Friday night, dunk her head in a basin, spend the whole weekend looking fresh and shining and sweet, only to arrive back here on Monday looking stale, dingy and with the smell of mouse about her? She had worked for me since leaving school, which was over ten years now, and in all that time I could not recall
once -
I rubbed the glass harder - a shine or the smell of shampoo in her locks. Then there was Reg who did most of the workshop stuff nowadays. He had a wall eye. Was I destined t
o be surrounded by the unbeauti
ful? Was I destined to hear their confessions, sigh and shake my head, caught between the rankness of her hair and the insecurity of not knowing exactly where Reg was looking as he spoke? The answer, resoundingly empty, seemed to be yes.

I heard the intake of breath, looked up expectantly, had read the signs correctly.
Le flick, le
preparatory
flick.
And instead of going into accepting mode, as one who has heard its variations over many years, I found myself inwardly infuriated at what she was about to say .
..

'God, Aunt M,' she said. 'Bloody
men
...'

Yes, yes. That was it. The usual.

'Do you know what he did on Saturday?' She waited.

And then the most curious thing happened. Instead of Aunt M saying, 'No, tell me, what did he do? Oh, you poor thing
...'
I said none too kindly - well, in fact,
acidly -
'No, Joan, I don't. What
did
that vegetable head do on Saturday? Microwave the canary?'

She looked at me.
Le flick.
And the look was one of pained amazement. Her mouth was open but no sound issued forth. Very well. I would continue. I felt inexplicably vengeful.

I said, counting on my fingers, 'Joan, I have heard about Sean, Robert, Lucian, Enoch. Now it's this one and he's exactly the same. Let's see. Which one of the many scenarios will it be? He didn't get up until three? He used your bread knife to mend his bicycle? When he
got
up at three, you found somebody else in the bed there with him?' My voice was rising. The hank of hair had slipped back and she was one-eyed again. 'He put on your three-quarters-wired underlift? He wouldn't pay half the telephone? He
ate
the sodding cooked canary?'

Le
flick.
She spoke. Quietly. 'Yes,' she said. 'He's been having sex with somebody else.' The hair slipped back.

'I'm not surprised,' I shouted. 'You should wash your hair more often.'

She blinked her one eye.

'At least he's having sex. At least
you
are having sex
...'
By now I was getting a bit muddled. 'I bet even the sodding
canary
was having sex before he cooked it!'

The one eye widened. 'Aunt M?' she said uncertainly. 'He didn't actually
do
that.'

'Oh, damn everything,' I yelled. 'It's a great pity he didn't!'

She moved towards me, hesitant, puzzled. 'But I haven't
got
a canary .
..'

'Well, you wouldn't have after that,' I said, half laughing. 'Now, would you?'

She was so woebegone that I felt instantly remorseful. I looked at my watch. Half an hour before I had to leave for Mrs Mortimer's house. 'I'm sorry,' I said.
'
I
don't know why I shouted. It's probably just seeing Sassy off.' But I knew it wasn't that. 'I apologize. Go and make a cup of coffee,' I said, 'and tell me about it before I leave.'

There is a very tender painting of the Visitation, I think by Tintoretto - or rather, since the picture is in Venice,
certainly
by that fame-hungry, ubiquitous genius of the Veneto - in which the artist shows Mary supporting the stumbling - or perhaps helping up the kneeling - Elisabeth. It touches the mysterious and universal heart of Woman-to-Womanness, as they stand completely absorbed in each other's joy, which could just as easily be sorrow. A saintly pair of men flank the scene and look on, distant and bemused, not privy to the enigma. I remember the tears welling up when I first saw it. I thought of me and Sassy, me and Jill, my mother, me and Lorna. I remembered it and added Joan to the list.

She came back with two mugs and an expression of increased gloom.

I put down my polishing cloth.

'This time,' she began, 'it's worse because I really do love him.'

'Yes, of course
...'
I nodded. She had loved the others too. 'And everything was so good. The sex was still brilliant -even after
a
year.'

I raised my eyebrows. 'Does it go off after a year, then?' She nodded.

Curiosity overcame the mysterious bond of womanness for a moment. 'If the sex was so good with you, why did he do
it
with someone else?'

'I asked him that.' She blinked out a tear. 'And he said because he just got bored. But he says he still loves me.'

I kept my mouth very firmly closed.

'And I love him.'

'Well, if that's the case,' I said, with a fatalism born from long experience with her, 'forgive and forget.'

'I'm trying to,' she said miserably. 'Only it
hurts.'

'Yes,' I said, touching her hair, which felt like oiled rope, 'I should imagine it does.'

And fortunately, I thought to myself, imagine is all I can do, though I wished I felt more smug about my detachment.

Reg appeared from the workroom. He took one look at Joan and me, his eyes swivelling confusingly, and departed again at some speed. I followed him and told him to be especially nice to Joan today. He said, very dourly, that he always was nice.

'How old are you, Reg?' I asked.

'Thirty-four,' he said. 'Why?'

'Why don't you ask Joan out?'

I immediately regretted the intrusion. His eyes moved around dangerously and he changed colour - paled rather than reddened.

'Yes, well,' I said briskly. 'Give me the Adamsons' map and I'll deliver it. I'm going out.'

'Oh,' was all he said.

Was I so uninteresting? Joan hadn't asked where I was going, either.

After I had delivered the map to the Adamsons, I bought a card showing a clump of very pretty pansies, painted with that interesting nineteenth-century combination of botanical exactitude and decoratively romantic form. Jill would love it.

I wrote, 'Get well soon. I’
m longing to come up and stay. Maybe next month? S sailed happy. We all missed you all. Now watch this space. Much love
, Margaret.' And I posted it off
.

Then, feeling curiously fluttery, I set off for that familiar big old house in Parson's Green, almost certainly for the last time. The drizzly damp April weather had given way to a little pale sunshine and everything had that new, washed look about it. I was dreading going back to the street and stopped for a few minutes to look in the window of the Doll's House Shop, a place Saskia used to delight in when she came with me on my visits. There they all were, those miniature little people in their miniature little world, all sitting up neatly or going about their chores in the house. I realized it was exactly the same display of a week or two ago. Nothing had changed nor moved in all that time. They were stuck, immobilized, until someone came along to buy them, rescue them, and move them about. I shivered. The thought was too sombre by half.

In the event, returning to the Mortimer house was not so bad. Julius opened the door to me before I rang the bell, and his two sons, both in their teens, very gravely offered me sherry and cake and showed me into the small sitting-room downstairs. I was glad he had chosen it in preference to the imposing front salon, which his mother used only for formal gatherings and the occasional little exhibition of works in her collection.

The two boys alleviated some of the quiet sobriety of the occasion by just being boyish - trying out the Stanna lift, wandering around with feet still too big for their bodies, giggling nervously when the other sneezed. I was glad of it. Their mother, Linda, having acknowledged me with a half-smile and a nod across the room, turned her back. Secretaries

should never marry their bosses, they never feel relaxed about anything. Linda had always been cautious and distant with me. Now she was probably wondering if I would be running off with the family jewels.

About fourteen of us thus assembled, all family save for me, we waited for the Mortimer solicitor to be seated. He made one or two fairly light ice-breaking remarks before he began to read from the will. Pushed to one side in a corner of the room was the electric wheelchair. It did not look entirely empty to me. Full of memories, I suppose. I felt that its owner was still within it somehow, waiting for this last act to be executed in her name before finally going to that great art gallery in the sky.

Chapter Seven

I laughed and laughed. I winked at the wheelchair and fancied that its very emptiness was a smile. I did this despite the likelihood of it being considered in bad taste or mad. It was a friendly piece of revenge, my legacy, a nice joke, and -let us not mince our words - a fairly valuable one. It was this last quality that set the not altogether approving whispers going, I think, rather than its intrinsic worth. I doubted if any of those assembled had ever seen it: they could not judge if it were fine or poor, nor its size, nor its style, nor its imagery. But they knew the name spelled money and the whispers were perfectly audible.

To my dear friend and framer Margaret Percy, for her integrity on that night and for her being absolutely right, as well as irritatingly pompous, I bequeath the portfolio set of Picasso etchings entitled
Les Danses de Feu,
in its entirety and absolutely. They are in their original box, in their original wrapping, in the third drawer down of the yellow plan chest. Rhys Fisher has valued them recently and I attach his valuation sheet. I hope, Margaret, that you will sell them and have a great deal of fun with the proceeds for it is about time and long overdue. You might consider a toy boy.
I
wanted very much also to leave you the wheelchair as a
memento mori,
or should it be
memento torpidus,
but realize that it would be pure indulgence since someone with a real need must benefit from it. You will never need such a thing.