The Man Who Understood Women (25 page)

‘Double glazing,’ Mr Cobb said, making notes on the
particulars
from Town and Country. ‘Essential.’

His wife was shaking her head at the ‘dreadful leaded lights’ and ‘not a single closet you could really call a closet’. Had it not been for Belle, Mrs Menzies would have asked what you could call them and how it was they had all
managed
to keep their clothes quite satisfactorily in them for so many years.

Mr Cobb stood on the ladder Belle held and peered into the loft.

‘How is it, Howie?’

Full of memories.

‘Black as hell. Runs the length of the house, as far as I can tell. A stairway, a window, a decent floor, and you might do something with it.’

Belle assumed that the note he made was ‘Loft. Potential’. At the front door Belle said, ‘Would you like to see the garage?’

‘I glanced at it as I came in,’ Mr Cobb said. ‘I guess
something
could be done.’

‘Two cars easily,’ Belle said, ‘and the bikes.’

‘Up-and-over doors,’ Mr Cobb said.

More beautiful oak destroyed.

‘Remote control. Intruder alarm,’ Mr Cobb added to the notes which by now covered most of the two sheets of paper.

When they had gone Belle considered it politic not to look at her mother, but to say brightly: ‘How about some lunch – I’m starving.’

Grace came down the stairs. ‘Have they gone? Didn’t you even offer them a drink?’

‘Drink!’ Mrs Menzies said. ‘We haven’t any polystyrene cups! They probably wouldn’t know what to do with crystal.’

‘It’s not our business,’ Belle said. ‘You want to sell the house, don’t you?’

‘Not to them,’ Mrs Menzies said. ‘Glass and chrome, and what about my roses and my tree? Over my dead body!’

But when the offer came for a sum larger than they had anticipated, even she knew that the battle had been lost.

‘You will like it in Fulham,’ Belle said. ‘Near the shops.’

‘In that horrid little town house …’

‘You wouldn’t consider a flat.’

‘… full of those screaming infants.’

‘It won’t be full of screaming infants. You have plenty of imagination. You can do it up as you like.’

‘There’s a split-level cooker,’ Mrs Menzies said. ‘It will be nice not to have to bend. Belle?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Do you think I could dig up that horrid patio with the multi-coloured random paving and have just a tiny lawn and a few roses?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘And that downstairs room, with the bunks and the
blackboard
and the electric trains … it could, I suppose, make a
sewing
room. The sitting room isn’t really a bad size. Once they remove the convertible sofa and the haircord carpet and the rubber plants and all that horrible hi-fi. I could have a pretty little cornice. Some watered-silk wallpaper …’

‘There’s no end,’ Belle said, ‘to what you can do with a house.’

À la Carte

2010

It was Gail who suggested that her mother try Internet
dating
. She had persuaded Stephanie, who taught English in a deprived school in North London, into believing (almost) that fifty-three was the new thirty and that going online was a great way to get back into the game.

‘Give it a go,' Gail had said, not once but many times until, in an idle moment between marking sadly illiterate essays and eating her solitary dinner, Stephanie had logged on to U-Date and, in the boxes indicated, described her personality type, revealed her interests (listening to music and belly-dancing), outlined her perception of an ideal relationship and pressed the ‘search' key.

There were not many people, according to her daughter, who hit the jackpot first time. Scrolling through the dozens of thumbnail images of men looking for women who were ‘gentle and caring' or ‘fun-loving, confident and smart',
Stephanie
had clicked on Dominic, a substantial, chess-playing,
widowed solicitor who liked reading, travel and listening to music.

It was five years now since Robert, who taught history in an upmarket boys' school, had sneaked off with a fluffy
supply
teacher, five years since Stephanie had been on her own. Once she had got over the shock of her ex-husband's betrayal, and to fill the gap which the absence of what she had
imagined
was an entirely satisfactory marriage had created, she had sought out a new interest and found it in a twice-weekly
belly-dancing
class that got her out of the house. Between her
fulltime
job, caring for her affectionate King Charles spaniel with whom she carried on a one-sided conversation, and practising her new hobby, her time was fully occupied.

Having at first approached each other tentatively in a local wine bar, she and Dominic had got on like a house on fire. Any initial shyness on her part – it was a long time since she had dated – had been dispelled by Dominic's kindness and his warm personality. It was a level playing field and together they went to concerts and restaurants, walked on the Heath near which Dominic lived, and discovered, among other things, that they shared similar birthdays and that each of them had a daughter. He would not let her pay for anything. It was not until Stephanie began to feel, much to Gail's delight, not only safe, but that there could indeed be life after Robert, that she invited Dominic home to dinner.

Although she had never been a great cook and since she had been on her own didn't bother too much, picking up something from the supermarket on the way home from
school, the menu she decided upon was ambitious. Individual cheese soufflés would precede the crown roast of lamb with a herb crust and would be followed by raspberry pavlova. Her heart, for some reason, fluttering like a young girl's, she
spring-cleaned
the terraced house left to her (together with the
mortgage
) by Robert, got out her recipe books and, admonishing herself to ‘act her age', put a couple of candles on the kitchen table.

When Dominic arrived, his face almost hidden by
yard-long
red roses for which she did not have a tall enough vase, he kissed her firmly on the mouth, arousing sensations that over the past five years had become alien. Leaving him in the
living
room, where he made himself comfortable in the armchair and switched on the TV, she went into the kitchen where she put the flowers in a plastic bucket, struggled with a bottle of Côtes du Rhône and, as the recipe dictated, set the soufflés in their ramekin dishes in a bain-marie and slid them gently into the oven. When they were risen to perfection and would, like time, wait for no man, she announced, her voice urgent, that dinner was ready.

‘Hang on,' his eyes were fixed on the screen. ‘Arsenal have given away a free kick!'

By the time he took his seat at the kitchen table, the cheese soufflés had collapsed. Singing her culinary praises
Dominic
seemed not to notice. The crown roast of lamb had been cooked to perfection, although it was not for her to say so. While he ate it, leaving a clean plate, he reminisced about his late wife, a keen horticulturalist who was never happier than
when she was pottering about the large garden or bottling and preserving the fruits of her labours.

When Stephanie enquired could he manage a little more of the lamb, Dominic consulted his Rolex before stroking her bare arm warmly and looking steadfastly into her eyes. She thought he was about to say something.

‘What's for pudding?' Something in his voice triggered alarm bells in her head as he handed her his empty plate. ‘Just going to check the score.'

Stephanie thought about the pavlova with its chantilly cream and its egg whites whisked laboriously by hand. She opened the fridge where the pale cloud of meringue reposed in its raspberry splendour then shut it again firmly. Picking up the fruit bowl she set it before Dominic on the table and watched as an expression of disappointment, like that of a thwarted child, scudded briefly over his face.

He selected an apple. ‘Do you mind if I take this inside?'

Clearing the remains of the dinner which, if you counted the planning and the shopping, it had taken her almost two days to make, she saw herself, in a moment of clarity,
dreaming
up puddings and listening to the disembodied voice of the football commentator ad infinitum. Dismissing the idea from her head, she thought what a good life she had made for herself since Robert had walked out of it, with her circle of like-minded friends, her rewarding job, her cosy house and her dog. Belly-dancing over to the dresser, she picked up her mobile and, with a smile of relief on her face, telephoned Gail.

O Sole Mio

2013

William Lightfoot sat at the table for one overlooking the lake, which he had occupied for the first two weeks in June for the past five years. Since Helen had died, leaving him on his own, it was simpler to contact the Hotel Bella Vista as soon as his fork was out of the Christmas pudding than it was to wade through the sea of unsolicited offers of tours and sea voyages to exotic destinations that came through the letterbox of his Sussex cottage, a five-minute walk from the bank that he had managed for almost fifteen years.

Snapping open the napkin he had earlier fashioned into a crisp white fan, Alfredo, the waiter, laid it reverently across William’s well-pressed chinos, and unconsciously humming a few bars of the popular Italian love song, ‘O Sole Mio’, handed him the menu.

‘Carrots cream soup …’ ‘Grilled sliced sodfish …’ ‘Goffredo potatoes …’

Looking round the familiar dining room as Alfredo went in
search of the wine into which he had made inroads the
previous
evening, William took surreptitious stock of his dining companions. The table next to his was usually occupied by two English women, a frail mother and her suntanned,
widowed
(according to Alfredo) daughter of indeterminate age who had been visiting the Hotel Bella Vista for at least as long as he. Tonight, to his surprise, the younger woman was on her own. Acknowledging her presence with a courteous nod – William considered cross-table gossip to be ill mannered – he wondered whether, dinner being over and in the absence of her mother who usually accompanied her, she would make her way to the nightly
passeggiata
, joining the strolling crowds to gaze in the windows of the silver shops with their enticing trinkets.

Pouring the purple Bardolino into his glass with as much panache as if it had been a vintage claret, Alfredo, with whom William had become friendly over the years, followed his glance to the vacant place at the adjacent table.

‘The signora is sick,’ he confided.

Averting his gaze hurriedly and looking out at the limpid lake, at the sailboats and the car ferry, which plied its regular way to the terracotta roofs, the steeple and the gentle cypresses of the opposite shore, William ordered the ‘carrots cream soup’ followed by the ‘sodfish’ and reviewed his existence, which once had been suffused not so much with the precious metals of the beguiling silver shops, but with the golden aura of love. After five years, while still unable to come to terms with the fact that no one, not even his children who led their
own frenetic lives, really needed him, he had learned to live with it.

His annual two weeks in Bellagio, where the tranquillity was food for the soul, and the beauty of the surroundings a panacea for the heartache that had become part and
parcel
of his existence, were a godsend. All winter, as the white aconites were replaced by sweet-smelling jonquils and finally by the roses that bloomed around their cottage and which Helen had loved to dead-head – he could see her now with her Sussex trug – he looked forward to the simple comforts of the white bedroom, with its diaphanous curtains and faded watercolours of the lake, from the window of which he could see the landing stage with its curved awning and its glass
visitor
information booth with its timetables and its clock. The mornings, after a leisurely breakfast, taken on his minuscule balcony amid the familiar noises of slammed doors, running taps and laughter provoked by shared intimacies from which he was excluded, were reserved for sightseeing. They were the forerunners, the
antipasti
, of his day.

Taking the ferry with the sturdy backpackers, the families with young children and the oblivious lovers, he allowed
himself
to be transported to ancient islands with their monasteries, their classical gardens and spectacular parks which – although there was no longer anyone to share them with – never failed to delight. While the nearby attractions disposed of the
morning
hours, each one to be dissipated, the magic of the sights and sounds, the natural splendour of the surroundings, were decimated by the dull ache of his isolation.

‘How was the fish, signore?’

Dragged back from his daydreams, William regarded his empty plate. ‘Excellent! The fish was excellent.’

Smiling as happily as if he had caught the ‘sodfish’ himself, Alfredo removed his plate and brushed the tablecloth, as if his life depended upon the removal of every last crumb, before setting before him the hotel’s signature dish of home-made pannacotta topped with a giant strawberry.

On his way out of the dining room William intercepted with a pang an unmistakably passionate glance that passed between a honeymoon couple in the centre of the room. Remembering things past, he tried not to dwell too closely on the innuendoes implicit in the look. It was too painful.
Averting
his gaze, he stared straight ahead to where Alfredo stood to attention at the door of the dining room.

‘
Buona notte,
signore,’ there were beads of perspiration from his evening exertions on Alfredo’s forehead.

‘
Buona notte
, signora.’

Glancing round, William saw that the widow from the next table who had finished her dinner at the same time as he, was covering her bare shoulders with a gossamer stole and making for the street and the
passeggiata
.

‘
Buona notte
, Alfredo.’

Hesitating only for a moment, William realised that although Alfredo had gone into his familiar rendering of ‘O Sole Mio’, the words that he put urgently to the tune were Elvis Presley’s:
‘It’s now or never … Come hold me tight … Kiss me my darling … Be mine tonight …’

Their eyes met only for a moment as William,
straightening
his shoulders and summoning up his resolve, followed the bobbing blond ponytail and the clacking heels of the widow from the next table through the glass doors of the Hotel Bella Vista and out into the street.