Wise Follies (11 page)

‘I wonder if I would too,’ I murmur dreamily.

‘I’m sure you would,’ Matt smiles, then he adds gently, ‘Look, Our Kid, I’m going to have to go soon. Are you ever going to tell me about this marriage proposal of yours?’

I stare into his kind blue eyes. It really isn’t fair of me to keep him in suspense like this. I pick up my mug of tea and sigh. ‘Oh, all right, if you insist,’ I say. And then I tell him about Eamon and James Mitchel.

‘What do you think I should do, Matt?’ I ask, after I’ve given him the details. ‘Should I marry Eamon? Go on, be honest. Tell me what you think.’

‘I’d love to give you advice, dearie,’ Matt frowns. ‘But I just don’t know what to say.’

‘Yes, you do,’ I pester. ‘I’m sure you have an opinion.’

‘Maybe I do.’ He looks at me inscrutably. ‘But my opinion isn’t important – you’ll have to work this out for yourself.’

I pull sulkily at my pearl pendant.

‘You can notice what you want, Alice,’ Matt continues.

‘What do you mean?’ I enquire wearily. He’s obviously slipping into philosophical mode. He does that sometimes.

‘You can be your own witness. You can watch and see what you need. Allow the answers to come to you. Don’t force them, just relax.’

‘Oh, Matt, you sound just like James Mitchel,’ I wail miserably. ‘Why did I meet him? I wish I hadn’t now.’

After Matt has gone I realize something. I realize that I’m growing rather tired of comfort eating. And watching distraught American people talk about their complicated lives on cable TV. My Mitsubishi colour portable may be very nice, but it’s not very satisfactory as a Significant Other. I must galvanize myself somehow. And I must stop going to work with greasy hair. Any moment now Oprah Winfrey may jump through the television and give me a stern talking-to. She’s such a very proactive person.

I rise stiffly and shuffle into the garden. As I do so I try to recall some uplifting phrases.

‘It’s not what life does to you – it’s what you do with what life does to you.’

Yes, yes, Alice. Come on. Come on.

‘Go with the flow.’

‘Love and approve of yourself.’

‘Feel the fear and do it anyway.’

‘Women fly when men aren’t looking.’

‘Monsieur Thibaud is a nit.’ No, no, that last one’s not right.

I take out the mower and mow the lawn a bit, pacing lethargically up and down as though trying to console a blubbering child in a buggy. I scatter a thin mulch of grass clippings on to the herbaceous border. I watch the cat chasing a bumble bee as it flies away. The hanging baskets look dry – again. I go inside to get the watering can.

Later that night I feel marginally more contented as I snuggle under my duvet. I have washed my hair, shaved my legs, removed the hair from my chin and thoroughly scrubbed my face with peach kernel cleansing cream. I also reek from a mixture of the fruit-smelling potions people keep giving me lately. They come in small baskets that are now dotted around the place and adding to the cottage’s clutter.

I really should unclutter the cottage a little. I read a Feng Shui article the other day and it said one should rid oneself of unnecessary items. It also instructed me to keep the loo seat down and to put crystals in certain places. I even had to relocate my bed because it was, apparently, facing the wrong way. As I did all this I thought of my parents. Though their own lives were rather complicated I don’t think they ever worried about whether the loo seat was in the right position. In fact, should I go and check on it now? No. I’ve done quite enough fretting lately. I must try to relax.

I reach for my Walkman which contains a meditation tape about finding my ‘higher self. ‘I’ve almost forgotten the exact shape of James Mitchel’s nose!’ I think happily. ‘Soon he will just be a stranger.’

‘There is a wise, deep, knowing part of you,’ an American voice is saying. ‘Take deep, deep breaths. Release. Release. You are in a wood. You are walking along a small mossy pathway. Then the pathway broadens and you are in a clearing. A clearing full of light. Stand there for a moment. Feel the calm. The serenity.’

I try to. I really do. But, as usual, I drift off to my imaginary villa in Provence. And James Mitchel is still there…

‘You’re not supposed to be here, James,’ I tell him sternly. ‘This is just squatting. You’re a most unsatisfactory Wonderful Man. I’m not even sure I like you any more.’

James does not listen. He’s ripping off my T-shirt. He’s exploring my crevices, my conduits, with his hands and with his tongue. He’s massaging my hills, my mounds, my valleys. His hair is tousled as he trails its golden tendrils deliciously along my skin. ‘Ma chérie,’ he says, for we are now bilingual. Then he plunges deep within me. It’s blissful. But I do rather wish something.

I do rather wish that when he came he wouldn’t always shout ‘raku!’

Chapter
9

Every time I mention
James Mitchel now Mira starts humming The Wombles theme tune. She says she does it to alert me to the extent of my obsession and that it’s meant kindly. She says she’s heard quite enough about strange glances and enigmatic looks and lingering shoulder pats, and I have too.

I suppose I like talking about these things because they bring James into my days, even though he has left my vicinity. I keep hoping that if I say them enough they’ll become more tangible, more convincing – but they haven’t convinced Mira. She thinks I’m using James Mitchel to distract myself from some dull ache in my soul. She says women often use men to distract themselves from thornier issues. She also says I might find flying lessons therapeutic.

Apparently a divorced friend of hers took up flying recently and finds it so exhilarating she no longer besieges her ex with late-night phone calls. I imagined myself careening round the skies with bug-eyed terror and decided I would opt for something a little more sedate. Horse riding perhaps, or sailing. I told Mira this and she gave me the phone number of a woman called Josephine who’s an avid sailor. I phoned her and that is why I am now clinging grimly to my seat in a yacht on the Irish Sea.

There’s a huge wind blowing and the yacht is keeling over to one side in a very dramatic manner. There is also no land in sight. Heaven knows what’s going to become of us. I’m terrified. I desperately want to go home. The women I’m with – Sandie, Laura and Josephine – seem to be relatively calm. They’re busy ducking, winching, steering and pulling. The thought of shipwreck doesn’t seem to bother them, or going overboard, or ending up on a desert island without Sue Lawley. Every so often I scream when the boat lurches more dramatically than usual and a big wad of water smacks against my yellow oilskins. No one hears me. I’m drenched and my copy of
The Accidental Tourist
by Anne Tyler is decidedly soggy too.

The enormity of my misapprehension regarding this sea trip is evidenced by the fact that I actually brought a novel and a small sketchpad with me in case I got bored. The afternoon had started off so calmly. There was just a slight breeze. When this breeze grew a bit stronger it seemed bracing, but now that it’s a gale I’ve started to talk to God.

I’ve obviously come on this boat by mistake. I try to scream this realization to the rest of the crew, only the statement tends to turn into ‘Aaaargh…’ as the yacht gives another dreadful heave and plunges into an enormous wave.

‘Oh, God, please, please help me,’ I start to moan as Josephine scrambles along the deck towards me. She’s leaning over me. She’s shouting something. Maybe she wants me to man the radio or send up a flare. It’s either that or launching the life raft. I try to smile up at her bravely.

‘Alice!’

‘Yes!’ I screech.

‘Alice, would you…?’

‘What?’ I roar. The wind is blowing her words away from me. It’s like talking to someone on a dodgy mobile phone.

Her face is almost touching mine now. The wind is whipping up a tassel on the hood of her jacket. ‘Alice,’ she says earnestly. ‘Alice, would you like a bar of chocolate?’

I stare at her.

‘Fruit and nut or just plain?’ she adds, delving deep into her pocket.

‘Plain,’ I reply, grabbing the bar from her as the boat tips over even further. Then, as she turns to scramble back across the deck she says, ‘Great day for sailing,’ as though she expects me to agree with her.

‘Oh, well, at least I have some chocolate now,’ I think, trying to reassure myself. I feel the bar in my pocket. It has eight slabs on it. If we do get stranded somewhere I could eat, say, two slabs a day. I check the fastener on my safety harness for the twentieth time and attempt to hum one of Elgar’s Enigma Variations. I simply have to try to calm myself somehow. I scan the horizon. Goodness! Is that land! Yes, it’s Dun Laoghaire harbour, and we’re heading towards it. I almost sob with relief.

Sandie, Laura and Josephine are now discussing what a brilliant afternoon it was over pints of Guinness. We’re in a yacht club and I’m having a pint of Guinness myself but I’m not saying much. I’m quietly euphoric just to be back on dry land. There wasn’t a gale today, apparently. Just a very strong wind. Next weekend they may sail over to Fishguard.

‘Would you like to join us, Alice?’ Josephine enquires with a mischievous twinkle.

‘No, thanks,’ I reply rather firmly. They all smile at me and I smile back bashfully. ‘Oh dear, my terror must have been so obvious,’ I think guiltily and yet – and yet my smile has broadened and, as the others start to laugh, I do too. Maybe it’s just relief, or all that fresh air, or the Guinness, but it feels wonderful. It’s like we’re high on something. ‘I was frightened,’ I think. ‘I was frightened, and it doesn’t matter. And I still have a bar of chocolate in my pocket…’

I take the bar out. I break it carefully into four slabs. ‘Goodness, Alice, we ate ours ages ago,’ Laura exclaims, as I offer her a piece. We’re all munching now and chatting and giggling. Part of me is watching, tenderly. I want to savour this. I need these moments of sweet silliness. I need them badly. For it seems to me suddenly that there are many ways to pull anchor. And maybe this is one of them.

Chapter
10

My afternoon’s sailing has
provided me with some excellent anecdotes. I’ve embroidered them up a bit and have been dining out on them for days. I’ve even added in some nautical terms like aft and fore. In fact just the other day I was explaining the meaning of ‘port’ and ‘starboard’ to Mira, when she smiled at me warmly and said, ‘You know something, Alice, you haven’t mentioned James Mitchel for a whole week.’ I felt like a star member of AA – and I don’t mean the Automobile Association.

I often wish there were AA type meetings for the frequently bewildered. If there were I bet I’d go on a regular basis. We could meet in a hotel room somewhere and air our ‘issues’ in a sympathetic atmosphere. We’d know that we all have small, scared, cowering creatures inside us, and once we start to bully them, we do it to other people too. In fact I bet if people were more open and sympathetic with each other in general more marriages would work. They wouldn’t have to provide such compensation…we wouldn’t come to them with such a big bag of dreams.

I must have been lugging a huge trunk of dreams along with me when I met James Mitchel. I really didn’t realize I still had quite so many of them. I thought I’d managed to trim them down like travel books advise one to do with luggage. You’re supposed to put all the things you want to pack on a bed and then only take half of them, only I still tend to end up with two suitcases. And the funny thing is there is always one item I end up wearing more than all the others. One skirt or blouse, or dress or sweater that ends up being indispensable. It doesn’t seem special when I pack it, but unpacked it immediately announces its appropriateness. It’s one of life’s many mysteries. And my infatuation with James Mitchel is another.