Wise Follies (29 page)

‘How’s your eyesight these days?’ I ask.

‘Those glasses I got were a great help at first, dear,’ she sighs. ‘But after a while they just seemed to make everything more blurry.’

‘Maybe you should give them another try,’ Liam suggests.

‘I have, dear,’ she replies. ‘They’re no use at all. And anyway, I’ve lost them.’

‘I’ll help you look for them,’ I volunteer.

‘No, no, dear. I’m better off without them. Really.’

Liam and I look at each other concernedly. Mrs Peabody is handling the crockery in a rather precarious manner. As she loads it on to a tray I half expect to hear a clatter at any moment. ‘I know where things are you see, dear,’ she’s explaining happily.

‘Yes, of course you do,’ I agree, stealthily shoving the tin of tea bags towards her. She’s been hunting for it for the past minute. I stand stock still as she pours boiling water into the teapot, ready to lunge.

‘I’ll take the tray out for you,’ I announce firmly. As I reach for it Liam reaches for Mrs Peabody’s arm. ‘Here, let me escort you,’ he says grandly.

She looks up. ‘You are such a nice boy, Liam,’ she smiles.

‘Thank you, Mrs Peabody. You’re a rather ravishing young lass yourself,’ he replies, giving me a quick wink as he does so. He waits patiently as Mrs Peabody touches the corner of her favourite armchair, watching protectively as she works her way round cautiously to the seat. Then we all sit down and sip our tea and try to ignore Dora’s frequent ‘fecks’. She’s saying them quite loudly and Mrs Peabody seems determined not to be offended.

‘She’s a great little talker, isn’t she?’ she observes. ‘Listen to her saying “peck” – such a clever little thing. She hasn’t got the pronunciation quite right yet but there’s a definite improvement.’

I’m going to laugh in a minute if I’m not careful. I’m going to splutter into my tea and spray its droplets all over the furniture. I try to distract myself by looking out the window. As I do so I spot a pair of glasses half hidden by the curtains. They are on the ledge and are slim and stylish. As I go to fetch them I notice another slightly thicker, tortoiseshell-rimmed pair peeking out from under a pile of ancient newspapers. I pick them up too.

‘I think I’ve found your glasses, Mrs Peabody,’ I say, bringing them over to her. ‘There seem to be two pairs. Which is the right one? They look very similar.’

Mrs Peabody peers at them. ‘This pair, dear,’ she says, putting the slimmer ones on. ‘They’re still no help, I’m afraid,’ she squints. ‘I can’t even see Cyril’s cage.’

‘Well, try these on then.’ I proffer the other pair.

‘No, no, those used to be Eric’s. I can tell by the tortoiseshell frame.’

‘But they’ve both got tortoiseshell frames, Mrs Peabody.’

‘Have they? Goodness.’

‘Try them on – please do,’ I urge.

‘Oh, all right, if you insist,’ Mrs Peabody sighs. She puts on the glasses and surveys the room again. She says nothing for quite some time.

‘Oh well, it was worth a try,’ I think, a trifle dejectedly.

Then I hear Mrs Peabody exclaim, ‘Well, goodness me, Alice, you’re right. They do make a difference!’ She’s beaming delightedly. ‘I must have got my glasses mixed up with Eric’s. Oh, thank you, dear. You don’t know how much this means to me.’

Mrs Peabody’s hands are fluttering on her lap. She’s almost jumping out of her chair with excitement, and Liam and I are pretty ebullient too. How wonderful – Mrs Peabody will now be able to see her crockery and find her tea bags. She may even not have to sit so close to the television that she’s almost in the cast of
Coronation Street
. ‘Well, this certainly calls for a sherry,’ she declares joyfully.

‘Yes, indeed it does,’ I agree.

As I return with the glasses I notice that Mrs Peabody is staring most intently at Cyril and Dora’s cage. ‘My goodness,’ she is saying, ‘these two are not at all the lovebirds that I’d thought.’

‘Oh dear,’ I mumble apologetically. ‘We should have told you.’

‘Yes, we didn’t want to disappoint you, Mrs Peabody,’ Liam adds. ‘You seemed to find the idea of their romance so cheering.’

‘Maybe even budgies lose interest in romance, Mrs Peabody,’ I say earnestly, desperately trying to comfort her. ‘I mean even I’m not as interested in romance as I used to be. It’s begun to seem so – so laden with illusion.’

Just as I’ve announced this, Cyril decides to break his months of silence. He squawks ‘bollocks’ very loudly and as he does so Mrs Peabody and Liam exchange gleefully delighted glances. They’ve even begun to laugh. They’re not just laughing at Cyril, they’re laughing at me, I know they are. It’s just not fair. I meant what I said about romance. I really did. Still, I must say I find the timing of Cyril’s expletive rather disturbing.

‘Oh, come on, Alice, don’t look so serious,’ Liam is chuckling. He’s staring straight into my eyes with a strange softness. I look away quickly. I don’t like him looking at me like that. It’s as if he thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t. Very few people do. I don’t trust people easily. I don’t expect them to understand me. I am so scared of their misinterpretation that I prefer to dissemble. Smile my dolphin’s smile.

I’m smiling gamely now as I finish my glass of sherry. I am pretending to share Liam and Mrs Peabody’s delight in Cyril’s pronouncement. That’s how you keep people away – you don’t show them what you feel. Only I don’t think I’m fooling Liam. He’s the one who’s solemn now. Concerned. I smile more brightly. Why aren’t I fooling him? I can do it with most people. I drink my sherry quickly then I make my excuses and leave.

As soon as I get home Mira says that there’s a letter for me on the hall table. ‘Fancy some spag bol?’ she adds.

‘Yes, please.’

I go into my room, where I put on an ancient jumper that’s covered in paint splashes. Then I set up my easel and get out a landscape I’m working on. Having done this I go to the hall table and pick up my letter. It’s rather stiff and probably contains some invitation. I seem to have got on to a number of obscure mailing lists recently.

Yes, I was right, it is an invitation. It’s to an art exhibition which is being held this Friday. The exhibition features ceramic sculptures by – I have to read the sentence again – by James Mitchel! Mira must hear something strange in my silence because she pads out into the hallway in her huge furry slippers. She looks at me and then at the card I’m holding.

‘So you’ve opened your letter.’

‘Yes’ – I lean against the wall and take a deep breath – ‘yes, I have.’

‘Who’s it from?’

I hand it to her.

‘Ah, the “last good man” himself,’ she smiles wryly. ‘What’s the PTO at the back about?’

‘What?’ I grab the card from her, then I turn it over and read:

‘Hi there, Alice.

Hope you can make it to my exhibition. I’m inviting former pupils from my pottery class, so you’ll meet some old friends there. I got your address from the college. I’ve been staying in a cottage in the wilds getting ready for this exhibition, so I only heard your phone messages when I got home the other day. Glad that you got the information you needed. Best wishes and hope to see you soon, James.’

The words are almost dancing in front of me, like they’re in the Rio Carnival. James Mitchel has written to me. He’s going to be right here, in the same city as me, at the end of this week! I read through his note again, hoping I may have missed some sense of pining, some sense of urgency. I haven’t. If only it was in French.

‘So, are you going to go?’ Mira is studying me curiously.

‘I dunno. No. I mean – maybe – yes. Probably.’

After dinner I try to get on with my painting, but thoughts of James Mitchel keep intruding. Cyril was right, I haven’t really lost interest in romance – that is, James Mitchel – at all. Poor Eamon, how disloyal I’m being to him. I so wish I could love him the way I love James. He’s a good man. He deserves that. But I can’t say ‘yes’ to his proposal if I could have James instead. Yes, I must go to that exhibition. If nothing else it may clarify my feelings a little.

As I paint a field filled with lavender – a field I often see when I look out the window of my imaginary villa in Provence – I decide that what I admire most about James is his conviction about himself. The answers he has reached. I suppose I hope a little bit of them are going to rub off on to me, though I do realize that men like him sometimes just leave smudges. Long before James Mitchel there was that yoga teacher, and that bus conductor, and that bassoonist. All very different, but similar in one vital way. They had an altitude to their attitude. Even their confidence seemed to have the weather-beaten, but durable, quality of granite. Contented in their solitude, they were a sort of emotional equivalent to Mount Everest. Unassailable to all but the determined, and perhaps foolhardy. Compared to them, most of my past boyfriends weren’t even hills.

I didn’t know James Mitchel did ‘ceramic sculptures’. He’s got so many interests he’s a veritable Renaissance Man. Where does he get time for all this stuff? I wrote an article about time management once and left it so late I almost didn’t make the deadline. He has so much to teach me. I must have him. I must.

No, no. That isn’t right. I mustn’t get too needy with James – I know he’d find that off-putting. I must remain nonchalant with him. Have some altitude to my attitude myself. That’s what men like him really admire. Having trekked for miles through their internal Himalayas, they don’t really want to have to peer down into the foothills for their Significant Other. They don’t want to retrace their steps to find her. They want her right up there with them – in some sweet, calm place where they don’t really need each other anyway.

I really must buy myself a clingy top.

Chapter
24

I’m at the opening
of James Mitchel’s art exhibition.

It’s a swelteringly hot night. I almost feel I’m in the tropics. The large whirring fan overhead looks like it belongs in Casablanca. I put lots of ice in my wine and then cup the glass in my hands, letting it cool me.

My ‘look’ this evening is not what you might call subtle. In fact, I could be taken for a participant in one of my own articles. Annie helped me with my make-up. ‘You didn’t get those lips sucking oranges,’ was Mira’s parting comment. Who knows, by the end of this evening I might be licking mayonnaise from James Mitchel’s inner thigh area. I want to look sexy and attractive. I want James Mitchel to see my curves but not too much of my bottom, which is a bit too big. Thankfully my new clingy top covers it and my navy cotton trousers have a flattering line to them.

I’m used to receptions – or ‘deceptions’ as Cindi calls them. I find large helpings of wine and hors d’oeuvres alleviate the small talk. ‘Yes, I have the press release and the photos, thanks,’ I say. ‘Was that caviar vol-au-vents that went by just then?’

But tonight is different. I am not ‘on assignment’ – though in a way, of course, I am. I must somehow make an impression on James, but I’m not sure how to go about it. I’m standing in a corner of the gallery feigning enormous interest in the exhibition catalogue. My nose is stuck right into it, but every so often I look up, rather furtively, and search for him among the crowd. I feel so self-conscious, as though what I’m up to is obvious to everyone. I must see him first, preferably from afar, so that I can ease, with a shore appraisal and then a gentle paddle, into the great sea of longing he brings up for me.

I grab another glass of wine from a tray as though it is a life jacket. Alcohol. I need alcohol. I’ve seen him. He’s over there chatting with a bunch of calm, cheerful people, a wineglass in his hand. His hair is shorter and he’s got a brown corduroy suit on and a cream cotton shirt, which shows off his tan. He feels me staring at him and looks over. I look down, gulp, into my catalogue which is now damp from my sweaty palms.