Aunt Margaret's Lover (6 page)

There was a codicil, apparently written very shortly before her death.

Also attached in an envelope is a small and instant gift which I want you to spend straight away on something silly to wear.
Not
leggings, a jumper or anything that covers the knees. I am a connoisseur of legs and you have exceptionally nice ones. Goodbye my dear and Bless you.

The poor solicitor, looking anywhere but at my legs which were in any case covered by a decent pleated skirt, handed me the envelope with an embarrassed grimace - a smile, I think it was supposed to be. I had begun to laugh at the bit about 'pomposity', reached a peak of amusement at 'toy boy' - where did she get such
phrases? - and had calmed a littl
e by the time she complimented my legs. Around me I could hear the whispers, sense the disapproval.
Picasso.
I looked up at the Matisse head which still hung in its familiar place and which would be Julius's now. Ah well, Mrs Mortimer was probably right. As I opened the envelope, I could feel necks craning, lips pursing and eager disapproval in the air. I was glad and relieved to take out four fifty-pound notes. A clever sum. Not enough to make me tremble at the spending of it, not too little to oblige me to buy something tacky. It was a nice in-between amount and I could feel, by the sighs of relief around me, that my audience thought so too. They all smiled politely and the reading went on.

Although there was more sherry and cake afterwards, I stayed only as long as was absolutely necessary to be polite. Just before I left, I went over to the wheelchair and patted its shoulder. I urged it also to have fun.

'She's left it to the Artists' Benevolent Fund to dispose of. Very fitting,' said Linda rather sourly.

'She was full of good ideas,' I said. 'I shall miss her very much.'

'How much do you think the Picasso is worth?' she asked bluntly.

I had the valuation in my bag but did not take it out. 'Oh, quite a lot. More than I or it merit.' I felt my throat constrict, suddenly feeling the loss of my friend and patroness.

Linda was clearly on the warpath. Her eyes widened. 'We were very fond of each other,' I said. 'Evidently,' she replied, and turned swiftly away. I went to say goodbye to Julius.

'Picasso, eh?' he said, shaking my hand. 'Never could stand the fellow. Mother liked you very much. I think she wished I was a daughter, actually.' He said this wistfully and I realized he was probably right.

'What will you do with the rest of the collection?'

'Oh, speak to Rhys Fisher first. We'll probably sell the best pieces and keep the rest for the boys, naturally.' We both looked across at 'the boys' who were quietly fighting in the corner, the one putting cake down the other's neck. 'I expect they'll appreciate that sort of thing in due course,' said Julius with a sigh.

'I always loved that,' I said, pointing to the Matisse.

'Yes,' said Julius. 'It's rather nice. At least you can see it's a perfectly normal face and the artist
...'
- he peered at the picture - 'Matisse
...
hasn't gone and stuck the eyes somewhere else or given it three noses.'

'It's lovely,' I said, and now I did feel close to tears.

'She was eighty-three, you know. Lasted much longer than the doctors ever said she would.'

'It was the art that did it,' I said, remembering Emerson. 'Passion keeps you alive.'

Julius gave me a sad little smile. 'I expect I shall go very early, then.' His eyes gleamed suddenly. 'What are you going to buy? With the cash?' He looked down towards my knees and then back up at me. The gleam grew stronger. 'Something short?'

It was definitely time to depart.

I walked along Strand on the Green. It was a cool evening now, slightly blustery with rain just holding off. There were few people about - the days of warmth and pub-going had not yet begun. It suited me. I was crying silently as I walked, the best kind of crying, with large, welling tears, utterly resigned to the cause, totally indulging the sadness. By the time I reached Kew Bridge the tears had stopped and left me with that emptied-out feeling, as if there were space to put in new things, a room without furniture, no longer the static doll's house. I turned around and let my thoughts skim to the rhythm of walking back. Beneath Mrs Mortimer's funny prose lay a sensible message. I stopped walking and bent to raise the hem of my skirt a little, checking the validity of her statement. I suppose they were all right, really, my legs. A man and woman were passing by with their dog. I looked up. My eyes met hers, cool. My eyes met his, appraising. I walked on, thinking harder.

What was my life nowadays? It was the shop, the business my life's blood. I realized, quite suddenly, that it was running very thin. It was Saskia, but she was, quite literally, launched - piloting herself - and would no longer need intensive care. It was a few friends. Jill and David, Verity, Colin were close intimates. But they all had partnerships of one kind or another. Jill and David of course. Verity had met her New Man who brought her flowers and cooked for her and knew how to mend fuses. Colin had yards of young women hanging off him. He said he came to me for a rest. The others were good friends at a distance - theatre, dinner, lunch . . . Mrs Mortimer was gone. Saskia was gone. I was here. I was here, with a good pair of legs,
almost
no grey in my hair and - I stood still, heart pounding - and
money.
A bloody great chunk of potential security was, quite suddenly, mine, whenever I wanted to cash it in. Enough to make my little nest egg look as tiny as a quail's. Now I could do something radical. I
could
kick up my heels a little if I chose. And then I remembered. There was also Roger.

There was also, I realized quite suddenly,
no excitement.
Nothing to make the heart flip, the bone tingle, the mascara go on extra thick. In short, I decided, there by the river, with the seagulls wheeling, the scullers sculling, the flotsam jetsamming at my feet, I wanted some action. Ovid says that rivers do this to the soul because they know all about love themselves, and since his definition of love is generally looser than most, I took it as a sign. That's what I would do, the best thing to do in the rather empty circumstances: I would take a lover. A
lover.
Not a life companion, not a pair of socks required at seven a.m., not a shin-up this ladder to fix my curtains, but a real lover. Orchids and all. And bearing in mind the apparent inevitability of disappointment - what had Greasy Joan said, for example, about sex? - to take a lover for one year would be sustainable, one year would be fine.

It would have been an impossible notion without the security of the Picasso portfolio behind me. Because of that I could take a year's unpaid leave and squander my savings on reckless abandonment - or at any rate, as far as I cared to go in it. Mr Spiteri could trust Joan and Reg and put in his horrible wastrel of a son for a while, something he had always wanted to do. I had no doubt the job would still be there in a year's time. And if not? Why, thanks to Picasso having a creative blip, I would survive. Let others worry for a while. I could just do with a little grape-peeling and satin knickers. And who would it harm? Who would it affect but myself? I didn't even need to tell Sassy - indeed I would not tell Sassy. Given her remarks about those other lovers, she would only worry that we might fall over our zimmer frames while attempting physical union.

At Zoffany's house I had quite made up my mind. The early April light had almost gone now, ducks were tottering around on the pebbly, muddy strand below me, and the cottages across the river glowed in little multi-paned windows. All very familiar. What it needed was something extraordinary, like a huge Oldenberg soft sculpture to co
me gliding down and land – pouf!
- in the middle of it all. A hamburger of velvet with red-satin ketchup perhaps, or a towering pair of latex knees. Jumble everything up, stop the smugness, make the ducks jump, the curtains twitch - something to make
me
twitch. Ve
ry well, I was resolved. And it
was there by that shifting, oily water that I promised not to renege on the undertaking, for I knew it would be very easy to feel positive, go home, and forget all about it by morning. But not this time. This time I knew what I must do. And the first thing was to

Have lunch with Colin.

Colin was experienced at putting himself about. Colin would be all for the idea of a lover. He had made the suggestion several times both in general and in the specific of offering himself in the role. But nowadays he seemed to find girls ten or fifteen years my junior more desirable. And as far as I was concerned, he was too familiar. I wanted a great big change. Colin was a good friend and that was much more valuable than his body. In any case, now he had a little pot belly in place of the flat stomach I remembered, and his teeth were not entirely his own - I knew he had a bridge though he didn't say so. Nope, if I was going to take a lover, I wanted one who was beautiful. Or if not beautiful, as close as I could get. Roger was not beautiful. Roger was not even a good friend, really. I squared my shoulders. Roger would have to go.

Memento torpidus,
I reminded myself, and returned home feeling a good deal more alive than when I had started out that morning.

Chapter Eight

All the handsome ship's officers had
to
ask the middle-aged lonely women to dance and then s
pent the time ogling the few of
us girls under sixty from across a sequinned shoulder pad.
Gross!
And now J am here. New York, New York! Hope you are having some fun too. And thank you, dear Aunt Margaret, for everything.

I took Colin to the Kensington Place because I had never eaten there, because it was expensive, and because it was good - but largely because it was expensive. 'I never knew you cared,' he said when I rang him and suggested time and venue.

'Colin,' I said, 'I want to talk something through with you.'

'Fine,' he said cautiously.

My spring wardrobe was not a thrilling one. I had a couple of things I wore for evenings out: some rather dull tops and skirts, a party frock that was more of a dress and the
de rigueur
little black number. Most of my other clothes came from Gap. My summerwear was a bit more interesting, but it wasn't warm enough for turquoise cheesecloth or silk harem pants, and anyway the Kensington Place was hardly a beachside trattoria. I ended up going for the severe look. Hair tied back, a pair of pearl disc earrings - Saskia's - white crepe blouse and velvet trousers. Colin said I looked as if I were going out for an executive lunch. 'I like the earrings,' he said as we opened the restaurant door. My only borrowings! I nearly snarled.

We both ordered scallops to start. Then steak for him, magret of duck for me, and a bottle of white Burgundy. The place was extremely busy and we were told that service would take a
little
time. 'Alas,' said the man in the long white apron, 'someone has not turned up in the kitchen and we are at full capacity. I only tell you this in case you have an early-afternoon appointment.' He looked at me when he said this. Colin was wearing a perfectly nice but ordinary crew neck jumper, corduroy trousers and a shirt with its collar tucked in. He did not look as if he had an executive appointment. I smiled at the waiter. 'Not at all,' I said, 'we have all afternoon.' And surreptitiously, after he had gone,
1
undid the top button of my blouse.

'That's more like it,' said Colin cheerfully. 'A
little
revealed is more mysterious and intriguing than everything either shut away or completely visible.'

'Is that why you comb your hair like you do but don't wear a hat?'

'Sorry?' he said, smiling away.

'Your scalp,'
1
said, looking at his hair, 'is just beginning to peek through in one little place. Just enough to be mysterious and intriguing.'

'Is it any wonder,' he said, 'that I prefer my women very young?'

We chinked our glasses affectionately.

'Anyway,
¹
I said, 'I am not sure I want to be mysterious and intriguing.'

'Of course you do. All women do. You're made that way -all hidden and tucked in. It's that mystery in
you
that makes
us
so threatening.'

'I don't feel threatened by you.'

He put his chin on his hand and stared at me gravely. 'I shouldn't go round saying things like that if I were you.'

'I haven't come here to flirt,' I said briskly.

'Evidently,' he said. 'For that would be
two
buttons.'

We had drunk nearly all the wine by the time the second course arrived. So I s
uggested this time we had a bottl
e of red. 'Agreed,' said Colin.