Cupid's Dart (23 page)

An officious young man in a luminous yellow jacket approached at speed.

'Hey!' he shouted. 'You've got rubbish falling all over my tip.'

'That isn't rubbish,' I said with all the angry dignity I could muster. 'That is the masterpiece of my working life.'

'Then why are you throwing it away?' he asked.

That was, perhaps, the lowest point of my life. A 55-yearold man who has earned his living out of philosophy for thirty-three years is asked a question by a man in a luminous jacket in a rubbish dump, and he can't answer it.

When I got home after my humiliation as Stig of the Recycling Centre I knew that I was in crisis. Only yesterday I had attempted to kill my mother, and today I had destroyed my life's work. I had lost my lover, my career, and my self-respect. Every time I thought of what might have happened if my mother hadn't opened her heart to me, I trembled.

I was a philosopher. I knew how to think. I must be able to help myself through this.

I hadn't killed my mother, and I never would kill her, therefore there was no reason to worry about that. I had been unable to contemplate killing young Mallard, who would never realise that I had saved his life. I was not a killer. I was not a monster. I need worry about these things no longer. I might even be able to regain my self-respect.

But I had lost Ange. Whatever the explanation of what had happened, I felt certain of this.

If Ange was callous and wicked, I would be justified in feeling bitter towards her, but I would not need to be sorry that she had gone. If I continued to be truly sorry, then she couldn't be callous and wicked, and therefore it would be inappropriate to feel bitter.

I had to rid myself of my bitterness. It was destroying me, and nobody else.

I couldn't believe my mother's words. 'I think I might have liked her.'

What did I have to rebuke Ange for? She had broken no promises, since she had made no promises. We had been happy together. She had given me experiences that I had never dreamt of. I must eliminate anger from my reactions. There was nothing to be angry about. Anger was a primitive response, and if I was still making primitive responses then I had wasted my whole life as a philosopher.

My life with Ange had led me to question my vocation as a philosopher. I had always taken for granted that philosophy was . . . well, if not useful, at least important. If I was asked what was the use of philosophy I would talk about the different meanings of the word 'use' and the word 'value'. Is the song of the skylark useful? No. Is it valuable? Most assuredly so.

I think, therefore I am. I think deeply and subtly, therefore I am even more than somebody who doesn't. At the very least, the processes of philosophy lead to clearer thinking. I had never needed to think more clearly than now. My feelings about Ange and my belief in philosophy could not be separated.

I had been through a crisis and I had come out the other side. The whole timbre of this day was calm. Sad, deeply sad, but calm. Yesterday belonged to a different world, a world of fear and farce and poisoned cake. Today, I was a sad man who had lost the only person he had ever loved.

Except my mother. Yes, I realised now that I loved her too, maybe I always had, maybe if I hadn't I wouldn't have cared enough to want to murder her.

I couldn't blame Ange for my emotional turmoil. I had to blame myself for living through so many barren times that I was utterly incapable of dealing with that turmoil.

I could not fully come to terms with my loss unless I knew the reasons for it, unless I knew what had really happened. I believe that the fashionable word for this is 'closure'. I needed closure.

There was nothing for it. I had to go back to Gallows Corner. I had to walk up that drive, knock on that door. I had to find the strength.

I didn't want to go. I wanted to see my mother, sit beside her, chat, reminisce. There had been so little to say, and now there was so much.

But it was more important to go to Gallows Corner.

I made an important discovery on my way there. I was no longer tempted to drive into the path of a lorry or a white van. I no longer hated white vans. They were unimportant to me. White vans, I could take them or leave them.

I parked at the end of her road. I was very nervous. I was perhaps as nervous as I had ever been in my life, and you will know that I had often been very nervous indeed.

I walked along the road, past numbers two, four, six, eight, ten (very unkempt garden), twelve (very tidy, how sad for tidy Mr and Mrs Tidy-Twelve to live beside number ten). On the wall separating number sixteen from number eighteen there was a syringe. How sheltered my life was. Not that people didn't use syringes in Oxford, but they disposed of them more carefully.

Soon I was in the twenties. God, number twenty-four needed painting.

Number twenty-eight's garden was concreted and held two cars, one dented. Number thirty had a garden full of broken toys. A woman was sunbathing among the rubble at number thirty-four, and number thirty-six's apology for a lawn was covered in stock for a bric-a-brac stall. Number forty-four had neat rows of salvias and crazy paving. Houses were going up in the world, down in the world and sideways in the world. Every garden was a history. Every garden was a statement. Every garden spoke of hope or despair or both. I couldn't help comparing it with Oxford, where the walls all held impenetrable secrets.

By the time I got to the fifties I had to pause. My heart was throbbing. I could hardly breathe. This was a great test of my fitness.

Fifty-two. Fifty-four. I walked very slowly. Fifty-six. Fifty-eight. Oh God. Sixty. Sixty-two. Looks empty. Looks dead. Can't do it. Sixty-four. Sixty-six. Don't be such a wimp, Alan. Don't be so weedy, boy. Face the music. You told yourself you would go to the house, so you must. If you say you'll do a thing, you must do it, and that applies even to things you promise only to yourself, boy. Sixty-four. Sixty-two.

I opened the gate, walked through it, closed it, walked up the path, through the middle of a dead, dull lawn. There were a few flowers, but none of them were out. I remembered a friend's joke. 'You must come when the tulips are out. They're frightful bores.' Ange would like that. Oh, Ange, my darling. I paused, breathed deeply, rang the bell. It jingled fatuously.

Nothing. Nobody. What a relief. What a disappointment. Oh, Alan, will you ever be free from contradictory emotions?

I rang again. And a third time.

Nothing. Nobody. What a disappointment. What a relief. No, Alan, very probably you will never be free from contradictory emotions.

I peered in through the letter box. A tiny hall, shabby, silent, utterly without ornament.

I peered in through the front windows. A long room, a shiny suite, a shabby carpet, a huge TV, just one lurid picture. Oh so commonplace. Oh so unlike Ange, or was it just unlike my memory of Ange?

I went up the drive of number sixty-four. The small garden was reasonably well tended but the lawn needed cutting. They were probably away.

They were away.

I called also at number sixty. The tiny garden was a riot of regimentation, row upon row of small flowers in all the colours of the rainbow, tragic in its careful ugliness.

I rang the bell. The door opened instantly – I had been watched – but it only opened three inches. It was on a chain.

'Good afternoon, madam. I'm looking for the people next door.'

'I don't have nothing to do with them. They're trash.'

'Oh. Well . . .'

'I say "trash". Only them boys, really. I suppose the women aren't too bad.'

You are speaking of the woman I love, madam. 'Aren't too bad'? Dear God.

'Them boys, they were the original neighbours from hell. Ought to be on the telly, they ought. You've seen my garden.'

'Yes. Yes. Lovely.'

'Thank you. I've had to do it all since he passed on.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Thank you. Been better since the other boy went. Sent to prison he was, and then he scarpered, never seen again. Good riddance, say I. Bad lot, he was. Romford, cos this is all part of Romford really when it boils down to it, isn't what it used to be. But then what is?'

'Too true. So . . . er . . . you wouldn't know where they are, then?'

'Away. That's my guess. I've not heard any noise for . . . oh, days. Several days. Though how they can afford to go away beats me. I can't.'

Was that sad little conversation the nearest that I would come to closure? I hoped not. Oh God, how I hoped not.

I knew that I wouldn't see Ange, but I didn't want to leave the area. I didn't want to go back to Oxford. I drove around aimlessly, saw a pub, parked in the car park because there was plenty of room, went in. Why? Because I was thirsty? Too simple. Because this was Ange's world? Too far-fetched. Because I wanted to think? I didn't need to go to a pub for that. Because it was just possible that Ange had been in there, placed her lovely bottom on one of the seats, maybe the very one I chose? Possibly. Possibly a bit of all these reasons.

I ordered a pint of Fosters. Shame prevented me having a half. The pub was long and narrow, and had a gents' toilet at each end, so it was ideal for me. I tried to think about love. What is love? One can say, 'I love chocolate', but we aren't talking about that. One can say one loves one's mother – how wonderful it was that I did at last – but we aren't talking about that either. We are talking about the love in songs, the love in romance, the love that makes the world go round. (In more primitive times, did people talk of the love that made the world go square, and the love that made the earth go flat?)

It was no use. I couldn't concentrate. The customers, all men, all in dirty jeans, were watching lunchtime television. It was something about antiques. Behind them as they watched was a picture of the Queen, smiling regally but radiantly – quite an achievement. The men's language was riddled with the f word. 'Fucking hundred and ten fucking pounds for that. No fucker wants fucking brass any more.' And still the Queen smiled radiantly, obliviously. I wanted to smile. I saw the funny side, and I realised that, had I ever gone in there in the days before Ange – impossible – I never would have seen the funny side. I owed her so much. How could I resent her?

I drove back to Gallows Corner via her street, hoping against hope that I might catch a sight of her, but of course I didn't.

When I got home I looked 'love' up in my dictionaries. I have two; I'm a belt and braces man.
Chambers Dictionary
's definition of love begins: a) to feel great affection for (especially a close relative, friend, etc.); b) to feel great affection and sexual attraction for (especially a sexual partner, a person one is romantically involved with, etc.)'. The
Times English Dictionary
gives several categories of definition, but doesn't ever link the words 'affection' and 'sexual attraction'.

If dictionaries don't agree, it is going to be a hard task to define love. I believe that if one does not link 'affection' with 'sexual attraction' one has lust, or desire, but not love. Of course, one can make a word mean what one chooses, and say 'coconut' instead of 'love', but one pays the penalty of seeming ridiculous and of not being understood. I believe that if a society that considers itself civilised does not include the word 'affection' in its definition of love for a sexual partner, then it is too selfish to survive. All love songs would be based on a hypocritical premise.

I also believe that if love turns to hate because the object of one's love behaves in a way that is unwelcome to one, then 'love' is not an absolute, and is dependent on being convenient to one, and that is no sort of love at all, certainly not a love worth singing about. 'I promise to love, honour and obey.' Who could get romantic pleasure from being honoured and obeyed? The romance is in the word 'love', and if that has no connotations of affection then every marriage is a farce.

It must follow therefore that if I am in love with Ange I feel affection for her. Affection. For
Chambers
this is 'showing love or fondness'. For the
Times
it's 'a feeling of fondness or tenderness for a person or thing; attachment'. The
Times
, more cynical than
Chambers
about love, becomes more sentimental about affection.

It's clear that the meaning of words is not always precise
enough to be definitively described even by dictionaries. I like the
Times
's
'feeling of fondness or tenderness', although I would change it to 'feeling
of fondness and/or tenderness'. I felt great tenderness for Ange. If I no
longer feel it now, and did feel it then, what is the explanation? She has
left me. Therefore I only felt tenderness because she hadn't left me. Some
tenderness, that. Conditional tenderness.

These were the thoughts that I carried around with me as I visited my mother. I went at least twice a week now, and listened to her talking about her life, about her friendships and early loves, about the people who had died and the people with whom she had lost touch, all kept alive by the blessed gift of memory, which was failing but only slowly.

These were the thoughts that I carried around with me as I tried to assuage my grief by attempting to contact other women who had meant something (but not much!) in my life.

These thoughts were with me on the train to Dorking, where Rachel had been living when I had last been in touch. As I walked up the garden path at the last address I had, I reflected that in my life garden paths were rather like London buses. You waited ages for one, and then lots of them came along at once. In more serious vein, I wondered why I was there, since I hadn't felt sufficient sexual attraction for her when she was in her prime. She hadn't been remotely sexy then and would be even less so in her fifties. It was a shock to be told that she had moved away when she got married, that she had been very much in love, and when last heard of she'd had six children. Rachel? Were we talking about the same Rachel, whose knickers had been as impenetrable as
Finnegans Wake
? As I sat in a pub in Dorking, with my half of bitter – I didn't mind seeming a wimp in Surrey – I realised that Rachel's sexlessness had been her answer to my sexlessness, my cluelessness, my Ange-lessness. I mustn't rebuke myself for that. I must rejoice that it was no longer so. And who had achieved that transformation? Ange.

The same thoughts were with me as I sat beside the River Reuss in Lucerne. Yes, in the insanity of my grief I again went all the way to Lucerne to visit the two cafés where I had been with the Swiss lacrosse international all those years ago. This was my second fatuous visit. I hadn't even learnt the lesson of the first. The cafés were still there. I clung to the thought that she had been reluctant to get married, so maybe the marriage wouldn't have worked, but she had seemed a lovely person, so she would have tried to make it work, but would have at last become reconciled to its failure, and would return to Lucerne on the off-chance that the callow, inexperienced but rather sweet English boy she had met and drunk with in those two cafés would have returned on the off-chance that she would be there. This was a series of chances and off-chances worthy of two Ferdinand Brinsley Memorial Lectures.