Love Among the Single Classes (30 page)

When I get home I find a scribbled note beside the telephone: ‘Andrew Lloyd-something, not Webber unfortunately, says ring him any time up until midnight.' It's only just after eleven, not too late to talk to him.

I dial his number which is on the same exchange as Iwo's, sinking down into the sofa with the telephone and a cat on my lap, settling in for a long session. It's weeks since we spoke.

‘Constance,' he says, ‘thank you for ringing. How are you?'

‘The same … No: a bit worse.'

‘Poor lass. Want to talk about it?'

‘Well, yes, sometime … but tell me first why you rang.' ‘A pretext, and then a confession. The pretext is to ask you to this play at the Mermaid …'

‘Rave reviews …'

‘Yes, I managed to get tickets for Saturday. Like to come?'

‘Love to. Providing the children haven't committed me to anything.'

‘Don't give me that crap. You mean, provided the magnetic Pole doesn't ask you out that evening.'

‘All right. Yes. I'll definitely come. You are funny. Now what do you want to confess?'

‘It's difficult on the phone. I … Last night I had this dream. It was about you.'

‘Dreams sometimes …'

‘Yes. This was one of those.'

‘Andrew, don't rush to … I didn't dream about you. Didn't dream about anybody.'

‘Are you about to go to bed? Can I come and see you?'

‘Now?'

‘Any reason why not?'

‘It'll be midnight by the time you're here.'

I acquiesce, flattered, curious, and in need of someone to sympathize, someone I can tell about Iwo.

Half an hour later he arrives, bringing his own whisky and Perrier. I welcome him at the door with a deliberate ‘old friends' embrace: big smile and a chaste kiss on each cheek.
We exchange the usual formalities: ‘How's work?' ‘Oh, same as ever, you know … going away soon?' ‘Yes, France, end of July.' We are English, we know the conventions. ‘How's your mother?' ‘Well, I suppose … that reminds me, I must give her a ring.' Until Andrew sits and bends his grave, domed gaze upon me.

‘I'm sorry to come so late.'

‘It's all right. I'm wide awake. I spent the evening with Iwo.'

Be warned.

‘Constance, there is no way to say this except straight. I had this dream about you, about us: a very erotic dream …'

‘What happened?'

‘I said erotic.'

‘Now, or in the past?'

‘Not at Oxford.
Now.'

‘Poor Andrew!'

‘Constance, don't insult me by joking. It was extraordinarily vivid and at the same time terribly obvious,
sensible
, almost.'

‘Sensible
and
erotic?'

I am being defensively light-hearted because I dread what he is going to say next: I love you, I have always loved you, ever since I met you again at Paul's place … how can I tell him that, to me, he has always been completely sexless?

‘Andrew, can I have a glass of your whisky?'

He goes to the sideboard, fetches a tumbler, pours me a whisky, tops it up with Perrier, sits down again, beside me this time, and says, ‘Constance, you have
got
to come to bed with me.'

‘Got
to?'

But even as I sit there thinking, this is embarrassing, this is hopeless, how am I going to extricate myself? I feel the first uncurling of a tendril of desire.

‘I told you, I've just spent the evening with Iwo. You know, because you kindly lend me a shoulder once a month or so, that I am besotted with him.'

‘I am besotted with you.'

The tendril sends out a shoot.

‘You make it very difficult for me. I don't want to … Oh, Andrew, you're such a good friend and now I shall lose you!'

‘No. You will gain me.'

He takes my hand. The shoot produces buds, the prickling of lust. The conditioning of twenty years is being undone by simple frustration, as my body responds to the whisky, the late hour, and the presence of a man. He puts his hand firmly, not flirtatiously, on my breast.

‘Constance. Come to bed with me.'

Quite suddenly I decide to surrender. I can't see how he is going to get out of this situation, and the truth is, I do want to be made love to. I get up from the sofa, and for a moment he looks at me, wary and puzzled – am I going to throw him out? – and then as the silence deepens he stands up and puts his arms around me, enfolds me, and for the first time in our lives we kiss.

Reader, I go to bed with him. Why? Because being wanted is an irresistible force after weeks and months of being ignored. Because I am living on a high-wire of emotional tension in which
nothing happens
. The hope for a release of the physical tautness which Iwo induces, the relaxation of my face from lines of strain into the softness of gratified desire is why I go to bed with him. I need to be stroked, held, murmured to, loved: but although Andrew does all that, and more, it doesn't work. How could it, when drumming through my mind like rain on a roof are the words, Two, oh Iwo, my Iwo, please Iwo …'

Andrew doesn't spend the night in my bed. He comes, sleeps a little, and goes, after leaning over the bed with great tenderness and whispering, in case I am asleep, ‘I'll give you a ring tomorrow. Darling …'

As soon as I have heard the front door slam behind him, and the engine of his car rev up and roar away, I switch on the bedside light and get up. Filled with still undischarged energy, I wash, clean my teeth, pick up my clothes from the floor, fold them, and finally go down to the kitchen and
make myself tea. What am I to say to Andrew tomorrow? He must surely know that our attempt at sex was a failure. I didn't even try to pretend, to gratify his masculine pride or ease his embarrassment or simply bring the whole process to a climax. I
wanted
to be moved. It would have been a wonderfully simple solution if Andrew and I could have fallen suddenly, happily, into bed and into love. But the rain drummed in my head and left me quite detached from his gentle, grateful love-making.

Next day the phone rings immediately after breakfast, and I nearly leave Cordy to answer it, for I haven't yet decided what to say to Andrew. But in the end I pick it up, thinking, tell him the truth; you'll just have to tell him the truth. It is Iwo's voice.

‘Constance, ah, I have caught you before you go to work …'

‘Iwo!'

‘My dear, I am sorry about last night. That young man encountered me by chance and would not be refused. I had no wish to interrupt your evening. But then you looked so anxious and strained, I didn't want to leave you.'

Kindness! Dear God, I had anticipated anything but kindness!

‘Iwo … how nice of you to have noticed. You're right.'

‘Marina is an intelligent woman and she has made up her mind.
She
knows she doesn't love him, but need is a better basis for a marriage than love, don't you think? It's something we should discuss, to set your mind at rest.'

‘Iwo, where are you? This is an extraordinary conversation to be having at twenty to nine in the morning, when' – oh, I am daring! – ‘you haven't spoken to me properly for weeks.'

‘No, I have been very preoccupied. This weekend? Do you want to meet?'

‘Of course.'

‘Saturday?'

‘Fine. Ring me.'

‘I will. Goodbye.'

Light-footed as Mercury I speed around the house and trip off to the library. I smile at all the shopkeepers along the way, as they sweep the pavement or arrange displays outside their shops.

‘Morning, my dear!' they call out to me. ‘Lovely morning isn't it?'

‘Heavenly!'
I reply.

My way is clear for action, after weeks of inertia. All through the spring I have been sluggish, heavy-footed, pulled down by my doleful thoughts. And now Iwo wants to talk to me about marriage! I don't care if he marries me for need, if the Home Office is being difficult over renewing his visa, I love him. I decide to spring-clean this weekend. Perhaps I should put the house on the market and start to contact estate agents for details? Plenty of time for that after I've discussed it with Iwo.

Meanwhile, I ring my mother, and confirm our regular meeting. For years, we have met every second and fourth Tuesday in the month. When my marriage was breaking up, Paul told me that he had always known those nights would be clear for his adventures. ‘Second and fourth Tuesdays will always have a
frisson
for me!' he said. The old pang shoots through me still. I am to go round to her flat, and she will make me a ‘proper tea', making it sound as though it would be my only square meal this month. Well, I can tell her some good news about Iwo at last. I haven't told her much, but she has read between the lines and been concerned for me, and for her grandchildren. My father died too late in life for her to have any experience of other men; her life is a peaceful round of bridge at the club and trips to Harrods or the Royal Academy. Is it possible to leave behind all desire for love and sex, to look at men dispassionately, as though they were of the same gender as oneself?

Kate is spending the weekend with my sister whom she loves, and her cousins. They are younger than she is, so she can patronize and bully them – a rare treat for a youngest child. On Saturday morning I start spring-cleaning at eight,
a whirlwind of virtuous and purposeful activity. As always, there is the unexpected bonus of becoming involved in the work, so that it ceases to be a chore and becomes a source of pride and pleasure. After three hours I am hot and bothered, pushing back the hair from my forehead with a yellow rubber-gloved hand, but the kitchen and breakfast room are spotless and orderly. Just as I think about putting on the kettle for a coffee, the phone rings – great: that'll be Iwo! But the voice on the other end of the phone is Andrew's.

‘Constance! How are you?' Tenderly. ‘I know I promised to ring you yesterday, but I was in such a whirl I… anyhow, about tonight …'

Oh God. I had absolutely and completely forgotten. My mind thinks faster than the speed of light. Elaborate lies are invented and rejected in the seconds after his pause. Mother ill? Child hurt? Neighbour in suicide bid? It will have to be the truth.

‘Dear Andrew … Christ I hate doing this … Andrew I can't manage this evening after all.'

Heavily, he asks, as he is entitled to, ‘What has happened? It must be Iwo?'

‘Yes.'

‘He wants to see you tonight?'

‘Yes.'

No point in hurting him more by telling him that I had clean forgotten about our theatre.

‘You know I'm obsessed. That means I behave quite unscrupulously.'

‘So it seems.'

‘Oh Andrew … will I see you again?'

‘Why?'

Mind races off again. Need to discuss things. No. Want to say sorry? No. ‘A friend of mine, a Polish girl, is getting married in a couple of weeks' time. At the Catholic church in Fulham Road. All very formal, with a reception afterwards. Could you possibly come with me to that?'

‘I should have thought Iwo was your obvious escort.'

‘He's going to be in a group with another Polish family. Andrew: will you? Please.'

‘Yes. Talk to you some other time. Pity about tonight.'

‘Yes …'

‘Goodbye Constance.'

Iwo loves – who knows? I love Iwo. Andrew says he loves me. Who loves Andrew? Probably somewhere there is, even now, a woman hearing her phone ring and wondering if it might be Andrew. I hope she has a good evening at the theatre.

I spring-clean all day, scrubbing my guilt into floors and polishing it off windowpanes until they're so clean that the whole room looks lighter. Iwo telephones and we arrange as always to meet outside the tube station. Lovingly I wash my favourite objects in hot soapy water – the yellow crystal bonbonnière, the cerulean blue vase, the three dancing children – and arrange them, sparkling, in new places. I also make fresh arrangements of flowers and fruit on the side tables and shelves in the drawing room, and gaze around the sweet-smelling rooms with satisfaction before going upstairs to lavish the same attention upon myself. When Iwo comes back tonight both the house and I will be as immaculate as is possible for a Victorian semi and a middle-aged woman. The clocks have been wound, corrected and synchronized and are all chiming seven as I leave, shouting over my shoulder into the empty hallway, ‘Bye-bye all of you!' for the benefit of passing burglars. My knees ache from kneeling and my hands still smell faintly of bleach as I head into the May dusk. It is my favourite time of day: the light concentrated low down in the sky, sharpening details of the young leaves and old brickwork with its slanting gold.

Iwo is waiting for me even though I'm five minutes early. He takes my arm and guides me down the Earls Court Road, through jostling groups of young, mainly foreign young, for Earls Court, not Soho, is London's bazaar. We skirt Iranians urgently pleading their political cause to anyone who'll break step to listen; Australians, tall and gregarious, arguing about where to get the best exchange rates; and passing
decorously through this minefield of male glances, the black-eyed women – inscrutable behind beaks and veils – whom Allah will protect from defilement. The only English people seem to be sullenly handsome young gays displaying their wares in studded black leather, registering every bleep of warning or interest emitted by other passing males.

Iwo says, This evening we have to talk, don't you think? So shall we find somewhere to eat?'

‘Fine,' I say breathlessly. ‘Great. Yes. Anywhere.'

‘There's a new Italian place just down the road from here, round the corner. It's said to be good. Shall we try there?'

As he pushes open the glass door the noise hits me like a wall of Babel. Some interior designer with an eye on Milan has devised the restaurant as though deliberately to hinder the activities of everyone using it. The white tiled floor is easy to slip on and difficult to clean, and does nothing to blanket the sound of fifty or more people talking in a confined space. The walls are roughly plastered and scrape like a grater. The tables are glass, with multi-coloured tubular legs, matched by the tubular arms and perforated seats of the chairs. It would have been hard to think up more ways to frustrate and inconvenience both waiters and diners. In spite of this there is a queue of people just inside the door, which we join. To communicate with Iwo I have to lean towards him and practically shout.