No! I Don’t Need Reading Glasses! (32 page)

Thank goodness I never mentioned it to him! Particularly when it was under my nose all the time. I suddenly felt rather more sympathetic to poor old Archie and his delusions about the brooch.

Finally, an email from Louis! He says his mother's tests have come through, but now he's got to hang around because she's got to have some further scans. ‘I did love our evening together. You're so often in my mind,' he wrote.

It all seems unreal. Perhaps it
is
unreal. I mean, I'm sure if someone else were to tell me the story of me and Louis, I'd say at once that he was just some serial charmer and not to believe a word he says. But I can't help it. I
do
believe what he says.

Still have that odd guilty feeling about going to the doctor. I know that I pay his wretched salary out of my taxes but (and I imagine it's some pre-welfare state habit, inherited
from my parents), I feel I shouldn't really worry him (and mine
is
a ‘him') unless I have a brain tumour or a lump on my nose the size of a marrow.

The doctor said there was nothing wrong with me, but suggested I practise my balance by standing on one leg every morning while I brush my teeth. I said I'd have a go, but the first time I tried it, I nearly fell over again. It's the action of cleaning one's teeth that makes it so difficult. If I remain absolutely still I can balance on one leg for about thirty seconds, but cleaning my teeth simultaneously – quite impossible. It's like that trick of rubbing one's tummy clockwise and one's head anti-clockwise at the same time. A trick I taught not only Jack but also Gene. And which was taught, in turn, by my own lovely granny to me.

This falling-over caper makes me glad I've organised a will. I mean if I hadn't, and I climbed up that tree and fell out, then though my money would go to Jack there might be a remote chance, if he were to drop dead at the same time, that all my money (I say ‘all my money' – there's hardly any money, but I suppose the house is worth something) would go to the state.

Had a lovely email from Louis. He wrote, ‘Thinking of you …' and ended it ‘love, Louis'.

But I don't have a clue what's going on. I mean, what does he really feel about me? I feel a bit as if I'm living in
some fantasy of his. He's wondering if I'm not keen on him because of Archie disappearing from my life. But
I
wonder whether he's not keen on me because I'm unattainable since I'm too old. I know that syndrome. I remember the number of blokes who used to fall for me when I was happily ensconced with a boyfriend and then, the moment I became available, they all scarpered.

Actually, I'm starting to wish he'd never started it. It's so irritating to manage to stifle all kinds of desires and feelings of longing for Archie and then have someone conjure them back up out of nowhere.

But however much I explain my feelings like this it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. I think about him far too much.

I am now of an age where I ought to be able to cope with it all. But of course I can't. I've spent the last few days feeling really weird and confused, and not sure whether it's about Louis or Archie, or the prospect of going up a tree, or because I miss Jack and Chrissie and Gene so much. I've shouted ‘pull yourself together!' to myself so often that it doesn't have any effect any more.

Woken by the sounds of thunder in the night and now the rain is absolutely gushing down.
Daily Rant
's charming headline today is ‘NUCLEAR LEAK WILL BLIGHT GENERATIONS!
No more “normal” say scientists!
'

Since there's not much normal around here as it is, a nuclear leak isn't going to make a great deal of difference.

I braved the rain and went out to the newsagent to buy a new diary for next year. I waited in the queue and was so furiously impatient with the woman in front of me, fiddling about with her change, that I completely forgot to have my own purse ready when it was my turn to pay. Naturally I couldn't find it, and was patting my pockets, emptying my bag out on the counter and creating havoc in the queue behind me. Of course the people behind me got just as furious with me as I was with the previous customer. I apologised profusely but it didn't make any difference.

Feeling completely flustered I hurried out, and even though it was still pelting with rain – a real monsoon – I was so keen to get away quickly I left my head bare. Finally I got to a place under an awning where lots of other people were taking shelter, and tried to sort myself out. I put my bag down, did up the buttons on my jacket and pulled my hood over my head. Forgetting, of course, that because of the downpour it was full of water. I was completely soaked. It was all I could do not to scream obscenities into the beards of the men queuing up to go into the mosque, but I thought that would go down extremely badly, so I restrained myself by clenching my toes as hard as I could. Pretty painful, clenching ones toes at my age, I can tell you.

Being English, everyone stared straight ahead and pretended they hadn't noticed.

I am in a complete flap because Louis suddenly rang and said he was coming down from Oxford this afternoon, specially to see me, so I'm giving him a bite to eat here and then we're going for a walk in Burnham Beeches, the nearest bit of country. I tidied up the sitting room, leaving just enough books lying around to show that I'm not a neat-freak. I decided to put out a Christie's catalogue – the one my pictures featured in, because I thought that would give us something to talk about; a Beatrix Potter, to remind him I had a grandchild and wasn't ashamed to say so; and my current books on the go, the short stories of Chekhov and Bob Monkhouse's autobiography,
Crying with Laughter
. I know, I know … But it's amazingly well-written and he had an absolutely fascinating life. And I thought the juxtaposition of Chekhov and Monkhouse would confuse him.

To my consternation, Michelle, when cleaning the bathroom, had put my special rubber non-slip bathmat to dry on the radiator outside – it had got mouldy underneath, she said, and she'd had to bleach it to take the marks off – and I'd only managed to get rid of this evidence of infirmity, shoving it under my towel on the rail, just before Louis rang the bell.

Naturally enough, when he arrived he didn't give the books a second glance, but walked right through to the
garden. Even though it was starting to look a bit like I feel these days – rather creaky and barren – he still raved.

‘This is really neat!' he said. ‘That's the problem with New York. No gardens, and not enough green. Jesus Christ, what the hell is that?' He'd spotted James's installation that I'd recently heaved into its ‘special setting'.

‘Er … um … it's by a friend,' I said apologetically. ‘It's an installation … er, I put it as far out of the way as possible. It's meant to be me.'

‘
You?
' said Louis, puckering his brow. ‘All that barbed wire? It's not the you
I
know. With friends like these who needs anemones, as they say?'

‘Oh, someone … he's very nice and kind, I've known him a long time … had to keep it … ghastly …' I mumbled disloyally.

But it had clearly made a great impact on Louis, and not in a good way.

‘Marie, you can't keep that … that … that
thing
around, however much you like the guy,' he said. ‘It looks like … like …'

‘Something out of
Bitter Quinces, Poisoned Souls
?' I suggested. And he laughed.

As we came in to the kitchen, we passed an old walking stick I'd propped up in the corner to use after I'd had my second fall.

‘Whose is that?' he said, slightly alarmed. ‘Not yours, surely?'

‘Oh, no, er … it's for visitors when they can't manage the er …'

Suddenly I saw the whole house as if he were appraising it in the way that I looked at Marion's house. Minimalist it is not.

Finally he said, ‘You got a lovely home here. It reminds me of Mom's home. Very English.'

And at that my heart sank. For ‘very English' read ‘very old-fashioned'. Or, even worse, ‘geriatric'.

I was glad when we drove out to Burnham Beeches. I've loved the area since I was a child. We parked the car and walked along a public footway through the woods, the beech leaves crunching under our feet. To start with, we didn't say much. But he put his arm round me occasionally as we walked, and squeezed me close.

It was one of those strange walks under the trees when you feel utterly in communion with your companion. Or at least I felt utterly in communion with him. I have no idea whether he felt in communion with me. He may have been thinking about the credit crunch or the foreign secretary for all I know. Sometimes I sneak little glimpses at him when he's not looking. And oh, his skin is so smooth and firm – and there's something about the back of his neck that just makes me melt. The truth is that the skin of older men just isn't quite so lovely. Even Archie's. Nothing one can do about that.

Halfway through our walk, we sat down on an old tree trunk and he looked at me.

‘Look, I know I told you I didn't want to know, but now I do. I've been thinking. If this is going to go any further, we've got to be honest with each other. How old
are
you?'

‘Well, I've tried to tell you but you wouldn't listen!' I said indignantly. Then I took a big breath. ‘I'm sixty-five!'

And as I said it, I could see the surprise in his face. ‘And I've had a facelift,' I added. I felt like someone owning up to cheating in maths at school.

‘I hope you didn't tell Martha!' he said, laughing. ‘She'd have had a fit!'

‘I know,' I said. ‘No, I tell most people, but I thought in Martha's case it might be best to keep quiet. But look, sweetie, you see the age difference is ridiculous … I have tried to tell you …'

‘Oh Jesus!' he said, putting his head in his hands. ‘What a mess! Oh why wasn't I born ten years earlier? Or you born ten years later?'

‘Well, I wasn't,' I said, rather peremptorily. ‘You've got to find a nice woman your own age, and start a family.'

‘Couldn't you jet off to Italy … isn't there's some clinic where you can go and get pregnant, whatever age?'

The awful thing was I didn't really know whether he was joking or not. There was a sort of amused flirtatiousness about everything he said, but at the same time I could see there was genuine sadness and longing.

And for one absolutely awful moment I suddenly wished I
were
younger and could have another baby … the feeling of the loss of all that flooded my entire body, and I could have wept. He could see I was upset and, looking into my eyes, he reached out and held my other hand.

‘Gee, I'm sorry,' he said. ‘It's not fair on you. No, you're right.'

‘But why aren't you married already?' I asked. ‘You're pushing it yourself, if you don't mind my saying so. You'd better get a move on.'

It was odd how easy it was to slide from the role of lover, or potential lover at least, into the role of mother. Sometimes with Louis I feel as if I'm with Jack.

‘There was an African girl I thought of marrying, when I was doing my PhD,' he said, looking into the distance. ‘But then she was always going to go back to Kampala and one day she never came back. I think she got married. She was the love of my life, to be honest. I was crazy about her.'

Wasn't sure what to say, after that. So we just walked on. He gave me another huge hug when he dropped me off, and then he suddenly said, ‘When's your tree thing?'

‘Week after next,' I said. Surely he wasn't going to offer to climb up with me.

‘Well, the week after – you won't be up all week, will you? – you said you were going to visit … who was that old guy you told me about … Archie? I'll still be at Mom's in Oxford, so why don't you come down, meet her, on your way? I know you'd get on. And it would relieve the tedium. I'm working most days, but the evenings … there's a limit to how many times you can play Canasta!' he added. ‘And you know, whatever age you are, my sweetheart, it hasn't changed my feelings … you do know that, don't you?'

‘I do know, darling,' I said. Rather a risk, that ‘darling'. But I didn't want to admit to myself that it was a blatant lie. So I tried to kid myself. ‘And I'd love to come to Oxford,' I added. ‘Assuming I haven't stayed up the tree and started talking to the birds and turned into Doctor Dolittle,' I added.

He laughed. ‘And that's the other thing about you,' he said. ‘You're so funny.'

Felt rather bad not telling him that the Dolittle gag wasn't mine, but what the hell.

Meet his mother!
Funny, though, it didn't sound ‘meet my mother' in a ‘meet-my-mother-so-I-can-introduce-you-to-heras-my-latest-girlfriend' kind of way. It sounded more as if he thought the pair of old dears would get along just fine.

That whole conversation has made me feel pretty bleak. But there's no getting around it. It's one we had to have. Though where it leaves us now, I don't know.

Suddenly felt a bit creepy. I didn't like the way he referred to Archie as ‘that old guy'. Oh well. Try to put it out of my mind.

Tomorrow evening is the time when we're planning to do this tree thingy. I am getting extremely worried about it. I mean, could it be against the law? I'm sure it's not, but I
would really
hate
to be arrested and put in prison. I mean
really
hate.

Harry's hauling equipment has arrived, and apparently Ned and James have got this kind of platform they're going to haul up and nail to a couple of branches, and they're going to put a sleeping bag and a bottle of water and some chocolate bars up there as well. But they say I mustn't drink too much water in case I want to have a pee. They estimate I can go for twenty-four hours without going to the loo, and if I'm desperate I'll just to have to come down, rush behind a bush, and then whizz up again. (Since these days I have to rush to the loo every ten minutes at night, I'm not too sure about this, but I'll just have to cross my fingers. Not to mention my legs.) I'm not to eat anything, either, for obvious reasons, but again, I'm sure I can last twenty-four hours without anything to eat.