Authors: Grace Wynne-Jones
The tin is cornered. I shake it to check it’s really empty,
then I take it back to my seat. I put it in my carrier bag, along with my software course manual and notebook, an empty packet of crisps and
No Need to Panic: Courageous Acts of Change in Women’s Lives.
I stare dully out the window. Suburban homes are flashing
by. Homes of couples – some of whom are closing their bedroom curtains. Oh, the safety of it – and the danger too.
‘That was me once,’ I think. ‘Look at me now, grateful for a few easy words from a stranger. What am I becoming? I
hardly know him. I hardly like him for God’s sake!’ I feel the
panic rising.
‘Oh God, please don’t let me become the kind of woman
who settles for just a warm body.’ I glimpse a mother tucking
in her child.
‘Let me not be driven to one-night stands with men over
for rugby internationals.’ I’m mouthing the words silently,
like a mantra. ‘Let me believe in love again. Please.’
A man in the front seat has started to hum. I can’t make
out the tune at first, then I recognise it. It’s ‘When They Begin
the Beguine’. He’s off key and a bit drunk. Every so often he
belches.
My dad liked that song. I haven’t heard that song in ages.
They had guts and style, those old songs. A form, a feeling
you could turn to. I remember the black-and-white photo of
Mum and Dad and Aunt Bobs and Uncle Sammy outside
the Metropole, the four of them dressed up for a dance. It’s strange to think they’re all gone now – even the building. I have so many old photos. So many faces that I saved from the black plastic bags. One day I must sort them – put them
into albums. I must.
I can see the face of the man who’s humming. It’s reflected
in the window. He’s got his eyes half-closed and his shirt
half-open. His expression is soft and dreamy. Soon I’m
dreaming too.
I’m dancing alone and then…then someone comes along
and I stop.
He’s hugging me. I feel I know him so well.
He’s burying his face in my hair and pressing me so close.
As if I’m someone precious.
As if we’ve both been waiting for this moment for a long,
long time.
‘The thing you have
to realise about men,’ says Susan, ‘is they’re all married.’ It’s Saturday morning. We’re in Charlie’s sitting-room eating freshly made white toast which, after all the wholesome wholemeal bread I’ve been having lately, is a great treat. I dashed down to the shop earlier to buy the freshest, most fibreless loaf I could find.
‘Of course they’re not all married,’ I say between munches. ‘It’s statistically impossible. Anyway, Charlie isn’t married. That’s one for starters.’
‘You know what I mean.’ Susan is not pleased at being denied the pleasure of her sweeping generalisation. ‘Once you get to our age most of the men we meet are married.’
‘Or engaged.’
‘Very few of them are engaged, Jasmine. Eoin is obviously a late-starter.’
‘Women don’t talk like this in America.’ I’ve always found this a comforting assumption.
‘Yes they do. They talk like this everywhere.’
‘No they don’t,’ I persist. ‘Remember those fortysomethings we met in California? They were all changing careers, and men, and going to Alaska or Hawaii or someplace. They were as happy as clams.’
‘How do you know clams are happy?’ Susan asks peevishly. ‘That’s a very American remark.’
‘Look, are you trying to make some point here?’
‘Well,’ Susan looks a bit furtive. ‘Actually, I suppose I am
in a way.’
‘And what is it?’
‘I don’t want you to completely dismiss the idea of going
back to Bruce.’
I glower at her. ‘I haven’t completely dismissed it. I think
about it a lot.’
‘Good. I’m glad to hear it.’
I look out the window at Rosie. She’s lying on her side in
her pen resting in the sunshine. Rosie rests a lot.
‘I don’t like this picture you’re painting, Susan.’ I chomp
my toast feistily.
‘I’m not painting any picture.’
‘Yes you are. You’re trying to make out that I’m facing
a lonely, loveless life brightened only by one-night stands
with men over for rugby internationals – if any of them will
have me.’
‘I never said anything about rugby internationals,’ Susan
protests.
‘Have you any idea what it’s like? Discovering that your
husband has been fucking someone in your own bed?’
‘I should imagine it’s pretty awful.’
‘Yes it is. So ease up on the easy advice. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Because you’ve no idea what it’s like.’
‘Okay. Okay. You’ve made your point.’ Susan is buttering herself another slice of toast. So much for our war on
cellulite.
‘That’s what Bruce says to me. He says, “Come back
Jasmine, you’ve made your point”.’
‘Well, maybe you have.’ Susan is sitting in the lotus position. She’s much better at yoga than me. She’s getting
a
ll philosophical now and I’m not sure I can stand it. ‘Lots
of marriages survive infidelity, Jasmine.’
‘Really. So when did you become such an expert on the
subject?’
A pained expression flits for an instant across Susan’s face.
Then she looks at me sternly. ‘We’re talking about you, not
me. I know you won’t like me saying this, but sometimes I
think all this isn’t just to do with Cait Carmody. Sometimes
I think something else is going on too.’
‘Oh, do you? Well that’s a great help, Susan. That really
is. Could you tell me what it is? I’d really like to know.’
Then I stomp into the kitchen and get the box of Snack
bars Charlie bought the other day. He knows I like them and
they’re cheaper in boxes. ‘When you buy in bulk you eat in
bulk’ as my father used to say.
Susan follows me into the kitchen and finds me tearing off
a wrapper. ‘We’re not going to attract too many men over for rugby internationals if we pig out like this.’ She smiles and reaches into the box. ‘I’m sorry if I upset you.’
Susan is looking rather miserable. In fact now that I think
about it, she’s been miserable all morning.
‘What’s wrong Susan?’
‘Nothing’s wrong.’
‘Yes, something is.’
Susan’s eyes are dull and her mouth is curled down
at the corners.
‘No. No. It’s nothing.’
‘Come on. You can’t fool me.’
‘Oh, all right. It’s Charlie.’ She releases this information
most reluctantly.
‘What’s Charlie done?’
‘He’s not done anything. That’s the point. When we went
to that film it was so obvious.’
‘What was obvious?’
‘That he doesn’t fancy me. At one point I tried to take his
hand but…Oh, Jasmine…’
‘What?’
‘He pretended he was looking for something in his pocket.’
Susan takes a forlorn bite out of her Snack bar at the
memory.
‘Oh, Susan.’ I put my arms around her. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s all right.’ Susan gives me a brave grin. ‘He was very
nice otherwise. Dating’s not easy at our age, is it? Explaining
yourself to people over and over again. Sometimes I wish I’d
married Eddie Moran and got it all over with.’
‘Not Eddie Moran.’ I’m aghast.
‘He was rich. I could have got away from him. Trips abroad. Days spent in hairdressers.’
I’m staring at Susan as though she’s just grown two
heads. ‘Susan, I’m gobsmacked. I – I can’t believe you’d
exchange all those years abroad for marriage to a man who sang “I Did It My Way” off-key every time he got drunk.’
‘I get lonely.’
‘Well so do I, but I think we have to practise some
discernment here. I mean, if men didn’t have penises, would we really bother with them? Sometimes I think I’ll just buy
myself a nice big vibrator and make do with that.’
‘Oh, Jasmine,’ Susan giggles. ‘That’s not fair. There are
some nice men around but most of them are married.’
‘Oh, no – we’re not back on that again!’ I’m beginning to
wonder if Katie isn’t on to something with her lesbianism
after all.
Then Susan says she has to go. She’s got a lunch date with a man who put an ad in the personal columns of the
Evening
Herald.
She announces this just as she leaves.
Why do I sense there’s something Susan’s not telling me?
It’s been there all morning – hanging in the air.
As Susan drives away I realise that staying in this house
with Charlie and his music must be getting to me. As the
door creaks closed it sounds rather like the opening bars of
Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’.
Katie’s coming to stay
this weekend. I’ve been asking her for ages, but now that she’s agreed I’m in a tizz. She’s bringing Sarah, the friend she’s sharing a flat with. Charlie’s house is
big enough for them both to have their own rooms. I think
it’s best that they have their own rooms.
One of the rooms is used for storage, so clearing it has been quite hard work. When I was moving a box some photos fell out of a blonde woman with small breasts and brown pubic hair. In most of them she was reclining dreamily on a bed, but in one she was looking over a balcony onto a beach. ‘Greece – August 1980’ was written on the back.
Charlie wanted to move the stuff for me, but I said I wanted
to move it myself. So he went off and made a phone call and
then came back just as I was lugging a huge wooden crate full of skiing equipment.