Virtual Strangers (23 page)

‘Oh, I’m not in the least worried about that. I half wish he didn’t.’

‘But is he nice, dear? That’s the nub of it. Is he? And why is this green - is it pea?’

‘Gooseberry. And, God, yes. He
is
nice. He’s - well, he’s- well, he’s everything, really. Tallish, dark, certainly, and handsome-ish, charming. No. Scrub handsome-ish. He’s beautiful. And scrub charming. Charming’s too pat. He
has
charm - you know? In that he doesn’t
know
he has it. And he’s considerate, and thoughtful and intelligent and, well -

‘Oh,
him
,’ she says. ‘That Jeremy Paxman off the wireless. You could do a lot worse.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Not
him
. Someone else. He’s called Adam. He’s not on the radio at all.’

‘There you go, then,’ she says, picking pips from the gooseberry jam. ‘Adam and Eve. A bad lot, she was.’

‘Oh,
you
, Minnie Drinkwater,’ says a nurse, coming over. ‘Crumbs in the bed again. What are you
like
?’

‘Money and fair words, if you must know, young woman.’

‘She’s a poppet, your Gran,’ she adds, turning to me. ‘A lovely old lady. No trouble to anyone.’

Which, as she hasn’t got any anyone to trouble, is really just as well, I suppose.

When I leave, as always, I feel one hundred percent better. Our conversations, like gas molecules, touch only randomly, but despite this, I know we connect in some way. And there is nothing like have someone like Minnie in your life to put problems into their proper perspective. I step out into the hospital’s main corridor; a long pastel spine connecting all the city’s ills. I catch a glimpse of a sign that points the way to Dermatology. Does Adam realise, I wonder, just how far under my skin he’s got?

‘Hello,’ says a voice. I turn around.

And it’s him.

And he’s walking my way. As he would be, knowing my luck.

I can do this, of course. There’s no earthly reason why I can’t just have a brief , ordinary, banal conversation with him. One of us, after all, will end it, sooner or later; this corridor doesn’t go on for the rest of our lives, however much the analogy might appeal. The exit is still just a blur in the distance, but there’s the Day Surgery Unit, the canteen, the theatres - and all the other wards, any of which could be where he is headed. And if not, and it all becomes too hard to deal with, then I’ll just make a left, or a right, or whatever; there’s X-ray just there, and histology there, and further up, poignantly - family planning.

‘Hello,’ I say back. ‘What are you doing here?’ Helen Keller Ward. Admin. He clears his throat and then says,

‘Asthma clinic. Wednesdays. Are you visiting someone?’ I know he’s turned to look at me, but I daren’t look back.

‘Minnie,’ I say. ‘Minnie Drinkwater.’

‘Of course,’ he moves a sheaf of what look like patient notes from one arm to the other. His face is still angled towards mine as we walk. I can tell from the degrees of light and shade at the edge of my vision. ‘How’s she getting on now?’ he continues.

Pharmacy. Pharmacology. WRVS Shop. ‘Oh, okay, I think. She’s been up, she’s managing to get about a little on her frame, now.’

‘Uh-huh. That’s good. That’s good. Look, er...’

‘I took her some tarts. My father’s. Gooseberry. Apricot and Whiskey. Something purple. Dad did say. I lose track.’
God
. Phlebotomists. Marie Curie Ward. Fracture Clinic. Morgue.

‘Of course. Preserves. I remember. Er...Um.’ His face is back facing the way I prefer it. ‘And Rose? How’s Rose doing?’ And now it’s back again. Rats.

‘Um, er.’ (My turn.) ‘Her hysterectomy is next week. Oh, but you didn’t - or maybe you did - anyway, she -’

Somehow, I’ve been manoeuvred into having the sort of conversation that can’t help but involve the participants in looking at one another, and soon after, that I’ve stopped in the corridor and quite naturally made all the little gesticulations and facial expressions that generally accompany having a chat about someone’s operation with someone else about whose precise knowledge (and right to knowledge) of the details of that operation are actually quite unclear. Should I have simply said ‘women’s troubles’? Should I instead have just opted for ‘op’? But he’s nodding. And is also a doctor, after all.

‘Of course,’ he replies. (Third ‘of course’. Must be doctor speak, it’s so automatic. Doctor, I’m depressed/stressed /obsessed and should really know better. Of course. Of course, my dear. Of course.) Then he adds, ‘You’re going down to stay with her, aren’t you?’

I move off again. Pasteur Ward. Outpatient Toilets.

Go for Outpatient Toilets? But I should at least thank him. ‘Oh, yes,’ I say. ‘Thank you. It’s been a Godsend for me, your conference. You’re not skiing, I hear. Off to London instead.’

‘Hmm,’ he says, shifting the notes between arms again. Then silence, bar pulses. Lub dub, lub dub.

‘Something interesting, is it?’

Now
he’s
all eyes front. ‘Palliative care in the community for the twenty first century. It’s...um...look, Charlie -’

And then he sort of swivels. And stops.

Mould Room. What’s a mould room? Some sort of spore-ridden laboratory?

‘Ah!’ I say. ‘This is me now.’

His eyes follow mine. And then narrow.

‘In
there
?’

‘Ha, ha, ha. Oh, look! Here we are. There’s the exit!’

Followed by another. At some speed. My own.

‘Did she like them, then?’ asks my dad, when I return, irritable and churned up and with a rubber band headache. He’s made scones and a sponge cake and a big pot of tea. I’m beginning, I realise with no small measure of relief, to feel comfortable, pleased even, about having him around.

I plonk myself down and take the mug he holds out for me.

‘Wolfed them down. Every last one,’ I assure him.

‘Excellent stuff. You’ve a message from Dan - says he sent you an email. And that Rhys chap telephoned. I’ve left his number in the hall. Oh, and I hope you don’t mind but I’ve asked Hester for supper. She’s made a pot-pie, which she thought she could road-test on us three.’

Addendum. Grrrr. I’ll give him Hester for supper. In fact, no, will simply give supper a miss.

Take tea, wodge of cake, plus headache, to study. I’m in danger of Hester becoming a chronic irritant in my domestic balm. I am conscious also of a huge gulf beginning to gape in our respective expectation landscapes. Concerned that my father, as well as hoping for a wife substitute, is developing a sentimental yen for finding a mother substitute also. For
m
e. I have not the slightest objection to any amount of grandmother substitute type behaviours toward Ben (birthday cards, small gifts of cash, tolerance and kindness in the face of maternal strops etc.) But I manifestly do not require a new mother. Expect the domestic forecast to become changeable, turbulent, force ten, gales expected. In short, I expect the worst.

And I
did
expect the email. (Because, though cross, I had crossed my fingers.) Which reads;

[email protected]

Dear Charlie,

Yet another unsatisfactory encounter!

Truth is that yes, there is a conference and yes, I’m going (even speaking perhaps), but there is another truth, and that’s that I hadn’t originally intended attending the conference at all (if we went on every conference we had an opportunity to attend there would be a queue for the surgery that stretched way beyond Swansea). It was only when I found out about you and your trip to Canterbury that I decided I would perhaps go after all. The fact is that, given everything, I wasn’t altogether enamoured with the idea of the skiing trip this year, and, well, it seemed a perfect opportunity both to avoid it and to help you out at the same time. I have to go to the conference now, naturally, but I wondered if perhaps we could take the opportunity to meet up at some point? I don’t know what your schedule is, but I’m going to be in London from the Wednesday to Saturday. You, presumably, will be travelling back to Cardiff at some point during that time. Could we get together, perhaps? Would you meet me in London? Would you, at the very least, give it some thought?

No pressure. No rush. I’ll leave it with you.

Adamxxx

I mean. Bloody hell. What
is
a girl to do?

He simply isn’t taking the slightest bit of notice of anything I’ve said to him. I consider ringing Rose, of course, as if she’d have all the answers. But it just wouldn’t be fair. I have this picture of Rose in my head that I can’t seem to shift. She’s lying in bed - on her own because Matt’s in the garden on midnight pest patrol or whatever - and she’s imagining her own death. It’s so clear in my mind’s eye. She’s laying there - possibly stroking her abdomen - and she’s imagining what cancer would do to her body. Imagining her children attending her funeral, imagining - oh, it’s too awful to contemplate - which is why, I guess people try not to spend too much of their lives worrying about other people’s troubles - it’s just too awful. Anyway, the main thing is that I can’t ring Rose. My problems are way too trivial. Just love and hearts and stupid stuff like that.

But what the hell is it with him? What’s with the jocular tone? What’s with the ‘given everything’? What’s with the ‘unsatisfactory encounter’ nonsense? What’s with the ‘schedule’ crap? And how could he attach exclamation marks to such a serious business? Ha bloody ha. But it was a nervous reaction I suppose. Classic male unease with intimacy. And what’s with ‘could we get together perhaps’? Like we were a pair of old school chums and do lunch type stuff. As if! Forget it.

Click, click. Log on. Find the post room and send;

[email protected]

Dear Adam,

Don’t be ridiculous. No way. Okay? Yes, it’s been a godsend but, hey, there’s a limit.

Charlie.

I hesitate about kisses, as ever. Then add some. What the hell; observing moral propriety is all well and good and fine and so on but there’s no need to hammer it home so prissily all the time. But hey, there’s a thought. This is one of those times when what you’re supposed to do is to pretend to the person you are in love with (yep,
am
) that really you can’t stand the sight of them, and tell them to go and clear off and get out of your life, because you’ve got someone else and so on. Like in that film - when the dead beat Dad tells his son he doesn’t want him around. Do people do that? Do people really do that in real life? Are people
really
that unselfish? Is love really that unselfish? Am I, more to the point, really that unselfish? I would like to think so, but on the whole I doubt it.

It’s all a con anyway. All that crap about how if you love someone all you want is for them to be happy and that it doesn’t actually matter if them being happy involves you or not. All patent nonsense. All that ‘you go, I’ll be okay’ stuff is garbage.
Is
love ever like that? Guess with kids it probably is. Love of kids is so utterly unconditional. You just can’t help it. You don’t love your kids any less because they whizz off to Australia, do you? Minnie sure doesn’t. But partners stuff, romantic love - that’s so, so different. It’s selfish. It has to be. It’s all about genes. I don’t want Adam to be unhappy. Of course I don’t. But I don’t want
me
to be unhappy either.

When I go to see Minnie at the end of the week, I ask what
she
thinks re. what I have now whimsically come to think of as my Adam-love-tryst-thing. I am fully aware that this is of no more use than slaughtering sundry livestock and examining their entrails in order to divine the best course for the future of the planet etc., but in my current frame of mind I find I am able to understand that just because much of what Minnie says has no basis in logical thought processes, doesn’t mean there isn’t (at some deeper, reflexology/iridology/acupuncture /tiger’s bollocks/feng bloody shui-type level) a great deal of wisdom in the bizarre things she says.

I ask;

‘What should I do, Minnie? I’ve been telling myself that I could go and see him - have lunch or whatever - with the intention of talking things through - discuss our feelings and so on, and making him understand that it would be so much better if he just stopped emailing me and that we made a strenuous effort to avoid one another - I’ve been thinking long and hard about changing my job anyway, which would help - but the thing is, I know myself. I know agreeing to meet him will signify no such thing. Agreeing to meet him will just crank the whole thing up even more. I cannot believe that I will be able to spend more than half an hour in his company without either him trying to kiss me, or me thinking about how long it will be before he tries to kiss me and looking for all those little signs and so on, and then - well, I just know it would all turn into the very thing I’ve been dreading it turning into. Sex, Minnie, will be on the agenda. If not then, not there, it will
be
on the agenda. Of that I am utterly sure.’

Minnie smiles and arrests the progress of her third macaroon.

‘Sex?’ she says. ‘Sex? With a stranger? In
London
?’

‘He’s not a stranger, Minnie. I mean he was, as far as I knew initially, of course, but, no. Not a stranger, far from it. I’ve known him a long time. Liked him for a long time. Liked him as a person. As a friend. You know? And I don’t mean it quite like that. I don’t mean sex
then
, particularly. But just as a natural evolution if I let things go any further. D’you see?’ She looks blank. ‘ Okay. Yes, sex. Let’s talk about that scenario.’

She puts the macaroon down. ‘Let me tell you something, young lady. Last time I had sex that was just where
I
had it. Floating Discotheque, if I remember rightly.’

‘With your husband?’

‘Dear me, no. He was past all that years back. With an actuarial chap. At the Southern Area dinner cruise.’

‘On the Thames?’

‘On the floor of the cabin, by the galley.’

‘Really? When was this?’

‘Nineteen sixty eight.’

Ten years four months. I have computed that I can reasonably be expected to enjoy no more than ten years four months worth of sexually active life. I could, of course, meet another great love, get re-married, enjoy a rich and varied agenda of mutually satisfying sexual encounters commensurate with our age, flexibility, health status etc., but, masochistically, right now I prefer to believe the former. The former sounds scarily plausible for a divorcee about town like me. Christ - Minnie was married but still redundant in the bonking department before decimalisation. A sobering thought. Plus (and mainly, if I’m being
scrupulously
honest here) it is a deeply compelling argument for a full on shagathon with Adam in a Travelodge somewhere. Soon.