The Widow's Tale (8 page)

I
have bought myself a new car! Well, ‘new' might be stretching credibility, but certainly
different
. It was parked outside someone's house with a For Sale sign taped in the window when I drove past it this afternoon. And being offered at what seemed like a very reasonable price.

It's yellow and Japanese – a nation who, as well as being healthy eaters are, I'm sure, car manufacturers of great repute. Before I'd even knocked on the door to the house I think I'd probably decided to buy it. The vendor – Alan – seemed quite nonplussed by my enthusiasm. Perhaps he'd expected me to haggle. I had a little sit in it and straight away it just felt much better, size-wise, than John's Jag, so we shook on it and whilst it wasn't a huge sum of money it's more than I tend to carry around with me, so I had to drive over to Sheringham to find a cash machine.

On the coast road, just over the brow of a hill, I went flying past a speed camera. Slammed my brakes on, as one does in such situations. But even as I did so I was thinking that there was something distinctly hinky about it. Something not quite right.

Sheringham itself is a town full of old men hanging about outside shops waiting for their wives and generally cluttering up the pavements. But on my way back I got
a better look at the speed camera and laughed out loud when I realised. It's completely home-made. Apparently knocked up out of a few bits of plywood. Presumably, by some disgruntled local who's sick to death of cars speeding past the end of his drive. Something about the dimensions let it down – it's a tad too skinny. But the colour (probably the most important part of the deception) is quite convincing – the same canary yellow as my new car, which, for some reason, I took as a good omen.

Alan had just counted out the money on his kitchen table and I was all ready to head off in my new car when he pointed out that I wouldn't very well be able to drive both cars back on my ownsome. To be honest, I was half inclined to just leave him the Jag. But Alan had a little think and told me that if I didn't mind waiting a couple of hours, he'd happily drop it round when his wife got in from work. And at the agreed time my lovely little car pulled into the village car park, with Alan at the wheel and his wife in the car behind him. I must say that as he handed over the keys I couldn't help but notice his missus staring at me, as if she'd been told about this crazy woman who goes round buying old cars without taking them for test drives or haggling over the odd fifty quid.

After all that excitement I decided that a little cat nap was in order and, for once, woke up feeling quite peaceful and rested. I have no idea how I achieved this. It seemed to have happened almost by accident. Even as I marvelled
at my condition I fully appreciated that it wouldn't/couldn't possibly last. That, within a matter of minutes, my old neuroses would re-establish themselves, etc. But it gave me hope that there might be a point sometime in the future when that sense of equilibrium might last for hours, even days at a time.

I
bought a couple of the Sunday newspapers this morning, primarily for the crosswords, but also to provide me with sufficient distraction on what has so far been a day of perpetual rain. Unfortunately, having had a first stab at the crosswords and a cursory flick through the magazines I made the mistake of pausing briefly at the Lonely Hearts section which did nothing to improve my mood.

I can honestly say I’ve never previously read, or even considered reading that particular section. And I can’t come up with any reasonable explanation as to why I looked at it this morning. Curiosity, I suppose. And curiosity directed more towards the female entries, rather than anything to do with what was on offer, man-wise – perhaps just to see how the contemporary woman presents herself.

Well, I have to say that the news is pretty depressing. Despite the fact that most of the women are, by their own admission, in their forties, fifties and sixties the tone is relentlessly and exhaustingly upbeat. The word ‘fun’ jumps out from almost every entry, along with every possible variation, such as ‘sparkly’ … ‘vivacious’ … ‘feisty’ … etc.

To be fair, with only four lines in which to present
your case one can’t help but be a little reductive. And I’m not sure quite what adjectives I’d use to describe myself right now. (‘Unhinged’ … ‘desolate’ … ‘heavy drinker’?) But who in their right mind would kick off their list with ‘Sexy’? Or even, excuse me, ‘Foxy’? I was under the impression that foxiness had been laid to rest some time in the 1970s.

The entire page, it seems to me, smacks of desperation. Or worse, subjugation. The acronyms don’t help. It eventually occurred to me that ‘WLTM’ in all likelihood stood for ‘Would Like To Meet’. But ‘TDH’ … ‘SOH’ … ‘LTR’? And ‘GSOH’?? They remind me of those idiotic things we used to write on the envelopes of love letters, such as S.W.A.L.K. But in our defence we were probably about eleven years old at the time.

Euphemisms abound. ‘Petite lady’ is, I imagine, meant to imply ‘
on the short side
’, but hints at being a little bit French. ‘Rubenesque’ presumably means curvaceous, and possibly even ‘
the larger lady
’, but suggests that given the right circumstances she might be talked into lying naked on your settee. Sadly, in such exotic company, the few women who try to maintain a little dignity come across as simply frumpy. What, I wonder, is the shorthand for ‘I have a PhD’? Possibly plain ‘
PhD
’. But I doubt that’s going to fill your mailbag. Not when you’re competing with women of the foxy and Rubenesque variety.

Romance, it seems, is not dead. It’s merely dated. All country walks and fireside chats. Now, as I’ve already noted, I currently do a fair bit of walking. But I can’t say
the saltmarshes are exactly chock-a-block. Most days there are fewer than a handful of other figures between me and the horizon, which is just how I like it. Most people, I would guess, are probably at home, watching the telly. Or shopping. Or down the pub. I’m not making any judgement. People can do what they like. My only point is that when presenting themselves in a Lonely Hearts column people will always revert to what they think is expected of them. Clearly, people who read that page are looking for Romance. And what do Romantic People do? Go for Long Country Walks and have Candlelit Dinners. Followed, of course, by a Fireside Chat. Come to think of it, that pretty much sums up my day right now. Minus the Chat and the Candlelight.

Friends and acquaintances have recently begun to enquire, sotto voce, whether I might ever consider leaving myself open to meeting ‘someone new’. The word ‘companionship’ is offered up, like some wafer of hope. But if all I’d wanted was a companion I’d stick to Plan A and get myself a dog.

I’ve witnessed Ginny and other single women discussing prospective partners and it’s pretty discouraging. Within seconds the conversation turns into a pretty crude assessment as to what proportion of the man’s hair and teeth remain. The implication being that, unless you make a supreme effort, or Lady Luck happens to be smiling down on you, you’re likely to end up with something resembling a cadaver.

The funny thing is, if it’d been the other way around
and I’d gone first I’m sure John would’ve got remarried in next to no time. If anyone would’ve had him. And, strangely, I think someone would. John was one of those men who never quite understood women – he just knew that he needed one about the place. It wasn’t even that he was incapable of doing the cooking and cleaning. No doubt in my absence he would’ve had a bit of a shock and probably appreciated me a little more. But within a couple of months he would have got to grips with most things. And the things he couldn’t be bothered doing he would’ve paid someone else to do. Female company for him was simply an anchor. A point to fix his compass by.

Actually, I’ve just this minute worked out what LTR stands for. Presumably, Long-Term Relationship. Although I have to say that it’s a little beyond me how anyone can make a public announcement that they are seeking an LTR with someone they’ve yet to meet.

A
couple of days ago I was driving through a village just to the west of here and spotted what appeared to be quite a decent-looking restaurant in some old manor house. I pulled up at the gates, had a glance at the menu and thought that perhaps I was due a bit of a treat.

I’ve been eating an awful lot of cheese on toast/tins of soup lately. Admittedly, not a diet that’s likely to kill me, but not likely to bring me into contact with many fresh vegetables either. Not unless you count the bits I occasionally spot floating in my soup. So yesterday I pulled on the boots I bought in Holt the day before yesterday and headed out onto the saltmarshes in the twilight, with my trouser legs rolled up, to stop them dragging in the mud, and a pair of smart shoes in my bag, to change into when I got there.

It can’t have been more than about thirty or forty minutes before I was turning off the path and heading into the village and with just about enough light left for me to make my way. Then I slipped into the local pub and sat by the fire with my little pre-prandial and did the crossword for half an hour or so. So that by the time I tramped up the gravel drive to the restaurant it must have been about 6.30 or getting on seven.

I leant against a tree whilst I changed my shoes. There
wasn’t any obvious thing to do with my boots, so I just tied the laces together and slung them over a drainpipe on the side of the manor house, and made my way towards the light. I hadn’t bothered making a booking, what with it being a weekday in late January, and the girl at the door to the restaurant looked a little surprised to see me emerge from the dark.

‘Just you?’ she said. As if a single diner might not quite justify them waking the chef or turning on those great big ovens.

‘Just me,’ I said.

This provoked a good deal of fussing with the diary, despite the fact that not one of the twenty or so tables had anyone sitting at them. And when I declined her offer of a spot slap-bang in the middle of the dining room, like some bloody ornament, and requested a table by the window, there was even more consternation and flapping about.

To be fair, the food was perfectly fine – all stacked and drizzled in the obligatory manner. And I had two or three glasses of a Sancerre which smoothed everything out very nicely indeed. Eating on one’s own can be a tricky business. The few times I’ve ventured out alone since John died I’ve taken a book along with me. As a rule, reading at the table is still considered to be bad form, but if you’re on your own you do actually need something to occupy yourself or you’re simply condemned to gawping around the room like an idiot or examining the tablecloth. It’s not a problem when there’s some food before you. It’s all the
waiting around in between.

I was about halfway through my duck confit when a couple came swanning in, him in his mid-forties and her a bit younger. I got the feeling that they were probably guests in the hotel, but this didn’t seem to help put them at their ease. The British still haven’t quite got to grips with the whole waiting-on/being-waited-on business. There is obviously untold cultural and emotional baggage stretching right back to the days of ‘service’, as well as all the usual hang-ups to do with class. Many waiters/waitresses are clearly uncomfortable being at someone else’s behest, as if it’s infra dig. And about the same proportion of customers, if not more, are so intimidated by the situation that they either tend towards a sort of awful fawning – as if they want to be best friends with the waiter – or overcompensate for all their insecurities and end up being plain rude.

By the time I’d finished my main course the bloke on the other table was getting his knickers in a terrible twist about how to pronounce ‘roulade’ or ‘
bois boudran
’ and starting to take his embarrassment out on his girlfriend/wife. So I made the internationally recognised sign for ‘Bill, please’ – the mid-air squiggle – and got out of there just as fast as I could.

The moment I stepped outside the cold hit me. And it really was very, very dark. I had an old torch I’d found in the cottage, but had forgotten to bring a hat, so I headed off down the drive at quite a lick, just to try and get the blood pumping round my body and must have
been a good five minutes out onto the saltmarshes when I remembered my hiking boots strapped to the side of the hotel.

I stopped – was sorely tempted to turn around and go back and fetch them. I stood there, dithering, in the cold and dark. Then I thought that if I didn’t keep moving, with all that booze inside me, I might very well freeze to death. So I left my poor old boots to fend for themselves and vowed to retrieve them first thing in the morning, and pushed on with my nocturnal hike.

I once saw a list of all the lives lost on the mountains of the Lake District. And whilst one might be inclined to think that most deaths on, say, Scafell or Helvellyn would be due to people slipping and falling, I was rather startled to see the word ‘benighted’ attributed to so many of them. It’s such a beautiful word, with such sinister associations. You stay out too late, or lose your way and slowly realise that the light is fading and that you’re not going to have enough time to get home that night. You sit. The mist settles around you. The temperature drops and slowly drags yours down with it. You close your eyes and begin to slip away.

Well, I wasn’t halfway home when the torch’s beam began to wane. At first I felt reasonably confident that it would see me back, but within another couple of minutes the damned thing had conked out completely and the word ‘benighted’ began to rattle round my head. I stumbled on for a little way before it occurred to me that I hadn’t the faintest idea where I was going. I turned
around a couple of times, to try and get my bearings. There was no moon. No lights from any houses – or no obvious way of distinguishing those from a dwelling from something out at sea.

It was partly the drink, no doubt, but my head was now so cold it was as if it had been clamped in a vice. And I kept thinking of that point on the path where it suddenly drops by four or five feet, as it leaves the raised bank. So that I became convinced that I was about to go sailing off it and end up in a heap. And, all in all, I began to get myself in quite a state.

Darkness – real darkness – has a weight and texture to it. As if it might suffocate you. It seems ridiculous now, but I really did not have a clue how the hell I was going to find my way back to my cottage. It was as if I’d just been cast out into oblivion.

I was down on my hands and knees by this point. Couldn’t tell whether the ground over which I was crawling was actually the path or just plain marsh. For some reason I’d removed my shoes – perhaps I was convinced I was going to lose them – and held one in each hand. Could feel my stocking feet and knees soaking up the wet as I crawled along. I carried on like that for quite a while. Like some animal, grubbing in the dirt. I was becoming increasingly freaked out by the situation. Was beginning to hyperventilate. Until, quite out of the blue, I felt this great ball of outrage rise up in me. There was no getting in its way. It came boiling up and quite overwhelmed me. And before I knew it I let out this
almighty roar.

I really did make quite a racket. When I’d done, I let my head hang down between my shoulders, werewolf-style. Then I got to my feet, looked around, and made a snap decision as to which way was seaward, adjusted my course accordingly, and within two or three minutes saw the lights of the village up ahead.

When I finally got back under the streetlamps I began to appreciate just how much of the saltmarshes I’d brought back with me. But I held my head up as I marched back to the cottage. If anyone happened to encounter me they would just assume that I was some marshland monster. The same one they’d heard roaring ten minutes before.

Back home I changed, emptied a full scuttle of coal onto the fire and slumped in front of it. I kept nodding off, but was loath to go to bed until I was certain I’d warmed myself right through to my bones. And when I woke again it was about six o’clock, with me curled up on the sofa.

Actually, sleeping through till six is quite an achievement. But the first thing to enter my head was my poor old boots, still hanging from their laces on the side of the hotel. So I got in the car and drove straight over to the restaurant, without even having a cup of tea. I parked at the gates and went scuttling from tree to tree, to avoid walking up the gravel drive. Then there they were, still hanging on the wall like some weird piece of voodoo. And both of them covered in a fine frost.

They now sit propped up before the fire. The guilt still
nags away at me. Despite the fact that walking boots are meant to be particularly hardy and never happier than when they’re out in the elements. I can’t help but detect in their demeanour all sorts of trauma and resentment. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever have the heart to take them out of doors again.