Wise Follies (33 page)

‘I’m glad to hear that, Alice,’ she says sternly. ‘Because, frankly, the last part of it doesn’t make any sense.’

I don’t reply.

‘I mean the bit about saving frogs was interesting. And the neon tetras sound nice, if you like tropical fish. But really Alice, suggesting that women pester men who have no interest in them. And why bring Colin Derling into it?’ She’s flicking through the pages of my article impatiently. Every so often she looks up at me with narrowed eyes.

‘Annie told you about Eamon, didn’t she?’ I sigh. ‘I know you had lunch together recently.’

‘What?’

‘I saw you together in that café down the road. Annie told you that Eamon has asked me to marry him. I know she has. I can almost hear her telling you, “She can’t marry him, Sarah. We’ve got to do something about it.’”

Sarah stares out the window.

‘You two have always tried to manage me romantically – you even did it when we were in college,’ I continue indignantly. ‘That’s why you’ve been sending me off on these stupid assignments. You’ve been trying to matchmake me with some – some stranger.’

Sarah stops shuffling the papers. She looks embarrassed for about half a second before announcing, ‘Really, Alice! What a suggestion.’

‘It’s true. I know it is,’ I protest. ‘Well, I’ll tell you something, Sarah. It hasn’t worked.’

‘Look, Alice,’ Sarah gives me a flinty glare. ‘You of all people should know that I usually have very little patience with this kind of insubordination. In fact, if you were anyone else I’d…’ She leaves the sentence unfinished and fiddles with her lavender pot-pourri. ‘But since I know all this is very unlike you,’ she continues slowly, ‘I’ll overlook it just this once. I’ll see it as the small cry for help – which I think it may well be. But if you argue with me about your next assignment, Alice, I’m going to have to take a very firm stand.’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ I agree gratefully.

‘So I won’t even tolerate one word of remonstration when I ask you to have one thousand words about…’

‘Oh, dear God,’ I think. ‘She’s going to ask me to date a transvestite.’

‘One thousand words about herbs and their culinary uses by tomorrow morning.’

I am dumb with bliss.

‘Oh yes, and I need an interview for the next issue,’ she continues briskly. ‘Any suggestions?’

Somehow the first person who comes to mind, almost instantly, is Laren Brassière.

Back at my desk, I try to be busy, though initially I don’t seem to get much done. Of course, looking back I’ll probably see this is not the case. ‘Life is a Process’ – I wrote an article called that once. It was about how you should give yourself credit along the way and not only when things were all wrapped up – if they ever are. It was wise, but now I can hardly believe I’m the woman who wrote it. It’s not enough to know things, you seem to have to remind yourself of them over and over again.

‘A thought is only a thought and can be changed,’ I think, glad to have remembered something from Louise L. Hay’s
You Can Heal Your Life
. Dear God, I even dusted behind the lavatory bowl for him.

Thank God for tarragon, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. By the end of the day I’ve finished the article. I even nipped home to fetch my herbal reference book at lunchtime. I worked really hard on it. I hope Sarah will be pleased.

On the bus home from work I decide to try for a little James Mitchel sob. I want to forget about him fast, and this may help. Buses are good places for weeping. Especially on the top deck, if it isn’t too full. You can sort of stick your face right by the window and shade your crumpled features with a strategically placed hand. There’s a satisfying poignancy about it. But I don’t cry. I can’t. I haven’t cried for ages now. I don’t know why.

Mira, however, is crying when I get home. Big blubbering sobs on the sofa. ‘What is it?’ I ask, alarmed. She just looks down at the carpet dejectedly. ‘What is it?’ I repeat, putting my arm around her. She leans against me, her face blotched and bewildered.

‘I, I saw Frank,’ she mumbles.

‘Where?’

‘In the California Café.’

‘Did you have lunch together?’

‘No. He was with someone else.’

‘His wife?’

‘No. Alfreda.’

‘Who’s Alfreda?’

‘The woman he’s living with,’ she announces wearily, reaching for a Kleenex. ‘Now I know why these are called man-sized.’

Little by little it emerges that Frank has left the wife and daughter he would ‘never ever leave’. Not for Mira at any rate. She’s known this for some months. That’s why she tore up Frank’s last letter. The letter telling her about Alfreda and his new-found love.

‘Why didn’t you tell me all this before?’ I ask, aghast.

‘I just didn’t want to…it was so, so humiliating. He said he’d never leave his wife, Alice. Never. I almost didn’t believe he had until – until I saw…them.’ She says ‘them’ in a very sinister fashion. As though Frank and Alfreda have merged to form some sort of despicable slithery beast.

‘Oh, poor Mira.’ I rub her back comfortingly.

‘The little shit.’ She spits the words out like a snake.

‘Yes, absolutely, the little shit,’ I agree. ‘Punch that cushion, Mira. Get it out.’

‘I don’t feel like it.’ She seems tired suddenly.

‘Well, what do you feel like doing then?’

‘I dunno.’ She pulls the tassel of a cushion absent-mindedly. ‘James Mitchel turned out to be a bit of a bollocks too, didn’t he? Poor Alice. You must be so disappointed.’

I look at Tarquin, who is as usual anxious to be fed. ‘I don’t know if I’d call James Mitchel a “bollocks” actually, though I’m sure Cyril would.’

Mira manages a hollow laugh.

‘He never really led me on,’ I continue resignedly. ‘Though I desperately wanted him to. It was a bit Jane Austen really. But without the marriages. Anyway, I don’t think I ever really believed I’d get him. Not deep down.’

‘I found him much too solemn,’ Mira remarks with the sisterly bias we often use in such situations.

‘Yes, he didn’t seem to have much of a GSOH,’ I concur. ‘And Tarquin didn’t like him. Did you notice the way he sloped off as soon as he arrived?’

‘And his socks were an extraordinary shade.’ Mira wrinkles her nose with distaste.

‘Absolutely,’ I agree. ‘And what’s more, that box of After Eights he gave me was past its sell-by date.’

‘Well, there you have it,’ Mira announces authoritatively. ‘He’s obviously not a Wonderful Man.’

I smile at her gratefully, wishing I could share her conviction, but my smile fades as I see her tense, disappointed face. She’s looking so sad. I wish I could say something wise. Something uplifting. I wish I could offer some insights, but I’m just as mixed up about love as she is. ‘Mira, I really admire you,’ I decide to say.

‘Why?’ she looks at me disbelievingly.

‘The way you’ve been getting on with your life. Taking up new interests. Though you may miss Frank, he didn’t deserve you.’

‘Mmmm – wish I could believe that,’ she sighs.

‘You must Mira,’ I say earnestly. ‘If you don’t appreciate yourself how can you expect anyone else to? We both need to do more of that, Mira. Give ourselves more credit. I myself am far too self-critical. I know that because I frequently criticize myself for it. After all, Jesus did say “love thy neighbour as thy self”.’

Mira smiles wanly. Good, I’m cheering her up. It will take time for her to get over Frank, but I think she will. She’s already looking a little less miserable. In fact, she’s just looked at her watch and announced, ‘Gosh, we’re missing Colin.’

And indeed, dear Colin Derling is on the television again talking excitedly about brassicas. We are soothed by his calm eagerness. The steady purposefulness of his words. We rest deeper in the sofa, like travellers after a long and weary journey. And for half an hour Frank and James Mitchel seem very far away. Almost inconsequential. Almost a half-forgotten melody. Sweet but not insistent. Something from very long ago.

Chapter
27

Mira and I are
laughing in the sturdy manner favoured by romantic veterans. We watched the film
Truly Madly Deeply
on the television last night and sobbed so dramatically it seems to have cheered us up. In fact, we have spent a most entertaining Saturday morning wondering if we should play some prank on Frank and his new love, Alfreda. We’ve even considered telling the members of the South Seas Club that Frank is kindly providing his new apartment as the venue for the next bi monthly beach party. We have also been scouring an erotic catalogue that arrived at the magazine. We thought it might be fun to order their most outlandish items and hand deliver them to his office. They’d be in an unsealed box marked ‘Sexual Accessories – Every Fetish Catered For. Strictly Private and Confidential.’ How the women at reception would titter. They’d peer into it, of course. It would become part of the company’s folklore. I was even prepared to get some friends to keep ringing his personal number. ‘Hello, is Mira there?’ they’d ask. After some days I myself would phone and say, ‘I’m ringing on behalf of Mira. She wants to know if there are any messages for her.’ That would have been a good one.

In the end, Mira decides not to go through with these pesterings. Instead, she’s going to send him a succinct note in his own handwriting. She’s cut out some words from the many passionate missives he’s sent her. ‘Frank, you are a SHIT,’ they read. The last word has to be cobbled together from individual letters and really stands out. We look at it with considerable gratification, then I accompany her as she posts it. Afterwards, we go to the California Café and have cappuccinos and two large slices of carrot cake. I have to check before we go in to make sure Frank and his new love Alfreda aren’t sitting cosily in a corner. In some way our little escapade has soothed me too. Provided an outlet for some of the anger I’ve been feeling towards Matt. I still can’t quite believe that he whipped James Mitchel from right under my nose. He sent me a huge bunch of flowers the other day and I brought them round to Mrs Peabody. I couldn’t look at them.

‘Please don’t hate me’ – he’d written on the note that came with the flowers. I tore it up. I do hate him. At the moment anyway. I’m so used to being able to turn to him. To confide in him. But I can’t very well ring him up and say, ‘Matt, a horrible man has stolen James Mitchel from me at my own dinner party. In fact, now I come to think about it, that horrible man is you.’

Added to all this emotional baggage is my growing concern about Mira. Matt’s disloyalty and James Mitchel’s defection have made me even more aware that she might feel abandoned if I marry Eamon. We are a couple in a way. A team. I know she’d want to stay on in the cottage if I left. She once said she’d buy it from me if I ever wanted to sell it. I wonder if she’d advertise for a housemate. I wouldn’t like her to be all on her own.

‘Mira, would you mind if I married Eamon?’ I ask as we sit in the California Café together. The bluntness of her note to Frank seems to have put us both into a straight-talking mood.

‘Of course I wouldn’t. I’d be pleased for you,’ she replies reassuringly. ‘He’s a very nice man.’

‘Yes, you’ve always liked him, haven’t you?’ I say, remembering how comfortably they’ve chatted together anytime he’s visited. He’s never silent with her for some reason. ‘What is it you like about him?’ I look at her hopefully.

‘He’s sincere, Alice,’ she answers. ‘He’s kind, and attractive. And he can be very interesting.’

‘Very interesting in what way exactly?’ I probe, beginning to wish I saw his attributes as clearly.