by Helen Kitson
Letters weren’t too bad; I had time to ponder my responses, even research the books and critics she mentioned. Meeting me in person could only be a disappointment. Denied the necessary time to structure my sentences, I feared I would panic, saying the first thing that popped into my head, however ridiculous. Better for Madeleine to hang on to her illusions, for if we met she would surely expect a “personality”: a Virginia Woolf or a Dorothy Parker. Thus I put her off with pretend commitments, until a point was reached where I had exhausted every possible exit route, and to continue to fob her off would have looked like rudeness.
Then, where would we meet? She lived some fifty miles east of me – not an insurmountable distance, but was the correct thing to suggest we meet up at some convenient midpoint, or would she expect me to travel to her? And if she travelled to me, I would feel even more compelled to be the person she wanted me to be; and if I let her down, she would rightly feel her time and money had been wasted.
Madeleine anticipated my reservations; some of them, at least. She wrote to say she was planning to visit Shropshire to research the writer Mary Webb with a view to post-grad study.
All very up in the air at the moment, she wrote, but as I’ll be in your neck of the woods anyway, it would be a shame if we couldn’t get together. I don’t want to sound like a mad stalker, but my PhD subject (if I get that far!! You know what funding’s like these days) is long dead, and it’d be great to meet a living writer!
So we agreed on a date, time and venue, and exchanged phone numbers in case of last-minute emergencies or weather-related delays.
For once the forecasters were correct. They predicted snow and it fell steadily during the evening before the day on which I was due to meet Madeleine. Several times I tried to phone her, but each time the phone kept ringing and didn’t even go through to voicemail. Surely she would never risk travelling in such uncertain weather. If the reports were accurate, the snow would continue to fall for another twenty-four hours. No one quite believed it; it was a good ten years since a disruptive amount of snow had fallen in our part of the world. Nevertheless, I felt it prudent to warn her that she ran a real risk of getting snowed in. I told myself she’d check the weather before setting off.
Hearing nothing back from her, I had to assume she was still intending to visit. I slung my green Kånken over my shoulder, Pushkin watching me with the level of disinterest only a cat can muster.
‘Shan’t be long,’ I assured her, having never been able to kick the habit of speaking to her as if she understood every word.
I was to meet Madeleine in a café – the quaint “Ye Olde Tea Shoppe” kind I hoped she’d find amusing. The sort of place where you can also purchase expensive silver-and-turquoise art jewellery made by a local craftsperson, and packets of every type of fruit and herbal tea imaginable. It wasn’t a place I frequented often, though whenever I did I always felt an urge to join the Women’s Institute or take up knitting. These urges tended to fade immediately I left the café.
I trudged through snow already several inches deep. I couldn’t believe Madeleine would turn up, but no one needed to know I was waiting for someone, nor would they assume I’d been stood up when my companion failed to arrive. I’d have a coffee, read the paper, then leave.
A couple of tables were occupied, but my favoured seat nearest the window was free. If the conversation dragged, we could pretend to be transfixed by the view of the steadily falling snow. I wasn’t sure why I’d arranged to meet her here. I could have invited her to my house, but I would have felt uncomfortable; I was so little used to visitors.
I’d deliberately arrived ten minutes early to give myself time to settle, to prepare myself for what had come to seem like a big deal. And yes, ridiculous as it sounds, the fact that Madeleine shared her name with my one great friend – the platonic love of my life, if you will – was a significant factor in the state of my nerves. It wasn’t, after all, a particularly common name.
The inevitable cappuccino ordered, I sat back and took a deep breath, telling myself she was probably as nervous as I, but hoping not, for the conversation would flow more easily if at least one of us felt relaxed.
The hands of the clock on the wall hit twelve. Any moment now… As if everyone’s watch were synchronised! As if she were really going to come.
I tried to avoid looking again at the clock, and when I finally sneaked a glance I saw it was nearly ten past. Surely, by now… I’d give it another ten minutes then assume the weather had defeated her.
And then a lone person entered the café, but not a young woman. A stupidly handsome man of twenty-three or so with a rucksack walked over to my table, hands stuffed in the pockets of his faded jeans, a diffident smile on the prettiest male face I’d ever seen.
‘You wouldn’t by any chance be Gabrielle Price?’ A deep voice, pleasing to the ear.
My heart literally skipped a beat. ‘I am,’ I admitted.
He bit his lower lip with enviably even white teeth. ‘I think you might be waiting for me.’
Confused as much by his clear blue eyes and male-model cheekbones as by what he said, I shook my head.
He slid on to the chair opposite me, dropped the rucksack next to his feet, and sat with his hands clasped on the table.
‘This is awkward,’ he said. ‘I mean, obviously I knew this would happen, but…’
I continued to gape at him, wondering what twilight zone I’d fallen in to.
He gave a low, tentative laugh. ‘Thing is, I’m Madeleine. I mean, I pretended to be. Your book’s dedicated to a Madeleine, and I thought maybe you’d be less likely to dismiss me as some kind of—’ Palms turned up, a helpless gesture that couldn’t fail to appeal. ‘And I thought if you knew I was a bloke, you’d be suspicious – you know – not want to meet me.’
It was an explanation of sorts, but I remained confused. Why go to so much trouble? It seemed bizarre at best and I was glad I hadn’t arranged to meet “Madeleine” at my house. And I will admit, had he been an unattractive man in his fifties, I’d probably have walked straight out. I did no such thing because this young man’s beauty left me stunned.
He held out his hand and grinned. ‘I’m Simon.’
I stared at the hand, afraid the simple act of touching his skin across the café table would propel me into the merciless pit of unrequited love (lust, if you prefer, but the end result is much the same).
He cocked his head to one side, tossing his blond fringe away from his eyes. ‘Shake hands? Please?’
I could have laughed the matter off, told him to think nothing of it. Instead, I put my hand in his, feeling as if I’d handed over my life to him.
Another soft, diffident laugh. ‘Guess I’d better order something.’
‘Guess you had.’
Hands cradling my cooling cup, I watched the waitress take his order, her manner very different from when she’d taken mine. Unfair, of course, that youthful beauty should be so bewitching, the rest of us invisible courtiers to these princelings and princesses. We’re programmed to admire things and people that please our eyes, so I didn’t resent the attention the waitress paid to my companion, irritated only by the fact that she probably assumed I was his mother. I was about the right age. The thought depressed me beyond reason. Simon was here only because I’d written a novel he admired, but I was vain enough to mind being written off as an unthreatening middle-aged woman by a slip of a girl with a ladder in her tights and wrinkles in her tiny black skirt.
I’m sure I didn’t imagine the extra wiggle she put into her walk when she finally consented to leave our table. I gazed at Simon evenly.
‘She fancies you. I expect you’re used to that.’
A quick shrug. ‘Not my type.’
‘Look, Simon, this is a most peculiar situation we find ourselves in and I still don’t understand your need for subterfuge. Or, indeed, what it is you want from me.’
‘Exactly what I said in my letters. I really am thinking about studying for a P
hD in literature, but I decided to take a year out to write a novel – or try to.’
‘Oh. I see.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not being romantic about it, honestly. I’ll give it a year. If it doesn’t happen, I’ll draw a line under the idea and settle down to being an academic, or get a proper job if the funding doesn’t work out.’
‘That’s very… single-minded of you.’
‘If I’m to be a writer, it’s got to be now or never. I’m not the type to spend the whole of my life writing unpublishable novels and getting more and more depressed about it. All or nothing.’
‘And you want my advice, I suppose? My pearls of literary wisdom?’
Again that endearing gesture of biting down on his lower lip. Finally, ‘That would be presumptuous. If, in any way, I could assist you in resuming your writing career—’
‘Oh, please! My day has been and gone.’
He frowned. ‘No, really.’
Was he offering himself as inspiration, amanuensis, writing partner? I pushed my cup away.
‘There are already far too many books on the market.’
‘Yeah, and most of them are rubbish, if you want my opinion.’
I wasn’t sure I did.
‘This is a nice village,’ he said, taking a sugar cube from the bowl on the table and crunching it in his mouth. ‘It’s oldy-worldy, but not chocolate box. Is it a large village or a small town? Either way, it feels real.’
‘What would you know about chocolate boxes with pictures on them?’ The only one I’d ever seen was the one my grandmother had used to store her jewellery.
He looked at me blankly. ‘It’s just an expression. The sort of pictures you get on greetings cards for old people.’
I sensed he was playing a role, although to what purpose I couldn’t guess.
‘It’s not only the elderly who are seduced by the twee and the sentimental,’ I said. ‘Go around any stately home and eventually you’ll hit the gift shop – pictures of the house printed on everything from erasers to chocolate wrappers, and very nasty and expensive they are too.’
‘Oh, well.’ A surly shrug. ‘Heritage is big business, isn’t it? God knows why, though. Most of the people buying gift shop tat would have been boot boys and kitchen maids if they’d been around two hundred years ago.’
He had some intelligence – he was a graduate, after all – and I had the awed respect for intellectual endeavour shared by many intelligent people who’ve missed out on a university education. But was he a good person, at heart? I was finding it hard to see beyond his angelic face, the casually-rumpled blond hair, his smooth skin and elegant fingers. I would have been more open with him if he’d looked ordinary. If I weren’t careful, I would say something regrettable and make a fool of myself. I’d known where I was with Russell, my ex. This was different territory entirely.
I caught the attention of the waitress and asked for another coffee. She took my order promptly, but her smile was for Simon. Credit where it’s due, he paid her little heed beyond a cursory glance, his eyes on my face, not hers. A silly little victory.
‘I wish I could start again,’ he said, taking another cube of sugar from the bowl and rolling it between his fingers. ‘I feel like I’ve made a bad impression – that you think I’m a bit of an idiot.’
I gave him a kindly smile, but didn’t disagree.
‘It’s nerves, that’s all,’ he said. ‘I never expected you’d agree to meet me, and by then it was too late to admit I was a bloke, and now I feel stupid.’
The waitress brought over my coffee. A little milky froth spilled into the saucer. ‘Sorry,’ she said, but didn’t wipe it up. Simon folded a paper napkin and inserted it between my cup and saucer to blot up the liquid.
‘Thank you,’ I said, oddly touched, but also feeling it was the sort of thing an attentive young man might do for his grandmother.
‘Whoever owns this place should tell their waitresses to treat every customer with equal courtesy.’
Was this thoughtful young man the real Simon, or was this part of his act?
‘I would have been the same at her age,’ I admitted.
‘Really?’ A smile dimpled his cheeks. ‘I sort of imagined you were the type to shut yourself away with books and pens, learning your craft.’
I snorted. ‘I was no Emily Brontë! Yes, I wanted to be a writer, but I was a very normal teenager.’ Had I been? And what was “normal” anyway? I hadn’t been a swot; equally I’d not been the wild type, too eager to grow up. A plodder in most respects. Dreamy, weepy, surly, resentful. The usual mix. Not clever or beautiful, both of which Madeleine had been.
‘You never married? I mean, none of my business, but… well, a lot of women do, don’t they?’
‘So do a lot of men, but it’s not compulsory.’
He blushed and looked down at the sugar cube dissolving in his saucer. ‘Sorry. It’s just… Well.’ He looked up. His hesitant smile and fading blush put me in mind of Millais’s paintings of children; the same suggestion of charming vulnerability. ‘Sorry.’
‘I never married because no one asked me.’ Now he would imagine me to be a dried-up virgin and so, my better judgement overruled by vanity, I added, ‘My last lover was married. The sort who’d never leave his wife.’ I hoped I didn’t sound bitter. If you take up with a married man, you can be almost certain it will end in defeat. Foolish to expect otherwise.
‘I hate men like that,’ Simon said with surprising vehemence. Had his father run off with another woman? Or was he just old-fashioned? I couldn’t be bothered to bring out the tired old line about it taking two to tango. Instead, I hauled on stage the other old chestnut: ‘When you get to my age, men are either married, or sour divorcees. Or just plain sour.’
‘You should choose younger lovers.’ His tone was matter of fact, though I tried my hardest to pick up any hint of flirtation. I told myself to stop thinking along those lines; that path led only to crushing disappointment, didn’t it?
‘I think none at all is the wiser course.’ I had little taste for going through the same old courtship rituals yet again. All that getting to know someone, deciding whether or not their little quirks and political opinions were those one could live with. Yet here I was, face to face with someone I hardly knew, wanting only to be the person he wanted me to be, hardly caring if his company would prove tedious in the long run. ‘And what about you, Simon? Do you have someone?’
He shrugged. ‘No one special. No one at all, really.’ The statement seemed to make him miserable and I wasn’t the sort to offer consoling platitudes.
This mulling over of our respective romantic situations put a damper on the conversation. He was probably keen to leave after what he must have found to be a dreary meeting. We would pay the bill and awkwardly go our separate ways and I would curse myself as I brooded over all the things I should have said; all the things I would have said if I’d been a braver woman.
‘There’s a lot of snow,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure I’d get here in time.’
‘You did, though.’ But how? This was England. A few flakes of snow and all the buses and trains stopped running. To have got here on time – to get here at all – seemed impossible for him to have managed.
‘Yes. But I’m not sure how I’ll get back.’
I walked with him to the station, dreading the moment when we must say goodbye, the pain I’d feel if he shook my hand again.
Please let him give me a kiss on the cheek, at least. His hands on my shoulders…
We learned that all trains in and out had been suspended from our little station since the previous afternoon. I gaped at Simon. He laughed.
‘I didn’t come on the train,’ he said. ‘When I saw it was impossible, I persuaded a taxi to bring me.’
‘From where, for God’s sake?’
‘Only from Shrewsbury.’ Eight miles. I didn’t believe him. The roads were so treacherous it was unlikely any taxi driver would have risked making such a journey.
I didn’t want to interrogate him – no harm had been done, after all – but I knew he wasn’t being straight.
‘I’ll have to put up at a B&B,’ he said.
‘As you must have known you would.’
‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve been stuck somewhere.’
It wasn’t fine. There were only two B&Bs within walking distance and one was closed for refurbishment. The other claimed to be fully booked due to a party of Welsh people visiting our annual Christmas fair. We did no better at the one small hotel, which was full to bursting with two wedding parties, the first lot having been unable to leave due to travel issues.
‘What about pubs?’ Simon suggested. ‘They sometimes have rooms.’
After enquiring at all three of the village pubs without success, I was too cold, wet and fed up to persist.
‘You’ll have to stay at my house,’ I said. ‘I have a spare room.’ I wasn’t given to making rash decisions, and as soon as the words were spoken I regretted them. What was I letting myself in for? Yet I couldn’t deny the relief I’d felt when it became clear there was literally no room at the inn.
‘Could I really?’ he said, all eagerness.
Had he planned this all along? But that made no sense. He couldn’t have made it snow on this particular day. Nevertheless, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d been set up. If it hadn’t been the snow, it would have been something else. Was I being paranoid? I couldn’t ignore the feeling that something about the situation was very wrong. If I’d had any sense at all, I would have made him explain himself to me before I let him anywhere near my front door.
But wasn’t there a slim chance he was being entirely honest? A bit of snow was nothing to him. I would never have risked travelling on such a day, but he was young, probably saw it as a bit of an adventure, a lark, something to tell his mates about over a few pints. And I’m ashamed to admit that his beautiful smile did much to stifle my suspicions. No fool like a lonely middle-aged woman.
Run, run, said my head.
Stay, stay, said my heart.
