The Age of Discretion

by Virginia Duigan

  She watches as he drapes her coat over the back of the sofa, keeping the hem off the floor. She’s still grounded in that pervasive calm. An unfamiliar feeling, lately. But it feels entirely natural. Nonetheless she perches cautiously on the edge of the sofa, hands on her knees. How I was sitting when Julia told me about the love of her life.

  When he returns with her glass of red wine she says, ‘What about the other things you were worried about? That’s if you feel you can tell me.’

  He sits next to her, close but not touching, and stretches out his long legs. Her eyes are drawn to them: solid male limbs in brown corduroy trousers. There’s something endearing about them. And also, she can’t deny it, something unexpectedly erotic. She resists an urge to place her hand on his thigh. ‘Your worries,’ she prompts.

  ‘I’m not sure I can call them to mind now,’ he says. ‘It’s a bit like trying to remember a dream. When you wake up and find it’s gone for good.’

  She looks at a photo of a horse-drawn cart alongside cars in Regent Street. It was taken in January 1939. Those people were on the verge of life-changing events. ‘How did you know about this pub?’

  ‘It’s near a hospital where my wife used to come for treatment. I spent quite a lot of time here at one stage.’

  ‘Where she used to come?’

  He takes a long, meditative drink before tackling this question. His wife, Ursula, suffers from a form of dementia. They set up the agency as a joint business, a way of working together from home for as long as possible. Which in the end didn’t turn out to be very long. She has been in a home for two years, and doesn’t recognise him or their two daughters.

  ‘She said she thought the agency would be a neat way – neat was her word, she’s from Boston, originally – for me to meet someone else, eventually. She was practical and she liked to face up to all eventualities. But I didn’t consider that option, and nor did I ever think of meeting anyone else that way. Funny, isn’t it?’

  He takes another long drink. He’s sitting on Viv’s right, with his left hand on the edge of the sofa between them. Like her, he’s wearing a wedding ring. This time she doesn’t resist the urge. She puts her hand over his. He responds immediately, with a decisive shake of the head.

  ‘Beatrice, I’d better tell you now that I do have one more introduction, because I don’t think it can wait.’ He grasps her hand before she can snatch it away. ‘I didn’t intend to introduce him. In fact, it didn’t occur to me at all, but in the end he left me with no alternative. He overrode all my objections and all those worries.’

  He drains his beer. ‘Here’s the thing. He’s a balding cove with glasses. Hopelessly uncool, as his daughters say. Way past his prime, needs to drink less, exercise more and lose some weight.’ He turns. ‘Is he remotely feasible, or am I a deluded idiot?’

  Everything is all at once at stake and Viv’s heart has speeded up. ‘I wouldn’t say he’s past anything much, to be honest. Will you please stop me using that phrase? It’s a bad habit I’ve got into lately. It’s all these strange men you’ve been introducing me to.’

  ‘I did work quite hard to – match you up, you know, Beatrice.’ The quizzical look again.

  ‘Then there’s something I need to ask. It’s important. Did you think I would be compatible with any of the match-ups? Including Leary? May I have a nut?’

  He holds her palm and tips a heap of cashews into it. ‘Ah, Leary. Well, I’m afraid by then I,’ a pause, ‘I very much hoped not, frankly. I just wanted you to be sure you weren’t.’

  ‘I think I was sure of that before I met him. Long before. I don’t know why you didn’t divine it.’

  ‘I might have divined it if you had been a little more forthcoming.’

  ‘It was all your fault for putting me in such a difficult position. Invidious, I think the accepted word is.’

  ‘All my fault? Invidious is a bit strong. Weren’t you in that position of your own volition?’

  ‘Well, it was mostly your volition by then. I didn’t want any more introductions. Obviously I couldn’t tell you why, could I? You’d have thought I was dreadfully fast.’

  ‘I don’t see that as being a problem.’ Mildly, ‘I’d like to have known.’ He strokes his jaw. ‘I did think the match-ups were – somewhat unlikely. Admittedly. Although you can never tell. You did say you found Dev very attractive. You spent some time in Chelmsford, as I recall.’ He takes off his glasses. ‘And you went to Paris for the weekend.’

  She likes the tone of reproach. ‘That’s called being conscientious. I think we both were, in our different ways. Admirably dutiful, you’d have to say.’

  ‘I’d have feared it was severely unethical otherwise. And against the rules.’

  ‘But luckily you make the rules and are allowed to bend them.’

  ‘And we are both consenting adults.’ He raises his eyebrows a fraction.

  ‘That should mean we’re in the clear, shouldn’t it? With the combination of bending and consenting?’

  ‘With that combination I’d be very surprised if anyone would prosecute.’

  ‘Even if they did, my feeling is we’d get off with community service. At our age.’ She’s older than him, she suspects.

  ‘Or with a caution. Although at our age they might even waive that.’

  Men are hard-wired. She finishes off her glass of wine, which delivers a dose of Dutch courage. ‘Are you younger than me, Martin?’

  ‘I’m sixty-three. But don’t worry – that’s if it’s in any respect a worry. I remember you saying something to that effect about your husband. It’s negligible, as well as irrelevant. Besides, you look much younger than me.’

  Is he just saying that? ‘I’m saying that because it’s true, Vivien, in case you’re wondering. And also because I think you are lovely.’

  She feels herself blush. No one has said anything like that to her for years.

  He says, ‘Would you like another drink, now?’

  ‘Now? Did you have an alternative in mind?’

  ‘The alternative, I was thinking, is that we could jump in the car and go to my place, where I put a bottle of champagne in the fridge. What do you think of that as an impromptu plan?’

  ‘As an impromptu plan? I think it’s faultless.’

  His car, a Honda, is in a parking garage a few minutes’ walk away. Rush hour, so it won’t be the quickest trip, he says. He puts her bag on the back seat and switches on the ignition. A Handel opera: Julius Caesar. Radio 3? No, a CD, somewhere towards the end. After that Van Morrison comes on and lasts all the way to Parsons Green.

  He’s a good driver. She has been watching his hands on the wheel. Large and square, sprinkled with hairs. Capable. ‘Here we are,’ he says. The two-storey house is in a row of terraces. He unlocks a blue door.

  Only in the last minutes of the journey has she wavered. The calm has departed and some nerves have moved in. Not many, although of course they may just be an advance party. She has felt like this on other occasions, rather long ago now, when she was on the threshold of something. It wasn’t apprehension, back then. It was excitement. She had forgotten the feeling.

  The house is warm, with rooms opening off a corridor down the left side, and a staircase. The last time she entered a place she didn’t know, it was the Rev’s parents-in-law’s apartment in the Marais. Before that it was Dev’s empty house in Essex. But apart from a similar sense of unreality (and this is fading fast) those times had nothing in common with this one.

  In the hall they heap their coats and scarves over an already cluttered hat stand. She passes a small book-lined sitting room with a flat TV and a fireplace with candlesticks on the mantelpiece. An open-plan kitchen is at the far end. The house looks relaxed and lived-in. At ease with itself, Viv thinks, like him. A wall has been knocked down to connect the kitchen with the dining room. She observes a single tablemat on the table, an outspread newspaper, a laptop, a radio, and more books in piles. In the centre of the table, with a space cleared a
round it, is a glass vase of dark red roses.

  ‘Is this where you work?’ she asks.

  ‘No, I’ve got a study upstairs, in what used to be one of the girls’

  rooms. It’s much less tidy than this.’

  The kitchen is in a bit of a muddle, but everything looks clean. A frying pan and saucepans of various sizes are heaped up to dry on the draining board. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t do a big tidy up.’ He has put his arm round her. ‘It seemed too much like tempting fate.’

  ‘Is that how it seemed?’ She leans her head against his chest.

  ‘Better not assume anything, I thought.’

  ‘But you did have an impromptu plan in place. You bought those beautiful roses. And you put a bottle of champagne in the fridge.’

  ‘I did do those things, yes, just in case. To be on the safe side.’ He goes to the fridge. ‘It would have been unforgiveable if you’d come and there were no roses or champagne to greet you, I thought.’

  ‘Pink, too. And French. My favourite.’ She buries her face in the soft rose petals, inhaling their scent. An old country sideboard, genuinely rather than artificially distressed, and painted pale green over cream, displays some mismatched mugs on hooks. He removes two flutes from a jumble of glasses, and a folded tea towel from the drawer.

  ‘These haven’t had an outing for quite a while.’ He gives the glasses a vigorous polish. The tea towel is a faded souvenir from the Salem Museum in Massachusetts.

  ‘There’s so much we don’t know about each other,’ she says. But it’s not daunting. The opposite, if anything.

  He whips the top off the bottle (efficiently, she thinks), pours generous measures with no spills, and returns the bottle to the fridge. There is a moment, palpable, of indecision. Their eyes meet. ‘Now Vivien, we can take these into the other room.’ A glance at the stairs. ‘Or we could …’ Perhaps it’s not irresolution. Perhaps it’s doubt. Or worry. In which case …

  ‘If we go upstairs we’re there, aren’t we?’ This receives a smile, but it is infused, she feels, with a certain constraint. ‘Are we going too fast? Is that what you’re thinking, Martin? Or is it better to – bite the bullet?’

  He appears to give this some consideration. ‘That’s a question replete with ramifications, isn’t it?’ He picks up the two glasses. ‘I think they’re probably better dealt with in bed. On balance.’ Now she thinks the smile is more whimsical.

  The bedroom – Martin and Ursula’s bedroom for years, she supposes, and now his – is a pastel blue with chintz curtains and a view of a wintry back garden. There are pictures on the walls and photos Viv avoids looking at, for the moment. An open door leads into a small bathroom. Some of his clothes, a shirt, a maroon sweater, are draped over a wicker armchair, one of a pair. The bed, queen-size, has a white cotton bedspread in a traditional design, perhaps French. It has been carefully made and smoothed out.

  He deposits the tray on a chest of drawers. They clink their glasses and Viv takes a good swig, not a sip. As, she notices, does Martin. It goes straight to her head, which is welcome.

  ‘I always make the bed properly,’ he remarks. ‘It gives that daily illusion of being tidy and organised.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t do it specially?’

  ‘Not specially, no. But come to think of it, I did go and buy new sheets recently.’ He pulls back the bedspread. ‘Polar ice, the colour is. Formerly known as white.’

  ‘Recently, did you?’

  ‘It might have been the day after one of our conversations.’

  She likes the picture this conjures up. Martin discussing the ins and outs of sheets with a shop assistant. ‘Which one do you mean?’

  ‘Possibly the long one when you were in the restaurant. Not the one in the Indian loo.’

  ‘Do you think you might have been thinking ahead? Subconsciously, I mean.’

  ‘I think that’s a plausible hypothesis.’

  ‘And you put the new ones on the bed. As well as getting roses and champagne.’

  ‘Yes, I did do those things too. But as I say,’ another smile, ‘no major tidy up.’ They are standing together at the foot of the bed, glasses in hand. Should we get in now, Viv wonders? But that would involve undressing …

  She is almost felled by a wave of anxiety, all the stronger for being unexpected. She takes another hearty gulp of champagne, wipes the bottom of the glass on her jacket, and puts it on the empty bedside table. The other side has two big piles of books, a glass of water and a pair of reading glasses.

  ‘That’s your side, isn’t it?’ She hears her voice. It sounds as if she’s just run up a steep hill at top speed.

  He comes over and cups her face in his hands. ‘I’m rather hopelessly out of the loop, you know, Vivien.’

  The surge of relief she feels is almost as great as the apprehension. ‘So am I. Dreadfully out of it. We can make allowances though, can’t we?’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re the one who’s likely to have to make them. You may have to make rather a lot. Have a top-up?’

  ‘Oh yes, please.’

  ‘I’ll go down and fetch the bottle.’ He pulls the curtains, then kisses her hair. ‘Why don’t you get into bed?’

  She hears him clatter down the stairs. It seems to take him an age to locate the bottle and bring it back. Enough time for Viv to pop into the bathroom and freshen up. To whip off her clothes. To open the wash bag and utilise some of the contents. She leaves on the black lacy underwear she finds she had changed into, providentially, before heading out this afternoon.

  When he returns she has pushed back the blankets and covered herself loosely with the sheet, which immediately brings on a disconcerting Parisian recollection. Martin refills the glasses before turning off the overhead light and switching on his reading lamp, angling it away from the bed. ‘Light enough?’

  She nods. He may be out of the loop, but this is not an inexperienced or insensitive man. There’s enough light, however, to see that he looks preoccupied as he takes off his shoes and socks, jacket and sweater, and unbuttons his shirt. Or more likely, he’s anxious.

  ‘I couldn’t care less about any allowances,’ she says, but she senses he’s not reassured. She sits up, allowing the sheet to fall away a little. ‘I was thinking about your trousers.’ He stops, on the point of removing his belt.

  ‘I found them very sexy, when we were in the pub. I still do, only more so. May I unzip them? Or do they have fly buttons?’ Her heart has taken off again, rather unnervingly. ‘But first, Martin – do you think I could have a hug?’ She’s still having trouble with her voice. It sounds constricted.

  It banishes any remnant of humour from his face. He looks appalled. ‘Forgive me, darling Vivien, I’m even more out of it than I feared. Don’t move.’ He takes his glasses off. Geoff has called Viv plenty of pet names, but never, oddly enough, darling.

  Martin tosses back the sheet and gets in beside her. What she experiences then is so unfamiliar it takes her a moment to recognise it as arousal. And we’ve hardly even touched, she wants to tell him. But as soon as they do, this becomes redundant information.

  The Leary kiss, Viv’s most recent, was nice enough but inconclusive. This is not inconclusive at all and it takes them both by surprise.

  Taking trousers off from a horizontal position is never easy. It prompts a warning to do with going off the rails, unless she is more careful.

  A little later, and a little indistinct: ‘That’s very delicious underwear. But there’s a time and place for it and it needs to come off right now. You may have to—’

  She doesn’t, however, and this is the last halfway (or indeed anyway) coherent sentence spoken. For a longer period, it’s fair to say, than either might have predicted. The minor side of Viv’s mind that is aware of what is going on rather than engulfed by it tells her things are going to be quite all right.

  A little later she qualifies this. They’re going to be perfectly all right.

  They had fallen deeply asleep and wo
ken ravenous. Viv’s new black slip and negligee were admired, but thought to be more suited to the tropics; a warm dressing gown was provided. They proceeded to the kitchen and made a quantity of scrambled eggs on toast, followed by hot chocolate. There was very little talking.

  Viv was experiencing a sense of relief combined with emotional exhaustion. They were equally overwhelming. It’s like riding a bike, you don’t forget how to do it, she thought. And yet it’s not like that, because you don’t do it in the same way. Not the same way at all.

  She texted Geoff. Not coming back tonight. See you tomorrow. x. This afforded her some considerable satisfaction.

  When they are back in bed Martin remarks, ‘I’ll have to give you a partial refund, won’t I, Beatrice?’

  She doesn’t think that will be necessary. ‘After all, I had four introductions. Five, if we count you. I think that was pretty good value. Considering …’ Her head is resting on his outstretched arm.

  ‘Considering?’

  ‘Considering I didn’t have to make any allowances,’ she says. ‘And bearing in mind other subsidiary services provided by the agency. Which I don’t remember being listed in the brochure. Not even in the small print. Were they perhaps in the prospectus?’

  ‘I’m afraid the agency doesn’t run to a brochure. Or a prospectus.’

  ‘I thought it didn’t. So, what prompted them?’

  ‘The other subsidiary services?’ He props himself on an elbow and puts his glasses on to look at her. ‘They’re by way of being a bonus for unanticipated contingencies.’

  She’s back in the black satin slip, for the time being. Leary comes into her mind. She feels a throwaway affection for him. He had replied to her carefully phrased text very graciously, and added that Thurs wouldn’t have been poss anyway, as the domestic-violence scenario at the convent was being expanded exponentially to include a siege.

  29

  RECONFIGURATIONS

  ‘Max well, is he?’

  ‘Firing on all cylinders.’

  ‘Not too distracting from the daily round? All your vocal and physical exercises?’ Pause. ‘Just inquiring.’