Love Is a Four Letter Word

by Claire Calman

  She shook the thought away and rummaged in her handbag for the phone number she had noted down. At least she could leave a message, and it meant she could cross off something from The List. His answerphone said to leave a message for ‘Will Henderson or Henderson Garden Design’.

  ‘I need a man with a machete and a vat of weedkiller,’ she said, ‘oh, yes, and a new garden.’

  She went and extracted her list from the drawer again. Damn. Added ‘Call garden designer’ to the bottom, then crossed it off firmly and went upstairs, feeling positive enough to face her studio.

  The crack in her studio wall was longer than she had remembered. It was the kind of crack to be tutted at, the kind to make you say, ‘Something should be done about that’ as if you were an authority on such matters. Bella did both of these things, then stood back to squint at it through half-closed eyelids. It seemed a shame to fill it in with boring old Polyfilla; plus there was the minor fact that she didn’t have any. She nodded to herself, as if she had come to a decision, then began to delve into the boxes, foraging for her paints.

  8

  ‘No, no, no, no, and no.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a no then?’ Bella said.

  Something gave her the feeling that Viv wasn’t mad keen on the idea of going to a poetry reading.

  Viv claimed to be allergic to poetry ever since an unfortunate experience at school when she had fallen asleep – her chin suddenly hitting the desk with a loud thunk – while the unfortunately named Mrs Doring was reading them ‘The Lady of Shalott’, raising up on her toes to emphasize the poetic meter as if she were mounted on a bouncy spring.

  ‘But it’s not poetry poetry, Viv, not wandered-lonely-as-a-cloud wafty stuff. She’s really funny. Some of it’s rude. You’d love it.’

  ‘Can’t be done, babe. Friday’s our takeaway and video night.’

  ‘But this is Culture,’ Bella said. ‘You remember Culture. You had some once, about four years ago.’

  Viv remained immovable. All couples have a regular evening together when they sit glued to a movie, chomping their way through chicken chow mein and beef in black bean sauce or Special Set Meal No. 2; it was a Universal Law, like gravity or e=mc2, not to be questioned. Patrick, poking through a drawer, ‘Where’s the wonky list gone again, Bel?’ The menu of the Wong Kei. ‘Why do you need it? We always have the same thing: 5, 8, 27, 41, 63, 66. Free prawn crackers.’ Jeez, she could still remember the numbers, a code inscribed in her memory like the combination of a safe. How long before she could forget them?

  ‘You’re very sad. Anyone would think you were joined at the hip. No, no, don’t try to protest. I’m going to get you two matching anoraks next Christmas. Orange, with cheeky foldaway hoods.’

  ‘You should go anyway,’ Viv said. ‘There might be some nice men there.’

  ‘Right. What kind of man goes to a poetry reading?’

  ‘You’re beyond help. Well, don’t blame me if you never find –’ she made a melodramatic bad-horror-movie noise ‘– The One.’

  The One. The magical, perfect fantasy Mr Right that every woman knows is Out There, somewhere, struggling on through his lonely existence, because he hasn’t yet found Her, his fantasy woman, his The One. Rationally, Bella reminded herself that life didn’t work like that; of course there would be many hundreds, maybe even thousands, of men in the world that would be a good match for any one woman. Most you would never meet but that should still leave you with many, many opportunities to have a perfectly nice life with a perfectly nice somebody. But what if there really were only The One, the ideal person who was supposed to be with you? You might miss your bus one morning and he could be on it, single and ready to meet you and you would never even know how close you had been. Or you might glimpse him across a room, your eyes would meet for a moment and you’d wonder ‘What if?’ Someone else might have got to him first, be stifling your person in a dead-end, loveless marriage. Even now, this very minute, your very own Mr Right could be cavorting with another woman, the unfaithful bastard, ignoring the niggling thought fluttering in his mind like a moth, struggling to be noticed, that something vital was missing from his life. If you did ever chance to find each other, The One would, of course, recognize your true loveliness and be blind to your sticking-out stomach and chubby arms.

  She would go on her own. Why not? She was an independent woman, an elective spinster as she had once heard someone say. How much better it was to have a diversity of interests, to be going to a poetry reading rather than sitting slumped on the sofa watching telly, your biggest concern whether to stick with the familiar, No. 63 Chicken with Chinese Mushrooms, or live dangerously and go for No. 67 Chicken and Cashew Nuts.

  Most of the seats were already taken by the time Bella arrived at the poetry reading, having extricated herself with difficulty from a conversation with Seline about the prospect of going into partnership as things were going so well. Bella hoped to defer the moment of actually Making a Decision for as long as possible. Or longer. She didn’t know what she wanted, other than not to have to decide. She helped herself to a glass of wine and covertly peered over the rim in quest of any lone, attractive men. It would be considerate if they could carry a small sign or wear a lapel badge: ‘Available’ or ‘Married but looking for a leg-over’ or ‘In relationship but keeping my options open’.

  There was quite a crowd. The last time she’d gone to a poetry reading, there had been only two other people aside from herself and what she concluded must be the poet’s family and immediate hangers-on. She’d felt obliged to exaggerate her appreciation to compensate for the lack of audience and spent the whole time nodding and brow-furrowing in an elaborate mime of gosh-how-profound-how-sensitively-attuned-I-feel-so-deeply-privileged-to-hear-these-soul-enriching-words. The poet’s entourage had openly stared at her at the end of each poem to check that her reaction was sufficiently intense. Why was she trying to meet their expectations? she’d wondered. Wasn’t it the poet who was supposed to be doing the performing?

  She settled by a table piled with Nell Calder’s books, and looked around for somewhere to rest her glass. There was an empty corner on a table nearby – she reached for it at exactly the same moment as someone else. Their glasses clashed.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ they said in unison.

  ‘Er, cheers then.’ The man smiled, looking directly into her eyes. Nice face, but how rude, she thought. Unnerved, she looked away quickly. She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. His hair could do with a bit of a brush. It was strangely springy, sticking up at odd angles here and there. She peered at him sideways. He caught her at it and smiled.

  There was an amplified whoompf and whine as the microphone was wrestled from its stand at the front.

  ‘Oh, hello, signs of action, I think,’ said the springy-haired man at her side, stretching to see over a woman wearing a peculiar patchwork hat with a ludicrously high crown.

  ‘Do you think she’s got planning permission for that hat?’ he whispered to Bella, indicating the woman with a nod. ‘This is a conservation area.’ Mid-swallow, Bella laughed, spraying her wine with a snort. Oh, terrific. Well, it was one way to attract attention.

  Embarrassed, she looked away. Nell Calder was being introduced. Applause.

  ‘This one was inspired by my ex-husband,’ said the poet. ‘It’s called “Can I have custody of the egg-timer?”’

  Conscious of Springy Hair’s presence by her side, Bella made a sweeping I’m-just-looking-for-my-friend cast of the room, trying to see round the woman in front. Suddenly, across the room, half-hidden by a woman holding her glass in front of her, Bella caught a glimpse of a man. Dark, floppy hair. The edge of a face with horn-rimmed glasses. Patrick? A jolt. Dry mouth. Thudding heart. Even now. Craning her head to see, the memory caught her unawares, flooding over her in a wash, leaving her pale and breathless.

  ∼ ∼ ∼

  She catches herself looking round the room for him. Perhaps he is in the kitchen, rootling about in the fr
idge for a corner of cheese, or in the loo absorbed in a copy of the National Geographic. Of course he isn’t here. She does know that. And yet. These people – his sister, Sophie, who suddenly looks so slight and frail as if the lightest breeze would carry her off, her right hand clasping her left arm behind her back, holding herself; James, one of Patrick’s oldest friends, uncomfortable and aware of his paunch in a too-tight borrowed suit; Rose, Patrick’s mother, immaculately turned out as for a wedding, solicitously anticipating with lighthouse eyes the needs of every guest – ‘A drop more dry sherry? Another smoked salmon canapé? Everyone’s been marvellous, really. I’ve hardly had to do a thing. Do let me get you something. Just a little bite?’; his father, Joseph, held together by his crisply tailored suit, dark as wrought iron, staring down into his heavy glass at the ice boulders floating and colliding in their enclosed lake of Scotch – he looks as if he would gladly join them, slide into that welcoming liquid and feel it flow round him, through him, in him, pushing out the warm blood that obstinately completes another tireless circuit of his body, swooshing through him, steeling his arteries with its icy anaesthetic, clasping him sweetly until he is numb and feels no more.

  And there, a small clutch of Patrick’s colleagues, balancing side plates and cocktail napkins and glasses, taking embarrassed bites of too-good, tempting titbits; his brother, Alan, nodding in earnest agreement with Aunt Patsy, scooping up the coins in his trouser pocket, chinking them in his grasp, then jangling them loose again: scoop, chink, jangle – finding what comfort he can by being in control at least of these compliant coins.

  But, of course, he isn’t here. Bella knows it, and yet still it seems as if these people who were closest to him – people who had helped him take his first stumbling steps, compared scabby knees with him in the playground, coughed over a first stolen cigarette with him, worked with him, argued with him, laughed with him, kissed him, loved him – they seem between them to make a shape, a Patrick-shaped space, so that really she feels he must be here. Surely they would only all be here because of him?

  ‘Try and eat something, Bella, hmm?’ A platter of soft asparagus stems, swaddled like delicate newborns in thinly rolled brown bread (no crusts, of course – ‘These little extra efforts do make all the difference I find’), hovers under her nose. Bella takes one and obediently moves it towards her mouth. She could do this. She could function like a normal person. Her teeth mechanically march up and down, doing their drill. She presses her lips with her napkin – blue, mid-blue, almost the same colour as that old shirt of Patrick’s, the one with the collar so worn she’d tried to get him to cut it up for shoe-cloths, the one that now lies unwashed beneath her pillow waiting for her, waiting for her to press her face into its crumpled cloth, breathe its soft blueness, button it around her.

  Ting, ting. A strange sound, metal on glass. A knife tapped against a wineglass, edge on, like a child chopping off the head of a boiled egg; a sound effect to punctuate every wedding, every anniversary, to herald every speech, a sound of celebration. Someone is saying something. Yes, faces are all turning in one direction. Bella tilts her face in mimicry, one more sunflower unthinkingly following the sun.

  Alan, Patrick’s brother, is speaking:

  ‘… all for coming, many from a great distance. I have – we have all – been immensely pleased. Touched. To see so many of you here. So many friends. Family. I – well.’

  He clears his throat, presses his lips firmly together, sealing in the words.

  ‘Anyway,’ he smiles tightly, ‘I know Patrick wouldn’t have wanted us all to be mooning about with faces as long as a wet weekend, and he would have hated to see good liquor go to waste, so please, raise your glasses. To Patrick.’

  ‘To Patrick,’ they echo.

  Alan raises his glass again, the ice tinkling softly like a half-heard bell blown by a distant breeze.

  ‘May his memory live on,’ he says.

  ‘May his memory live on.’

  No, she thinks, she won’t settle for a neat collection of memories, tidily bound up like a photograph album. She wants to run back to the cemetery, kick off her too-stylish, horribly perfect shoes, flicking each piece of smug black suede in a reckless trajectory high, high over the wall into the woodland beyond. She would fall to her knees, then, and scrabble at the earth, push the sticky clods aside with her hands, haul at the damp soil, and wrench open the lid of that gleaming box. She would reach in and shake him and shout, ‘Stop it, Patrick. Stop it! It’s not funny. Don’t do this.’

  She could see his face crinkling suddenly with laughter, his finger pushing his glasses further up his nose, giggling uncontrollably. ‘That was brilliant,’ he’d say. ‘I really had you all there. You’ll never know how hard it was to keep quiet all that time. When the vicar went on about how I’d always been a considerate, honest man, I had to bite my cheek to stop myself spurting into laughter. Oh, come on, Bel, it was funny – admit it. Great hat, by the way. Is it new?’

  And she would have to laugh then, too, and whack him playfully for scaring her so, and then they’d talk about it, sharing the best bits again, doing impressions, comparing the outfits, commenting on who turned up late, which part was most moving, who wept the most conspicuously, who merely dabbed the corner of one eye politely with a handkerchief, laughing together.

  But it isn’t a joke. And she knows then that she won’t go back to the cemetery. Can’t go back. Won’t plunge her arms down deep into the spongy soil. As long as she didn’t look, then it could still be just a box down there, no more than a long chest of polished oak lying empty in the silent earth – and Patrick could be anywhere: at home, pottering about ‘doing things that need to be done around the house’ as he would say, which mostly seemed to involve looking at appliances or objects in need of repair, saying ‘hmm’ a lot and then sitting down with a coffee and a crossword puzzle; at work, being sensible and efficient, writing reports or out on a site somewhere, assessing, noticing details, making notes; engaged in a meaningful relationship with his beloved computer; or sprawling on the sofa, a newspaper over his face, snorting with that peculiar half-whistling noise as he breathed out until she nudged him or tweaked his nose to get him to stop.

  Someone is hugging her. She squeezes the navy-suited body back softly, politely, unaware of who it is yet grateful for its solid warmth. A hand pats her consolingly on the shoulder, a master rewarding his faithful dog for carrying out a trick well. And it was a trick. Sip your sherry, nibble a canapé, proffer your cheek to be kissed, shed a silent tear or two. No screaming; no wailing; no ugly, wrenching sobs dragging her whole ribcage; no face bizarrely painted with black mascara trails, streaked by tears that seemed as if they would never run dry; no sitting curled up on the floor, head tucked tight to her knees, clutching herself, holding herself together in case she falls apart in sharp, brittle fragments, or subsides slowly, sliding across the floor in a pool of tears and pain. No. She could accomplish this trick very well indeed. She smiles and kisses the cheek, wondering how soon she can leave.

  ∼ ∼ ∼

  9

  ‘… Isabel, isn’t it?’ A hand was waving in her face, claiming her attention. Recoiling slightly, Bella craned again to see the man. His face turned: a longer nose, thinner mouth. Quite different. Not Patrick at all. No. Of course not. She shook the thought away and turned to concentrate on the person standing rather too close in front of her. It was the woman in unlawful possession of an offensive patchwork hat.

  ‘No,’ said Bella, automatically. ‘It’s Bella.’ Who was this woman? Under the brim, her face did look sort of familiar, but Bella couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘Well, that’s short for Isabella anyway, isn’t it?’ The woman glared at her almost accusingly.

  ‘Not in my case. It’s just Bella.’ She smiled. ‘I’m so sorry – I’m terrible with names—’

  ‘Ginger Badell. We met at Scotton Design just the other week. I create concepts for Benson Foods.’ The woman clutched at a tall, thin m
an hovering in a nervous orbit around her and steered him by his elbow towards Bella. ‘And this is Roger, my amore.’ She looked to either side of Bella, and pulled the stringy amore closer as if worried that Bella might suddenly make a grab for him and slurp him into a passionate embrace.

  They chatted politely for a few minutes, while Bella tried to glance round unobtrusively for Springy Hair. Had he gone?

  ‘So nice to see you again.’ said Bella, backing away. ‘I must just grab this chance to buy a signed copy – do excuse me.’

  There were three other people in front of her waiting to have their books signed. Bella looked around the room while she waited. Springy Hair had obviously left. She would have thought he might say goodbye. Not that she’d been interested; he must have been a bit weird, the way he’d looked at her. He was probably a stalker. Probably hadn’t fancied her anyway. Probably was just being friendly out of pity. Must be on his way home now back to his wife. And his four children. And their dog. Bloody hell. Even that bonkers Ginger woman with the world’s worst taste in millinery had a man. Well, just about, although he seemed to have about as much testosterone as a mouldy flannel. And she said concepts instead of ideas and amore with a sickening coy look and was far too intense. And, worst of all, she probably looked down on Bella, pitied her because she was obviously alone.

  She reached the head of the queue.

  ‘What shall I put?’ The poet sat with pen poised. ‘Is it for anyone special?’

  ‘Hah!’ The man behind her gave a start. Oops, she hadn’t meant to be quite so emphatic. She ahem-ed as if she’d only been trying to clear her throat. ‘I should be so lucky,’ she said.

  When Bella got back home that evening, there was no message from the damp man. How dare he? She had become accustomed to his regular messages with ever more intriguing excuses about why he couldn’t come yet, but she was definitely, no question, the next job up; she was in his little book, so there were no two ways about it. How like a man. Just when you were getting used to being let down by one in a particular way, he switched to some new form of irritation. She had come to expect the little flashing light on her answerphone that indicated another exciting episode in the life and work of Mr Bowman. Her favourite so far was that the lodger had left without giving notice. Quite why this should prevent Mr Bowman from hacking off her plaster, she was unsure, but he was adamant on the matter.