by Mavis Cheek
It was all very well when the advice concerning the problems between her and Derek was to 'Woo Your Partner'. But she had grown sick of doing it all. And he just fell asleep. If she attempted to resuscitate past success - as that Sunday when she stripped off in the front room - he had so much to do upstairs that she was left holding a glass of Asti and a wicked pose while he said he had to crack on. 'Rev him up, dear,' said the agony aunt on the radio phone-in. 'Go up to him and plunge your hand into his trousers. After all' — embarrassingly raucous laugh - 'what he's got is half yours, you know. And that doesn't just mean the house. Hah hah . ..'
Well, against her better judgement it was, and against her better judgement it should have stayed. She had chosen the moment as best she could: after they'd stacked the dishwasher and The Archers was over. He looked relaxed enough, standing with his back against the kitchen door, ankles crossed, tapping those teeth of his with a screwdriver while he checked something in the plumbing manual (he was putting a shower and- WC up there — said it enhanced the investment, which didn't quite sound right, because, as she replied, it was supposed to be their child's play area). And given the relaxation of the moment, she had snapped off her gloves with what she contrived to be a romping motion, thought flamenco, and, advancing towards him, reached for the place suggested, senorita-style, pulling at the zip with dramatic perfection, getting it down in one.
It had been done stylishly and with a knack she did not know she possessed. She had felt quite frolicsome, but it came to nought because Derek's yell just about split her ear-drum. All right, it was true that there were several hairs caught in it when she looked. But then, as she said, mopping at the blood from his lip and vainly looking for the chipped piece of tooth, it wouldn't have happened at all if he had learned to pull his underpants up properly .. . And she was kind enough not to say that, given the prominence of his teeth, it was stupidity itself to put a screwdriver anywhere near them . . . They didn't seem to have made much headway since then. But they would. She was determined that they would.
She prepared to stand up. The carriage was pulling into her
station. She checked the bag once more: all correct. And she smiled happily as she trotted up the steps, for she had remembered that there was something else in the bag, something she was really looking forward to, something that she had been waiting to read ever since she heard there was a new one out. She had the new Janice Gentle book in hardback (to show she was a connoisseur), and more than anything she was looking forward to being transported to how people could be if only the world didn't have so many nasty elements in it. She wondered what the hero would be like in this one. She wondered what the heroine's job would be. Did she live in a London flat overlooking Regent's park, or a houseboat in Chelsea, or even another of those large country houses where she had horses and dogs? The man would be handsome, of course (no dandruff, no sticky-out teeth, no lack of aftershave), and virility would not be an issue. The jacket description looked - well, interesting. A little bit of a departure, but you could trust Janice Gentle.
She hurried down the busy London street, stepping round the beggars, grimacing at their pleading, shifty eyes, recoiling from the smell in doorways. What would it be? she wondered, as she clattered up the steps of her building. Some beautiful orphan saved from the horrors of the streets and all those nasty people by someone rich and kind? Yes. That'd be it. With the orphan no longer poor and homeless and alone, the book would end happily. Right would have been done, love would have been declared, and the future would look all golden and rosy, like a newly picked pomegranate.
Have I spoken too much or not enough of love? Who can tell?
But we who do not drug ourselves with lies Know, with how deep a pathos, that we have Only the warmth and beauty of this life Before the blankness of the unending gloom. Here for a little while we see the sun. And smell the grape-vines on the terraced hills, And sing and weep, fight, starve and feast, and love Lips and soft breasts too sweet for innocence.
And in this little glow of mortal life -Faint as one candle in a large cold room - We know the clearest light is shed by love, That when we kiss with life-blood in our lips, Then we are nearest to the dreamed-of gods.
