Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers

by Marika Cobbold

  I put my arm round her shoulders and the feel of them, so slight and a little bony, made me close to tears myself. I wanted to find something to tell her that would make her happy again.

  Coco suggested saying that just because something was bound to end in disaster there was no reason not to give it a go. I mean look at life, he said. Give me one example of a happy outcome – I am assuming here that most people don’t see death as a happy ending – but hey, by and large people still give it a shot.

  ‘Romance isn’t the be-all and end-all of a marriage,’ I tried.

  ‘I never said it was. I said that I would settle for ending up somewhere in the vicinity of my dreams and hopes. I said I would settle for not being sour or sad or disappointed or angry or divorced.’

  ‘Tell her you’re not well.’ Bridget’s voice reached us from the other side of the door. ‘Tell her she’s just having cold feet.’

  ‘Come in, Mother,’ Angel-face said in her new, tired voice.

  ‘You’re just having cold feet, Angel-face,’ I said. ‘And don’t listen to me, I’m not myself.’ I wondered if I should mention Coco. Maybe it would help Angel-face to see that I was not to be trusted right at that moment.

  Bridget turned to her daughter.

  ‘Youth wants and expects it all. And that’s part of youth’s charm.’ She was smiling all of a sudden, a dreamy, reminiscing smile. ‘I planned to be the first woman chef with her own three-Michelin-star restaurant. Bit by bit, however, I realised that, as good a cook as I was, I didn’t have the talent, or the time and space, but I’m perfectly happy with my little catering business.’

  ‘That’s awful.’ Angel-face looked as perturbed as any child realising that their parents had had dreams once too.

  ‘It’s not awful,’ Bridget said. ‘It’s life.’

  Angel-face looked as if in that case she might take it or leave it.

  ‘One learns to be a little more realistic in one’s expectations,’ Bridget continued. ‘Whether it’s of love or of oneself.’

  Angel-face was unconvinced.

  ‘If all these hopes and dreams of love are just symptoms of youth, how does that explain Elizabeth Taylor?’

  We all fell silent. Nothing could.

  Finally Bridget said, ‘Tell her she’s just got cold feet.’

  ‘You’ve said that already,’ Angel-face snapped. ‘And of course I’ve got cold feet. I mean what kind of an unthinking moron would I be if I didn’t? I love Zac and he loves me, for now, but it seems pretty certain that, within the space of ten or so years, if we’re still married, we will be just like all the couples we swore we would never be like, who in turn never thought they’d end up like that when they exchanged their vows. Oh no, they would have said, we’ll be different. But no one ever is.’

  ‘Tell her she’s being defeatist,’ Bridget said.

  ‘You’re being defeatist, Angel-face.’

  ‘At least try to sound as if you believe it!’ Bridget snapped.

  ‘But you just told me I should be defeatist,’ Angel-face said. ‘Actually, you both have, in your different ways.’ She turned to her mother. ‘You just told me I should give up on my dreams, that it was part of growing up and I said that –’

  ‘I said no such thing. I just told you that as life moves on your priorities change.’

  ‘And I said that if they did to such an extent, if all the hopes and dreams were simply a symptom of youth, why do we have all these divorces and unhappy –’

  ‘Look at it this way,’ I interrupted. ‘The one thing you can be sure of is that if you don’t buy a lottery ticket then you’ll never win.’

  ‘Oh come on.’

  ‘I was trying to be positive.’

  ‘Well, don’t.’ Bridget glared at me. ‘It’s not very convincing.’ She turned back to her daughter. ‘If people will have ridiculous expectations of floating on cloud nine for the duration –’

  ‘We don’t,’ Angel-face said. ‘As I said to Rebecca, most of us would settle for ending up somewhere just in the vicinity of our dreams and hopes.’

  ‘And maybe you will,’ I said.

  ‘You really believe that?’ Angel-face brightened, gazing at me as if the map of her life was etched on to my face. I avoided her eyes.

  ‘Rebecca?’ Angel-face leant close.

  ‘It’s certainly not impossible,’ I said.

  ‘I think you’re soured by your own experiences,’ Bridget said.

  And about time too, Coco said.

  ‘I’ve noticed the tension between you and Dominic. Quite frankly, the way you let him speak to you –’

  ‘Maybe things aren’t so good between us … Anyway, I’m seeing someone, a therapist.’

  ‘So it’s a breakdown.’ Bridget nodded and the set of her lips softened. It was easier to deal with things when they had a label. ‘You know when I said you were soured by your experiences I didn’t mean it unkindly.’

  I did, Coco said.

  ‘Oh shut up!’ I realised I had spoken out loud.

  Bridget’s eyes widened as she opened her mouth then closed it again.

  ‘Oh I didn’t mean you, Bridget, or you, Angel-face. I was talking to myself. I was telling myself to shut up.’

  ‘You really aren’t very well, are you?’ Bridget said. Now her expression was all kindness once more, motherly and concerned.

  ‘I don’t think I am.’ I turned back to Angel-face. ‘So really, don’t pay any attention to anything I say at the moment.’

  Angel-face perked up a tiny bit.

  ‘Do you mean that? You really think this is all because you’re not feeling well?’

  I nodded, realising for the first time the joys of being Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  ‘I should probably go home and to my bed.’

  Bridget, still with that friendly, concerned look on her face, agreed.

  ‘Shall I call you a cab?’

  ‘Maybe.’ My voice sounded weak as I got up from the floor with my old woman’s scrabbling movements, I, who only a week ago could get up from a prone position to standing in one smooth go.

  Bridget turned to her daughter and a note of pleading crept into her voice.

  ‘Look at Granny and Grandpa: they were happy.’

  ‘Grandpa lived on the golf course and Grandma was surgically attached to the card table. Call me a silly old dreamer,’ Angel-face said, ‘but I was hoping for happy together.’

  ‘And Aunt Hilary … no, maybe not. But the Taylors, now I’m not saying they haven’t had their ups and downs –’

  Angel-face interrupted.

  ‘Personally, someone saying, “I don’t care if he lives or dies but I love that house too much to risk it in a divorce,” seems a little stronger than “ups and downs”.’

  ‘Kate didn’t say that?’

  ‘According to her daughter, she did, still does, frequently.’

  Bridget made a final stand.

  ‘Well, take Daddy and me then.’

  Angel-face looked at her with something like pity.

  ‘I think you’ve just lost the argument,’ she said.

  Mount Olympus

  IN OUR FAMILY WE’RE always on the lookout for mortals who are an asset in our own particular field so when Rebecca Finch made it big with her latest romantic novel she really caught Mother’s attention. We began tuning into her life, checking that she was OK, that everything was running smoothly, and possibly to show off – to Athene in particular. ‘See,’ Mother would say, ‘just see how I’m worshipped. This woman’s work is read by millions of women across the world.’

  As I mentioned earlier, Mother and I could do with a boost. Our results have been pretty dire lately and it has become a talking point.

  Mother, of course, defends herself: ‘It depends how you define result,’ she says. ‘If you look at my ‘Profane Love’ portfolio you could argue that my results are up. People are coupling like never before. Adultery is perennially popular.’

  ‘But isn’t it all
a question of balance, Aphrodite dear?’ Athene has been speaking to Mother but her eyes are on Grandpa. ‘In your case the balance between the profane and the sacred, is that not so, Zeus?’

  Grandpa, as always, just loves being asked his opinion.

  ‘Indeed it is,’ he says. ‘And I’m afraid that balance has been absent for some time. It pains me to criticise …’

  No it doesn’t, you old fart, you love it.

  ‘But any fool …’ Here everyone turns round and looks at me, which I think is just totally unfair. ‘Any fool can get them to couple. It’s ensuring that they remain in a strong, loving and worshipful relationship that is the challenge.’

  ‘It’s this “life meaning life” business that’s so difficult,’ Mother grumbles. ‘They’re around for so much longer, for a start.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be a goddess,’ Athene says. ‘Build a bridge and get over it.’

  Mother’s eyes have already turned to thunder-grey and now they go black, which personally always makes me extremely nervous.

  But she keeps her voice low as she says, ‘We all have our problems. Your own cult, for example, Athene, is hardly flourishing. Look at who they chose to lead them. I mean Ares hasn’t had it so good for a long while. And look at what entertains them. I’m as open to new things as anyone but honestly, where there used to be Euripides and Shakespeare, Voltaire and Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov, even that funny little man in a dressing-gown, there’s now hours and hours and hours of watching extremely foolish people stuck between four walls …’

  ‘Pinter isn’t that bad,’ Hera objects.

  ‘I was talking about Big Brother,’ Mother says. ‘And look at their icons. Look at who they worship. Very thin women with bandy legs who eat through their noses. Men with guitars who say what everyone knows already. And then actors, don’t start me on actors; these days people seem to be fascinated by their off-stage opinions. No, Athene, look at the state of your own cult before you criticise mine.’

  ‘Hurrah and well said.’ I clap my hands.

  ‘Oh do be quiet, boy,’ Athene snaps.

  It would be nice if Mother stood up for me but she’s too busy fluttering her eyelashes at Grandpa. It’s pathetic how they all suck up to him.

  Then Mother switches on London again and watches as Rebecca Finch is given the news that her latest book is topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

  ‘Oh she’s lovely,’ Mother says. ‘A perfect example of the quality of my acolytes: bright, kind-hearted, hard-working, modest, faithful …’

  ‘There is that small matter of her divorce,’ Athene says. ‘And wasn’t there some adultery?’

  ‘Oh that was ages ago. And it wasn’t her fault anyway. No, this woman has dedicated her life to the cult of love, my cult …’

  Mother and I are very pleased with Rebecca Finch.

  Rebecca

  THE ESTATE AGENT TOLD me that the flat by the river had not been on the market since 1955. Not that I had any plans to move. In fact, had anyone asked me, I would have said that I expected to live the rest of my life in my pretty house on the tree-lined street – or at least until I was no longer able to get up the stairs. (It hadn’t been possible to install a lift because of the configuration of the hall and landings – I had checked with the builder when we first bought it. This had amused Dominic, who said, ‘You’re thirty-eight, why do you need to ask about lifts?’ I explained that I wanted to feel that I was settled at last.)

  I had first noticed the flat for sale on one of my walks along the Embankment. I had taken to going for long walks in an attempt to clear my head and refill it with inspiration, but although I had found that I enjoyed the walking it had so far failed to inspire my work. I fell in love with the river. It might not have had the showy charm of the sea but it was such a reliable, helpful thing, and standing on the banks, just watching, I could see the imprint of the centuries on its tranquil surface. At first I used to wish it had been bluer; how spectacular it would be if the Thames flowed through the city the colour of the Aegean. After a while, though, I discovered that if you looked long enough and attentively enough at sludge-brown all manner of shades and colours would appear to surprise and please you.

  This particular evening, the last Thursday of April, the lowering sun was turning the sky orange above deep-purple trees and the river itself responded by stretching pink stabbed through with gold. The scene lasted for just a few moments before the sun shifted its gaze a fraction and the colours evaporated. It seemed that no one else, not the dog walkers or the courting couples or the panting joggers, seemed to have noticed the miracle of colours so maybe it had just been some kind of mirage: my eyes, tired from fruitless hours staring at the computer screen, playing tricks. I turned to walk on and it was then that I noticed the ‘For Sale’ sign fixed to the railings of the fourth-floor balcony across the road.

  A week later I was outside the flat once more, in a cab this time. We had been inching through the evening rush-hour traffic and when I realised exactly where I was I paid my fare and stepped out. Just then a young man in a tight-fitting pinstriped suit left the building. As he went up to the Smart Car with the name of an estate agent emblazoned in mock graffiti on its side, I hailed him from across the road and he paused and waited for me.

  ‘The flat.’ I pointed upwards. ‘May I view it? Now, perhaps?’

  By the time I returned Dominic was already home from the gallery. I knew he was back because the canvas satchel he used in place of a briefcase (briefcases being, he said, for ‘boring little businessmen and city types’) was slung on the hall chair.

  ‘Guess what?’ I called out, unsurprised when there was no reply.

  I found him, as usual, in his study.

  ‘I had my meeting today and guess –’

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  He was seated in his Victorian winged armchair reading an exhibition catalogue, a glass of whisky on the small table by his side. He hadn’t looked up. I remained in the doorway, my excitement sucked away by his indifference; it had happened so often lately I imagined I had a tidemark somewhere in the area of my neck.

  I said, sounding like the kind of woman I never thought I’d become, ‘Can’t you even pretend to be interested?’

  ‘Don’t start.’

  ‘Don’t start what? Communicating? I felt happy. I wanted to share my good news with you. Is that a crime?’

  ‘I said don’t start. I’m extremely fragile today.’ He put the catalogue down and looked at me for the first time. ‘I don’t think you understand just how exhausted I get.’

  ‘Oh yes I do.’

  ‘No, Rebecca, I don’t think you do. And why should you? It’s all right for you being at home all day. But you try fighting your way across this godforsaken city …’

  ‘It’s not a godforsaken city, it’s a wonderful city.’

  ‘You see, cloud cuckoo land. You have no idea what it’s like out there in the real world. Then again, I should be used to it by now.’

  ‘Used to what?’ I don’t know why I asked when I knew the answer would be a heap of criticism, but I did.

  ‘Used to you living in your own little world completely undisturbed by reality. You have no idea, though, how grating it is to live with someone like that.’

  ‘Where did all this come from? I arrive home all happy and full of good news and suddenly I’m public enemy number one and –’

  ‘God, not more self-serving, self-pitying crap …’

  The scene was so familiar. We played it out night after night so I knew it by heart. Dominic would grow ever more venomous as I became tearful and reproachful and increasingly like someone I did not wish to know, let alone be. Not tonight, not any more.

  ‘You know,’ I said contemplating him, ‘your whole face seems to shrink when you’re being spiteful. It kind of narrows and becomes mean. It’s really most extraordinary. Even your eyes grow closer together.’

  ‘Go away. Fuck off!’

  ‘Don�
��t speak to me that way.’

  ‘I said go away!’

  I sat at the kitchen table reading a magazine interview with myself. The copy had arrived that morning but I had not had time to look at it until now. I tended to approach these things, articles, interviews, with the slightly queasy fascination of someone watching a reality show. Who was this woman? Why had she agreed to it? Who cared?

  As I read on I saw that I lived with my partner in a charming 1920s house that would not seem out of place in a quiet cul-de-sac in some genteel provincial town although it was only a short walk from London’s fashionable Fulham Road. My kitchen, with its clotted-cream and buttercup-yellow hues, was warm and welcoming and filled with flowers.

  I looked around me. Yes, that was true: it was. In fact the tulips on the table in front of me were particularly beautiful in shades from shell-pink to mauve, and miraculously for tulips they had remained upright instead of tipping over the rim of the vase as if they were thinking of ending it all.

  I read on to find that my own real-life romance sounded so perfect that it might have been taken from the pages of one of my delightful novels.

  I thought back to that first meeting some five years ago at the Affordable Arts Fair in Battersea. I had been separated from Tim for about six months. I was living in the country in a rented cottage in the same village I had lived in when still married. Our separation and subsequent divorce had been amicable inasmuch as we both admitted that our love was a rather pallid affair with our feelings for each other more akin to that of brother and sister than lovers. Where we had differed was on what to do about it.

  Tim had felt that we should remain married, as we ‘got on’, and there was no overwhelming reason to go our separate ways.

  ‘We share interests, we enjoy our home and our friends; hell, we even like each other. How many other married people can say the same?’

  I had looked at him, exasperated.

  ‘It’s not enough,’ I had told him. ‘Surely you can see that?’

  He said he didn’t and could I please try to explain.