Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers

by Marika Cobbold

  Was it love that my grandfather had felt for my grandmother, or was it obsession?

  Let’s call it obsession, Coco said. It’ll make you feel better.

  I had asked my mother, not so long ago, if it had been wonderful growing up in a home with such happily married parents. She told me that it wasn’t especially because she, their child, was just the pale fruit on the tree that was their love.

  I had no doting husband and no fruit of my love, pale or otherwise. Instead, I was destined for a life in which weekends were my least favourite time, summer holidays were spent insisting to my friends that I had always preferred travelling on my own, and Christmas meant weighing up the pros and cons of decorating a tree just for me. When I woke up with a start, jaw aching with silent screams, from the dream where my sister lies helpless on the floor and I can’t reach her to ease her back into her chair because my feet are welded to the floor and my arms weighted with irons, there would be no one to reassure me. No longer could I turn towards the comforting shape of a lover, touch his sleep-crumpled face and feel the warmth of his breath as I snuggled close enough for our legs to touch but not so close so as to wake him.

  Then again, Coco said, you can always have lots of casual sex – at least until the time comes when you need your pubic hair dyed.

  Why do you have to be so vulgar?

  That’s exactly what I was about to ask.

  Mount Olympus

  ‘I KNOW REVENGE IS a dish best served cold,’ Athene says to Mother, ‘but surely yours must be frozen by now?’

  ‘You’re so pleased with yourself, aren’t you?’ Mother hisses at her.

  Athene just smiles.

  ‘Hera and I have been discussing the matter and we thought that perhaps you should consider retraining.’

  I’m thinking that if I couldn’t be a god I’d quite like to be a wolf.

  But then Athene continues, ‘Of course, it’s one thing for Eros to spend his time facilitating mortal coupling – after all he’s only getting younger – but you, Aphrodite, should you not think about doing something a little more suited to your talents? For example … well … I’m sure we’ll be able to think of something. Free your mortals from the shackles of romance and they’ll flourish. Their families will benefit because without the thwarted passion, the jealousy, the impossible expectations each parent will be free to cooperate with the other parent to act in the best interest of their offspring. And their politicians will be able to do what comes naturally without the need for resignations and upheaval, because their life partner, if they have one, will be no more troubled than a sister or brother by something which would not even be termed unfaithfulness any more. So you see, Aphrodite, there really is no downside.’

  Mother stands there, looking like she’d been struck by Zeus: her arms hanging limply, her mouth open, her eyes blank.

  Athene sensing victory goes on, ‘And Rebecca Finch would be free to write something useful.’

  ‘Like a computer manual,’ I say.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Mother totally stuns me by saying, all meek, ‘Maybe you’re right.’ And with that she walks out of the room leaving Athene and I looking at each other, baffled.

  ‘I didn’t expect it to be that easy,’ Athene says. ‘Still, who’s complaining.’

  None of us sees Mother for a bit after that but then she’s back in her room reclining on her couch.

  When she sees me she pats the seat next to her.

  ‘Sit down, Eros.’ Then she says in this slow, thoughtful voice, ‘They do need us, you know. I have thought long and hard about it, and those wretched mortals need us.’

  I’m thinking that she’s looking like her old self again.

  ‘Of course they do.’

  ‘So you agree.’

  ‘Sure. With what?’

  ‘Eros, pull yourself together. I am saying that the mortals need us even more than we need them. You see, I haven’t just been moping while I’ve been away, I’ve been researching.’ Mothers points at a pile of papers on the floor. ‘Their scientists confirm what you and I already know: romantic love really is an integral part of what it is to be human, and not just a cover for the sexual urge. The brain is shown clearly to differentiate between the two. Different parts of the brain are stimulated by romantic and sexual urges. And guess which is the more powerful? Guess which is the winner?’

  To be honest it’s all getting a bit technical for me.

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Romance!’

  ‘So the bet is back on?’

  ‘It was never off,’ Mother says.

  Rebecca

  LANCE PHONED ME TO ask if I’d like to go with him to see the play at the Royal Court.

  ‘We could have a bite to eat first,’ he said.

  I was glad he had called. As a single woman it was important to have male, as well as female, friends. It was, like everything, a matter of balance.

  Then Angie Bliss contacted me to say that, due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’, she needed to rearrange our session for that week. Could I make it for Friday afternoon at five instead of our usual slot at ten on a Tuesday morning? I explained that I couldn’t and why.

  ‘It’s vital that we keep up our weekly meetings,’ she said. ‘I feel we’re close to a breakthrough, close to finding the answer to the reappearance of the clown and the subsequent loss of creativity. I have come across some very interesting research into what’s termed Adult Imaginary Friend syndrome.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘I never “kid”, as you call it. The theatre doesn’t start until seven-thirty, yes? That gives you plenty of time to eat beforehand and come here.’

  ‘You really think it would be detrimental to my treatment to skip just one session?’

  ‘Oh yes. Then again I don’t know how serious you are about getting back to full mental health and back to work.’

  ‘Deadly serious, you know that.’

  ‘Well then, I’ll see you Friday.’

  When I told Lance he insisted on picking me up at Angie Bliss’s rooms.

  ‘I’ll have the car,’ he said. ‘That way we’ll be able to take our time over dinner.’

  I told Angie Bliss about my idea for the play.

  ‘I can’t say that I’m very taken with it,’ she said. ‘All those angry, bitter people sounding off and blaming their mistakes on poor Eros.’ The therapist seemed to be taking it all literally.

  ‘As I said, Eros being simply a device, a personification of the idea of romantic love.’

  ‘Well, opinion is divided on that one,’ she said. ‘Anyway, all this resentment is bad for mental hygiene.’

  ‘It’s not resentment that has made me see clowns,’ I protested. ‘It’s false hopes and impossible dreams.’

  ‘In that appearance of yours on television you spoke of Shakespeare.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, I’m asking you, where would he have been without love? We would have had a whole load of politics and propaganda but no Romeo and Juliet. At the end of that play the warring families make peace. Now, if Romeo and Juliet had died in some other way, fighting like Tybalt or poor little Mercutio, then their families would have slipped further and further down the spiral of hatred and revenge. As it was, Romeo and Juliet lost their lives for love and so their families saw the dreadful error of their ways. Love showed them.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it like that.’

  ‘Well, you should. And while you’re at it, count the great works of art, poetry, literature and music that have been directly inspired by romantic love then see where you’d all be without them.’

  ‘That’s art, not life,’ I said.

  ‘Since when did you get to be so dismissive about art?’

  ‘I’m not being dismissive, I never would be. But however important art is, it’s still just an aspect of life. As is romantic love. The problem is that romantic love doesn’t know its place; it’s fast become the new opium for the people.’
>
  ‘And what’s wrong with opium?’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘Absolutely. Only jesting.’

  ‘The thing is that romantic love is all part of this great myth we entertain that says that we have a right to be happy. That we have a right to be happy and fulfilled and successful and loved and that if we’re not then something’s gone terribly wrong.’

  ‘And you’re saying that humans should not be happy, fulfilled and loved?’ Angie Bliss tut-tutted.

  ‘No, yes, I mean it’s obviously wonderful if we are, but it’s not to be expected. Believing that it’s the norm is what makes us even more unhappy than we need to be.’

  ‘So romance gives you hope and dreams. The scoundrel, the villain. Off with his head.’

  I gave her a pale smile and shrugged.

  ‘Oh I don’t know. Maybe I’m being overly negative. Maybe I’ve got bitter. But I still feel I need to warn people, not encourage them in their delusions; people like my goddaughter, people who still have a virgin heart.’

  ‘And quite right too,’ Angie Bliss said. ‘Never take a chance. If you can’t have a guarantee of a happy ending never embark on the journey. How inspirational, how courageous and how very productive. As the chances of any mortal achieving a happy ending to their life are … how shall I put this … well, nil, you should all, by your logic, run screaming back into your mother’s womb the moment you’re born. I mean what’s the point of doing anything else?’

  ‘Good question,’ I said. ‘No, I do believe there is a point to life, there has to be. We have to make sure there is.’

  ‘How? By never taking a risk? By never loving?’

  ‘I don’t mean that.’

  ‘So what do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t explain. I just know what I know.’

  Angie Bliss leant forward in her chair.

  ‘Congratulations.’ She took my hand, shaking it vigorously. ‘It’s better than knowing what you don’t know. Now, answer me this: the happiest people are those who love and are loved, true or false?’

  ‘True, I suppose. But the unhappiest ones are those who have been disappointed and betrayed in love.’

  ‘You’re wrong. The unhappiest are the ones who have never known love at all.’

  ‘Tell that to the couples trailing around Homebase arguing about which tiles to use for the utility room. I’m sure most of them started off being in love. And that’s my god-daughter’s concern; she’s not naive, she doesn’t expect the intensity of emotions experienced at the start of a relationship to last for ever. Like most sane people she knows that it wouldn’t even be desirable. For a start you would never get anything done, your career would go down the drain and you would lose all your friends, she knows that. What she is asking for is that the something that makes two people not just friends, joint mortgage-holders and parents but also lovers remains.’ Angie Bliss folded her arms across her chest and leant back in her chair. I knew she was annoyed. ‘You know Plato?’ I asked.

  She frowned.

  ‘Plato?’ Her brow cleared. ‘Oh yes, Plato. I wouldn’t say that I knew him as such; we might have met once.’

  I laughed politely before saying, ‘Well, there is that bit about mankind being severed, the bit that goes, “They defied the Olympian gods, who punished them by splitting them in half. This is the mutilation mankind suffered. So that generation after generation we seek the missing half. Longing to be whole again … to be human was to be severed, mutilated. Man is incomplete. Zeus is a tyrant …” Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine, I just don’t like this carping about Zeus. Personally, I would never …’ She paused and looked around her as if there might be someone else present in the room. ‘I would never,’ she said again, ‘say that he was a tyrant. Firm, yes, decisive, yes but a tyrant, no, not at all. Apart from that I think Plato makes perfect sense. In fact, I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  I looked hard at her. Was this another of her attempts at a joke?

  ‘I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear you say that.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, he’s dead.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, he is. But the thing is there’s more: “And after so many generations your true companion is simply not to be found. Eros is a compensation granted by Zeus. The sexual embrace gives temporary relief but the painful knowledge of mutilation is permanent.”’

  ‘I’m sorry, but here I have to disagree with him. Eros, in spite of his name, is not just about sex.’

  ‘But even so, isn’t Plato actually telling us that mankind is condemned to yearn but never be satisfied, to search but never to find? It’s cruel and I don’t understand it.’

  As I spoke Angie Bliss’s expression softened and, although she was probably a good ten years younger than I, there was something motherly in the way she looked at me, as if she wanted to give me a hug or at the very least explain but had decided that the explanation was beyond me.

  ‘But don’t you see,’ she said, ‘that it’s the yearning and the searching, the hoping and the dreaming that distinguishes you from all the other creatures on this earth. If it wasn’t for that, you would be running round naked in the fields and woods with the other animals.’

  ‘Why do you say you and not we?’ I asked her.

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes. You do it quite often. As if you are something other.’

  We both laughed at the thought.

  My hour was up and as I walked out into the waiting room Lance walked in through the front door. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a young boy peering out from behind the potted palm. Lance waved. He opened his mouth to speak but said nothing, clasping his hand to his chest instead. At that moment Angie Bliss came tearing out of her room and placed herself in front of me, full square, as if she were protecting me from someone.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ I asked her.

  ‘Your umbrella,’ she said. ‘Did you leave your umbrella?’

  It was a beautiful sunny afternoon.

  ‘I didn’t bring one,’ I told her. ‘But thank you anyway.’ I turned to Lance. ‘And are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, fine.’ But he was looking at me in an odd way. I would have said a loving way, if it hadn’t been so unlikely.

  He was rubbing his chest so I asked again.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Absolutely! Never felt better, in fact.’

  Just then the front door opened once more. It was John Sterling.

  ‘John, hi. How are you? I thought you saw Angie at her other rooms.’

  ‘I do usually,’ he said, pausing to shake hands with Lance, who had been standing very close to me, his arms crossed.

  ‘Oh I’m sorry. Lance, this is John, John, Lance. So how come you’re here?’

  ‘There was a flood or a leak or something in the other place so I was told to come here. Oh, hello, Dr Bliss.’

  ‘Time is ticking on,’ said Lance.

  ‘Oh yes, sorry, John, we’re off to the theatre.’

  ‘We’re having dinner first,’ added Lance.

  John smiled at him.

  ‘I won’t keep you then. Have a wonderful evening.’ He turned back to me. ‘Well, you know where I am if you need to do some more research.’

  ‘Yes I do, thank you.’

  I waved goodbye as Lance put his hand on my back and ushered me out on to the street.

  Mount Olympus

  I WAS TRYING TO help!

  Mother had phoned John up herself to say that Angie Bliss’s City consulting rooms were flooded and could he come to the Knightsbridge rooms for his next session. This pissed him off somewhat as it was like half an hour on the bus or subway or something but he agreed. Him being so anal could be helpful at times because once something was in his diary that was it, it had to happen.

  Next she had called Rebecca Finch to ask if she could reschedule her appointment. So far so pretty good.

  Then according to the plan, Rebecca Finch, pri
med for the last time by Mother as to what kind of man she could not live without, would walk out of the door only to run straight into the arms of an equally primed John Sterling, and zing-zap, I’d shoot and we’d have a result (a result that, because of all the priming and so on, might actually be a lasting one, or at least one lasting the five years of the bet). Cue Rebecca Finch swooning over her newfound love, regretting her cynical behaviour and ready to write her soppy books once again. Mother wins the bet. She’s pleased. I get invited upstairs on a permanent basis. I’m pleased. Everyone’s pleased. Apart from Athene, obviously. How was I to know that this other bloke would step right in front of me? I got him through the heart and was aiming the next shot at Rebecca when Mother comes flying out of the room, blocking her. So then she, Mother, that is, gets the arrow instead, just as John Sterling comes through the door. Talk about crap timing!

  So now Athene’s floating around being gracious in victory. Hera really hurt me by saying that this just goes to show that the Romans got it right turning me into this gross, baby-type guy with like no dignity because look how I can’t be trusted and if I think I’m going to get a permanent seat at the table I’m seriously mistaken because after this I’m lucky if I’m allowed up at all, even as a casual visitor.

  And Mother … she’s blanking me. I can cope with her being angry, but when she’s like this, not looking at me but through me, talking about me as if I’m not even there, that really freaks me.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ I tell her. ‘How was I to know that other guy would turn up?’ I don’t even bother to point out that she had in fact completely forgotten to prime Rebecca because they had been too busy wittering on about Plato. There was no point, she wasn’t going to listen.

  Hera gives Mother this chummy look and rolls her eyes in my direction – I tell you, I wish they would just go on rolling one day, out of her ugly mug and along the marble floors and squish.

  ‘You would have thought even he would have considered bringing a photograph,’ she smirks.

  ‘They don’t look entirely dissimilar,’ Harmony says, trying to help.