Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers

by Marika Cobbold

  ‘Bollocks you did,’ I yell. ‘Mother and I haven’t finished yet.’

  John

  JOHN WAS SHOPPING LATE at his local Sainsbury’s, trying to find the various things his daughter liked to eat. Her favourites changed from one visit to another so he had checked with her over the phone before he went off.

  ‘Spinach and ricotta ravioli,’ she had told him. ‘And pomegranate jelly. And Fizzy Fish.’

  As he was searching in vain for pomegranate jelly there was a light tap on his shoulder and he turned round to find Angie Bliss in a floaty white dress, a black beret pushed down on her Titian locks. She was smiling at him.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ she said.

  ‘I work just round the corner,’ he pointed out. Then he asked her about the jelly and she said she didn’t have the faintest idea but wouldn’t this do? She pointed at a packet of raspberry jelly. John said probably not, but he got some anyway.

  They ended up having a cup of coffee together in a cafe down the road.

  It was hard not to stare at Angie Bliss. Everyone did: men, women and children. Only dogs kept their distance. John had noticed that she was attractive before, of course, but away from the formal setting of her consulting rooms she was more than that, she was beautiful. Beautiful in a curiously old-fashioned way, with her soft curvy body and wide, somewhat flat face.

  As he stood at the counter waiting for their second coffees, full milk latte with a caramel shot for her, black for him, he asked himself if it were possible that she was hitting on him. He told himself not to be ridiculous. He, with his life centred round the law and his child, and added to that his OCD, was hardly a catch. He must seem tediously dull to her. Thinking about it, he probably was quite dull. Then again, what was so wrong with that? In the past few months of living on his own with no relationship to speak of and therefore no one to disappoint but himself, being him – a little dull, no doubt, not quite human possibly, obsessive and workaholic undoubtedly – did not seem like such a big problem.

  ‘You’re looking happy.’ Angie Bliss said as he sat down.

  His smile grew wider.

  ‘I was thinking that our sessions must be yielding results. I’m feeling more relaxed than I’ve felt for years.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that marvellous.’ Her voice was soft as she leant in towards him. ‘I’m so glad that I’ve been of help. After all, it’s what I live for, helping others. It’s my mission to make the world a better place.’

  John shifted backwards in his chair. Was she actually saying those things? She sounded like a contestant in some third-rate beauty contest. She looked at him as if she was expecting a reply.

  ‘That’s … that’s very laudable,’ he tried.

  ‘Laudable,’ She giggled, her small white hand touching his sleeve. ‘What a sweet word.’

  ‘Is it? Well, that’s good.’ Is it? Well, that’s good. He sounded like a complete idiot.

  Angie Bliss did not seem to mind, though, as she gazed at him with eyes that were Irish blue and sparkling.

  Surely she wouldn’t risk her career by attempting a relationship with a patient? Whatever he might think about her methods it was clear that she was dedicated to her career. He was just misinterpreting her; easy to do seeing as she had such a different approach to … well, to everything really. Usually he found women like that interesting. Angie Bliss was more odd than interesting, though. Away from the purposeful exchanges of the consulting room she was quite difficult to talk to. He himself was no good at small talk. He needed a proper topic to warm up with, something specific.

  So he asked her about her work: what had made her decide on psychology in the first place? Where had she practised before? Which branch of the subject interested her the most? But she seemed curiously reluctant to answer any of his questions. He started talking about Susannah and how he was concerned that the animosity between Lydia and himself was causing her distress. Angie Bliss began to fidget.

  Then she looked at him as if she were trying to drink his eyes with hers.

  ‘We all just need to love one another,’ she said.

  ‘Right, well, I don’t think there’s any chance of Susannah’s mother and I ever loving each other again. I would be happy if we could manage to be civil.’

  Angie Bliss’s eyes flashed green.

  ‘I wasn’t talking about you and your ex-wife,’ she snapped. She reached out and touched the tip of his nose with the tip of her index finger. ‘There I go, getting quite cross with you.’ She laughed.

  John attempted to steer the conversation towards a subject to which he could contribute.

  ‘There’s been a really interesting development in the area of family law,’ he began.

  Angie Bliss’s eyes glazed over, not that he blamed her. The law as it was practised as opposed to how it was portrayed on film and television bored most people, at times even the lawyers themselves, just not him. He remembered a friend saying to him, amused as she had watched a woman come on to him, ‘You use your work as a chastity belt. You begin to bore on about it and you know you’re safe.’

  He tried one more topic of conversation.

  ‘Have you seen the Bauhaus at Tate Modern?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I haven’t got time for kitchen equipment,’ she said. John waited for her to laugh and when she didn’t he thought, good God the woman’s dim. ‘Speaking for myself, if the right man came along I would give up everything else and just serve him.’ She looked up at him under her long lashes.

  ‘You must never do that,’ John said, appalled. ‘If it goes wrong, what then? No, you must never give up who you are and what you do. It places an impossible burden on the two of you and, as I said, if it goes wrong then what are you left with?’

  Angie Bliss pushed her chair back and slammed down her mug on the table.

  ‘Why has no one cleaned this?’ she asked, turning round and waving at a uniformed employee. ‘Girl, come here. This table needs wiping.’

  He gave the waitress an apologetic smile.

  Turning to Angie Bliss he said, ‘Well, I must be off. This has been great, thank you.’

  Her arm shot forward and her hand descended on his.

  ‘Do you believe in destiny, John Sterling?’

  He remained seated.

  ‘Only the kind you make yourself,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t think that certain people are meant to be together?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘Really, you really don’t?’

  He gave a little laugh.

  ‘Well, I have always had this picture in my mind. Most of the time I don’t think about it, but then every now and again up it pops. It’s of a girl. A young woman with slanted eyes and a pale face and long fair hair rippling down her back. She’s wearing a hat, a red woolly hat of all things.’ He pulled a face. ‘It’s probably an image from some film or a book that I read when I was young. Although …’ He paused. ‘Although I thought I recognised her in someone just the other day.’

  Rebecca and John

  ANGEL-FACE WAS GETTING MARRIED. The day had come. The wedding reception was taking place at her Uncle Alexander’s place just outside Oxford, where the garden was big enough for a marquee and a bandstand. The village church with its old graveyard was exactly as Angel-face had described it, ‘adorable’. In fact, it had been used on at least three occasions by film crews for wedding scenes.

  ‘I don’t really see why being surrounded by dead people should add to the picturesqueness of all it but somehow it does.’ Angel-face had made this rather gloomy observation over the phone to me a week ago but other than that she had seemed entirely happy about her forthcoming marriage. Staying in New York with the good godmother, and away from Zac, seemed to have restored her faith in their relationship.

  At home in London I checked myself in the mirror one last time. Over my shoulder I spotted Coco. He looked as if he were about to speak but changed his mind
, contenting himself with a smile, an approving, brotherly kind of smile, then he was gone. I had not needed Coco to tell me that I looked good this morning. I was wearing a red-and-white checked dress and with it a cropped red jacket that I had found at the back of my wardrobe, but which went perfectly.

  I had been in the millinery department in Harrods, about to decide on a black feathery concoction that barely covered the top of the head, when a young man appeared out of nowhere. He was holding a red cloche hat in his hand and insisted that I try it on. I was amused and a little flattered by his interest. He was so young, just a boy really, a beautiful boy at that, with fair curls and a face like Michelangelo’s David. I wondered fleetingly if he was taking the mickey. I looked around me for signs of giggling friends but he was on his own, earnest and most anxious that I should consider the red hat.

  ‘How strange,’ I said. ‘The dress I’ll be wearing is exactly this red.’

  ‘I just thought it was your colour,’ he said.

  I decided he was an embryo fashion designer.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ I turned away from the mirror towards him.

  He reached up and adjusted the brim.

  ‘There,’ he said, and when I checked on my reflection I saw that he was right and that it was perfect.

  ‘You’re very good at this,’ I said, still gazing at my reflection.

  There was no reply and when I turned round the boy had vanished.

  As I drove along the Embankment the hat was sitting beside me on the front passenger seat, Coco’s seat. But he wasn’t there, his appearances having grown less frequent of late.

  Outside my car window the river was the nearest thing to blue that I had ever seen it. I decided this was a good omen.

  Who could say for sure that Angel-face and Zac would not confound the depressing statistics and live happily ever after?

  Experience, Coco suggested.

  Don’t sit on my hat! Anyway, I thought you were off to haunt someone else.

  I come, Coco said, then as he faded into the distance he added, And I goooo.

  Maybe Angel-face and Zac would not fall out of love and begin to bicker and torment each other. Maybe Zac would not be unfaithful and maybe they would not be found, ten years hence, eating in stony silence in their local restaurant. Maybe after twenty years they would still be excited at the thought of going on holiday together. Maybe they would celebrate their silver wedding anniversary able to say, ‘I know exactly why I married him/her and I love him/her just as much, in fact, more.’

  Maybe, Coco conceded, but not likely.

  John Sterling got up from the desk in his study, where he had been working since five that morning, and realised that he was running late. The other week he had received an invitation from an old university friend, now teaching at Oxford. The invitation had said simply ‘A Reunion’. John had been surprised, but pleasantly so. He had not seen Douglas Lewis or his wife Fiona since before Susannah was born; they had a son the same age and on the few occasions when he had time to think about these things he had been sorry that they had lost touch.

  There had been an address but no phone number so he had simply written back with his acceptance. The invitation was for one o’clock and it was gone eleven now.

  Within twenty minutes he was in the car, having showered, shaved and changed into Chinos and a cream linen jacket. He was about to start the engine when instead he got out of the car and ran inside to his bedroom to grab a tie. He didn’t stop to put it on but just folded it in the pocket of his jacket before hurrying back to the car and driving off towards the North Circular.

  A choir was singing. The tiny church was scented with flowers and humming with excited voices.

  The usher asked me, ‘Bride or groom?’

  ‘Bride.’

  I had paused for a moment to consider where to sit when Angel-face’s grandmother spotted me, beckoning me forward.

  I waved back and walked up to her.

  ‘I don’t think I should sit this near the front,’ I whispered.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Bridget’s mother said and patted the empty space beside her.

  How would Angel-face be feeling right now? Nervous probably. Happy? One hoped so. I also hoped that my god-daughter really had forgotten, for now at least, the doubts and fears of the past few months and was immersing herself instead in the prescribed happiness of a young bride. And darling Bridget would be fussing around, wiping away a tear or two from her cheeks, the bridesmaids would be checking the veil one last time and Angel-face, if she had any sense, would be smiling at her lovely reflection. It would be a happy day, I told myself, and maybe that was good enough for now.

  A few minutes later Zac walked up to the altar, the best man at his side, and Bridget slipped into her seat in the front pew. The organ struck up and the church portals opened to reveal the bride on the arm of her father. Her steps were light, her dress was a cloud, her veil a stream of mist – if she didn’t cling on to her father’s arm, I thought, she might float up to the sky.

  The two little flower girls led the way. The four bridesmaids followed behind and as Neil handed over his daughter to the young man waiting at the altar a communal sigh of delighted anticipation was heard from the congregation. A big adventure was about to begin. I joined with the others in a prayer. Who knew, this time the prayer might be answered.

  John had arrived at Douglas Lewis’s house to find no one at home. He rang the bell several times. Then he walked around to the back and peered through the windows: the place was deserted.

  Eventually a neighbour appeared.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  John explained that he was a friend of the Lewises and that he was there for the party.

  ‘Party? I don’t think so.’ The woman was looking at him suspiciously. ‘They’re away.’

  ‘Away? Really?’ John went up to the low fence dividing the two gardens and handed the woman his invitation.

  She looked it over and her expression grew friendlier.

  ‘That is odd,’ she admitted. ‘In fact they’ve been away for the past three weeks and they’re not expected back until the end of the summer. A proper break, they told me. They’re on a driving holiday around the States. They were very excited setting off, especially little Andrew.’ Then she remembered to be suspicious. ‘They’ve got an alarm and we all check on the place.’

  John thought that his old friend must have put the wrong month on the invitation. Still, he told himself, it was a nice day and even if it were as a result of a mix-up he was away from his desk and enjoying the sunshine. Now he was here, he might as well look around some bookshops.

  By two o’clock he was hungry. The birds were singing, lawns were being mown, and passers-by were wearing shorts. John walked back into one of the bookshops and bought a Good Pub Guide.

  He sat outside in the gardens of the Oxford Arms, reading the newspapers, taking his time as he finished his coffee. He thought he must get away more often. It felt surprisingly good having no particular place to be, no time to keep, so when, soon after he drove out of the village, John came upon a diversion he was relaxed about it. The signs took him on a ridiculously convoluted route. He was still nowhere near where he wanted to be when, rounding a bend, he came close to running down a woman standing in the middle of the road.

  He slammed down on the brakes.

  ‘What the hell do you think …’ He stopped. It was Rebecca Finch. She looked different. Like someone else, someone half remembered. Maybe it was seeing her out of context, or perhaps it was that ridiculous little red hat pulled down low over one brow.

  She was smiling and apologetic both at once, talking loudly at the open car window.

  ‘God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to … Oh it’s you. Goodness. It’s me, Rebecca Finch. How are you? I’ve got a puncture, you see.’ She gesticulated behind her and he saw the cream Beetle convertible halfway into a ditch.

  John pulled in to the side of the road and got out.

&nbs
p; ‘I’m sure I charged my mobile but I must have forgotten after all because it’s dead as a –’

  ‘Dodo,’ he filled in.

  ‘I always try to find something a little less obvious,’ she said. ‘Force of habit. But dodo, absolutely. Not that you’re obvious. No, I didn’t mean that at all. I mean it’s a perfectly good simile, it’s just … anyway, there hasn’t been a car for ages. I expect there’s one of those AA or RAC phone boxes somewhere along here but I’m not a member of either. I’m supposed to be covered by a Volkswagen scheme but as I said my mobile seems to have run out.’

  He went to the back of his car and brought out a jack.

  She was flapping around him.

  ‘You don’t need to change the tyre for me. I mean look at you, that cream jacket. And I’m sure you must be on your way somewhere – one usually is. So if I could just borrow your mobile to call a garage that would be great.’

  John Sterling removed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his pale-blue shirt.

  ‘It won’t take a minute. You do have a spare wheel?’

  Mount Olympus

  ‘COME ON, GUYS, IT’S the wedding!’ I try to snatch the remote from Athene but she slaps me on the wrist.

  ‘Don’t get too comfortable, young man.’ She turns to Mother. ‘And you should remember that they might be about to get married but the bet was for them to last at least five years.’

  ‘I’m confident,’ Mother purrs. ‘We can make it ten if you like.’ She’s seated next to Zeus in the place of honour and even Hera is treating her with respect. ‘She’s stopped talking to herself and she’s working on a new book.’

  Athene is messing about with the remote. I’m beginning to think she’s trying to make us miss it on purpose.

  ‘It’s Italy,’ I tell her. ‘They’re getting married in Italy!

  Athene says, ‘She might be writing but we don’t know what kind of book yet. She was meant to revert to paying homage to you, remember?’