Aunt Margaret's Lover

by Mavis Cheek

  We nodded. Both of us were, quite undeniably, speechless. He closed the door and gave the curtain a tweak. 'Bath and wotsit's newish. Plenty of hot water. All you need to know, really.' He went to the bedroom door and stood outside in the corridor. I had one of those moments when I went all watery, thinking that Oxford might tip him. It was the sort of thing that Roger might have done.

  Mine host stood there, rubbing his hands again. 'We usually have drinks in the drawing-room before dinner.' He looked at his watch. 'About six-thirty? I'll tell you all the stuff then.'

  And he had gone.

  Any considerations of 'getting it over with' - in my private parlance - vanished. Synchronizing watches, we found we had half an hour to get ourselves into a suitable state for dining. It crossed my mind to fling myself across the sumptuous bed in high abandon and say something seductive in a husky voice, but reality took over. Either we decided to abandon drinks before dinner, in which case we should probably find someone knocking anxiously at our door, or we played the game. I looked at him, he looked at me, and we both flopped down on the bed and guffawed less than seductively into our hands.

  'I wonder,' said Oxford, 'if I should ask His Lordship for the nearest place to buy condoms?'

  The image of those rubbing hands and that benign aristocratic face being posed such a question was too much. 'He'd either go pink and dissolve, or pretend he hadn't heard,' I said.

  'Or take me to one side and say, "Look here, old chap ..."' added Oxford. Then he looked at me more seriously. 'Sorry about this,' he said, 'I had no idea.'

  'I really don't mind.' I looked about me. 'It's a fantastical place. Let's look on it as an adventure . . .' We couldn't do much else really.

  'What a bathroom,' he said, leaping up suddenly and opening the door. He turned on the taps, tried the flush (a chain with china handle) and held the brass shower fitting lovingly. I smiled to myself. If there was one universal thing about real men, apart from their not eating quiche, it was their love of the practical. Because it was so alien to me - a tap gives water, a lavatory flushes, a shower sprays - I found it vaguely exciting. Masculine. I watched him poke about at the Edwardian masterpiece and then suddenly realized that we had to dress. Grabbing my washbag, I trundled into the bathroom and kissed Oxford on the mouth. The shower piece he still held was squashed rather uncomfortably between us. It began to leak, which had the terrible effect of making us both collapse with laughter again.

  'Well, that's that,' he said, looking down at it mournfully, as indeed one might survey a flaccid penis.

  'No matter,' I said, ushering him out. 'The night is but young.'

  For all the fancy underwear and the delights of the game, there was an unmistakable practicality in us both. Our rose-tinted fantasies were underpinned by cold, hard facts. Those wartime romances must have had a similar flavour - throw yourselves in and live for the moment, because tomorrow he could be posted overseas and die .. .

  The place just did not seem to lend itself to Elizabethan coquetries. They, with luck, would come later. So, defeated, I decided to wear the little black frock. You can't go far wrong with plain black, pearls, one inch of knee and a luminous light of lust in the eyes. Especially not at a Brides-head weekend. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I think it crossed both our minds to abandon dinner, strip for action, and do what we came for. But neither of us quite knew the other well enough yet.

  We were only about five minutes late. 'Don't forget the Ovidian code,' he whispered, as we entered the sitting-room. Just inside the door stood our hosts, George and Roberta Howard, offering their outstretched hands. I took each in turn, and as I shook Roberta's I felt Oxford give my bottom a little pat and squeeze - the rat - so that I gave the aquiline features of mine hostess quite a startled look. I turned, looked at Oxford's innocent face, and pinched my earlobe. 'Just checking,' he whispered, as we moved along towards the drinks.

  Afterwards I wished I had kept a diary of that particular evening. George and Roberta Howard owned Marston Manor and it was the usual story: either do something commercial with it, or lose it. It was not of the right stuff- a word much in evidence - to open as a stately home, so a hotel was the next best thing. Oxford refused to tell me how much it cost to stay there, but it must have been very expensive.

  The sitting-room contained a Canaletto over the Adam fireplace, clearly the pride of the collection. I cooed over it politely and then moved on to some of the lesser offerings. A good Bellotto - better, I thought, than his Uncle Canaletto -etchings by Chrome and Girtin, and a wonderful anonymous Italian painting rather like a Claude.

  'Reminiscent of Giorgione,' I said, with calculated pretension.

  'Yes,' said Plantagenet-faced Roberta. 'It is a Giorgione.' She added quite kindly, 'But only a small one.'

  Sadly, as is often the case, the collection had begun in earnest and ended in earnest within a very few years. It had never quite got going. A good Reynolds portrait, full length with much Grecian drapery in evidence, hung side by side with an awful Edwardian portrait of a tapering lady who looked like she was halfway to being sucked through a vacuum cleaner, and enjoying the process so much that it had fluffed up her golden hair and brought her cheeks out in an astonishing pair of roses.

  Mine host was at my elbow. 'My aunt,' he said. 'Rather fine, eh?' And then, after a suitable pause for reverence, he added. 'Now, may I introduce ...?'

  He guided me away, and I realized that the room contained items of interest besides the works on the walls. Two other couples, to be precise. Daphne and Russell Maddox, who came from Harrogate where, to my inquiry, they did nothing but live. Since they were certainly in their late sixties, this seemed reasonable. Daphne was immense and dressed in something pale lavender and floaty - all she needed was a hat with upturned brim to be the Queen

  Mother. Russell was small, sandy-haired and florid, and, it transpired, was a painter nowadays. I politely asked him what he painted. As an amateur he would welcome the question. Real painters would spit in your eye. He waved a vague hand, saying all sorts. If I'd had one more gin inside me, I might have asked which was his favourite, the liquorice in blue hundreds and thousands, or the pink coconut with dark centre. How I do abhor people who take up daubing and then christen themselves painters. He had been an estate agent, so it may be that he took up art as a way of shriving himself for his sins.

  Bunny and Wilma Campbell, from Ohio, were on the Scottish ancestry trail. Apparently more Campbells were due but had been delayed at Kennedy. Bunny did something with metals - turned them from something raw into something refined and then sold them on. Wilma raised funds for various causes in that totally American, enthusiastic, unpaid, socially glorious way. Naturally enough, Oxford immediately latched on to the metals as a topic of conversation. He and Bunny leaned against the fireplace, mellowly sipping whisky and discussing things like fatigue. It really was very funny. Here we were on the run-up to our first night of blissful union, but in the company of those to whom it was definitely de trop to evince any intimate interest in one's partner. I was almost thankful for my mature years - if I had been one of Colin's floosies I should probably have freaked.

  Daphne's similarity to the Queen Mother continued in her approach to gin and tonic. If the tabloids are to be believed, our esteemed royal parent likes to pour her own, and generously, only trusting her own butler to get it right. This is something I fervently hope is true. The notion of getting to ninety and being able to smile, for hours at crowds while downing substantial snorters gets my vote for the monarchy any day. Daphne, a mere smiling cipher, was content to slug away and let her eyes roam in a pleasant glaze.

  'Why not,' she said when another drink was offered. 'I am on holiday.' And as the bottle glugged I admired tremendously how long she took to say when. I was quite sure she would be able to say, 'Why not, it's Thursday,' with equal conviction.

  Plantagenet was, understandably, trying to appear to be Lady of the Manor rather than Manageress of the Hotel. A few tentative
inquiries from me about breakfast times, how long they had been open et cetera, brought the minimal response that all those things would be dealt with later. Wilma, who was five foot nothing and built like a grasshopper, thought everything was wonderful and bore up under Plantagenet's condescension very well. Only later did she hit back, very subtly, when we were asked to admire a very stern portrait of a judge.

  'My grandfather,' said mine hostess. And she added loudly and slowly, 'In the law.' Presumably for the benefit of her hard-of-hearing colonial guest.

  This latter smiled sweetly, 'Oh really,' she said. 'A soul mate. I was a judge too till I retired.'

  Plantagenet looked at her as if she had claimed being crowned in Westminster Abbey as her favourite hobby. 'Really?' she said. 'In law?'

  'Yes. My, he does look saturnine, doesn't he? Was he very severe?'

  'I expect he hung a few poachers,' I found myself saying. 'A judge, not a magistrate,' said Plantagenet crisply. Which put me firmly in my place.

  Wilma and I exchanged furtive smiles and mine hostess said to everyone, 'Shall we dine?'

  The food was splendid and we dined around an oval table of heavy carving and mirror finish. Fish, game, pudding and cheese, served by an authoritative man of middle years who moved his hands around more like a conjuror than a waiter. The serving dishes were silver and polished, the plates were Derby. I sat opposite Oxford who was clearly delighted by the theatricality. We had been asked, very quietly as if the question might offend, if we would prefer a table to ourselves - there were four of these, one in each corner of the room -but it would surely have felt like outrageous rudeness to say yes.

  Occasionally Oxford would look across at me and raise an eyebrow - 'Pick up my stealthy messages, send replies, I shall speak whole silent volumes with one raised eyebrow.' In reply I pinched my chin, which meant I was fine.

  Talk was as a good dinner party, somewhere pre-war, should be. Very general with no stuff and nonsense about politics or religion, though whether this was from consideration of feeling or from the assumption that everyone was basically conservative and Anglican, I was unsure.

  'We have some very fine frames here at Marston,' George said to me politely. He lowered his voice. 'Sometimes I think I prefer them to what they contain.'

  Well, quite.

  Waiting for the cheese, I looked around the room - a more vivid experience now that I had two gins, half a bottle of burgundy and a glass of Sauternes inside me. It was elegant, high-ceilinged, with white ornate coving. The walls were papered in a deep, velvety green. The two sets of French doors were behung, again, with rich stuff, of a faded ochreish colour. Beyond these the lawn that had been in sun when we sat down was almost inky. Light came from two wall lamps and candles on the table so that the whole looked even more theatrical. It should have been perfectly romantic, but in reality it was eccentric and funny. I suppose that more accurately reflected what Oxford and I were up to.

  I looked at him. He was talking to Wilma, on his right, and laughing. Earlier he had drawn a heart in a little dribble of wine on that lustrous table - 'Words will spring from my fingers, words traced in wine' - and when he had poured some water for me, he picked up the glass and sipped from it first - 'As you hand back the goblet, I'll be the first to seize it, And drink from the place your lips have touched . ..' No wonder Ovid and Corinna stayed so hot for each other. I did as the good book instructed, and licked the place his lips had touched with the tip of my tongue. I got caught in crossfire conversation between Bunny and Russell, but was only half listening - there being a limit to my interest in autumnal French vineyard hopping. Narrowing my eyes, I studied Oxford's mouth and had a sudden desire to kiss it. What would Ovid suggest? 'Whenever there's a chance to touch me, please do!' So, abandoning the desirable but impractical notion of leaning across the crystal and napery and planting one on him, I slid downwards in my chair a little and covertly looked under the table. If I was going to play footsy (it was too wide for kneesy), I wanted to make quite sure I wasn't rubbing up mine host.

  The response was most rewarding and pleasurable. I turned back to Bunny and Russell. 'Don't forget the joys of Rouen,' I said, 'on the way down.'

  'Your wife,' said Bunny, 'is quite charming.' I suppose he came from an era when it was done to compliment the husband on his ox, home and other chattels.

  'My wife,' said Oxford, 'is a genius at tickling all sorts of things out of people.'

  'Wife indeed!' I said gaily. 'Why, anyone can see that we are just good friends!'

  I think the only one who did not laugh was Plantagenet. She, of them all, knew it was true.

  I gazed at Oxford and blinked with innocence. He was pressing his two forefingers together and staring back at me very hard. Wait till we are alone and I will get even with you for that. . .

  The meal and games were over. We had turned down the offer of nightcaps, and I suddenly felt as if someone had thumped me in the solar plexus again. 'Could we,' I asked mine host, 'take a stroll around the garden before ... um . .. we go to .. . um . . .?'

  'Bed, I think, is the word, dear,' said Oxford.

  George swung the French doors open wide and the two of us went out into the cool night air. It was nice to be alone at last. But it was not for long.

  'Good idea,' said another voice, and they all trooped out chattering and exclaiming into the once silent darkness.

  I had a moment of wild and wondering fantasy that this was going to turn into one of those royal beddings of yore when King, Queen and half the Court piled into the bedchamber to watch the sovereign couple get tucked up for the night.

  But down behind the rustling, sinister topiary, illuminating long points of shadow on the lawn, he pulled me into the darkness, where we waited for the others to pass by, holding our breath, holding each other tight, like refugees against an uncertain enemy. It was enough. Even imagined danger breeds a closeness. And, as soon as we could, we dived back through the swinging ochre curtain and ran up the ornate stairs towards the unassailable silence of our tapestried room. Hardly the romantic discretion of Ovid's persuasion, but you have to come up to date sometimes.

  We are going to a log cabin by a lake in Manitoba for most of the summer, so communications will not be so easy. Not that that will make much difference. We don't seem to be very good at it, do we? Write, anyway! Haven't heard for ages.

  Verity looks at the clock and feels like a mother who has sent her virgin daughter to her bridal bed. She has intermittently looked at the clock from about five o'clock this afternoon. If Margaret isn't having fantasies, thinks Verity, she certainly is. She imagines some sumptuous hotel full of noise-absorbing carpets and staff gliding around in uniforms, with blank faces that have seen it all and say nothing. She imagines them arriving at five, ordering tea in the salon and then not having the patience to wait for it to cool; she sees the look that passes between them which says, 'I want you now.' She imagines the privacy and anonymity of their bedroom, the locked door, the champagne on ice, the curtains drawn and the candles lit. She pictures the sweep of sunlit lawn beneath their window and hears peacocks calling from far away as Aunt Margaret's Lover lays her back upon the bed and slowly undresses her. Her friend's eyes glow like coals, her arms are stretched above her head. Fingers stroke the glistening flesh in ecstasy, while the soft pale aureoles of her breasts gradually stiffen beneath his lingering mouth. Verity, at this point, gets up and moves about a bit. It is now ten minutes past eleven and the two of them must have dined and be getting ready for, if not actually doing, round two.

  Verity decides that what she needs is a drink. A nightcap, she thinks, and then she bursts into tears. From the back, in her fantasy, Aunt Margaret's lover looked not unlike Mark, and Aunt Margaret's nipples not unlike her own. She will not ring him, she will not. He's a gutless incompetent. It will only go sour all over again.

  She looks at the clock for the umpteenth time. She unscrews the cap of the bottle and makes a modest nightcap for herself.

  '
Can't even trust your friends. They always let you down.'

  The wall seems to concur.

  'She'll probably marry the bugger.' Tears plop from Verity's eyes. 'And I shall be always alone. No more slipping under the duvet in the darkness with a pair of arms around you and a nose breathing into your ear, ever. Do you see?'

  Plainly the wall does not, since hugs for walls are not generally considered necessary.

  'Well, do you?'

  The wall may well be making a heroic attempt to understand, but the result is blankness.

  'Be glad you are a wall, then,' she says. 'I bloody well wish I were . . .'

  Writers should use their sufferings, she reminds herself.

  She looks back at her beautiful, bare, clean Italianate and glowing wall. Her kitchen companion. A woman's place is in the kitchen - she feels safe there, unthreatened. Why, even the dishwasher becomes a friend. The scales, the fridge - all her pals, and all keepers of her innermost confessions. Good job Mark isn't around anymore. With what she has said to the fridge about him, for instance, if he opened it now to take out a beer it would probably savage him to death.