Lessons in Duck Hunting

by Jayne Buxton

  I take some comfort from the fact that I stopped thinking about David the minute Tom turned up. I’m not sure what that says about me, but it must be something positive. If I can forget about David for four hours and experience a rush of adrenaline when my arm accidentally brushes against someone else’s in the cinema, then surely all is not lost. It means I’m not about to jettison more than two years of self-affirming recovery to risk everything again for a man who loves women. At least not with undue haste.

  There’s nothing not to like about Tom. Even his haircut has grown on me. The thing I like best about him is the total absence of any coy evasiveness, any macho posturing. A kind of unequivocal quality. This isn’t dull, but challenging. Because it makes you wonder how anyone could ever live up to that level of ingenuousness.

  Just as you have leg-men and bottom-men, you have smile-women. And I’m one of them. Someone’s smile can turn me off in an instant or reel me in like an angler with a tug on his line. David’s smile is confident and sexy, and has always been hard for me to resist. Mr. Electric Bollocks has a naughty, twinkling smile that he has no problem living up to, I can now see. Tom’s smile is not like either of these. It’s warm and intense, and you get the feeling there’s a lot behind it.

  After a whole evening being smiled at by Tom I’m not sure of much except that I want more of it. Even if I am intimidated by the memory of his wife—a GP of all things, and a good mother. I asked to see her picture just to get the whole thing out of the way, and she was exactly as I’d imagined her. Dark hair, an unaffected face, pretty but not made up. I felt reassured by the dark hair. At least he’s not doing a Boris Becker or a Rod Stewart, looking for an exact replica of the one that got away.

  We didn’t talk about Jenny all evening. In fact, we didn’t talk about her for more than a few minutes, and only at my instigation. The rest of the time we talked about me and the kids, about why I left Chanel and how he got into scriptwriting. (We rather gloss over the whole topic of David, my not being in the ideal position to talk about how I’ve put him behind me.) And we laugh. Because behind Tom’s intense smile is a quietly wicked sense of humor that takes you by surprise every time.

  Our first kiss was tentative. Both of us were holding back, so there was nothing greedy about it. I guess you would say it was a kiss that grew on us. When our lips parted he looked down at me and smiled shyly, and I reached up and traced that captivating crease in his cheek with my finger.

  So I came home from Barton-on-Sea in a mess, and I’m still in a mess. Having canvassed opinions from Clara and Mel, I’m not really any the wiser as to what I should do now. The thought of adding further confusion to the pot by taking on the last of Marina’s tasks at tonight’s seminar fills me with dismay. I’m in serious need of some good advice, not another list of things to do.

  I HAVEN’T USED a chat room for myself since I turned to mumsworld to reassure myself that I wasn’t some sort of failure as a mother just because I would rather stand and roll two dozen rum babas or clean out the oven than sit on the floor for hours at a time playing games with my small children. I’m not sure it’s right to turn to one now, except that I just don’t know anyone else who could answer the questions I want the answers to. I don’t know any widowers besides Tom, and I can’t ask him.

  DEAR M

  THANKS FOR REPLYING TO MY POSTING. YOURS WAS THE FIRST REPLY I HAD THAT MADE ME THINK “THIS PERSON IS HUMAN.” I ALSO THOUGHT, THIS PERSON IS FRIENDLY, AND PROBABLY WOULDN’T MIND DISHING OUT SOME ADVICE, HUMAN TO HUMAN. WOULD YOU MIND THAT? EVEN IF IT MEANT THERE WAS NOTHING IN IT FOR YOU?

  YOURS TRULY,

  FRANCESCA

  DEAR FRANCESCA

  A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE GIVEN ME A LOT OF ADVICE OVER THE PAST YEAR, AND I’VE BEEN DESPERATELY GRATEFUL FOR SOME OF IT. HOW COULD I DEPRIVE YOU OF SAME? IN ANY CASE, I’M NOT SURE I WANT THERE TO BE ANYTHING IN IT FOR ME. REMEMBER, I WAS PUT UP TO THIS.

  YOURS TRULY,

  M

  DEAR M

  HERE’S THE SITUATION. AM DIVORCED, BUT EX IS MAKING AMOROUS ADVANCES. THAT’S ONE ISSUE. YOU PROBABLY CAN’T HELP WITH THAT ONE. OTHER ISSUE IS THAT HAVE MET LOVELY MAN WHO LOST HIS WIFE LAST YEAR. HE SAYS WE HAVE A CONNECTION. IS THAT POSSIBLE? OR AM I IN DANGER OF BEING USED AS HUMAN TISSUE FOR TEARS?

  GRATEFULLY

  F

  DEAR F

  DID LOVELY MAN LOVE HIS WIFE?

  M

  DEAR M

  HAVEN’T ASKED HIM THAT DIRECTLY, BUT GENERAL IMPRESSION IS YES. GENERAL IMPRESSION IS OF LOVELY SENSITIVE MAN WHO DID ALL RIGHT THINGS AND SUFFERED FROM VERY BAD LUCK.

  QUESTION IS: CAN A MAN WHO LOVED SOMEONE WHOLEHEARTEDLY EVER REALLY LOVE SOMEONE ELSE THAT WAY?

  EVER FAITHFULLY

  F

  DEAR F

  DO YOU KNOW WHAT PEOPLE SAY TO THEIR FIRST CHILD WHEN THEY HAVE THE SECOND? THEY SAY THAT OUR HEARTS EXPAND WHEN WE HAVE ANOTHER CHILD. THAT WE HAVE MORE LOVE TO GIVE. I’M HOPING IT’S THE SAME WITH SPOUSES. JUST BECAUSE WE LOVED SOMEONE AND THEY DIE, OR WE DIVORCED THEM, DOESN’T MEAN WE’VE LESS LOVE TO GIVE SOMEONE ELSE. AND LOVING THE NEW PERSON DOESN’T MEAN WE’RE BEING DISLOYAL TO THE OLD ONE. CAN YOU IMAGINE THINKING THAT LOVING YOUR SECOND CHILD MEANT THAT YOU LOVED YOUR FIRST ONE LESS? IMPOSSIBLE, RIGHT? PERHAPS THAT’S THE ANSWER. SURE HOPE SO.

  FONDLY

  M

  DEAR M

  FOOD FOR THOUGHT. THE THING THAT WORRIES ME IS, WHEN IS THE RIGHT TIME TO START AGAIN? DO YOU THINK THERE’S SUCH A THING AS TOO SOON? AM I DESTINED TO BE TRANSITION PERSON? IF SO, NOT INTERESTED. MIGHT BE TRANSITION PERSON FOR EX-HUSBAND, WHICH IS BAD ENOUGH.

  WOULD YOU BE READY TO MEET SOMEONE NOW? COULD YOU EXPERIENCE A CONNECTION WITH SOMEONE ELSE A YEAR AFTER LOSING THE PERSON YOU LOVED?

  YOURS

  F

  DEAR F

  JUST RECENTLY MET SOMEONE. SO FAR FEELS RIGHT, BUT CAN’T SAY AM NOT WARY. TRYING NOT TO THINK TOO MUCH ABOUT IT. DOES THAT ANSWER YOUR QUESTION?

  YOU SOUND NICE. PITY.

  FONDLY AS EVER

  M

  CHAPTER 36

  TOO MANY HEARTS

  Sitting in Tuesday’s seminar, the last of the series, I could be in a Brazilian rain forest for all that I am absorbing. Marina is in particularly effusive form tonight. We’re on to the final P— Perseverance—having heard half a dozen stories of the successful conquering of place, promotion and props. I tune back in to see Marina holding up a flyer made by someone called Kelly. Her brand is adventurous, sporty and loving, and she’s got a picture representing each of these aspects of her brand on the cover of her flyer. Inside is a heartfelt plea to her friends to introduce her to people they think would like her brand.

  Angie digs me in the ribs and whispers, “That’s a step too far, don’t you think?” She’s probably desperate for me to agree, being worried that if I tell her I’ve had five hundred copies of my own flyer printed she’ll feel compelled to follow my example.

  “Absolutely,” I say. “Couldn’t bring myself to embrace that particular P.”

  The break can’t come too quickly for me. My whirling head can’t focus on Marina’s assiduous guidance, and I’m feeling far too self-involved to properly care about the progress of any of the other hundred and forty-nine women in the room, except perhaps for Angie, Claudia and Louise.

  Angie is the first to speak when we gather with our wineglasses. “Ally, I have to thank you for what you said the other night.”

  “Well, I’m glad it helped. But I don’t remember saying anything terribly insightful,” I say. “You knew all that stuff. Sometimes it just helps when someone else says it.”

  “Well, whatever you said, it got me going. I did what you said. I even carry this around with me now.” She holds up a small magazine clipping she’s retrieved from her bag. When I look more closely I see that it’s actually the inside cover of a video, with a picture of Richard Gere walking out of the factory with Debra Winger in his arms. The others wear perplexed expressions until Angie exp
lains.

  “So anyway,” Angie continues, “I actually made a phone call. Called up my friend Della and asked her if she could think of anyone to introduce me to. At first she said she couldn’t, that I’d already met everyone she knew. But two days later she rang back and said would I be game on to meet the brother of her husband’s football buddy. She just remembered that he’s broken up with someone. So we’re going out this weekend. How’s that for progress? First date in four years!”

  “Angie, that’s great,” gushes Louise. “Just as soon as I lose some weight I’m going to do what you did. For now I’m having the best time living with my friend. If I’d known it would be this great I’d have moved out years ago.”

  Then a voice says, “Why wait until you’ve lost weight, Louise? You know what I think about that.” Marina is suddenly standing in our little circle, in between Angie and Louise. She looks earnestly at Louise as if to emphasize that hers was not a rhetorical question.

  “I don’t know really,” stutters Louise. “I think it’s just that I don’t really want to fall for a man who’ll fall for me as a fat woman and expect me to stay that way. You know, one of those blokes who prefers fat women? I don’t want one of those. It will end up being just another trap, and I’m sick of being trapped.”

  That’s the sanest articulation of a rationale I’ve ever heard, and I hope Marina gives Louise her due. She cocks her head to one side and considers Louise for a second, before saying, “That’s good, Louise. That’s a very positive way of looking at it. You’ll go out there when you’re ready. Just don’t forget what you’ve learned here. I hope you’ll count on all the friends you’ve made to remind you.”

  We all brace ourselves for the weight of the responsibility Marina has just thrust upon us. Claudia is looking uncomfortable; she’s probably worried that Marina will turn to her to ask her what positive steps she’s taken to find herself a proper partner. I know from her whispered aside that her action plan thus far has consisted of little other than a nightly shag with her shiatsu dreamboat. Personally, I think that if they’re still shagging every night after a month there’s got to be something to the relationship, and Marina might just be impressed. But Claudia’s not up for sharing this. She mutters something about needing a tissue and excuses herself. So Marina turns to me.

  “And you, Ally? How are you doing? I was so thrilled to hear your story last time.”

  At this point I know I have a choice, albeit one I have to make quickly. I can smile and say that everything’s fine, and hope Marina moves on to another group. Or I can share my dilemma with her, Louise and Angie. But the choice is taken from me because Marina has an inbuilt sonic radar system, and she’s picked up some signals she thinks are worth exploring.

  “Now, come on, Ally. You look a little troubled. What is it? Share it with us.”

  So I do. I stand in the middle of the Wessex room underneath an enormous three-tiered chandelier monopolizing Marina’s time for at least fifteen minutes. She is so engrossed by my story that she shoos away her assistant when she comes to give her the fiveminutes-to-air-time signal.

  I can tell that she is most thrilled by the fact that her Duck Decoy and Place Plan exercises have resulted in the coming to fruition of a real, live opportunity. She can even see some value in the Gary episode, though she’s quick to point out that Duck Decoys work best when they aren’t people for whom we feel inappropriate levels of physical attraction. She’s also genuinely interested in the dilemma that’s resulted from all of this, but not, in the end, much help in resolving it.

  “In the end, Ally, none of the Ps can help you make a choice. You can take a horse to water, as they say. You need to listen to your heart to know which relationship you should bet on.”

  If only it were this easy. The trouble is, it’s not just my heart we’re talking about. There’s David’s heart, and whether he’s really capable of giving it. There’s Tom’s heart, and the question of whether it has been so broken that anyone trying to fill Jenny’s shoes could only ever come a poor second. And there are three tiny hearts involved, two of which I know could never withstand a false start.

  One thing’s for sure. My heart’s not in this anymore. Marina is right about one thing. Nothing I learn here tonight, and none of the tricks of the dating trade, can help me. They’re an irrelevance now. So when, at the end, we are all asked to stand up and link arms and pledge to support each other (as I always knew we would be) I feel a bit like a fraud. I’ve no intention of forming a self-directed support group to carry on the good work we’ve all started here, or indeed, persevering with the techniques Marina has carefully spelled out in our notes.

  I will miss Angie, Claudia and Louise though. And we may even stay in touch. I’m not happy going away not knowing whether Angie’s rendezvous with the friend of her friend’s brother (or was it her husband’s friend’s brother?) will work out. I’d love to see Louise settle into her new independent life, and lose the pounds she’s set as her target weight loss. And I’ll not rest unless I hear the outcome of the Claudia story. I think her twenty-five-year-old would be mad to let her go, and I hope he’s smart enough to see that.

  As we all go our separate ways from the Savoy I wonder what they’re all thinking about me. Would they just be curious to see how things work out? Or would they will me in one direction or another? They’ve all been good listeners, but none offered a surefire route out of my impasse. The best that anyone had to say was that I should just relax and see how things work out. How useful is that?

  Pretty useful, as it happens.

  CHAPTER 37

  ANOTHER BURIAL

  Important, verging on earth-shattering phone calls on Wednesday: Mine to Alan, explaining that I can’t go out with him because I’m involved with someone else (two of them, in fact); Tom’s to me, asking whether we can see each other this weekend; David’s to me, in which he tells me he thinks he might be in love with me still, or again; might; and mine to the Strand Hair Design, during which I intend to book an appointment for a full-head of highlights with George, but discover that he has died.

  I am incredulous, and my first words betray me. “No. You’re not serious?” As if anyone would joke about something like this.

  “It’s true, my darlin’,” says Grant, the owner of the salon. “He died last night. A heart attack.”

  “A heart attack? But he was always so slim and fit. And he didn’t smoke.”

  “I know. They think it might have been the asthma. He was actually in the hospital at the time. He was in there for food poisoning again. Cooked himself another chicken.”

  George got food poisoning every time he cooked for himself, which is why he took most of his meals at a bistro close to his flat. He had his own table there, a free half bottle of wine with every meal, and many friends amongst the steady flow of regular customers.

  “My God. I can’t believe it. What a terrible, terrible thing. You must be devastated,” I say to Grant.

  “It’s a big loss. A huge loss. I haven’t really taken it in myself.”

  “How is his son?” I ask. George has a twenty-two-year-old son, a budding film director, whose mother was another model he met on a Greek Island in the days before he became a fully paid up member of the gay community.

  “Taking it hard, as you can imagine. But he’s a strong kid. A really great kid. He’s asked for donations to Asthma for Children instead of flowers at the house or the funeral.”

  THE FUNERAL IS on Saturday morning. David agrees to have the children, and I go alone. By the time I walk into the church there are at least two hundred people there, a lot of them women. George’s clients, their beautifully cut suits and tasteful little hats worn as a final homage to a man who believed in small luxuries. Cashmere sweaters, bottles of Möet, a single fresh red rose in each vase in the salon. A good perfume perfectly applied.

  Like me, many of these people will have been seeing George for ten or twenty years. That’s a lot of conversation. More than you mig
ht have with any other of your friends or family. There aren’t many other people with whom I’ve spent three or four uninterrupted hours every six weeks, engaged in a form of therapy. Therapy light—in which you are invited to unload your every thought, distasteful or otherwise, about the latest news and celebrity gossip, and laugh about your own or George’s recent adventures, mishaps and dilemmas. Not every stylist is up to that kind of relationship, but George was.

  Many of the women here will have seen one another at our worst, as had George. Not many women’s looks bear close inspection when their hair is wrapped in a hundred squares of tin foil, or their face is bare and exposed after a vigorous wash and comb out. But no one seems to mind. For a place that’s all about improving what you look like, there’s remarkably little vanity about.

  I find myself a seat at the end of a pew next to a woman and her daughter whom I recognize from the salon. The woman drove down from Nottingham once a month to have George cut her hair, such was her devotion. Her daughter, Elena, has magnificent thick, dark hair cut to fall in gentle waves on her shoulders. She used to time her own visits to George to coincide with her mother’s so they could spend time together, but also so that Elena could stock up on the expensive shampoos, conditioners and texturizers that she couldn’t afford on her own salary.

  It’s difficult to remain dry-eyed during the service and few do. The hymns are beautifully chosen, and an old friend of George’s sings a haunting solo. But most moving is the tribute paid George by his son Damian, a young man who has been forced to rise to the occasion at a cruelly young age. And rise to the occasion he does, lifting our spirits as he reminds us of the enormity of our loss.

  “First of all, I have to apologize,” he begins. “If you’re wondering where that strong smell of cologne is coming from . . .” He glances behind him at his father’s coffin, eliciting smiles and then low laughter from the congregation. We all exhale heavily, our relief palpable.