Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

Chapter Fourteen

It took me a little time to get back on my feet. Not only was I weak but, without the routines of work and play, the days felt soft-set, like underdone eggs. I was used to them being quite different, all neatly stacked up and filed.

The garden told me that summer was here: a languid seraglio, swooning with scent and covered in foaming, lacy white. When I felt up to it, I pushed open the french windows and stepped outside. I knew it so well. Each brick in the wall. The hole in the lawn dug by the squirrel. The intersection where the fence had rotted. When the children were small they had demanded grass to play football and French cricket on, but as they grew older, like the Dutchman claiming the polders, I snatched back my flowerbeds.

The olive in its pot was sway-backed and grey-green. It meant peace. It meant home. It meant green oil smelling of thyme and marjoram into which to dip a crust of bread. It meant good things.

Hal had given me the olive after our second expedition together, walking through the Mani peninsula. Thin, dirty, dusty, happy, we were on our way home. In Kieros we sat under a clump of olive trees and waited for the bus to take us north to Athens, and ate bread and feta cheese. The sun blazed and dry harvest dust drifted in the hot air. Up in the valley, laden donkeys toiled up the slope and poppies bloomed at the edges of the fields and by the road. I leant back on my rucksack and thought that I had never seen anywhere so harshly beautiful: grey-green olives, stony scrub, scarlet poppies and the blue of the sky. He chose that beautiful, wonderful, hot moment to tell me that he planned to stay in England for the time being. Why? I asked. He got out his penknife and scrambled to his feet. You know why, he said, with his back turned.

He excised a twig with a wedge of bark at the end and presented it to me. Cosseted in dampened tissue, it lay hidden in my rucksack until we got home. I mixed earth and compost in one of Ianthe’s pots, but not too rich for a tree that likes heat and dust, and planted it. Olive trees didn’t grow in this climate – Ianthe was suspicious and unhelpful – hadn’t I noticed?

But I persevered and, one day, two buds were pushing through.

Now I pinched a leaf between my fingers. A breeze had sprung up and, depleted by illness, it made me shiver.

As I paced the garden, depression settled over me like a cold fog. In the absence of my care, the Iceberg had grown thin and attenuated. The Buff Beauty was half buried by the Solanum and I had failed to go to its rescue. My roses were unused to neglect and poured over their stems, feeding on the infant buds, was an undulating sheath of greenfly. I stopped, seized a branch of ‘Ispahan’ and, not caring that the thorns drove into me, ran my finger and thumb down it. That was the way to kill green-fly.

A yellow and green stain flared over my fingers. I bent down and wiped them on the grass. Then I went indoors, closed and locked the french windows behind me.

I did not want to go back into the garden. I cannot explain, but I felt it had let me down.

Ianthe made her weekly call. ‘Have you talked to Nathan? Have you?’

Robert Dodd rang (calls charged at twenty pounds). Nathan had asked him to discuss the separation details with me, the settlement of which was going to be expensive.

Poppy rang from God knew where to report that she was alive.

Mazarine rang from Paris. ‘You must come.’

‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere.’ I looked out of the window at the street, which appeared unimaginably wide, and felt my knees tremble. The more time went by, the less I felt capable of negotiating the outside. ‘I’m finding it difficult to leave the house.’

‘Listen to me. You can. It will help you to forget the terrible Nathan and your little job.’

‘It was not a little job.’

‘If you say so, chère?’.

Curator of a left-bank art gallery, Mazarine still cherished her high intellectual standards and the tussle between her exacting vision and my populist leanings had given us much pleasure over the years. According to the flyer she sent over, the current show was a deconstruction of the mythology of underwear.

I made a huge effort and pulled myself together. ‘How are the knickers?’

‘Stop it,’ she hissed down the phone. ‘I will expect you next Thursday’

Nathan did not like Mazarine. At least, not in the days before I went to work when Mazarine and I spoke so often and were so close. ‘Not my type,’ he said, which was nonsense, for Mazarine had brains, looks and the kind of outlook Nathan relished in women. His dislike was because Mazarine was associated with Oxford and Hal, the bit of my life he had had nothing to do with.

Nathan’s dislike did not stop us making regular trips to Paris to stay with her. (After Nathan was promoted, we opted to stay in hotels, which steadily became more luxurious.) In the Mazarine days, we piled the children into the back of the car. They punctuated the journey with cries of Are we there yet?’ When the questions turned to wails, which they always did, I executed a precarious manoeuvre into the back and sat between them in a rubble of toys and biscuits, holding them close and shouting to Nathan above their noise and that of the engine.

One particular trip we left the children – Sam, thirteen, Poppy, eleven – with Ianthe. The car sped south down the autoroute from Calais and, in the adult peace, I brought up the subject of returning to work.

The effect on Nathan was instant. He frowned, hunched over the wheel, did his disappearing act into himself. ‘Why? Aren’t you happy?’ He glared ahead. ‘You wanted the children so badly. Why not look after them? We’re managing.’

‘You wanted them too.’

I sensed his struggle, against what I was not sure. ‘My mother looked after me,’ he said at last.

My mother-in-law was not a subject I wished – ever – to pursue. ‘And mine did too, just as well, only she combined it with work.’

He transferred his attention to overtaking a lorry loaded with livestock. ‘An alternative would to be work from home. Would you consider that?’

I was puzzled. ‘How strange, Nathan. I had no idea that you would be opposed. I thought you would encourage me.’

The suggestion of any shortfall angered him. ‘I know that plenty of mothers work. I’m not against. Far from it. But should you? We’re talking about us. The older they grow, the more the children will need you.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I snapped. ‘There is a compromise. If you feel so strongly, you look after them.’ He did not reply. Ah. Not so keen to do that, are you?’

‘It’s not you working,’ he repeated, ‘of course not. It’s the children I’m thinking about.’

‘And me?’ But Nathan had shaken me. I had considered every angle of working in a rational manner, and it stung that Nathan assumed I had not thought of the children first.

‘Why do you feel the need? Are you missing something?’

The flat reaches of the Pas de Calais flashed by. ‘Isn’t that rather an odd question? Can you imagine not having your work? Nathan, I’m getting older, too, not just the children, and if I’m not careful it will be too late. Is that so very selfish?’

‘No,’ he answered, the closed look in place. ‘Of course not. It’s just that I thought we were happy as we are.’

‘But we are,’ I cried. ‘Nothing alters that.’

He asked me what I was thinking of doing, and I told him that I had ambitions to be a books editor on a paper. ‘If I work my way up.’

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘That’s not a job. No, I don’t mean that – I don’t know what I mean.’

I shouted ‘Bloody hell’ back and ordered him to stop the car at the next lay-by, which he did. I wrenched open the door and got out. A family was sitting at one of the benches the French are so good at supplying, eating a midday picnic. A stream skirted the edge of the area, flanked by a sward of grass. I walked down to it and stood looking at the water. Someone had thrown in a child’s disposable nappy and the white plastic eddied dismally in the current.

Nathan came up behind me. ‘I didn’t mean it about it not being a job. Of course it is.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t patronize me.’

‘I’m not,’ he was genuinely bewildered, ‘but you have to consider who is to look after the children and if all the upheaval would be worth it.’

I was icy with rage. ‘I’m so angry with you – I can’t remember when I’ve been so angry. We might as well go home. Now,’ I added.

Nathan ran his hand over his hair and scratched the back of his neck. ‘It’s taken me by surprise, that’s all. I don’t like surprises.’

‘It’s not so surprising.’

‘It’s just that we seemed so settled, and it was working.’ With his hands he mimed the shape of a box. ‘We all fitted in so well.’

I moved away towards a group of poplar trees that soared skywards and shouted at him, furiously, ‘I’m allowed to change. Everyone changes. Even you.’

Nathan threw back his head and roared with laughter. The French family stopped eating to watch the roadside drama. ‘You look so funny’

‘Oh, do I? And what do you suppose you look like?’

He smiled and, as usual, it transformed his face and leached the tension. ‘Just as silly’ He came over and took my hand. ‘Don’t change too much, will you?’

Still angry, I disengaged mine. ‘I’ll see.’

We got back into the car and drove for the next hour, mostly in silence. As we drew nearer to Paris, the traffic intensified and Nathan was forced to concentrate. It was not until we had passed the turning to Senlis that he resumed the discussion. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I could ask around the group. That way I could keep an eye on you.’

Then I understood part of the problem. Nathan was worried that I would push open the door and hop out of the cage. He was frightened that I would spread my wings and soar away.

But I wanted to do no such thing.

Wearing a tightly fitting short-sleeved scarlet jacket and skirt with spiky black heels, Mazarine was waiting at the Gare du Nord, which smelt of French tobacco and heated croissants. My spirits lifted just a fraction. To be back in Paris.

‘You look awful.’ She gave me a kiss, which confirmed the verdict for she did not often demonstrate open affection. ‘And what is that?’ She indicated my linen trouser suit.

I tucked my hand under her sharp, creamed elbow. ‘It’s a very nice suit but, I admit, a bit hot. I’d forgotten how hot Paris can be.’

‘It’s a terrible cut,’ she said. ‘Unflattering.’ However left-bank her intellectual interests, a late, childless marriage to a businessman confirmed Mazarine as a chic Parisienne who favoured silk scarves, monogrammed handbags, slim skirts and high heels.

She bundled me into a taxi, which dropped us outside Mimi’s, a restaurant with a blue and gold striped awning. My heart sank. ‘I can’t eat much at the moment,’ I confessed.

‘I can see that, but part of the point is being here. Just enjoy. Good restaurants are therapy.’

I laughed. ‘Clever Mazarine.’

I knew that she would not ask for intimate details about Nathan and his departure. She would stick to the overview, and to the elegant theories that made her strong. No ifs, buts and messy reminiscences, certainly not for Xavier, her dead husband, who had been several years older.

‘So… are you going to kill him?’ Mazarine arranged her napkin on her scarlet lap.

I concentrated on my stuffed chicory, and its thin, bitter taste. ‘No. I could do more damage by killing myself.’

‘If you are thinking of doing so, tell me, and I won’t take you shopping as it would be a waste.’

I told Mazarine about the minister’s wife. Mazarine sighed. ‘What did she expect? All pleasure and no pain?’

‘She got too much pain, and probably too little pleasure.’

She considered. ‘Do you think there is any sign of Nathan coming to his senses?’

‘He’s been gone a while. Since February.’ I looked up at Mazarine. ‘Since February. A lifetime. And that makes it more difficult to repair, should he want to do so. He wanted a change. He wanted a fantasy before it was too late. He didn’t believe in me any more. Also, and this is strange, I think Hal came into it.’

‘That old story. How peculiar.’

‘Anyway…’ I remembered how Nathan leapt to his feet when Minty called to him, and the soft, sleek gleam ‘… Nathan is besotted with Minty.’

Mazarine cut me short. ‘The young and pretty can be pretty wicked, and Minty will get away with it – for the time being.’

The bright cosmopolitan setting seemed to go dark. ‘It’s what you feel after a death… you would know. But there is no body to mourn.’

Mazarine adjusted her earring, and it struck me that she looked uncharacteristically hesitant and uncertain. ‘I hope you made endless big scenes.’

‘Not really. Now, of course, I rather wish I had.’

‘Of course. The English take not only their pleasures but their sorrows sadly’ I let this one pass. Mazarine poked at her shellfish, and her lipsticked mouth was drawn into a cynical expression. ‘We never do know, do we, what our so-called loved ones plan to surprise us with?’ The pause was a fraction overlong. ‘When Xavier died, I had to go through the papers. Of course. And I found something I would never, ever have expected.’ Another pause. ‘Going through a dead person’s effects gives you an advantage you don’t necessarily want…’

A waiter came with the plates on which halibut had been exquisitely arranged with green beans. Mazarine regarded it without her usual critical sharpness.

‘When Xavier died two years ago, he had numerous business interests, the bakery, property and everything. And, it seems, a house – as it happens a beautiful house in the sixteenth.’

I was puzzled. A beautiful house in the sixteenth must qualify as one of the better surprises. I put my hand on hers, which was trembling. ‘Mazarine?’

‘It turns out that this is a house for poules de luxes. Very expensive and exclusive. Now do you see?’

The halibut had grown cold. The clatter of expensive lunch being expensively served continued around us. The heat, the stiff napery, the casually chic clothes of the other diners, the sun spilling over the blue and gold awning reminded me of the art-house films Mazarine and I had gone to see in Oxford and, as often as not, failed to understand.

She said again, ‘It’s a beautiful house, full of beautiful things, and I’m told that Xavier took immense pains over the furnishings and arrangements. And the women are beautiful. Apparently quite a few make good marriages and go on to have good careers. Cancer specialists and television producers.’ She looked at me bleakly. ‘The old fool. He could have told me… I would have made a big scene, I tell you, but we would have shared it.’

‘Are you going to live there?’

‘Live there? No, I shall sell it and get a good price.’

I did my best. ‘Xavier didn’t expect to die, Mazarine. He wouldn’t have done this to you willingly. He would have told you some time.’

Mazarine looked everywhere but at me. The waiter slid tiny coffee cups on to the table and left a pot of coffee between us. I poured it and gave her a cup. It was all too complicated and painful.

Mazarine shaded her eyes. ‘How silly I am. Nearly as silly as you.’

I gave her a shaky smile. ‘OK. Let’s tot up the loyalty bonuses. Your reward for being a good and lovely wife is a brothel which, I must point out, is infinitely more exciting than being replaced with a younger woman.’

After lunch, Mazarine took me shopping. ‘This trip is to get you sorted out,’ she said. ‘I think you must face facts and pay attention to your appearance.’

‘Do I look so bad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shopping will sort me out?’

She shrugged. ‘It is a duty’

Our first stop was La Belle Dame Sans Merci, a boutique specializing in underwear. There was a poster advertising Mazarine’s exhibition in the window. ‘No jokes, Rose.’ Once inside, she submitted me to the attentions of an exquisite-looking youth. ‘Not interested in women,’ she murmured.

I observed myself in the mirror. ‘That’s lucky.’

While he measured and prodded, I gazed awkwardly at the knots of cream satin ribbon that tethered the curtains. Mazarine and the youth conferred and pushed me this way and that, as if I was weightless.

A full-length mirror reconfirmed my thinness but it did not please me as it might have done. Who was this person in the mirror, without presence, without bearing?

‘Pay attention, Rose, and try this on.’ Mazarine handed me the first of many garments.

I obeyed and felt my flesh settle into lace and wire.

‘There,’ she said, a magician happy with her work. ‘Good.’

For anyone’s information, the healing quotient of getting without difficulty into a black lace body embroidered with tiny butterflies is high.

‘How are the finances?’ Mazarine inquired, a little late in the day, as we carried expensive-looking bags out of the boutique.

‘I have six months’ salary. Or I did until an hour ago.’ Mazarine looked smug. ‘This is an investment in your future.’

‘I’m not looking for a husband replacement.’

‘Who said that you were?’

Our next stop was Zou Zou, whose proprietor, a slender, chic woman, appeared to be on the best of terms with Mazarine. The two women conferred fast and emphatically with many a gesture in my direction, and I got the impression that they considered I did not possess a rag worthy to sit on my back. They hustled me into a cubicle and practically ripped off my clothes.

Hands and voices fussed and chattered and pinned on alterations.

I found myself in a sleeveless linen dress cut in the oh-so-French manner. But, dear me, the buttons were not, apparently, in sympathy with my bustline. I confess to being enchanted with this notion. So much in life is wasted or lost – supermarket packaging, emotion, methane gas from cows, years of building up a marriage – but this particular art of placement was the one area in which nothing was overlooked. Buttons sympathetic to the precise line of nipples were there to help salve the wounds of time and love that had gaped open and bloody after one short sentence had been uttered: I’ve found someone else.