Love Among the Single Classes Read online

  ‘You don’t think I’m allowed to go to church by myself nowadays? No, it’s all right Constance, I’ve come to my senses. You’ve even cheered me up. I’ll be OK. I’ll marry him. I don’t want to turn into a Joanna.’

  ‘Oh Marina, meeow!’

  ‘She is going to be a cross middle-aged spinster in a few years’ time.’

  ‘Is that why she’s so set on Iwo?’

  ‘I suppose so. He thinks so. Don’t worry, he won’t marry her. Look, here’s Peter. Darling? Here we are!’

  Behind him stands Iwo.

  I gaze at him. Time pauses, like my heart, and moves on. It is five weeks since I saw him. Over and over again during those weeks my mind has tried to assemble his features or conjure up his stance. Iwo in the flesh is overwhelming, and I feel myself colour as though my own physical reality were coming to life. Blushing, tongue-tied, dry-mouthed, trembling, I am aware of Peter bending to kiss Marina on the forehead, of Iwo lifting her hand to his lips, then nodding to me, while Peter’s clipped, nasal voice is saying, ‘Hello my dear … Mrs Liddell… am I late? I bumped into your friend Monty in Exhibition Road and assumed he was on his way to meet you both. He said he wasn’t: but here he is anyway!’

  Peter looks none too pleased at his intruder, but must hope that he can palm us off with each other.

  As the four of us sit uneasily around the table over coffee – uneasily because Peter would rather be alone with Marina; who might want to finish her conversation with me; while I certainly want to be alone with Iwo, though he looks as though he would be happiest by himself. I think, she’s right: he does look fit. But he looks different. He is more inaccessible than ever. How wonderfully his face is moulded on to his skull! How self-contained he is: not fidgeting with his hands, as Peter is: nervously tangling and untangling his fingers as though itching to get at Marina; nor staring around him at the other diners, as I had been doing; nor feeling obliged to join in the little froth of social pleasantries that Marina is trying to whip up. He just is: and in being, is perfect.

  A waitress comes over with the bill, hoping to move us to the bar so that she can clear the table. Marina and I engage in an argument over who is to pay, which I win, and then – trying to prevent Iwo from leaving us – I suggest a drink.

  Everyone declines, but Iwo says, ‘Come Constance, the happy couple must want to be left alone. I will take you to the tube station.’

  We walk briskly side by side through the late-darkening streets, flanked by grand, stuccoed buildings. I stare miserably at my feet. Where are those fantasy conversations, now that I need them? Where is the cheerful bravado of ‘… and then come live with me, and be my love’? I watch the little shiny bows on the toes of my shoes twinkle incongruously to and fro. Iwo doesn’t offer his arm, as one happy afternoon on Hampstead Heath he did, and Boadicea wouldn’t have had the courage to reach out and take his hand. We walk in silence towards Earls Court underground.

  I remember an evening like this nearly thirty years ago. I was seventeen and he was my first love: a handsome boy with a craggy face and a heavy lock of Teddy boy hair curling over his forehead. He was tall and he liked jazz and jive and my parents would have disapproved of everything about him. He wasn’t really interested in me, but I had found some pretext for offering him a ‘spare’ ticket to see a modern dance company and he had agreed to come with me. The performance was a disaster – he hated it, and I could find no words to justify having liked it – but as we came out of the theatre he said, grudgingly, ‘I’ll walk you to your station.’

  Then, as now, my head buzzed with conversational openings, all of them unspoken. Then, I had been wearing a brand-new pair of shiny black Italian shoes with uncomfortably high stiletto heels and elongated toes. I had watched these toes preceding my feet like medieval jesters’ shoes and in silence we had walked along the Embankment from the theatre to Waterloo station, suburban entrance. It was almost precisely the same distance, too: perhaps half a mile. For half a mile I looked at my feet and played a searchlight into the corners of my mind in case some brilliantly witty remark might lurk there to break the tension and make him laugh and spark off an interested response. None did, and after a while he said, ‘You’re very serious, aren’t you? I wish you’d stop looking at your feet …’ Just as now, Iwo says, ‘Relax, Constance. They’ll be all right.’ Both times, I expect, I half laughed and said, ‘Gosh … sorry … I mean … yes, I know …’ Only then, I was seventeen and it was forgivable. Now that I’m forty-four it’s absurd.

  It is hard to convince myself that this secret Constance isn’t blatantly obvious to outsiders. Yet Iwo’s remark shows that he simply assumed I was silent because I was worrying about Marina’s future. He can’t see the inner panic that has never subsided. The plain little girl in her flesh-pink National Health glasses who knew she came a long way behind her vivacious younger sister in everyone’s affections – that self-conscious, awkwardly clever child is the ugly duckling still waddling along with me. In due course I was surprised to find that lots of people thought me funny, affectionate, generous and good company; but the people whose opinion mattered – my father, my husband, my lovers – weren’t fooled. Their power over me was rooted in my sexual insecurity. I never had much trouble with the male world of authority, which was easily outfaced and outwitted. I acquired the skills of competence: a fairly simple matter of advance planning, lists, and debt-balancing. I wrote long letters to bank managers accompanied by pitifully small cheques and promises of greater to come. I could deal with teachers and doctors and, eventually, solicitors and accountants, and, last of all, an employer and colleagues. My children took it for granted that I was adult – I was their mother, I must be – and thus forced me to grow up. Yet, as she pointed out the other day, sometimes my daughter Cordelia feels, quite rightly, older than me. Is it all a matter of confidence, instilled by love? Guided by the failure of my own childhood, I decided when I became a parent to do the opposite of everything my parents had done. Not criticism: praise. Not frugality: lavishness. Not rules: trust. It was risky and occasionally disastrous. But by and large I loved them, complimented them, encouraged them, defended them and hoped that everything else would fall into place.

  When I get home I find a scribbled note beside the telephone: ‘Andrew Lloyd-something, not Webber unfortunately, says ring him any time up until midnight.’ It’s only just after eleven, not too late to talk to him.

  I dial his number which is on the same exchange as Iwo’s, sinking down into the sofa with the telephone and a cat on my lap, settling in for a long session. It’s weeks since we spoke.

  ‘Constance,’ he says, ‘thank you for ringing. How are you?’

  ‘The same … No: a bit worse.’

  ‘Poor lass. Want to talk about it?’

  ‘Well, yes, sometime … but tell me first why you rang.’ ‘A pretext, and then a confession. The pretext is to ask you to this play at the Mermaid …’

  ‘Rave reviews …’

  ‘Yes, I managed to get tickets for Saturday. Like to come?’

  ‘Love to. Providing the children haven’t committed me to anything.’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap. You mean, provided the magnetic Pole doesn’t ask you out that evening.’

  ‘All right. Yes. I’ll definitely come. You are funny. Now what do you want to confess?’

  ‘It’s difficult on the phone. I … Last night I had this dream. It was about you.’

  ‘Dreams sometimes …’

  ‘Yes. This was one of those.’

  ‘Andrew, don’t rush to … I didn’t dream about you. Didn’t dream about anybody.’

  ‘Are you about to go to bed? Can I come and see you?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Any reason why not?’

  ‘It’ll be midnight by the time you’re here.’

  I acquiesce, flattered, curious, and in need of someone to sympathize, someone I can tell about Iwo.

  Half an hour later he arrives, bringing his own whis
ky and Perrier. I welcome him at the door with a deliberate ‘old friends’ embrace: big smile and a chaste kiss on each cheek. We exchange the usual formalities: ‘How’s work?’ ‘Oh, same as ever, you know … going away soon?’ ‘Yes, France, end of July.’ We are English, we know the conventions. ‘How’s your mother?’ ‘Well, I suppose … that reminds me, I must give her a ring.’ Until Andrew sits and bends his grave, domed gaze upon me.

  ‘I’m sorry to come so late.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m wide awake. I spent the evening with Iwo.’

  Be warned.

  ‘Constance, there is no way to say this except straight. I had this dream about you, about us: a very erotic dream …’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I said erotic.’

  ‘Now, or in the past?’

  ‘Not at Oxford. Now.’

  ‘Poor Andrew!’

  ‘Constance, don’t insult me by joking. It was extraordinarily vivid and at the same time terribly obvious, sensible, almost.’

  ‘Sensible and erotic?’

  I am being defensively light-hearted because I dread what he is going to say next: I love you, I have always loved you, ever since I met you again at Paul’s place … how can I tell him that, to me, he has always been completely sexless?

  ‘Andrew, can I have a glass of your whisky?’

  He goes to the sideboard, fetches a tumbler, pours me a whisky, tops it up with Perrier, sits down again, beside me this time, and says, ‘Constance, you have got to come to bed with me.’

  ‘Got to?’

  But even as I sit there thinking, this is embarrassing, this is hopeless, how am I going to extricate myself? I feel the first uncurling of a tendril of desire.

  ‘I told you, I’ve just spent the evening with Iwo. You know, because you kindly lend me a shoulder once a month or so, that I am besotted with him.’

  ‘I am besotted with you.’

  The tendril sends out a shoot.

  ‘You make it very difficult for me. I don’t want to … Oh, Andrew, you’re such a good friend and now I shall lose you!’

  ‘No. You will gain me.’

  He takes my hand. The shoot produces buds, the prickling of lust. The conditioning of twenty years is being undone by simple frustration, as my body responds to the whisky, the late hour, and the presence of a man. He puts his hand firmly, not flirtatiously, on my breast.

  ‘Constance. Come to bed with me.’

  Quite suddenly I decide to surrender. I can’t see how he is going to get out of this situation, and the truth is, I do want to be made love to. I get up from the sofa, and for a moment he looks at me, wary and puzzled – am I going to throw him out? – and then as the silence deepens he stands up and puts his arms around me, enfolds me, and for the first time in our lives we kiss.

  Reader, I go to bed with him. Why? Because being wanted is an irresistible force after weeks and months of being ignored. Because I am living on a high-wire of emotional tension in which nothing happens. The hope for a release of the physical tautness which Iwo induces, the relaxation of my face from lines of strain into the softness of gratified desire is why I go to bed with him. I need to be stroked, held, murmured to, loved: but although Andrew does all that, and more, it doesn’t work. How could it, when drumming through my mind like rain on a roof are the words, Two, oh Iwo, my Iwo, please Iwo …’

  Andrew doesn’t spend the night in my bed. He comes, sleeps a little, and goes, after leaning over the bed with great tenderness and whispering, in case I am asleep, ‘I’ll give you a ring tomorrow. Darling …’

  As soon as I have heard the front door slam behind him, and the engine of his car rev up and roar away, I switch on the bedside light and get up. Filled with still undischarged energy, I wash, clean my teeth, pick up my clothes from the floor, fold them, and finally go down to the kitchen and make myself tea. What am I to say to Andrew tomorrow? He must surely know that our attempt at sex was a failure. I didn’t even try to pretend, to gratify his masculine pride or ease his embarrassment or simply bring the whole process to a climax. I wanted to be moved. It would have been a wonderfully simple solution if Andrew and I could have fallen suddenly, happily, into bed and into love. But the rain drummed in my head and left me quite detached from his gentle, grateful love-making.

  Next day the phone rings immediately after breakfast, and I nearly leave Cordy to answer it, for I haven’t yet decided what to say to Andrew. But in the end I pick it up, thinking, tell him the truth; you’ll just have to tell him the truth. It is Iwo’s voice.

  ‘Constance, ah, I have caught you before you go to work …’

  ‘Iwo!’

  ‘My dear, I am sorry about last night. That young man encountered me by chance and would not be refused. I had no wish to interrupt your evening. But then you looked so anxious and strained, I didn’t want to leave you.’

  Kindness! Dear God, I had anticipated anything but kindness!

  ‘Iwo … how nice of you to have noticed. You’re right.’

  ‘Marina is an intelligent woman and she has made up her mind. She knows she doesn’t love him, but need is a better basis for a marriage than love, don’t you think? It’s something we should discuss, to set your mind at rest.’

  ‘Iwo, where are you? This is an extraordinary conversation to be having at twenty to nine in the morning, when’ – oh, I am daring! – ‘you haven’t spoken to me properly for weeks.’

  ‘No, I have been very preoccupied. This weekend? Do you want to meet?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Saturday?’

  ‘Fine. Ring me.’

  ‘I will. Goodbye.’

  Light-footed as Mercury I speed around the house and trip off to the library. I smile at all the shopkeepers along the way, as they sweep the pavement or arrange displays outside their shops.

  ‘Morning, my dear!’ they call out to me. ‘Lovely morning isn’t it?’

  ‘Heavenly!’ I reply.

  My way is clear for action, after weeks of inertia. All through the spring I have been sluggish, heavy-footed, pulled down by my doleful thoughts. And now Iwo wants to talk to me about marriage! I don’t care if he marries me for need, if the Home Office is being difficult over renewing his visa, I love him. I decide to spring-clean this weekend. Perhaps I should put the house on the market and start to contact estate agents for details? Plenty of time for that after I’ve discussed it with Iwo.

  Meanwhile, I ring my mother, and confirm our regular meeting. For years, we have met every second and fourth Tuesday in the month. When my marriage was breaking up, Paul told me that he had always known those nights would be clear for his adventures. ‘Second and fourth Tuesdays will always have a frisson for me!’ he said. The old pang shoots through me still. I am to go round to her flat, and she will make me a ‘proper tea’, making it sound as though it would be my only square meal this month. Well, I can tell her some good news about Iwo at last. I haven’t told her much, but she has read between the lines and been concerned for me, and for her grandchildren. My father died too late in life for her to have any experience of other men; her life is a peaceful round of bridge at the club and trips to Harrods or the Royal Academy. Is it possible to leave behind all desire for love and sex, to look at men dispassionately, as though they were of the same gender as oneself?

  Kate is spending the weekend with my sister whom she loves, and her cousins. They are younger than she is, so she can patronize and bully them – a rare treat for a youngest child. On Saturday morning I start spring-cleaning at eight, a whirlwind of virtuous and purposeful activity. As always, there is the unexpected bonus of becoming involved in the work, so that it ceases to be a chore and becomes a source of pride and pleasure. After three hours I am hot and bothered, pushing back the hair from my forehead with a yellow rubber-gloved hand, but the kitchen and breakfast room are spotless and orderly. Just as I think about putting on the kettle for a coffee, the phone rings – great: that’ll be Iwo! But the voice on the
other end of the phone is Andrew’s.

  ‘Constance! How are you?’ Tenderly. ‘I know I promised to ring you yesterday, but I was in such a whirl I… anyhow, about tonight …’

  Oh God. I had absolutely and completely forgotten. My mind thinks faster than the speed of light. Elaborate lies are invented and rejected in the seconds after his pause. Mother ill? Child hurt? Neighbour in suicide bid? It will have to be the truth.

  ‘Dear Andrew … Christ I hate doing this … Andrew I can’t manage this evening after all.’

  Heavily, he asks, as he is entitled to, ‘What has happened? It must be Iwo?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He wants to see you tonight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  No point in hurting him more by telling him that I had clean forgotten about our theatre.

  ‘You know I’m obsessed. That means I behave quite unscrupulously.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Oh Andrew … will I see you again?’

  ‘Why?’

  Mind races off again. Need to discuss things. No. Want to say sorry? No. ‘A friend of mine, a Polish girl, is getting married in a couple of weeks’ time. At the Catholic church in Fulham Road. All very formal, with a reception afterwards. Could you possibly come with me to that?’

  ‘I should have thought Iwo was your obvious escort.’

  ‘He’s going to be in a group with another Polish family. Andrew: will you? Please.’

  ‘Yes. Talk to you some other time. Pity about tonight.’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Goodbye Constance.’

  Iwo loves – who knows? I love Iwo. Andrew says he loves me. Who loves Andrew? Probably somewhere there is, even now, a woman hearing her phone ring and wondering if it might be Andrew. I hope she has a good evening at the theatre.

  I spring-clean all day, scrubbing my guilt into floors and polishing it off windowpanes until they’re so clean that the whole room looks lighter. Iwo telephones and we arrange as always to meet outside the tube station. Lovingly I wash my favourite objects in hot soapy water – the yellow crystal bonbonnière, the cerulean blue vase, the three dancing children – and arrange them, sparkling, in new places. I also make fresh arrangements of flowers and fruit on the side tables and shelves in the drawing room, and gaze around the sweet-smelling rooms with satisfaction before going upstairs to lavish the same attention upon myself. When Iwo comes back tonight both the house and I will be as immaculate as is possible for a Victorian semi and a middle-aged woman. The clocks have been wound, corrected and synchronized and are all chiming seven as I leave, shouting over my shoulder into the empty hallway, ‘Bye-bye all of you!’ for the benefit of passing burglars. My knees ache from kneeling and my hands still smell faintly of bleach as I head into the May dusk. It is my favourite time of day: the light concentrated low down in the sky, sharpening details of the young leaves and old brickwork with its slanting gold.