“Oh gosh, can you imagine me meeting a man at my age?”
“Well, why not? You know sixty isn’t considered old these days.” Marion, at fifty-four, was a year younger than Judith.
“Of course, I should take you clothes shopping sometime. We need to glam you up a bit.” Judith reached out and patted Marion on the arm. “I hope you don’t feel offended, but I am only saying these things because I want to see you bloom. You have to live life to the fullest, my dear, and no one can do that in polyester slacks and an old raincoat.”
“I don’t know, Judith, it sounds like a lot of fuss and bother, really,” said Marion, ashamedly picking a fuzz-berry from the knee of the offending slacks.
“But you don’t want to miss out on everything, do you, Marion? And time passes us by so quickly.”
“I suppose it does. But I’m quite all right.”
“Are you really all right, stuck in that big old house with John?” Judith asked.
The house didn’t seem that big to Marion; it was so filled with things that sometimes she felt like a little mouse trying to burrow through it all to get where she wanted to go.
“You never seem to go out anywhere or see anyone.”
“I go out all the time,” Marion protested. “I go to the shops and I walk along the promenade. And I see John, of course, and you now and then.”
“But that’s hardly enough, is it?” She took a sip of coffee, and the thin red smile left her mouth and stuck to the edge of her cup. “Can I ask you a question?” Then without waiting for an answer she added, “Have you even been in love?”
“Well, of course—everyone has been in love—haven’t they?” Marion replied vaguely.
“Oh, come on, don’t be such a tease, tell me all about him—or her, of course.”
“It was a boy—I mean a young man. He worked in my father’s warehouse years ago.”
“What was he like?”
“He was very tall with red hair, and his name was Neil.”
“Did you get engaged?”
“Oh goodness no, nothing that serious. I used to talk to him while he was on his break. He liked reading paperbacks. You know the ones, Penguin Classics. The other workmen made fun of him; they called him the Ginger Professor. You see, he was only doing the job to save money for university. And he always brought a packet of cheese and onion crisps to eat with his lunch. Sometimes he gave me one.”
Judith pressed her fingertips against her lips to stop the giggles escaping. Marion felt as if she had shown Judith a treasure that she had carried around with her for years, only to be told it was a piece of trash.
“Did he taste like cheese and onion crisps when you kissed him?”
Marion’s raincoat crackled as she shook her head. “No, I don’t know—we didn’t kiss—nothing like that happened.”
“You didn’t even kiss him? I’m sorry for laughing. That really is a sweet story.”
Marion felt sometimes that Judith was playing a cruel game; pinching her hard, then gently patting the bruise better.
“But don’t you ever regret not getting married, having children?” Judith asked.
“Well, no, not really. I’ve never thought about it much.”
“But you must have. Most women are desperate to have a baby at some point in their lives.” She held both fists to her flat stomach, as if to show the exact spot where the baby-hunger came from. “Though perhaps if one has a career or pursues some artistic goal, I suppose that might provide a similar sense of fulfillment.”
Wondering if she was expected to apologize for having none of these things, Marion lowered her head, and the drawstring of the raincoat pulled tight around her neck.
“Though in some ways you are probably better off,” Judith added quickly. “Kids give you no end of worry. You know Lydia is switching courses again? This time to film studies, which probably means I’m paying out thousands for her to end up serving tequila shots in TGI Fridays. That’s a restaurant, by the way.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of it.”
“And she’s so careless. She lost her mobile and all her credit cards in some bar last month. I had to phone all round the banks to cancel the cards and lend her money for a new phone. Of course her father doesn’t do a thing, though he has Krish to worry about—and she is practically a child herself.”
Judith’s ex-husband, a high-flying management consultant, had left her for a twenty-five-year-old silk printer called Krishna. “And to think I had been getting all these hideous bloody scarves as presents for birthdays and Christmas, and I had no idea why!” Judith had wailed when she found out.
“I’ve made it quite clear to Lydia she isn’t moving back here after graduation. I have my own life now.”
Marion felt a throb of disappointment. Lydia coming back to live on Grange Road had been something she was looking forward to. Suddenly Judith’s phone sang a tinny little tune.
“Oh, this is Greg, you don’t mind if I take it, do you?”
Judith’s boyfriend worked as her assistant in the gallery. From the next room Judith could be heard saying, “No, I really don’t know where the damn scissors are. I suppose you will just have to open them with your teeth.”
Marion pictured Greg, tall, bearded, and nearly twenty years younger than Judith, frantically gnawing at cardboard boxes tied with string.
She began picking at the cold, vinegary food, thinking that it would probably give her terrible indigestion for the rest of the day. She took a barbed salad leaf from her plate and nibbled it warily; if she had gone out into the street and eaten some leaves straight from a privet hedge, they might have tasted more appetizing. Then she attempted spearing an olive with her fork, but it rolled across the table and plopped onto the floor.
“Sorry about that,” said Judith, coming back into the room. She saw the olive and frowned. After picking it up as carefully as if it were a tiny, unexploded bomb, she placed it in the shiny stainless steel bin, washed her hands, then sat down.
“And what about John, what has he been up to?” asked Judith briskly.
“He keeps himself busy.”
“Is he still poking around in that cellar of yours? You know, you really ought to have it renovated. I’m thinking of having a mini-gym and a sauna in mine. How many rooms do you have down there, three, four? You could have them made into a little flat.”
Mention of the cellar made Marion feel as though little spiders were crawling across her skin.
“I don’t think John would like that,” she mumbled. “He has his workshop down there, you know, for his hobby.”
“What hobby is that, then?”
“Didn’t you know? He makes model aeroplanes.”
“Model aeroplanes?” Judith’s fine nostrils flared contemptuously.
“They are really quite, I don’t know”—Marion hesitated, trying to find the right word for what essentially were plastic toys a grown man spent hours gluing together and painting and which then hung from his bedroom ceiling—“impressive.”