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Domenica, who must have entered the building just a few moments before her, had reached the top landing and was looking down on her. Pat looked up and saw her neighbour staring down. She waved, and continued her journey to their landing. Domenica was standing in her doorway, the full bag of groceries that she had been carrying laid down on the floor beside her.
“I hate doing this sort of shopping,” Domenica said, with feeling. “I find the whole process of buying apples and things like that so disheartening. But one has to do it, I suppose. Apples don’t grow on trees.”
Pat smiled. She was not sure whether she wanted to engage in a conversation with Domenica, as she had relatively little time to prepare herself for the Film Theatre.
“You left me some flowers,” said Domenica. “And I haven’t thanked you yet. You’re a sweet girl. You really are.”
“I felt rather bad about being so . . . so cross with you,” said Pat. “Especially when you were only trying to help me.”
“You had every right to be cross with me,” said Domenica.
“But I take it that you would like me to carry on with the planned invitation of that young man to dinner.”
Pat shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
“Which means you want me to do so,” said Domenica. “And I shall. Of course, if you don’t want to come along, you needn’t.
You could leave that nice young man to me.”
Pat stared at her in astonishment. Did Domenica really mean that?
Domenica, seeing Pat’s reaction, smiled coyly. “Why not, may I ask? Isn’t it fashionable these days for a . . . how shall we put it? – a more mature woman to have a somewhat younger man friend? Stranger things have happened.”
Pat wanted to laugh. It was absurd to think of Domenica as having a younger man; it was inconceivable. And what made Domenica imagine that Peter would even look at her for one moment? It was quite ridiculous.
“He’s a bit young for you, isn’t he?” she said. “You could have a younger boyfriend, I suppose, but not that young.”
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“What you mean,” said Domenica, “is that in your opinion I’m too old. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
Pat wanted to say yes, it was, but refrained. The whole discussion was becoming embarrassing. She looked at her watch. She had forty minutes to get ready if she was to arrive at the Film Theatre in time. “I have to hurry,” she said. “I’m going to see a film.”
Domenica picked up her bag and reached for her hallway light switch. “I might just surprise you one of these days,” she said. “I could get a man if I wanted one, you know.”
“Of course you could,” said Pat hurriedly. “You’re an attractive woman. Men like you. Look at Angus Lordie.”
Domenica let out a shriek. “Oh, not Angus! For heaven’s sake!
He would be desperation stakes – complete desperation stakes.
No, I’m thinking of somebody a bit more romantic than that.”
Pat giggled, and gestured towards her own doorway. “Bruce?”
Domenica laughed. “There are limits,” she said. “But wait and see. I think I’m going to surprise you.”
Back inside the flat, Pat took out a fresh blouse and ran a bath for herself. She reflected on her conversation with Domenica, realising that she had made so many assumptions in it. She had assumed that somebody of sixty could not fall in love; that was ridiculous – it was ageist of her, she decided; very ageist. People said that you could fall in love at any stage in life – at eight, at eighteen, at eighty. And why not? The capacity to experience the other emotions did not wither; you could still feel anger, jealousy, distress and all the rest, however old you were. Love was in the same spectrum as these. And you could love anything, and anyone, whether or not the passion were returned. When she was very young, she had loved a knitted doll, a sailor in a blue suit. She had called him Pedro, for some inexplicable reason, and had carried him with her wherever she went. She had loved Pedro with all her heart, and she had been sure that he had loved her from the depths of his woolly being. The object of affection did not matter; the feeling did.
What did she have to love now? Pedro was no more, or, at
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the most, he was a few scraps of wool in the bottom of a drawer. He would have to be replaced; and Pedro . . . was Peter.
She reached out and turned off the taps. She was tired of being by herself. She did not want to have to go to the Film Theatre with the crowd; she wanted to go with somebody who would give all his attention to her, and her alone; who would take her out for dinner afterwards, or for a drink at the bar, and who would exchange confidences with her. And that, presumably, was the sort of thing that poor Domenica wanted for herself too. They were two lonely women wanting the same thing. And there was Bruce wanting it too, but going about the getting of it in quite the wrong way. Companionship. Tender friendship.
Love. None of them had it at present, and time was leaking away, especially for Domenica.
Matthew’s crowd, it transpired, consisted of five people, including Matthew himself. With Pat present, there were six of them, all sitting in a row in the half-empty film theatre.
This Italian film was an obscure one, made by an obscure director and starring obscure actors, and although
