The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim

17

I never expected to be single at the age of forty-eight. But now that it had happened, and now that it was obvious that Caroline had no intention of coming back to me, I realized that I was faced with a very specific problem. Sooner or later, if I didn’t want to end up a lonely old man, I was going to have to find myself another partner. The trouble was, younger women (such as Poppy) were apparently not going to look at me, and I didn’t find older women attractive.

Perhaps I should define ‘older women’, at this stage. I’ve been thinking about this, and I reckon that an ‘older woman’ is any woman who is older than your mother was when you were a teenager. Say that you start getting really sexually preoccupied – to the point of not being able to think about anything else – at the age of sixteen. (I know it’s younger than that for kids nowadays, by all accounts. The Western world is so sexualized that most boys are probably all at it by the time they’re fourteen or so. And I read in the paper the other day about a woman who was a grandmother at the age of twenty-six. But my generation was different. We were the last of the late developers.) OK then, when I was sixteen, my mother was thirty-seven, and I can tell you now that she appeared ancient. It would never have occurred to me that she might have had a romantic life, or an internal life, let alone a sex life (except with my father: and I wasn’t even sure about that, if Alison’s essay was anything to go by). Sexually and emotionally, she was a non- person, as far as I was concerned. She was there to provide for me, for my physical and emotional needs. I know it sounds shocking, put like that, but teenagers are selfish and self-absorbed, and that was how I saw her. And even now, at the age of forty-eight, I find it hard to come round to the idea that women of my mother’s age – OK then, women of my age, if you want to put it that way – can be regarded as sexual beings. Of course this is illogical. Of course this is wrong. But I can’t help it, and I’m only trying to be honest about it. This, after all, was why I was so mortified on the night of Poppy’s dinner party, when I realized that she had only invited me along to meet her mother.

All of which, I suppose, is by way of explaining my feelings when I pressed the electronic security buzzer at Alison’s house, and she opened the door to me. The last time I had seen her was more than fifteen years ago. The time that was burned most strongly in my memory was almost twenty years before that, when she was seventeen, and my pervy father had taken that photograph of her wearing a tiny orange bikini. And now here she was, standing before me again: as stylish, as confident, as good-looking, as elegant as ever. And fifty years of age. Quite a bit older than my mother had been when I was sixteen and we all went to the Lake District together. Older, for that matter, than my mother had been when she died.

‘Max!’ she said. ‘How gorgeous to see you.’

She offered me her cheek, and I kissed it. The skin was soft and powdery. I breathed in a distinct but not unpleasant scent, somewhere between honey and rosewater.

‘It’s lovely to see you too,’ I said. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’ (Isn’t this what people are supposed to say, whether it’s true or not?)

‘What a bit of luck that you should be passing by. And Mum said you were on your way to Shetland, is that true?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘How thrilling! Well, come on in!’

She led me through the hallway and into what I took to be one of two or three downstairs sitting rooms. Somehow it managed to combine minimalism and opulence at the same time. There were modern paintings on the walls, thick velvet curtains drawn against the unfriendly night, and different areas of the room were subtly illuminated by hidden spotlights. A large L-shaped sofa with deep, comfortable cushions was arranged around a glass coffee table tastefully strewn with books and magazines. In the hearth, a cheerful fire was burning. I assumed it was a real fire, until Alison said, ‘Is it too hot for you? I’ll turn it down if you like.’

‘No, no. It’s perfect. I love a good fire.’

I regretted those words as soon as they came out of my mouth. Did she remember? Did she remember the fiasco of the fire in Coniston? Or was I only even thinking of it because of the essay I’d read two days ago? Impossible to tell. Her expression gave nothing away.

‘Well then, get yourself good and warm. It’s pretty nasty out there, isn’t it? They say it might snow later tonight. Can I get you a drink? I’m going to have a G&T.’

‘Sounds great. Same for me, please,’ I said, forgetting that I was supposed to be driving us both to the restaurant in a minute.

When Alison returned with the drinks, we sat down on different sides of the L-shaped sofa.

‘Nice room,’ I said, stupidly. ‘Nice house, actually.’

‘It is nice,’ she agreed. ‘But it’s far too big. I’ve been rattling around in it by myself all week. It’s ridiculous, really.’

‘Aren’t the boys here?’

‘Both at school. Boarding.’

‘What about Philip?’

‘Away in Malaysia. Possibly back tonight. Possibly not.’ She took a breath. ‘Goodness, Max, you’re looking … What’s the word?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘What is the word?’

‘Well … troubled, I suppose. You look a bit troubled.’

‘I’m quite tired,’ I said. ‘I’ve been on the road for three days.’

‘Yes,’ said Alison. ‘Yes, that must be it.’

‘It’s been a funny old year,’ I added. ‘Did your mother tell you that Caroline had left me?’

‘Yes, she did.’ Alison reached out and laid a hand on my knee. ‘Poor Max. You can tell me all about it over dinner.’

While Alison was upstairs making some last-minute adjustments to her appearance, I went outside to get her box full of papers. It was fiercely cold, now, and tiny snowflakes were beginning to spiral ominously in the night air. When I went back into the hallway with the cardboard box she looked at me incredulously.