Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

looked out. Despite my efforts to dig it out the bindweed was back in force under the lilac tree and I wondered why, until now, I had failed to notice how invasive it had become. ‘I hope they don’t sack you, too, Nathan.’

‘Anything’s possible.’

‘Be honest, Nathan. Tell me what’s wrong.’ I wrapped my arms across my chest, ready to ward off the worst.

Nathan began to speak. ‘I can’t get over how much Minty reminds me of you when I first met you. You were so young, so hurt, but so determined that what you had done was right.’

I cried, ‘Minty is nothing, nothing like me,’ and my shoulders shook with the effort of not weeping. Nathan came up behind me and placed his hands on them.

‘Minty reminds me of how you were before… I don’t know, before we all changed. Became middle-aged, I suppose.’

‘But that’s not fair,’ I cried out passionately. ‘How could I not change? I am older. I can’t avoid that. Neither can you. I couldn’t avoid being changed by having children. Neither could you.’ Nathan removed his hands from my shoulders. ‘What have you been telling her?’ I asked. ‘What have you made up to convince her that you are so misunderstood? Or so she tells me.’

Nathan sat down in the blue chair. ‘Are you sure you want me to go into this?’

I turned round and faced him. ‘You might as well.’

‘If you must know, I told her that living in a crowded marriage is worse than being in a cruel one, and she looked at me with her great steady-as-you-go eyes. “But Rose is devoted to you,” she replied.’

‘She could not have said otherwise,’ I interjected. ‘She listened to me often enough.’ I turned my head away. ‘How could you have said it was “crowded”? I don’t understand.’

Nathan’s face darkened. ‘Whenever there was trouble between us, when one of the black periods that descend on all marriages descended on ours, I just could not get out of my head that you were taking refuge in an old love story and it was his image that comforted you. Minty said she was sure you didn’t know you were doing it.’

‘Nathan, I can’t believe you allowed it to matter. To be so afraid. To not trust me. At this stage, I’m far more likely to fantasize about a face-lift or writing a seriously good book than to hark back to an old love affair… however much it meant to me once. We don’t think like that any more.’ I swivelled on my heels to face him. ‘It’s a cheap excuse, and I can’t bear it.’

Nathan paid no attention. ‘I knew when that man bootlegged his way back.’

‘You are too clever for fantasy, Nathan.’

An obstinate look settled over Nathan. ‘I was up against a fantasy’

‘Nathan, I had left Hal for good when I met you. I had made a choice.’

‘So I thought. And I had just got it settled in my mind. Then… why did you tell Minty about it?’

‘Girls’ gossip. Not something you usually concern yourself with.’

‘Minty says I should. She thinks it’s good for my emotional health.’

‘And what else does Minty say? How else does she manipulate you? For that’s what she’s been doing.’

‘She told me that she has had a good time in the past, but it would not come with her.’

‘And that makes everything all right? That gives you clearance? Oh, Nathan, what a fool you are.’

‘Enough.’ Nathan got to his feet. ‘I’ll be going now.’

I kept my arms wrapped tight across my chest. ‘I see.’

Nathan picked up the suitcase. Then he put it down again. ‘This is dreadful. You won’t believe this, Rosie, but I love you very much, and I can’t believe how I’m making you suffer.’

I was not listening. I was searching for some logic in my dark, dark despair. For some guidance. ‘And she will help you in your career? Will she put in what I apparently did not?’

A faint smile flickered over Nathan’s lips. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘Minty’s very ambitious, you know. For herself

‘Minty is strong, energetic and free. It makes me feel that I can be the same.’

‘And she has style. It takes style to steal her boss’s husband and her job in the same breath. Economy and thrift, too.’

Nathan looked at me with a kind, caring look that suggested he did not expect anything else from me. I felt sick with humiliation. ‘Go away,’ I ordered him, ‘before I say something really awful.’

He turned for the door, halted and pulled an envelope from his pocket. ‘I nearly forgot, Rose. Here’s a cheque for the time being, to see you through until things are sorted out.’

‘I don’t want it.’

‘I expected you to be stubborn.’ He tucked it behind the vase on the mantelpiece that had belonged to his mother. It was a dreadful thing, early Rockingham, I think, stuck all over with china flowers that trapped dust, but Nathan cherished it.

‘Take the cheque back,’ I said.

‘No.’ He started when he spotted my wedding ring on the shelf, then picked up his mother’s vase. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll take this with me.’

At the front door, he placed a hand on the latch and pulled it down. ‘Rose, I know Hal was hanging around at our wedding. I saw him.’

I swallowed, and the burden of the past sat heavy on my shoulders. ‘He came to say goodbye, Nathan.’

Having no experience of what to do next after a husband has walked out finally (leaving a thoughtful cheque to cover contingencies) I wondered if Flora Madder had received a cheque when Charles Madder departed for the mistress with exotic tastes. Perhaps being paid off was the final straw that made her search for the rope and a revenge with a long tail that, for years to come, would lash at those left behind.

It was silent in the bedroom. The newly liberated Nathan had not bothered to shut the wardrobe door or close the drawers in the chest we shared. This was a piece of sentimentality left over from the early cash-strapped days when we had had no money and limited furniture. The symbolism of having our underwear so close together amused us, and we had retained the habit.

The drawers were half empty. Reasoning that it was wise to embark on an unavoidable painful process sooner rather than later, I shifted a folded nightdress into Nathan’s vacated half. The movement dislodged the lavender bags I kept tucked into the corners, releasing a spicy fragrance.

But even smells were a problem – too spicy, too evocative, too sickly-and I dropped everything, went downstairs and phoned Maeve.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to know how things were.’

‘Oh, Rose,’ she said, as if she was trying to place me – remember me, even. ‘How are you?’

‘Not terrific. I just wanted to touch base. See how you were. Perhaps have lunch. I owe you one and it would be on me. We could meet somewhere neutral.’

‘Things are very busy,’ she said quickly. ‘Timon is putting on pressure. We don’t have a moment to call our own. I suppose you want to know how Minty’s doing.’

The trouble was, I did.

‘Early days there.’ Maeve was guarded. ‘Look, I would like to have lunch… sometime, but I’m too busy at the moment to make any plans. The one free day I can see in the near future I’ve earmarked for the hairdresser. I must go. I need to get the grey hairs seen to.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘I daren’t let them show. But, Rose, do keep in touch.’

As usual, everyone’s coats were jumbled on the pegs by the back door. I shrugged on my old grey mac, which had seen many years’ tramping the cliffs in Cornwall, tied the belt round my waist and left the house. It was raining, a fine, penetrating drizzle that crept down my neck and back in a V of damp.

Panting a little, stomach growling, as it did these days, I walked across the park, stopping every so often because I felt so shaky, and plunged through the doorway of St Benedicta’s.

The nave and transepts were empty but there had been a wedding or a christening recently, because vases of white lilies had been placed on the font, on the altar, and in tiny bunches at the ends of the pews. Only one candle burnt under the Madonna whose pinkness glistened like the makeup of an ageing actress.

I had no idea what I was doing there, or what I hoped to find.

I extracted a candle from the pile, lit it and wedged it into the iron claw.

How was I going to get through this? Had I deluded myself that if and when the difficult times arrived I would cope? Now, at this moment, I possessed nowhere near the required reserves, or the courage. Search as I might for