Invisible Women Read online

  There was a tap on the window, making her jump.

  ‘Classy motor,’ said John as he opened the door and wrapped his arms around her. ‘I see you went for the four litre.’

  He was wearing a woollen beanie hat that gave him the look of a rugged mountaineer.

  ‘Petrolhead,’ she said, breathing in the scented warmth of his neck. ‘You smell nice.’

  ‘Aramis,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Do you remember, it was one up from Brut if you wanted to impress a posh girl? I bought some specially.’

  ‘Knicker disintegrator. That was how our next-door neighbour described Brut. He bought some for his son when he suspected he might be gay, so he could slay the ladies. The Great Smell of Brut, i.e. not for fairies.’

  ‘Come on, gorgeous.’

  He took her hands and pulled her out of the low-slung seat.

  ‘You look fantastic. Wait till you see the room, you’re going to love it.’

  He took her bag from the boot and led her across the gravel to the entrance, the low solid arch leading into a panelled Jacobean hall. A woman wearing an old-fashioned lace cap and modern spectacles greeted them from behind the desk. It was a feature of the hotel that staff wore period costumes, but you couldn’t really ban glasses on the grounds that they ruined the effect.

  ‘Welcome to Dursdale, Mrs Ormonde.’

  They went up the square staircase. A girl in a mob cap and floor-length dress nodded as she walked past, carrying a bucket.

  ‘You told them I was your wife?’ said Tessa, as he opened the heavy oak door. ‘And why are all the staff dressed like Victorian maids? I hope we’re not expected to use a commode.’

  ‘Don’t worry, full bathroom facilities. And yes, I said I was expecting my wife, it’s only a matter of time after all, isn’t it?’

  ‘The room is gorgeous,’ said Tessa, ignoring the question. He watched her eagerly as she looked around, taking in the intimate four-poster bed, designed for a shorter generation, and lime-washed walls hung with oil paintings of someone’s ancestors. Leaded windows looked out on to the gardens, interconnecting through high hedges. Directly beneath them was a circular iron seat constructed around the thick trunk of a gnarly old tree.

  ‘It’s perfect, I completely love it.’

  ‘Me too. Come here.’

  He threw himself on to the bed, which looked comically small beneath his bulk.

  Tessa removed her coat – Burberry equestrian style, in keeping with the premises – and hung it carefully in the Narnia wardrobe.

  ‘No hurry, is there?’ She wanted to prolong the moment. So much planning had gone into this, so many lies, she didn’t want it to all be over in a trice.

  ‘None at all,’ said John, ‘this is just the beginning.’

  She walked slowly across the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. He took a tendril of hair that had come loose from her ponytail and tucked it behind her ear.

  ‘I’m so happy you agreed to come. When I woke up and you were gone, I was worried I’d messed it up again.’

  ‘You didn’t mess it up. I’m here, aren’t I?’

  But as she said the words, all kinds of thoughts were spinning through her head. This was insane. She was insane.

  ‘You are. And I can’t quite believe it.’

  He took her hand and she remembered the feel of it, rough and calloused, workman’s hands. He had his own tech company but his real passion was carpentry he said, he loved nothing better than working with his hands.

  He reached down her leg to unzip her boot and she pushed her doubts aside. This was enough. Live in the moment.

  *

  They were lying on the dishevelled sheets and John was gently stroking her back.

  ‘I could spend the rest of my life in this bed with you,’ he said.

  Tessa ran her hand down the side of the mattress.

  ‘Definitely pocket sprung in individual calico cases, with hand side-stitching. Did you know hotels like to have mattresses with extra firm edges, because guests spend a lot of time sitting on the side of the bed?’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ John asked, rolling her over onto the end of bed, from which vantage point she could see the wreckage of their dinner trolley: red wine stains on white linen, crumbs spilling onto the floor, gravy congealing on the silver cutlery.

  ‘When do they come and get the trolley, do you think?’ said Tessa.

  ‘I could feel a bit insulted,’ said John, ‘with all this housekeeping talk, when you’ve just been given the sexual experience of your life. What are you, a hotel inspector?’

  He turned his face away and she pretended not to notice that he was discreetly removing a hair from his mouth. He was more accustomed to smooth encounters with the neatly waxed.

  ‘I read on the website that John Ruskin stayed in this hotel once,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Victorian thinker. Now known mostly for the fact that he fainted on his wedding night at the sight of his wife’s pubic hair.’

  He looked at her in amusement.

  ‘How appropriate.’

  ‘As far as my interest in mattresses and trolley clearing is concerned, you must remember my life is largely dedicated to the home. My kids think it’s hilarious that I’m a retro housewife. And I’m not complaining about the sex by the way. Not at all.’

  She wrapped her arms round his chest and pressed her lips against the back of his neck. Different skin, a smooth head, unfamiliar contours. It had been twenty-five years since she had been to bed with anyone other than Matt, she had forgotten how it felt to take a leap into the unknown. It was like trying a different cocktail; an exciting and unexpected revelation.

  ‘Yeah, I’m surprised that you stepped down from your career.’

  John turned round to look at her.

  ‘You were always so bright. When I couldn’t have you, I used to tell myself that maybe it was better that way, because you were way too clever for me. I knew I could never keep up with you.’

  ‘Yet here I am, a redundant old housewife.’

  ‘And I’m the bigshot. Relatively.’

  ‘My relative bigshot. Well it wasn’t really what I planned, it’s just the way things worked out. I thought I’d stop work for a couple of years when I had the kids, then never quite got back in.’

  It sounded feeble, but that was the truth. She was part of the washed-up tide of the comfortably unemployed, a foot soldier in the regiment of genteel non-earners.

  ‘I’m glad, though,’ said John. ‘I’m glad if it means it gave you time to find me. Imagine, if you’d been Sheryl Sandberg or someone, you might have been too busy to bother with me.’

  ‘The Facebook boss! If I were Sheryl Sandberg I suppose I’d have unlimited access to eligible men. Once I’d got over my husband’s death, of course. Do you remember, he fell off the treadmill? Poor thing.’

  She imagined Sheryl Sandberg in her plunge neckline business suit, leaning in and taking her pick from a sea of handsome profile pictures.

  ‘Internet dating! I can’t tell you how glad I am to put that behind me. You meet these women and you know there’s nothing there, but you have to give it an hour and pretend you might see each other again. And now, from nowhere, you’ve come back into my life and given me this miraculous second chance.’

  Tessa felt a cold blast of reality. He saw her as an angel of mercy, sent to rescue him from the hell of midlife dating? What the hell was she doing here?

  ‘Which is why I was so happy when I saw you,’ he continued. ‘None of that usual disappointment. And finding now that you’re beyond all my expectations. In every way.’

  Tessa was determined to keep it light.

  ‘I’m glad I’m not a let-down. Even if I am disappointingly post-pubescent in my lady garden.’

  ‘No! Old school but nothing wrong with that!’

  He extended a reassuring hand beneath the sheets.

  ‘Don’t deny it! I registered your surprise.’

  ‘Alr
ight, maybe it was a little unexpected. But I can get used to it. I’ll get one of those “I’m a feminist” T-shirts while I’m about it.’

  His hand felt warm and comforting.

  ‘Good, because I’m not going to turn myself into a nine-year old, even for you.’

  ‘Hey, stop making me sound like a pervert.’

  ‘OK, sorry.’

  ‘Anyway, as I said, you’re beyond even my wildest expectations.’

  ‘Please don’t give me marks out of ten.’

  ‘That’s easy. Ten all the way. And I know you’d give me ten as well. Judging from the noise you were making. Or were you faking it?’

  ‘Stop it! Inappropriate conversation.’

  ‘OK, I’ll become appropriate.’

  He removed his hand and pulled the sheet up primly to his chin.

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Tessa. ‘Do you remember that Carly Simon song we used to listen to? Or maybe it was just us girls. The one where she talks about moaning in bed, which we never understood in those innocent days. We thought it meant she was complaining.’

  ‘Like that Jewish joke. Hymie says to his wife, I want you to moan in bed, so she looks up and says, that ceiling needs decorating.’

  ‘Ha!’

  They lie for a moment in complicit enjoyment of the humour from their youth, the heyday of ethnic jokes, when you could laugh about anything without being branded a bigot or a racist.

  ‘No, Carly Simon was in the Janis Ian category for me,’ he said. ‘Girls slamming their bedroom doors and being moody.’

  ‘While you boys sat around listening to Genesis. “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)”. I’ve never met a woman who likes that song.’

  ‘Gloria does, actually. She’s the woman I’ve been seeing, the one in the photos? I met her on Tinder and she’s a big Genesis fan, it was the stand-out feature on her dating profile.’

  ‘Sounds like a match made in heaven.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s nice but something’s missing, which I guess is why we never got round to the exclusivity chat. It’s a bit like going out with your pal. Too mannish. I like a womanly woman. Like you.’

  They remained silent for a while.

  ‘So, where’s your husband tonight?’

  ‘He had a chemistry meeting.’

  ‘I thought he worked in marketing?’

  ‘He does. Personal chemistry, not test tubes.’

  Matt had been so generous with her that morning, carrying her bag to the car, telling her to to drive carefully round those sharp bends in the Lake District.

  John grabbed hold of her bottom and pulled her to him.

  ‘Did I tell you, by the way, what a great bum you have?’

  ‘I think you mean ass. Or arse, as we pronounce it.’

  ‘That’s why I said bum, to avoid the confusion. And don’t for one minute think that I’m going to let you walk away again, now that I’ve found you. We’re unfinished business, you and me.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘You know we are.’

  There would be time for thinking, she knew that. But for now, it was enough to focus on the unfinished business that John was busily attending to.

  *

  The following morning, Tessa was stretching luxuriously between the sheets as she listened to John singing in the shower.

  ‘One thing you’re going to love in America is the showers,’ he shouted through to her. ‘None of this pathetic English dribble. Full overhead power.’

  She chose to ignore the implicit assumption of their shared future.

  ‘I prefer baths, actually,’ she said. ‘Old fashioned in that respect.’

  ‘No problem, I’ve got a tub as well. All needs catered for.’

  The water stopped and he came into the bedroom, huge in his white towelling robe.

  ‘You’re a bear,’ she said, ‘do you know that term? Irresistible to many gay men.’

  He discarded the robe and slipped into bed beside her, enveloping her in a crushing embrace. She relaxed into his arms, surrendering to his overbearing maleness.

  ‘They did a study to show how women are attracted to different male physiques according to their menstrual cycle,’ she said. ‘When they’re ovulating, they look for big, hunky men to guarantee strong babies. Then, when they’re feeling pre-menstrual and vulnerable, they go for sensitive, weedy types.’

  He looked at her as if this was the most interesting thing he had ever heard.

  ‘Fascinating. And where are you right now?’

  ‘Oh, I’m well off the radar. My reproductive years are behind me, I’m glad to say.’

  He propped himself up on his elbow and stroked her face.

  ‘That’s too bad. I would like to have had a child with you. Just think how that would have been.’

  She conjured up their might-have-been offspring: big sporty sophomores, playing ice hockey in iron-barred masks.

  ‘You never wanted them? With your wife, I mean.’

  ‘We tried. She had a couple of miscarriages, then the moment was lost, really. She went on to have a son with her new husband. I guess I must have bad sperm.’

  ‘Not necessarily, there can be lots of factors.’

  ‘I bet we could have made loads of babies, you and me,’ he said. ‘A whole baseball team. And a super-brainy daughter just like her mom who’d be the first woman to Mars or some such.’

  He brightened.

  ‘Anyway, there are plenty of positives. No college fees for one. Better off spending that budget on our entertainment, don’t you agree? So many places to go. We could buy a boat and sail round the world, what do you say? I can just see you wearing deck shoes, tasting of salt.’

  He licked her shoulder.

  ‘That’s what they do in Africa, you know, they lick their children to check for salt, make sure they haven’t been in the sea, because it’s not allowed.’

  She remembered the last time he had licked the salt off her, in Cornwall.

  ‘Salty old sea dog. Do you know how to sail?’

  ‘I could learn. The point is, we can do anything we like. That’s the beauty of it.’

  They lay together, contemplating their respective versions of an unmapped future. It was unfathomable, this blank page, Tessa couldn’t imagine how to fill it. All she knew was this moment, lying here with a boy she knew from school who had become a man who wanted her on his journey, to use the ghastly modern expression. As if we were all pilgrims, forging our path to the Promised Land when, in reality, we are just helpless pawns, tossed around on a chaotic sea until we died.

  ‘It’s going to be a fun journey, however we choose to make it,’ he said, as if reading her thoughts. There was no mistaking the ‘we’.

  ‘First class, or coach? To use your lingo.’

  ‘First class, naturally. I’m planning to sell the company, you know.’

  ‘You’re jumping the gun,’ she said, ‘I haven’t signed up for it yet.’

  ‘Signed up for it? You make it sound like tennis lessons!’

  He held her face in his hands.

  ‘I just want to be with you, that’s all. It’s simple. Wait there.’

  He slipped out of bed and walked, stark bollock naked, across the room to take something out of his khaki knapsack – ideal camouflage for his life journey.

  He jumped back on to the bed and gave her an envelope.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Open it.’

  Inside was a first-class one-way air ticket from Heathrow to Cheyenne.

  ‘It’s a flexible ticket,’ he said, ‘I chose a random date in January, figured you’d need a little time to make your arrangements, but you can change it, come any date you want. In time for Christmas, why not?’

  Christmas, was he serious? Had he no idea how that word was enough to bring her slap bang back to reality? The box of decorations brought down from the attic, the smell of turkey permeating the house as Max and Lola mockingly unpacked the stockings they still insisted on.

>   ‘American Airlines, I don’t think so,’ she said lightly. ‘Let’s just see how we go, shall we?’

  ‘No problem if you want me to change it to BA.’

  ‘It’s too soon,’ she said, ‘we hardly know each other. You didn’t even know that I prefer a bath to a shower. You know nothing about me.’

  ‘Know nothing about you!’

  He leaned over her and pressed his hands on her shoulders.

  ‘How can you say that? I know everything about you, I’ve known you since you were sweet sixteen for Christ’s sake! Come on, Tessa, we’re not kids! We don’t have time to mess around, what do you want to do, wait till we’re seventy years old and you’re wheeling me to my doctor’s appointments? Let’s do it now, while we’re still young and strong enough!’

  ‘Had we but world enough and time, this coyness, lady, were no crime.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Andrew Marvell, ‘To His Coy Mistress’. Trying to talk her into bed.’

  ‘I’ve already done that! And you’ve just proved to me one of the reasons I love you. You can open the door of poetry to let in my philistine soul, you know stuff I don’t, you are the yin to my yang.’

  He put his hands together in mock mystic supplication.

  Tessa gently handed him back his ticket.

  ‘Let’s just enjoy the weekend, shall we? We’ve got plenty of more immediate decisions to make. Like, are we going to go for a long walk before lunch? I’ve brought my boots.’

  He put the ticket on the bedside table, like a disappointed schoolboy who’s failed to get full marks.

  ‘OK, I’m not going to pressure you. By the way, I should let you know I’m listing you as my next of kin.’

  ‘You’re doing what!’

  ‘On my passport. Person to be notified in the event of an emergency.’

  ‘And you’re putting me?’

  ‘I’m changing it when I get home. I’ve already altered my will. I’ve made a few legacies, but most of my estate will come to you.’

  ‘You can’t do that. I couldn’t possibly—’

  ‘Why not? I’m serious, Tessa, we’re going to be together soon, might as well get everything regularised. There’ll be a couple of distant cousins who’ll be disappointed, but I haven’t seen them for years, so screw them. I thought you’d be pleased!’