Elizabeth Buchan: Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

I left the kitchen to carry the ironing upstairs to the airing cupboard in the spare room. A spare room was a luxury and, for that reason, I kept it immaculate. It had white cotton quilts on the two beds, a faint pink wash of toile de Jouy as curtains and, on the wall, a painting of white roses against a dark background, which had been a birthday present from Nathan. ‘It’s for our bedroom,’ he had said when he gave it to me. ‘The artist is Russian, quite young still, and his work is smuggled over. It’s a rather complicated arrangement, but I had a tip-off. When I saw it, I knew it was for you.’

Nathan often received tip-offs. He pretended they just came along, but I suspected he encouraged them because it flattered him to be in the thick of what was happening.

‘I adore it, Nathan,’ I told him truthfully. ‘It’s beautiful.’

He was pleased. ‘I’m so glad I’ve got you something you like.’ He was less confident when talking about the arts, which I found touching. ‘I like the way he paints in the older European tradition, Modernism doesn’t seem to have affected him,’ he added carefully.

‘No,’ I agreed.

The combination of realism with beauty, religiosity with diligent truth, melancholy and depth told me a lot about the unknown painter, and I was not surprised that Nathan had fallen for it. Arranged in a pewter vase, with a rosary thrown beside it, the roses were painted from many tints, grey, chalk, sludge, but the effect was of radiance, a sensual ruffle of blossoms, even though the artist had included a scattering of blown, brittle petals. The dark background masked other dramas, but I would never know what they were.

‘They remind me of you and the garden,’ Nathan said. We were standing looking at it together, and our reflections glimmered faintly on that dark background.

We never did agree on a place for it in our bedroom. Besides, I felt the painting was set off perfectly in the spare room.

I stacked the laundry in the cupboard, double sheets in one pile, pillow cases in another, shook out a couple of lavender bags to release their scent and left the room.

Sam was in London for the weekend and dropped in for Sunday lunch. Without Alice.

Sam was beautiful and fine but, to his credit, did not know it. He worked for a scientific research company in an old pig factory on the outskirts of Bath. He was considered a young turk, and had the salary and lifestyle to prove it. He had a long, strong finger on the pulse of genetic probabilities and anticipated the dawning of a world where human genes would be manipulated for everyone’s comfort and health. He truly believed that things would get better and I loved him passionately for himself and his beliefs.

He did not, however, hold a long, strong finger down on his emotional life.

As I got lunch under way, he wandered into the kitchen and took up a post by the window. I fluffed up the parboiled potatoes in the colander. ‘Why do you do that?’ he asked.

I spooned them into a tray of hot fat. ‘Makes them crisper.’

‘I must tell Alice. We’re both learning to cook.’

I pushed the tray into the oven. Sam should have known by now that Alice was not the sort of woman to appreciate cookery tips. What was more, her immaculate good looks and naked ambition made older women uncomfortable. ‘How is she?’ I avoided his eye.

‘Fine.’ A pause. ‘I think.’

‘You think?’

‘She went skiing in Austria.’ Sam dug his hands into his pockets, which made him look just like his father. ‘An all-party girl’

Alice hurt Sam regularly. He was admirably reticent about it but Nathan and I did not require chapter and verse. One fine day, he had met the golden-haired Alice at a conference and, far too quickly for warnings, had fallen in love. There was nothing to be done, except sit it out.

To go with the chicken, I had planned tarragon gravy and tiny carrots, peas and broad beans. The carrots were fiddly and I had to concentrate on scraping them. ‘Lay off, Mother,’ Poppy would say – but there was no point in having children and not involving yourself in their lives. It was as natural as breathing.

‘I asked her to marry me, you know’

The peeler caught my nail and I sucked my finger. Alice’s answer was reflected in Sam’s stiff attitude. I knew I should be the Samaritan, the wise counsellor, but Sam’s hurt and disappointment distressed me so much that I was at a loss. ‘Sam, why don’t you open a bottle of wine?’

‘It’s OK. I can talk about it.’

‘So…?’

‘She doesn’t feel there’s any point in getting married. She has a fantastic job and a fantastic salary. A fantastic flat. A fantastic car. The works. Why spoil a good thing?’ His eyes were dark with longing. ‘But I want to start something.’

‘Have you explained this to her?’

He shrugged. ‘Sure. Alice feels that people do unspeakable things to each other when they get married. She thinks it’s wrong to base your life on the idea of love. Women don’t buy that any more. As an organizational principle, love has flaws.’

‘Will you give up?’

‘I don’t know’

‘Oh, Sam…’ I took his hand and stroked it, willing his hurt on to me – which is what mothers do.

When the chicken was ready Nathan carved a couple of pieces of breast and arranged them in a fan on Mr Sears’ plate. I added the roast potatoes and vegetables, and a separately made portion of gravy: Mr Sears had an aversion to herbs. ‘I’ll only be a couple of minutes,’ I said, and left Nathan stirring the gravy and Sam laying the table.

Mr Sears lived on his own next door and was bedridden. I went down the stone steps to the basement of number nine. During the war, Lakey Street had been the random target of a bomb flung out of a plane on its way home to Germany, which had destroyed three houses. During the fifties, the council had nipped in and built three neither beautiful nor appalling replacements.

‘Who’s that?’ Mr Sears called at my knock.

‘Rose.’ I was never the person he wanted, which was Betty, his daughter who, long ago, had packed her bags and done a bunk. Betty got in touch with her father once a year, and then only grudgingly.

I let myself into his sitting room where he had been eased into his chair, surrounded by newspapers and full ashtrays. ‘I’ve brought your Sunday lunch.’

It was important to remind Mr Sears of what day it was because it was difficult for him to remember. Time no longer functioned for him in the conventional manner and calendars were of no use to him: he never looked at them. ‘That’s nice,’ he said, looking surprised. ‘What made you do that?’ Off and on, I had been bringing him Sunday lunch for the last five years.

I fetched a tray from the kitchenette, and settled it on his knees. ‘Chicken. Your favourite. Unless you’ve changed your mind.’

He poked at a carrot and I knew he would need encouraging.

‘Thought you might like to know, Mr Sears, they’re taking off the Routemasters on the eighty-eight and putting in pay-the-driver buses.’

‘Are they now?’

‘Everybody’s grumbling about it. There’s a protest meeting being organized.’

This information excited Mr Sears so much that he took his first mouthful and I relaxed.

Ours was a carefully developed friendship, which had taken years to mature. Before he had become housebound, Mr Sears had spent his days riding the buses. They were his passion and he had mastered the network of interconnecting routes, a king of the city. What he did not know about timetables, tickets and bus territory nobody knew. So, in a small way, I had made buses my business too. I told him about breakdowns, the latest adverts I had seen pasted on to their sides, and sometimes swung by the depot in Stockwell to give him an update.