Trisha Ashley - Every Woman For Herself

‘You’re not the most observant of women, are you? Head in the clouds. Or the plants.’

‘I might want a few bits and pieces, because I don’t think I could live at home again for very long, not after living in my own house for years. And I need somewhere to put my plants.’

‘I don’t think Upvale sounds very exciting. Matt said it was just one steep cobbled road like a Hovis advert, with three streetlights, half a dozen houses, your Parsonage, and a lot of dirt tracks leading to farms.’

‘There are a lot more houses than that in Upvale, but they’re spread out. And the only cobbled bit is about a hundred yards in front of the pub.’

‘I didn’t know there was a pub. Civilisation!’

‘Yes, the Black Dog, after the local legend. There’s Blackdog Moor, too, haunted by this huge, hideous fanged creature, with blood-red eyes and jaws dripping with—’

Angie shuddered. ‘No more, please. What with noises in the attic and demon dogs I won’t sleep a wink tonight all on my lonesome.’

‘Oh, yes – the noises in the attic. Are you haunted, Angie?’

She should have been, by the ghosts of all the creatures who died in animal experiments on cosmetics.

‘No, it’s squirrels.’

‘Squirrels? You’ve got squirrels in your attic? What colour? Those nice little reddish Squirrel Nutkin ones, or the big grey ones?’

‘What does it matter? They’re all vermin, and they’ve chewed to bits the furniture I’ve stored up there! Squirrels! They’ve eaten all the wooden parts of the chairs, and the grandfather clock, and a nice tallboy. I suppose I’m lucky it isn’t rats, which is what I thought when I got back on Wednesday and heard all those funny thumping noises. Isn’t that what you’d have thought, Charlie?’

‘What?’ I said, dragging my mind back from my own problems with some effort. ‘ I’m the madwoman in the attic, I think, or will be. Perhaps I should join your squirrels.’

‘Who mentioned madwomen?’ she demanded crossly. ‘Do concentrate, Charlie. The little tree rats have eaten all the lovely furniture Mother left me. I mean, what am I going to say to the insurance company? “Squirrels ate my furniture”?’

‘“Weasels Ripped My Flesh”!’ I exclaimed, perking up. ‘I’d forgotten all about that song, but my eldest sister Em used to play it a lot years ago.. Wasn’t it Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention? Or no – maybe it was Jethro Tull. Those were her two favourite bands so it must have been one of them.’

Angie sighed. ‘Not weasels, squirrels ,’ she said in cold, clipped accents.

What a matron she would have made if she hadn’t got off with Greg and left the nursing profession! Or a wardress.

‘Sorry, it just reminded me of that song and … but do go on. Squirrels ate your furniture?’

‘Yes. Grey ones.’

‘How did they get in? There must have been a hole somewhere.’

‘A tiny one, but they found it. Still, I expect the insurance will pay up in the end.’

‘Unless squirrels are an act of God, Angie.’

‘Don’t be silly. How can squirrels be an act of God?’

‘You never know. When our garden wall fell down that time, they said it had been undermined by moles, and that was an act of God, so—’

‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ she asked warily.

I smiled encouragingly. ‘I expect they’ll pay up – and what a shame about that furniture. I really liked some of it, especially that knobbly triangular chair. Although bottoms aren’t that shape, are they? And with all those bits sticking out it wouldn’t have been very comfortable, and although it would fit right into a corner of a room, you don’t usually want to sit right in the corner, do you? So I expect you can replace it with something more practical when you get the money.’

‘You do go off at a tangent.’

‘I’ll have to go off altogether, Angie – I’ve got my hairdresser’s appointment.’ Which I absolutely loathe ; but my roots were showing.

‘That dead-black Goth look with the dark eye make-up and purplish lipstick is very out of fashion,’ she said, scrutinising me severely.

‘I know, but Matt insists, and—’

Suddenly I realised that it didn’t matter any more what Matt liked or didn’t like. He wouldn’t be here to throw a major wobbler if I stopped dyeing my roots, wearing heavy black eye make-up and vampire-style black clothes …

It was a look that seemed less and less me as I got older. I mean, it was what I was into at seventeen, when I ran off with him, but I didn’t think I’d be stuck in a timewarp forever afterwards.

But now I could do what I liked.

‘I can do what I like,’ I told Angie, brightly.

‘You always did,’ she said sourly. ‘Wasn’t that part of the problem?’

‘Only in the major things, the ones that mattered, like the painting. In little things Matt had it entirely his own way. And I hadn’t realised we had a problem.’

I was about to add that until the morning Matt asked for a divorce I hadn’t realised how old he was either, but just managed to stop myself in time: like Angie and Greg, Matt was a good ten years older than I.

Greg was an awful, red-faced old roué who tried to jump on women the moment he was alone with them. He was Father’s type, I suppose, but without the leonine good looks – and Father did go in for his mistresses one at a time, as a rule.

‘Greg will be home in a couple of weeks, if you want any help,’ Angie offered.

‘Oh, no thanks, Angie,’ I said hastily. ‘I’m sure I can manage.’

Her eyes fell on the stack of magazines she’d brought, and she pounced on the top one. ‘Now, what’s that doing there? I didn’t mean to bring that old copy of Surprise! . I only kept it because it had photos of that gorgeous Mace North in it.’

‘Who?’

She exhibited the magazine, and I scanned the man on the cover with no recognition whatsoever, although his was a very distinctive face. His slightly oblique, hooded dark eyes seemed to be staring back at me assessingly (and probably finding me wanting).

‘You must know him! He’s a well-known actor, and he’s got this deliciously plummy voice, a bit like Jeremy Irons.’

‘You know I don’t watch much TV. But it sounds an unlikely combination with that face,’ I commented. ‘He looks a bit – barbaric.’

‘It’s the Tartar blood.’

‘Oh? I thought tartar was something you found on your teeth,’ I said disagreeably.

‘Not that sort of tartar – it’s a place in Russia. Mongolia? The High Steppes, or Chaparral, or something? His great-grandmother was a Tartar and that’s where those fabulous cheekbones come from, and the come-to-bed eyes …’ She gazed at the magazine and sighed. ‘He’s sort of like a young Bryan Ferry crossed with Rudolf Nureyev.’

‘Rudolf Nureyev’s dead.’

‘You must have seen photos.’

‘Yes, but I don’t find men in tights very appealing. I’d never have made Marian.’

After a minute she smiled weakly: Sunrise over Yellowstone Canyon.

‘You will have your little joke,’ she said, hoisting herself to her feet and tucking the copy of Surprise! firmly under her arm. ‘I’d better go and sort out the roof rats. I’ll soon have the little buggers out of there.’

Her car was parked opposite, outside Miss Grinch’s, who would not be pleased, because she liked the front of her house kept clear so she had a better view of what her neighbours were doing. Had Angie been a man visiting me while my husband was away she would have been straight across with a milk jug or sugar bowl to try to catch me out in some imagined misdemeanour.