In a taxi, sort of drowsing off in the back. I’d had the sort of day where you wake up already tired and it never quite comes together from there. My phone started ringing.
“Darling, I hope you’re okay.” It was the manager. I’d forgotten to alert her on leaving the last client.
“Sorry, yes, I’m fine.” The taxi sped north, the streets were quiet. “Everything was fine, he was very nice.”
“You always say they’re ‘very nice.’ You sound so happy.”
“Happy? I suppose so. I’m not unhappy.” I mean, the man was somewhat trollish, but she’s not interested in knowing.
“That’s because you haven’t experienced any aggression in the job yet.”
I laughed. Compared to real relationships, these men are absolute pussycats, and easily pleased pussycats at that. Even sleepy and disconnected, nothing I couldn’t handle-so far. “I suppose it just shows how well you take care of me,” I said.
Arrived home soon after and went to bed. I had my phone under my pillow just in case, as I was expecting another call. It rang around midnight.
“Darling, are you still up? Can you do another appointment?”
“Mrrrrrf arrrrrm mmmmmmmph fhmmmmmm.”
“Okay, you get some sleep. Stay happy, darling.” vendredi, le 13 fevrier
Usually I hold fairly positive opinions on clients-being as they are the water that floats my soap, and usually pleasant enough in a ships-passing-in-night kind of way. If someone waxes fanatical on the charms of his school nurse circa 1978, for instance, or insists on making me read out the newspaper in a fnar-fnar porny voice while he imagines he is having Fiona Bruce up the backside, I just steel myself and get on with it. But some things are beyond the pale. Some things chill me to the bone.
When the client referred to yesterday’s hotel visit as “afternoon delight,” for instance. For the love of Harvey N, man, have you no taste whatsoever? samedi, le 14 fevrier
But of course, the manager is wrong. I am not all that happy. ’Tis the blessed season of togetherness, where we honor the anniversary of the beheading of a Christian saint by exchanging overpriced tat.
The crass and obvious fakery of the Valentine holiday is powerful enough to get even me down. It’s not simply the fact of being alone, though I am not technically alone-in London, you really never are-I have friends aplenty and work enough. No, it’s more the smug mutual pampering couples get to experience.
I don’t begrudge anyone their good time. I’ve been known to smile at couples canoodling on the tube or drunkenly fumbling on a park bench whilst pregnant women and little old ladies are forced to stand. If you have an other, significant or somewhat less than, I wholeheartedly encourage you to lavish one another with lurrrrve on that day.
What gets my goat is the shameless cashing-in by manicurists, hairstylists, and purveyors of raunchy lingerie. I make an effort to keep myself baby smooth and silkily attired at all points in the year, and what’s my reward? Nothing. Book a spoil-yourself spa weekend for two in February, though, and it’s discounts ahoy.
Ahem. I think I deserve a little better here. Sure, Valentine’s may be the lifestyle economy’s equivalent of Christmas, but how about lending some sugar to the peeps who keep you afloat the rest of the year?
I brought up the subject with the woman lately charged with waxing my bush. She wasn’t impressed by the logic. dimanche, le 15 fevrier
Having very little else to do of a weekend, I went to visit N’s mum. She’s an excellent woman, robust of mind and body, and lately widowed. It seemed appropriate to spend Valentine’s Day with someone whose attitude toward men runs approximately, “Don’t worry dear-by the time you find a good one they just up and die on you anyway.”
She has been thinking of selling the family house now that all her children are grown and she is alone.
“It must seem quite empty now,” I said carefully. One never knows just how far and how quickly your foot can enter your mouth when conversing with the elderly.
“Not at all,” she said. “I have the little ghosts, you see.”
“Of course you do,” I said. Dappy old bird. I thought nothing more of it.
Later we went for a walk round her block. It’s in a neglected village north of London that has never been fashionable, where there is still a local butcher (and not selling organic free-range cilantro-and-Tamworth-pork sausage to the gourmands-come-lately, either), where the pubs are still locals and not jockeying for the attention of Michelin and Egon Ronay restaurant reviews, and the residents drive normal-sized cars and not Land Rover behemoths, or more shocking still, use public transport.
In short-the sticks. And quite lovely for it.
We wittered around in the corner shop and bought a paper and sandwiches. I insisted we get two cupcakes from the bakery with pink icing and a little plastic heart pressed in the tops. We went further, down to a cemetery. The weather wasn’t great, a bit gray and blowy, but there was a touch of blue making its way through the sky. N’s mum sat heavily on a stone bench next to a memorial.
“Go on, read it.”
I did. A family-the father, mother, and four girls-their names and dates of birth inscribed in the curly lettering of the early Victorian. “Do you notice anything?” she said.
“They all died on the same day. Some sort of accident?”
“A fire,” she said. “In the house where I live now.” A white-haired lady walking a terrier paused nearby. She waved at N’s mum while her doggie soiled the eternal memory of some decorated officer. “They were asleep the whole time.”
“You’re having me on,” I said. But I couldn’t help imagining a bed of little girls, their blankets and pajamas catching fire. A fate we have eliminated, presumably, with central heating and flameproof furniture. The sort of thing that only happens now when a near-bankrupt father goes off the rails and does his whole family in.
“When you wake up tomorrow, come down to the kitchen and see if it doesn’t smell of smoke.”
“How do I know that’s not just you burning the toast?” I said with a smile.
“It’s not,” she said. “It’s four little ghosts, who never even woke up.” We walked home and read the paper and ate our sandwiches. I texted N to say I was having a nice time with his mother and secretly wondered whether I’d be able to sleep the night. Every crack of a twig and whip of wind outside sounded like a growing flame; every few minutes I sat up in bed, convinced the air smelt of fire.
Woke to a smoke-free kitchen and text:
Enjoy the weekend. Don’t let her start telling ghost stories. N lundi, le 16 fevrier
A knock on the door this morning as I was drying my hair. It was one of the builders, holding a single pink rose.
“Er, um,” he said, charmingly.
“Is that for me?” I asked. The builders were meant to be finished by now, but there have been problems with the new dishwasher that they are either loath to describe to a delicate constitution such as mine or are incapable of putting into words. Their morning requirement of tea and their vague assurances that it will all be finished soon are becoming permanent features of my home life. If one decided to cement our union, I’m not sure I would be able to discourage him, except by engineering a tea shortage. “How very sweet.”
“It’s not from me,” he insisted. “I mean, I mean… it’s not from me, someone said to give it to you.”
“Lovely. And is there a note?”
“Didn’t see one.”
“Whom did you say this was from again?”
“Dunno.” He thought a moment, scratching his chin with the tube of plastic wrapped round the rosebud. “Some bloke?”
“And what did he look like?”
“Average size?”
It’s good to know their general vagueness is not just an act to secure tea privileges. I suspected plumping for more detail, such as whether the suitor came on foot or by car, would be met with similarly useless information. “Well, thank you for delivering it,” I said, taking charge of the flower. The builder turned and trundled off to his van. I noticed the plastic bore a sticker from the florist and fruiterer around the corner-so no clues there. Given the turnover of customers they must have this week, I can’t imagine the staff would remember who purchased the rose, either.