‘Everything all right?’ Lavinia asked. She didn’t have the least interest, of course, but had to keep the conversation going.
‘Had some good news, in fact. My daughter, who lives in Australia, has decided to move back to London. She’s arriving in a couple of weeks, with her family. So I won’t be rattling around the house, alone.’
They talked for a while about Harold’s life in Hackney. Anything to avoid the prospect of facing Mary, who was struggling to remember where exactly they had last met. Besides, Lavinia liked Harold; he had something of Buffy’s rumpled charm, though younger and more Jewish. She had never seen a man less resemble a gardener, but that’s why he was here.
Voda, Buffy and India appeared, carrying in the food. At that moment two things happened. Next to Lavinia, there was a sharp intake of breath. Mary had remembered! And the doorbell rang.
Lavinia sprang to her feet. Saved by the bell. ‘I’ll go!’ she called to their hosts, who were burdened with plates. She was one of the team, one of the bohemians. She wondered: Should I tie up my hair in a duster, like Voda?
Lavinia hurried into the hallway and opened the door. It was still pouring with rain. A drowned rat of a man stood there, carrying a plastic bag.
He stared at her, and then recoiled. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
She peered at him. He did look vaguely familiar.
‘Where’s my Voda?’ He pushed past her, reeking of alcohol, and strode down the hall. She followed him into the dining room.
‘Voda!’ he cried.
Voda froze, plate in hand. ‘Conor! What are you doing here?’
‘What do you think, woman? Why weren’t you there? I had to take the fucking bus!’ He stumbled towards her, banging against the chairs.
‘Good God,’ said Buffy. ‘It’s Douggie all over again, I’m having a déjà vu.’
‘You’re not out till next Tuesday,’ said Voda, putting the plate on a table.
‘It’s this Tuesday, stupid cow!’ He grabbed her. ‘Give us a kiss.’
She pushed him away. ‘Not here!’ The diners watched, glasses raised halfway to their mouths.
He grabbed Voda’s arm. ‘Let’s go home.’
‘I can’t! I’m dishing up dinner.’
‘Fuck dinner!’ He glared at her, his hair plastered around his face. ‘Get the car, we’re going.’
‘Please, Conor! Wait for me in the kitchen.’
‘So that’s where I belong, is it? In the fucking kitchen?’ He grabbed her again.
‘Stop it!’ hissed Voda. ‘Everyone’s looking.’
‘Oh, everyone’s looking!’ He put on a mincing voice. ‘Mind more about that, do you? Thanks for the welcome, bitch.’
Lavinia strode over to him. ‘Don’t talk to her like that. I’m a magistrate.’
‘I know, you sour-faced cunt. I remember you.’
‘So sorry, everyone!’ Buffy boomed to their audience, transfixed in the candlelight.
Voda took her boyfriend’s hand. ‘You’re drunk, Conor. Let’s go and sit down somewhere quiet.’
He shook her off. ‘I think they should be told, don’t you?’ He turned to the guests. ‘Look at her, all mimsy-wimsy, butter wouldn’t melt in her bloody mouth – well, don’t you be fooled. She’s got a heart of fucking stone –’
‘Don’t talk about her like that!’ blurted India.
Conor looked at her, and turned to Voda. ‘Who’s she?’
India said: ‘I’m her girlfriend.’
‘Whoever you are, keep your fucking nose out of it –’
‘I’m her girlfriend,’ said India, her face crimson.
Voda hissed: ‘Not now, darling –’
‘It’s too late,’ said India. She turned to Buffy. ‘I love her, we’re lovers, oh, it’s just so marvellous to say it out loud at last.’
‘You’re what?’ Buffy’s mouth dropped open.
India’s blush deepened. ‘We were going to tell you . . . we were going to tell him, when he got out of prison. We were going to tell the world . . .’
Suddenly Conor burst into tears. A small, ferrety man, his denim jacket stained by the rain, he seemed a pitiful specimen. Round his neck hung a string of what looked like rodents’ teeth. Voda put her arms around him; Conor slumped against her, shuddering with sobs. ‘Don’t leave me, babe. I dunno what she’s talking about. Don’t leave me, I’ll mend my ways, I’m going to be a good boy from now on.’
India touched Buffy’s hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It didn’t go quite as I planned.’
‘No, I expect not,’ he said, smoothing down her hair. ‘But then, what does?’
13
Buffy
ONLY FIVE MEN had signed up for Buffy’s own course, ‘Talking to Women’. He was no stranger to the humiliation of the empty hall. He remembered a matinee performance of Sleuth, in Harrogate, when the audience consisted of two old dears who had come in from the rain and a blind man and his guide dog. For some reason the man had brought in a bowl of water, from which the dog lapped noisily during the second-act reveal. It hadn’t bothered the old dears, however, who were fast asleep.
And the lack of numbers didn’t surprise him. Most men wouldn’t admit they had a difficulty in this department. Buffy remembered Lance and Janet Pritchard, all those months ago – We don’t have a problem, said Lance. That’s the problem, said his wife. You’ve put your finger on it. That five men had admitted their deficiency was, in a sense, half the problem solved. And he would teach them the rest.
He had it all planned out. Whether it would stretch to five days was doubtful but with any luck they would all chuck it in and go to the pub. He was looking forward to some male bonding. Now India was part of his household the oestrogen levels had risen – giggles as she and Voda made the beds; swaying in unison as they cooked; mutual hair-grooming sessions, like female gorillas. He was happy, of course, that she was in love, but their few B&B guests since the course had all, for some reason, been female too and so he could do with an injection of testosterone.
Two weeks had passed since India had come out in such spectacular fashion – how seldom, in his professional career, had he triggered such an audience reaction! Conor had disappeared a few days later, to God knows where; India had given notice on her flat in London and was preparing to move into Voda’s cottage. Buffy had rung Jacquetta to discuss this turn of events in a cor, how about that? manner but as usual his ex had squelched him. ‘You really are hung up on gender, aren’t you?’ This was followed by a small, patronising sigh. After all these years, Jacquetta could still make him feel vulgar.
It was Sunday afternoon. Last night’s B&B guest, an Oxford bluestocking who had come for a concert, had long since departed. The house was ready for its five pupils. Buffy and Voda were sitting in the kitchen, working out the menus for the week.
‘Poor Conor,’ Voda said. ‘How’s he going to find another woman when he’s got my name tattooed on his back?’
‘In big letters?’
She nodded. ‘With swirls and a dragon.’
‘Bit of a hostage to fortune, one would think.’
‘It’s ever so painful, apparently, to have it removed.’ She sighed. ‘India and I are planning to grow vegetables in his polytunnel. Well, my polytunnel. It’s all mine, he never paid a penny for anything, he was such a sponge. Funny how you only realise stuff when you’ve broken up.’
Buffy nodded. ‘They do say that love is blind.’
‘And he never talked, not really. He just told me things.’
‘He should come on my course.’ Buffy chuckled. ‘Just kidding.’
‘India and I talk all the time.’
‘It’s lovely seeing you both so happy,’ he said. ‘I knew something was up when she started calling you Vody.’ This was untrue; he hadn’t a clue. He thought he was an observant man but then one often didn’t notice things when they were right under one’s nose. Jacquetta and her shrink, for instance – her flushed cheeks when she returned fr
om her ‘therapy sessions’, and her subsequent need for a shower. He couldn’t tell Voda this. After all, Jacquetta was her lover’s mother; blood was thicker than water, even at one remove.
Buffy suddenly felt lonely. Voda was so young and so female. Once or twice they had talked about her problems with Conor but now she had disappeared into a sapphic world in which Buffy could not venture with his big hairy insensitive male feet. He wished Harold were here. Harold understood; he too had been battered by life, by women. They were singing from the same song sheet. The trouble with lesbians was that they made men feel irrelevant; all men had were their puny little dicks which were obviously, so very obviously, surplus to requirements. Harold and he had talked about this at length with reference to Harold’s ex-wife Pia, also a turncoat lesbian, who bore a certain resemblance to Jacquetta though without the punitive sting-in-the-tail of hideous, hideous alimony. The Ivon Hitchens still rankled.
‘Where are they all?’ said Voda, looking at her watch.
It was half past five. The pupils should have been arriving by now.
India came in and gave Voda a kiss. She had only been laying the table in the dining room, for God’s sake! Buffy felt a lurch of exclusion. ‘Where is everyone?’ said India.
‘Search me.’ Voda turned to Buffy. ‘Has anyone phoned to say they’re going to be late?’
Buffy shook his head. The two women started to chop vegetables. Gazing at Voda’s broad back, her loose trousers patterned with stars, he wondered if she had ever been a lesbian in the past. Now she was out, she definitely looked like one. Harold had said the same thing about his wife Pia, though she was apparently bonier. There was something vaguely intransigent about Voda that he had never noticed before, something a little contemptuous in her attitude to men. He hoped she made an exception for him. He was old and fat and hardly a man at all by now.
Buffy, suddenly consumed with self-pity, left them to it and took the dog for a walk. It was a grey, blustery afternoon; the church bells were tolling for evensong. On the road lay a slab of stucco. It had fallen off the Old Court House, next door. The place was up for sale but there had been no buyers yet; the council couldn’t afford to maintain it and it had fallen into a state of delapidation. Somebody could have been killed! Another victim of the cuts! Only the week before, the postman had broken his leg tripping over a crack in the pavement.
In the churchyard he met Roy, the Fleet Street hack, walking his standard poodle. ‘Fancy a sharpener?’ asked Roy, looking at his watch.
Buffy reluctantly declined, saying he was expecting guests for his course, ‘Talking to Women’.
‘You mean, how to chat them up?’ said Roy. ‘Mine never failed. I’d give them tuppence and say Phone your mum and tell her you won’t be home tonight.’
‘Tuppence? Good God, when was this, the Stone Age?’
Roy nodded, suddenly gloomy.
‘Anyway, it’s not about chatting women up,’ said Buffy. ‘It’s about how not to talk about your car.’
‘But I thought you’ve just done a course in that – talking about your car. Anybody shag anybody?’
‘Not the ones I expected, with the ones I expected.’ Buffy watched their ludicrously mismatched dogs – vast poodle and tiny terrier – sniffing each other’s bottoms. ‘And it turned out some of them weren’t on the rebound at all. They came for all sorts of reasons.’
‘But I bet they all said they never read the Daily Express.’
Buffy left Roy at the Knockton Arms and walked his dog round the block, down the high street with its shuttered shops, down Church Street where, in the pub, they’d soon be sharpening their pencils for the quiz. Lights glowed behind the curtains. He remembered that first day, the postman whistling, how he had thought I could live here. And he wasn’t alone. Recently he had bumped into Nolan at the post office; Amy had apparently decamped from London and moved in with him and his mother. India, too, had upped sticks. And only that morning Harold had phoned to say he was thinking of renting a room in Knockton to write his novel, leaving his daughter to look after his house in Hackney. Who could have predicted any of this when he, Buffy, had dreamed up his plan? His courses were, indeed, having unforeseen results.
Still nobody had arrived when he got home. Seven o’clock came and went; dinner bubbled on the stove. Voda went into the office to look at the computer.
‘Do you think they’ve chickened out?’ asked India.
Voda, returning, said: ‘I’ve looked at the emails. All but one are from the bloody ex-wives. They’re the ones who signed them up.’
‘No wonder they’re not coming!’ cried India. ‘Oh God, what are we going to do with all this food?’
‘And what about their fees, thank you very much?’ said Voda. ‘They’ve only paid their deposits.’
‘And what about my course?’ said Buffy. ‘I’ve been planning it for weeks.’
At that moment the bell rang.
Buffy hurried down the hallway and opened the door. A tall, pleasant-looking man stood there, wearing a waterproof jacket. He introduced himself – Andy Jeffreys – and Buffy helped him in with his bag. ‘I’ve left the other stuff in the car,’ the man said.
What did he mean? Buffy shrugged and ushered him into the kitchen. ‘Snuff out the candles, Voda, we’ll eat in here.’ He turned to Andy. ‘I’m afraid nobody else seems to have turned up.’
Andy blinked in the strip light. He looked around, bemused. ‘I didn’t know an evening meal was included. I was going to dump my stuff here and go to the pub.’
‘Good Lord, man, it’s all part of the package.’ Buffy looked at the array of pots. ‘I hope you’re hungry.’
It turned out that Andy was a postman. He lived in Neasden and, after some prodding, revealed that he had recently split up from his wife. He didn’t say much, but then he wouldn’t, would he? That was why he was here. The four of them sat around the table eating beef and chorizo stew. He said that his ex, Toni, was into doing up houses.
‘She likes a building with potential,’ he said, looking around at the kitchen. ‘She’d go bananas about this place. Must be expensive to heat, though.’
‘Did you talk about it together?’ asked Buffy.
‘Pardon?’
‘Her interest in doing up houses?’ He might as well start the course now; there was no point in doing the housekeeping speech about sanitary towels.
‘Not much.’ Andy relapsed into silence.
‘What did you talk about?’
Andy looked at him, mildly surprised. ‘I don’t know. This and that.’
‘Let him eat his dinner,’ said India. ‘The poor bloke’s driven all the way from London. Can’t you start all that tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow?’ Andy’s eyebrows shot up.
‘She’s right,’ said Buffy to Andy. ‘Though it’s going to be a bit strange, just the two of us.’
Andy looked puzzled. No doubt he had been forced to come, against his will, and was now feeling the fear. Maybe he would do a runner in the night! Men could be such cowards. Though, if he were in his shoes, Buffy would probably do the same thing himself.
Voda came to the rescue, talking to Andy about the local attractions. As he listened politely, Buffy tried to size up the man. Good-looking, though he seemed unaware of it. Thick hair springing surprised from his head; tanned skin, from his job in the fresh air. A blokey bloke, that was for sure. He had already told them how he had taken the A40 rather than the motorway due to the roadworks at Coventry, a sure sign of a chap out of touch with his feelings.
‘Have you been to Wales before?’ asked India.
Andy nodded. ‘Though the last time was a bit of a disaster.’
Buffy’s ears pricked up. ‘Disaster? In what way?’
Andy paused. ‘A bit of an emotional roller coaster, to be honest.’
The three of them leaned forward, their eyes bright. ‘What happened?’ asked India. ‘Share it with the group.’
Andy said: ‘England lost 64 to 8. T
hey only scored a try in the last minute.’
They leaned back in their seats, with a sigh. We’ve got one here. Men, honestly!
After dinner Andy went up to his room to unpack. Nobody else was coming now, that was for sure. The two lovebirds disappeared to Voda’s cottage. With his plans shot to pieces, Buffy decided he would take Andy to the pub. The quiz would be over but they could have a pint together with the old soaks.
The problem was, how could he teach the course with only one pupil? He had planned some role-playing; that was now out of the question. So was his multiple-choice panel game, created for light relief. As he waited for Andy to come downstairs the whole enterprise struck him as ridiculous. No wonder only one person had turned up. How could he set himself up as an authority on relationships when his own track record was so rocky? Granted, among the litany of complaints from the various women in his life, blokeish taciturnity was the one shortcoming that hadn’t been thrown at him. He loved a natter; he was interested in clothes and always noticed what a woman was wearing; he liked weepy films; he had no interest in sport or cars; he was thoroughly domesticated and liked nothing better than sitting around chatting – though this, now he thought of it, had been condemned as sloth. Above all, however, he loved discussing all the emotional stuff that really was the basis of everything – so fathomlessly interesting, so endlessly absorbing. Why did anybody talk about anything else?
Andy came downstairs. ‘It’s going to be a funny five days, just the two of us,’ Buffy told him. ‘I should give you some sort of refund.’
‘Refund?’
‘Perhaps we could just watch some DVDs. When Harry Met Sally is spot on when it comes to the battle of the sexes.’
‘You mean in the evenings?’ Andy was looking at him oddly. ‘I’ll be out all day, of course, but I’ve got nothing planned for when I get back.’ They walked up the hallway. Andy, deep in thought, paused at the front door. ‘You really don’t have to entertain me, honest.’
‘But, dear chap –’ Buffy stopped. There seemed to be some missed connection somewhere.
They left the house and walked up the street. Perhaps the man was a mental defective, or had Asperger’s. He really hadn’t got the hang of the situation at all. Perhaps – oh God – his ex hadn’t told him about the course! She had enrolled him as an act of revenge. Or perhaps – a more charitable thought – she had had his best interests at heart, and wanted to give his next partner a better chance of happiness. The course was like those starter packs one found in a holiday flat – bread, eggs, sachet of Nescafé – to get one going. On consideration, this seemed too saintly to be true.