Meeting Lydia Read online

  Marianne told Taryn that she should have been a psychologist and they arranged to see each other soon for an update.

  26

  The Certain Age

  Who are we, the people of a certain age, the forty-fives to fifties? The forgotten age, too old to feel appropriate in mini skirts, too young for Saga holidays, but not long now!

  Marianne was in Bromley, ostensibly to buy a bathroom carpet, but she had other things on her mind when she walked through the glass double doors of the bustling store and headed for the escalator to the basement.

  Dear Edward

  We people of a certain age are misplaced in a world of ‘whatever, innit, yeah-right, and sooo-everything’. We reflect on what was, worry about what will be and hide our heads in fear under the feathery pillow of what is. We people of a certain age, whose chemical balance is on the gentle downward gradient, glance across the hairpin bend of life since adolescence, remembering just a little way up the hill when last we were full of wild emotion and feelings and doubts and … oh so much that I cannot bear to say. The nostalgia for that time is laced with rosy streaks, recalling the excitement and forgetting the fears. The parties when I was an innocent fledgling … Watching all the goings-on … an interested observer… curious, fearful …

  Hand-in-hand, they went up the stairs to the darkened room with pink-glowing lights and seductive, liquid melodies of Nights in White Satin booming from the stereo … And couples on the floor among the cushions, awakening passions, perhaps for the first time … I used to think, when would it be me?

  It was a time of hope for better things to come and a time to wonder about what life would hold.

  I never thought too hard about what job I would do, or who I might marry. I drifted along with no long-term plan, making decisions as situations presented themselves. After university there were some hollow times of what seemed like endless searching for the so-called right person. It was a time of failed relationships, lone partying, hoping for that magic link, those eyes across a crowded room. But they were never there and the music seemed to play in mournful minor keys. I remember feeling cold, empty and lonely and not worthy of the life that other people had.

  I dreamed that one day it would all be right, that the dark legacy of Brocklebank would be a thing of the past. When Johnny and I met again quite by chance, bells rang and the sun came out for him as well as me. Then I found the right job and the joys of motherhood with Holly. But that was long ago, when England’s summers were full of butterflies and daisies under a clear blue sky and Johnny and I were so full of passion for each other that the hurts and pains of childhood seemed permanently buried. They didn’t count any more – or so I thought. How was I to know that the effects of the bullying would stay just under the surface, just out of reach until the Certain Age, until Charmaine? Now the summers seem fickle and the passion has died. Where has the joy gone, Edward, the joy of life with him?

  Sometimes I see it still on the other side of a wispy curtain and it is so clear that I think I could touch it. But when I reach out, it skips from my grasp; tantalisingly close; laughing at me just like they did all those years ago. Barnaby Sproat and Pete Glanville … mocking, gloating … Who do you think you are, Marianne, to be loved to madness now you are a Certain Age? You’re on the slide, girl, on the slide to invisibility and then oblivion.

  Oh Edward, I hope this is just a blip; that I can soon recapture what I grasped when I first found you again …

  Marianne was in the carpet section of the store now, idly running her hand over the samples in one of the books. She wrinkled her nose at a particularly hideous mustard-coloured one and wondered why anyone would want such a shade in their house. A man with designer stubble and stiffly gelled hair, who looked far too young to have any useful knowledge about carpets, started approaching her with that hopeful look of a sale in prospect dancing round his manufactured smile.

  Wouldn’t want to run my fingers through that hair, she thought, smiling back all the same. Wonder what he knows about the merits of shag pile or rubber backing?

  Later that night, Marianne wrote in her journal:

  What will Johnny and I be like thirty years from now? Perhaps I am scribbling my memoires, with the telly on in the background, and he’s still down at the pub drinking beer in a corner with the same old mates and the same old patter. He has less hair now and sports a cap when he goes outside, and his clothes have to be secretly removed from the chair (or the floor!) for washing or he’d wear the same ones every day and never notice. There’s the hint of a wheeze when he limps up the stairs and that rasping cough and those rheumy eyes … His face is distinctly purple now, especially in the evenings, and I too have slipped through that curtain between young and old. When I look in the mirror, I see a stranger staring back.

  Ohmygod! No wonder we feel a sense of madness at this time. Systems that identified me as woman are closing down. I am falling apart. The child within me shouts, help me, for I am frightened of what’s to come, but I cannot say this out loud because I am a grownup now, setting an example to those who will follow. It is not for me to scare them, they will find out soon enough when the rollercoaster bob-sleigh run begins.

  So really I deserve to be unhinged until I get used to it all and find another dream. Perhaps we people of a certain age need to grieve for the youth that we see fading. Perhaps grieving is necessary and good; a way to come to terms as we drift ever further from the familiar cycles and patterns that have been part of our life for so long.

  The child within wants comforting arms and reassurance and someone to say it will be all right in the end. But it won’t be all right, will it? One by one all those I care about will leave this earth until I leave too.

  I know I should tell you, Johnny, about these things in my head. But I’m scared that you will run …

  Dear Edward,

  The word Pension looms, no longer a distant word only for other people; an alien race who were never young. Once the word Pension meant stick, bus pass and tight grey perm; a basket-woven shopping trolley terrorising the ankles of other pavement dwellers; sensible shoes with flat heels and a dull green mac with a plastic rain hood. Squeaking, creaking, squinting round the supermarket looking for something pre-packaged and effortless to consume in front of Coronation Street with the prerequisite tabby cat purring by the fireside.

  Please don’t let Pension mean that now.

  If fifty is the new thirty, then sixty must be the new forty. Life beginning time! Not time for the P word.

  What brought this on Edward? A visit to college by a woman of a certain age from Teachers’ Pensions in Darlington, that’s what. I only went to listen because I thought I should be prepared and try to understand the complexities of it all before it becomes imminent and necessary. Finance is a foreign language to me.

  Pension!!! Arggh! Ohmygod! I felt suddenly old … counting the years … not long now. Ohmygod!

  Early Retirement! Even less long till that could be an option. Early retirement, I mean me, Marianne Hayward … Retired pensioner with bus pass and cat.

  All kinds of things to consider that once seemed so far away …

  “How long do you expect to survive?” said the woman from Darlington with a Geordie lilt and a friendly smile, trying hard to make palatable such unpleasant thoughts. This, she said, was a question you must consider when contemplating whether you can afford to exist on a reduced pension.

  How long indeed. I have been a low-fat, high-fibre woman for a long time now. But what of the student years of eating chips and takeaway kebabs? What about the stresses of being a teacher?

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 27th February 2002, 20.20

  Subject: The Certain Age

  Hi Edward,

  I think I am having a midlife crisis (or perhaps ‘crisette’ would be more appropriate!) Precipitated by attending a talk after work about pensions! Suddenly there seems so little time left and so much to do
– except work gets in the way of doing it. What about my book? When am I going to find the time to write it?

  I cannot believe we are so old and that it is nearly thirty-four years since we were at school together. The future looks predictable and bleak. Did you always know what you wanted to do? Did you have a plan to follow? Have been spending more than the usual amount of time contemplating the Meaning of Life. Is this what happens at a Certain Age?

  Best wishes,

  Marianne

  Write to me soon Edward. Please write to me soon. Don’t let me down now Edward, I need rebalancing …

  To: Marianne Hayward

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 28th February 2002, 22.43

  Subject: Re: The Certain Age

  Hi Marianne,

  Do you psychologists do mind-reading too?!

  Last night I was writing a reference for a student and I envied what they were going to; the fact that they were starting out. Wanted to play the piano, but was never any good. Didn’t discover archaeology until the back end of school – thanks to our History teacher – Grimes – who responded to my question about Silbury Hill by lending me a book. After that I was hooked.

  Had a plan of a sort, but the future map is clearer now and it scares the hell out of me. Following the paths of all University Lecturers, churning out the same old guff with increasing cynicism until I retire – or die. More of the same until the leaving do, the presents, the ‘wasn’t he wonderful’ (I don’t mean that I think I am, but it’s what they say at these do’s about everyone!) And then what? For me, most of the dreams have been fulfilled. I’ve done what I set out to do. Lucky, I guess. But secretly there was the hope of making a discovery of such significance that it would never be forgotten. Unless I can manage to come up with something truly memorable, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough to be doing the same for the next fifteen years. I need a break, a new challenge …

  You must write your book!

  Must dash,

  Best wishes,

  Edward.

  Hm, thought Marianne. Not like Edward to write so much. Could this be yet another man of a certain age with an MLC coming on? There would certainly be plenty to talk about when they met … Please let it be soon!

  “Mari … Mari!” Johnny came in late again, slammed the door, tripped on the mat and searched the kitchen for easily consumable leftovers.

  She closed down the computer, turned off the light and hovered at the top of the stairs.

  “Mari! Are you still up? Are you awake? For conversation, perhaps? A little chat?”

  She heard him slurring his words as he rifled through the fridge. The tone was sarcastic; back in destructive mode of pub and drink and criticism. All this since she saw Charmaine touch his face; all this since she forgot her resolve and exploded.

  But she quickly remembered what she must do. She must not react. Confront the negative with a positive.

  So she did.

  “Hi-ya, Johnny, I’m coming down. Would you like a sandwich? There’s ham or turkey? I’ll make it for you if you like.”

  Now if Johnny wanted an argument, he was arguing with himself while she spread Flora on the bread, a benign expression on her face, thinking of how she could empathise with Edward when she wrote back.

  Then she dreamed of him again, a young teenage Edward, playing the piano with the virtuosity of a concert pianist. She gazed at him, entranced by the beauty of the music and the speed with which his fingers slid across the keys. She offered him a large white bucket of what looked like popcorn pieces. These he fed into the piano. He said he was playing Chopin, but she knew it wasn’t.

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 2nd March 2002, 21.30

  Subject: Re: The Certain Age

  Hi Edward,

  I am sure you could do almost anything you wanted!

  Marianne

  Not much empathy there. But he clearly needed reassurance.

  To: Marianne Hayward

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 2nd March 2002, 22.14

  Subject: Re: The Certain Age

  Hi Marianne,

  Never that easy. Just when I am set to break away, something interesting happens in the archaeological world and I carry on …

  Have been asked to go to St. Agnes, Isles of Scilly at end of summer on first major excavation there since 1980s … Do I want my holiday to be one of so much work?

  Best wishes,

  Edward

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 4th March 2002, 20.12

  Subject: Re: The Certain Age

  Hi Edward,

  Lucky you! Doesn’t sound much like work to me! Perhaps this could be your new challenge? A bit of grubbing about in the earth with a trowel and a paintbrush might refuel your enthusiasm! I love Scilly! We went to St. Agnes in the summer of 2000 and desperately want to go back. Those rock formations! Agapanthus everywhere! Requires much advanced planning though! Have you been before? Where will you stay? We were at The Parsonage near the lighthouse …

  Surely the perfect place to be inspired …

  Marianne

  To: Marianne Hayward

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 4th March 2002, 21.54

  Subject: Re: The Certain Age

  Felicity would prefer me to stay at home and decorate – as I had apparently promised.

  Scilly looks ever-more inviting! If I go we will be on campsite at Troytown Farm!

  Must dash – paper to write before tomorrow.

  Ted

  Busy again, thought Marianne. Four teenagers at home, yet a prolific producer of written material. Sounded like a paradox. One teenager to ferry around had been difficult enough and only now was Marianne finding time to write. Slowly her journal, with its soft, velvety plum cover, was beginning to accumulate her thoughts and musings as she negotiated this most difficult stage of her life. These would be the building blocks for the book that she would write; a book about meeting Edward, perhaps …

  Not invisible today! The young lad on the ham counter in the supermarket, who barely made eye contact when I saw him on the fish counter a month ago, was positively helpful and even went voluntarily to the storeroom and fetched a new ham in shrink-wrapped polythene coat. The difference? Last month I was encased in a shapeless duvet-style padded jacket and he was very reluctant to go and look for some frozen, shell-on, headless tiger prawns. But I persisted; made it seem important, and eventually he shrugged and said he could check the back. Returned with a box absolutely bursting with them. Tiger prawns like tabby-cats paws … I bet he knew they were there all the time. Lazy sod. Service isn’t what it used to be. (Mother again!)

  But today in this rare spring sunshine, and vastly overheated as I often am in the early morning, I was wearing a strappy summer dress, lipstick and sunglasses. Ha! The power of bare shoulders!

  It is aggravating that one has to play sexy to be noticed. Perhaps one always did. Maybe a padded duvet doesn’t turn heads even when you are twenty-one? Trouble is: appropriateness. The certain age brings up the question of whether it is right and proper to flounce around in girly clothes. The young man on the ham counter obviously thinks so! Nigella Lawson says you can’t be too obvious to a man and she should know!

  When Johnny and I were in the New Forest two summers ago, the ginger-haired man on the fish counter in a supermarket in Lymington was full of flirtatious charm and attentiveness and made me feel like a teenager again. They’re not like that in London …

  I make a plea to all young men on fish or ham counters: please notice those of us of a certain age, because one day it will be you.

  27

  Biobabble

  For the next two weeks, Marianne focused on regaining her composure. She knew deep down that since her re-acquaintance with Edward, there was a permanent shift in the way she felt about the past, but she had to start believing it at a conscious level,
and act on it.

  Those bastard bullies, she thought, where are they now? And she imagined their heads shrunken to the size of hockey balls, spaced along the white line of the semi-circle surrounding the goal mouth on the big games pitch at Brocklebank. There they sat, round and shiny – Pete Glanville, Jeremy Lanigan and Barnaby Sproat – and there she stood, now ten years old again in her blue aertex shirt, navy divided skirt and red hockey socks.

  Probably pillars of society now with never a thought of their past behaviour. Doting parents with tough-guy kids; like father, like son. ‘He thumped you, did he, and you thumped him back? That’s my boy! Gotta stand up for yourself in a cut-throat world.’ But she no longer cared who or what they were; she no longer cared. With stick in hand, she thwacked the shrunken heads one by one into the back of the goal and heard them thud and crack against the wood. It was a distinctly pleasurable sensation and she wondered if she might be developing a taste for violence in her mature years. Standing in the background cheering her on were her good friends Abi and Susannah, and somewhere on the sidelines looking puzzled by the fuss, was the young Edward Harvey.

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 17th March 2002, 21.05

  Subject: The Uses of Men

  Hi Edward,

  I have just been listening to Radio 4 about the perilous state of the Y chromosome. It is now so short and carries so few genes that all men could be infertile in 125 years time. Indeed, presumably if the Y chromosome disappears altogether, there won’t be any men, so the infertility issue will never arise. The scientists speculate that babies will be created using cloning techniques, but with eggs from two female parents. I wonder if they will eventually grow them outside the body … In metallic oval ‘foetalpods’ perhaps?

  One of our college lecturers used to say that humans are nothing more than a 60p bag of chemicals and a rain-butt of water. One day, will we be able to synthesise a baby from a few bottles in the chemistry lab? This got me thinking that if men weren’t needed to create babies, would they be missed? (Present company excepted!!)