Meeting Lydia Read online

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 19th May 2002, 22.38

  Subject: Re: The Big Questions

  Dear Marianne,

  If all history is wiped out by your global catastrophe theory, then there will be a role for the archaeologists of the future – assuming intelligent life emerges from the mess.

  Sorry this is yet another brief reply to all your profound thoughts. Very hectic here at the moment, exam marking, etc.

  Edward

  Dear Marianne again … perhaps it was intentional … a way of assuaging his guilt because he didn’t have time to have an extended discussion. Probably she should pause for a couple of weeks before she wrote to him again. But her brain was working overtime and she didn’t feel like discussing her thoughts with Johnny.

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 30h May 2002, 18.19

  Subject: Re: The Big Questions

  Dear Edward,

  I’ve been having a lot of Profound Thoughts lately. Is it an age thing? Maybe there’s another stage of Cognitive Development that kicks in somewhere between forty-five and fifty; the stage of Profound Thoughts! Most researchers cover this under the category of ‘Stages of Life’ and although they deal with thoughts about ageing and midlife crises and changes, they don’t appear to have suggested that there may be something intrinsically different about thinking itself. Hmm. Might I be onto something here, or is this another of my wild ideas? Best wishes,

  Marianne

  To: Marianne Hayward

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 1st June 2002, 23.14

  Subject: Re: The Big Questions

  Hi Marianne,

  The environment is my Big Question. Too much talking and not enough action … Too many extreme events have happened weather-wise in recent years. (We are even thinking of planting a few vines and an olive tree!) Am constantly worried about the future … Both of the Planet and – perhaps selfishly – where the career’s going …Where is there left for it to go? Supposed to be enthusiastic: used to be enthusiastic: am surrounded by enthusiasm! Archaeology’s a discipline that attracts the enthusiastic … Finding such difficult since getting back from Aus. Tired of giving the same old lectures. Tired of the conference scene; of the travelling and living out of a suitcase; of bad hotels and late trains. Have decided to take up the Scilly offer – late August/September. You are probably right that a bit of ‘grubbing about’– as you put it – may revitalise my interest!

  Fascinated by your embryonic theory of midlife thinking …

  Have to go and pick Harriet up from a friend’s.

  Best wishes,

  Edward

  From: Marianne Hayward

  To: Edward Harvey

  Date: 2nd June 2002, 20.59

  Subject: Archaeology For the Soul

  Hi Edward,

  Talking of weather, we are very ‘hot’ (ha!) on recycling here, but the council don’t make it easy. Plenty of places for paper and glass, but our mountain of plastic still goes in the bin. The inventions of the twentieth century may have made life easier for us, but the future generations will suffer – assuming there are future generations. (Refer back to the uses of men and the dwindling Y chromosome!! … Or to ’flu pandemics …)

  Sorry you’re still having career doubts. Do you have an alternative in mind? What about the restaurant idea that you mentioned a while back? Or counselling? You have empathy enough for that. I have been reading Sophie’s World in which a link is made between archaeology and psychoanalysis! Says both involve digging – one through layers of earth and the other through layers of the mind. Have never been much enamoured of Freud. One of our degree course lecturers called him one of the Twentieth Century Poets – along with Jung and Adler. We were told that we would fail our degree if we so much as mentioned him in an exam! My psychological perspective has always been cognitive-behaviourism, though with the unravelling of the human genome, the biological approach is becoming ever more seductive!

  But we have to teach Freud for A level and some of his ideas regarding the unconscious are very compelling. As our re-acquaintance exorcised my Brocklebank ghosts, I am beginning to be converted! Am still dubious about his dream theory, though. When I dream about trains (which I did only a few days ago!) I know it is because I’ve had some irritating experience trying to book tickets, or like you, am worried about getting from A to B on time. It’s nothing to do with sex!

  Glad to hear you are going to Scilly, but am awfully jealous! Rushing too,

  Marianne

  To: Marianne Hayward

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 2nd June 2002, 22.23

  Subject: Re: Archaeology for the Soul

  Hi Marianne,

  Interesting links!

  The restaurant is more Felicity’s dream than mine – and a post-retirement option.

  Have thought about counselling and even checked out courses. No chance of doing this full-time – too many dependents! Probably impossible anyway …

  Not quite sure how you deduce I have empathy from my often hurried emails.

  Bring back paper bags!

  Now about these train dreams …!

  Must dash,

  Edward.

  From: Marianne Hayward

  To: Edward Harvey

  Date: 13th June 2002, 21.03

  Subject: Re: Archaeology For the Soul

  Hi Edward,

  Some supermarkets have started putting chickens in plastic or foil trays! This is a serious backward step – except for Blue Peter’s creative department!

  How will you feel in ten years time if you don’t take the risk? We’re getting to that time of life when we should do all the things we want to do.

  Marianne

  To: Marianne Hayward

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 14th June 2002, 22.17

  Subject: Re: Archaeology for the Soul

  Hi Marianne,

  The packaging issue is a nightmare. Felicity has started selling china on eBay and all our polystyrene containers are being recycled!

  Widening participation is sapping my energy for the university life. Universities no longer populated just by the academically able. Numbers increasing – like a production line. We don’t get to know them any more. Atmosphere changing … teaching challenging … results still expected …

  Are you doing all the things you want to do?

  Edward

  Marianne wondered about this. With Holly gone, the emphasis was less on others and more on herself. For eighteen years Holly’s needs had been paramount, governing what they did at weekends and where they went for holidays. Now she was free to make decisions about what she wanted, she didn’t know what to do. She wondered if Johnny was having the same thoughts. They must talk to each other; find out where they were going for the next twenty years.

  We’ll talk in the summer holidays, she thought. She thought this every year, as teachers often do. And then when the time came they didn’t want to spoil the only truly relaxing time of the year with heavy discussions, and so they put it off and another twelve months went by.

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 15th June 2002, 18.18

  Subject: Re: Archaeology for the Soul

  Dear Edward,

  I am compromising as most of us do – fitting the person I am into one of the zillions of niches in today’s world.

  Always wanted to live by the sea in a quiet place, and have a dog … but Johnny likes it here.

  Marianne

  To: Marianne Hayward

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 15th June 2002, 18.25

  Subject: Re: Archaeology for the Soul

  Dear Marianne,

  Dogs are great! Perhaps I am lucky, but up to now I don’t feel I have had to compromise.

  Edward

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 16th
June 2002, 21.38

  Subject: Re: Archaeology for the Soul

  Dear Edward,

  It is always the women who compromise! (Please don’t be offended!)

  Marianne

  Then there was silence again and she wondered if the thread had run its natural course or if he was offended.

  Shouldn’t try to be flippant by email, she thought.

  And the silence expanded as the days went by.

  31

  Dancing out of Time

  ‘Is there not a something wanted, Miss Price, in our language – a

  something between compliments and – and love – to suit the friendly

  acquaintance we have had together?’

  Jane Austen Mansfield Park

  And so it was with Edward.

  After eight months of mailing, best wishes seemed to be hopelessly inadequate and ridiculously formal. Marianne wanted to put ‘love’, but meant in a friendly way. Too old for the ‘luv’ of teenage years.

  Colin Gottleib – a college friend from Sheffield – always wrote love at the end of his emails. So did Mike and Charlie. She never thought twice about doing the same in reply to them.

  But after dozens of emails to Edward, signing off with love had all kinds of connotations even if it was only the lightest of casual salutations. It suggested genuine acceptance of friendship – which she didn’t feel was the case just yet. How could they until they met; until they’d had a proper conversation with eyes and spoken words and gestures?

  She often thought of love these days. Once she just accepted it without need for analysis. It was something that made your stomach lurch; something that made the world smile and the darkest day seem bathed in light. It was rainbows and autumn leaves; misty mornings and the first snowdrops. It made all else seem trivial, but the older she became, the more she realised it wasn’t as simple as that.

  The Inuit have over fifty different words for snow and ice so how is it that the multifaceted love has just the one? Some have dabbled with distinguishing between Eros and Agape: passion and unconditional love. But these words seem clumsy and archaic; inappropriate for common usage.

  ‘D’you Agape me?’

  ‘Nah, more Eros, darlin’.’

  ‘We need to talk …’

  So the Soap script might run; new clichés for men to dread in twenty-first century courtship.

  Johnny had asked her if she still loved him when Dylan was visiting. What type of love did he mean?

  And if you have to ask, can you believe the reply? Marianne had lied to Johnny and she knew he was upset.

  Of course she loved him still, but she wanted him to hurt and to understand what it was like to feel unwanted after twenty years. And it was working; sort of working. He was at least staying with her in the evenings instead of chasing her.

  Love; the many masquerades of love …

  L – O – V – E. Throw it up in the air and it might come down as V – O – L – E: like a rat. Men could be rats when they followed their pants.

  D’ya love me Johnny like when I was twenty-five? D’ya love this overheated woman who flies into rages, puts the sugar in the fridge and misplaces keys?

  Hell no … How could he?

  What did Edward Harvey know of love? She guessed he wasn’t afraid of it; that he was loved and knew how to love back. But this was conjecture of a sort, a reading between the lines, for their discussions had barely brushed the surface of emotional themes. That was a dangerous place to go in cyberspace. She might have told him about Charmaine, but he would have been uneasy, wondering if her marriage was on the rocks and if she was looking to him for some sort of comfort. Had they been able to talk face to face, she could have reassured him that all she was seeking was a friend.

  Edward Harvey … Edward Harvey … Edward Harvey … Once she might have loved him in a childlike kind of way; the first crush of youth, the bursting bloom of the rose with all its innocence and wonder. But now? Admiration, respect; fondness, perhaps.

  That was a dreadful word. Fondness … Fondness was the pat on the head for the great nephew who only visited his ageing aunt twice a year, and wrote thank you notes under duress for the weird and wonderful Christmas presents that smelt of mothballs. In romantic relationships it was a woolly, mealy-mouthed kind of word, used by those about to ditch their partner to excuse a lack of passion.

  She still had difficulty sometimes believing that she and Edward were actually exchanging mail. His name had tripped off her tongue occasionally over the years as one speaks of people from the past that have receded into the shadows, never to emerge again. She never thought they would have any more contact, let alone be trying to get to know each other. She often blinked a few times at his name in the Inbox. The mythical Edward Harvey …

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 5th July 2002, 23.01

  Subject: Sibling Composition

  Hi Edward,

  I’ve just been reading an article on sibling composition and future relationships, and thought you might find some of the conclusions interesting. It said that if you are a younger sister of brother(s) – moi – then the most comfortable relationship is with an older brother of sister(s). The logic being that younger sisters like to be protected and older brothers are used to doing that. Conversely an older sister of brothers pairs well with a younger brother of sisters. Older sisters are bossy and younger brothers are used to being bossed! Makes sense in a way and certainly it is true of Johnny and me.

  Our term is winding down now and I am looking forward to a break. Have you finished yet?

  Best wishes,

  Marianne

  Love Marianne … she thought … love Marianne … next time, maybe …

  To: Marianne Hayward

  From: Edward Harvey

  Date: 6th July 2002, 08.56

  Subject: Re: Sibling Composition

  Hi Marianne,

  My two sisters are younger than me and Felicity is an only child. Presumably she would be used to getting her own way (she does!) and I would want to boss her around – but I haven’t time; I just go with the flow! Interesting … What about same-sex siblings?

  Sorting out next year’s timetable so no break yet! Felicity has just bought two goats – Margo and Barbara! All part of the recycling scheme!

  Edward

  To: Edward Harvey

  From: Marianne Hayward

  Date: 6th July 2002, 15.45

  Subject: Re: Sibling Composition

  Dear Edward,

  Same sex siblings will be familiar with competitiveness. Perhaps they could team up with only children, or find partners who also have same sex siblings??

  Good luck with the goats!

  Best wishes,

  Marianne

  Yes, I’m chicken, I know … But I can’t … I just can’t take the risk.

  Then there was silence and she was glad she had played it safe.

  She was also glad of the pause. She needed to collect her thoughts. The summer was racing by and nothing was being done to bring back the passion with Johnny. She wished they had booked a holiday, but the only time they had discussed it, neither could decide where to go.

  Two days later she was propped up on the pillows reading when he came to bed. It was Sunday and all day he had been roaming the house and garden, catching up on chores and looking rough and ruffled and sexy. She had nearly propositioned him when he came in from mowing the lawn, but the phone had rung and by the time she had finished talking to her mother about her annual summer visit, he had begun to clear the garden shed.

  Now there were no distractions, so she took off her newly-acquired glasses and closed her book.

  “Ravish me,” she said, allowing the duvet to slip just enough to alert him to her nakedness.

  Johnny stopped in his tracks. He stood at the end of the bed for a moment, looking at her.

  “What does ravish mean? I’ve never really known.”

  “Fill
me with pleasure.” She ran her fingers over the quilt cover, inviting him with her eyes.

  “Just like that.” His tone was incredulous. He averted his gaze.

  “Yes.”

  Johnny shook his head. “Mari this is too weird. This is not you …”

  “Love me,” she said. “Love me madly …”

  “What about foreplay?” he asked, softening a little, his mouth trying very hard not to smile.

  “That’s my line!”

  “It’s work tomorrow.”

  “That’s my line too.”

  He sighed. “I need to shower.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Mari …”

  She caught the hesitation in his voice. Of course she understood. It was difficult to turn it on when he was still being cranky over the Greenwich outburst. Even though it was almost three months ago, he still looked at her sideways whenever they were in company as if waiting for the madness to overcome her again.

  In any case, he was the one who liked to do the seducing, not the other way around. Funny that. Men may think they want to be pursued, but according to those who claim to know a thing or two about such matters, something about their biology means that it works better if they do the chasing. Somehow you have to get their attention with the low-cut top and the high-heeled shoes, or the power suit, or the white t-shirt and jeans, or the slinky dress, or the windblown hair; or whatever turns him on. Then wait … She thought of Charmaine again. If anybody oozed sexuality, Charmaine oozed for England.

  “Do you love me, Johnny?” And as soon as she said it she thought, you prat! Here she was asking the silly question, knowing that the answer was irrelevant. Don’t mention the L word to men unless they mention it to you. This was the rule. Her mother had told her. Sasha had told her. Taryn told her. Magazines told her. Men run away from an unsolicited L word. But she had read too many Cinderella novels. Idiot!

  “Of course.”

  “Then love me.” She would make it sound like sex not love. “You can shower first if you like, but let me watch you like I used to do.” Her voice softened flirtatiously and his shoulders relaxed. She knew he was weakening.

  Now she must back off and let him take charge. She picked up her book and glasses again. “Okay … no matter … you can’t blame me for trying when you look so deliciously handsome.”