Read Online Aunt Margaret's Lover by Mavis Cheek - Free Book Online

more mature term - had been the lover of, Mark for about eighteen months. During the course of the relationship she had blossomed, related to everyone over and over again that this was the real thing and we should all try it, and since she had never been short of a male or two in her life, I assumed it was. Not only that, but I assumed that, as she was a woman of the world in these matters and I was but a woman of the insubstantial, she would be the right source of guidance on how to find a lover. Since her recommended advice was now somewhere between a world thrust towards gelding and suggesting that the only sensible bedfellow was a hot-water bottle, I realized I had judged wrong. It confirmed one thing, though. A year was the right term to go for.
    'It's the first time I have ever let something like this get to me,' Verity sobbed. 'Usually I see the signs and I'm off' She gave a long sigh and paused.
    Lord, I thought, this could take weeks.
    'We were absolutely fine for the first year,' she said, lacing her tea with cooking three-star, 'and then he began to forget the niceties and I began to tell him he had forgotten them.'
    She waited pointedly for my response. 'Only reasonable,' I said.
    'And then he said I was being clinging, demanding' - she fluttered her hands - 'but I was in love, you know .. .'
    I nodded helpfully, but in truth I was glad to say that I did not know, or had forgotten.
    'And the more I tried, the more he failed, and then he didn't say I looked nice any more and he started' - a new tissue was drawn into the drama - flirting with other women.'
    'At least it wasn't other men.'
    'Listen, Margaret,' she said, straightening her back and giving me a correspondingly straight look, 'this is no joke.'
    'I wasn't joking,' I said. 'Joan of the hair had one who did that.'
    'Really?' said Verity. 'Really.'
    She looked interested. It seemed to me that since I could offer no advice or practical help, a little reminder that there are others worse off than oneself, always, was no bad thing. Worse off, as I said to her, for one is, at least, equal to battling it out with another woman. But one would not know where to begin the campaign with another man, short of praying for a penis.
    Anyway, Verity draws her fictions from life, and by the time I had brought her right up to date with Greasy Joan she was considerably calmer, her eyes a-gleam with the tale's potential - and, alas, quite ready now to tell me about her sufferings in detail. I looked at the clock. Two minutes past midnight. Definitely no chance of ringing Roger now. Tomorrow, then. I wasn't looking forward to it at all.
    The house certainly did feel empty. The actions I took for granted with another human being living in the same space now seemed empty also. A glass of wine before supper wasn't the same without Sassy sitting there with a Diet Coke, and supper itself had lost its interest too. In place of her prattle, sometimes amusing, sometimes as irritating as a mosquito, was now only me talking to myself. I suppose in my heart I had rather looked forward to this, but the reality wasn't quite as simple as I had supposed. I had no trouble going out but returning to the quiet stillness - no bass beat from her bedroom - was deadening. The pleasure of an early morning of silence and singularity soon gave way to mournful loneliness. I had suspected it might, hoped it wouldn't.
    A space within me seemed to yearn for a little friendly Polyfilla. Or more. Despite Verity's tears, a romance with a man seemed the solution. In between her sorrowful outpourings I had managed to slip in the question 'Where did you meet him?' without, I hoped, appearing opportunist. She said, 'The post office', which was not very helpful. The thought of hanging around in a queue for stamps with a seductive smile and a frilly skirt held no charm - a certain surrealistic style, but definitely no charm at all.
    Roger had been away overseeing an Easter school skiing trip. He came back looking