Truly, Madly, Deeply

‘Dance with me, darling,’ I say brightly.

‘Have to keep the wife happy,’ he jokes and stands up. I take his hand and lead him to the dance floor. I risk a backwards glance and see that the laughter has gone from Colette’s lips.

Ethan takes me in his arms and we sway to whatever’s pounding out. His face is flushed with drink and he’s a bit unsteady on his feet. Trying to keep to the beat is pointless. I want to speak to him, be witty and bright, but my brain is frozen and nothing will come to my mouth. I hold onto him tightly for three songs but, already, he’s looking bored and his gaze starts to wander.

‘Is this a ladies’ excuse-me?’ Colette asks over my shoulder. Before I can answer or register a protest, she manoeuvres her way in between me and my husband with such breath-taking impudence that I have to give her credit for her audacity. ‘You don’t mind if I do, Lydia?’

I do mind, but how can I make a scene? These are Ethan’s staff, his colleagues. He would be embarrassed if I made a stand against her. And what if I lost? What if, publicly, he brushed me aside for her?

She sweeps Ethan away from me and he brightens instantly. Now I stand on the dance floor, alone, abandoned and I don’t quite know what to do. In days gone by, there would be a dozen men clamouring to take his place. But not now.

Gathering my senses, I hold my head high and walk from the dance floor. I may not have graced the catwalk, but I can still strut my stuff like a model. I’m not sure where I’m going, but my feet take me to the grand staircase again and I climb them on auto-pilot. When I reach the mezzanine floor, I lean on the balcony and watch the revellers below me. I’m breathing heavily, sounding as if I’ve exerted myself when I haven’t. It’s just that my body is having difficulty processing this. My heart is beating erratically and there’s a thrumming in my ears, the rush of blood. My cheeks blaze. I know that there have been others in the past. No one travels so regularly on business without finding some female company. I’ve been on the receiving end of enough male attention to be well aware of that.

I watch Ethan and Colette twirl round the floor, moving in unison. Ethan is a good dancer, something else that I used to love about him. I dig my nails into my palms and push the tears away with pain. A woman comes and stands next to me, leaning on the rail.

She nods at my husband below us. ‘He’s a slimy bastard,’ she says, casually. ‘He’s shagged his way through half of the office.’

My mouth goes dry.

‘He might be the President, but that doesn’t stop him from trying it on with just about every woman in the place.’

I turn to her. She is also young and pretty. ‘You too?’

‘Groped me in the lift after a long night in the bar at a conference. I should have slapped him with a sexual harassment complaint. But you don’t, do you?’

‘No,’ I agree. ‘You don’t.’

‘I got off lightly really.’ She swigs at the drink in her hand. ‘He’s married too.’

‘So I understand.’

‘I’ve heard she was a model. A real beauty once.’

‘Yes. I’d heard that too.’

‘She must be a bloody idiot. Or a saint.’

‘I think idiot.’

The girl laughs. ‘Yeah. You’re probably right. Poor bitch.’

Poor bitch, indeed.

My husband twirls Colette again and she tuts her disapproval at them. ‘She’s a bloody idiot too. She’s thinks she’s special. Her sort always do.’

And she’s right because I once was that sort too.

‘He’ll tire of her and move on.’ She points an accusing finger in Ethan’s direction. ‘He always does.’

She sounds too bitter and I wonder if their encounter went further than she’s admitting or whether her prospects suffered because it didn’t. The girl raises her eyebrows at me and lifts her glass. ‘Bar calls again,’ she says. ‘Can I get you one?’

‘No, thank you. But it’s very nice of you to ask.’

She leaves and it’s all I can do to hold myself upright. Bile rises to my throat. I thought that they respected him. Above everything, I thought that Ethan was held in high esteem by his co-workers. It seems that I was wrong about that too.

Reeling, I make my way to the powder room. Thankfully, I’m alone in there and I run my wrists under the cold tap. I’d like to splash water on my face too, but I can’t risk ruining my make-up. People would know that there’s something wrong and for the last ten years or more, I’ve been pretending that there isn’t. I rinse the sour taste from my tongue and stare at myself in the mirror. If I could will myself to be twenty years younger, then I would. I would do things differently, make different choices. But no matter, how hard I wish, it’s still resolutely the older me who looks back.

When did he last make love to me, my husband? When did he last tear the buttons from my blouse in his haste, rip my underwear from my body, consume me with hunger in his eyes, take me on the marble floor of the hall or in the leather seats of the Aston. Not for a long time. It has even been months since he grunted above me in the darkness of our bedroom.

When I feel that I can hide in here no longer –surely Ethan will be missing me now –I go back out onto the balcony. My chatty companion hasn’t reappeared and I take up my position again. The dance floor is crowded now. The party in full swing. My eyes search the gyrating bodies, but there’s no sign of Ethan or Colette. I swivel my gaze to their table, but they aren’t there either. Perhaps I should make my way down to the bar, grab some champagne, drink and be merry.

I can’t make another entrance down the main stairs. I can’t face it. I want to slide anonymously back to the party, so I make my way down the quiet side corridor and the back stairs. When I open the door, I see them there and I stop in my tracks, the shock making me stagger with pain as surely as if I’ve been stabbed in the heart.

Colette is pressed against the wall, the weight of my husband pinning her there. Her dress is hitched up to her thighs and I would have won my bet regarding her lack of underwear. The top of her dress is pulled down, exposing her breasts. With one hand, Ethan toys with a nipple. The other is between her legs and she squirms against his hand, head thrown back, eyes closed, lips parted in ecstasy. I remember that feeling. But only just.

I back out of the stairwell before they see me and I lean on the wall too, but not in ecstasy. My heart is hammering in my chest and I only know that I need to get out of here fast. Blackness threatens the edge of my vision. Biting down my panic, I walk to the foyer, smiling as I go. When I was a model I learned how to smile even when my feet were cold, or my back hurt or my head pounded. I developed my very own technique and now I’ve found that it also works when your heart is broken.

Retrieving my wrap from the cloakroom, I head out into the night. It’s a summer’s evening and London is muggy, heavy with exhaust fumes. I glance at my watch and see that it’s nearly midnight. The trees on Park Lane sparkle with white lights. I always think that they look Christmassy, somewhat strange in August. I slip off my shoes and hold them in my hand. High heels hurt my feet now and I think I have the beginnings of a bunion.

I make my way down Park Lane. Even at this hour the traffic is still busy. I wonder where they’re all going, where they’ve been. I wonder do they think of me. A middle-aged woman wandering alone in the middle of the night. I wonder do they realise, do they care that I might be suffering or in need of help. But I forget that I’m only bleeding inside.

I could have done so much with my life. I went to grammar school, I could have gone to university. A good one. In the days when not everyone went. But I chose to use my body and not my brains. It was on a rare day out to London that the model scout handed me a card. My parents were against it, of course. No one in our family had ever earned a living in such a frivolous way. I wonder where they are now, my mother and father. I haven’t seen them in years. Ethan was always reluctant to go to the small terraced house that they lived in and so we drifted apart. I didn’t want them uncomfortable in their own home. I’ve a sister too, similarly estranged.

We never had children either. Ethan isn’t much for families and I was always terrified of losing my figure. Can you imagine it? How could I waddle onto parties on yachts heavy with child in voluminous pregnancy dresses? Ethan would never have allowed it. That wasn’t what we were about as a couple. And I was frightened that he would want me to stay at home, out of sight, go off alone and leave me. Ironic really. I used to long for a daughter. Someone who I could bring up to be strong and independent. Someone who would find a man to love her for who she was, not how she looked.

I thought I would always be beautiful, always be wanted. Now my husband looks at younger women, the way he looked at me. His eyes and his hands tear the clothes from them too. The cars whoosh past me, billowing my dress. I pull my wrap tighter round me even though it isn’t cold. I walk the entire length of Park Lane, past the glitzy car showrooms, the lavish estate agents’ windows, the glittering hotel entrances. A few people pass me, but this is London, and they don’t look twice at the barefooted woman in their way. Eventually, I find my way back. There are tables outside The Dorchester, closed up for the night, patio heaters cold. I sit there watching the lights, letting my mind roam free. What will I do? Where will I go? Who will look after me? How will I live? What do you do when you are forty-five and have nothing to show for your life beyond a marvellous wardrobe and a hoard of designer shoes? I can’t hold a conversation. I can’t bake a cake. I can’t arrange flowers. For my entire marriage, I’ve been nothing but a shadow. A pretty, empty shadow.

When I next look at my watch its gone two o’clock. The night is cooler now, the traffic has slowed to a constant trickle and I’m shivering. I should reach inside myself and find anger, but all that’s there is fear. I’m afraid to confront Ethan. Afraid to confront my future. Afraid that if I cry or scream I will never stop. My feet are numb and my head throbs, but still I stay in my chair. I don’t know how long I wait, but eventually I notice that’s there’s a refreshing breeze. I can taste autumn in it, a subtle change, a freshening. I like autumn –a time when the old dies away heralding in the way for the new. I feel something in my heart gently settle. When I can put it off no longer, I pick up my shoes and head back into the hotel. The party is over. Streamers from party poppers litter the floor and weary, heavy-eyed staff tidy up and rearrange the tables. Soon there will be no sign of the party at all.

I make my way back up to our suite and let myself in, tossing my designer shoes to the floor. I can’t face the discomfort of them any longer. Ethan is sprawled out on the bed, naked, face down. He’s snoring heavily. His charcoal suit, his white shirt, his traitorous grey tie are scattered on the floor. The tie catches the moonlight and shines up at me. One by one, I pick them all up and put them on the clothes horse at the foot of the bed, folding the trousers carefully, smoothing down the lapels of the jacket as I have done for many years.

My suitcase is on the stand, still unpacked. Could I leave? Just walk out on my life? I pour myself a brandy from the decanter and go to the terrace. Looking out over London, the lights of the city beckon. It’s a place of infinite possibilities. I could lose myself here. I could start again. Learn things. Do things. Believe things. Look at my face in the mirror and like myself again. I had dreams. Once. I could have them again.

I take the last sip of the brandy and it burns down my throat and sizzles in my stomach like acid. The cut glass makes a clink when I put it back on the sideboard and I’m worried that it will rouse him. But he snores on, oblivious. He grunts and twitches, but doesn’t wake. Standing at the bottom of the bed, unmoving, I watch Ethan breathe, deeply, evenly. Nothing can disturb his sleep. Is this what I have to look forward to?

Quietly, I undo the zip of my overnight case-one from a matching set of Louis Vuitton. Inside my cosmetics bag, there’s a pair of nail scissors. I cross to the clothes horse. Carefully, meticulously I cut the bottom half from the grey silk tie and let it fall. It lies on the plush carpet, torn. There is hope in that severed tie, I think. Just a glimmer. But hope nevertheless.

I put the scissors away and zip up my case. It’s quite heavy but I don’t want to ring the concierge. I can manage by myself. I can manage everything by myself. I know I can. With one last lingering look at Ethan, I pull my wrap around me. When I leave, still barefoot, I softly close the door behind me.

The Art of Travel

Elizabeth Buchan

ELIZABETH BUCHAN began her career as a blurb writer at Penguin Books and moved on to become a fiction editor at Random House before leaving to write full time. Her novels include Light of the Moon and the prize-winning Consider the Lily –reviewed in the Independent as ‘a gorgeously well written tale: funny, sad and sophisticated’. A subsequent novel, Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, became an international bestseller and was made into a CBS Primetime Drama. This was followed by several other novels, including The Second Wife, Separate Beds and Daughters. She has just finished a novel about SOE agents operating in Denmark during the World War II.

Elizabeth Buchan’s short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She reviews for the Sunday Times, has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes, and has been a judge for the Whitbread (now Costa) awards. She is a past Chairman of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, and is currently a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and The National Academy of Writing.

The Art Of Travel

Polly consults the ferry timetable. Having puzzled over it many times during the past seven years, she knows its little ways.

Buried in its print, is the key to the vessels which skim over the sunlit Greek seas and plough through the stormy ones. And, yes, there is one due to sail from Piraeus at 11.30 the following morning. This gives Polly plenty of time to arrive at the port and to find a coffee and sandwich. She is sometimes sea-sick and copes better being so on a full stomach.

Dan used to tease her about that.

In Athens, she checks in at her usual hotel –discovered quite early on in her travels. It is cheap and central and nobody bothers about her there. In her room there are the familiar blue-and-white striped ticking window blinds and the matching bedspread.

The mirror is new though, and Polly peers into it. She has left London in a rush –working in the office until the very last-minute, which meant there had been no time for leisurely preparation. She doesn’t much care what she looks like but others do. If you’re travelling on your own, it’s best to make an effort.

She phones Nico at the salon.

‘Ah Polly, Polly. Please come at once.’

Nico owns a chain of hairdressing salons but is always to be found in the one near Avidi Square. He is waiting for her when she walks in.

‘Hallo beautiful Polly,’ he says in his mixture of Greek and English. ‘Very, very good to see you.’

Polly replies in a similar mixture of language–only, in her case as she often teases him, her Greek improves each year.

Nico sits her down and wraps her up in a gown. ‘Your hair is good.’ Their eyes meet in the mirror. ‘You have kept it well.’

She has. She has. Shoulder length and still blonde with touches of honey and toffee, Dan loved her hair.

Nico examines a lock in a professional manner. ‘A small trim?’

‘Please.’

He cuts it wet and gives Polly his news. The fifth grandchild arrived. The family is well. Times are hard.

He knows that Polly will not respond with similar information. Polly’s lack of family always shocks him.

The scissors emit a faintly metallic sound and, despite herself, the hairs on the back of Polly’s neck rise.

No, she lectures herself.

‘And where are going to this time, Polly?’

‘Skopolos.’

Nico cuts a meticulous half inch of hair across her back. He knows that, after his ministrations, Polly is unlikely to visit a hairdresser for weeks and he has a professional reputation to maintain.

‘Why Skopolos?’

‘I’ve never been there.’

‘When are you going?’

It’s a question Nico has asked seven times before and he knows the answer. He sighs and puts down the scissors. ‘Helena is expecting you at seven-ish. Is that alright?’

Polly grins at them both in the mirror. ‘Your wife is a very good woman.’

Helena never changes. Never looks a day older. Her hair is still as dark and her olive-y skin still as smooth.

‘You’re thinner,’ she says. She gives the once-over to Polly’s tamed, shining hair and her skinny jeans and jacket. ‘But very smart.’

Polly kisses Helena and gives her the selection of expensive teas she has bought from England. ‘I gather another grandchild has just arrived. I hope I’m no trouble.’

‘Trouble? My role is to deal with trouble. Nico earns our money. I arrange the important things.’

The new mother, Andrea, is sitting in the garden feeding the baby. Her other two children wheel like starlings around the adults who sit and gossip until Helena calls them into eat.

Halfway through the meal of rice and meatballs, Nico rises to his feet. ‘We are so glad to have you with us again, Polly. Nothing can take away the circumstances of how we met but the friendship which has come from them…well, there is something good.’ He raises his glass. ‘Let us meet for many, many more years.’

Towards midnight, Polly gets up to go. ‘How can I thank you both?’

The new baby cries and Andrea catches it up with a great deal of cooing and shushing. They are happy sounds.

Helena rests her hands on Polly’s shoulders. ‘Tomorrow is the anniversary…’

‘Yes.’

Walking hand in hand with Dan along a crowded Athens street. The car veering out of control. Body and bone impacting on it. Dan sprawled on the pavement outside Nico’s salon. Bright red blood. Too bright to look at.

Scissors in hand, Nico running out and shouting, ‘Get back everyone.’ Nico cutting Dan’s shirt away with the scissors.

Polly cradling Dan and begging him. ‘Don’t die.’

Nico holding Polly.

‘What time?’

‘Mid-morning.’

Helena looks long and hard into Polly’s eyes. What she sees evidently does not please her. ‘Spend it with us,’ she says. ‘It’s Sunday tomorrow and the whole family will be here. I keep telling you that you should be with family and not travelling alone.’

Polly says. ‘I think it’s what I do best now.’

She kisses them all fondly, thanks them over and over again and returns to her silent room in the hotel.

Emerging from the Metro the following morning, the warmth hits her. It’s 22 or 23 degrees which is normal for late spring. Knowing what to expect, she is dressed in linen trousers and good quality cotton T-shirt unlike many of the sweating, overdressed tourists who are arriving from the airport.

She makes for the coffee shop adjacent to departure gate E8 and queues.

‘I’m worn out,’ says the woman directly in front of Polly.

Her companion, a woman with white hair and bright pink lipstick, looks alarmed. ‘We’ve only just got here.’

‘And my feet have swollen.’ The woman points to her unsuitable leather shoes. ‘See.’

Polly has some sympathy. She remembers the early years of her annual pilgrimages. The decision to go, but where? What to wear? What to pack? How to live without Dan? The unknown is tiring and mistakes are made.

Coffee in hand, she moves off to join the queue for the ferry –and spots that the handsome local hustler dressed up in a fake uniform is back in business. She watches him size up an affluent looking older couple with copious amounts of luggage and slip into his routine. He is so charming. So persuasive. Within minutes, they will allow him to carry their bags to the head of the impatient queue…’the captain would wish it’. Only then, would he demand a hefty tip.

She listens to the subsequent row, which she can rehearse, almost word for word. Should she have intervened? Perhaps she should have done. Yet, the most useful experience is the most hard-won and Piraeus is a tough, chaotic place.

The queue moves forward. Embarked, Polly will head forward, which allows her to manoeuvre between sun and shade, her book for the trip easily accessible in a rucksack pocket. This year it is Anna Karenina, and she anticipates biting down on Tolstoy’s combination of story and philosophy. The idea of reading only one book on her travels is to ensure that its text becomes second nature. In this way, she has tackled seven classics, each one soldered imaginatively to the place she read them. Great Expectations is Rhodes. A Portrait of a Lady is Crete.

At the front of the ferry, she would watch the sea, with a touch of heat haze layering above it. At Skopolos the ferry would lumber into its berth with the usual noise of arrival in any port. Then, she would search for a bed and breakfast. Check for insects. Check the water ran properly. Check for an extra blanket. She would be loose in time and space, her past discarded as easily as tossing old bread crust into the water.

Dan.

Seven years ago, he died. Her new husband. Each year, on the anniversary, she travels alone, for three weeks or so, and always around the Greek islands. It is something which is now second nature. Cyclades, Dodecanese…there were as many as there were years in which to face life without Dan.

The sun was growing hotter. The queue is undulating. She swings her rucksack up onto her back. Her foot is on the gangplank…

Dan.

Dan?

She feels his hand grasp her hair. The smell of him which she loved.

She needed him. He needed her.

His warm skin.

He is living in her, and she suspects he always will.

Polly, he says. Don’t do this.

Why tell me now? she cries silently. I am about to go in pursuit of the memories.

Because Polly…

Suddenly, she swivels on her heel and, pushing her way through the hot, cross tourists, retraces her steps. In the Metro she is forced to balance her rucksack on her knees. Dense with odours of discarded food and bodies crushed too tight together, it is impossible to read.

It is late afternoon when she reaches Nico and Helena’s house. The front door is open and in Polly walks.

The kitchen is very warm, steamy and filled with good cooking smells. Nico is chopping onions and Helena is stirring a pot on the stove. The table is piled with vegetables and cheeses wrapped in waxy paper. Since yesterday, someone had strung dried peppers over the door leading to the garden and they make a necklace of blood red drops.

‘Hallo.’

Helena drops the spoon into the pot. ‘Polly…’

‘Do you mind? I have come back…like you said.’

Helena gestures to the garden where the table has been laid. ‘We allocated you a place.’

‘How did you know?’

‘We didn’t. But each year Nico and I hope.’

Polly licked her fingertip and caught up a grain of sea salt on a chopping board and put it in her mouth. The insides of her cheeks pucker.

Nico continues with his chopping. ‘You can only go on so long, Polly. The time comes…’

‘You are good to me,’ she says with a rush of emotion.