who places a white linen handkerchief on a seat before taking a very long time to lower himself into it. The large man always asleep, head thrown back, mouth agape, hands crossed protectively over a book on his chest like a dead man’s Bible placed by a widow. The mousy woman who arrives promptly at noon every day and kneels on the floor by a reading man and rests her head on his knees. His fingers sift, absently, through her hair and they don’t speak for half an hour and then they leave and your heart fills with tenderness for what they have together as a couple – for you had it once – and then tightens for what, perhaps, they’ll become.
The Library gives you a feeling of industriousness, props your life. You dress as if going to work; you’re not the only one doing this. A middle-aged man in a pinstriped suit does nothing but read The Times every day from cover to cover and you guess an unsuspecting wife is behind the creamy stiffness of his collars and cuffs, and wonder how long he can sustain it.
Soon you’re frequenting the Library ravenously, you want it every day, just as you needed your cafe, once. In the cram of London, amid its grubby, muscular energy, the narrow building is a refuge and a tonic. And always, you’re searching. For you’re infected by the idea of Gabriel and you feel, with an odd certainty, that he will come.
lazy, stay-indoors persons frequently have diseases
The Library’s computer room, where you write e-mails to your friends and trawl the newspapers for show business gossip: the latest marriages that have crumbled, the best and worst gowns from recent award ceremonies, Hollywood pregnancies, arrests. You’re sitting at a desk with your shoes flipped off and knees drawn up – it has something to do with wanting to be young again, with living a more vivid life.
A man peers playfully over your shoulder, trying to read what you’re reading and you look up, startled. He asks if you’d like to come for a drink with some of the regulars after work. You look around the room, at the six other people in it and realise they all know each other, it’s a gang. Instinctively you begin to say no, it’s always your way to refuse the second cup of tea, the seat on the tube, the drink after work. But something, this time, makes you stop.
Yes, I’d love to.
The man smiles. He glances at your wedding ring, perhaps, among your jumble of rings. You look at him as if for the first time. Prematurely balding, with his hair clipped close to his scalp. Wearing luxurious black velvet trousers that sit oddly with a striped shirt. Younger than what you’d first imagined, weeks ago, from a distance, better-looking than what you’d dismissed him as. You know in a second you’d never sleep with him, it’s a mental game you play with every man you meet. It’s not just the velvet, he’s not your type. He won’t make your lip tremble, won’t draw a blush, won’t make you seize up. You smile at him warmly; you can relax.
every girl can dance and should learn to do it well
There are three men and a woman at the pub and swiftly you’re telling them more than you ever intended, eager for contact, slightly drunk. They know nothing of you. It’s exhilarating, like moving to a foreign country where no one knows of your past; you can make yourself up as you go. As you explain your book you become authoritative, confident, witty, brisk, and plans for the project spark as you speak. You talk of the obedient wife writing secretly, late at night, galloping her pen through page after page and hiding it away when she hears her husband at the door and opening her Bible and stilling her face with her fingertips on her flushed cheeks. Hinting to her lover that she’s writing a book, for she has to have a lover; yes, yes, she must.
Her husband finds out. He drags her by the hair to the cupboard and locks her in, he shuts his hands over his ears at her cries; she begs him for mercy, he does not speak. Eventually, over many days, her screams become whimpers, they die out. The lover never knows what happens. He’s told by her maidservant the wife has been sent to a harsh and distant nunnery; he can’t find her, he searches the breadth of the land. And he never knows if she really loved him, or if she was making it all up. He dies a broken man. As does the husband.
Perhaps, perhaps.
Tonight works, magnificently. The group doesn’t have to know you’ll be going home to a very still flat. You watch, astounded, the woman you’ve become, insisting on the next round and then asking when they’ll be meeting next.
Tomorrow, says your man in the velvet trousers. Most nights, in fact.
I’ll see you then; and you’re out the door quick, as if you’re off to something else. The sense of the illusion, triumphantly executed, buoys you down the street.
to know right is well, but to do right is better
The following Sunday.
You flick through the newspapers’ magazines. Stop at Theo’s column. Since Marrakech you’ve not been able to read it, until now. You’ve been slipping that section into the bin before Cole gets a chance to look.
This week, it’s the usual kind of queries:
Dear Dr Theo, my new boyfriend’s getting frustrated. He loves me on top during sex but I feel so self-conscious; it just makes me freeze. It’s driving him crazy as he says he’s the only one making any effort.
Dear Frozen, ah, yes, sex on top. It can be wonderful, but only if you’re completely uninhibited with how you look. If you’re at all body conscious, it’s an extremely vulnerable position for a woman to be in. So, what to do? Well, girl, you need to get used to some friendly, relaxed nudity with your boyfriend. If that’s too big a step for now, why don’t you try wearing one of his shirts? Men usually love that.
Dear Dr Theo, my ex-husband took forever to climax and I worry I didn’t provide him with enough grip. Could it be possible that my vagina is just too big?.
Dear Worried, you know what, maybe your ex just liked to savour the whole experience. Did you ever ask? We girls just don’t ask enough, you know! But some simple exercises can strengthen your pelvic floor muscles – to find out where they are, try halting the flow when you’re on the toilet. If you do them regularly, you’ll be able to grip your men deliciously tight!
You always read her columns because she expected you to but never really applied them to your life; they were good for a giggle, that’s all. Your mother looked out for them voraciously. It always seemed slightly obscene to you that a post-menopausal woman would enjoy them so much. She was devastated when you told her that Theo made up most of the letters.
But then, but then, to a question about a lover who’s providing great sex, and is that enough to leave her husband and two kids, Theo writes in stern, condemning response:
No, it’s not enough. And just remember, it’s a strong person who has the courage to end a relationship that isn’t working, before embarking on a fresh one. It’s a weak person who cheats on someone.
Your heart pounds as you read. You push the magazine into the bin. How dare she write that; how dare she publicly pretend she’s squeaky clean; someone else. And whom is she writing that for? Cole? You, to throw you off the scent? Women are so accomplished at battling in subtle, ingenious, covert ways; at clothing their betrayers’ fingers in the smoothest of kid. And it’s usually other women they’re competing with, not men.