Love
Love
IN DECEMBER, AFTER THEIR FIFTH DATE, HE TOOK her back to his house – old and tall and narrow, located in a quiet square, and yes, he owned it – and they became lovers in his brass bed, and she felt like she was living in a Dylan song. She went on the pill, even though it hadn’t stopped Joan from becoming pregnant. ‘You don’t have to,’ Leo told her. ‘I’m OK with condoms’ – but she wasn’t a fan of them, and this felt like it might last.
Please let it last. Please don’t let him leave as well. She didn’t know who she was asking – she’d stopped believing in God after her father had left – but maybe someone, or something, was listening.
Leo was the first man she felt deeply for since Ben. Now she could finally let her old love go, although she suspected he would live on, somewhere within her, maybe for the rest of her life. Did first loves always do that? Did they become after their departure an indelible mark, a small, silent presence in the other’s heart?
Lying in Leo’s arms afterwards, too full of emotion to sleep, she heard the pure song of a bird in the square outside, and wondered if it was a nightingale. She thought of magic abroad in the air, and angels dining at the Ritz on the night another pair of lovers had met. The song had been her grandmother’s party piece, back in the days when they still met up.
Two days before Christmas they kissed goodbye in Heathrow, Ellen bound for Ireland, he for France. ‘Next Christmas,’ he promised, ‘we’ll spend together,’ and the thought of her being in his future plans warmed her all the way home. On the plane she opened his gift, unable to wait, and found a white gold chain on which hung her first diamond, a perfect teardrop. Her gift to him was more humble, a just-published biography of Charlie Chaplin. They had different reading tastes, he sticking to non-fiction – history, politics and biographies – she only wanting to get lost in a novel.
In January 1986 Joan gave birth to a son. They called him Ivan after Seamus’ father, and Ellen flew back for the christening and to become his godmother. Bring your new man , Joan said – but Ellen told her he was too tied up with work. She wanted his introduction to the family to be a thing in itself, not tagged onto another occasion – and anyway, she might scare him off if she suggested introducing him to her family too soon.
As it happened, he was the first to make introductions. In March, his French mother Marguerite came to stay with him for a few days, and he took both women out to dinner so they could become acquainted. Marguerite was trim and angular, with stiff beige hair swept into a chignon, and pale unpainted lips and slightly bulbous grey eyes, and she wore perfectly tailored jacket-and-skirt suits and an air of patient boredom, and Leo was nothing like her, physically or temperamentally. Ellen put her in her late sixties, somewhere between Ellen’s own mother and Frances.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Marguerite said, nodding coolly, and her hand when she offered it to Ellen was cold and dry. Everything about her lacked warmth. Her smile, on the rare occasions it appeared, was weary and humourless. During the single evening they spent together, Ellen formed the opinion that his mother was unimpressed with Leo’s choice, and she tried not to let it hurt.
She and my stepfather divorced last year , Leo had told her. She found it very difficult. Widowed by her first husband, divorced from the second. Maybe she didn’t have much to smile about. Ellen wondered what Leo’s French half-brothers were like, and hoped to find out at some stage.
In May, a charity press ad that Ellen and Lucinda had created won a commendation at a newly founded advertising awards event. Leo accompanied her to the awards night, where he met her colleagues for the first time. ‘I approve,’ Lucinda told her afterwards. ‘Definitely a catch.’
He met Claire a few times in the flat, when he turned up to collect Ellen. ‘Not bad,’ she said. ‘Very suave, very man-about-town. Wouldn’t be for me – I prefer them more rough and ready – but he’s perfect for you.’
He was perfect for Ellen. She constantly wondered why he’d chosen her, when he could surely have his pick of women. She’d asked him once, in jest but not really, and he’d ticked off the reasons on his fingers.
‘Because of your intelligence, and your creativity, and your kind heart, and your smile, and your accent, and your red Irish hair, and your pretty grey eyes. And because little things make you happy.’
‘Is that all?’ She feigned disappointment.
‘And because of the way you read,’ he said, ‘as if you’re eating up the words. And because of the way you kiss.’
‘How do I kiss?’
‘Generously,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to explain; better if we have a demonstration. Pay attention now.’
He told her he loved her every time they were together. He whispered endearments when they lay in his bed, called her sweetheart and darling girl and poppet, and she closed her eyes and let his beautiful voice wash over her.
She tortured herself by asking about his past loves. He told her, when she insisted, of Caroline whose father was an earl, and who’d broken his heart in college, and Maria, a model who’d left him for an airline pilot. She thought he may well have broken his own share of hearts but didn’t ask, preferring not to know.
She told him eventually of her father’s departure, and how much it had hurt, and how rightly or wrongly she blamed her mother. She told him about Ben, and what might have been, and about leaving her best friend behind when she was eight, and finding him again years later. There was nothing she didn’t tell him – apart from when she’d considered the possibility of her and Danny embarking on something, before she’d been told about Bobbi. He didn’t need to know that.
He was the One. He was Mr Right. He was her second big love, and hopefully her forever one.
I’ve found him , she wrote to Danny at the start of July, when she felt safe committing it to paper. Finally. Took me long enough . Have you and Bobbi set a date yet, now that you’re almost twenty-five, old man?
Delighted to hear it , he wrote back. About time. Bobbi and I are in no rush, both busy with work, both happy with the way things are. One day we’ll do it, just not yet – and may I remind you that you’re a week older than me, and always will be, grandma?
That’s so ungallant of you, reminding a woman of her age. You’ve cut me to the quick, Daniel O’Meara.
Uh-oh, I know I’m in trouble when someone calls me Daniel. Please accept my almost sincere apologies. Twenty-five, though. Quarter of a century. We’re moving on, pal. Enjoy the last of your youth with your French Englishman.
She wrote to Frances too.
He was worth waiting for, Frances. I know you’ll like him when you meet him .
I’m sure I will , Frances replied. As long as he’s good to you, that’s all I care about .