Heritage Roses

Happily, within a space of time after my wife's death, some very timely things occurred. Of course the first of these was that our daughter, Freya, gave birth to a beautiful daughter as bright and bonny as a baby could be. Julia, my wife, had been very much excited for Freya and Ross to be bringing this new life into the world and, though grandparent never met granddaughter, there was a certain relief brought about by this replenishment of the family that made us celebrate Julia in everything that was happening anew.

The second joyous thing to occur was when Matthew got his career back on track. Being in the doldrums is an awful waste of this brief life and Matthew had struggled to define himself with his multifocused love of absolutely everything that had resulted in three separate undergraduate degrees and a year living in Borneo building diplomacy with logging companies to protect the Urang Utan. Now back in Blighty, he had secured himself a post developing Whipsnade zoo's partnership with reintroduction to the native habitat of rare species bred in captivity to ensure continuing conservation on the home turf. He has also fallen in love with a fantastic young zoo-keeper called Babs who had more tattoos than a circus wonder and keeps him as well in line as she does her lemurs, lions and leopards.

And I have fallen in love myself. I had not sought it out, nor wanted it and yet here it was. After forty two years with my darling soulmate I had thought myself content to do a bit of gardening and be available for the younger generation when along came Oriane. Only three years younger than me, she looks like Audrey Hepburn in a dream. Tall, dark haired, eyes wide and knowing, she worked down at the gardening shop and was a keen expert on roses, the climbing sort that trail up the walls of cottages and sheds and spring pretty little flowers amongst the foliage like stars in the sky. 

It was gardening that brought us together and we had a great time populating the new place after I had moved nearer into town. The old house was beloved by all in the family but I could not stay there with the memories of Julia haunting my every turn. We arranged for Freya and Ross to buy the house on decent terms and it became once more a family home. I used the procedes to buy a little two up two down near the city centre but down a back street with enough garden out front to sit in a deckchair and enough out back for a couple of small trees, a shed and a goldfish pond. Oriane, whom I'd gotten to know over the last six months just chatting at the shop, gave me as a moving-in present four potting roses of a heritage variety she said she had brought up from cuttings done at her ancient mother's house in Spain. They were just young things, very delicate, and she offered to help me bed them in. I took a bold move, once she was on her knees, and suggested she might like to stay for dinner. Well, dinner turned into talking over a couple of bottles of red; turned into snogging on the sofa like couples a quarter of our age; turned into the best lovemaking I had had in years... twice. We ended up sweated and crying, holding each other tenderly and stroking her hair and she my face we drifted into a beautiful romance the type of which I had never sought since meeting my wife almost half a century earlier. She was a different person and there was no guilt here, which I had very much feared. I still loved, still do love, Julia and with all my heart. But there is nothing more to be done there and I was faithful to her the whole time we were as one. Oriane is a new life and new life has been happening since life began.

We have even begun experimenting, at her suggestion. Somewhat coquettishly she asked me if I would like to role play with her. I had always had an inkling that I would like to experience sex with a stranger – though to actually do that would be against my very nature. So Oriane gave me the details of a bus-stop and said to be there at a certain time on a Saturday night. Arriving there, showered and rested, I espied a beautiful woman in a smart business suit I had never seen before, checking her watch. I asked her if she had the time and she smiled and said her date had stood her up. We took a taxi back to a hotel she was 'staying' in and shagged like animals in the full length wardrobe mirror; in the bath; in a basket of clean sheets in the room service cupboard down the hallway.

And then there was my suggestion that we should go dancing. I haven't been ballroom dancing since the late Sixties. So we joined a local meet-up and go twice a week now. She has Spanish laughter in her steps and I love to hold her close. They're the kind of nights where everyone gets to dance with each other but there is nothing finer after swapping partners for a few twirls around the room than to have Oriane back in my arms once again. I feel rejuvenated and adored and could not be a happier man. Could not be.

The granddaughter is a permanent talking point around our house, as is Flick, Oriane's granddaughter from her own past, and the get-togethers we have are magical. Matthew and Babs have that closeness I remember from when Jules and I were courting and I very much hope that love blossoms for them as it should for all people young, old, straight, gay, healthy or infirm. As Louis Armstrong once said, what a wonderful world.