The Comin g of Age. November. Part 1.

2nd November. Fran/Gerda has completely given up wearing floating ethnic garments. I saw her the other day in a jacket and skirt. She may have given up Gerda too because I forgot and called her Fran and she didn’t tell me off.

Today she reports that one of her clients threatened to write to the MP because she said she could not replace his tap washer.

3rd November. It is wet, dull and cold. The Actuary is in London for a few days. I decide to spend the day cooking to cheer myself up. It is time to make mincemeat, Christmas cake and Christmas puddings. I am determined to make everything this year just because I want to; though something that seemed essential when I was Mrs Martin and mother of three feels a bit pathetic now that I am on my own. Anyway, I get myself settled in the kitchen and switch on Woman’s Hour. There is a discussion on clitorodectomy, another on toxic shock caused by tampons and a piece on an all girls singing group of whom I have never heard. I feel like a forgotten minority.

6th November. Alex rings up to say he’s coming down for weekend. I have already asked The Actuary for supper. Oh well, I suppose they have to meet sometime. Alex is going to see Jools. Why doesn’t he come to supper too I suggest.

Throughout the evening Alex looks suspiciously at The Actuary and watches him all the time. Jools, quite unabashed by elderly stranger in tweeds, spends the evening talking about his circumcision and Sue’s brother with the two penises – although, he assures us, the second one doesn’t actually work – and her other brother who is in prison for GBH.

As The Actuary leaves at 10.30 –he can’t possibly stay the night, as he might have done, with Alex there – I think I shall never see him again. He will not wish to be connected with someone with friends and relations like mine. I toss and turn all night. Alex and Jools grunt and snore in the spare bedroom.

8th November. All is well with The Actuary. He didn’t seem at all bothered by Alex’s glances through narrowed eyelids – he was practising his police stare I think – or an entire evening spent talking about penises.

Off to shops when see strange figure coming down the road. It is Mavis wearing a large man's cap which makes her look like an extra from the set of 'Oliver'. I ask her about her sciantica but she has forgotten all about it. She is worried though that the ringing in her ears maty not have been tinnitus but the onset of Menieres disease. She feels very dizzy when she gets up in the morn ing.

'Are you sure you're not anaemic?' I have plenty of time this morning. Life seems wonderfully rich and leisurely, and I listen to Mavis in a benevolent and helpful way.

'Nettle soup is good for anaemia.'

'You are very keen on nettles', she said, a little sourly I thought.

'They are a wonderful tonic and good for almost everything: it says so in my Gypsy Herbal.'

I got this from Martin's aunts bookshelf. The solicitor said I could have some of her books after she died. They were mostly iguanas but this one looked more interesting. There are some odd remedies in it though. A proven remedy for worm is to insert a clove of garlic up the anus. Apparently the worms don't like garlic. What happens when the worms meet the garlic and deicide it's not for them is unclear. Do they all turn round and run? And if so, in which direction? Luckily I have never had worms so have not tested the efficaceousness of this remedy.

Mavis, needless to say, had her doubtful face on.

12th November. The Actuary asks me dinner to meet his son but it doesn’t seem to go any more easily than dinner with Alex and Jools. The son, a little stuffy, seems to be measuring me up all the time.

15th November. The month is passing very quickly. I seem to have spent most of it in bed with The Actuary while the rain spattered on the windows and the wind blew branches of shrubs against the them so that it sounded like the beginning of Wuthering Heights with the ghost of Cathy Earnshaw scrabbling to get in. He often kisses the back of my neck in the middle of the night and gives me a hug. We snuggle closer together and go back to sleep. So different from marriage, well marriage to Martin anyway where I spent many nights clinging to the outer edge of the bed pretending to be asleep while he thrashed around in the other nine-tenths muttering about his marital rights.

18th November. I am walking back home in the evening after doing some late shopping. I suddenly laugh to myself with happiness. A man in front of me, turns, startled. I put on a serious expression, and gaze round nonchalantly, as if looking for a mysterious laugher concealed in the hedge of bright-trousered academic, Piers Hackett’s shabby Victorian semi. Gosh, that seems like a long time ago, Piers Hackett I mean.

19th November.Val rings up for an update on The Actuary and Me. We don’t have a dinner arrangement this month as Julia is on a cruise again. None of us has seen Poppy for several weeks. Val tells me that Jean told her that Martin has taken to wearing so many Sioux Indian prayers rings that apparently they look like knuckle dusters. The Actuary resolutely in cavalry twill trousers and brogues. Such a relief.

21st November. Everyone is in a ferment of excitement. Dr Houseman has run off with Guy Prodger, the wild-eyed dentist. We were wrong about him all the time. Val is heart broken. She was so looking forward to her next dental appointment. Vera Buddle has gone into purdah. Her daughter, Mrs Houseman has been seen in the Blacksmith’s Arms every night since Dr Houseman went, instead of decently returning home to mother. The town is full of knots of women talking excitedly together and you can’t get an appointment at the surgery for love nor money.

I am not sure that I understand men. The Actuary is not remotely interested in the doings of our doctor and dentist. We have taken to sharing Sunday lunch so when Sarah says that she, Roland and the children will come down on Sunday, I decide that I might as well have them all together. They are sure to like him I think, he is so delicious. Besides he is in Who’s Who and knows lords and things and they are very impressed by things like that. Usually.

I am in the kitchen, dishing up the vegetables. I walk back into the dining room to hear The Actuary saying, ‘Did you read the story of the policeman and the fat nun?’ ..

‘Oh, not that’, I think.

The faces of my daughter and son-in-law are frozen with disapproval. I have to think quickly – ‘Here we are’ I say brightly, hoping to stop him in his tracks. I bang the dish of brussels sprouts rather too hard down on the table. My nice earthenware bowl, made by a friend many years ago, splits asunder and brussels sprouts roll all over the table. Alice and Letitia are thrilled, while Roland leaps up to try and salvage the vegetables, which are spinning across the cloth like something out of Pot Black.

The Actuary seems to be going to continue with the story in the middle of all this mayhem so I pretend a passionate distress at the demise of my lovely bowl and he stops in mid-sentence. I can see this is not going to be all plain sailing.

The Actuary is a different generation and political correctness has passed him by.
Lolita of course, is the same generation as they are, and would never tell jokes about persons of restricted intellect, women or people of colour. Unlike Martin I might add, who, as well as being seriously homophobic, thought women were only valuable if they were pretty, but usually said those things to me in the privacy of our own home. The fact that The Actuary has a gorgeous behind and is lovely in bed is something that may not recommend him to my daughter and son in law so I do not mention it.

I ring Val up to suggest we go for a drink so she can drown her sorrows re the wild-eyed dentist and I can tell her about my tricky Sunday lunch. She is off to London soon to look after one of her grandchildren but we make a date for the following day in The Red Cow.