The Younger Man

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Fran looks contented and I’m pleased, very pleased for my friend. She’s turning forty and getting married for the first time, and despite having heard some—although not the worst—of my client horror stories, she is 120% positive she’s doing the right thing, to the right man at the right time. She doesn’t want to live in sin. She doesn’t want to have a child out of wedlock. Not because her parents wouldn’t approve or Daniel’s parents wouldn’t approve, but because, well, she wants to get married. Not because of the dress, or ceremony, or friends being there, or being called Mrs Daniel Carlyle. Just because, well, she instinctively knows it’s right.

‘I know it’s right, Hazel. Right time, right place, right man. I’m sure you hear that from your clients all the time. But I’m nearly forty, and I’ve learnt a lot, and think, hey, I’ve got experience and realism on my side and I haven’t lost the romance.’

‘How do you feel about turning forty?’ I ask.

‘Don’t feel anything really. I know it’s supposed to be the seminal year, but I’ve done so much in those decades, learnt a lot, loved a lot, and just feel this is a new chapter of the same book that I’m happy to be writing. So how’s things going with you?’

I tell Fran about Joe. She doesn’t interrupt.

He’s worked in the offices for three weeks now. I’ve tried to find out about him, not the superficial him on his CV, the personal life him, without being too obvious. Don’t think he has a partner because he doesn’t seem to take or make any phone calls, but perhaps he uses his mobile all the time. And I’m not going to ask him directly. He wears a light but potent aftershave. Could be Eternity. Not sure. Don’t know him that well yet, and hasn’t got naturally into conversation. Not something that you’d just drop into one, you know, ‘and by the way, what is that aftershave you’re wearing, Joe?…’” He’d know immediately that I like him and I’m not giving him the gratification of thinking that. Our relationship is and should remain purely professional. Definitely. I’ve had lunch with him a few times, with and without clients. He likes vodka and tonics, champagne, teriyaki and authentic Italian restaurants. His taste in music is eclectic. He likes Led Zeppelin, Maroon 5, Pink Floyd, the Black Crowes and The Darkness, so obviously has some taste. He likes occasionally to eat with his fingers, which I quite like actually. I find it very sexy. I do it, too. He plays tennis, squash and badminton, and talks with knowledge and enthusiasm about the games, which reminds me a bit of my dad, who played all the sports till he was sixty. They’re all individual sports, so perhaps he’s not a team player. Perhaps he doesn’t like sharing either. He’s got two brothers. He’s the middle. I like that. Middle brothers are always the most interesting. More challenging, more black-sheeplike. Eldest are invariably the most successful, most dull, most arrogant, emotionally immature and invariably unhappy for most of their lives (having been out with several eldest children and having married and divorced one, I recognise the trait). Younger brothers are spoilt and have their own chips to bear. Middle ones are fighters, manipulators, mavericks.

And Joe Ryan strikes me as a maverick. Out of court anyway. He’s quite conventional with the clients, but there’s something about Joe Ryan that I haven’t quite got my finger on. And that’s what’s bugging me. Annoying me. Intriguing me. Okay, I admit it, exciting me. He doesn’t flirt with me at all, but had mentioned I looked ten years younger than I am.

Fran smiles.

‘You can draw breath now, Hazel. First and foremost, with regards to your age, you do look ten years younger. That wasn’t false flattery. That was genuine reaction. I like the sound of him. He seems ambitious, interesting. Kind. And I like his name. Joe Ryan. Got a ring to it.’

‘Hitler has a ring to it. So does Mussolini.’

‘Do you fancy him?’

‘He bothers and interests me. And there’s that za za zoom. You know, breathlessness. Which is annoying because I’m in my work environment and it’s not the right place to be feeling breathless. I need to be focused, not wet.’

Fran thinks the ugly PA idea is a good one, in light of my ambivalence (not) to Joe Ryan. I also tell her the CV details. The fact that he lives in Barnes, got a first in Law in Oxford and would like a Labrador, but it’s impractical in London.

Fran sips her tea, absorbing everything I say by osmosis. She doesn’t speak for a few sips and then says, ‘So you don’t think he has a girlfriend?’

‘What do I care?’

‘You care. Does he have a girlfriend?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘Could work. I mean you could have a relationship.’

‘Fran, don’t be silly. It’s wrong to mix business with pleasure, plus he’s too young for me. And I told you, he bothers me just by being there. By being a partner. Plus, he’s more suited to Sarah’s age than mine.’

Fran is silent again, looking at my face and smiles. I feel like the teacher in Village of the Damned when the white-haired starey-eyed children were trying to read his mind and he kept thinking of a brick wall (had to be there—it was a good film). No I’m not thinking about sleeping with him. No I’m not thinking about sleeping with him. This seems to work.

‘Well, agree with the business and pleasure. That’s not a good idea if you can’t separate the two. But if you’re mature about it, fine. As for the age thing, I don’t think that makes a difference. I’ve invariably found men and women get on better when they are from different generations. Every generation matures more quickly than the last. So older women and younger men are usually more compatible than men and women of the same age. If any are going to work, it should be this one.’

I think about what Fran says as I slowly make my way back to the office. Could I go out with a man ten years my junior? Could I show my turning-forty body to a turning-thirty male? It’s not sagging. There are no stretch marks. It’s well toned. Even lightly tanned. I’m also not afraid to make love with the lights on. But this is fanciful rubbish. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. He’s a work colleague, ten years my junior, ever so slightly arrogant, driven and has that tunnel vision thing—albeit cute, and probably doesn’t like me much anyway and views me more as someone who will help him on his career path or as a barrier, unless he gets me on side. Simple as that. Or perhaps that’s how he operates. The cool and calculated seducer who uses his sexuality to get ahead. Just like many a female. Could or would he go out with someone with a teenage daughter who would probably think he was a bit of all right as well? What happens if Sarah fancied him? That’s odd. That makes me feel very odd. My daughter and I vying for the same man. Oh, this is nonsense. My mind is going off at ridiculous tangents. You work with the guy—that’s it. That’s how you should keep it.

Don’t go there, Hazel. Not worth it. Keep it professional. Keep it simple. Keep it cool. And keep looking for a suitable PA.

Chapter Six

The Friday Night In

It’s Friday night and I’m sitting in my sitting room alone with my family size pack of Minstrels, glass of South African Chardonnay as recommended by Waitrose, watching Pride and Prejudice on TV. Sarah is out at the cinema watching something rated PG, with her school friends Hermione and Octavia (am I the only unpretentious mother at her school?). I’m trying to get lost in the romance of the story, but my instinct keeps telling me Darcy is nothing more than a poor girl’s wet dream and Elizabeth Bennet would spend the rest of her life, post credits, rolling in domestic misery, undervalued, emotionally bullied and sexually repressed.

I’m cross. Perhaps it’s because I’m in on a Friday night, my period is due, and the forty-minute run at 11.5 on the treadmill, one forty-five-minute spinning class and ten minutes on the cross trainer, hasn’t managed to burn off the sexual frustration—which I think my irritability stems from. Perhaps. Or perhaps it stems from the fact my builder hasn’t turned up to redo the floor in my sitting room. The fact the plumber hasn’t turned up to fix the downstairs shower that spurts water over the rest of the room every time I turn it on. The fact my gardener, James Huxley, didn’t smile at me as he usually does. Perhaps he’s premenstrual, too. Or the fact Joe didn’t come back from court today and we were going to go for a drink after work to chat about the new PA’s workload (Marion Harper, fifty-five, married with three grown children and no visible signs of sexuality) and the hearing ran late and he couldn’t and didn’t get back in time. Of course, these are all men letting me down. And they’re all things that I could do myself, but chose not to. Perhaps I should find a female builder and plumber and gardener who would be more reliable. I can’t help but think to myself that men are simple, self-involved creatures. But then, who’s being self-involved now? Here I am, feeling utterly indulgent, self-pitying and pathetic on a Friday night.

‘Oh, Hazel. Not all men are shallow,’ I can hear Fran whisper in my ear.

As I watch Elizabeth Bennet swoon at Darcy emerging from what looks like an ornamental lake, I know this is all bullshit. And I wonder how men and women manage to communicate at all. It’s not that men think differently to women. It’s that they think on different levels and at a different pace. Men don’t care that they can’t emote as deeply as women. It’s not just that they can’t feel as deeply as women, it’s the fact they don’t care that they can’t. And that’s the crux of the matter. Women think that the men care that they’ve got this emotional shortfall. Men don’t, in my experience, give a fuck.

And I do. I do give a fuck, and fall in love, probably too easily. Three years ago, before Dominic, I fell in love with Harry, who owned a boat and a horse and a house in Vancouver, but also failed to tell me he had a wife in France and a mistress in New York amongst his possessions. Before that, I almost went out with Steve, but he insisted on seeing his ex-girlfriend on Saturday nights to celebrate that they’d been going out for two years. When I told him this was taking the piss, he said it was just bad timing the anniversary was a Saturday night and said that I was lucky to be with him because he could have fifteen other women if he wanted them. So I’ve had only a few men in my life since divorcing David. And of course, I’ve healed from that as well. Eventually. I suppose being a divorce lawyer didn’t help my attitude toward him, anticipating he would be as manipulative and deceitful during the separation as he proved to be during the marriage, and seeing him match and occasionally exceed even my lowly expectations. Having Sarah meant it would take longer to get over the anger and sadness as we had to stay in touch and meet each other every other weekend for her sake. The being in touch was something neither of us wanted. And now, well, now Sarah was going to college and the contact wouldn’t be as often or as necessary. Sarah could make her own way to his apartment in the Barbican where he kept his possessions—the BMW 3 series convertible (according to most of my male friends, wankers drive these cars, so am reassured by this), the state-of-theart phone (as used by Uma Thurman in Kill Bill 2), TV (with a screen that moves where you do, er, why?) and hifi that makes a spaghetti junction out of most of his polished wood floor space. Plus a computer and PlayStation 2 and younger woman—ten years his junior, five foot nothing with dowry, primed to iron shirts and make pies and cakes, which I never wanted to.

Elizabeth is kissing Darcy, probably with tongues. Minstrels bag is empty and a bottle of Chardonnay has somehow disappeared. I’ll text Fran and see if she’s in.

MESSAGE SENT

How are you Fran? Are you doing anything? Fancy a

chat? Hxx

Nothing back. Probably switched off, or with Daniel finalising the finite details of contingency plan C should contingency plan B fail.

Ten o’clock and I’m going to bed. I want to cry. No, no, I’m not going to cry. I’m going to put some music on and bop around the room. ‘This Love’ by Maroon 5. Yep. Have that one. I’m dancing slowly, then slowly undressing. Yep, slowly undressing. I don’t need a man to satisfy myself after all. Some music, some wine, some Minstrels, the right mood and hey presto, I can do all the turning on. I dance over to the front door. Lock from the inside, just in case Sarah comes back early, before her mother does. Blinds drawn, curtains closed, lie on sofa and begin to stroke. First, very gently over my stomach and then up to my nipples and along the underside of my arm. Very slowly around my breasts, the left then the right, then down to my belly button and toward the arrow. The stroke becomes more urgent and I feel my back starting to arch and imagine my fingers are someone else’s pushing deep inside me then out again, as I imagine someone else urging me to come.

BROOOOMMMMMMMM.

My mobile has received a message. The sound my phone makes when receiving a text message resembles a Formula One racing car just crossing the finishing line. Strangely appropriate I think for the present moment. I refuse to stop but the noise has taken the urgency away and I sit up semi-euphoric in a state of mild frustration, on the verge of coming but unable to. Expecting the message to be from Fran I read it.