The Sense of an Ending

Her attitude towards me, now that I looked at it, had been consistent – not just in recent months, but over however many years. She had found me wanting, had preferred Adrian, and always considered these judgements correct. This was, I now realised, self-evident in every way, philosophical or other. But, without understanding my own motives, I had wanted to prove to her, even at this late stage, that she had got me wrong. Or rather, that her initial view of me – when we were learning one another’s hearts and bodies, when she approved of some of my books and records, when she liked me enough to take me home – had been correct. I thought I could overcome contempt and turn remorse back into guilt, then be forgiven. I had been tempted, somehow, by the notion that we could excise most of our separate existences, could cut and splice the magnetic tape on which our lives are recorded, go back to that fork in the path and take the road less travelled, or rather not travelled at all. Instead, I had just left common sense behind. Old fool, I said to myself. And there’s no fool like an old fool: that’s what my long-dead mother used to mutter when reading stories in the papers about older men falling for younger women, and throwing up their marriages for a simpering smile, hair that came out of a bottle, and a taut pair of tits. Not that she would have put it like that. And I couldn’t even offer the excuse of cliché, that I was just doing what other men of my age banally did. No, I was an odder old fool, grafting pathetic hopes of affection on to the least likely recipient in the world.

That next week was one of the loneliest of my life. There seemed nothing left to look forward to. I was alone with two voices speaking clearly in my head: Margaret’s saying, ‘Tony, you’re on your own now,’ and Veronica’s saying, ‘You just don’t get it … You never did, and you never will.’ And knowing that Margaret wouldn’t crow if I rang up – knowing that she would happily agree to another of our little lunches, and we could go on exactly as before – made me feel all the lonelier. Who was it said that the longer we live, the less we understand?

Still, as I tend to repeat, I have some instinct for survival, for self-preservation. And believing you have such an instinct is almost as good as actually having it, because it means you act in the same way. So after a while, I rallied. I knew I must go back to how I had been before this silly, senile fantasy took hold of me. I must attend to my affairs, whatever they might be, apart from tidying up my flat and running the library at the local hospital. Oh yes, and I could concentrate again on getting back my stuff.

‘Dear Jack,’ I wrote. ‘Wonder if you could give me a spot more help with Veronica. Afraid I’m finding her just as mystifying as in the old days. Well, do we ever learn? Anyway, the ice flow hasn’t melted with regard to my old pal’s diary that your mother left me in her will. Any further advice about that? Also, another slight puzzle. I had quite a jolly lunch with V in town the other week. Then she asked me up the Northern line one afternoon. It seems she wanted to show me some care-in-the-community folk, then got cross when she’d done so. Can you shed any light on this one? Trust all’s fine with you. Regards, Tony W.’

I hoped the bonhomie didn’t ring as false to him as it did to me. Then I wrote to Mr Gunnell, asking him to act for me in the matter of Mrs Ford’s will. I told him – in confidence – that my recent dealings with the legator’s daughter had suggested a certain instability, and I now thought it best that a fellow professional write to Mrs Marriott and request a speedy resolution of the issue.

I allowed myself a private nostalgic farewell. I thought of Veronica dancing, hair all over her face. I thought of her announcing to her family, ‘I’m going to walk Tony to his room,’ whispering to me that I was to sleep the sleep of the wicked, and my promptly wanking into the little basin before she was even downstairs again. I thought of my inner wrist looking shiny, of my shirt sleeve furled to the elbow.

Mr Gunnell wrote to say that he would do as I instructed. Brother Jack never replied.

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