ROMANCE: TWO STORIES

 

Romantic Quest

 

She sits propped against the rather dirty wall of the public library, watching a teen-aged couple, arms entwined,, saunter into the sunlit car park.  She spits half-heartedly in their direction, then takes an angry swig at her bottle before subsiding again into a smelly and disconsolate heap.

Romance means nothing to her, but just a few inches away, on the other side of the wall, women are pursuing it eagerly.  When Mark sneers derisively they react with outrage and when Adam’s eyes narrow with passion, and they sense his warm breath on their cheeks, they prepare to respond.

But the dream is suddenly shattered by a raised voice and they turn their heads in mild curiosity.  The woman at the enquiry desk is large and loud.

She’s waving a book.

Why, she demands, is Peter Abelard arranged under A for Abelard and not W for Waddell where she’s been looking for it?

The argument rises and fades and the romance seekers return to their dreams. But, just for a moment, they have glimpsed a tiny shadow of Utopia in which each author has his or her allotted space on the shelves and waits there dutifully, week after week, for the attention of her (it is always her) disciples.

The idea is so attractive that one of the group, encouraged by the example of the large complainant, approaches the enquiry desk.  The assistant, who wears the standard librarian’s uniform of faded lumberjack’s shirt, smiles encouragingly.

She was just wondering, the petitioner explains, why the romances, unlike the general fiction, weren’t in alphabetical order and whether it might be possible to…

The professional smile disappears.  Does she wish to make a complaint, the assistant asks?  If so she’d better write to the chief librarian.  The tone implies that anyone who reads that kind of rubbish is probably only just capable of composing a note for the milkman.

In any case, the reason’s obvious.  Readers of romantic fiction don’t care who writes it. It’s the genre they’re after.  The romantic fiction section has the library’s highest turnover.  And, in any case, they’re short staffed.

The yawning gaps in the librarian’s defence invite a brisk attack but the invading army is already in retreat.  Romantic novel readers do not enjoy the role of conqueror.  They are, on the whole, a pacific lot.

What’s more – the defence presses home its advantage – no-one no has complained in the last ten years.

Now consider this deeply significant point.  Is it really the case that large numbers of women are willing to search through hundreds of titles to find their favourite Barbara Cartland or Penny Jordan?  Or are so tolerant and uncritical that they will happily substitute one for the other?  If so, that looks like near-saintliness in a quantity which amounts to a valuable national resource.

So where are these gentle souls to be found, when they are not seeking solace in the arms of Logan or Quentin between the covers of a Mills and Boon romance?

Follow them.  It’s quite easy.  They carry white plastic carrier bags from which a slender volume peeps out.  It has a red rose on the cover and a picture of a dark, brooding man and a girl with straight fair hair.  Both are scowling.  There’s one, waiting outside the library  for a bus which may or may not come.  Her bag is full of potatoes, margarine, cabbage and cat food.  She is hoping to strike up a conversation in the queue for, at home, no-one listens to her apart from the cat and the budgerigar.  When she gets home she will write a letter to the local paper about the wonderful doctors and nurses who took care of her when she was in hospital, who listened to her and allowed her to rest.  She will not write to the hospital authorities for she does not like to bother such important people with her unimportant gratitude.

There’s another one, in  Marks and Spencer’s, carrying two toddlers and a pushchair upstairs to the children’s  clothing department.  Yesterday she waited in all day for the electrician who did not come.  Last week you might have seen her in a hospital waiting room, apologetically curbing her fractious youngster while the consultant discussed his weekend’s exploits on the golf course.

And there’s another standing outside the school gate.   She is worried about her children but hesitates to intrude on the teacher’s time unless summoned officially.  Nor will she exceed the statutory ten minutes allowed on parents’ evenings.  At Christmas her face will ache with exhaustion and with the effort of smiling gratefully as she is handed a present of tea towels or an iron.

Once, when young, these women  were told by their headmistresses that it was their life’s mission to be the conscience of their spouses and children, to keep the national morality bright and shining, to be thrifty and hardworking in a world of extravagance and disorder.

And so  they spend their holidays cooking and washing up for their families in seaside caravans.  They retrieve their husbands’ dirty socks from under the bed and clean the family’s shoes.  When they return from their lowly and underpaid jobs they scrub the household lavatory and fetch in the coal.  And they accept their children’s laziness and rudeness, their husbands’ insensitivity, society’s indifference, for they are the patient angels on whose uncomplaining shoulders rests all the virtue, honour and quiet courage of the nation.

Is it too much, then, to ask that some small consideration should be given to their unvoiced needs?  That a beer-swilling accountant should plant his wife’s name in violets or arrange for a small orchestra to serenade her on the morning of her birthday?  That a  Manchester United-supporting welder should whisper his adoration in a small boat at dusk in the middle of Lake Coruisk?

Is it too much to hope that one day a library assistant will appear, not in a lumberjack’s shirt, but in a long dark skirt and high-necked blouse,  with a cameo brooch at the throat and her hair swept back into a graceful bun?  She will wear horn-rimmed spectacles and will look so enchanting  that the smouldering figure who leans nonchalantly against the non-fiction catalogue will stir himself to approach her counter, will prise the date stamp from her grasp, remove her glasses and take the pins from her cascading hair.

Then, covering her weakly protesting mouth with his, he will pick her up and carry her off through the pink mist which enshrouds Sainsbury’s car park.

And if they are ever seen again it will be high over the Alps where, from a hot air balloon filled with gardenias, the sounds of tinkling laughter and gurgling champagne will float gently down through the clear air.

And when all over the town women are smiling enigmatically and men are looking thoughtful, it will not matter that the library is an assistant short nor that the romantic fiction remains unsorted.

For its readers will be so very, very few.

Anne Hill

This second story explores even more deeply the need that human beings have for romance, however we may choose to define that word.

The Friends of Miss Slingsby

For a woman who lived alone and did no entertaining, the second-floor flat was ideal.   But at this time of year, when the children had gone back to school and the sunshine lovers had retreated indoors to their first autumn fires and the park opposite her window was beginning to take on a shabby and neglected air, Miss Slingsby began to feel constricted and in need of a change.

She broached the subject with Mrs Bannister.

“Yes.  I thought it was about time you was going off.  Where will it be this time then?  Peking again?  Or that place where they wear them grass skirts and flowers and not much else?”  Mrs Bannister gave a disapproving sniff and brought her duster down violently on an already dust-free occasional table.

No.  this time it would be Venice.  She had so many friends there – Signora Baldoni, those pretty Campaneschi twins, the Giardinis, Signor Faborelli who made such beautiful gowns… and Peggy, of course.  She was particularly anxious to see little Peggy.  How would she have made the transition from her restaurant kitchen to the great Palazzo?   With dignity and grace, of course, and with more than a touch of common sense.  She had her feet on the ground, that one.  She wouldn’t let her change of fortune go to her head.

Miss Slingsby closed her eyes, remembering Peggy, dressed in floating  white silk, on the arm of her handsome count, while all the bells of the city erupted around them.  Why,  there might even be a baby.  And Miss Slingsby thought of Carlo’s brooding expression and dark eyes that followed Peggy’s every move.

Yes, there would certainly be a baby.

Miss Slingsby was only vaguely aware of Mrs Bannister’s voice in the background, droning on.  Didn’t hold with foreign parts herself.  Preferred Southend.  You knew where you were with Southend.  You could drink the water and you didn’t have strange men taking liberties.

Miss Slingsby sighed.  Yes.  It was high time she went back to Venice.

How elegant, Miss Slingsby thought later, looking at the gleaming maroon paint and delicate scrollwork.  Elegant – and just a little old-fashioned.

Entering the train, she gazed around her with great satisfaction at the dark plush upholstery, polished brass lamps and starched white table cloths.  How  delightful to be able to begin one’s little holiday here on Victoria station, to step off the dusty platform into an atmosphere which already held  a warmth and mystery which were wholly Venetian.

“Excuse me, Signora.”  Miss Slingsby smiled happily at the young man who touched her elbow. “Signora… ” there came into her mind a  picture of herself as she once might have been, with long dark hair, in a red dress and, perhaps, a flower… “You will like me to show you your compartment, I think.”   He bowed slightly and Miss Slingsby observed  that his eyelashes were thick and silky against his olive cheeks and that a heavy lock of hair fell forward onto his brow  as he bent to pick up her case.

“What is your name?”

“Julio, Signora.”  He indicated a white bell push at the side of the mirror.  “You will please to ring if there is anything I can get for you – at any time, Signora.”

How graceful he is, Miss Slingsby thought, watching him arrange her case at the foot of the bed.  Like a gazelle.  And there came into her mind a momentary vision of a woodland glade, with Julio as Pan, seated  on a grassy mound while she danced dreamily to the sound of his pipes.

When he had gone Miss Slingsby reflected on her good fortune in having such a gift for making friends.  Why, she had only to strike up a conversation and, in no time at all, intimacy developed.  In just a few moments she had learned that Julio was single, had been an attendant in the Orient Express for three years and was ambitious to join one of the great liners as a cabin steward.

Mrs Bannister disapproved of her always travelling alone, but for Miss Slingsby it was the only way.  How else could  exercise her talent for instant friendship?

It  was all too charming, she decided at dinner – the whole atmosphere. The hushed voices, soft smiles in the lamplight, the meals which were like religious ceremonies  with white-coated acolytes bowing deferentially on every side, the feeling of being fragrantly and luxuriously  cocooned in a delightful dream, leaving outside all that was in the least cold or uncouth.

She  found it so entrancing that she was anxious to prolong it.  To put off for the moment when she would have to leave it for sleep.

Daringly she pushed the white button.

“You rang, Signora?”

“Oh Julio, I’m sorry to call you so late.”

“Not at all, Signora.  It is my pleasure.”  And it really is, Miss Slingsby thought.  There was something about the way he looked at her, his eyes meeting hers directly, which seemed to say, “We two are of a kindred spirit, my dear.  We understand each other so well.”

When he returned with the hot milk he put the tray down and handed her the glass in a napkin. “Be careful, Signora.  It is a little hot.”

Later, lying back on the cool pillow, Miss Slingsby wondered if he had deliberately allowed his fingers to touch – almost to caress – hers as he handed her the glass.  It must have been intentional, surely.  He would be far two well practised in his trade to allow such a thing to happen accidentally.  And as she fell asleep it occurred to her  that he must have made the bed she was lying on.  His hands had smoothed the sheets, had arranged the coverlet. Had stroked the pillow on which she lay.

But she must not be selfish, Miss Slingsby thought next morning.  The difference in their ages was enough to make any liaison just a little inappropriate, perhaps.  But if dear Vanessa, who had been foolish enough to allow her jealousy almost to ruin Peggy’s chances, were really penitent and a meeting with Julia could be arranged?  Well, who could tell what might happen?

The train gave a sudden jerk, sending some cornflakes from the bowl, which she had inadvertently overfilled, onto the white cloth.  How foolish she was being. For, of course, Julio and Vanessa could never meet.  That way – she had been that way before.  Miss Slingsby gave a shudder.

“Everything is to your liking, Signora?”

“Yes, thank you, Julio.  It is all very nice.”

“Thank you, Signora.  We should be in Venice soon after lunch.”

Miss Slingsby smiled happily, thinking of the crowded platform that awaited her.  How she longed to be with her dear, dear friends again.

First they would go to Manzoni’s and the children would each have an enormous ice cream.  She could already feel the little, soft arms creeping gently round her  neck and hear the secret joyous whispers in her ear.  Then off to Harry’s Bar to catch up with the news.  There would be so much to tell, such laughter and embracing, and in just a few hours she would see them all.

Peggy would be  there. And the count of  course.  The contessa -but the contessa was dead.  How could she have forgotten?  And a fleeting spasm of  - what was it?  Regret? Guilt? – crossed her brow.

But the Duc D’Orsini would be there, certainly, and Moira, his  lovely Irish wife, Quentin, always so restless and impatient when away from the Grand Prix circuit, Jenufa, the Hungarian countess who had run away from her cruel…

“More coffee, Signora?”  The way he looked at her.  One would think she was the only passenger he had to look after.

For a moment she imagined him pouring coffee for both of them on a little sunlit balcony, while below them sparkled the clear blue waters of the Aegean.   Would he feel patronised and offended if she left him an extravagantly large tip?  Regretfully she decided that he would.  A pity.

In the compartment which Miss Slingsby had finally vacated, Julio went methodically about his duties, emptying tissues from the waste bin, cleaning the wash basin, changing the bed linen.

He picked up the broken comb with its wispy grey hairs and dropped it distastefully into his plastic sack.  He had worked so hard on this lonely Englishwoman.  And she had seemed worth it, with her well-worn Gucci luggage, her crocodile shoes and tasteful, expensive clothes. And what tip had she left him? A miserable three euro coins in a paper bag.  He swore irritably.  He must be losing his touch.

His irritation increased still further when he saw the passport.  The passengers would have dispersed by now and this would mean a trip to the station-master’s office and endless, time-wasting form filling.  Sven, the Swedish ex-seaman with whom he lived, would have prepared an elaborate meal and would be disappointed it was kept waiting.

He glanced out of the window.

To his surprise, the woman was still there.  She was smiling vaguely and holding her arms forward in a curious gesture.  She appeared just like someone being welcomed by a crowd.  Yet, apart from her, the platform was completely deserted.

He glanced down at the passport in his hand. The same thin, bespectacled face, the same wispy hair. Name, Rebecca Slingsby, born in London, 1952. Occupation, romantic novelist.

Anne Hill