A Tolerable Answer
A series of interconnected short stories from my 2018 collection "Degrees of Separation"
A Tolerable Answer
(February 2016)
“Where did we get to? Let’s see. Here it is, page eighty-seven. Oh yes, I remember; Elizabeth has spent the night at Jane’s beside. A kind of vigil, I suppose. Which is apt, isn’t it? Just let me know if you disagree.
“Didn’t I say that last time? Probably, knowing me.
“Do you mind if we don’t get into it straight away? I’m not sure I’m quite in the mood just yet; not after what the Doctor’s just told me. Did they tell you? They should have; that’s what I think. But maybe under the circumstances… And they’re so busy. Perhaps saving a few minutes here and there makes all the difference.
“So, should I tell you what they told me? You have a right to know, even when the news isn’t great.
“Anyway, they’ve got the results back from the tests they did yesterday. I didn’t ask what tests, exactly; no point them telling me, is there? I’ve given up pretending to understand. I’m sure they’ll explain it in full to Sharon when she comes in this afternoon, after all she’s the one who really needs to know; who has the right to know. They don’t have to tell me anything, do they? But they’ve seen me often enough. Eighty-seven pages of enough! Friend of the family and all that. I think that Doctor Walsh - you know, the one with the lovely wavy hair - I think he has a bit of a soft spot for me, and it was him I spoke to. He’s very ‘simpatico’; isn’t that what they say?
“And he’s got a great manner; the way he smiles softly and caringly, even when he’s delivering the worst possible news. I guess they’re all trained to do that - but he seems particularly good at it. I hope he hasn’t had too much practice. I would imagine that kind of thing would wear you away after a time…
“Sorry, Jack; I’m procrastinating.
“The headline news is that it won’t be long now. Not very long at all. I’m sure Sharon won’t be surprised, but even so… It’ll probably hit her like a train. Should I stay around, do you think? Would it be helpful if I were here when they told her? I know I’m the last person whose shoulder she would want to cry on, but maybe just this once we might be able to cease hostilities. Or - and I hope you don’t mind me saying this - she might cease hostilities, because it’s pretty much all on her side. You know that don’t you? I’ve never had anything against her. Not personally. Other than jealousy, of course!
“Maybe that’s what made her hostile; my jealousy. Saw it as a threat. Being worried that one day I might try and do something about it, to win you away from her. Isn’t that when animal instinct is supposed to kick-in? Defending your territory and all that? But I don’t think that was ever going to happen, me trying to win you away from her. After all, how could I?
“Once upon a time I would have; you know that too, don’t you? I used to be - what? - unscrupulous, self-centred. Yes, even more than I am today! I’m sure, if you wanted to, you could go back into my past and dredge up a few people who would be more than happy to testify to my character - or against it, depending on your point of view. I might even be one of them myself. What a turn up that would be!
“‘Elizabeth passed the chief of the night in her sister’s room, and in the morning had the pleasure of being able to send a tolerable answer to the enquiries which she very early received from Mr Bingley…’. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Being able to ‘send a tolerable answer’? All we have - now, this morning - is an intolerable answer.
“You know I may not come back after today, so I’m afraid we might never find out what happens to Jane and Bingley, or Elizabeth and Darcy - though I’m pretty sure it will turn out all right in the end! I say that not because I’ve read the book before (I haven’t, as a matter of fact; shock, horror!), but because I’ve seen it on the telly. That lovely Colin Firth with his wet shirt stuck to his body… Not a state I’ve ever seen you in, I might add! More’s the pity, eh?
“And I may not come back because Sharon may not want me to any more. She might want to take sole possession of you, now we’re near the end; she may want you all to herself, mightn’t she? Which is fair enough after all; she’s the one you chose to marry.
“No, that’s not right. I’m sorry. You didn’t choose her did you? Not in the sense that it was A or B, Sharon or someone else; Sharon or me, for example. If it had been, would I have made your decision hard! Under those circumstances she would have been right to be worried she might lose you. But those weren’t the circumstances, and she had no need to worry - then or now. And it also wasn’t a choice for you because you loved her. That doesn’t give you any choice at all, does it, ‘love’? I mean, look at me sitting here prattling on…
“Why did you never ask - about me and love, I mean? You might have. More than once I expected you to, to be honest. Not because you had any ulterior motive; nor because you wanted to know for yourself, as if you might be harbouring plans of your own. No. But because that’s what friends do, isn’t it? Especially when they see people they care about sort of floating along. I don’t suppose that’s the right phrase, ‘floating along’. Certainly not one you would have used in any event. What would you have said? Unencumbered? Too cynical. Unattached? Too staid. Unfulfilled? Too preachy - though who knows? Why don’t we pretend that you asked, right now? Your last question. Tie-break time.
“What’s that? ‘What about you and love, Di?’ Is that what you said?
“Why, Jack, isn’t that just a little bit personal! Okay, I suppose we’ve known each other for a few years now, and we are friends. What’s that? And you’ve been meaning to ask for a while but never managed to get round to it? Typical man, that. You ask Sharon if that isn’t just typically mannish. Ironically so, in fact, when we think about the connotations of being ‘mannish’; being cowardly doesn’t come to the fore, does it?
“Anyway, you were saying? Ah yes, me and love. Diana, the Huntress. Did you know that Diana was also connected with virginity? Thought that would make you laugh! Anyway, Diana and love. Interesting idea.
“Let’s break it down, shall we? See where we get to.
“First basic question: have I ever been in love? Answer: yes - obviously. Though not, I hasten to say, that often. When I was younger (much younger, of course!), every crush felt like love. Or what a teenage girls imagine love is supposed to feel like. Symptoms traditionally centred around dreamy listlessness, an inability to concentrate; instantaneous blushing when the object of our affection appears - and blushing when they don’t. I assume none of this comes as news to you, after all isn’t it pretty much the same for men? Oh, I know there will be differences, nuances if you like; but underneath, the emotion’s the same isn’t it?
“So teenage crushes that were masquerading as love when they weren’t. And then you get hurt - inevitably. One day it feels a little different - both the crush and then the disappointment in the failure or rejection. There’s something more intense and painful. And then, like so many things, it’s the retrospect that tells you that it was love. It’s the looking back that allows you to recognise it for what it was, to begin to understand the signs, the red flags. You begin to know what to watch out for.
“I was lucky. My first major failure in love came when I was just turned eighteen, in my final ‘A’ level year. I say lucky, because it hardened me up before I went to University. You see so many kids at University who haven’t had that disappointment. They arrive at college doe-eyed and ready to believe they’re in love with the first person of the opposite sex who says ‘Hello’ to them. Or the same sex I guess, if that’s what you like. But because I’d been broken in - to use an unfortunate horsey analogy! - I was prepared. I had an edge, an advantage. I wasn’t going to fall so easily.
“The first? He was called Don, not that that means anything to you. He was actually my History teacher. I know, I know! It started out as a crush of course, but when it became clear that he might be prepared to reciprocate - well, that’s when I lost all sense of reality. Actually it wasn’t that he might be prepared to reciprocate, he did reciprocate - and how! I’ll spare you that lurid details, but let’s just say that I didn’t leave school a virgin. And I wasn’t one when I found out about his young pregnant wife during the last weeks of term either.
“I went away that summer; a few weeks fruit-picking in France. Just to get some sun, to recharge batteries before Uni. There was no love life there - at least not for me. One or two inadequate physical encounters with boys my age who didn’t know one end of a… Sorry; inappropriate! Let’s just say that by the time I’d started college, Don was out of my system and I’d begun to define my own personal set of rules and terms when it came to ‘the affairs of the heart’.
“University, a fertile ground for love? Is that what you said? Should have been, I suppose. Was for many, in an amateurish, fumbling way. I was choosy by then. A small number of us - girls who’d had similar experiences - gravitated together. We knew what was what, had the same philosophy if you like. I know people thought us a little strange or callous. We didn’t mean to be. I don’t think I was anyway. Was there any love in those three years? A few very brief encounters really. And one I kind of fell into that ran on afterwards for a couple of years. It was what I needed then, I guess. But was it ‘love’? Ultimately, no. No, it wasn’t.
“And suddenly that’s half a lifetime gone. And here we are, twenty or so years later. Who would have thought that I’d be unmarried and childless at forty-five? Okay, that’s ingenuous, I know. And inaccurate. Divorced and childless at forty-five. Lots of people might have had money on that outcome!
“You never met Craig, did you? Probably just as well. You would have hated him. And if you had met him then I would have hated him even more than I do now because of the comparison with you. Oh I loved him right enough; for about ten years. He fitted me like a glove. We wanted the same things, had the same ambitions. The self-centred, hedonistic, adventure-seeking lifestyle we led was perfect for us. Holidays skiing or scuba diving; restaurants, theatres; going racing - horse, car, you name it. Craig loved his fast cars (more than me ultimately). I thought we were living the dream. I thought I was living my dream. And I was crazy about him because of that; because he gave me the freedom to be myself. That’s how I saw it.
“Of course that wasn’t how it was. Hindsight again. I was trying to bring alive the fantasy I thought I should be living. I had an image of me, as if I was were looking in from the outside, and I was trying to make that come true. It was like some twisted fairy tale. And though I thought I loved Craig as Craig, I actually only loved him - or the idea of him - because he gave me the freedom and space to get closer to that image of myself I so wanted to fulfil. Does that make sense?
“I saw through it all - saw through myself, if you like - eventually. Not too late, I won’t say that. If we’d had kids (which neither of us wanted, thank God) then that would have been too late. But you know that story, don’t you; the bones of me and Craig. So even though you asked me about me and love, there isn’t much to tell is there? Not much you don’t know about.
“Other than you, of course.
“But you know that, right? I mean, this is hardly earth-shattering news, is it? After we first met, I assumed I was on some kind of rebound; it had been only a year or so after Craig. I was rebuilding my life; rebuilding myself. I had - or so I thought - enough scars and bruises, real or imagined, to last a lifetime. I felt that it was time to re-evaluate, if you like. And because you were already married to Sharon, in a way you were an ideal focal point for me; because you were never going to disrupt that journey I was on. Sounds so pompous, doesn’t it?! But I’m sure you get the point. I just needed to be able to park that side of my personality while I sorted everything else out. Investing in you - at a practical, if invisible level - allowed me to do just that.
“I never thought it was love. Never intended it to be so. Maybe it just crept up on me, I don’t know. Maybe as I got everything else about my life sorted out - a job, a career, a place to live, an image, a new persona - as all that started to come together, you just grew on me I guess. It was nice that you - and others, I suppose - were there to help me on my journey. Do you remember that time I asked you to come and view some flats with me and we had that stupid argument about orange wallpaper! It might even have been that day, that event, when I suddenly realised…
“But this isn’t helping, is it? Either of us, really. Well, I don’t know if it’s helping you because you’re being typically man-like and saying sod all. Which is probably just as well.
“I suspect it will help me. Eventually. Not now. Not today sitting here talking like this. Talking about Don and Craig. Thinking about how I was and how I am. It won’t help me when I’m walking out into the car park to drive away, not having had the bottle to wait to see Sharon. It won’t help me at your funeral, or probably for a little while after that. Or maybe a long while, who can say? But help, it will. At some point I’ll be a changed woman - maybe next year or in five years, who knows? I’ll have a revised set of priorities, a new set of success criteria. I’ll have readjusted what I want from life. Not just love, though that will be there somewhere.
“Strange, isn’t it, how for some people love feels as if it diminishes in importance as you go through life - exactly as others grow to realise just how precious and needed it is. Real love. Part of me envies those people who fall into something at twenty-two or twenty-four and that’s it, partner for life, all sorted, nothing left to worry about other than the day-to-day of turning it into a practical, working reality. But most of me, I think, sort of rejoices in gradually and painfully finding out what real love is all about - even if we can’t have it; even if all we do is spend our time compensating for that loss.
“I’ll return to my career reinvigorated at some point soon, and continue the match upwards. I’ll probably make it to some C-suite role sooner rather than later; maybe the Board or something. I’ll get a better house, a faster car. I’ll add another star to the quality of the holidays I take and the hotels I stay in. And I’ll date similarly upwardly mobile men who are looking for - I don’t know; whatever it is men look for.
“But I won’t be looking for love. If it finds me, fair enough, but I’m doubtful. And you know what? That’s actually okay. I never thought it would be until now, but it is. Really.
“Does that answer your question? Let me know if not.
“Now, where were we?
“‘Elizabeth passed the chief of the night in her sister’s room, and in the morning had the pleasure of being able to send a tolerable answer to the enquiries which she very early received from Mr Bingley…’”
For links on where to buy Degrees of Separation, click here.