Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers (10 page)

‘Darling, you have to go outside. It's not healthy to stay inside with your nose stuck in a book all day. And what's that you're reading?
Nora's Ballet Shoes
? Oh.'

At the progressive co-educational school his mother had picked for him, John walked the whole way along the narrow wall enclosing the stairwell at the back of the school gym block, continuing even when the drop down to the concrete got to ten feet. He was the only one in his year to dive from the highest diving board, and he alone tracked the Dirty Old Man all the way to his lair in the woods, when the rest of his friends were too scared, yet nothing would have made him skip straight to J on that library shelf.

As he grew older it was lucky he was such a handsome boy, or the girls would have fallen about laughing when they saw his lanky figure striding towards them in the corridor, his eyes fixed on the floor, his feet side-stepping, nimble as a boxer's. Instead they sighed and swooned and forgave him everything and not even a titter passed their eager lips the time he walked into the open locker-door. No, as he looked up through his one good eye the other was bleeding, from inside or just above no one could tell at first; all he saw was a flock of anxious gazes boring down on him and strong small hands wiping and dabbing, accompanied by high soft voices clucking.

The boys too accepted his odd ways on account of his undoubted, though somewhat unreliable, skill on the sports
field. And though he had only a few really close friends, most of his peers, if asked, would refer to him as ‘an OK bloke'.

He read a book by a psychologist, Roger W. Pointer. Pointer equated laziness with evil. It was a variation on the theme of ‘the devil makes work for idle hands', but whereas homespun wisdom barely registered, the argument put forward by Roger W. Pointer, that there were few evils in this world, mental or physical, that could not be put down to laziness of the body or spirit, resonated with the truth of a perfectly pitched note. So John got to work at being busy. Not because he always wished to be, not because he was not so tired at times that putting one foot before the other seemed like a trek to the moon but because it was the best way he knew to keep from falling off the edge of reason.

He made treaties and he bargained. If I cut my time over a mile by twenty seconds then I'm allowed to pass the school noticeboard without reading every single sentence of every notice posted. If I do ten one-handed press-ups I won't cock up my exams. Two nights without once falling asleep and my mother won't get cancer. If I happen to read a sentence containing the word ‘cancer', touching wood seven times will prove I don't wish it on anyone.

On and on his busy brain laboured, wheeling and dealing, bribing and bartering as if it were a politician or a hawker in some Middle Eastern bazaar. It was exhausting. This boy, although strong and fit, was always tired. But he couldn't stop because the alternative to all this activity was a slow drowning in the quagmire of his mind.

*     *     *

On New Year's Eve he had stayed to have dinner with his mother but had told her that he would have to leave by eleven at the latest in order to make the party. When that time came his mother, eyes welling up with the inevitable tears, had thanked him for caring about a lonely old woman and reassured him, unasked, that he was not to worry about her being left to see in the New Year on her own as she was very happy with her wireless.

‘At least watch the goddamn TV,' John snapped.

‘Oh darling, don't get cross.' His mother reached for her lace handkerchief. ‘I'm grateful, you know I am.'

‘I don't want you to be grateful.' He put his arm around her shoulders and winced at how slight she felt. ‘I've enjoyed our evening. And it wasn't a sacrifice. I wanted to have dinner with you. I just get... oh I don't know. I'm sorry I upset you.' He sighed, raking his long-fingered hands through his fair hair until it stood up at the front like plumage. ‘But I have to go now, though, I really do. The others are expecting me. I'll call you at midnight, or just after anyway.'

His mother dabbed at her eyes and gave him the kind of smile you might put on when you're about to go Over the Top.

‘Of course you mustn't keep your friends waiting.' She raised a paper-dry hand. ‘No, I mean it. There's a girl, isn't there? How could your old mother possibly compete?'

‘No girl,' he said. And he thought nor will there be the way things were panning out. It was gone half-past eleven before he made it out through the front door and into his car.

His mother had given him a five-year-old Volvo 343 when he got his place at Cambridge. A Volvo was so uncool, but she trusted it to keep her darling boy safe. He knew that beggars
could not be choosers, he knew not to look a gift-horse in the mouth and he also knew that a car was a car; and it could have been worse, it could have been new. Anyway, by now he was too old to worry about peer-pressure.

‘You, of all people,' his mother had said at the time of giving it to him, ‘do not have to worry about
image
. She might have been pronouncing the word ‘image' as if tasting a newfangled dish, but she was right. This boy had been blessed by the gods: tall, athletic, with wheat-blond hair and dark-lashed velvet-brown eyes. His square chin even had a dimple. And he was bright and kind and strong: truly, he was a golden boy. And he knew it and tried his best to level the odds. Inside his lovely head ran a train loaded with junk. Unlike those of British Rail, this train ran night and day and it was always on time. It did not stop other than to refuel and take on more junk: count to three five times and shake your head – but careful so no one sees – and the bad thing might never happen; wipe your feet twenty times on the left foot, always the left foot first, then twenty for the right and then ten on each again and your bad thoughts are rendered harmless; ask forgiveness to that judge and jury in your head for the thought that flew through your mind so swiftly you did not know your wilful brain had fired it; plead and whisper over and over again that you did not mean it, you did not mean to think the thought you could barely remember thinking. Plead that it won't shoot through the membranes of your brain and reach God the creator up on high. God, who might (because such is the hubris of this poor boy's mind) hear his inadvertent prayers and act upon them. ‘Sorry never, sorry never, sorry never.' Three times, always three times, for each bad thought.

He had not driven more than two hundred yards when he began feeling guilty. Why could he not have been nicer to his mother when he was home? She had made such an effort over dinner. ‘All your favourites.' Of course even that had irritated him: these were dishes that had been his favourites when he was twelve.

As he drove through the snow-silenced countryside the thought went through his mind that if his mother was dead he would be free, free of guilt, free to go, free to be. He regretted it immediately. He loved his mother. He would never wish her any harm. Sorry never, sorry never, sorry never.

In response, his unruly mind conjured up a picture of his mother at the top of the stairs taking a tearful step down towards him, arms outstretched and then falling, falling.

Sorry never, sorry never, sorry never.

The country lane wound round to the right before it started the climb. The girl with long fairy-tale hair was running down the hill track, unsteady on her feet, her red knitted hat pulled down low. As the church bells started to chime midnight she tilted her head right back, lifting her eyes to the star-stained night sky. Then she wobbled, clutching at her chest as if in pain.

He, far away in his land of private nightmares, had come close to running her down. Something brought him back just in time to slam on the brakes, sending him skidding to a halt in front of her. He felt a sudden pain in his chest making him think he must have hurt himself on the steering wheel but he was more concerned for the girl. He opened the car door and called out to her, asking if she was all right, but she was heading down the dirt track, tall, slender, a flight of hair under a red knitted hat.

He got out of the car and called after her again.

She didn't turn round but raised two defiant fingers to the starry night sky. Her voice was high and clear.

‘And a Happy fucking New Year to you too!'

MOTHER IS TELLING EVERYONE that I stuffed up.

‘Of course I was right: everything was there in Rebecca's past. She was meant for another all along. Someone' – here she casts a sideways glance at me but I pretend not to notice – ‘someone had her and a perfect young man in his sights, then …' Now she goes all theatrical, rolling her eyes and raising her palms to the skies. ‘… Makes a complete mess of the whole affair. Our would-be lovers are shot within each other's presence, but for reasons only someone knows they don't in fact lock eyes. Instead they're sent off into the world like unguided missiles of frustrated love with predictably disastrous results.
She
marries the first decent man who asks her and
he
moves from woman to woman searching for he's not quite sure who, and ends up a one-man divorce factory.'

I make out like I'm not listening but actually I can't believe Mother. I mean yesterday Athene was public enemy number one and now the two of them are sitting thick as thieves, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes at you-know-who. It hurts, actually. I would never dump on Mother like that, never. I'm not going to let her see she's upset me, though, so I pretend to be concentrating on the screen, laughing at some joke, that kind of thing.

Mother looks across the room at me.

‘And you can stop smirking, Eros. Really, I don't know what to do about you. You just don't care, do you? Well, luckily I do.' She turns back to the others, nodding at Athene. ‘And you'll all be glad to hear that I have come up with a rather good plan to solve our little problem.'

‘That's excellent, Aphrodite dear. And just to clarify, when you say
our
problem, you are meaning yours and Eros's, not ours as in all of us?' Athene says, totally showing her true colours.

Speaking of colours, Mother's face goes chalk-white and her eyes are tarmac, but her voice remains calm.

‘Very well, I assume full responsibility. I'm used to it. It's not as if I've ever been able to count on anyone but myself, anyhow.'

I assume she's having another dig at me but actually she's directing her mean look at my stepfather Hephaestus. He, of course, doesn't react, probably being deep in some wet dream about his next DIY job.

‘No,
I'm
sorry,' Athene purrs. ‘I think we've all been guilty of placing too much responsibility on your slender shoulders.'

Mother walks straight into it.

‘Well, thank you for your concern,' she says, looking somewhat surprised.

‘Yes, we have all been expecting too much,' Athene goes on, her voice so silky it slides through her lips. ‘I suggest' – here she turns and looks at Grandpa – ‘I suggest that we consider relieving Aphrodite of the onerous task of looking after the sacred aspect of love and leave her with what she does best, the profane.'

That's it. I've had enough. I switch off the screen although it's a really serious ball game on and I turn and give Athene one of my stares. She doesn't seem to notice so I tell her straight.

‘You'd like that, wouldn't you? It would suit you just fine if Mother and I gave up on that other stuff, but I'm telling you it ain't gonna happen and if you think—' I feel the hand of Zeus on my neck and the next thing I know I'm back down in my own room, sent there, literally, by one swipe of his hand.

I can hear his voice booming down at me like thunder.

‘And don't let me see you up here again until you're ready to apologise to your aunt.'

I totally hate the way they can just evict me whenever it suits them. It's humiliating.

‘I'm sorry, Athene, I shouldn't have spoke to you that way.'

‘That's all right, Eros. Just don't let it happen again.'

Of course, you'd think from that that she was being all gracious but what do you know, just moments later I hear her whisper to Hera, ‘What can one expect? Feckless mother … no real father figure … stepfather not interested … countless lovers.'

Mother just doesn't have a clue.

They're watching France – again.

‘Do we have to?' I ask. It's so
slow
. OK, so the photography is pretty cool and some of the cars, but essentially it's
pointless
; essentially it's just a lot of people dressed in black, eating stuff and talking and talking and talking – I mean is that all they ever do there, talk?

I get another lecture, from Hera this time, about watching too much USA.

So I tell her, ‘The United States of America is the Mount Olympus of the mortal world.' And I feel pretty bright saying it too.

Then Zeus does this really lame Bush imitation.

‘This is not what this great country of ours is all about but a misunderestimate.' It's not even funny but obviously everyone laughs and Zeus looks around him with this pleased little smile. I tell you no flattery is too gross for him to swallow.

The talk turns again to Mother's great plan.

‘Hand me the remote, will you, Eros.'

She flicks through the channels until she gets London, Great Britain. She's not that good on the digital aspects of the screen but eventually she finds what she wants – a guy in a collarless shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He's sitting at a large desk in a complete dump of a room – underground, shelves stacked with files, desk stacked with files, more files in boxes on the floor. I tell you, if yours truly left his room in that kind of a state Mother would come down on me like a ton of bricks, but not when it's this guy, oh no. Instead she just smiles and rolls her eyes in this indulgent way.