Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers (28 page)

No, of course not. You know he didn't
.

He just didn't allow her to grow old. Wherever he went, she went. He travelled to Paris or Rome, so did she, even
when she could no longer walk or see. He hired the services of a nurse, who was also trained in dressing hair, so that every morning my grandmother would be looking her best, not for him, because to him her beauty was undisputable, but for my grandmother herself, who had indeed been a renowned beauty and vain with it.

‘But she can't see,' my mother had protested.

‘She knows,' he had replied, ‘she knows just by putting her hand to touch her hair if it's right or not.'

Towards the end, my grandmother confided to my mother that she would very much like just to lie back and rest; no travel, no trips to the opera, no visitors, just quietly rest, with her hair going grey and the bald spot left for all the world to see.

‘So tell him,' my mother said.

‘Oh no,' my grandmother replied, ‘it would break his heart.'

She died aged ninety-eight, while watching
La Boheme
from their box at the opera.

Was it love that my grandfather had felt for my grandmother, or was it obsession?

Let's call it obsession
, Coco said.
It'll make you feel better
.

I had asked my mother, not so long ago, if it had been wonderful growing up in a home with such happily married parents. She told me that it wasn't especially because she, their child, was just the pale fruit on the tree that was their love.

I had no doting husband and no fruit of my love, pale or otherwise. Instead, I was destined for a life in which weekends were my least favourite time, summer holidays were spent insisting to my friends that I had always preferred travelling on my own, and Christmas meant weighing up the
pros and cons of decorating a tree just for me. When I woke up with a start, jaw aching with silent screams, from the dream where my sister lies helpless on the floor and I can't reach her to ease her back into her chair because my feet are welded to the floor and my arms weighted with irons, there would be no one to reassure me. No longer could I turn towards the comforting shape of a lover, touch his sleep-crumpled face and feel the warmth of his breath as I snuggled close enough for our legs to touch but not so close so as to wake him.

Then again
, Coco said,
you can always have lots of casual sex – at least until the time comes when you need your pubic hair dyed
.

Why do you have to be so vulgar?

That's exactly what I was about to ask
.

‘I KNOW REVENGE IS a dish best served cold,' Athene says to Mother, ‘but surely yours must be frozen by now?'

‘You're so pleased with yourself, aren't you?' Mother hisses at her.

Athene just smiles.

‘Hera and I have been discussing the matter and we thought that perhaps you should consider retraining.'

I'm thinking that if I couldn't be a god I'd quite like to be a wolf.

But then Athene continues, ‘Of course, it's one thing for Eros to spend his time facilitating mortal coupling – after all he's only getting younger – but you, Aphrodite, should you not think about doing something a little more suited to your talents? For example … well … I'm sure we'll be able to think of something. Free your mortals from the shackles of romance and they'll flourish. Their families will benefit because without the thwarted passion, the jealousy, the impossible expectations each parent will be free to cooperate with the other parent to act in the best interest of their offspring. And their politicians will be able to do what comes naturally without the need for resignations and upheaval, because their life partner, if they have one, will be no more troubled than a sister or brother by something which would
not even be termed unfaithfulness any more. So you see, Aphrodite, there really is no downside.'

Mother stands there, looking like she'd been struck by Zeus: her arms hanging limply, her mouth open, her eyes blank.

Athene sensing victory goes on, ‘And Rebecca Finch would be free to write something useful.'

‘Like a computer manual,' I say.

‘Exactly.'

Mother totally stuns me by saying, all meek, ‘Maybe you're right.' And with that she walks out of the room leaving Athene and I looking at each other, baffled.

‘I didn't expect it to be that easy,' Athene says. ‘Still, who's complaining.'

None of us sees Mother for a bit after that but then she's back in her room reclining on her couch.

When she sees me she pats the seat next to her.

‘Sit down, Eros.' Then she says in this slow, thoughtful voice, ‘They do need us, you know. I have thought long and hard about it, and those wretched mortals need us.'

I'm thinking that she's looking like her old self again.

‘Of course they do.'

‘So you agree.'

‘Sure. With what?'

‘Eros, pull yourself together. I am saying that the mortals need us even more than we need them. You see, I haven't just been moping while I've been away, I've been researching.' Mothers points at a pile of papers on the floor. ‘Their scientists confirm what you and I already know: romantic love really is an integral part of what it is to be human, and
not just a cover for the sexual urge. The brain is shown clearly to differentiate between the two. Different parts of the brain are stimulated by romantic and sexual urges. And guess which is the more powerful? Guess which is the winner?'

To be honest it's all getting a bit technical for me.

‘Dunno.'

‘Romance!'

‘So the bet is back on?'

‘It was never off,' Mother says.

LANCE PHONED ME TO ask if I'd like to go with him to see the play at the Royal Court.

‘We could have a bite to eat first,' he said.

I was glad he had called. As a single woman it was important to have male, as well as female, friends. It was, like everything, a matter of balance.

Then Angie Bliss contacted me to say that, due to ‘unforeseen circumstances', she needed to rearrange our session for that week. Could I make it for Friday afternoon at five instead of our usual slot at ten on a Tuesday morning? I explained that I couldn't and why.

‘It's vital that we keep up our weekly meetings,' she said. ‘I feel we're close to a breakthrough, close to finding the answer to the reappearance of the clown and the subsequent loss of creativity. I have come across some very interesting research into what's termed Adult Imaginary Friend syndrome.'

‘You're kidding?'

‘I never “kid”, as you call it. The theatre doesn't start until seven-thirty, yes? That gives you plenty of time to eat beforehand
and
come here.'

‘You really think it would be detrimental to my treatment to skip just one session?'

‘Oh yes. Then again I don't know how serious you are about getting back to full mental health and back to work.'

‘Deadly serious, you know that.'

‘Well then, I'll see you Friday.'

When I told Lance he insisted on picking me up at Angie Bliss's rooms.

‘I'll have the car,' he said. ‘That way we'll be able to take our time over dinner.'

I told Angie Bliss about my idea for the play.

‘I can't say that I'm very taken with it,' she said. ‘All those angry, bitter people sounding off and blaming their mistakes on poor Eros.' The therapist seemed to be taking it all literally.

‘As I said, Eros being simply a device, a personification of the idea of romantic love.'

‘Well, opinion is divided on that one,' she said. ‘Anyway, all this resentment is bad for mental hygiene.'

‘It's not resentment that has made me see clowns,' I protested. ‘It's false hopes and impossible dreams.'

‘In that appearance of yours on television you spoke of Shakespeare.'

I nodded.

‘Well, I'm asking you, where would he have been without love? We would have had a whole load of politics and propaganda but no
Romeo and Juliet
. At the end of that play the warring families make peace. Now, if Romeo and Juliet had died in some other way, fighting like Tybalt or poor little Mercutio, then their families would have slipped further and further down the spiral of hatred and revenge. As it was, Romeo and Juliet lost their lives for love and so
their families saw the dreadful error of their ways. Love showed them.'

‘I hadn't thought about it like that.'

‘Well, you should. And while you're at it, count the great works of art, poetry, literature and music that have been directly inspired by romantic love then see where you'd all be without them.'

‘That's art, not life,' I said.

‘Since when did you get to be so dismissive about art?'

‘I'm not being dismissive, I never would be. But however important art is, it's still just an aspect of life. As is romantic love. The problem is that romantic love doesn't know its place; it's fast become the new opium for the people.'

‘And what's wrong with opium?'

‘Ha ha.'

‘Absolutely. Only jesting.'

‘The thing is that romantic love is all part of this great myth we entertain that says that we have a right to be happy. That we have a right to be happy and fulfilled and successful and loved and that if we're not then something's gone terribly wrong.'

‘And you're saying that humans should not be happy, fulfilled and loved?' Angie Bliss tut-tutted.

‘No, yes, I mean it's obviously wonderful if we are, but it's not to be expected. Believing that it's the norm is what makes us even more unhappy than we need to be.'

‘So romance gives you hope and dreams. The scoundrel, the villain. Off with his head.'

I gave her a pale smile and shrugged.

‘Oh I don't know. Maybe I'm being overly negative. Maybe I've got bitter. But I still feel I need to warn people, not
encourage them in their delusions; people like my goddaughter, people who still have a virgin heart.'

‘And quite right too,' Angie Bliss said. ‘Never take a chance. If you can't have a guarantee of a happy ending never embark on the journey. How inspirational, how courageous and how very productive. As the chances of any mortal achieving a happy ending to their life are … how shall I put this … well, nil, you should all, by your logic, run screaming back into your mother's womb the moment you're born. I mean what's the point of doing anything else?'

‘Good question,' I said. ‘No, I do believe there is a point to life, there has to be. We have to make sure there is.'

‘How? By never taking a risk? By never loving?'

‘I don't mean that.'

‘So what do you mean?'

‘I can't explain. I just know what I know.'

Angie Bliss leant forward in her chair.

‘Congratulations.' She took my hand, shaking it vigorously. ‘It's better than knowing what you don't know. Now, answer me this: the happiest people are those who love and are loved, true or false?'

‘True, I suppose. But the unhappiest ones are those who have been disappointed and betrayed in love.'

‘You're wrong. The unhappiest are the ones who have never known love at all.'

‘Tell that to the couples trailing around Homebase arguing about which tiles to use for the utility room. I'm sure most of them started off being in love. And that's my god-daughter's concern; she's not naive, she doesn't expect the intensity of emotions experienced at the start of a relationship to last for ever. Like most sane people she knows that it wouldn't even
be desirable. For a start you would never get anything done, your career would go down the drain and you would lose all your friends, she knows that. What she is asking for is that the something that makes two people not just friends, joint mortgage-holders and parents but also lovers remains.' Angie Bliss folded her arms across her chest and leant back in her chair. I knew she was annoyed. ‘You know Plato?' I asked.

She frowned.

‘Plato?' Her brow cleared. ‘Oh yes, Plato. I wouldn't say that I knew him as such; we might have met once.'

I laughed politely before saying, ‘Well, there is that bit about mankind being severed, the bit that goes, “They defied the Olympian gods, who punished them by splitting them in half. This is the mutilation mankind suffered. So that generation after generation we seek the missing half. Longing to be whole again … to be human was to be severed, mutilated. Man is incomplete. Zeus is a tyrant …” Are you all right?'

‘Yes, yes, I'm fine, I just don't like this carping about Zeus. Personally, I would never …' She paused and looked around her as if there might be someone else present in the room. ‘I would never,' she said again, ‘say that he was a tyrant. Firm, yes, decisive, yes but a tyrant, no, not at all. Apart from that I think Plato makes perfect sense. In fact, I couldn't have put it better myself.'

I looked hard at her. Was this another of her attempts at a joke?

‘I'm sure he'd be delighted to hear you say that.'

‘Don't be silly, he's dead.'

‘Yes. Yes, he is. But the thing is there's more: “And after so many generations your true companion is simply not to be found. Eros is a compensation granted by Zeus. The sexual
embrace gives temporary relief but the painful knowledge of mutilation is permanent.”'

‘I'm sorry, but here I have to disagree with him. Eros, in spite of his name, is not just about sex.'

‘But even so, isn't Plato actually telling us that mankind is condemned to yearn but never be satisfied, to search but never to find? It's cruel and I don't understand it.'

As I spoke Angie Bliss's expression softened and, although she was probably a good ten years younger than I, there was something motherly in the way she looked at me, as if she wanted to give me a hug or at the very least explain but had decided that the explanation was beyond me.