‘Perhaps you won’t understand.’
‘Try me.’
‘Okay.’ She took a deep breath and started to speak so rapidly she was almost falling over her words. ‘I hate being on my own without Johnny, I absolutelyhateit. And I don’t mean I’m lonely. I’m not lonely, not in the true sense of loneliness. I have friends, loads of friends, lots of people who care about me. It’s not loneliness, it’s beingalone, and that’s different. If I take an evening off from the restaurant, I get upstairs to my apartment thinking, oh, goody, I’ll have a nice relaxing eveningwatching television or reading or listening to music or just faffing about, just some “me time”, you know? Except all I do when I get there is sit on my backside thinking how desperately I miss Johnny. Even though he could barely communicate with me in the last year or so of his life, that was better than not having him at all.’ She paused and gave a great shuddery sigh that was almost a sob. ‘And I can’t stand it. I can’tlivewith it.’
I didn’t know what to say. It struck me that Jess was suffering from grief, but she was intelligent enough to know that herself, so my saying it seemed patronising.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m still grieving and that hurts, but I will get over that in time or at least learn to live with it. But it’s not that.’ She suddenly drew herself up. ‘Do you know something, Alix? In the last year or so of his life when Johnny was so dreadfully ill, I used to wish every day – I used toprayevery day – that he would die. Not for him, forme. I prayed for his death for me. I thought it would bring relief,myrelief from watching him suffer. Isn’t that terrible?’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘It’s not terrible at all.’ But she didn’t seem to hear me.
‘And yet when he eventually did die, I felt no relief whatsoever. I still don’t. I only wanted him back and I still do.’
‘That’s—’
‘No, don’t say that’s perfectly normal, please.’
‘But itis. Listen,’ I said awkwardly, ‘is there nobody you could live with, if only for a while, someone who would not just be company for you, but who would be a distraction, who would stop you thinking about Johnny?’
‘Who?’ Her expression became mildly scornful. ‘Luc? Well, I’m certainly not inflicting myself on him, it wouldn’t be fair. Oh, you mean a boyfriend, a lover, another man? No way. That would mean sex, and I don’t want bloody sex!’
‘Jess,’ I said warningly as her voice rose. On the table adjacent to us, an elderly English couple were doing their best not to listen, but their ears were flapping like yacht sails.
‘What’s the problem?’ Jess hissed. ‘Aren’t I allowed to shout in my own restaurant?’ Then she noticed the English couple. ‘Oh, bugger them. Not that I’ve had sex for as long as I can remember anyway,’ she sniffed but in a calmer tone of voice, ‘Dr Alzheimer vetoes sex.’
‘I know. I’ve heard that. I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, it’s not your fault.’ She drank some wine. ‘Do you know, Alix,’ she continued, then talking in an almost chatty way, ‘I think I’m going deaf. I know I often keep talking too loudly just lately but it’s because a lot of the time I can’t seem to hear my own voice.’
‘Or perhaps because you feel there’s nobody hearing you.’
She stared at me a moment, mulling this over. ‘Yes, I think that might be exactly it. How clever of you.’ Then she gave an impatient little grunt. ‘But as for sex, making love, I’m not sure I understand that anymore anyway. Perhaps I never did, although I always found Johnny a great lover, not that I had much to measure him by,’ she amended. ‘You see, Alix, if you believed everything you read about these days, women your age and younger are rushing about seeking and finding multiple orgasms allover the shop. Well, I simply don’t believe that. Are they simply trying to be fashionable, trying to stay in with the in-crowd as my generation used to call it? Or have they convinced themselves that there is indeed a new dawn of female sexuality and now we all can enjoy as good and uncomplicated a fuck as a man?’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘Do you? Even though you’re young? So can you tell me then why the twenty-first century should have miraculously changed what we are essentially as women?’ She smiled suddenly. ‘I suppose I’m a bit with that lovely old filmShirley Valentine. You know, where she says sex is like supermarket shopping. There’s a lot of pushing and shoving and in the end you still don’t come out with very much.’
I smiled.
‘Anyway, the upshot is I don’t want another man – even if another man wanted me. I only want Johnny. I’ve onlyeverwanted Johnny.’ Her eyes became abstracted as she contemplated this. ‘I almost wish I were a lesbian. Then I could live with another woman.’
‘Er, I think that involves sex as well.’
‘Yeah, of course it does, which is no good, is it? Not given I’m indelibly straight. I know! I need what used to be known as a paid companion.’
‘Yuk.’
She focused on me. ‘Yes, maybe, but maybe there was something in that.’
We were silent for a moment. Then she sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Alix, really I am. I seem to do nothing but dump my troubles on you. Ignore me. I’m just feeling sorry formyself. There’s lots of people in my situation – squillions. It’s the way of the world. I mean, take you, for instance, you live on your own, don’t you?’
‘Not really.’ I told her about Carl.
‘Oh, you lucky cow,’ she said enviously. ‘But there you go. Having a child changes your whole life. You’re never really alone again, much as you might occasionally want to be,’ she added with a brave attempt at humour.
Quite where the conversation might have gone at this point I cannot say, as from under the table Alphonse, having consumed a large bowl of turkey leftovers, suddenly emitted the most tremendous fart.
‘It was the plumbing!’ Jess squeaked at the elderly English couple who could no longer pretend not to have heard anything. ‘Antique French plumbing!’
