She cracked after ordering her third glass of white wine, despite doing so with the silent discretion mastered mostly by women-once-girls not to be heard. I had seen her plenty of times on early evenings, sipping on her own. Im am not coming home until I want to come home!, she stated in the phone with distinct anger and a self-control developed over decades, lips hardly moving and words put out as if she was angrily organizing boxes that didnt fit the bigger scheme. Whoever was at the other end of this compact conversation, clad in heavy wool and years of dual disconnection, had to go to sleep on his own or stay out. Then she turned to me: Im terribly sorry, I did not intend to disturb you. We all have various ways of getting out of situations meant to be private but accidentally gone public, even if only to the neighboring guest. This one, Monday night in the dear-me-so-wonderful Hampstead, happened to take place next to my favorite table outside in the Village. She was probably 60 years old, her skin and appearance telling gentle white lies. She could have taken a decent role in an Upstairs-Downstairs film, chatting away with life-long friend Helen Mirren and leaving very little work to do for the make-up artists. I cannot stand him. I cannot stand him!! From the day our son turned 11, I have been counting the years. Hes 24 years old now and yesterday he asked me, begged me!!, to wait until after his wedding. He doesnt even have a bloody girlfriend! She did not cry and clearly considered herself brave not to do so. The small shivering of recently up-dated lips, unfamiliar with emotions above shopping failures and politics gone wrong in her office, yet remembering the years when life was all but so different. Hampstead is full of discretion and you need to be on alert to find those destinies on display. Its all so utterly boring. He was good family, I was pretty and not too bad family. I was the bright one, he was the lucky one. I became a top-shelf lawyer before giving birth to our son, he became a big money-making banker in those days when hamsters could have outperformed anyone at Royal Bank of Scotland. I imagine she was talking about the days post-Thatcher. He was - is - utterly useless in most aspects. He was charming and gave promises of a happy life as a young man and my mother was in massive favor of him. Two years after our wedding he started getting home very late at night, if at all. One year later, our son was born. Another year later, I found out about his first affair. I hoped and hoped and hoped for ten years. Then I gave up. Since then I felt nothing but hate. Hate and pure calculation of when was a good time to leave. I offered her a glass of wine. My Mum asked me to stay with him, his father begged me to keep the family together. I decided to wait until our son moved out. And now, I cannot make up my mind whether my hate to my husband exceeds my hunger for punishing him. Im not keeping him in the dark. Im deliberately doing everything I can to make him feel as humiliated as I was, back then. I suggested her to keep an eye on her own life, focusing on all the things she could achieve from tomorrow and onwards. My words skipped on a soul lost to revenge and a dedication to very little hope. I did it all for our son. And now he is asking me not to do what I should have done 20 years ago. On Tuesday afternoon, having tea at the very same table, I was mesmerized by Geoffrey. 86 years old, good looking and pulling his trolley with the strength of a wanna-be. He told me about his childhood, moving between districts in London based on the heaviness of the bombings, eventually ending up in Leeds and becoming a doctor. Like the rest of his family. And for the past 50 years in Hampstead with his wife. My wife was not in a state to have a sound child. We met in Leeds, she had lost her father in the war and her family had lost everything. We were 20 years old when we got married and both busy with building a life after all that war. When she was 30, she started asking me about having a child. I never gave her that, Geoffrey told me. I didnt realize back then, but now i know that I made a choice for both of us: To live a life without children. We were very happy together, saw the World, had great friends, had great jobs. When she died - five years ago now - she told me: I never missed anything but you. Geoffrey, a man of simple pros and cons and therefore happy to walk up-hill with an empty basket and down-hill with a full trolley from Tesco, made his choices on behalf of the never-born child. My friend next-table on Monday lived her life to honor the hopes of her son. Cheering for hope and good faith, I prayed for the son of the lady with darker shades and admired the spirit of the loved one.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 23:10:54 +0000
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