Stella had lived in France for five years now. At first her family had shunned her whilst she had been swamped with offers
from her peers to call in ( “on our way to San Tropez” or other such thinly-disguised excuses - she knew they ached to come and take a
look at the lover she had given up her orderly conventional life for.) Then, when Joe had left other friends had suggested they come and
comfort her; some genuinely well-meaning but for the most part secretly unfulfilled middle aged folk wanting to gloat. Her children had
seeped back gradually - but their stays were crammed with complaints about the weather (too hot), her villa (too cramped), the food
(too exotic). When she got the cancer, her sister came over, all primed up to forgive and forget and to take over Stella’s treatment
and after- care and to supervise the move back to the UK.
“But I’m going to be treated here, in Paris,” Stella said with a look that brooked no argument.
The sister returned home full of indignation and - to any neighbour who would listen - tales of the unbelievable ingratitude - when she had
offered a room in her own home, don’t you know?
Stella sipped the somewhat sharp but delicious wine, shifting slightly in her garden chair so as not to have to see Mildred wince at the lack of
sweetness. Mildred had been at college with Stella - and Joe. Cards at Christmas with the briefest of messages had passed between them
for a few years before coming to a sudden stop. Then Mildred had rediscovered Stella on Facebook. And had confessed to being on the
brink of buying a holiday home in the Auvergne.
I’d love to come and see you and get a taste of French life, she had messaged.
Behind her agreement to this lay Stella’s own agenda. But within an hour of Mildred’s arrival she wondered if it would be worth it.
The pattern of this woman’s life was like a slap in the face for Stella. It was where her own life had been heading until she turned that
corner in Islington and came face to face with her childhood sweetheart.
****************************
“It can’t be ...”
“Joe ...?”
“This is beyond weird ... “
They both dropped their bags - hers a smart leather briefcase, his a battered travel bag, airline label flapping from the handle. They
grasped each other’s hands, entwined fingers, held their arms wide, stared at each other.
“You are looking marvellous.”
“You, too.”
He let go of her hands , stepped toward her, swung her up and around. Passers by smiled.
They drifted oh so naturally into the pub across the street, his arm tucked through hers.
****************************
Despite refusing to proffer any complement re the wine Mildred had downed three glasses.
“So - is it as good as they say - the French way of life?” she asked.
And, before Stella could answer, even if she could be bothered to think up a suitable reply to this daft question ... “Of course, the
language will be no problem for me and Humphrey- we are both fluent.”
Stella smiled to herself. How many times had she heard that? In shops, in markets, at the Mairie where she had accompanied
several of her uninvited guests. Opening her mouth to make the overtures to stall holders, shop assistants, secretaries she would
hear “It’s all right, Stella. I’m bilingual, remember.” And then had to endure the vicarious humiliation as her companions were mocked
behind their backs, amused grimaces sympathetically aimed at her, the hostess. It was so tricky finding a way to intervene before
some really grave misunderstanding arose, and to transmit her anger at the rudeness without her guests noticing that she had taken
offence on their behalf.
Mildred glanced around the small garden.
“Of course we are after something with more land ... room for a swimming pool probably.”
Stella was reminded of the catch phrase in Keeping up Appearances - Hyacinth Bouquet saying of her sister Violet’s
property - “Room for a pony.”
“I hear Planning Permission is a doddle over here ...”
Mildred launched into a discourse of how Humphrey had researched the project thoroughly, calling on his colleagues at the Citizen’s
Advice Bureau, where he worked three days a week now that he had retired ... She droned on and on in her flat tones which must have
bored the pants off her pupils, Stella surmised, wondering at the same time why Mildred was asking her opinion at all, with all this skill -
all this knowledge. Suddenly she cut in ...
“Did you go to the fortieth reunion?” she blurted out .
What she meant was - “Did Joe turn up?”
They had promised each other that if being apart proved too hard, this would be their point of contact, the college reunion, which neither
had attended before. Because, after college, they had gone their separate ways, tried to wipe out the past ...
****************************
Stella and Joe had been inseparable from the age of five, starting school the same day. He had graciously offered her first go on the rocking
horse, a treat for all the tearful first timers at Riddings Mixed Infants’. They had passed the scholarship for the same grammar School,
applied to and been accepted by the same Teacher Training College. Everyone assumed they would marry - especially when Stella took
her final exams sitting a long way back from the desk - because of her fast-swelling belly. For this reason too they had planned to set off
on holiday on the last day of term - without going home first to face their parents’ reactions. They would spend a few weeks alone, relieved
of the stress of college work and talk things through themselves, decide what they wanted to do with no outside interference.
Instead they ended up rowing every day. The cottage they had rented in the hope of a romantic pre honeymoon turned out to be ugly and
ill equipped. Playing house was not the fun they had expected, far removed from shops and with no amenities. Stella felt ill and wretched.
She longed to be spoiled by her mother, to reap the benefits of her adoring father’s wisdom. One day when Joe had stormed off along the
beach in a temper she packed her bag and thumbed a lift to the station.
She arrived home late at night, pale and tearful and flung herself into her mother’s arms.
“Whatever it is, we’ll make it all right, darling,” her father reassured her.
They did not ply her with questions. They cared for her, nurtured her as they always had. Even her sister was tender and discreet.
And she lost the baby anyway.
****************************
“No - it wash a bit of a swash-out actually,” said Mildred.
Stella hid a smile at the slight slurring.
“Only the most boring people from our year - and they jush wanted to show off how well they had done ...”
Stella had to smile again, but this time at herself. She could not help thinking that she and Philip would probably have been
classified thus by Mildred, who could not see that she and Humphrey slotted easily into this category too.
Mildred and Humphrey had both become head teachers. They were childless but apart from that they could have been clones
of the post-Joe Stella and her Philip. They lived in the same kind of house in a similar village, drove similar cars, led the same
pleasant existence with enough money to spare for theatre trips, nice holidays, good clothes ...
******************************
Philip was a good husband, a wonderful father. He knew Stella was not in love with him when he proposed. He had heard rumours
of a previous relationship but never delved. Her father had brought him home from the bank one day.
“This poor fellow has just moved up here,” he explained. “I thought we could fill him in on the delights of our little town over dinner ...”
It was an arranged marriage and it had worked well enough. When the children started to show signs of fleeing the nest, Philip encouraged
Stella to give more time to her passion for family history. That was why she was in London that day ... That was why she found herself in a
pub with her childhood sweetheart, listening as he filled her in with details of his adventures since they had parted. He had taken a teaching
post in Canada but after a few years he found that other careers beckoned. He had tried journalism, advertising, market gardening.
“Gardening” scoffed Stella. “You always swore you would never follow in your father’s footsteps.”
She clapped a hand to her mouth.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Joe - about your parents. Mother wrote to me about the accident.”
“I was still in Canada,” he said. “They had been out for a visit a few weeks before - and Dad was tickled pink that I had
succumbed to the family genes. He suggested I go into business for myself. And the bit of capital they left helped me to do that.”
****************************
Mildred’s mood suddenly changed. She leaned towards Stella.
“My dear, it must have been awful, “ she said. “Coping with cancer here, all on your own ...”
“Well, I did have some marvellous doctors and nurses to see me through it,” murmured Stella. “The Institut Marie Curie
deserves its marvellous reputation, you know.”
She was not sure how to cope with this Mildred, who even had tears in her eyes and seemed genuinely sympathetic.
“How could he leave you like that!” Mildred mopped her face with a large handkerchief, knocking over the empty bottle but not
seeming to notice. “I’m sorry, Stella,” she went on. “I know I’m not supposed to know about Joe - but there was quite a bit of
gossip about it at the Reunion.”
“He didn’t know ...” said Stella.
****************************
How could she tell him about her fears, her symptoms, when he had taken so long to confess to his tragic marriage. Which
had ended when his bride succumbed to cancer after twenty years and twin boys.
“I want you to meet them one day,” he kept saying. “Just as I hope you are going to introduce me to your kids. But not yet, eh?
Let’s enjoy each other for now - this love affair is as long overdue as Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr’s.”
He was referring of course to The End of the Affair, one of their favourite films.
His family - his boys and their progeny - entered more and more into their conversations until he blurted out one day
that he must go back to the States.
****************************
Mildred. stood up shakily. “Just going to the loo. Is the tap water all right to drink, Stella?”
“Well it is, but I’ll get you some bottled.”
Stella stood too and cupped Mildred’s elbow to steady her. To her dismay, her guest swung round and grasped Stella’s arms.
“But a Thai bride, my dear. That must have been the last straw;”
Mildred hurried away and Stella sat down again, reeling under this bombshell.
How could she have been so dense? ... Why had she not put two and two together?
****************************
“It must have been so hard for you and for them,” she recalled saying the night he sobbed in her arms as he told of his
wife’s visit to the doctor’s office.
“The next time I saw her she had no breasts. A year later she was dead.”
“How on earth did you manage - you said the boys were ten then ...”
“A succession of housekeepers,” he said. “The last one was - is - a diamond. She’s still with me - us.”
He got out of bed and went to sluice his face at the washbasin.
“Helps out with the grandchildren, too. I’ve a photo somewhere ...”
He rummaged in the side pockets of the suitcase he had been carrying on that fateful day in Islington. Produced a creased
and crumpled picture of a tiny Asian woman hardly taller than the young lad, spitting image of Joe at Junior school, standing beside
her in front of the Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park.
“Hey - do you remember the Fancy dress dance at college? You as Alice and me the Mad Hatter.”
He put the photo away and got back into bed. “Your beautiful hair,” he sighed, stroking it. “Not quite as red - not quite as long ...”
Their lovemaking put all thoughts of housekeepers and dead wives out of Stella’s head.
****************************
Mildred was back, her face still damp from a determined attempt to sober herself up with a good splash of cold water.
“Ah well,” she sighed. “They say the grass always seems greener on the other side.... But I’m not so sure that applies to the other side
of the Channel. I may go home and tell Humphrey I’ve had a rethink.”
Stella wondered for a moment if the sight of the bidet had put her off. Only for a moment. Because she knew quite well what lay behind
this change of heart. And she had to admit that Mildred was not the fool she had taken her for.
“I might tag along, Millie,” said Stella. ”I’ve still got the cottage in Cornwall. I think it’s time I went home.”