Overlapping Lives Read online

  ‘Not this one, maybe the next. The one about the bloke in the gallery who thought I was more interesting than the pictures.’ She giggled, ‘I’m going to Belsize Park as well.’

  ‘When we get there let me buy you a drink. I didn’t mean to intrude in the exhibition. So I owe you an apology, but we were standing very close together.’

  ‘Yes. It was quite intimate. But then I thought you were nearly as interesting as the pictures.’ Am I interesting? wondered Ben. He was middle-aged with a receding hairline, blue eyes and a wide mouth. His face was kind and not yet wrinkled. He liked to keep himself fit and carried no extra weight.

  ‘Worth stalking onto the underground?’ he suggested and smiled encouragingly.

  ‘Maybe,’ she agreed and giggled again. Her face was very pretty when she laughed. She rummaged in the backpack, retrieved the huge spectacles and peered at him through them. Her eyes were grey, her pupils dilated. The train pulled out of Chalk Farm and a few minutes later they were disgorged at Belsize Park. They took the lift to the sunlit street and walked up the hill past the shops and cafés to a bar with tables outside it. They ordered glasses of white wine.

  ‘What did you buy in the gallery?’ asked Ben.

  ‘You’re very observant,’ she said. Ben explained that it had struck him as odd to buy things before looking at the exhibition. Most people did it the other way round. ‘I need a text on Italian art. It’s the Veronese exhibition next.’

  ‘That’s what I meant to see today,’ he admitted. ‘Come with me next week and you can guide me through it. Then I’ll buy you lunch. My name is Ben. What are you called?’

  ‘Catherine. I get Thursdays off. I work in the florist’s over the road most days. It pays the rent, just about.’ They exchanged emails and agreed to meet at eleven the following Thursday in the foyer of the Sainsbury Wing. The encounter had been bewildering. Ben could not remember connecting with someone so readily and not entirely by coincidence. Catherine had contrived to be on the train with him. A woman who took risks; he was uncertain whether he should be alarmed or flattered. He went to the supermarket in Belsize Park to buy food for later and returned to the tube and Euston.

  They met at eleven the following Thursday. Catherine was looking as pretty as before. The weather was warm and everyone had dressed more sparsely, mostly tee-shirts and jeans. Catherine’s outfit accentuated her slimness, which was attractive.

  ‘You’re looking lovely,’ Ben complimented her. ‘Thank you,’ she replied, ‘a little sunshine makes all the difference. Everyone looks better when they aren’t disguised in winter clothes.’ They bought tickets and stood briefly in the queue for the Veronese exhibition. It was a colourful affair full of huge canvases depicting grandiose, historical events. They wandered through the exhibition rooms and an hour later emerged into Trafalgar Square, still bathed in sunshine.

  ‘Lunch,’ announced Ben. ‘Soho.’

  ‘That sounds exotic,’ said Catherine, ‘I don’t know Soho. You’ll have to be my escort. Oh, and I’m veggie.’

  ‘Not sure about exotic. I’m afraid it’s all a bit sanitised now. Just hang on to your wallet.’ They found a vegetarian restaurant near Soho Square. They sat at a table in the window with a view of the passing hordes outside and ordered wine.

  ‘What do you do when you’re not selling flowers or going to galleries?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Not very much; my partner and I split up recently. I’m still feeling rather bruised by the experience. At present, I’m on my own wondering where it all went wrong. We’d been together for years. But selling flowers is lovely. My friend owns the shop. I work there most days and do the art course part-time, which is a long-term ambition. What about you?’

  ‘I’m in banking, between jobs at the moment. They make you stay away for three months before starting a new job so you don’t export corporate secrets. I’ve got two more months to do before they’ll allow me to start at the new place. I’m temporarily adrift. My wife walked out last month after ten years together. She’s a solicitor. There was a woman living in our village that she spent a lot of time with but didn’t seem to get on with me. She announced that she was gay and had found a gay lover who turned out to be the woman in the village: all rather surprising really. They’re living in Clapham. I still love her which makes it more difficult than had the decision been mutual. I suppose I need to find a way to accept the situation and get a new life. Fifty is not a great age for this sort of thing. At the moment I’m living alone in a large, old house too big for me in a village in Buckinghamshire. I spend a lot of time coming to London to be among people, and it’s rather good to have met you. I never thought of the gallery as a place to meet new people. Life’s full of surprises, some better than others.’ Ben smiled wistfully.

  ‘Yes,’ Catherine acknowledged, ‘that does sound difficult. Are you still friends with your wife or has it been acrimonious?’

  ‘We talk, but she’s very bound up with her new lover who refuses to admit I exist, so there’s a spot of tension.’

  ‘Having been through it, I do think it’s important to be able to part company without anger or resentment. Couples who come apart do seem to have a way of making life more difficult for themselves than they need to. Life’s too short for rancour. I’m a believer in kindness. If being unkind was a criminal offence the world would be a better place. We all need to get on with our lives. I keep reminding myself I’m only forty-one and have only me to please.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right. The main obstacle at the moment is my ex-wife’s partner. I get the impression she is a rather committed lesbian and doesn’t want to acknowledge my wife’s heterosexual past. Part of that is denying my existence. As you say, life goes on.’

  Catherine looked at Ben knowingly. ‘Mind you, for a gay woman, someone’s wife is quite a trophy.’

  They ate salads made of novel ingredients: roots, nuts and bitter leaves all dressed in delicate sauces and vinaigrettes. After lunch, they lingered over the remains of the wine, chatting about the eclectic variations of sexual identity which paraded past the window, guessing at what they might be. When it was time to go Ben said:

  ‘Thanks for coming today. It’s been really enjoyable. What about doing it again?’

  ‘I’d like that. I’m confined to Thursdays at the moment. My favourite gallery’s the National Portrait Gallery. Let’s go there next week. Then you can buy me lunch again.’

  It became a summer of galleries: Whitechapel, Dulwich, the Tates, the National and the Royal Academy. Occasionally, Ben had invitations to private viewings at expensive galleries in Cork Street, where the wealthy eyed the prices of extravagant works of modern art with a glass or two of Champagne. They were good excuses to spend more time with Catherine and look at more pictures which otherwise she might not see.

  Catherine enjoyed her freedom and independence too much to allow herself to be drawn into a new relationship but knew that she found Ben’s company entertaining. Towards the end of the summer Ben had to start his new job and his time was absorbed by the city and long hours making a great deal of money. When the weekday galleries and lunches ceased to be a possibility, he decided it was time to see if Catherine would visit Buckinghamshire at the weekends. He enticed her with walks in the Chilterns, barbecues in the garden and country pubs. Catherine was sufficiently fond of him to feel a need to help him through the sadness he still felt at the departure of his wife. She had an urge to dispense kindness.

  Ben was deeply beguiled by Catherine. When not distracted by his new work, he ruminated on the thought of incorporating Catherine more completely into his life. Her independent spirit appealed to him; her forthrightness, kindness and deepening knowledge of art made her company enjoyable. Her slim, pretty, compact body; her wide, ready smile and grey eyes behind the headlight spectacles became an irresistible image he kept with him. Weekends with her in Buckinghamshire
became an idyllic phantasy: building bonfires in the garden as autumn advanced, cooking together in his cavernous, tiled kitchen, cosy winter evenings on the sofa together in front of the fire and eventually bed and Catherine’s alluring body. Catherine agreed. She did not want to hinder the relationship but she was reticent about sleeping arrangements. In her frank way she made this clear. Ben was not in a hurry. He was overjoyed at the prospect of driving Catherine out of London on Friday evening and installing her in his warm, beamed house, letting her choose one of the bedrooms to occupy, opening the first bottle of the evening to celebrate her arrival. Before long it happened just as he had planned.

  On the appointed Friday evening Ben drove north through the frenetic traffic to Belsize Park. Catherine was waiting for him on the pavement outside the florist’s shop. She wore a short, neatly pleated, dark blue skirt. Her bare legs were white and slim. Ben stowed her brightly patterned holdall in the boot of the car. They got in and kissed briefly. Catherine had exchanged the headlight spectacles for a pair with large, round lenses with wire frames which lightened her face and made her eyes look bigger.

  They drove north, chatting congenially about the week; the eye-watering sums of money people spent on flowers; Catherine’s last assignment on the art course; the stock market and politics. Ben said he would need to spend some time mowing and tidying up the garden because there was no time in the week. An hour later they turned into the gates to Ben’s house. The Buckinghamshire red brick glowed in the early evening sunshine; the house was square with large well-proportioned windows on two storeys. Garden surrounded the house on all four sides. Behind the house, a lawn mown in tidy stripes, stretched thirty yards to the boundary wall. Ben unlocked the substantial front door and ushered Catherine into the hall in the centre of which a broad staircase led up to a galleried landing and the bedrooms.

  ‘Welcome to my too-big house,’ announced Ben. He showed Catherine round the house and she installed herself in a comfortable bedroom at the rear of the landing next to Ben’s. Catherine came downstairs to the kitchen where Ben was hauling the cork from a bottle of white wine. He poured two glasses, handed one to Catherine and sipped.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ said Ben, ‘we shall have a quiet weekend. I hope you aren’t anticipating anything too riotous.’

  ‘It’s lovely to be here.’ She moved closer and hugged Ben. ‘I’m getting dangerously fond of you but please don’t ask me to sleep with you,’ she paused, ‘yet.’

  ‘My darling,’ he said spontaneously, ‘your presence alone makes me happy. I’ve got used to being on my own. My wife and I slept together right up until she left, but the sex died ages ago. With hindsight, I suppose I should have known. When the sex dies it’s the end of the relationship. But it’s hard to see what’s going on from the inside. Anyone watching could probably have told us to pack it in months ago.’ He smiled, ‘Of course, the converse is that when the sex begins it’s the start of the relationship.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Catherine looked thoughtful. ‘I think we have a relationship. And you need something to anticipate, otherwise you’ll stop trying. And I like being the object of desire.’ He hugged her harder.

  ‘I promise to keep desiring you. It’s very easy.’ Then they kissed slowly and softly.

  ‘That was nice,’ Catherine smiled. ‘I’d forgotten what it’s like. I think it’s time I told you. My partner was a woman. I’ve been gay since I was a teenager, but I think there’s also part of me which is straight, so I don’t want to spoil what we have at the moment. In fact, I’m less and less certain that having to be defined as gay, or whatever, is logical. I think, in reality, we’re all on a sort of continuum; most of us are somewhere in the middle.’ Ben smiled in unsuspecting realisation.

  ‘I think that makes you more fascinating than ever. I really had no idea. But then I’m not sure how I would have known.’ He thought about her small idiosyncrasies, her matter-of-factness and her alluring eyes. Nothing seemed to have betrayed the exotic truth. The uncertainty, the not knowing, made Catherine delectable.

  They cooked companionably. Catherine was expert at creating complicated salads from the copious ingredients in Ben’s fridge. She fried peppers, garlic, charlottes and mushrooms. Not eating his usual carnivorous diet made Ben feel virtuous. When Catherine’s colourful, culinary creations were on the table in the kitchen she looked at Ben.

  ‘I knew I had to tell you about my gay past, but I really don’t want it to change anything between us. Telling you had to be a bit of a gamble. You must tell me if it’s a problem. The obvious thing is sex. I’m not sure I can cope with that yet. I think I’ll need time before taking my clothes off with a man again. I was about seventeen when I last did that. It’s been girls ever since.’

  ‘It’s certainly not a problem. I’m too fond of your company to want to change anything.’ Ben laughed quietly, ‘It’s rather ironic that I must’ve been sleeping with a gay woman for ages. I don’t think my sexuality antennae can be very sensitive.’

  Ben fell in love with Catherine and told her so often. Catherine craved Ben’s company all week, until she saw his car stopping outside the florist’s shop every Friday evening, and clambered in to Ben’s eager embrace. She no longer needed the holdall because she kept her weekend clothes in the house in Buckinghamshire. They were careful to remind each other of their deepening affection and frequently talked about how they felt. There was lots of hugging, but Catherine continued to sleep in the bedroom next to Ben’s. The countryside cooled as the autumn advanced and the light faded earlier and earlier. They spent the evenings sitting very close together on the sofa in front of a pile of burning logs in the fireplace in Ben’s warm sitting room with books, newspapers and sometimes the TV. Their intimacy enthralled them, but Catherine knew that she would not be able to function sexually in bed with Ben, and preserved the bedtime boundaries. She promised him that she loved him and sooner or later she would know when it felt right to be unclothed with him. Ben believed in love and sustained himself with the conviction that their love would bring them together physically in time because that was how human nature worked.

  Cold, wet November dwindled into a freezing December. Christmas beckoned them to Buckinghamshire, away from the vulgarity of the commodified, urban season. The florist’s shop stayed open until Christmas Eve, dispensing expensive, colourful wreaths and gaudy seasonal vegetation. Ben collected Catherine as usual and they drove north to the warm kitchen and welcoming hearth of Ben’s house. They would not need to return to London until the New Year. Catherine took charge of the kitchen. She had planned a vegetarian Christmas. Ben had stocked the fridge with Champagne, which he liked to have on Christmas morning but Christmas Eve was a good time to start. They ate, drank slightly too much and watched a mindless DVD. Before they retired to their solitary beds, Catherine said:

  ‘In the morning, my love, I want you to stay in bed. I haven’t actually bought you anything, but I’m going to bring you your Christmas present in bed.’ Ben raised his eyebrows expectantly. Catherine smiled knowingly and disappeared to her bedroom. Ben remembered he had bought Catherine an expensive necklace from a modern jeweller in Covent Garden. It was made of strands of white and red gold, woven together in a complex chain. He stayed in the kitchen, quietly wrapping the box in gold paper, wondering about Catherine’s cryptic instructions. They seemed to have arrived at a tipping point. He did not believe in Christmas as a religious festival, but it was an excuse for kindness and generosity. Later, he wandered off to bed happily, feeling a little the worse for wear after the Champagne, and slept soundly.

  Ben was woken on Christmas morning by sounds of activity from the neighbouring bedroom. Remembering Catherine’s instructions, he got out of bed rapidly, went to the bathroom to pee, cleaned his teeth, drew the curtains in the bedroom and looked briefly at the frozen countryside and bright, blue winter sky. He got back into bed, enjoying the warmth beneath the duv
et and waited.

  Next door, Catherine emerged from the shower smelling fragrantly feminine. She dried her hair and went to look for the pyjamas which she needed for her plan. The pyjamas were colourful and absurd, covered in pictures of reindeer and Christmas trees. She wanted to look gift wrapped. On a piece of card from the florist’s shop she had written in silver ink: ‘To Ben. Happy Christmas. Love from Catherine.’ There was a hole in the corner of the card through which she threaded a broad, red ribbon. She pulled the pyjamas on, which were too big, and tied the ribbon round her waist. The effect was what she intended; she looked like a Christmas present. Barefoot, she padded next door to pay her promised visit to her lover. Catherine knocked quietly on Ben’s door, stepped inside and closing the door behind her said:

  ‘Happy Christmas, my love. I’ve brought you your Christmas present.’ Ben pulled himself up on the pillows to inspect his visitor.

  ‘Happy Christmas, my darling. Come here and let me give you a Christmas kiss.’ They kissed blissfully. Catherine sat on the side of the bed. Ben said: ‘Am I allowed to open my present now?’

  Catherine smiled happily. ‘I think you should.’ Ben pulled at the bow in the red ribbon tied round Catherine’s narrow waist. One by one, he undid the pyjama buttons and removed the top. Catherine stood up, small breasted and slim. Ben pulled the cord holding the bottoms up, which fell on the carpet round Catherine’s ankles. She stepped out of them, stood naked by the bed for a moment, lifted the edge of the duvet and slid underneath. Ben embraced her ecstatically. They spent a long time exploring their sensual skin, finding each other’s intimate crevices. Ben knew that Catherine’s present was the most generous thing she could give him; he also knew that later she would sacrifice her virginity all over again.