I WAS A LITTLE tired of all this, a little dejected. I had occasionally thought of throwing in the towel, this search appearing at times futile and possibly hopeless. I put my tea down on the table by me and took in the peaceful orangery I was sitting in, the warm colours, the small couch furnished with multicoloured cushions covered with old Japanese fabric; the large paintings on the walls and the small Art Deco side tables; the enveloping cream-coloured armchair I was in by the window and the long cherry wood table I could write at: some files were piled up on one side, a golden lamp stood on the other, and if I put a thick cushion on the chair in front of it I was then able to work as well as properly own this space, the birds and the squirrels, all this belonged to me… By the right foot of my chair, near the secateurs and my somewhat muddy garden shoes, was a bag of seeds I kept there for the birds, and raisins for my familiar blackbirds: everything was relationship.

I WOULD LIKE to tell him, THE MAN, whoever he may be, that I went to the cinema yesterday to see an Australian film, and since the afternoon was devoted to pleasure, bought one hundred grams of jelly beans, loose, from the sweet counter, to be savoured with the relish of guilt during the performance; they were in fact devoured by the end of too many trailers… Then I nearly fell asleep a quarter of the way through but startled myself into alertness to rejoice as the film finally bloomed… I had an unusual glass of wine on my return, being normally sober in deed if not in thought, and lost myself in contemplation of the outlandish purple gladioli on the mantelpiece: could I tell him how I had changed my mind about gladioli? I had judged them pompous and arrogant in the past, so sure did they seem of their nobility. Supercilious, they looked down on you -a lower class of being- ever aspiring to sublime height and style, as if human fingers should remain low on the stem, never to soil the aristocratic silk …until one day my friend Marianne painted their portrait and I understood the other subtler features, the natural grace, the spiritual elegance, the individual striving of each single bloom to join in the slowly developing climax …so there they were, in my living-room, understood and appreciated. Five stems for ninety-nine pence at Morrison’s.

I COULD TELL him the cat had to have five teeth removed the other day and looked poorly and sorry for 48 hours, until he found his appetite again and finally enough lust for life to bring in a garden mouse that he played with all night, keeping me awake. I didn’t mind, I thought it funny, I was happy for him if not for the mouse which I managed to catch in the morning, right from under his nose, and release in the middle of the garden, under the ivy…

WOULD HE BE interested to know that I was planning a trip to Edinburgh now the festival was over, by myself for once, which I am normally loath to do – to see an exhibition of sculpture by Ron Mueck? I was in awe of Mueck’s work which I had seen previously in London two years before, the way that, not quite a plagiarist, he presented the human body on either a vast or minute scale but intimately, provoking a stunned contemplation of ourselves. I would go by train, with a good book, find myself a reasonable hotel, and take the two days as they came. It would be my first visit to the city in forty years, since my ex-husband Paul’s first exhibition at the Traverse Gallery, which allowed us to spend a long week-end there. We were just married and so called it a honeymoon, although there was no sex, but that is another story. It was freezing and we had to keep putting money in the meter slot in our hotel room to stay warm. There was no slot for Paul.

COULD I TELL him I’d visited my G.P. recently because of having felt dizzy on a few occasions? I had known my doctor for well over twenty years and had stuck with him in spite of moving areas because we liked each other and I respected him in spite of his grumpy moods. I had been concerned that my dizziness was age- related or a symptom of something dire, but he reassured me, mentioning my inner ear. Would I dare say that, as he examined one ear, his other hand gently and deliberately cupped my other cheek, which I noted was unnecessary but tender, and so I welcomed it, almost closing my eyes? I might tell him I had looked again at my book on Magritte’s, to be entertained at first, but led to wonder if his work, as the other Surrealists’, hadn’t been the by-product of the First World War, a time when familiar reality had been so shattered, its centre of gravity exploded, as to be judged incoherent and represented as such. Peoples who haven’t lived through such disintegration never need step into the absurd, do they? What did he think? He. Him. Who didn’t sit at my table or hold my hand, who didn’t talk to me. Whose place was empty in my bed. Whose absence left me cold all over…

IMAGINING, IF NOT anticipating, being in love again filled me, simultaneously, with a nervous anxiety similar to fear of flying, a balloon released to unknown winds… I knew that I could again lay myself open to exploitation and betrayal because I was (we are?) when I loved, childlike: love is childlike, child’s play, all that appears is a given, and then… A large sticker across my heart warned: FRAGILE. It was the same with friendship, allegiance: there had been the visit to my flat once- at my invitation- of Tina, the psychotherapist who had been my supervisor during my training as a counsellor. I had great regard for her subtle judgement and insight and she praised my work at the time, which made me feel valued. I had gone to her for help, three years previously, at a time when I had felt at my lowest and needed to pour my heart out to a witness who not only knew me but understood what I was going through. Her subsequent visit a year later had been my opportunity to show her how well and full of energy I now was, and the healing comfort I drew from living in a wonderful place full of light and views on beautiful trees. We had tea, chatted amicably, I was keen to show her that I was now better equipped for happiness or at least contentment, that I felt I had a future at last. When she got up to leave and I opened the front door for her, she stopped on the doorstep for a moment, looked at the steps that separated my flat from the pavement above and said: -These will be difficult, soon. Still, you won’t need to go out every day…

THE NEXT MESSAGE I listened to on my voicemail belonged to Mick, six foot three, green eyes and fit, a retired graphic designer who for thirty years had his own consultancy and now worked from home, as he pleased. He was divorced with two girls of twenty-two and twenty-seven. He enjoyed the good things in life, eating, cooking, travelling, and now did a bit of painting and visited galleries. He also liked films. He used to play rugby but had now converted to golf. He took occasional holidays. What he wanted was someone to share all these things with: his voice, on my voice mail, had risen to capital letters, “to SHARE these experiences”; his loneliness reached me, echoing mine. So I was sitting again at the terrace of “Bruises” that September Wednesday morning, when I saw Mick crossing the road at the pedestrian crossing exactly opposite me. He had exclaimed, when we spoke on the telephone and decided to meet:

– I know! I shall wear my striped t-shirt, very colourful, vertical stripes of blue, red and cream, you can’t miss me in that!

IF IT SOUNDED like a flag, I was pleased at the thought of an older man in a t-shirt, better than a three-piece suit any day, this wasn’t a gentleman’s club occasion; I welcomed the fact that he was six foot three, I like tall men, and I didn’t mind ‘follically challenged’; slim with green eyes and fit-looking would do fine.

WE SMILED AS we shook hands, and I swallowed hard in astonishment: I had before me a younger version -he hadn’t mentioned his age but I suspected we were contemporaries -of my daughter’s father, David, who was thirteen years older than me, which made him eighty now. I no longer talked about him and would hate him more if I despised him less, for his shallowness and cruelty, his total lack of a moral code and complete indifference to the consequences of his actions. I had for many years forbidden him access to my home since, a long time before, having to save myself from him and my unhealthy passion. Only my daughter sees him, seldom, reluctantly and dutifully.

DAVID’S EYES; his mouth nearly, the way it shaped almost into a beak on pronouncing certain sounds; his colouring and height; his bald head and side hair… The nonchalant manner he had as he walked, crossing the street, which belonged to tall men at ease with their bodies; the way he sat, wrists resting on his knees, rocking slightly as he spoke. There was a man called Mick underneath all that… I had to find out about Mick, I had to be reassured.