Page 21 of Old Girls Behaving Badly

‘Please don’t be impressed.’

‘No, you’re right. So, Gina,’ she said after a moment. ‘You were saying about growing up in Bushy Park. How did that happen?’

‘My parents were living in a grotty flat in Teddington with me and my brother. I was five at the time. They’d heard about an old prefab the Americans had left after the war and it was in the parkland. So we and two other families took it over and made it home for a few short years. It was a happy time,’ I said and almost wish she hadn’t asked. It had been a happy time, but it all went wrong shortly after.

‘That sounds wonderful,’ Dorothy said. ‘Idyllic, but does that mean officially you were squatters?’

‘Yes.’ I laughed. ‘I suppose we were – not that I would have understood that at the time. They made it such a lovely home and with the deer park as my front garden, it was great.’

‘And you mentioned your marriage earlier. If it’s not being pushy, can I ask what happened?’

‘You, pushy? Perish the thought,’ I said and she laughed.

‘Touché.’

‘After forty-five years of marriage, two children and two grandchildren, he decided I wasn’t the one for him. He said he couldn’t understand what had brought him to this place in his life and if this was all there was, then what was the point. He also said he needed to find himself.’

I began my statement with a matter-of-fact tone, but as I got to the last few words I had to swallow, hard.

‘My goodness, how very disappointing of him,’ Dorothy said. ‘I’m generalising here, I do realise, but women tend to find themselves through friendships and activity, through reading and learning. I think men tend to need some sort of justification for existing through sex.’

There was a beat of silence while we digested those words before Dorothy added her caveat: ‘Not all men, of course.’

‘My son asked me if I thought there was someone else and I suppose it’s entirely possible. His letter suggested that I was beige and unexciting, like I said earlier, so it would make sense.’

‘And like I said earlier, you are neither of those things,’ Dorothy said.

‘I think there is some truth in it, though. I’m not being self-deprecating,’ I added quickly as Dorothy opened her mouth to speak. ‘I’ve let myself go a bit. I don’t worry about my clothes much; I rarely buy anything new. I don’t colour my hair any more or wear much make-up. I can’t remember the last time I looked at myself in the mirror and felt pleased with what I saw.’

‘Oh, Gina, that makes me so sad to hear you say that. It’s not all about looks, but you do have wonderful skin. You are very attractive.’

As she said this, my left hand reached involuntarily to my right arm and to the damaged skin under my sleeve, and I suppressed a shudder.

‘One assumes he was happy with how you looked for the majority of your marriage?’

‘Yes, I suppose,’ I said. ‘He did used to compliment me. He used to say how lucky he was to have such a lovely wife who doted on him. God! How pathetic that sounds. The thing is for the first time in my life I will be living alone and can please myself, but…’ I paused while I tried to get to the heart of what I really wanted to say. ‘I’ve only ever looked after other people. It sounds lovely doesn’t it, to please oneself, but I don’t really know how.’

‘There are different ways to deal with that situation. You can decide to be unhappy and abandoned or you can embrace an opportunity, shake off the shackles of marriage, because that is really what it is to be married and raise children, as a woman, to constantly look after those you love.’

‘But you were happy with Philip, weren’t you?’ I asked her, surprised at her views.

‘Yes, of course, but I didn’t know that marriage, for a woman, equated to signing up to a lifetime of servitude,’ she said with a smile, as if in full acceptance of her role. ‘What did you expect when you said yes to your husband?’

I thought about that for a moment and felt a bit embarrassed by my answer.

‘I don’t really remember much about that time, to be honest.’

‘Ah, young love; I remember it well,’ she said.

I opened my mouth to tell her that it wasn’t like that, but she’d started talking about my new-found freedom again.

‘Anyway, you can take off whenever and wherever you like, start a new hobby or pick up an old one. You could write a book, take up a dance class or find a new bloke; lucky you.’

‘Dorothy, you could do the same, you know.’

‘Ah, well, you see it’s different for me at the moment. I was lost when Philip went. I couldn’t produce the art that I’d always loved so much. I could barely be bothered to pull a pan out of the cupboard and cook myself a proper meal. It wasn’t just about his death; it was because of Leonard. The thought of him orchestrating what he did, to have what he wanted at any cost, eats away at me. What I’m suggesting for you, is what I’d be suggesting for myself – possibly not the dancing or the bloke, though. And I will, once I have justice for Philip. It consumes me, you know, this need for the truth. But, when it’s over, and I do have faith that we will be successful this week, then I will allow myself to become a woman content on her own. I know I can do it once I’ve shaken off this anger. And, Gina, I know you can do it too.’

‘Dorothy, my friend, you are so insightful and offer up such an impassioned speech with a great argument for independence without shackles and yet, somehow I’m feeling myself even more compelled than ever to do your bidding and find this painting for you. Bravo.’