Page 39 of A Midlife Marriage

‘Let whatever comes up rise without judgement. Don’t censor yourself.’

And she tried, she really tried. But what came up was a screaming pain in her inner knee as the ligament stretched beyond memory and endurance. Twisting, her knee clicked and (it felt), fell apart. She grabbed the joint, manoeuvring herself out of hell, back to relief

‘Return to the answer.’

Answer? Helen looked at her phone. She didn’t have one to return to.

‘Ask the same question again. Let more answers unfold. Don’t rush it.’

Don’t rush it? That was a bloody cheek. ‘Can I sit in a chair?’ she said, as she hefted herself back into the armchair.

‘Reflect. What emotions came up during this exercise? How can you honour them? What’s one action you can take next week to start exploring that longing?’

Falling back, Helen pressed pause again and held her phone at her chest. She could start yoga, that’s what she could do. In some draughty hall somewhere, she could honour her knees by starting yoga. Or she could pour another glass of wine? Or, she could go to bed and start again tomorrow, because it didn’t matter how grounded she was, or if her eyes were open or closed, she still would have no idea how to answer such a vague catch-all, ‘what are you longing for’ except with another vague catch -all, ‘I have no idea’.

Frustrated, unrhythmic and not at all aligned, she closed the window, and opened her email, eyes widening in surprise as she read through the subject line of the newly arrived mail:

Admin Director. Stronger Together.

Dear Helen,(she read)

I hope you are well. Forgive this late mail, I had hoped to get round to this earlier, but we had a crisis in our Ecuador clinic that diverted me.

Anyway, I’m mailing to invite you back to meet our chief medical officer, Fiona Chambers. It’s short notice, but could you make Wednesday this week?

26

Almost at the end of the second week of a holiday that had no end, and Kay was still waking at seven, as if her body clock had sensed the permanence of the re-wiring and was staging a fight-back. She closed her eyes against the sun, fingertips padding the lids as she lay listening to her empty house. What a conundrum middle-age was. There were no signposts to tell her which way. Not like childhood … Step this way to grow up … Turn right for university, left for a job.Not like young adulthood …This junction to start looking for a mate, start pro-creating, start collecting twigs (well,Matalan cushions), building your nest. It was almost as if, once a woman reached a certain age, she was expected to just drop off the face of the earth. She sat up and propped herself against her pillow. What was she supposed to do with this almost empty, almost silent nest? What happened with birds? Didn’t they just fly off? And then she was thinking about Helen, and her wall of boxes. Helen who had flown so far, only to come back to a nest she didn’t want to be in. She hadn’t said as much, but it was as clear to Kay as the nose on her face that Helen didn’t want to be back. And theirony of the situation was that Helen had thebest reason in the world to stay, her grandson Ben,and she, Kay,had not much reason at all. And then she was thinking of her parents’ house, the carriage clock on the mantel that had been her mother’s retirement present, keeping time long after her mother’s time had run out.

In a habit that already become worryingly established, she reached for her phone and opened Tinder. She had one new message. Phone propped on her knees, head propped on her pillow she swiped it open.

Hi, what are you up to?

The message,she saw, had been sent at one am in the morning by James, who was fifty-two and liked, football (was there a man in England who didn’t?),onlyat the weekend and often.

Shaking her head she unmatched and then blocked him. In her first Tinder- innocence days, she would have excused one am in the morning as a disrespectful mistake and given James another chance. But Craig had warned her. ‘It’s a booty-call’,he’d said, the first time it had happened. ‘Delete, then block.’ Kay wasn’t sure what had surprised her the most. The fact that here she was, a decade on from her last maths lesson with a young man who had possibly been her most hopeless student, and he was now the teacher and she the lost cause,orthat middle-aged men who only ‘drank at the weekend’, were sending booty calls at one am to middle-aged women they had never met.

Tinder, she was quickly coming to realise was a tin of Quality Street, with a surplus of Toffee Pennys and very few Green Triangles. The app provided a masterclass in emotion and in just a few days she had run the gamut. Amazement as her very first ‘like’ had come in, astonishment and delight, quickly followedby excitement, as more had followed. Bewilderment, as she had read the messages, bemusement and now, already, scepticism. Because how quickly these would-be suitors gave themselves away, how unsavoury and disappointing they turned out to be.

Like Maurice, whose wife had recently died and who was new to Tinder, hoping to give love one last chance. Full of sympathy, Kay had exchanged several messages with him, until he had asked for her number and (remembering Craig’s advice) she had declined. A response that had caused Maurice to vanish swifter than a magician’s rabbit. She’d been left staring at the screen, disbelief turning to anger as she began to understand she had wasted time consoling a liar.

Or Graham. Fifty-five:

A teacher? I love teachers! Do you use a cane?

Or Florin. Fifty-one.

You are being very beautiful.

Or Simon. Forty-nine.

Just don’t tell me you have a cat? You’re too pretty for a cat.

Or Nigel, Fifty-five (but my friends tell me I’m more like forty-five).

You don’t run? Don’t worry, I’ll slow to a walk for you! See if you can keep up

The only profile who hadn’t disappointed, or leapt over boundaries, who had responded in a polite timeframe,consistently amused her, and hadn’t asked for her number, hadn’t in fact typed a letter wrong was, Goose, whom, despite Craig’s insistence, she hadn’t swiped left on.

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