I really can’t imagine anything worse than having a bunch of complete bloody strangers wandering round my home. And yet every year, in dozens of towns up and down the country, people throw open their doors and willingly surrender themselves to precisely such an intrusion when they have those dreadful Open Houses, and every Tom, Dick and Harry can come shambling in and admire the artistic endeavours of the home-owner who’s half a term into an evening class in Watercolour at the local Tech. What really gets my goat is the way the weekend bohemians who host these things swan around the place as if they’re bloody Velázquez, when the actual stuff that’s up on the walls is about as sophisticated as a potato print. And it’s perfectly clear that the only reason anyone’s calling in is not to admire their gnarled lumps of pottery or home-made hats, but to have a gander at the size of the garden, or see what things look like with the sitting-room wall knocked through.
Perhaps I’m just plain antisocial. Certainly, I like to have some say over who comes and goes. All I know is that for those first few days after John’s death it felt as if the house’s fortifications had been breached and that I was overrun by the barbarian hordes. People were ringing and booking themselves in for a little visit. Others would just show up, unannounced. And they all needed to be fed and watered. Or at least to have their solemn half-hour in my company. My home became a sort of shrine. Until, after four or five days, at Ginny’s insistence, I just let the phone ring. Then crept out at midnight and locked the front gates.
Putting aside the actual intrusion, I simply didn’t have the strength to be dealing with other people’s emotion. Not that they came around, I’m sure, with the intention of offloading all their grief onto me. They would just start talking and within a couple of minutes they’d fall apart. It was all quite genuine and heartfelt. But after it happened for the tenth or twelfth time I began to think to myself, What the hell am I doing counselling all these bloody people? I’ve got my own grief to be getting on with.
And, I must admit, I pretty quickly got pretty sick of hearing all the wonderful things people had to say about John. What a wonderful raconteur/good listener/generous soul he was. Really? I’d think to myself. My John? It was quite something to witness this man I’d known all my adult life being sanctified. And to such a degree that once or twice I was sorely tempted to point out a few of his less appealing habits. Not that it would’ve done any good.
And everyone had their own little story of when they last saw him and, in their own clumsy way, was determined to try and draw some significance from that final conversation. As if John had somehow known what was coming and had dropped something prescient, and even valedictory, into their exchange, regarding that new cheese shop up on Malden Street or the possibility of getting the house rewired.
But what I wasn’t expecting – and, frankly, why on earth would I have been? – were the offers of sex. Five in all, and all five made within ten days of John dying. Two from close friends or relatives on John’s side; the other three from husbands of friends of mine.
I’ve since had apologies from two parties. Mumbled, stumbling little speeches, with minimum eye contact – just like most apologies, I suppose – but neither one offering any real insight into their motives. I mean, were these offers made on a charitable basis? As a sort of little pick-me-up? Or should I conclude that all five of them had had their eyes on me for years? Had just been too polite to make a move whilst my husband was still living and breathing, but now suddenly saw me as fair game?
Who knows? In my kinder moments I’m inclined to think that it must just be some strange phenomenon born out of the circumstances. Sex being the only obvious refuge in the face of Death. And perhaps I’m not in a position to be too critical. All the same, allowing me to complete my first month’s mourning might have been an idea. Just to show that they were, y’know, the sensitive type.