CONSTANCE AND A MAN

If you thought I'd killed Constance off in yesterday's episode, here's proof that I didn't.

“I’m never having one of those pies again!” shuddered Constance to her very part-time assistant Janet Goody. It was Wednesday afternoon, the day after Constance’s thirty-third birthday and she was still pale and sickly-looking after a wretched night of nightmares brought on, she supposed, by a suspicious vegan pie she had eaten for lunch the previous day.

“I like them,” murmured Janet, not without sympathy, “and so do the kids. We’re not vegans, you understand, but there’s not much wrong with vegan stuff. It makes a change from dairy and meat.”

“Anyway, I dreamed that I was dead,” complained Constance, “I dreamed that I was at my own funeral, in my own coffin, and the congregation was cursing me for not having children!”

“That’s probably because you’re cursing yourself,” murmured Janet, “you probably feel that your maternal gene isn’t getting a big enough say in your life.”

“I’m happy as I am,” protested Constance.

But she knew it wasn’t true. She knew there was a huge vacuum in her life and she was equally aware that the clock was running down. Her clock. Her body clock. Soon it would be too late even if she did contrive to trap a man and spend a year or two courting him. And if she did, would he be like her mother had always insisted men were like? Would he be a hairy brute and a bully with something unmentionable low on his body, something that was only there to punish women in a way her soured mother had never been explicit about but which had left Constance with the conviction that it involved pain and possibly even bloodshed.

“I don’t know,” she said after a few minutes silence as Janet helped a young mother find a book on contraception, “I’m scared, if you want to know the truth. Scared of the future.”

“Of men?” asked Janet.

Constance looked surprised. “Not men,” she said, “I don’t think it’s men. We deal with enough men in here, for goodness’ sake, and I quite like most of them. But I’m nervous about being alone with one.”

“They’re mostly old men,” pointed out Janet.

“Not at all!” protested Constance, but she knew it was true. Most of their customers, the readers, were in the pre-Kindle stage of life. They wanted to feel paper when they read whatever it was they did read. And she liked most of them. They could be balmy, yes, and funny and thoughtful and even sometimes lost. She could smile or laugh with them, or even help them find their way. She’d done that with the window cleaner. She’d even let him share her bed for one night.

“I slept with Bert, one night,” she said quietly.

“What? Bert the window cleaner?” asked Janet, her eyes open wide. “I never knew that! What was he like, you know, at stuff?”

“We didn’t … do … anything,” Constance assured her. “It wasn’t like that at all, not like the things the characters in romances get up to behind closed doors. It would have been wrong, so very wrong! His wife, and she can be quite forceful, thought we were having an affair because I was teaching him to read for an hour a week in the evenings. That was all there was to it, but she got the wrong idea and, well, he had nowhere to sleep that one night so I took pity on him. That was all there was to it and he was a perfect gentleman. I’ve only got the one bed, a nice big one, king size, and he kept well away from me.”

Janet’s eyes opened wide. “You slept together in the same bed? Wow!”

“It was totally innocent,” sighed Constance, and almost sadly, “everything I do is totally innocent.”

“Excuse me.”

Neither of them had noticed the man who had entered the library as they were talking, and so intense had been their conversation that they hadn’t even heard the squeak of the library door.

“Sorry,” smiled Constance, “can either of us help you?”

“I need to use one of the computers,” he said, his voice quiet, cultured, his demeanour nervous. He was smartly dressed in an almost casual way, was probably somewhere in his twenties and almost certainly had a nervous disposition.

“Of course, sir,” said Constance, “are you a member?”

“Of the library?” he asked, looking nervously troubled, “No, I don’t think I am, though I am a householder and I do pay my taxes.”

Constance nodded, “Just fill in this card,” she proffered the simple membership card for local residents, “and you can be off to googleland in an instant!”

“Thank you,” he replied, taking the card. “Is it usually this quiet in here?”

“It can sometimes be like Piccadilly Circus!” joked Janet, “you can never tell when, though.”

“I like quiet places,” he said, nervously, “what do I do? Switch one on a get started?”

“It’s easy,” smiled Constance, “the Internet’s a big thing and you can find out anything you like! Do you need any help?”

“Maybe you could show me...”

“Of course,” murmured Constance. “Janet, I’ll go and see what the gentleman wants and you take the helm!”

“Best of luck!” winked Janet.

“Don’t!” hissed Constance.

She led the customer towards the array of three computers, none of which were in use, and switched one on.

“I’ve never used one of these before,” he confessed.

“Crikey!” grinned Constance, “you must be the only man on the planet who hasn’t”

“I suppose so,” he sighed, “but I’ve reached a crisis in my life and if I don’t sort it out I can’t see… much of a future for me...”

“You can’t be in as much turmoil as me,” replied Constance, “only last night I dreamed I was at my own funeral!”

He looked at her surprised, “goodness me,” he exclaimed, “that’s taking worry a bit far! What was it? A quarrel at home? Husband trouble?”

“No. A vegan pie,” she grinned, “it didn’t agree with me. And anyway I’m not married.”

“You too?” he said, looking surprised, “that’s what I came in here for. A friend told me...”

“What? That the library is manned by single ladies of the right age?” she asked.

“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that at all! About the Internet and dating. I was told you can find people on the Internet if you look at sites for dating.”

“Oh, that,” Constance had tried looking on the Internet for that sort of thing when she’d had time on her hands and was feeling lonely but hadn’t got very far. She hadn’t wanted to put an image of herself on the web where anyone could find it and see her desperation. “I wouldn’t,” she said, quietly, “well, I found it intrusive. Sort of. And you never know who’s going to reply and whether they’re even the same sex, if you’ll excuse the word, as you’re looking for.”

“You’ve used a computer to find … friendship?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m telling you too much about myself,” she confessed. “But yes, I sometimes feel a gap in my life and it I sometimes think it’s the sort of gap that a good friend might fill...”

“That’s me, exactly. I mean, it’s how I feel!” he exclaimed. “I guess I’ve had a strange life up to now. You see, I had a solitary childhood so I did a lot of reading and, well, I think I must be shy.”

“You don’t seem it,” she commented, “you seem rather nice, to be frank.”

“How did you know?” he asked, looking surprised.

“Know what?” The question had surprised her.

“That my name is Frank?”

“I didn’t.”

“You said to be frank..”

“It’s a saying. I’m sorry. I didn’t look at the card to see what your name is. I was just happy that you’d filled it in.”

“Well, I’m Frank Brownadder,” he said, smiling, “and it’s really nice to meet you.”

“Oh good God,” exclaimed Constance, her eyes open suddenly wide, and then, without further ado she collapsed, in glorious slow motion, to the floor, where she lay still.

© Peter Rogerson 20.01.18