Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach

it quiet, like a cot death.
    For his friends had rallied round. The break-up of his marriage had opened its curtains to the world; they all weighed in with their honest opinions of Pia, opinions they had kept to themselves all these years. He agreed with most of them, of course –
she was so blooming right-on … humour bypass … so Scandinavian … banging on about women’s rights … making you look a twat
. There was a sense of male solidarity in this, and a sort of uneasy hilarity. A lesbian! In a weird way, it was a relief. After all, it was no reflection on Harold.
    ‘I always thought she was a muff-diver,’ said Dennis, one of his less reconstructed friends. ‘That’s why she was so bloody rude.’ In fact, she was rude to Dennis because she thought he was an arse but Harold kept quiet; he was fond of Dennis, they had been to primary school together, and though they had little in common they would have laid down their lives for each other.
    Some of his women friends were simply sorry for him.
    ‘How are you going to cope?’ asked Annie. ‘The garden. The hens. She always did everything.’
    ‘I did pull my weight, you know,’ said Harold irritably. ‘I did all the financial stuff. And her computer, and the remotes, she never got the hang of SkyPlus. And I shopped, she hated shopping, and, oh, all sorts of things. I’m not completely useless.’
    ‘No.’ Annie looked at him, her head on one side. ‘Not completely.’
    They burst out laughing. It was refreshing; he hadn’t laughed for weeks. Annie was an old friend, a big, warm woman; they had taught together at Holloway College. Her lovelife had been a series of disastrous affairs with men who had turned out to be manic-depressives, or shits, or both. He and Pia used to give her advice from the safety of their marriage; now he had joined her in the wilderness. It was a terrifying prospect; he had thought he’d been safe for life. At some point, would he have to start
dating
again? Such a stomach-churning word. What did one do: meet women in wine bars or something? Take them to the cinema and drape one’s arm casually around their shoulder? He was far too rusty – if, that is, he had ever known how to do it in the first place. When he was young people just got drunk or stoned and found themselves in bed with somebody, whether they liked them or not. And then he had somehow tumbled into marriage with his first wife because that’s what one did, then. Now he was fifty-six and the thought of getting to know a woman all over again filled him with a panic-stricken desolation.
    ‘There’s something wrong with that hen,’ said Annie.
    They were standing in the garden, gazing into the pen. One of the chickens was hunched in the corner.
    ‘She’s just depressed,’ said Harold.
    ‘That’s projection,’ said Annie, who went to a Jungian analyst. ‘Forget about yourself for a moment.’ She cooed through the fence, ‘You poor girl.’
    ‘Why does everybody call them
girls
? They’re fucking hens.’
    ‘Don’t take it out on me,’ snapped Annie. ‘I’m not your wife.’
    Harold apologised. ‘The trouble is, she’s left me with all these
things
. The hens, the cat. It’s got some infection in its eye, it’s gone all sticky. And look at the weeds.’ He gestured around. ‘Why do they grow faster than plants?’
    ‘They’re not
things
,’ said Annie. ‘They’re animals and vegetables. You just have to look after them.’
    In fact Harold had done some weeding in the past. When
Jazz Record Requests
was on he had weeded around the back door, where he could hear the radio from the kitchen. But Pia had accused him of pulling up her camomile so he had stopped. And now the garden was choked with what even he could see were thistles. Her seedlings had long since been engulfed.
    ‘Nowadays everything in the garden either pricks me or stings,’ he said. ‘Symbolic or what?’
    ‘You poor dear.’ She put her arm through his. ‘But she really