Open Writing

At the end of a pleasant summer day, sitting in her favourite chair by the open French doors, the warm but welcome breeze gently fluttering the muslin curtains, Jasper, her rescued black and white cat curled by her feet, Beth contentedly mused on the day’s events.

She’d enjoyed the couple of hours spent with the Art Group, as much for the pleasure of chatting with the other students and ‘doing her thing’, as the tutor gently but encouragingly remarked. A quick visit to a book shop for the current best seller she’d ordered, then tea with a close friend, a meander round her garden followed by Jasper. And now they both relaxed, enjoying the flower scents drifting through the open doors.

Beth reached for the book she’d laid on the coffee table by the photograph of Dick and her taken almost thirty years ago, and the memories flooded back. She and Dick had met at the local Dramatic Society, and the love that blazed from that moment was visible in the photograph taken when the society had staged ‘Anthony and Cleopatra‘. She loved Dick’s undoubted charisma, his dark eyes and the wonderful voice that could transform the most banal theatrical lines into poetry. His presence was mesmerising on or off the stage.

In turn, Dick fell in love with the voluptuous creamy skinned brunette, at her most enchanting, especially when she looked at him with her incredibly beautiful, unforgettable indigo blue eyes. A young widow, she had joined the Dramatic Society as a way of forgetting the older man she had loved deeply, but life was vibrant, drawing her out to live it to the full. Meeting Dick was life’s renewal for her and an inescapable dramatic love for Dick.

Their ardently physical affair scandalised the circle of mutual friends. Dick was married. In the 1960’s people did not openly display their torrid love affairs, regardless of the consequences. But ‘love conquers all‘, and it did, mused Beth, remembering the glory and the ultimate sorrow, not regretfully but with the calm which comes with experience and the passage of time. They blazed their love on the stage, at parties, everywhere they went. Local media followed them as much for their dramatic personae as for the scandal that would sell the tabloid.

These days, Beth mused, looking fondly on the image still embedded in her soul, the common expression for their passionate love would be ‘not being able to keep their hands off each other’, and it would be right. They were inseparable, body and soul as one. They thought it would last a lifetime. But all fires, however fiery, eventually burn themselves out. And the things that brought them together eventually burned out in the furnace that should have remained their unqualified, everlasting love.

Their undeniable charms, as people and actors, attracted mutual admirers. Dick’s charisma would mesmerise young acting hopefuls as it had attracted Beth a dozen years before. Similarly Beth’s attraction was undeniable, even in her forties and she loved the attention. The initial tiffs between two passionate people were forgotten in the ardent making up.

Gradually, the making up became less frequent, Dick’s drinking bouts more frequent, Beth’s passionate jealous rages often driving him to more drinking, more indiscretions. They tried so hard to live their love, but the flames were a fiery pain they inflicted on each other. They became the reality of one of their best performances at the local theatre in Tennessee Williams’s love tragedy ‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Wolf?’ The rages, the drinking, the disintegration of two people caught in a mutually harrowing life of love and hate was magnificent, the passion and fire that drew full houses nightly were awe inspiring yet tragic.

When the extended season ended, Dick and Beth knew that their relationship was incapable of surviving if they were to survive as individuals. They loved each other, they hated each other for their mutual love, they were always in each other’s thoughts even though they formed other relationships. As they got older if one was unwell, the soul mate would send presents, be in touch, but they would never experience the flaming joy and agony that was their life for almost two decades.

When Dick died very suddenly, his first wife, who should have hated Beth for taking him away, and the third one, who hated Beth for always being Dick‘s ultimate love, proved what a charismatic man Dick was by putting aside the enmity and allowing Beth to be at Dick’s funeral. The grief of the three women who’d loved him from youth to late middle age was a source of enigmatic wonder to all present, friend and foe alike. The trio of women whose life was touched by the wonder of love for and by this man, instinctively knew the quote by the great American singer Jessie Norman. “Love is all there is” was what unified them against the world on that tragic day and always. Nothing else mattered. However they continued living the rest of their days.

Beth was suddenly aware that the light breeze was a strong wind swirling the curtains against Jasper, who was complaining for attention. Night had fallen, it was time to close the doors, feed the cat, make a drink and put on the TV for her favourite soap opera -- as if anything the modem programme makers made would equal the drama that was the love that bonded her and Dick, many years ago, but for ever.!

Bedford U3A