Colouring in for the Middle-Aged Woman

Anna

It was a hair appointment in a traditional salon just off the high street, where Anna didn’t feel intimidated by staff who spoke in words she struggled to understand, or scared her with a defiance of tattoos and piercings. The stylist rambled on easily, asked about her daughter, Ellie, and the boys. As she combed out the wet strands of newly-coloured hair, a shade lighter this time, Anna glanced at herself in the mirror. Her father’s green eyes, slightly oriental in shape, looked back at her. But today there was something else, a glimpse of a face both distant yet familiar.

She turned her head slightly and as the light caught her chin, realised that the visage looking back bore more than a vague resemblance to Aunt Maggie. Her sharp intake of breath went unnoticed as Louise reached for the scissors, asking how much to cut, exclaiming how quickly it had grown and how lucky she was at her age to have such thick hair. But Anna wasn’t listening, she was remembering – Aunt Maggie, thin-faced, forever old, mouth drooping in disapproval. Panic rose, then squashed itself into a tight, screwed up ball that she knew would drain all colour from her mood leaving a washed-out, depressing grey.

A few weeks ago, the counsellor had suggested using colours.

‘Is this a new approach for middle-aged women who can’t cope?’ Anna had asked, aware that her sarcasm bordered on rudeness.

‘No, not at all,’ Maureen said, her speech slow, deliberate in tone, as if talking to a small, uncomprehending child. ‘It’s something I devised years ago to help me, and it’s helped other women get through this stage in their lives.’

Anna sighed, forced a smile.

‘Does it work?’

‘Sort of. When I look back over a week and see more blues and greens, it gives me some confidence that I can get through the grey.’

‘Or black,’ Anna said.

‘Not much of that.’

For fuck’s sake, no black?

Anna would never have said it aloud, but she was using the ‘f’ word more and more in her head. One day she would shock her husband and pronounce it, emphasis on the ‘ck’ which was such a satisfactory ending to an expletive.

Maureen looked directly at her, eyebrows raised.

‘Black,’ she continued, ‘is for days when you can’t even get out of bed.’

So, Anna took the idea and thought she would try it. She printed out a calendar, and began to colour in the days; shades of soft, pencil grey, reds when anger and frustration surged, green for neutral, blue, clear, pale blue for organised thinking, then yellow for the occasional joyous, energised days when she felt she could tackle anything.

But she realised that it wasn’t enough to colour in a whole block for each day. Some mornings emerged in a shroud of grey, then became red and could fade to green or back to grey. She started to mix the colours, sometimes using two or three pencil crayons together for an overlapping of moods.
For Christmas, Andrew bought her an adult colouring book and thought he was, for once, being clever. She looked at it with derision.

‘I don’t like colouring in patterns,’ she said. He looked hurt and confused at the same time. Anna regretted her words. In fact, the disappointment in his face made her turn away to blink back ridiculous tears. So, she thanked him and said she would try it and she exclaimed at the pretty designs. He left her to it. She went back to the chart.

She realised that she needed purple, not a colour she had ever favoured, but with a predominance of crimson, it was voluptuous, sexy. It encompassed feelings that were surprising her after years of being too tired and weary at the end of a day at work. A purple flush swept over her in the morning, before supper, when Andrew was there and when he wasn’t.

Her calendar became a beautiful thing.
The black crayon remained sharp-tipped. I would never have stayed in bed, Anna thought to herself.

As she left the salon, she glanced at the market clock. She was meeting her husband in half an hour for another house viewing and this one was important. The image of her Aunt, who had never married, always did exactly as she wanted, and always got what she wanted, was strong.
She set her shoulders, lifted her chin and strode across the square to Finch and Forgham Solicitors to pick up the keys. Seeing Aunt Maggie in the mirror was colouring the day steely grey; grey for strength, for resolve, with a lining of silver, like storm clouds at the end of a hot day in August.

It was a short, brisk walk from the town centre. Andrew met her at the gate. She read his body language; hands deep in trouser pockets, mouth a straight line. She sensed a challenge. Taking his arm, Anna reached up for a kiss, told him she loved him and had missed him since they parted at breakfast when he had been reluctant to come along for the viewing. He faced her.

‘We said no work, no renovation. We said we’d had enough of all that. This place obviously needs gutting,’ he protested.

Along the garden path, away from the road, there was peace and a sense of time long passed. The leaded windows caught the sun and glinted with a richness of colour. She put the key in the lock. It turned easily, although the door took the full weight of her hip and shoulder to open. He stood back, before following her inside.

‘I think,’ she said carefully, ‘that you’ll have to use your imagination with this one and see how we can make it work for us.’

He shrugged, scratched his head, looked unconvinced as she closed the door behind them.
For a moment she hesitated, then put the key back in the lock and turned it.

‘Just in case,’ she said. ‘They’ve been very trusting giving us the keys. We wouldn’t want anyone wandering in.’

Low sunshine warmed the oak floors and caught the faded paintwork, mellowing the house with warmth and light, brush-stroking some yellow across Anna’s mood. There was no furniture, just a few broken pieces carelessly abandoned. Andrew said little as they toured the rooms but she ignored his grunts, and the grey knot inside her began to dissolve and flower into something more vivid. She felt a stirring below her rib cage that suggested possibility, opportunity.
Finally, she opened the door to the master bedroom. The walls were a pale patterned blue, and against the backdrop of ancient wallpaper stood a four poster-bed in carved oak, beautifully draped. She pretended to consult the brochure and took a deep breath.
’And this,’ she announced, ‘is included.’
She stepped towards the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress.  Drawing up her legs, she lay back, glancing at him through a thick strand of hair. She took the strand and pushed it behind her ear. At last she saw the glimmer of a smile, a break in the frosty stare, a relaxing of the shoulders beneath his sharply-tailored jacket.

He grinned.

Leaning against one of the posts, he touched the wood, then the fabric. He said; ‘You look so like Ellie.’

Anna almost replied, ‘Ellie? Not Aunt Maggie?’ 
She clambered across and knelt up to loosen his tie, pulling the neatly tucked shirt from his belt, slipping her hands behind his back.

‘So,’ she said. ‘Have you been using your imagination as I told you, or do you need some help?’
She pulled him down beside her. When he took her hand, she was confident she could win him over. She looked up at the ceiling, which had been painted a faded, yet quite unmistakable shade of purple. Then she closed her eyes and allowed the colour to thread itself through her senses.

Andrew

He left the office with an overwhelming feeling of things remaining unfinished in a pointless, unnecessary way. This viewing was a waste of time. He’d seen the artful photographs and read the text – well they didn’t fool him. As far as was concerned, it was another emotional whim of Anna’s. She was both concerning and annoying him.

Last month he had sat with her in the doctor’s consulting room and felt awkward, embarrassed as she described her anger, her fatigue, the hopeless feelings which descended without warning and covered her every thought with a dark, suffocating misery. He knew she was struggling to sleep, to eat normally, to accept the changes in her face and her body, but he was ageing too. His joints creaked, his hair was grey, almost white in places and he wasn’t making such a fuss about it. The doctor suggested counselling and he blurted out; ‘Do we pay for that?’ immediately regretting his words as both his wife and the medic turned to stare at him.
’Not that it matters,’ he muttered. ‘The cost isn’t important.’

What he really wanted was Anna out of the room, then he could tell the doctor what effect the so called ‘change of life’ was having on him. It was like living with a different woman each day. She was unpredictable, sometimes childishly exuberant, then silent. She would reach for him under the duvet, demanding intimacy and passion, and then, as if he hadn’t done enough, would turn her back and shut him out.

He wanted his wife as she used to be, pills, potions, counselling – whatever it took. He’d had enough of trying to comfort her when she bought towels of the wrong shade, or came off the phone to one of the children, grieving the distances between them, enough of anticipating her moods and tantrums. At times, he wished she was back at work because work provided an excuse for her behaviour; the reason she couldn’t always control herself. Her job had been stressful, it drained her, left her emotionally vulnerable and tired but work was no longer part of the picture. Unconsciously, Andrew was afraid to delve too deeply into the reasons Anna still seemed to be struggling with life.

That might involve looking at a little more closely at himself.

She came home from the first and only session of counselling with nothing more useful than some stuff about colouring in a chart. He listened, bemused, but determined to be encouraging.

‘Didn’t the doctor suggest taking up a new hobby, a sport?’ He leant on the table to look more closely at what she was doing. ‘Lots of women take up golf when they’re older. You could come to the club with me.’

She raised her eyebrows, selected another crayon, a red one, and looked at him as if she would like to push it, very hard, into the back of his hand.

‘Boxing,’ she said. ‘I rather fancy boxing.’

He snorted.
She flung the crayons into the tin and shut the lid with a sharp snap.
She’d never decide to take up boxing, he thought. His usually calm, deliberately thoughtful wife, who had held down an important and demanding job before retiring, was now finding it hard to make her mind up about anything.

‘You choose,’ she said on a number of occasions. ‘I’m having an orange day today, I can’t think clearly.’

Then there was the colouring book he bought her for Christmas, with a bottle of her favourite perfume, of course. He thought she would be pleased, but his smugness at having an original idea for once had been short-lived. When she said she didn’t like colouring in, he was too baffled to point out that she seemed to do little else these days.

Well, as far as the new house was concerned, he would be making the decisions. They only needed two bedrooms; he didn’t want the kids thinking they could come back. A place near the town centre would be ideal with a small patio or yard. No major work, although a bit of decorating could be arranged. It was a straightforward decision, black and white, no shades of grey – easy.

The first thing he noticed at the house was the overgrown box hedge around the tangled garden and the empty rusted hinges where a gate should have been. He was determined to humour her, but also put his foot down about this one. Retiring next year, it was the golf course, not Wednesdays (discount day for the over sixties) in the DIY superstore that he had in mind. He crossed the threshold, hands in pockets, coins jingling disinterestedly.

‘Look at the windows catching the sun,’ he heard her say. ‘They still have the original leaded lights.’

‘Draughty,’ he replied. ‘They’ll cost a fortune to replace.’ He started to add up some figures, then stopped himself. If they weren’t buying this wreck, why bother? And she certainly wouldn’t get around him by going all simpering and girly. Then she’d had the nerve to tell him to use his imagination.
They stepped inside. He watched his wife close and then lock the front door, muttering something about agents and trust, although he couldn’t see why anyone would want to break in. For God’s sake, even squatters would turn around and leave in disgust.

There was dust everywhere, curtains dangled raggedly and hideous wallpaper prints seemed to darken the rooms, in spite of the sunshine.

‘Can you believe this kitchen?’ he gasped. ‘There’s nothing here except a sink.’ Her smile irritated him.

‘Oh come on, you’re not serious Anna? This house is out of the question. I can’t see us living here.’

The staircase felt spongy, probably rotten. He muttered under his breath at the uneven steps and a carpet that was escaping the stair rods. He swore as a loose floorboard on the landing caught his toe. Once again, his wife just smiled.

The master bedroom was huge. He gaped at the four-poster bed, obviously antique, worth a bit. Anna looked at the agent’s description and Andrew knew exactly what she was going to say before she said it. Well it wouldn’t make any difference, and the sooner he got her out of this house and back to reality, the better.
She looked at him, her eyebrows raised, sat on the bed and bounced lightly. He couldn’t help smiling as she flung herself back on the dusty mattress cover. Married for thirty-five years and she could still behave like a teenager.

Andrew sighed. The taught elastic inside his head slackened and for a moment, all he knew was how much he loved her. Perhaps this house would provide some focus, an outlet for the frustration she seemed unable to channel. It might take her mind off the bloody colouring in and get her thinking about tins of paint and wallpaper and fabrics.

His hands touched the drapes. The fabric felt heavy, strangely opulent in this drab, colourless place.

‘You look so like Ellie,’ he said, the thought becoming words rather unexpectedly. She opened her mouth as if to challenge this, then smiled at him.
He knew what game she was playing as she loosened his shirt and tie and pulled him down beside her. Well, he could play too. He took her hand. She was right, the bed was really something. She was gazing at the ceiling, a smile brightening her face with a glimpse of youth. He looked up but his eyes were drawn to a creeping patch of damp. Stroking her soft, smooth hair, he pushed a hand beneath her blouse. Imagination she’d said? He could still show her plenty of that.

‘What an odd colour,’ he remarked, following her upward glance. ‘Is it lilac, mauve?’

‘Purple,’ she said. ‘Gorgeous shade, don’t you think?’

‘You don’t like purple.’
She sighed, touched his face with her hand and whispered in his ear.

‘I do now.’

Catherine Finch is the author of two novels and a number of prize-winning short stories.
You can find out more about her by visiting www.chaffinchbooks.co.uk