Under the Knife. Andrea Goldsmith

when she accepted.

      I selected the place, a quiet bar attached to a boutique hotel where I’d be unlikely to run into anyone I knew. I planned the evening as if it were the start of an affair, and, as it turned out, it was. The bar was designed like a comfortable lounge room, with couches, armchairs and low tables in small discreet arrangements. I arrived early, sensing that if Edwina turned up before me she wouldn’t wait. I was drinking a second scotch when she appeared.

      I have loved many women in my life, but before I met Edwina, romantic love, being ‘in love’, had struck only once. It was an addiction, and a polluted pleasure if ever there was one. Sybil Becker was bad for me and I couldn’t give her up. No matter that I had turned into a pathetic braying donkey, no matter that I had become utterly unlovable, no matter that I was a ludicrous fool, I couldn’t drag myself away.

      This was my one experience of being in love and I never wanted it again. Yet when Edwina entered the bar that evening, all the signs were there. It should have been a warning, instead I revelled in it. A man in his fifties and feeling like a kid again. It was wonderful.

      She was all creamy skin and creamy clothes, her hair sparkled in the tinted light. She drank red wine and ate chips with sour cream. She enjoyed food and was wary of thin people. They’re mean and hungry, she said, and not to be trusted.

      We both laughed, she, because she thought she’d made a joke, and I because I wanted to laugh with her.

      And so it began, exactly as I’d imagined. The laughter, the intimacy, the magic, the passion. We sat closer than necessary, she leaning towards me, touching my arm to make a point. And I touched her too, this time without the protective gaze of family. There was no mention of the biography. We talked about films and books, we bantered about nothing in particular, and when we parted two hours later I was in love.