When Frank died, I made one of those over-hasty decisions that people often make when in a state of bereavement.
If I might offer a piece of advice, wait until at least a year after the death of a loved one before you make any drastic moves.
Frank and I had always planned to sell our suburban house and move permanently into our beach house when he retired. Six months after his death I did just that – sold the suburban house and went to live in the beach house. It was a mistake.
In leaving the suburbs, I also left old friends and relatives. Of course, we said those things that people do say as they part – "We shall see each other." "I'll be coming up to town quite often." "We'll keep in touch," and things like that. But when you are three hundred and fifty kilometres apart, it is not as easy as you think its going to be.
Frank was sixty when he died and I was fifty-four. I was, and am, in excellent health, and went for a run and swim everyday. That side of living in the beach house is fine, but it is people you miss.
The house is on the edge of a very small community and isolated behind a swathe of bushland. There is a track leading from the house to the road about two hundred metres away, and another track that goes down to the beach about one hundred and fifty metres long.
There are only a few local people living permanently in the area, the rest coming and going at holiday times to their "beach shacks." The "Locals" are mainly line or lobster fishermen, and outside the community are some scattered wheat farmers and sheep pastoralists. The people are friendly enough, but I did long for my old friends and relatives.
I suppose I could have returned to the city suburbs, but having made the "Big move," I was disinclined to make another. I suppose I was too lethargic, too apathetic after Frank's death to once more pull up stakes and move.
Right up until a year before he died, Frank had been one of those men full of energy. Perhaps "ebullient" best describes him. We were very libidinous and therefore an extremely sexually active couple. I must confess that both of us had affairs during our marriage, but somehow always came back to each other.
During the year of his illness Frank's potency diminished and ceased. I think it is sad how often this happens in a woman's life. Just at the time she no longer has to be concerned about an unwanted pregnancy, and the annoying use of contraception is no longer necessary, her man goes cold for one reason or the other. Small wonder well off older women buy themselves a young gigolo.
Another response to the deprivation is to shut up the sexual shop, go into granny mode, and purse the lips and look severe at the mere mention of sex. I suppose it is a sort of defence mechanism. If "Their man" does not want them, then nobody else will, they think, so they will not take the risk of rejection.
Do think again, ladies.
I mentioned "granny mode," and this is really the beginning of my tale. I was about to enter granny mode myself. I had in fact been a granny for around eighteen years, but I don't think I had entered the "mode."
The beach house, is in fact two houses. In the early days of our marriage, we built to accommodate three or four people. As time went on, and children arrived (two), then grandchildren (five), and throw in visiting friends for good measure, we found the house too small. As result, we doubled its size. The two halves were joined together by a communicating door, but for all essential purposes, the two parts were completely self-contained.
My daughter, Jean, had been in the habit of spending a fortnight at the house every year during the summer, bringing her twin boys, Travers and Ward. This year I had got a message from Jean to the effect that she couldn't get away because of work commitments, but would I mind if the boys came for a couple of weeks?
I happily agreed to this, especially knowing that it would probably be the last time I would have both the boys together. They had just finished school and were going on to university. In the coming years they would probably be off leading their lives apart from the family, that is, until they started bringing the great grandchildren to the house.
On the appointed day, Jean drove the boys to the house and stayed overnight. During her brief stay, she shared one of her concerns with me. Jean and her husband lived in one of the provincial towns in the north of the state, and the boys had to go to the city to attend university. Her worry was their accommodation and whether they would look after themselves properly. Having no useful suggestions to make, I muttered a few comforting platitudes, and the matter was left at that.
After Jean left, I began to discover what it is like to have two healthy, hearty young men living in the house. They both seemed to take after their grandfather and his exuberant ways. The place seemed to be in a constant ferment of coming and going. Swimming, surfing, running along the beach and getting out Frank's boat and tractor, hauling the boat down to the beach and shoving it into the water, and off fishing. I might add eating, which they did in gargantuan doses.
They raced about the house naked – they had done this since they were little boys, but I must say, they were far more intriguing now. As they came out of their showers in the morning, with those shower relaxation induced erections, I thought to myself, "Hmm. As good as, if not better, than Frank's."
I loved this bustle and noise. It crashed through the monotony of living alone, and brought me to life. I sometimes ran and swam with them. On occasions I joined them in the boat and went fishing.
Travers and Ward are more or less identical twins. Like their mother, I can tell them apart, but strangers find it very difficult. The only really distinguishing mark is that Travers has a small mole on his right shoulder, which Ward has not. Needless to say, the boys got up to many tricks, swapping identities to confuse people. They were very close to each other, and shared a great deal, including, if Jean was right, a girl who was happily willing to accommodate them both. Perhaps she did not know they were two different men!
And so the house was full of noise and thunder, singing and whistling, music and slamming doors, and cries of "Nic, is there anything to eat?" I should point out that they had always called me "Nic." They had picked it up from their grandfather, who used it as an abbreviation of my name, Nicole.
Now it will not take much imagination on your part, to realise that, having not had a man around me for a very long time, and certainly no vibrant and clearly libidinous young men, it was more than the dull routine of the house that was being disturbed.
Whilst I thought it ridiculous for a woman of my age to daydream, and even nightdream, about young men, especially my own grandsons, doing loving and sensuous things with me, never the less, I did so dream.
