A Crystal Ball of Ruby

“Well then,” said Auntie Helen, “have you done your research?”

She could see Shelly had her computer note pad ready, so Helen put on her black reading glasses. She was sixty something, allowed her hair to go grey, accepting, had it tied at the back but the sides a bit wispy. She wore a long top with a hint of Marrakech or Kathmandu, a slightly hippyish look. She was fit and healthy and still made a great impression on a pair of jeans.

Shelly was twenty-seven and wore make-up, her eyebrows trimmed to rectangles like garden beds on her forehead. This was weekend, so it was plain blue tee shirt and jeans. Because it was summer, cane-coloured sandals. Because it was Saturday-after-gym, her hair was free and long, brushed and dried after a shower. A neat face between two flows of autumn colours and sandiness.

They were sitting on a balcony, a white bench table, looking on the yachts in the bay. Some were gleaming and sleek, ocean racers, and others modest, fun things with a short mast. They were shifting at their moorings as if concerned by the remnants of ocean swell coming from the estuary.

“Which dating site did you choose?”

“Long Term Only – you know that one Auntie?” Shelly asked.

Helen nodded. She was not really an aunt at all. Just her mother’s best friend, called “auntie” like that from the beginning as an affectionate joke. Shelly’s mother was a lovely woman but more anxious than a cat at a dog farm, especially when it came to the subject of men. Even for her out-in-the-world daughter it would be impossible to discuss a date without imagining it leading to kidnap and ransom at a salt mine near Moscow.

“There are three candidates.” Shelly chortled just softly. Oh, how she loved a chance to talk to Helen, so different to her mother, sparky, worldly wise and widely travelled – and just a touch mischievous. She had given Shelly a seventeenth birthday party once – secret from her mother - and it was a great hit with her friends. “And one of them is really gorgeous.”

“Ah ha,” said Helen thoughtfully. At the same time as being interesting her aunt was quite brittle. Unlike steady-as-she-goes mum Helen had twice fallen apart and needed medical help. As for men, one of Helen’s choices was a complete rogue who fleeced her of a lot of money. Another wildly unfaithful. But she could give advice - like they say: those who can’t teach teach teachers.

Helen took up her reading voice: “Bentley29.”

“I am an engineer. I design and make things. Good at it. Okay, okay,” she commented.

“I like walks on the beach, coffee and red wine. I have been told I am dull and uninteresting, but I am fixing that by reading books on F1 Motor Racing and Horses. What?

“I have three houses. If it all works out one will be yours. I hope you are creative and soft, an artist, a musician or a dancer because I think opposites can attract. Oh Gawd.

“I believe in love. Hmm…that could be a bigger worry.”

“Auntie!”

“But I am hoping for someone who likes their own space and time as much as I do.

“Please send me a message and I will give it every consideration. No, no, no! You can’t go for this one. He is a fish. Whatever do you see in him?

“Look at the pic. Blonde.”

“Huh?”

“Blonde hair, blue eyes….”

Helen glanced at the photograph and gave Shelly a sideways look. “What about the next one? I better see the picture first. Blue Sky AAA, not another blonde … no, no, he looks quite nice… I don’t know, a bit … dorky…”

“Yes, I know. The check shirt.”

“Needs a fashion adviser. He’d be a project.”

“Let’s see what he has to say:

“ ‘Love is just like hypnotising chickens.’ No, no, Iggy Pop…Ha ha, funny guy… love grows between people. It is not so much about love as ‘being a loving person’. The best time of loving is pillow talk. That’s quite sweet.

“As a teacher I am good with children for the required eight hours a day. After that adult company please. I will accept your children, but they will need to sit down and pay attention (joke). He is starting to worry me.

“I am both witty, charming and modest. Hmmm, a bit try-hard. I thought I should attempt funny rather than write GSOH. I play tennis, hockey, golf and go windsurfing.

“My idea of a good first date is where, say, you introduce me to some new sport.”

Helen wondered. “Something worries me about him. Quirky, jokey… that sort of thing can be a right pain in the arse after a while. What about this next one? HiFido1 What? What sort of dating profile name is that?

“I like quiet walks on the beach with my lovely dog Ralph. He is a cocker spaniel with dark brown eyes and soft, soft fur. He is very cuddly. I cruise the internet with Ralph on my lap. He is a big Justin Bieber fan. Noooooo!” she howled for exaggeration.

“Does that mean you have to be a dog person? Not at all. In fact, better not. If you have a dog, chances are it is just not going to work. Ralph does not like new dogs. Arrgh!” Helen made a mock scream. “He has his friend Bunny. It is our joke because Bunny is a stuffed gorilla.

“But I will be understanding and compromising. I will make sure Ralph sleeps on my side of the bed. Shelly whatever are you thinking to even consider this one?”

“Look,” said Shelly “There’s more.”

“I am unemployed but really good at housework, especially washing and ironing. I do gym and work weights.”

“Gawd Shelley, I still don’t get it, what the …?”

“Check out the photo…”

Helen did and suddenly her attitude changed. “Holy cow hide! What a hunk! He makes George Clooney look like a pumpkin.”

“This next photo is at the beach,” said Shelly.

“Buns. Buns!” It seemed like Helen had stopped breathing. “Packed. And those legs, slim, muscular…. Mmm does he have a thing for older women? Oh, my golly, those legs…”

“No way Auntie. I saw him first.”

“Nope, it depends on who gets to him first…”

They laughed together.

Helen hesitated. “This is going to be harder than I thought. I am going to crack a merlot. Do you want one?”

So, the prospect of truth in shared wine.

The engineer was rejected right away. Something missing there.

“The man with the dog,” mused Helen as she was standing up. “Unemployed? But seems comfortable with it.”

“Wants to do housework…” Shelly said. Helen did not reply but was gone, busy in the kitchen, setting out glasses, getting her ready-to-go tub of biscuits, cheeses and olives from the fridge and picking a bottle from the wire rack on the bench. It gave Shelly time to think. “A house husband … a novel idea, ” she said to herself. She had started a new job as a legal assistant to the State’s first woman Supreme Court judge. Part of the revolution. She imagined all that extra time and energy available for work.

“I was thinking,” said Helen as she came back to the table. “Unemployed but no mention of what he does with his time – apart from doggie. I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of leaving a man on his own at home all day. You know what they are like. What would he get up to?”

“Oh Helen,” sometimes she called her that. “You are such a cynic.”

“Well… what did your ex- do?”

Shelly’s former husband was addicted to on-line gambling. She carried debt away from the marriage.

Helen poured the wine. The bottle neck sang, “Glug-a-glug.” Before sipping Shelly held her glass up to the sunlight sparkling from the river. She gazed in for knowledge as if into a crystal ball made of ruby. She took her first sip. It mellowed. “This is tasty,” she said. In the spark of good merlot realisation came to her. Pillow talk. Yes, pillow talk. He’d known love. He had an understanding of it. He was capable of love.

“I think I will see both. But my hunch is Mr Blue Sky AAA will be the one.”

On the water the yachts seemed to rest more easily at their anchorages.

“Well, if that’s the case, when you see Ralph’s friend, take my phone number.”

Shelly laughed and looked at her. “Auntie Helen, you’re not joking, are you?”

Auntie Helen smiled. She held up her glass and looked in it too. A wine-red dreaming.

Shelly had Italian friends who played bocce on Sundays in a leafy park. She met him there. He did not wear the check, but a linen shirt in a tasteful grey (given him by an ex-girlfriend), a subdued look that cancelled any awkwardness - with a leather bracelet tied on his wrist. It made him look quite handsome but with that touch of quirky.

He looked at her and smiled. She looked too.

Then it happened. They exchanged eyes. Within years they would be sharing a bed together with twin toddlers and a baby, all crawling about ‘em.

But she gave the hunky guy Auntie Helen’s phone number.