The Man Who Hugged Women

A short story first published by Unthank Books (2006) in Unthology 3

Pearl’s behind had widened over the years, Freya observed, as she took Pearl’s coat. Following her into the large kitchen — recently refurbished thanks to Mukesh’s private practice — she conceded that Pearl still had a waist, and dressed to make the most of it. And why shouldn’t she? Pearl sat opposite her at the artificially weathered table and Freya was treated to a glimpse of frayed underwear. Coffee and mugs sat on the table between them. Before she’d even sat down Pearl had started relating something about a friend of hers who Freya didn’t know.

“Anyway, it turned out she was talking about herself, not a friend. You know, one of those ‘I’ve got a friend’ stories. She told me about this guy she went to see, he’s like a guru or something, like an Eastern guru, from Tibet or Bali or somewhere like that. Sort of Eat, Pray, Love type of guy, you know what I mean?”

Freya doubted whether such a type actually existed beyond the fevered imagination of western women but she nodded her understanding, ignoring Pearl’s poor grasp of geography. Did she even know which country Mukesh was from, beyond being Asian?

“So she went to see him, this guy, after being told about him by her friend. He’s amazing, apparently, like a sort of father figure but also desirable in a Richard Gere sort of way, but Asian, obviously. Like Mukesh, I suppose.”

She giggled and not for the first time Freya wondered whether men found it sexy that a woman Pearl’s age would giggle in such a girly manner. Did Mukesh like it? He’d told her he thought Pearl was an intellectual lightweight and had little time for her, but men thinking women silly didn’t stop men sleeping with said women. Freya liked Pearl for her naive, unquestioning enjoyment of things, which is what she supposed would attract men to her in the first place. She could have taken Mukesh’s approach and sneered, to bolster her own comfortable cynicism, but the truth was she would love to be a bit more like Pearl, even though there were certain dinner parties where she and Jacob were not invited. Also, Pearl had been there for her, unlike her other friends. Been there in the physical sense, gone with her to the hospital and held her hand.

“…except Mukesh is a trained psychiatrist, I know that, not a new-agey type man at all. He’d pooh-pooh the whole idea of going to see this guy, I know he would.”

“Well what does he do then, this, erm, guru?” Freya asked. It was always wise to gently guide Pearl to an end point otherwise they could be here a long time.

“He only sees women for a start. At least I only hear of women going to see him. Married women, usually.”

“Oh yes? And is it meditation then, that he does, or counselling, or yoga, or what?”

“No.” Pearl leant forward conspiratorially. “He gives you a hug.” Pearl sat back triumphantly. She had a smug look on her face and was itching to tell Freya something else. Freya knew what it was. She poured the coffee.

“You’re thinking of going to see him, aren’t you?” Freya asked.

Pearl jerked forward in her chair. “Do you think I’m mad? Is it crazy? I mean what harm is there in it?”

“It’s crazy, that’s what it is. You’re married. What would Jacob think?”

“I wouldn’t tell him, would I. Any more than I would tell him I was getting my legs waxed.”

“It’s not quite the same, is it? If you want a hug, why don’t you just ask Jacob?” But as soon as the question had left her mouth she knew the answer.

“Precisely because I have to ask him. He doles them out, but to be honest he’s like most men, either all over you like a randy pigeon or doesn’t want to know and you’re grateful if you get a kiss in the evening. I suppose you’re lucky in that department, being married to a psychiatrist and everything.”

Freya grunted non-committally, Mukesh did everything as if it came from some marriage counselling manual, rather than from the heart or between his legs. It was like he was ticking relationship boxes every time he gave her a hug, or complemented her, or brought home flowers on a suspiciously regular basis. At first she’d uncharitably thought he made notes in his diary, then discovered that he was making notes in his diary, a little ‘f’ once every four weeks, like she used to mark her diary with a little ‘p’ once every four weeks until it had become too irregular. Freya was still undecided as to whether she liked this approach. Maybe he was right, maybe you had to work at not taking someone for granted and this was just his way of doing it. On the other hand, she sometimes wished for little more spontaneity and loss of control — occasionally, even, she might like him to attack her like a randy pigeon.

Pearl leant forward. “So. I’ve already booked a session.”

“My God. When for?”

“Thursday morning. This Thursday.”

“Bloody hell, Pearl. Are you sure he’s kosher?”

“He’s not Jewish, Freya, he’s Asian.”

“Of course, you told me. Sounds like a bit of a groper to me.”

Freya looked affronted. “No, he’s seen loads of women. Really, they all love him.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“No, they say he feels safe, it’s like hugging your dad.” Freya was struck by a strong memory of being hugged by her father — it did feel safe, a sense of masculine protection. No, not protection, care. Of being held without any expectation of anything in return. The smell of a man. A smell that seemed to have disappeared in today’s over-deodorised and perfumed male.

“But how can you hug for an hour?” she asked, compelled for some reason to chip away at Pearl’s cheerful certainty.

“The sessions are only thirty minutes max, or shorter if you want, and some of that is just him asking you how you are, really listening to you.”

“Like a counsellor, you mean.”

“I suppose. Except he doesn’t guide you like a counsellor does, or want to know how you feel about everything you happen to mention. Apparently he has a picture of his wife on his office wall. Oh, and he wears a big woolly jumper.”

“Even in the summer?” Freya asked, feeling the familiar twist of a sneer on her mouth. How she hated the involuntary pull of the muscles that shaped contempt and made it visible.

Pearl shrugged and looked down. She drank her coffee, holding the cup to her chest between sips. Freya pictured a man in a woolly jumper. She wanted to know where Pearl got her bravery from; how she’d gone from recognising that her partner Jacob didn’t give her everything she needed, to doing something about it. Something that involved seeing another man, however innocent it seemed to be.

“Will you come with me?” Pearl asked, putting her cup down and screwing up her face beseechingly.

“You want me to come with you?”

“Yes, I’m nervous, that’s the honest truth of it. I don’t mean come inside with me, obviously, it’s just that I’d like you to be there, I dunno, just in case.”

“I’m not sure, Pearl…”

“You don’t work Thursdays.” Freya pitched in as a teacher’s assistant at the local primary school where their daughter Rita had gone. It was something to fill her time and make her feel she was giving something back. Although it was unclear to her what she was supposed to be giving back.

“No, I’m not working on Thursday.” Pearl had come with her that once, for something a lot more traumatic than being held by a man. Something caused by a man and fixed, in that case, by a man. She looked at Pearl and wanted to make up for her sneering. “Yes of course I’ll come with you.”

That night she thought about bringing the matter up with Mukesh, maybe he’d heard of this guy. But she didn’t get a chance because it was their regular monthly cinema night and he insisted, as usual, that they analyse all the pleasure out of the film straight afterwards. He became frustrated with her when she said she wanted time to think about the film, to reserve judgement, let it sink in. No, this is not what he and their friends did; you had to have an opinion on everything almost immediately. Once she lay in bed though, next to a reading Mukesh, she discovered that she was glad she had kept the man who hugged women to herself.

Mukesh left for his consulting rooms every morning at nine thirty, leaving her to get on with her life as best she could. Their only child, Rita, was at a mediocre university, having been coached and cajoled beyond her natural ability through her A-levels to make sure she got in. Freya had once suggested to Mukesh that Rita might be better off doing something else other than going to university but had been shut down pretty sharpish and she’d never mentioned it again, instead colluding with him to push her daughter unhappily down a predetermined path. When Rita had left a year ago she’d toyed with the idea of getting a dog to fill the gap. Mukesh wasn’t keen; dogs created mess and had to be looked after if they were to travel. That had been the plan of course, when Rita left home; they would travel more and do all the things they’d kept putting off. Hadn’t happened, and the longer it hadn’t happened, the greater her desire grew for a dog.

The cleaner arrived late, and after listening dutifully to her explain why — something to do with her sick mother — Freya went into the attic and and rummaged around before pulling out a dusty shoebox. It was filled with childhood photos. Her childhood photos — the ones not selected to be neatly placed chronologically in albums, accurately labelled and dated. She was looking for a particular picture she hadn’t seen in years and there it was, a black and white print of her father from when she was a teenager. He was in the kitchen, pipe in hand, caught awkwardly between sitting and standing (hence its relegation to the shoebox) but in the magnificent old woollen jumper that smelled of pipe tobacco, bay rum and, if he’d been working on their high maintenance car, engine oil. She took the photo downstairs and pinned it to the fridge with a magnet.

On Thursday morning Freya and Pearl travelled on a cold bus to an address in North London.

“Do you think he does this from home?” Pearl asked as they walked the last bit of the journey down residential streets wide enough to accommodate mature trees without being overwhelmed. “Do you think his wife minds?” To Freya she sounded a little nervous.

“I’m sure she doesn’t mind the money.” Freya had learnt on the bus just how much this session was costing Pearl — the equivalent of what Mukesh charged for listening to fifty minutes of what he called first-world angst. The guy was raking it in, taking advantage of women of a certain age, like Pearl, who craved affection. At what age, Freya wondered, did affection become more important than sex. They stood outside a large semi-detached house, examining it for clues. A discrete polished brass plaque just inside the gate told them they were about to enter a complementary therapy centre rather than someone’s home.

“Maybe we should walk round the block.” Pearl said, hesitating. “We’re early.”

“No we’re not. Come on, let’s do this.” Freya hooked her arm in Pearl’s and led her up the gravel drive.

Following instructions on the front door they pushed it open and stepped into a ceramic-tiled hallway with stairs on the right and a door on the left. Screwed to it was a wooden sign with gold calligraphy spelling ‘Waiting Room’. They went in, Freya aware that Pearl was unusually quiet. The room could have been a sitting room, a couple of sofas and a chair facing an inglenook fireplace. Logs were stacked up the sides and there was ash in the grate, but no fire. They sat together on the same sofa and Freya studied some landscape watercolours on the wall. Pearl sat up straight, worrying at a loose strand of hair.

“Are you OK?” Freya asked, putting her hand on Pearl’s knee.

“Fine,” Pearl said. Her gaze flitted around the room, her chest rising and falling too rapidly for Freya’s liking. The incongruously digital clock above the fireplace indicated that they had five minutes before Pearl’s appointment. Before her hug. At least this wasn’t the same sort of waiting room they’d both been in when it was Pearl accompanying Freya all those years ago. That had been more clinical, although she also hadn’t told her husband where she’d gone. A door closed somewhere and a woman’s heels clacked on the hall tiles. The front door opened and closed. Out of the bay window Freya saw the back of a dark-haired woman in a coat with a fur collar walk down the drive. Was it real fur? Pearl stood up, she appeared to be hyperventilating. Freya got up too, inexplicably feeling nervous herself.

“Just breathe, Pearl.” But Pearl’s eyes were wide in panic, her hands flapping uncontrollably.

“This is crazy,” she said, and rushed out, leaving Freya standing. Pearl had slammed the front door and was halfway down the drive before Freya could even say that she’d told her it was crazy. She ought to tell someone that Pearl had left. Maybe she could get her a refund, even at this late stage. She opened the door to the hall.

He was there, a big man, smiling, beaming at her.

“You must be Pearl.“ His voice was deep, warm, educated, and he sounded very much like Mukesh. Clean-shaven but craggy-faced, grey hair untidy but not out of control, he must have been in his late fifties, early sixties. His glinting dark eyes never left her face, questioning gently, the smile easing but not fading. He raised his unruly eyebrows expectantly and stretched his right arm to direct her down the hall towards an open door where the orange flickers from a real fire danced on the walls.

“The thing is… ” Freya looked back at him, his woollen jumper. Her head was level with his chest. She looked up at his welcoming face.

“It’s OK,” he said mildly, gesturing anew.

She turned and stepped towards the glow.