THE MALE GAZE

He’d bought the binoculars specially, just over a fortnight after she’d moved to the village. There’d been a party to welcome her in the pub, a polite gathering of locals turned real boozy knees-up, and the vicar had walked backwards into a table, spilling house red down his cassock.

People were drawn to her, he could see that from the off. He’d guessed her to be about 24, 25. The locals paid for her drinks and laughed at everything she said.

He’d noticed the way she held her glass then – delicately, at the stem, so as not to warm her Provence – and the way her cheeks flushed pink as it took effect. He observed how she made well-mannered conversation with the losers – John Dampson was a bonafide bore, trying to impress her with his connections to Princess Eugenie’s chauffeur's vet, and Sally Cob was fat.

He himself had shared a brief but invigorating discussion with her about lapwings. He knew nothing about them, but informing her of their probable nesting habits and hunting rituals felt good. It was a shame she’d had to go to the loo so soon into his impersonation of the peewit’s mating call.

***

The way she walked her golden sprockador at dawn was a thing to behold. He’d set his alarm every morning so he could catch her coming round the hedgerows on the corner of his drive. Through the kitchen window, he’d watch her appear out of the mist like an ethereal nymph in a Barbour. Her long chestnut ponytail swung in time with her purposeful jodhpurred gait, her form cutting an elegant silhouette in the half-light. Sometimes he’d pretend to check if the milkman had been, or pull an imaginary weed from the hydrangeas so he could talk to her.

“Morning,” he’d say.

“Hi,” she’d say.

Woof,” the sprockador would say.

That was enough for him to dine out on for the rest of the morning, during which he’d watch Lorraine, inspect his thimble collection and fantasise about moving her into his cottage.

She would do cross-stitch while he planted roses for her (her favourite – though not easy flowers to cultivate, he’d remind her).

She’d cook soup, her best hobby, and he’d read the paper. They’d take afternoon walks through the village holding hands, and all the locals would smile and nod and look on approvingly while tending their gardens. They’d say things like, “Lovely day for it,” and think to themselves, “They make such a good couple. I wish me and my wife were like that.”

When they got back, they’d have a cup of tea and a bourbon biscuit. She’d pretty the place up with plush cushions and china ornaments and framed paintings of horses. Roses would sit in a crystal vase on the living room windowsill.

In the evenings, they’d pop a bottle of Shloer and watch back-to-back Black Books, cuddled up under a patchwork quilt she’d made using bits of his old cardigans. In winter they’d crank up the flame-effect fire.

The sprockador would have to go – he didn’t like how the yellow hairs stuck in his carpet – but she would understand because she was logical like that and besides, she loved him so very deeply that it didn’t much effect her.

They’d drop it off at Dogs Trust together.

***

By midday he’d become restless, so would set to Googling her name in different formations. He’d had to steal a piece of her mail that was sticking out of her letterbox to be certain of the spelling – not his finest hour, but needs must, and a kidney donation charity could hardly have anything pressing to say.

‘Gloria Templeton,’ he’d type with his right index finger. He liked the journey her name took him on across the keys, the trenchant sound it beat out, the twinned triadic metre of the words.

‘Gloria Jean Templeton’.

‘Miss Gloria Templeton’.

‘Ms Gloria Jean Templeton’.

And so on. He knew she wasn’t a Mrs – no ring, and lived alone apart from the dog. And any woman who kept a dog was simply looking to stave off loneliness, let’s be honest.

She wasn’t on social media – very sophisticated – though a number of other Gloria Templetons were. He wondered if they all knew each other, like bald men, and people from the north. The other Glorias all looked like pigs next to her. And there was no such job as ‘Full-time mummy’. “They should make more of an effort,” he thought.

Besides a grainy school photo of her doing hurdles, which he’d printed off, her online footprint was disappointingly shallow, though he did enjoy looking at her picture on LinkedIn. He’d joined up using an alias (Victor Meldrew – priceless) so as to glean more information on her working life, but found himself irritated at the lack of specifics. And besides, the information was wrong. It said she was 33. And what even was an anaesthetist? She looked like a stable girl. It couldn’t mean what Wikipedia said. How could she possibly know how to do that.

He’d tried to follow her to work before but her Renault Clio was always gone when he got to her bungalow. After his fourth attempt at a drive-by he’d become very frustrated and deliberately driven over some of her pot plants. He concluded that she must leave for the stables straight after her dog walk.

He didn’t really want to know her job anyway. A woman should maintain a certain air of mystery.

***

After a light lunch of instant noodles, he always found himself at a bit of a loss. He’d take a stroll through the village if it was mild, read a few chapters of Dan Brown and attempt a sudoku. Something always needed pruning in the garden. Cups needed rinsing. Dust needed dusting.

But the hours at the hands of the mantel clock struck slowly, and it was a relief when night fell. Then, he could bury himself in the comfort of his evening routine of microwave meals and television.

At 10 o’clock, he’d shower and go to bed, where he’d look at the school picture of her doing hurdles by lamplight. The brilliant white of her athletics shorts shone against her leaping brown thighs, powerful but lean, the luxe ponytail sailing in their wake.

After a while, he’d swap the picture for the kidney charity letter, from which he’d read her name over and over, switching out her surname for his and occasionally toying with the idea of changing her first name to Michelle – traditional and sensible, yet feminine.

Next he’d study a lipstick-stained napkin he’d taken from the pub meet-and-greet, running his fingers over the pink stain’s embossed cracks, pressing his own lips to the paper and breathing in the perfect O of her mouth, which still smelled faintly of cherries. He was pretty sure it had been her napkin.

Then he’d put them all in the envelope he kept in his nightstand drawer, switch off the lamp and nestle down into the duvet. There, he’d stare out into the black, wide awake, his fists balled tight.

***

He’d had to fork out for zoom binoculars because her bungalow was shrouded in hanging ivy, and he wanted to be sure he could see through the sash windows to capture a sense of the everyday minutiae. His cottage sat at the bottom of the valley, the village puddle, and her house was on top of the hill – like a princess in a castle waiting to be rescued, he thought. And wasn’t it always the case in fairytales that the man everyone thought of as lowly – the beast, the toad, the pauper – was the man the fair maiden always fell in love with?

It was the weekend and he was excited. The day was crisp and clear. He looped on the padded neck strap of the binoculars, rested his eyes against the eyecups and looked to the hill.

A blur of brown. He twiddled the focusing wheels.

He could see a rabbit popping out of its burrow. He zoomed in. He could see the individual droplets of dew on its tawny fur. He zoomed further. He could see the whites of its eyes.

He knew she’d be home because her dog walks fell later on the weekends. She must like a lie-in – brushing horses all week must be tiring for someone of such a petite frame. Perhaps he’d catch her fresh out of the shower in a white towel, with a smaller white towel twisted on top of her head that meant she’d just washed her hair, which probably smelled like coconuts. She’d need to put moisturiser on her heels with all the walking she did – maybe he’d watch her do that? His mind reeled.

He turned westwards towards her house and zoomed out. It was 10am. The lights were still out but she never closed her curtains. He was grateful but he tutted – it must cost her an arm and a leg in energy bills. He’d hit her kitchen window. He zoomed in. The basil in her window box needed watering.

He hovered over the taps of the sink and looked around. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected from a kitchen but he couldn’t help feeling slightly crestfallen. Tired cream cupboards lined the walls in an L shape and a fridge-freezer too big for the room stood exposed against the back wall, its yellowed cables straining to connect to the socket. A rusty tin dog bowl sat underneath.

Cheap plastic floor tiles peeled at the edges. There were patches of damp on the ceiling and the beginnings of mould speckled the walls.

He scanned the surfaces – a wooden bowl of cooking apples; a pint of wild daisies – nice touch; a pool of water and a sodden dishcloth by the draining board. His gaze settled on a chipped floral side plate baring a discarded piece of toast. Next to it, a butterknife covered in apricot jam balanced over the mouth of a half-empty jar. Crumbs littered the worktop.

He flinched. Sloppy. How difficult was it to rinse a plate and put a pot of jam in the fridge? He’d also been positive they shared a love for smooth raspberry conserve. He shook his head as if to erase the scene.

When he spied a mound of dog hair swept into a corner by the bin, there was a part of him that didn’t want to look anymore. He’d wanted this for so long. All the preparations he’d made, all the groundwork he’d put in. It was a rental, he told himself. She’d just moved in. She couldn’t very well refit the kitchen and banish the mould all by herself. Why should she treat such a place with anything more than the distain it deserved?

He’d put all this effort in. If he wanted to see her, this was the only way. It wasn’t his fault she was at work all the time. Meagre glimpses of her dawn-time walks weren’t enough anymore. He persevered.

***

A light clicked on somewhere to the left and he swivelled round accordingly. He could hardly believe his luck. There she was, moving about her bedroom like it was the most natural thing in the world. And he couldn’t have fabricated a more Gloria setting in his dizziest daydreams.

The queen-sized bed bore pink candystripe sheets and a frilly mint dust-ruffle skirt, and he could see the slight imprint of her perfect body enshrined in the mattress. The sprockador lay curled up at the end of the bed – bit gross. He tossed the thought away.

A simple bedside table held a copy of Pride and Prejudice splayed with its spine to the sky, and a half-empty water glass bore the telltale print of its drinker’s deep pink mouth. Chunky oak drawers were surely stuffed with what he could only assume were white cotton pants and lace intimates.

The treasures of her dressing table were reflected in its trio of mirrors – a pale pink plastic cup holding various brushes; an open tube of coral lipstick with an indent where her lip impressed; a shell-shaped tray of bronze powder and a tiny puff; a glass ramekin of bobbles and clips; a framed photo of a woman and a man wearing wedding attire and smiling.

The carpet was plush cream, the kind you could trace pictures in with your finger, and the walls were papered in dusty-rose anaglypta. How he’d love to plunge his nails into that wall.

She had his back to him, busying herself with something at her nightstand. Wearing a blue fluffy dressing gown, she bent down to unplug her phone, tapped the screen a few times and started to dance.

He felt like he’d won the lottery.

Her hips drew generous figures of eight as she pulled her long chestnut hair back from the temples and the nape of her neck, securing it in a perfect ponytail with a band from her wrist. Still with her back to him, she stretched her arms high in the air, lacing her fingers and pushing her palms outwards as she gently arched her back. The sprockador wagged its tail.

She swayed to the silent beat, her bare feet peeping out from tartan pyjama trousers, the right one tapping its toes. He watched her, mesmerised, as her hands unclasped and traced a rainbow down to her sides. She popped her hip rhythmically as she raised her left arm up and let her head loll back.

She whipped round suddenly and their eyes locked. His heart was in his mouth as he let the binoculars fall to his chest and stepped back from the window. Sweat gathered in the pits of his polyester cardigan.

When he’d ordered the binoculars, he’d told himself that if she caught him in the act or any busybody hill walkers started asking questions, he would simply say he was bird watching. It was an excellent time of year for cuckoos, and he’d developed an interest since hearing them warble on Springwatch. Nobody could prove otherwise. He’d even ordered a book called The Cuckoo’s Calling as proof of his new-found hobby.

But she was still dancing. He could see her distant figure moving in the window, a powder-blue blur. He raised the binoculars and peered gingerly through.

She was spinning now, and with each pas de bourrée, their eyes locked. Her hazel-green gaze stared out at him and in the corners of her pretty mouth, as she mimed the lyrics, he thought he detected the proffer of a smile. It was almost as if she was… putting on a show for him? The ice-cream colours of her bedroom swirled and the perfect pony swung hypnotically.

He started to click his fingers. He couldn’t be sure, but she was probably dancing to Like a Virgin. His thrusted his hips forwards and back and bobbed his head like a tortoise. He was enjoying himself.

She took a neat split leap across the carpet and landed softly at the dressing table where, still dancing, she busied herself tidying hair grips into a pot.

He sensed a song change – Nessun Dorma, perhaps. Her movements had slowed, though were still animated, and she was in pottering mode: a plie here, a ballchange there. She’d probably trained as a dancer as a teenager but had shunned the competitive natures of the academies in favour of a more humble career path. She was taking washing from a hamper and sorting it into a wicker basket now. He twizzled the zoom: lots of blue trousers and matching tops he’d never seen her wear. Odd.

She tucked the basket under her arm and disappeared from view into an adjoining room. The room had no window and he panicked momentarily, but soon soothed himself: it was just the utility room and she’d be back in a minute.

The sprockador’s tail beat against the bed in time with his mantel clock.

When she appeared in the doorframe a few minutes later, his heart soared. She padded across the carpet, pinching the end of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, stopping just short of the dresser to pick up a white sports sock and toss it in the hamper. Her right hand rose to her nose again and she rubbed the septum with her knuckle. Then she took her thumb and inserted the print of it into the upper arch of her nostril, her index finger pressed against the bridge for support. She rummaged around for a while, her thumb flexing so as to gain purchase. The tip of her nail dragged out a flattened square of sage-hued crust with a lighter chartreuse-coloured globule attached, followed by a glistening translucent string.

She held her thumb up to the light and briefly examined her handiwork before rolling it around and around between her forefinger and thumb until it was nothing but a hard, grey little ball.

She flicked it away efficiently and in one broad motion, pressed her palm to her nostrils and wiped upwards to remove any residue, making her nostrils flare.

She wiped her hand on the anaglypta, tightened her ponytail and exited the room.

He lowered the binoculars.