the instructor at the Pottery Class on Tuesdays or the lecturer on Transcendental Meditation on Thursdays, so that Wilt never knew what he was coming home to except a hastily cooked supper, some forcibly expressed opinions about his lack of ambition, and a half-baked intellectual eclecticism that left him disoriented.
To escape from the memory of Gasfitters as putative human beings and of Eva in the lotus position, Wilt walked by the river thinking dark thoughts, made darker still by the knowledge that for the fifth year running his application to be promoted to Senior Lecturer was almost certain to be turned down and that unless he did something soon he would be doomed to Gasfitters Three and Plasterers Two and to Eva for the rest of his life. It was not a prospect to be borne. He would act decisively. Above his head a train thundered by. Wilt stood watching its dwindling lights and thought about accidents involving level crossings.
‘He’s in such a funny state these days,’ said Eva Wilt, ‘I don’t know what to make of him.’
‘I’ve given up trying with Patrick,’ said Mavis Mottram studying Eva’s vase critically. ‘I think I’ll put the lupin just a fraction of an inch to the left. Then it will help to emphasise the oratorical qualities of the rose. Now the iris over here. One must try to achieve an almost audible effect of contrasting colours. Contrapuntal, one might say.’
Eva nodded and sighed. ‘He used to be so energetic,’ she said, ‘but now he just sits about the house watching telly. It’s as much as I can do to get him to take the dog for a walk.’
‘He probably misses the children,’ said Mavis. ‘I know Patrick does.’
‘That’s because he has some to miss,’ said Eva Wilt bitterly. ‘Henry can’t even whip up the energy to have any’
‘I’m so sorry, Eva. I forgot,’ said Mavis, adjusting the lupin so that it clashed more significantly with a geranium.
‘There’s no need to be sorry,’ said Eva, who didn’t number self-pity among her failings, ‘I suppose I should be grateful. I mean, imagine having children like Henry. He’s so uncreative, and besides children are so tiresome. They take up all one’s creative energy.’
Mavis Mottram moved away to help someone else to achieve a contrapuntal effect, this time with nasturtiums and hollyhocks in a cerise bowl. Eva fiddled with her rose. Mavis was so lucky. She had Patrick, and Patrick Mottram was such an energetic man. Eva, in spite of her size, placed great-emphasis on energy, energy and creativity, so that even quite sensible people who were not unduly impressionable found themselves exhausted after ten minutes in her company. In the lotus position at her yoga class she managed to exude energy, and her attempts at Transcendental Meditation had been likened to a pressure-cooker on simmer. And with creative energy there came enthusiasm, the febrile enthusiasms of the evidently unfulfilled woman for whom each new idea heralds the dawn of a new day and vice versa. Since the ideas she espoused were either trite or incomprehensible to her, her attachment to them was correspondingly brief and did nothing to fill the gap left in her life by Henry Wilt’s lack of attainment. While he lived a violent life in his imagination, Eva, lacking any imagination at all, lived violently in fact. She threw herself into things, situations, new friends, groups and happenings with a reckless abandon that concealed the fact that she lacked the emotional stamina to stay for more than a moment. Now, as she backed away from her vase, she bumped into someone behind her.
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said and turned to find herself looking into a pair of dark eyes.
