“But it’s a practical problem. They have to be fed. Kept alive. The whole world seems to them completely destructive.” She paused. “Maybe it is. I see your point. They have the nuclear weapons inside their heads. The megadeath.”
“Why don’t they give up then? Just give up and die?”
“Some do.”
“And the others?”
“We presume that they once felt some security or goodness. At the breast. They are fighting to get back to it.”
“But you can’t get everything from the breast.”
“No. You can’t get very much at all.” She looked up at him. “Could we possibly, do you think, be more cheerful?”
“It
Isabel put her bag down at her feet, and edged it under the table.
“Don’t put it down there, love, you might forget it.”
“Women never forget their handbags. They’re womb symbols. You wouldn’t forget your womb, would you? I bet Sylvia never does.”
“You’ve not been well, you know. You look very run down. Put everything off for a month or two.”
“Well, I can’t seem to cope, that’s true enough. I do some stupid things. I lost a file. At least, I put it in the back of my car, and then it went into the garage, and when it came back the file wasn’t there.”
“Nobody would want it, would they?”
“It would be of no use or interest to anyone. That’s why it’s so annoying.”
“Have you told them, at the office?”
“Not yet. I shouldn’t have taken it out. I only did it by accident. We did lose a few things when we moved from Wilberforce House, but I think they turned up. I don’t know what the procedure is.”
“Well, there must be some way round it. Have you phoned the garage?”
“Oh yes,” she said tiredly. “But they’re all really stupid people. I never did come to grips with that case, somehow. I could almost think I lost the file on purpose.”
“I think you make too much of people’s subconscious motivations, Isabel. You’re always looking to complicate things.”
“I dare say you’re right. I dare say this particular case hasn’t half the complications I’ve seen in it. Somebody else would handle it more rationally.”
“Has it upset you? Do you want to talk about it?”
“I shouldn’t talk about my clients. No, it’s not an upsetting case, compared to some. It’s just been very trying and distasteful. The file can never be put together again. It goes back too many years, too many people have been involved.”
“They’ll have to make a fresh start.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever made a fresh start. Except Lazarus.”
Colin went to the bar. She sat with her eyes downcast as he carried their glasses back again. She was pale, and she had a cough; she seemed to have lost more weight. She was nervous, less competent.
“Is all this…quite what you wanted to ask me about?” Colin said as he sat down. “You sounded so urgent on the phone.”
“No, of course it wasn’t. I wanted to talk about us. I think it’s time we made some decisions, Colin.”
“We’ve had this conversation before.”
“I want to live with you.”
And now it is she who pleads. The passing weeks have worked a little miracle. She didn’t touch the glass he had put in front of her.
“So you are asking me,” he spoke very deliberately, “to break with Sylvia in the near future?”
“What’s the far future? Do you want to wait until Karen is twenty-one?”
“You know there’s nothing left between me and Sylvia. It’s the children. That’s all.”
“You still sleep with her, I’m sure.”
“Yes. Well, I do.”
“So there is something there.”
“Something.” But no one who has been married, he thought, would presume it to be affection. “The point is, I have to think very carefully. Their whole future hangs on this. I have to make the proper arrangements.”
“But deep down, Colin, you don’t think
“I’m not saying that. I’m not saying I won’t leave her.” He struggled for a judicious tone, something measured.
