fact he was doing much worse. He used to sneak off and pick up women, old women, awful women, the kind of woman who sleeps rough. It was all he could get, I suppose. He wasn’t very prepossessing himself. He said he was lonely.
“He used to meet them in the launderette or at the park, or in the bus station cafe. He used to buy them cups of tea. They’d be grateful. They didn’t mind doing it out of doors, even in cold weather. He used to come home with clay on the knees of his trousers. I didn’t know what to do.
“He started bringing them home, and I was frantic in case the neighbours found out. For me, in my position…He could have caught something, a disease. He could be getting them pregnant, they weren’t all old. There I was, telling other people how to run their lives. I used to hide his glasses. He could hardly see without them; but I think he used to get out, all the same.
“And then the day came when I did get into the Axon house. There was something funny about the way Muriel looked, and the way her mother talked; as if they were carrying on some elaborate piece of acting, and as if I couldn’t see what was right under my nose. Her mother said Muriel had been out of the house. ‘On the razzle’ was the expression she used.
“I went away and the picture of Muriel remained in my mind, sitting, lumpen, her face downcast, in her peculiar blue smock made out of some kind of furnishing fabric. At first it didn’t occur to me that she might be pregnant. I only saw her, in my mind, ambling through the park, or drinking tea out of a paper cup down at the bus station. It occurred to me, as I ran down the Axons’ front path; and now, all these years later, the thought wakes me up in the middle of the night.
“I didn’t report my suspicion. I didn’t do anything. I cleared off and left the Axons to their own devices. I didn’t go back to the house until I absolutely had to, and by that time Muriel (if she’d really been pregnant) had already given birth. What happened to the baby? Was it a boy or a girl? I think I read somewhere that babies’ corpses often mummify, and turn up years later, uncannily preserved.”
She stopped writing. It didn’t seem very coherent. There was so much that only made sense in the light of her state of mind at the time, and no doubt she had been over-imaginative. That was a fault of hers.
She took a clean sheet of paper and wrote on it,
“I think my husband is having an affair. I don’t know who she is and I hope I don’t find out. I like deceiving myself. It is comfortable. It is the House Speciality.”
Perhaps I should have a drink, she thought. My style leaves something to be desired and perhaps after a drink it would improve. Perhaps a drink would help her to see the connection between things, the connections she sensed and sought. There was no gin, so she had whisky. She wasn’t fussy these days. Alcohol takes you to the heart; you see the True Nature of Events.
There was a feeling of circular motion. It was not entirely the effect of the Scotch on an empty stomach. Here she was, back in town. Here she was, the Wronged Wife; she’d once been the Other Woman. It is a progression people make, but she didn’t see that. Her situation seemed special, sinister, ensnaring. Funny that it’s only after ten years things seem to fit together.
What I need, Colin thought, is a large gin and tonic.
“Anybody home?” No answer. He dropped his jacket—he had not worn it all day—on the chair in the hall, and went into the living room. “Why doesn’t anybody let a bit of air in around here?” He swung open the french windows that looked over the garden. Ought to spray for blackfly this weekend, he thought. He turned to the wall units and opened a cupboard gingerly; he could not trust the door to stay in place, having constructed the units himself last summer with the help of screwdriver provided and simple instructions in Japanese. He held the gin bottle up for inspection; it was a quarter full, so he poured himself a measure into a tumbler which came to hand and, picking it up, set off for the kitchen to look for ice and tonic. There would be lemons, for sure; there were always lemons around Sylvia. She cooked them and squeezed them and ate them and rubbed them on her elbows, like the Esquimaux using up every part of the beast. He found a drop of tonic in a bottle at the back of the fridge. It looked flat. He shook it and watched it fizz, then opened the freezer. There was something like raspberry jam all over the ice cubes. He sighed, slid out the tray, and took it to the sink. He twisted it and nothing happened, so he hammered it against the stainless steel for a while, looking out of the kitchen window; he twisted it again, and the ice cubes flew out and fell into the sink with a clatter. He picked up a couple, pursuing them as they shot away from his fingers, and ran them under the tap to try to get the jam off; before long the ice and water were indistinguishable, and both were running through his fingers.
“Hello, Dad,” said Claire, coming in. “What are you washing the ice cubes for?”
“Because somebody, I don’t say who, has been smearing jam all over the place.”
“It must have been Alistair.”
“It’s funny that he put it round your mouth too, isn’t it?”
“Is this your drink?” Claire put her forefinger into his tumbler and licked it. “Yuk, that’s horrible.”
“Watch out, you’ll have jam in it.”
“I tell you what, Dad, I could make you some tea.”
“This will do me nicely, Claire. If you’ll take your fingers out of it, I’ll have it without the ice.”
“You could have tea as well. I’ve got my forms for Brownies.”
“Perhaps later, pet. Where is Alistair, is he still upstairs?”
“No, I saw him with Austin. They’re in the churchyard.”
“Oh yes, what are they doing? Exhuming somebody?”
“What’s that?”
“Digging up bodies. Really, Claire, we’ll have to do something about your vocabulary.”
“No, stupid, they weren’t digging up bodies. They were singing. They’ve got some beer.”
“Really, at this time of day?”
“They’ve not got a bottle opener, so they’re knocking the tops off on the gravestones. They wouldn’t let me do it.”
