“He’s the most famous of the lot,” Sandra was saying. “He’s got paintings in galleries all over the country. It was going to be a hell of a coup to get him, but now he’s backed out. He’s a real bastard.”
“I thought the idea was to give locals a chance, the lesser-known ones?”
“It is. But Canning would have drawn a damn good crowd. Indirectly, he’d have got them all more publicity, given them more chance of making a sale.”
“For the right reasons’?”
“That doesn’t matter. So what if they come to see his work? They’d see the others too.”
“I suppose so.”
Sandra sipped her gin and tonic. “I’m sorry to go on about it, Alan, really I am. It’s just that I’ve been so involved. I’ve put in so much bloody work it makes me boil.”
“I know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
Her blue eyes hardened. “Yes it is. I can tell by your
tone. You’re not complaining, are you? That I haven’t been doing my little wifely duties—cooking your meals, washing your clothes?”
Banks laughed. “I didn’t marry you for your ‘little wifely duties’ as you call them. I can look after myself. No. If I am complaining at all, it’s about hardly seeing you over these past few weeks.”
“Like I hardly see you when you’re on a case?”
“Touche”
“So what do you mean? You expect me to be there whenever you decide to come home?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“What is it then?”
Banks lit a cigarette, playing for time. “It’s … well, just that the house seems so empty. You’re never there, Tracy’s never there. I feel like I’m living alone.”
Sandra leaned back in her chair. She reached out and grabbed one of Banks’s cigarettes. “Hey,” he said, putting his hand over hers. “You’ve stopped.”
She broke free. “And I’ll stop again tomorrow. What’s really bothering you, Alan?”
“What I said. The empty house.”
“So it’s not just me, what I’m doing?”
“No, I don’t suppose it is.”
“But you take it out on me?”
“I’m not taking anything out on you. I’m trying to explain what the problem is. For Christ’s sake, you asked rne.”
“Okay, okay. Keep your shirt on. Maybe you need another pint.”
“Wouldn’t mind.”
Sandra held out her hand. “Money, then.”
Banks looked gloomily into the last quarter-inch of deep gold liquid in his glass while Sandra threaded her way to the bar. She was right. It wasn’t just her at all. It
was the whole damn situation at home. He felt as if his children had suddenly become different people overnight, and his wife hadn’t even noticed. He watched her coming back. She walked slowly, concentrating on not spilling the drinks. It was absurd, he felt, but even after all these years just seeing her made his heart speed up.
Sandra placed the glass carefully on the beer-mat in front of him and he thanked her.
“Look,” she said, “I know what you mean, but you have to accept things. Brian’s gone. He’s got his own life to lead. When did you leave home?”
“But that’s not the same.”
“Yes it is.”
“It was stifling in Peterborough, with Dad always on at me and Mum just taking it all. It wasn’t the same at all.”
“Perhaps the circumstances weren’t,” Sandra allowed. “But the impulse certainly is.”
“He’s got a perfectly good home with us. I don’t see why he’d want to go as far as bloody Portsmouth. I mean, he could have gone to Leeds, or York, or Bradford and come home on weekends.”
Sandra sighed. “Sometimes you can be damned obtuse, Alan Banks, do you know that?”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s left the nest, flown the coop. For him it’s a matter of the farther the better. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love us any more. It’s just of part of growing up. You did it yourself. That’s what I mean.”
“But I told you, that was different.”
“Not all that much. Didn’t you used to get on at him all the time about his music?”
