Echo

my life and it's driving me round the bend.'

'I tend to give Christmas a wide berth,' said Deacon, lighting a fresh cigarette. 'I'd rather be at work than pretending I'm enjoying myself.'

'What does giving it a wide berth usually involve?'

Deacon shrugged. 'Ignoring it, I suppose. Keeping my head down till it's all over and sanity's restored. I don't have any children. It might be different if I had children.'

'Yes, we suffer when we have no one to love.'

'I thought it was the other way round,' he said, watching one of the men tug at a piece of wood in the mud's embrace. No woman had ever held on to him as tenaciously as the mud held the wood. 'We suffer when no one loves us.'

'Perhaps you're right.'

'I know I'm right. I've had two wives and I fucked my brains out trying to express my love for both of them. It was a waste of time.'

Lawrence smiled. 'My dear fellow,' he murmured. 'So much fucking for so little result. How terribly exhausting for you.'

Deacon grinned. 'It clearly served some purpose if it amuses you.'

'It reminds me of the woman who gave her husband a do-it-yourself kit when he told her he wanted a good screw.'

'Is there a moral to this story?'

'Five or six at least, depending on whether it was a genuine misunderstanding or whether the wife was teaching her husband a lesson.'

'Meaning she thought he was taking her for granted? Well, I never took either of the Mrs. Deacons for granted, or not until it was obvious the marriages were on the skids. It was they who took me-' he drew morosely on his cigarette-'for every damn penny they could. I had to sell two bloody good houses to give them each a half of my capital, lost most of my possessions in the process and now I'm shacked up in a miserable rented flat in Islington. Is there anything in your morality tale to account for that?'

Lawrence chuckled. 'I don't know. I'm a little confused now about who was screwing whom. What was the purpose of these marriages, Michael?''

'What do you mean 'what was the purpose'? I loved them, or at least I thought I did.'

'I love my cats but I don't intend to marry any of them.'

'What is the purpose of marriage then?''

'Isn't that the question you need to answer before you try again?'

'Do me a favor,' said Deacon. 'I don't intend to have my balls chopped off a third time.'

'You sound as if you're sulking, Michael.'

'Clara-she was my second wife-kept accusing me of going through the male menopause. She said I was only interested in sex.'

'Naturally. Wanting babies isn't a female prerogative. I still want babies, and I'm eighty-three years old. Why did God give me sperm if it wasn't to make babies? Look at Abraham. He was geriatric when he had Isaac.'

Deacon's rugged face broke into a smile. 'Now you're sulking, Lawrence.'

'No, Michael, I'm complaining. But old men are allowed to complain because it doesn't matter how positive their mental attitude, they still have to persuade a woman under forty to have sex with them. And that's not as easy as it sounds. I know because I've tried.'

'I can't pretend it was anything other than lust. Clara was-is-beautiful.'

'Who am I to argue? I had to have my tomcat neutered six months ago because the neighbors kept complaining about his insatiable appetite for their pretty little queens.'

'I wasn't that bad, Lawrence.'

'Neither was my tom, Michael. He was only doing what God programmed him to do, and the fact that he preferred the pretty ones merely demonstrated his good taste.'

'I don't think I ever told Clara I wanted children. I mentioned it to Julia a couple of times but she always said there was plenty of time.'

'There was, until you deserted her for Clara.'

'I thought you were trying to persuade me to feel less guilty about that. Didn't I do it out of desperation to keep the Deacon line going?'

'There's no excuse for inefficiency, Michael. If children are what you want, then you must find a woman who wants them, too. Surely the moral of the DIY story is that people have different priorities in life.'

'So where do I go from here?' asked Deacon with wry amusement. 'Singles bars? Dating agencies? Or maybe I should try an ad in Private Eye?'

'I think it was Chairman Mao who said: 'Every journey begins with the first step.' Why do you want to make that first step so difficult?'

'I don't understand.'

'You need a little practice before you throw yourself in at the deep end again. You've forgotten how simple love is. Relearn that lesson first.'