'He's got half a suit on already. For the theatre I should think he'd go for, er .... a safari jacket with a frilled shirt and velvet bow-tie, jeans, tartan socks....'
'What are you talking about?'
'Well you must admit he does dress extraordinarily.'
'Honestly, just because he doesn't dress like anybody else....'
'You don't overstate the case. No, it's more than that. It's one of his character-trait-substitutes like pretending to hate nurses and like Dvorak. No .... it's not that either, if that was what he was after it would be much easier and less ridiculous if he just always wore white or bright red or had a collection of outlandish ties, say. Ah, you were right after all, not dress like 'anybody' else. Perverseness! An instinct, a compulsion to get things wrong. That's why....' Jake's voice trailed off, he understood now about Geoffrey's magpies, Lake Vancouver and Florence Nightingale throwing herself under the King's horse at the Grand National, results of an endless series of drawn battles between memory and the will to err, but as he felt at the moment he couldn't face explaining all that from the start. He went on fast instead, 'That's why he's such a pest to talk to, always on the look-out for chances of getting at cross-purposes with you. In fact there was the most amazing—'
'Why are you so against him?'
'Darling I'm not 'against' him, I'm just interested in him. You never know, we might even be able to help him.' (It was true enough that Jake didn't consider himself to be more against Geoffrey than any reasonable man ought to be and was indeed interested in him, but the mention of helping him was pretty pure hypocrisy.) 'You saw I was talking to him in that tea-break? Well, I congratulated him on sort of seeing through himself—that's what he said he'd done if you remember, there was nothing in him, he said. Anyway, he said he couldn't make out what I was driving at. That really staggered me, because I thought, when he said that all his views and everything were just to make him seem interesting, which struck me as absolutely dead right, perhaps it was sheer chance he got it right, he didn't really mean it, all he was doing was saying another thing that was supposed to make him seem interesting.'
'Bit of a coincidence, wouldn't that be, or have I got it wrong? I expect I have. I just thought he was terrifically brave.'
'Perhaps he was. I told him I thought so, which can't do any harm, I suppose, though he didn't seem to take it in much.'
They were nearly home now, hurrying through the rain that had begun to fall. Two carloads of Asians dawdled past. Brenda said hesitantly.
'What did you think of the other stuff, the other people?'
'Oh I really don't know, don't ask me yet. I'm what Ed would do doubt call too close to it.'
'All right. But you were good. Can't have been much fun.'
'Thank you darling.'
As soon as they were indoors Brenda slipped out to the kitchen and put the kettle on; Jake followed.
'You can't have tea at this time,' he told her, 'it's a quarter to seven.'
'Oh can't I, you just watch me. It's either that or gin and it had better not be gin. Not for a bit anyway.'
'What I could really do with is a cigarette.'
She gave him a glance of sympathy but said nothing. After a moment he picked up her discarded coat and headscarf and put them with his own hat and coat in the hall cupboard, which had a floral china doorknob on it. An aeroplane went slowly by, or rather not slowly at all but staying in earshot for about three-quarters of an hour. With greater intensity than ever before he wished he still had his 'libido', because if he had he and Brenda would be on their way upstairs now to make love. Of course they would; nothing like the Workshop had ever come their way before but of course they would. The thing about you and your wife making love was that it made things all right, not often for ever but always for a time and always for longer than the actual love-making. In that it was unique: adultery could make life more interesting but it couldn't make things all right in a month of Sundays. And as for booze you must be joking—as well expect a fairly humane beating—up to do the job.
He went back into the kitchen where Brenda was spooning the Jackson's Earl Grey, one of their few indulgences, into the teapot, which was floral too.
'Look at me not making buttered toast,' she said.
'I do so, and I admire.'
'Twelve pounds I've lost in just three weeks. The Guzzlers say that's as fast as it's safe to go.'
'I'm sure they're right.'
The doorbell chimed. Jake always wished it wouldn't do that but would ring or be a buzzer instead; the trouble was it counted as being outside the house, which was his province, and he couldn't be bothered so it went on chiming. Anyway, when he opened the door he found Kelly was there, though she wasn't for long; she furled her umbrella and stepped across the threshold so promptly and confidently that he at once assumed that Brenda had invited her during one of the breaks at Mr Shyster's and for some odd reason neglected to mention it. Standing now by the cheval glass the girl nodded and smiled inquiringly at him.
'We're in the kitchen,' he said; 'Brenda's just making a cup of tea.'
'Oh marvellous. Is it this way?'
Brenda had entered upon the very act of tea making. The look she gave reversed Jake's understanding as fast as it had formed: the appearance of Kelly was a surprise to her, and not a particularly welcome one either. If the second half of this was noted it wasn't reacted to; Kelly walked over to the sink and stood her umbrella up in it to drain, talking eagerly the while.
'It's so kind of you both to let me just barge in on you like this, I hope you don't mind too much. You may be wondering how I found you, well I simply followed you from that frightful house. At a respectful distance, so I wasn't quite sure which gate you went in at but I got it on the second try. It's the most awful cheek on my part but I did so want to have a chat with you both.'
