'How are you, Brenda dear?' Geoffrey spoke as if in greeting, but the two had exchanged warm hugs and several words on his arrival; it was just that he hadn't noticed her since then. 'Fat,' said Brenda, and everyone laughed; Jake saw that Alcestis put her head back further than usual, to show that she knew what had been said was 'a joke'. Brenda went on to ask Geoffrey how he was.
'About the same, thanks. Yes, very much the same. Well, no, actually, not really. All right if I have a slice of this? One of my weaknesses, this sort of stuff.'
On Brenda's nod he picked up a large slice of cream cake and ate it carefully, his eyes fixed straight ahead of him. He was concentrating either on what to say next or on the cake, a small problem cleared up when he swallowed finally, said 'Quite delicious' and emptied his glass.
'In what way aren't you the same?' asked Brenda. 'Not what?'
'You said you weren't—'
'Oh, that's right. Well, that's a jolly good instance. Physically no problem, just getting older as who isn't. It's concentration.
You know the sort of thing I mean—you go up to your bedroom to get a clean handkerchief and when you get there you've forgotten why you've come and have to go back downstairs to where you started. Quite normal up to a point. But with me, I've got to the stage where I take a cup over to the stove to pour some tea into it and find there's one there already, from .... half a minute before. And then I have to taste it to see if I've put sugar in. Now that's still just annoying. As I say, it just adds on a few seconds to some of the things I do. But .... er .... the .... silliest part is what I'm thinking about instead of what I'm doing. It's me I'm thinking about, and that's not a very interesting subject. I mean, if a chap's thinking about his, er, his mathematics instead of his teacup, or his .... symphony, then that's all right, that's reasonable. It's in proportion. But me—I ask you!'
Geoffrey had not departed from his cheerful tone. The two women laughed affectionately. Jake held up the wine bottle, which still held about a glassful, but Geoffrey smiled and shook his head and went on as before.
'And the stupidest thing of the lot is, I don't think poor old me, or poor old me in the financial sense, though I jolly well could like everybody else these days, and certainly not 'brilliant' old me. Just, just me. It's not enough, you know.'
'It certainly is not by a long chalk,' said Alcestis, going up to her husband and putting her arm through his. 'I only married you because you were the most boring chap I knew so nobody but me could stand you. Now I'm going to take you home, or rather you're going to take me home and we'll leave these good people in peace.'
'Why don't you stay to supper?' asked Brenda. 'There's nothing very much but I'm sure you and I could knock something up, Allie.'
.. .Yes, do,' said Jake.
'No, sweet of you, but we've tried your patience long enough already.' Alcestis embraced Jake briefly. 'Come along Mabbott, let's hit the trail.'
By custom Brenda saw the visitors out while Jake stayed behind in the sitting room. Normally at such a time he could count on a good five minutes to himself, but today it was only a few seconds before he heard the front door slam and his wife approach along the passage.
3—Domestic Interior
'When the bishop farted we were amused to hear about it,' said Jake. 'Should the ploughboy find treasure we must be told. But when the ploughboy farts .... er .... keep it to yourself.'
Brenda had started putting the tea things together, not very loudly. With her back turned she said in her dear soprano, 'Did you make that up?'
'Free translation of one of Martial's epigrams.'
'Quite good, I suppose.'
'It enshrines a principle poor old Allie would do well to—'
A saucer whizzed into the empty fireplace and broke. 'You leave Allie alone! You did quite enough when she was here l'
'What? I didn't do anything at all.'
'Much! I know you can't be expected to like my friends, that isn't reasonable, why should you, we can't all be the same, I don't necessarily like your friends.' Brenda was talking very fast, though not for the moment quite at the pitch to be expected from someone who had reached the crockery-throwing stage. Now she paused and bit her lower lip and gave a shaky sigh. 'But I don't see why you feel you have to make your low opinion of my friends so devastatingly crystal-clear!'
Jake heard the last part with annoyance and some self-reproof. He had thought his behaviour to the Mabbotts a showpiece of hypocritical cordiality. And now he came to think of it, hadn't Brenda said something of this sort the last time they had seen Alcestis, or the time before? 'I haven't got a low opinion of Allie,' he said with an air of slight surprise, 'I just find her a bit of a—'
'She knows exactly what you find her, she's not a fool whatever you may think, though even a fool could tell. The way you imitate her and take the mickey out of her and the way your face goes when she tells a story and the way you 'sit,' I didn't think it was a very terrific story either but she wouldn't have told it if you hadn't shut her up and absolutely sat on her about the doctor and brought the whole conversation to an absolute full stop. You used to quite like her, I can't understand it.'
'I didn't want to discuss the doctor with her, obviously.' Jake poured out the last of the wine. He longed for a smoke but had given it up four years previously and was determined to stick to that. There were no cigarettes in the house anyway.
'You still had no need to sit on her and be crushing,' said Brenda in about the same tone as before. Although she was standing above him she talked with her chin raised, a mannerism that had stood her in good stead since she began to put on weight. 'And I don't know what she thought when she finished her story and you just 'sat' there as if you hadn't heard a word, or rather 'I do'.'
'I didn't realise it was over at first. I honestly thought that couldn't be the end. And what do you mean she wouldn't have told it if I hadn't shut her up about the doctor? She'd already started to tell it to you before I got back, that was quite clear.'
'I meant she wouldn't have gone on with it. She'd been telling it to me because it was a tiny little thing in her life that she thought might interest me for about five seconds. That's what old friends do when there's just the
