'Because do say if you would mind.' Muriel looked gravely at him.
'No, I don't mind a bit. No problem.'
She looked at him a while longer, then, apparently satisfied, flashed a smile (in the sense that it went on and off fast) and clumped out.
He exhaled slowly. There, that had been all right; the smile had been quite well worth having. It was all how she was feeling at any given moment, he told himself, with some conviction for once. She was not too bad really.
He finished his breakfast and went along to the sitting-room, where by now Mrs Havard had been and gone. As usual she had moved every object that could fairly be moved, from matchboxes to sofas, as evidence of her assiduity. When he had as usual shifted everything back where it belonged he settled down with a technical journal and put in a spell of pretending to keep up with his branch of chemical engineering until it was time to he going along to the Bible.
2
Most of those whose marriages have turned out less than well, say, might have been considered to have their ideas of how or why but not to know much about when. According to himself Peter was an exception. If challenged he could have named at least the month and year in which he and Muriel had been making love one night and roughly half-way through in his estimation, what would have been half-way through, rather, she had asked him how much longer he was going to be. He had got out of bed, collected his clothes, dressed in the bathroom and driven over to the Norrises'. He and Charlie had sat up most of the night with a bottle of Scotch while Charlie went on telling him he had not been criminally selfish all his married life and it was not his fault if Muriel disliked it or was indifferent to it. But he had perhaps not managed to take those ideas on board, not quite, then or since.
Anyway, since that night things had accountably never been the same between the Thomases. What it had become inexact to call their lovemaking dwindled in both frequency and duration. After a few years of this it had dawned on Peter that, however strongly Muriel might have disliked it or however deeply indifferent to it she might have been, she expected him to go on going through the motions of providing it in token of still wanting it, and of course not so much it as her. A further decline set in, quite soon followed by the inception of the random verbal punch-ups, and that had been that, rubbed in by separate rooms, no hugs, no endearments. Even perfect love, he used to say to himself, was probably cast out by fear. With all this it was some consolation, though not much, to notice that not even the most colourful punch-ups had anything sexual in them, like references to lovers or what would have been jolliest of the lot, doubts cast on William's paternity, an enormous and surely significant omission.
Peter played back bits of this to himself while he made his way home from the Bible in the middle of a small spinney; he actually managed a new thought on the subject in general. Part of men's earlier average age at death than women's, perhaps a substantial part, might be traceable to wives driving husbands to coronaries single-handed by steadily winding them up with anxiety and rage. Put it to Dewi. But never mind Dewi for now. He focused on the Bible session just over: old Tudor Whittingham, old Owen Thomas, old Vaughan Mowbray and old Arnold Spurling, not to speak of old Garth Pumphrey, who had as good as chaired an impromptu Brains Trust on false teeth, giving unasked a full account of the events leading up to the final installation of his own current set - Peter's mouth tingled at the memory and he clapped a hand over it. But no Charlie, no Alun, no Malcolm. Boding ill, somehow, the last one.
William's smart Audi was thoughtfully parked so as not to block the way to the garage. The time was 1.23, specially selected so as not to do more than brush the fringe of lateness while still allowing mother and son some minutes alone together at the outset. He found them standing by the sitting-room window looking out at the garden and talking about something called mulch or mulching, or rather Muriel was talking about it and went on doing so till a little while after Peter had joined the party. She also remained arm in arm with William throughout, so that on the whole, any kind of Peter/William embrace seemed excluded. William had done what he could in the meantime with waves and cheerful grimaces.
In the end Peter touched his son on the shoulder. 'Hallo, Willie boy, how's it going?'
'Darling, you must have a drink,' Muriel insisted to William. 'Now what would you like?'
'Hallo Dad, fine thanks. Have you got a beer?'
'Sure. What about you, love?'
'Oh, er, anything for me. I don't care. '
'Oh, but you must have a preference. Gin and tonic? Vodka?'
'Is there any dry sherry?'
'I'm afraid not.' Peter never drank sherry himself and he could not remember the last time Muriel had asked for it.
'Oh, well don't bother then.'
'That's no way to talk,' said Peter in his best jocose style. 'Nothing's too much trouble around here. What about a spot of-'
'Is there any wine open?'
'No, but I can easily - '
'Oh, oh, never mind.'
'Come on, Mum, have a glass of wine,' said William. 'If you're going to take that tone,' said his mother, 'what is there for me to do but give in gracefully?'
And of course when Peter got back to the sitting-room with the drinks they were no longer there, they had gone out into the garden. They could have gone out and in half a dozen times while he was looking for something to take down to the basement to open the new case of Muscadet with, and carrying on from there. When he reached them they were strolling, still or again arm in arm, down along the left-hand edge of the lawn with William on the inside, so that to be next to him he would either have to haul the pair of them a good yard to their right or walk on the flower-bed. Neither seemed advisable in the circumstances and he positioned himself instead on Muriel's other side. At the foot of the garden they did not make an about-turn but a right wheel, and stayed in the same relative positions till they were back in the house. It was much the same at lunch: Muriel at the corner of the table, William beside her, Peter at the end on a diagonal from him. They were just sitting down when the telephone rang in the hall and Peter went to answer it.
At his grunt a woman's voice said, 'Is that you, Peter?' He nearly dropped the handset. He had no breath. 'Mr Peter Thomas?'
