He left hospital and lay in his bed at home, in a room which for years had not been much more than a place where he changed his clothes, before crossing the street to Roz. But in that house were now Tom and Mary. He turned his face to the wall. His mother tried to coax him up and on to his feet, but could not make him take exercise. Lil could not, but Hannah could and did. She came to visit her old friend Mary, slept in that house, and spent most of her time sitting with Ian, holding his hand, often in sympathetic tears.
‘For an athlete it must he so hard,’ she kept saying to Lil, to Mary, to Tom. ‘I can understand why he is so discouraged.’
A good word, an accurate one. She persuaded Ian to turn his face towards her, and then, soon, to get up and take the prescribed steps up and down the room, then on to the verandah, and soon, across the road and down to swim. But he would not ever surf again. He would always limp.
Hannah kissed the poor leg, kissed him, and Ian wept with her: her tears gave him permission to weep. And soon there was another wedding, an even larger one, since Ian and his mother Liliane were so well known, and their sports shops so beneficial to every town they found themselves in, and both were famed for their good causes and their general benevolence.
So there they were, the new young couple, Ian and Hannah, in Lil’s house with Lil. Opposite, Roz’s old house was now Tom’s and Mary’s. Lil was uncomfortable in her role as mother-in-law, and was unhappy every time she saw the house opposite, now so changed. But after all, she was rich, unlike Roz. She bought one
of the houses almost on the beach, not a couple of hundred yards from the two young couples, and Roz moved in. The women were together again, and Saul Butler when he met them allowed a special measure of sarcastic comment into his, ‘Ah, together again, I see!’ ‘As you see,’ said Roz or Lil. ‘Can’t fool you, Saul, can we?’ said Lil, or Roz.
Then Hannah was pregnant and Ian was appropriately proud.
‘It has turned out all right,’ said Roz to Lil.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Lil.
‘What mote could we expect?’
They were on the beach, in their old chairs, moved to outside the new fence.
‘I didn’t expect anything,’ said Lil.
‘Hut?’
‘I didn’t expect to feel the way I do,’ said Lil. ‘I feel …’
‘All right,’ said Roz quickly. ‘Let it go. I know But look at it this way, we’ve had …’
‘The best,’ said Lil. ‘Now all that time seems to me like a dream. I can’t believe it, such happiness, Roz,’ she whispered, turning her face and leaning forward a little, though there wasn’t a soul for fifty yards.
‘I know,’ said Roz. “Well - that’s it.’ And she leaned back, shutting her eyes. From below her dark glasses tears trickled.
Ian went off with his mother a good bit on trips to their shops. He was everywhere greeted with affectionate, respectful generosity. It was known how he had got his limp. As foolhardy as an Everest hero, as brave as - well, as a man outrunning a wave like a mountain - he was so handsome, so courteous, such a gentleman, so kind. He was like his mother.
On one such trip, they were in their hotel suite, before bedtime, and Lil was saying that she was going to take little Alice for the day when she got back to give Mary a chance to go shopping.
Ian said, ‘You two women are really pleased with yourselves.’
This was venomous, not like him; she had not - she thought - heard that voice from him before.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘It’s all right for you.’
‘What do you mean, Ian, what are you saying?’
‘I’m not blaming you. I know it was Roz.’
‘What do you mean? It was both of us.’
‘Roz put the idea into your head. I know that. You’d never have thought of it. Too bad about Tom. Too bad about me.’
At this she began to laugh, a weak defensive laugh. She was thinking of the years with Tom, watching him change from a beautiful boy into a man, seeing the years claim him, knowing how it must end, must end, then should end, she should end it … she and Roz . , . but it was so hard, hard …
‘Ian, do you realise, you sound demented when you say things like that?’
‘Why? I don’t see it.’
‘What did you think? We’d all just go on, indefinitely, then you and Tom, two middle-aged men, bachelors, and Roz and me, old and then you two, old, without families, and Roz and I, old, old, old … we’re getting on for old now, can’t you see?’
‘No, you aren’t,’ said her son calmly. ‘Not at all. You and Roz knock the girls for six any time.’
Did he mean Hannah and Mary? If so … the streak here of sheer twisted lunacy frightened her and she got up. ‘I’m going to bed.’
‘It was Roz put you up to it. I don’t forgive you for agreeing. And she needn’t think I’ll forgive her for spoiling everything. We were all so happy.’
‘Good night, I’ll see you at breakfast.’
Hannah had her baby, Shirley, and the two young women were much together. The two older women, and the husbands, waited to hear news of second pregnancies: surely the logical step. And then, to their surprise, Mary and