round her knees. She yawned. ‘What time is it?’
‘Quarter to ten. Wild times, Em.’
She yawned once more. ‘You’ve tired me out.’ She laughed. ‘Stud.’
‘Go and put some clothes on, will you?’
‘What are you doing anyway?’ He held up
‘Haven’t got to that bit yet. It’s still some woman called Nelly banging on.’
‘It gets better, I promise you.’
‘Tell me again, why is there no television here?’
‘We’re meant to make our own entertainment. Come back to bed and talk to me.’
He stood and crossed the room, leaning over the banister and kissing her. ‘Promise you won’t force me to have sex again.’
‘What shall we do instead then?’
‘I know it sounds weird,’ he said, looking a little sheepish. ‘But I wouldn’t mind a game of Scrabble.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. The Middle
THURSDAY 15 JULY 2004
Something strange was happening to Dexter’s face.
Coarse, black hairs had begun to appear high up on his cheeks, joining the occasional long grey solitary hairs that crept from his eyebrows. As if that wasn’t enough, a fine, pale fur was appearing around the opening of his ears and at the bottom of his earlobes; hair that seemed to sprout overnight like cress, and which served no purpose except to draw attention to the fact that he was approaching middle age. Was now middle-aged.
Then there was the widow’s peak, particularly noticeable now after a shower; two parallel byways gradually widening and making their way to the crown of his head, where the two paths would one day meet and it would all be over. He dried his hair with the towel, then scrubbed it this way and that with his fingertips until the path was covered over.
Something strange was happening to Dexter’s neck. He had developed this sag, this fleshy pouch under his chin, his bag of shame, like some flesh-toned roll-neck jumper. He stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror and put one hand on his neck as if trying to mould it all back into place. It was like living in a subsiding house — every morning he woke and inspected the site for fresh cracks, new slippage in the night. It was as if the flesh were somehow cleaving from the skeleton, the characteristic physique of someone whose gym membership had long since lapsed. He had the beginnings of a paunch and, most grotesquely, something strange was happening to his nipples. There were items of clothing that he could barely bring himself to wear now, fitted shirts and ribbed woollen tops, because you could see them there, like limpets, girlish and repulsive. He also looked absurd in any garment with a hood, and only last week he had caught himself standing in a trance, listening to
He shook his head, and told himself it wasn’t that disastrous. If he turned and looked at himself suddenly, and held his head in a certain way, and inhaled, he could still pass for, say, thirty-seven? He retained enough vanity to know that he was still an unusually good-looking man, but no-one was calling him beautiful anymore, and he’d always thought he would age better than this. He had hoped to age like a movie star: wiry, aquiline, grey-templed, sophisticated. Instead he was ageing like a TV presenter. An ex-TV presenter. A twice-married ex-TV presenter who ate far too much cheese.
Emma came in, naked from the bedroom, and he began to brush his teeth, another obsession; he felt like he had an old mouth, like it would never be clean again.
‘I’m getting fat,’ he mumbled, mouth full of foam.
‘No you’re not,’ she said without much conviction.
‘I am — look.’
‘So don’t eat so much cheese then,’ she said.
‘I thought you said I wasn’t getting fat.’
‘If you feel you are, then you are.’
‘And I don’t eat too much cheese. My metabolism is slowing down, that’s all.’
‘So do some exercise. Go to the gym again. Come swimming with me.’
‘No time, have I?’ While the toothbrush was removed from his mouth she kissed him consolingly. ‘Look, I’m a mess,’ he mumbled.
‘I’ve told you before, darling, you have beautiful breasts,’ and she laughed, poked him in the buttock and stepped into the shower. He rinsed, sat on the bathroom chair and watched her.
‘We should go and see that house this afternoon.’
Emma groaned over the sound of the water. ‘Do we have to?’
‘Well I don’t know how else we’re going to find—’
‘Okay. Okay! We’ll go and see the house.’
She continued to shower with her back to him and he stood and stalked into the bedroom to get dressed. They were scrappy and irritable once again, and he told himself that it was because of the strain of trying to find a place to live. The flat had already been sold and a large part of their possessions placed into storage just to make room for the two of them. Unless they found somewhere soon they would have to rent, and all this brought its tensions and anxieties.
But he knew that something else was going on and sure enough, as Emma waited for the kettle and read the paper, she suddenly said—
‘I’ve just got my period.’
‘When?’ he asked.
‘Just now,’ she said, with studied calm. ‘I could feel it coming on.’
‘Oh well,’ he said, and Emma continued to make coffee, her back to him.
He stood to wrap his arms around her waist and lightly kissed the nape of her neck, still damp from the shower. She didn’t look up from the newspaper. ‘Doesn’t matter. We’ll try again, yeah?’ he said, standing there with his chin on her shoulder for a while. It was a winsome, uncomfortable stance, and when she turned the page of the paper, he took it as his cue to return to the table.
They sat and read, Emma the current affairs, Dexter the sport, both taut with irritation while Emma tutted and shook her head in that maddening way she sometimes had. The Butler Inquiry into the origins of the war dominated the headlines, and he could feel her building up to some kind of topical political comment. He focussed on the latest from Wimbledon, but—
‘It’s weird, isn’t it? How there’s this war going on, and virtually no protest? I mean you think there’d be marches or something, wouldn’t you?’
That tone of voice riled him too. It was the one he remembered from all those years ago: her student voice, superior and self-righteous. Dexter made an uncontentious noise, neither challenging nor accepting, in the hope that this would be enough. Time passed, pages of the newspaper were turned.
‘I mean you’d think there’d be something like the anti-Vietnam movement or something, but nothing. Just that one march, then everyone shrugged and went home. Even the students aren’t protesting!’
‘What’s it got to do with the students?’ he said, mildly enough, he thought.
‘It’s traditional, isn’t it? That students are politically engaged. If we were still students, we’d be protesting.’ She went back to the paper. ‘
She was provoking him. Fine, if that’s what she wanted. ‘So why aren’t you?’
She looked at him sharply. ‘What?’
‘Protesting. If you feel so strongly.’
‘That’s exactly my point. Maybe I should be! That was exactly my observation! If there was some kind of
