that you have to be passionately in love all the time.’
‘Apes,’ said Wilt morosely.
‘Apes? What about apes?’
‘It’s all this business about the animal model. If animals do it then humans must. Territorial Imperative and the Naked Ape. You stand everything on its head and instead of aspiring you retrogress a million years. Hitch your wagon to an orang-outang. The egalitarianism of the lowest common denominator.’
‘I don’t quite see what that has to do with sex,’ said Braintree.
‘Nor do I,’ said Wilt. They went down to the Pig In A Poke and got drunk.
It was midnight before Wilt got home and Eva was asleep. Wilt climbed surreptitiously into bed and lay in the darkness thinking about high levels of oestrogen.
In Rossiter Grove the Pringsheims came back from Ma Tame tired and bored.
‘Swedes are the bottom,’ said Sally as she undressed.
Gaskell sat down and took off his shoes. ‘Ungstrom’s all right. His wife has just left him for a low-temperature physicist at Cambridge. He’s not usually so depressed.’
‘You could have fooled me. And talking about wives, I’ve met the most unliberated woman you’ve ever set eyes on. Name of Eva Wilt. She’s got boobs like cantaloupes.’
‘Don’t,’ said Dr Pringsheim, ‘if there’s one thing I don’t need right now it’s unliberated wives with breasts.’ He climbed into bed and took his glasses off.
‘I had her round here today.’
‘Had her?’
Sally smiled. ‘Gaskell, honey, you’ve got a toadsome mind’
Gaskell Pringsheim smiled myopically at himself in the mirror above. He was proud of his mind. ‘I just know you, lover,’ he said. ‘I know your funny little habits. And while we’re on the subject of habits what are all those boxes in the guest room? You haven’t been spending money again? You know our budget this month…’
Sally flounced into bed. ‘Budget fudget,’ she said, ‘I’m sending them all back tomorrow.’
‘All?’
‘Well, not all, but most. I had to impress booby baby somehow.’
‘You didn’t have to cop half a shop just to…’
‘Gaskell, honey, if you would just let me finish,’ said Sally, ’she’s a manic, a lovely, beautiful, obsessive compulsive manic. She can’t sit still for half a minute without tidying and cleaning and polishing and washing up.’
‘That’s all we need, a manic compulsive woman around the house all the time. Who needs two?’
‘Two? I’m not manic’
‘You’re manic enough for me,’ said Gaskell.
‘But this one’s got boobs, baby, boobs. Anyway I’ve invited them over on Thursday for the barbecue.’
‘What the hell for?’
‘Well, if you won’t buy me a dishwasher like I’ve asked you a hundred times, I’m going out to get me one. A nice manic compulsive dishwasher with boobs on.’
‘Jesus.’ sighed Gaskell, ‘are you a bitch.’
‘Henry Wilt, you are a sod,’ Eva said next morning. Wilt sat up in bed. He felt terrible. His nose was even more painful than the day before, his head ached and he had spent much of the night expunging the Harpic from the bowl in the bathroom.
He was in no mood to be woken and told he was a sod. He looked at the clock. It was eight o’clock and he had Bricklayers Two at nine. He got out of bed and made for the bathroom.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Eva demanded, getting out of bed herself.
