‘…Mm. Now you can have a lovely sleep! And lovely dreams about tomorrow morning…I’m setting the alarm’, Phoebe said sternly, ‘for eight.’ She yawned and licked her lips. ‘We’ll need showers and a proper breakfast first of course. And you’ve got to dash down and do the Mini. So seven-thirty. No. Seven…fifteen.’
Courtesy car
Out on the balcony, clad in Y-fronts and donkey jacket, his hair chilling in the needles of cold rain, he smoked a delicious and seemingly endless hand-rolled cigarette, and, with that achieved, he slid inside, poured two cups of coffee from the steel jug on the stove, and got back in time to see Phoebe emerging from her second shower of the morning, with a white towel round her waist and another one hanging loose from her shoulders like an unfurled scarf (and of course he kissed her and praised her)…She now attended to her day clothes, pre-assembled on a straightbacked chair, as if ready for school. (He similarly, if less pleasingly, had an arm out for his socks.) With a forbearing shrug Phoebe said,
‘Jane isn’t so bad I suppose. She can’t help being a know-all. And a snob…What was that about the nightdress, Mart?’
He was thinking, he was languidly deciding that this was yet another reason for the marked popularity of the sexual act: you also got the ease and freedom that nearly always bobbed along in its wake. And you could also talk freely about sex. He said,
‘Between you and me, Phoebe, the nightdress thing was really pretty lame. But let me tell you what she says about…’ He hesitated. Anglosaxonisms didn’t really sit well with Phoebe (and Sir Graeme also had a horror of rude words). ‘About, you know, men’s things. Men’s arrangements. Ready? See if you agree.’
Phoebe gave a tolerant lift of the chin as she positioned her snaps and stays and leaned down from the chair to start scrolling up the white stockings.
‘Well. Jane says it’s not size that matters. Within reason of course. It’s hardness.’
‘…Jane said that to you? About penises?’ Phoebe’s tall neck lengthened. ‘She’s your stepmother for goodness’ sake.’
‘Yeah. She’s Dad’s wife. And it can be a bit awkward. Listen, I want your opinion. Now weigh, with your practical mind, Phoebe, weigh these two items of evidence.’
‘I’m listening.’ She looked at her watch and reached for her coffee. ‘Quick though.’
‘Number one, she stops me on the stairs and says, Your father hasn’t fucked me in three months.’
‘She said that?’
‘Yes. And indignantly too. And years ago. In 1973 or something.’
‘That’s disgusting…That’s abuse of trust, that is.’
‘No. No it’s not, Phoebe. I’ve known her half my life. We’re pretty close. Anyway.’ He felt an obscure unease pass over him. ‘Anyway, item number two…Dad, Dad told me, just the other night, he’s been going in for sex therapy…I can’t believe it.’
‘There. See? That’s what Jane’s reduced him to.’
He went on wanderingly, ‘I couldn’t believe it, because he loathes all that. Viennese innuendoes, anything personal. I said, Bad luck, old man, and he just shrugged and said, Well, in a case like this you have to show willing.’
With a faraway look Phoebe rose to her feet, like a girl in church slowly straightening up for the hymns. ‘Now will you admit I’m right.’
Phoebe was at this point fully primed for the outside world, hugging her business jacket close as she strode towards the door. ‘Oi. Chop chop. So tell me, Martin. Do you want to follow in his footsteps? So, so dulled they send him to a bloody lab?’
‘…No. You show me how, Phoebe. Show me the way.’
‘I will,’ she said. ‘Stick with me, kid.’
‘I will.’ As they were shuffling round the front door she said,
‘What kind of therapy?’
‘I’ve no idea. Just Dad and Jane sitting there with the guy or the girl and discussing how they feel about each other.’
‘Oh, well. Once they start doing that it’s all over very quickly.’
‘Is it? Why?’
‘Because it’s more of what you hate.’
She did the bolts and they stepped out on to the landing. ‘You show me how. I like you, Phoebe. You’re great. I like you very much. You show me how…’
‘All right. Deal.’
‘You know, Dad said you looked like an adorable woodland creature in a children’s book. And Jane said, oh yeah, Jane wondered if you were an orphan. She –’
Now Phoebe faltered as they started down the stairwell, half sliding towards him on the moist tiles; he easily steadied her; she regained her height and gave him an ordinary glance, but he saw that her eyes had freshened and her upper lip had a numb and puffy look to it.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t’ve passed that on.’
‘What on? Oh. It’s nothing to do with Jane. When you said those nice things…’
‘Come on, I’ve said nice things before.’
With her head up she took his arm and said sensibly, ‘I know you have, Mart. I know you have.’
Under the archway they waited in the light rain for Phoebe’s car, her courtesy car (this sometimes happened).
‘Will you call me later? Of course you will, you always do. Oh dear. Oh dear. We’ve been together for twenty months, Martin. It’s the longest I’ve…It’s ridiculous. What do I have to do to put you off?’
He said, ‘I know. Let me make love to you every night.’
‘Oh, and betray my deepest convictions? No. Time for the new regime. Sorry!’
She gave him a kiss on the lips, in consolation; he nodded fatalistically and bowed as her delicate legs, clenched together, slid smoothly into the back seat. They waved.
—————
He already knew a fair amount about the new regime, which she called the Next Thing (the two words had long been fearfully capitalised in his mind).
Would it be sudden, the next thing? No. It’s not one big idea. It’s more like a package of measures. How’ll I know when the next thing’s begun? You’ll know after a bit, Martin. The realisation will
