He looked through the lashes. He said:
‘The 29th of March.’
‘You make an occasion of it, do you? In the home, with the children around? You all give her presents, I suppose. Is there a special cake?’
‘The wife likes a jam-roll. She buys one at Lyons.’
‘And the children get her little gifts? Things from Woolworth’s?’
‘Something like that.’
‘When I was little I used to buy presents in Woolworth’s. My dad used to take me by the hand. I suppose you did, too. And your wife.’
‘Yes, love, I suppose so.’
‘I often think of your wife. I can’t help it. I see her in my mind’s eye.’
‘She’s a big woman,’ said Mr McCarthy meditatively. ‘Bigger than you, Mavie. A big, dark woman – more than that I won’t say.’
‘Oh, honey, I never meant to pry.’
‘It’s not prying I mind, Mavie. No, you’re not prying. It’s just that I don’t wish to soil the hour.’
When Mr McCarthy had said that, he heard the words echoing in his mind as words occasionally do.
She knew that when he left, at twenty to four, she would sit alone in her dressing-gown and weep. She would wash the dirty dishes from lunch and she would wash his lovingly: she would wash and dry his egg-cup and be aware that it was his. She knew that that was absurd, but she knew that it would happen because it had happened before. She did not think it odd, as Mr McCarthy had often thought, that she, so pretty and still young, should love so passionately a man of fifty-two. She adored every shred of him; she longed for his presence and the touch of his hand. ‘Oh, my honey, my honey,’ cried Mavie, throwing her body on the body of Mr McCarthy and wrapping him up in her plump limbs.
At half past three Mr McCarthy, who had dropped into a light doze, woke to the awareness of a parched throat and a desire for tea. He sighed and caressed the fair hair that lay on the pillow beside him.
‘I’ll make a cup of tea,’ said Mavie.
They drank tea in the kitchen while Mr McCarthy buttoned his waistcoat and drew on his socks. ‘I’ve bought a bow tie,’ he confided, ‘though I’m still a little shy in it. Maybe next week I’ll try it out on you.’
‘You could ask me anything under the sun and I’d do it for you. You could ask me anything, I love you that much.’
Hearing this, Mr McCarthy paused in the lacing of a boot. He thought of his braces, taut now about his shoulders; he thought of a foot fetish he had read about in the public library.
‘I love you that much,’ whispered Mavie.
‘And I you,’ said Mr McCarthy.
‘I dream of you at nights.’
‘I dream of you, my dear,’
Mavie sighed and looked over her shoulder, ill at ease. ‘I cannot think of you dreaming of me.’
‘I dream of you in my narrow twin bed, with that woman in the twin beside it.’
‘Don’t speak like that. Don’t talk to me of the bedroom.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I can’t bear the thought of the twin beds in that room. I’ve told you before, honey.’
‘Oh, Mavie, Mavie, if we could be together.’
‘I love you that much.’
For a moment there was silence in the kitchen. Then, having tilted his cup to drain it of tea, Mr McCarthy rose to go.
As he crossed the floor his eyes fell on a birthday card propped up on the mantelshelf. It registered with him at once that the day was Mavie’s birthday, and for a moment he considered remarking on that fact. Then he remembered the time and he kissed her on the head, his usual form of farewell. ‘The forty-seventh time,’ he murmured. ‘Today was the forty-seventh.’
She walked with him along the passage to the door of the flat. She watched him mount the basement steps and watched his legs move briskly by the railings above. His footsteps died away and she returned to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of tea. She thought of him keeping his Saturday appointment, a business appointment he had always called it, and afterwards returning on a bus to his suburb. She saw him entering a door, opening it with a latchkey, being greeted by a dog and two children and the big, dark woman who was his wife. The dog barked loudly and the woman shrilled abuse, upbraiding her husband for a misdemeanour or some piece of forgetfulness or some small deceit discovered. Marie could feel his tiredness as he stood in his own hall, the latchkey still poised between his fingers, like a man at bay. Her eyes closed as she held that image in her mind; tears slipped from beneath their lids.
The bus let Mr McCarthy down at an Odeon cinema. He moved rapidly, checking his watch against a brightly lit clock that hung out over a shop. He was reckoning as he walked that there was time to have another cup of tea,
