Death of a Salesperson by Robert Barnard

prompting—in fact, he had hardly said a word all evening.
    That, Anne-Marie said, was because they were already going to bed together. Gavin was a man of old-fashioned probity, of deeply conservative principles. He was embarrassed by the situation, and took refuge in taciturnity.
    â€˜The strong, silent type?’ inquired Derek satirically.
    â€˜Well, yes, he is, rather. Strong, simple emotions.’
    â€˜His conservative principles didn’t stop him breaking up my hearth and home, did they?’
    â€˜The fire was out , the home was a shell,’ said Anne-Marie. ‘Otherwise I don’t think he ever would have spoken.’
    Gavin apparently was an ex-guardsman, but was now something in the City, as Derek—when he had racked his brains—knew. He was, from all he could learn, just as Anne-Marie described him: simple, passionate,old-fashioned in his morality, strict in his standards. ‘She’d be well-advised not to play around while she’s married to him ,’ said one of Derek’s friends in the City. Then, with a sideways glance at Derek, he added: ‘But then, perhaps she won’t want to.’
    Before Derek shunted this particular stock-broker over to his list of ex-friends, he asked casually:
    â€˜Jealous, would you say?’
    â€˜As a tiger, I’d guess. That’s just an opinion, of course. Until now he’s never had anyone much to be jealous about.’
    â€˜Quite,’ said Derek.
    After the separation Derek rebuilt his life, or rather took steps to ensure the smooth continuation of his old life in all essentials. In some respects very little needed to be done. The cleaning lady came in as before, and now and then left him a cold meal, or something that could easily be heated up in the oven. Mostly Derek ate out. The laundryman called, and Derek did a large shop once a fortnight at the local supermarket, just as he had in Anne-Marie’s time. He found a very reliable Algerian couple, students, who would come in to cook for dinner-parties, or do the necessary at any other drinks-and-chat gatherings Derek might arrange. Life went on really very satisfactorily, except that sometimes in the middle of the night he would awake sweating and panting, and sometimes crying out with what he recognized was rage. Luckily there was no one in the house to hear him. He got into the habit, on these disturbing occasions, of going straight to the bathroom and taking a shower. In the mornings he was his usual cool self.
    It was some time before he made any approach to Gavin Hobhouse. To move too quickly would certainly arouse in that conventional, simple soul either distaste or suspicion. It would have, he knew, to be a fortuitous and spontaneous coming together. What in fact happened was that one lunch-time, in a City pub, Derek saw in the glass behind the bar that Gavin was standing by his shoulderin the one o’clock scrum. Derek eased himself round.
    â€˜Hello, old chap,’ he said. ‘Too silly that we shouldn’t talk, don’t you think? Let me get you a drink.’
    If Gavin Hobhouse had been what used to be called the injured party, it is likely that he would have rejected this advance. A situation where both men nodded frostily to each other when their paths happened to cross would clearly have been much more to his conventional taste. As the guilty party, however, it would certainly be churlish, not to say un-Christian, to reject the hand of friendship, or at least of reconciliation. He tried to keep the stiffness out of his voice when he said:
    â€˜Scotch and water, please.’
    He backed his way out of the scrum, and got them a place by a little ledge on a far wall, and there he waited for Derek and for the inevitable conversation that must ensue without any obvious signs of distaste on his handsome face.
    â€˜How is Anne-Marie, anyway,’ said Derek, coming back with the drinks.
    â€˜Oh, fine. She’s fine,’ said