themselves out in error.
‘You carry more keys than a jailer,’ she said gaily, because her gaiety was fast returning to her, perhaps as a foil to his sobriety. ‘My God, I have gone to bed for three consecutive days with a hard-core lock zealot. What’s more, you’re a medic, Noah. I don’t care at all for medical persons as a category. I have to tell you that.’
Noah shrugged and looked quite pleased. ‘I guess that way Idon’t get to share you with my colleagues,’ he said. ‘You have no other complaints against me, I trust?’
‘There is a great deal I could hold against you,’ Ali said, for no other reason, really, than to delay him a little. ‘There is your house for a start. You live in a house that looks as if Habitat Contract International flew in and set it up for you within twenty minutes. Houses ought to grow, Noah. I fear that no love has gone into your set-up here. Have you always lived like this?’ But Noah was not responsive to questions about his history. He found them irrelevant.
‘So tomorrow I’ll stay home and weave rugs and drapes for you,’ he said. Ali laughed to think of it.
‘And by your own confession you have just had those shoes handmade for you by Duckers of the Turl.’ She pointed accusingly to his feet. ‘I consider that an unforgiveable extravagance even for a man with unusually high insteps. You wear ugly shirts. Furthermore, you pilfer soap from the National Health Service.’
‘Pilfer soap?
Noah said. ‘If you call that pilfering, baby, it’s because you never lived through the war.’
‘I did in a peripheral sort of way,’ Ali said. ‘I remember my mother wrapping food parcels in Irish linen for what she called “the Eastern Sector”. You had to oversew the edges with buttonhole thread and write the addresses in marking ink. I don’t know what happened about the stamps. I was too young to know about stamps. Perhaps you fixed them on with blanket stitching? I suppose the postmen in East Berlin ate well at any rate. Or their masters did.’
‘Sure,’ Noah said, whose own somewhat remote European relations had not needed food parcels since they had early on in the war been herded into synagogues and burned to death, while Ali’s mother’s relations had had the better fortune to end up in meagre tenement houses, nursing pre-war memories of stables, cooks and holiday houses in the Rhineland.
‘We’ll let the soap pass,’ she said. ‘But you perform experimentson live animals which is a thing I always sign petitions against in the local organic food shop.’
‘Bring up your knees a moment would you?’ Noah said suddenly. Ali drew up her knees. ‘Just let your thighs fall open,’ he said. ‘I’d like to check your IUD.’
Ali continued to talk with splayed legs. ‘So you see there is little to recommend you but that you steal soap and that you can’t type. You are the only American I have ever met who can’t type, by the way. I grant that you’re dead good at feeling up women but that is to do with your great age and experience. Did you say you were fifty?’
‘When did you last get this thing checked?’ Noah said.
‘Checked?’ Ali said. ‘What do you mean checked? I had it fitted didn’t I? About two years ago some miserable sadist medic at the Family Planning Clinic jammed a speculum up me and shoved the thing in. It hurt like hell. A woman doctor she was, but women doctors are often even bossier than the men. They’re collaborators really, aren’t they? They behave like the men only more so. This particular one said that since the NHS was doing me such a favour and providing the thing, could I please try not to look so much like a “dying duck in a thunderstorm” during the insertion. Say, oughtn’t you to go to work, Noah? This is no time for the laying on of hands.’
‘The device is not in position,’ Noah said, employing his usual deadpan manner.
Ali stiffened and drew in her breath.
‘Most probably you ejected it
‘You carry more keys than a jailer,’ she said gaily, because her gaiety was fast returning to her, perhaps as a foil to his sobriety. ‘My God, I have gone to bed for three consecutive days with a hard-core lock zealot. What’s more, you’re a medic, Noah. I don’t care at all for medical persons as a category. I have to tell you that.’
Noah shrugged and looked quite pleased. ‘I guess that way Idon’t get to share you with my colleagues,’ he said. ‘You have no other complaints against me, I trust?’
‘There is a great deal I could hold against you,’ Ali said, for no other reason, really, than to delay him a little. ‘There is your house for a start. You live in a house that looks as if Habitat Contract International flew in and set it up for you within twenty minutes. Houses ought to grow, Noah. I fear that no love has gone into your set-up here. Have you always lived like this?’ But Noah was not responsive to questions about his history. He found them irrelevant.
‘So tomorrow I’ll stay home and weave rugs and drapes for you,’ he said. Ali laughed to think of it.
‘And by your own confession you have just had those shoes handmade for you by Duckers of the Turl.’ She pointed accusingly to his feet. ‘I consider that an unforgiveable extravagance even for a man with unusually high insteps. You wear ugly shirts. Furthermore, you pilfer soap from the National Health Service.’
‘Pilfer soap?
Noah said. ‘If you call that pilfering, baby, it’s because you never lived through the war.’
‘I did in a peripheral sort of way,’ Ali said. ‘I remember my mother wrapping food parcels in Irish linen for what she called “the Eastern Sector”. You had to oversew the edges with buttonhole thread and write the addresses in marking ink. I don’t know what happened about the stamps. I was too young to know about stamps. Perhaps you fixed them on with blanket stitching? I suppose the postmen in East Berlin ate well at any rate. Or their masters did.’
‘Sure,’ Noah said, whose own somewhat remote European relations had not needed food parcels since they had early on in the war been herded into synagogues and burned to death, while Ali’s mother’s relations had had the better fortune to end up in meagre tenement houses, nursing pre-war memories of stables, cooks and holiday houses in the Rhineland.
‘We’ll let the soap pass,’ she said. ‘But you perform experimentson live animals which is a thing I always sign petitions against in the local organic food shop.’
‘Bring up your knees a moment would you?’ Noah said suddenly. Ali drew up her knees. ‘Just let your thighs fall open,’ he said. ‘I’d like to check your IUD.’
Ali continued to talk with splayed legs. ‘So you see there is little to recommend you but that you steal soap and that you can’t type. You are the only American I have ever met who can’t type, by the way. I grant that you’re dead good at feeling up women but that is to do with your great age and experience. Did you say you were fifty?’
‘When did you last get this thing checked?’ Noah said.
‘Checked?’ Ali said. ‘What do you mean checked? I had it fitted didn’t I? About two years ago some miserable sadist medic at the Family Planning Clinic jammed a speculum up me and shoved the thing in. It hurt like hell. A woman doctor she was, but women doctors are often even bossier than the men. They’re collaborators really, aren’t they? They behave like the men only more so. This particular one said that since the NHS was doing me such a favour and providing the thing, could I please try not to look so much like a “dying duck in a thunderstorm” during the insertion. Say, oughtn’t you to go to work, Noah? This is no time for the laying on of hands.’
‘The device is not in position,’ Noah said, employing his usual deadpan manner.
Ali stiffened and drew in her breath.
‘Most probably you ejected it
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