Patricia and Malise by Susanna Johnston

accusatory.
    Christian’s disenchantment with him had not taken root until after the war and it came to him that, apart from that, he had never been rejected; not by Mr Scarlatti, Dawn, debutantes, foreign lasses. Not by Patricia – until now. Something like pandemonium overtook him; deep uncertainty; unhappiness, fear and acute panic. His hands shook and his feet tightened into cramp. Sometimes he fed recklessly on illusions as he reeled emotionally about. Blood pounded through his veins. Hot and cold. Rejection petrified him.
    Antonio must have snooped. Reported matters to his father. His father was a smoker; neurotic. A showdown had followed and he, Malise, had not been there to comfort Patricia. It was not, then, a case of rejection but a circumstantial case of discovery.
    One evening he forgot to pull the plug after going to the lavatory. Later he returned to flush it.
    On a shelf in the downstairs hall squatted a fat, black, heavy telephone with a big dial on the front of it. If making a trunk call, (anything other than local) those wishing to get in touch had to finger an O to get through to the exchange. During a ‘trunk’ call pips sounded if the talking went on for over three minutes. People often rang off very suddenly on hearing these pips as it meant they were going to have to start paying all over again. Alyson, when talking to her bed-bound cousin (after six in the evening when words cost less) nearly always cut the conversation short; mid-word. ‘Bye!’ she would scream as she dropped the receiver like a toasted chestnut.
    To dial a number abroad it usually took ages to get through. Malise considered the idea and one afternoon, when Alyson had lumbered into the garden and everyone else seemed to be out of the way, he asked the exchange to put him through to Patricia’s Lucca number.
    Her bewitching voice answered ‘Pronto.’
    Malise shouted ‘Hello. Malise. Malise Mc Hip here.’ But she hung up on the instant.
    Alyson had just returned, grumbling, to the hall.
    â€˜I hope you’re all right dear. Has the telephone been playing up? I see you are close beside it. They say it’s been affected by the weather.’
    Malise glared at her, pushed past and walked out of the front door. From the gravel, beside the giant cannonball, he picked up a large, colourful pheasant’s feather and walked with it, through the farmyard and past the barn where, in wintry weather, he had scrambled about with the teenage Dawn. He climbed the style and wandered into a field where he saw a large number of cowpats. Searching carefully, he decided on the biggest one in view, strode towards it and placed the feather into its middle – standing it upright. Then he returned – more or less satisfied with something but he knew not what.
    There never had been a television set in the house. The wireless was the one that had entertained Christian as he listened to Just William and Monday Night at Eight O’clock – but seemed to be broken. No light relief.
    With glassy eyes, he re-read Mr Scarlatti’s letter and drew a ring around the last sentence ‘no one has lost what I have lost – all early hopes.’ Malise found it ironic that his hopes had not even been particularly early ones.
    Ruggles was stationed in the piazza beneath the high apartment for which he still paid rent but, for no reason that he understood, he did not return there. Hopes for Patricia had all but fizzled out.
    With the help of the solicitor, muddled thinking from a grumpy Christian and kind neighbours, the old couple were moved into The Grid. The day before this happened, a small furniture van arrived to fetch belongings destined for the old people’s home. For some unspoken reason, the old man insisted that the painting of Malise as a child was to be amongst the possessions he wished to keep with him. A hazy reminder of his wife and her final icon. As it was about to be dismantled,