Rough Music by Patrick Gale

during which the numbness of shock gave way to the relentless workings of memory, that it struck him that his sister had affected his choice of wife. In many ways, Frances resembled the pre-American Becky; restless, rebellious even but still rooted. He wondered now whether his brother-in-law would notice or whether, like Becky in her catty letter of “congratulation” after her visit, he would merely see her as a wife in John’s own image; inhibited, conventional and quiet.

BLUE HOUSE
     

 
    John strolled by the Bross then went to his usual pub—not quite his local. A residual Puritanism made him slightly ashamed of drinking in public and he fancied that a greater distance from home lent him a measure of anonymity. However, contrary to what he had told Frances, the walk was short and the drink was anything but quick.
    Sylvia was at their usual corner table. She had none of his wife’s inhibitions about entering a pub on her own. She gave him a little wave as he entered. He smiled at her on his way to the bar and pointed at her gin glass but she covered it with a small hand to show that she was all right for the moment. Joining her, he marveled afresh at how very neat she was. White hair, discreetly assisted so that one could tell she had once been a blonde, curled neatly about small ears. Her pink blouse was creaseless. Her thin legs were tucked neatly away into the recess beneath her settle. The only untidy touch was her jewelry, of which she wore a profusion, but even then she favored gold over gems; the glitter combined with the sharply pressed outlines of her clothes to lend her appearance a hint of the military. They did not kiss.
    “How are you doing?” he began instead, their customary greeting.
    Sylvia spoke lightly, raising her glass. “If Teresa hadn’t arrived when she did, I think I’d have pushed him under a bus.”
    “Not good then.”
    She drank then laughed bitterly. “Funny, isn’t it? Good used to mean a sunny holiday, a comfortable retirement or, what was it you called it that time?
The tenuous possibility of very cautious sex.
Now it’s what? A smile that might be meant for you or might just be wind. A morning when he hasn’t pulled his nappy off in the night. A day when he’s calm, even nice. I tell you, I used to want him to be aware so badly. I wanted him to recognize who he was. Now I want his brain to hurry up and fry itself. When that look comes into his eyes and I know he’s aware and he’s like ‘what’s happening to me?’ I can’t stand it.” She drank again, lit a cigarette, hand shaking slightly with need as she inhaled. “Listen to me,” she said and restored neatness with a smile. “I’m fine, John.
I’m
fine. How are you?”
    “Fine,” he said, smiling. “I’m fine and Frances is fine too. I mean, relatively. A bit forgetful. A bit … But compared to what Steve’s going through …”
    “I know,” she said quietly, adding words that were both reassurance and threat. “Early days yet, John. Early days.”
    Given the way they had found each other and the clandestine manner of their meetings, they ought to be having an affair. In a woman’s sense, he supposed, in an emotional sense, they already were. Certainly Frances would be as wounded and jealous if she knew of the depth of their shared confidences as if he had set Sylvia up in a love-nest. Generous colleagues had bought him a personal computer as a retirement present over ten years ago. He had found little serious use for it at first, merely using it to play chess, to keep the household accounts and to write the occasional formal letter. When Will bought him a modem and organized Internet access, he had made an effort to use the thing, out of politeness at first, but had swiftly become hooked. A lifetime’s user of any local reference library, a lover of facts and arcane information, he now found that the Internet was like having the great libraries of the world and an unlimited newsagent accessible,