Rough Music by Patrick Gale Page B

which had always conveyed for him—quite irrationally, of course—an air of easy moral slovenliness. Tonight was not exceptional in that he had no sooner sat beside her than he felt a dispassionate desire to kiss her, if only because he felt he could, because he sensed she would not make a scene about it but would, at best, encourage him, at worst, laugh.
    “Will’s with her tonight,” he said.
    “Playing cards?”
    “Not tonight. Bad day. Crisp?”
    “No thanks. They catch in my plate. There’s romance.” She laughed.
    “He’s asked us on a holiday. To Cornwall.”
    “That’s nice.”
    “But it’s a place we went to before. Years ago.”
    “But that’ll do her good. Familiar places can be far more stimulating than new ones. It’ll stoke up her memories without unsettling her.”
    “I’m not sure these are memories we want stoked up.”
    “Did you argue there, or what?”
    “I’ve never told anyone.”
    “Tell me.”
    “I …” He looked at her tidy, expectant, careworn face then imagined it registering her shock if he did as she asked. “I don’t think I can,” he said. “And I’m not sure I should.”
    “I can respect that,” she said, lighting another cigarette. She always mutely offered him one, although she must have known by now that he would refuse. He liked it. One day he might surprise her. “There are things I’d never tell a soul about Steve and me. Not even my sister, and I tell her everything. That’s a lie for a start. I haven’t told her everything since we were about twenty and I fancied her boyfriend. In a funny way I’ve got closer to him since he got ill than I ever was before. We never used to share a bathroom. I didn’t even see him shave. He was so sensitive of my ladylike sensibilities, he even used to wait till he’d got to the office before he’d have a crap.”
    “What did he do at weekends?”
    “Public library lavvy on Saturdays, pub one on Sundays. He’d
die
if he knew I knew. And now, well, there’s not a thing about him I don’t know. Not that it’s much compensation for what we lost. I’ve got the answers to the little things I’d always wondered—his savings accounts, his wine cellar, his toenail clippings. I’ve even got rid of the hairs in his ears and nose that always used to drive me crazy. But it’s a bit like, what’s it called? What’s-her-face’s box.”
    “Pandora.”
    “That’s the one. I’ve opened the box. I know everything. But now it’s just me and the box and the box is empty and not half as exciting as when it was locked.”
    “Pandora’s box wasn’t empty.”
    “Yeah. I know. It was full of nasties like war and famine and plague that the silly moo let out.”
    “Yes, but she slammed the lid shut just in time and kept back one feeble, fluttering little thing.”
    “Euthanasia?”
    John smiled. “Hope.”
    “Spare me.”
    A young couple came to sit at the table opposite. The girl smiled briefly across at them and he wondered how she saw them. Husband and wife? Father and daughter? Viagra-fueled illicit fling? Anything but the truth.
    “My box is still so much fuller than yours,” he said. “We still talk. She’s still … She hasn’t stopped feeling like herself. The odd thing is that I suppose, if I’m honest, I’ve never really understood women. Women’s things. Maybe if my mother and sister had lived longer. Women have always been alien to me. I’ve always lived in male worlds.”
    “Do we scare you?”
    “A bit. Yes. In that I don’t understand you. You’ll laugh, but in a way, living with Frances has made me a bit of a fetishist.”
    “You old devil.”
    “I said you’d laugh.”
    “No. Sorry. Honestly. Go on.”
    “I just … well … I suppose I’ve always focused on the surfaces. Her shoes. Her slips. Her hats. Her soap. Her lipstick. I’ve identified the outside with the flesh beneath for so long that on one level that’s something that won’t change much. The surfaces, I mean. I