escalate it to the proportions of full nuclear war.
What was it to be this time? The state of the bathroom? His lazy
habits? Martin popping round all the time and staring at her tits?
From the perspective of now, he could not fathom how they had
come together or why they remained together. She was so much
younger than him for a start, which was evident to anyone who
came across them. Younger not simply in years. Maureen was naive
and almost infinitely enthusiastic. If he had ever possessed those
qualities they had been knocked out of him a long time before.
Life- affirming was beyond him: he didn’t see the point.
70
1ST_9780241206935_TheGoodLiar.indd 70
05/05/15 5:32 PM
Maybe she’d been drawn to the force of his being. Maybe she’d
needed a father figure, having come down from the primitive North
to the Big Smoke. Maybe she just found him sexually irresistible.
Any or all of these could apply. He didn’t care. It had palled and
outlived its usefulness. In fact his advantage was flowing in an
entirely different direction now. At one time there had been, for
him, available sex with an attractive younger woman, someone to
cook his meals and look after his home (not that she was particu-
larly good at either), and the potential material benefits of a high earner in the household. But when they had opened the joint building society account he had not reckoned on her being so gobby and
strident. He had put up with the sound of her voice with infinite
patience.
Well, not for much longer. Now it was all about the process of
extricating himself to his best advantage.
It was work, when it came. They were sitting in the lounge after
their evening meal, the sound of the television turned up loud to
drown the noise of the young couple in the neighbouring flat, with
their Stones or Bowie or whatever it was. Roy suspected they must
be junkies, they looked so gaunt and white, with straggling identi-
cal hair, pale smiles and eye sockets darkened to blue- black with the fatigue of listening to rock music at all hours of the night.
The building in which they lived had been hastily partitioned in
the 1960s. With its peeling, faded woodwork, its botched pointing
and the vandalism of its improvised division into flats, it was now barely recognizable as a once comfortable merchant’s house of the
nineteenth century.
They occupied one third of the ground floor. Below them, in the
highly undesirable basement flat, with its dark and dank corners,
lived the quiet, pious West Indian immigrant couple who, he sup-
posed, kept themselves neat enough, he with his job on the buses
and she the school cleaner. Across the hallway lived the little junkies, touchingly naive and young, destined for their early graves,
while above them was the rake- thin embittered old man, with his
flat cap and collarless shirt and a visage where the razor each day missed a large swathe of its duty, reportedly a widower, who
71
1ST_9780241206935_TheGoodLiar.indd 71
05/05/15 5:32 PM
glowered whenever they met in the communal areas. Roy had no
idea who, if anyone, occupied the remaining two flats. It was noisy and cold in this place, it was dismal and hopeless. He knew there
was a better life to be had.
She walked to the television and switched it off. The thumping
beat and the tuneless shrieking could be heard through the wall.
‘You don’t really care about anything, do you?’ she said. Her voice when she hectored him took on a shrill harshness that crashed
around his ears. ‘Least of all your career.’
‘Depends what you mean,’ he replied. ‘I do my job.’
‘That’s all it is, though, isn’t it? A job.’
‘That’s all any job is. A job. You do your work and they give you
your money. End of story.’
‘Don’t you ever think we’re doing something more important
than that?’
He shrugged before saying with deliberation, ‘It’s important for
me. It pays our bloody bills. Keeps the wolf from the
What was it to be this time? The state of the bathroom? His lazy
habits? Martin popping round all the time and staring at her tits?
From the perspective of now, he could not fathom how they had
come together or why they remained together. She was so much
younger than him for a start, which was evident to anyone who
came across them. Younger not simply in years. Maureen was naive
and almost infinitely enthusiastic. If he had ever possessed those
qualities they had been knocked out of him a long time before.
Life- affirming was beyond him: he didn’t see the point.
70
1ST_9780241206935_TheGoodLiar.indd 70
05/05/15 5:32 PM
Maybe she’d been drawn to the force of his being. Maybe she’d
needed a father figure, having come down from the primitive North
to the Big Smoke. Maybe she just found him sexually irresistible.
Any or all of these could apply. He didn’t care. It had palled and
outlived its usefulness. In fact his advantage was flowing in an
entirely different direction now. At one time there had been, for
him, available sex with an attractive younger woman, someone to
cook his meals and look after his home (not that she was particu-
larly good at either), and the potential material benefits of a high earner in the household. But when they had opened the joint building society account he had not reckoned on her being so gobby and
strident. He had put up with the sound of her voice with infinite
patience.
Well, not for much longer. Now it was all about the process of
extricating himself to his best advantage.
It was work, when it came. They were sitting in the lounge after
their evening meal, the sound of the television turned up loud to
drown the noise of the young couple in the neighbouring flat, with
their Stones or Bowie or whatever it was. Roy suspected they must
be junkies, they looked so gaunt and white, with straggling identi-
cal hair, pale smiles and eye sockets darkened to blue- black with the fatigue of listening to rock music at all hours of the night.
The building in which they lived had been hastily partitioned in
the 1960s. With its peeling, faded woodwork, its botched pointing
and the vandalism of its improvised division into flats, it was now barely recognizable as a once comfortable merchant’s house of the
nineteenth century.
They occupied one third of the ground floor. Below them, in the
highly undesirable basement flat, with its dark and dank corners,
lived the quiet, pious West Indian immigrant couple who, he sup-
posed, kept themselves neat enough, he with his job on the buses
and she the school cleaner. Across the hallway lived the little junkies, touchingly naive and young, destined for their early graves,
while above them was the rake- thin embittered old man, with his
flat cap and collarless shirt and a visage where the razor each day missed a large swathe of its duty, reportedly a widower, who
71
1ST_9780241206935_TheGoodLiar.indd 71
05/05/15 5:32 PM
glowered whenever they met in the communal areas. Roy had no
idea who, if anyone, occupied the remaining two flats. It was noisy and cold in this place, it was dismal and hopeless. He knew there
was a better life to be had.
She walked to the television and switched it off. The thumping
beat and the tuneless shrieking could be heard through the wall.
‘You don’t really care about anything, do you?’ she said. Her voice when she hectored him took on a shrill harshness that crashed
around his ears. ‘Least of all your career.’
‘Depends what you mean,’ he replied. ‘I do my job.’
‘That’s all it is, though, isn’t it? A job.’
‘That’s all any job is. A job. You do your work and they give you
your money. End of story.’
‘Don’t you ever think we’re doing something more important
than that?’
He shrugged before saying with deliberation, ‘It’s important for
me. It pays our bloody bills. Keeps the wolf from the
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