To Live in Peace by Rosemary Friedman

me of the story,” Herbert said, “about the Jewish couple who had the corner shop. They were locking up one night when Becky says to Abie: ‘Abie, you know something, all week I’m working and you never take me out anywhere. You never take me to a theatre, you never take me to a restaurant, you never take me to a film. Take me to a film, Abie.’ ‘How can we go to a film?’ Abie says. ‘What about the takings?’ ‘I’ll look after the takings,’ Becky says. And she takes the bag with the cash and puts it in her knickers.
    “They go to the cinema, sit through the whole programme, and when they come out Becky says: ‘Abie, I got something to tell you. The takings is gone!’ ‘How come the takings is gone?’ Abie says. ‘Well I’ll tell you. There was this man sitting next to me in the pictures and the whole time he had his hand up my skirt. When the film finished and the lights went up I realised the takings had gone.’
    “‘Becky,’ Abie says, ‘how can you let him do such a thing?’ ‘I’m sorry Abie,’ Becky says, ‘but how was I to know he was a thief?’”
    Rachel had to laugh. It was not so much Herbert’s jokes as the way that he told them. He was much sought after as an entertainer at charity events or as an after dinner speaker.
    She had ambivalent feelings about Patrick’s parents. There was no denying their affection for her but sometimes Rachel felt strangled by it, wishing that they would leave her and Patrick alone. Not a day went by when Hettie did not ring up, on one excuse or another, to speak to her son, and sometimes Rachel wondered if he had ever, other than physically, left home. Take tonight. Two of Rachel’s college friends, Sue and Duncan, had invited them to drive out to the river and have dinner in a pub. Because it was Tuesday they were expected at Winnington Road. It had become a ritual, as had Friday nights.
    “I don’t want to go there every Tuesday,” Rachel told Patrick.
    “Grandma gets upset.”
    “Duncan only sees his grandmother once a year at Christmas.”
    “She lives in Perth.”
    “Sometimes I wish we lived in Perth. Ring up your mother.”
    “We can’t let her down at the last minute. You should have said before…”
    “How could I? Sue only just phoned.”
    “Anyway, you can’t let Carol go on her own,” Patrick said. Rachel said nothing.
    “And what about my shirts?”
    Patrick’s shirts were a bone of contention and had been the subject of their first married row. Ever since leaving home Patrick had taken his dirty shirts home to Winnington Road where they were washed and ironed by the maid. Rachel had protested.
    “Are you going to iron them?”
    She looked at Patrick as if he had gone mad.
    “Who irons shirts?”
    “I happen to like them ironed.”
    “I’ll buy you an iron.”
    “When have I got time?” Patrick was working for his membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
    “I didn’t say you had. I just said…”
    “She likes me to bring them.”
    “I dare say she does.”
    “I can’t see the objection.”
    “Can’t you really?”
    And he couldn’t. Any more than he could see that they should have gone out with Sue and Duncan. Patrick, Rachel had discovered, had a blind spot as far as his mother was concerned. It was as if she were fine china – when she was tough as old boots – which must be handled with care; a vintage wine which must neither be shaken nor upset. Rachel did not dislike Hettie but resented her hold upon Patrick. Lately her mother-in-law had been putting her oar in about where they should live. Although when they had to leave the council flat they had decided upon rented accommodation before their planned world trip, Hettie had made it clear that she thought they should “settle” and that their child should not be born in what she referred to as a “make-shift” home. Apart from offering to buy them a house (their wedding present), Hettie fed Patrick with details of three-bedroomed