Turn Us Again by Charlotte Mendel

successful relationship?” And Sam turned and walked out the door.
    â€œInsufferable prig,” Louise spat out from her bed. “Who does he think he is, moralizing about the wickedness of lying one minute and all set to belt a woman the next?”
    â€œHis behaviour is regrettable,” Philip interjected smoothly, “but he would never hit a woman. He is a Cambridge student!”
    â€œOh well, that’s all right then,” Louise answered sarcastically.
    Philip took Anne’s arm and said in the gentlest tones, “Why don’t we go and have a drink? We deserve it.”
    They sat side by side in a corner of a quiet pub.
    â€œDo you know that Sam described you as beautiful, sweet and very spiritual?”
    The dimples reappeared in Anne’s cheeks, and she felt beautiful and spiritual, just like she had felt like a liar when Sam had yelled at her.
    â€œTalk to me about Sam. I want to understand him better. His behaviour often bewilders me … his excitability and the way he yells. In my home, nobody ever raises their voice.”
    Anne remembered one day when her father had failed to come home from the pub at all. She and her mother had sat in silence for hours until there was a knock on the door. A neighbour informed Mary that there was a ‘drunken person’ in the gutter down the road who resembled her husband. “Thank you,” Mary said, and shut the door in the neighbour’s face.
    Four men brought Eddie home, carrying him into Mary’s neat parlour and laying him on the sofa. When he awoke, much later, he looked up at Mary with a foolish smile and his bright blue sailor’s eyes. All she said to him was, “You’re pickled, man. Look at yourself.”
    To scream at someone because they invented excuses for their tardiness was ludicrous.
    Philip began to talk about Sam. He smoothed away the feeling that Sam was strange. He just had strong feelings that were hard to control. “You need to guide him towards restraint through gentle remonstrance.”
    Anne gave him a blank look.
    â€œYour gentleness is enough,” he amended. “Perhaps you don’t need to remonstrate. The constant example of your moderate behaviour will mould Sam’s reactions in spite of himself. Try to see him as a young, impetuous boy.”
    Anne smiled in relief. This description regulated him to something understandable and controllable. His behaviour was regrettable, not terrifying. Philip was intuitive and intelligent, a gentleman in every sense of the word, and he had had known Sam for a long time.
    Yet she could not help comparing the way Philip talked of Sam with the way Sam had described Philip. Delight versus deprecation. Sophistication versus innocence. A tiny part of her felt that Sam’s conduct in this area, at least, was more honourable.

FOUR
    M y father’s handwriting snakes down the side of the page, beside my mother’s typed lines. He has highlighted the words ‘Insufferable prig, who does he think he is, moralizing about the wickedness of lying one minute and all set to belt a woman the next?’ and written in the margin:
    Both here and on page 77 when Louse says Sam has “an overpowering need to be loved,” Madelyn is projecting her conclusions — reached after eighteen years of marriage — into Louise’s mouth. It is her opinion that my judgmental attitude towards others and my need to be loved constitute a blend of security and insecurity. Louise did not know me well enough to utter such a statement.
    It is the first comment he has introduced, and it surprises me because I had forgotten that my father gave me this manuscript so that we could discuss it together.
    I glance at the clock and am horrified to see it is after 4 a.m. That means it’s midnight my time. Anxiety rushes through me. Am I expected to make an appearance by a certain hour in the mornings? I recall my father’s suggestion to