âBut maybe that stuffâs very ageing. Maybe heâs only twenty-five.â
They smiled at each other and withdrew into their separate camps of disbelief. They didnât know that thirty-twoyears, five months and nine days previously the grey-haired man had been found by his wife in the living-room of their house with his hand up the dress of the woman from next door and had received no remission of sentence for good conduct.
10
Getting along
M argaret and John Hislop had one of those marriages where there wasnât room to swing an ego. All was mutual justice and consideration and fairness. He only golfed between the hours of two and six on a Sunday because that was when she visited her mother. Her night-class was always on a Tuesday, regardless of what was available then, for that was when he worked late. Both watched television programmes which were neitherâs favourite. They didnât have arguments, they had discussions. It was a marriage made by a committee and each day passed like a stifled yawn. It was as if the family crypt had been ordered early and they were living in it.
Then she saw him where he wasnât supposed to be and he had another woman with him and the marriage ended. It did not end immediately. They had half-hearted discussions when she seemed to be looking at him through her fingers. Something was dead in her. They expended a lot of breath but it was like trying to give the kiss of life to a corpse. He went to the other woman, who seemed to her unattractively brash (Margaret had demanded a meeting) and, what was most hurtful to her, older.
The settlement was fine. She was able to buy a nice apartment and she had the furniture. She still had her job and she had money in the bank. She went out occasionally with other men for a while.
But she could not forgive them. She could not forgive the world and the world did not mind. It passed her window indifferently in sports cars and couples with prams and buses full of preoccupied faces.
The apartment became the only significant terrain of her life. She had rubber plants and tiger plants and potted flowers. She took up painting by numbers. She read a lot, mainly improbable romances. She prepared for years of working around her house like a woman patiently sitting down to sew her own shroud.
11
Mickâs day
I t is Tuesday, not that it matters. The calendar is what other people follow, like an observance Mick Haggerty used to practise but has lost faith in. For Mick, most days come anonymous, without distinguishing features of purpose or appointment.
In any week only one time has constant individuality: Monday when he goes to the Post Office to collect the money on his Social Security book. It is the only money he is ever guaranteed to have. Sometimes in the pub, mainly on a Friday or a Saturday, an evening will enlarge into almost a kind of party, an echo of the times when he was earning. (Earlier this year, a local man home from Toronto, remembering Mickâs generosity when he was working, and aware of how things are with him now, slipped him a tenner.) But there is no way to foretell these times. For the most part, the names of the days are irrelevant.
But this is Tuesday. He wakens and reckons the morning is fairly well on. Sleeping late is one way to postpone having to confront the day. Doing that means going to bed late so that he wonât surface too early. This is not a room he likes to lie awake in. Its bleakness works on the mind like a battery for recharging your depression.
The permanently drawn curtains are admitting enough daylight to light the room. The wallpaper beside his bed shows the familiar patches of pink below the peeled sectionsof floral, landmarks for his consciousness. The floor is bare boards with one small piece of carpet on them. Besides the bed, the furniture is two chairs. One of them is a battered easy chair for holding his clothes. The other is a wickerwork chair on which the ashtray
They smiled at each other and withdrew into their separate camps of disbelief. They didnât know that thirty-twoyears, five months and nine days previously the grey-haired man had been found by his wife in the living-room of their house with his hand up the dress of the woman from next door and had received no remission of sentence for good conduct.
10
Getting along
M argaret and John Hislop had one of those marriages where there wasnât room to swing an ego. All was mutual justice and consideration and fairness. He only golfed between the hours of two and six on a Sunday because that was when she visited her mother. Her night-class was always on a Tuesday, regardless of what was available then, for that was when he worked late. Both watched television programmes which were neitherâs favourite. They didnât have arguments, they had discussions. It was a marriage made by a committee and each day passed like a stifled yawn. It was as if the family crypt had been ordered early and they were living in it.
Then she saw him where he wasnât supposed to be and he had another woman with him and the marriage ended. It did not end immediately. They had half-hearted discussions when she seemed to be looking at him through her fingers. Something was dead in her. They expended a lot of breath but it was like trying to give the kiss of life to a corpse. He went to the other woman, who seemed to her unattractively brash (Margaret had demanded a meeting) and, what was most hurtful to her, older.
The settlement was fine. She was able to buy a nice apartment and she had the furniture. She still had her job and she had money in the bank. She went out occasionally with other men for a while.
But she could not forgive them. She could not forgive the world and the world did not mind. It passed her window indifferently in sports cars and couples with prams and buses full of preoccupied faces.
The apartment became the only significant terrain of her life. She had rubber plants and tiger plants and potted flowers. She took up painting by numbers. She read a lot, mainly improbable romances. She prepared for years of working around her house like a woman patiently sitting down to sew her own shroud.
11
Mickâs day
I t is Tuesday, not that it matters. The calendar is what other people follow, like an observance Mick Haggerty used to practise but has lost faith in. For Mick, most days come anonymous, without distinguishing features of purpose or appointment.
In any week only one time has constant individuality: Monday when he goes to the Post Office to collect the money on his Social Security book. It is the only money he is ever guaranteed to have. Sometimes in the pub, mainly on a Friday or a Saturday, an evening will enlarge into almost a kind of party, an echo of the times when he was earning. (Earlier this year, a local man home from Toronto, remembering Mickâs generosity when he was working, and aware of how things are with him now, slipped him a tenner.) But there is no way to foretell these times. For the most part, the names of the days are irrelevant.
But this is Tuesday. He wakens and reckons the morning is fairly well on. Sleeping late is one way to postpone having to confront the day. Doing that means going to bed late so that he wonât surface too early. This is not a room he likes to lie awake in. Its bleakness works on the mind like a battery for recharging your depression.
The permanently drawn curtains are admitting enough daylight to light the room. The wallpaper beside his bed shows the familiar patches of pink below the peeled sectionsof floral, landmarks for his consciousness. The floor is bare boards with one small piece of carpet on them. Besides the bed, the furniture is two chairs. One of them is a battered easy chair for holding his clothes. The other is a wickerwork chair on which the ashtray
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