died in the late sixties but a renaissance is due and your age and experience would make you a valuable link with the past.”
I ponder these words and find that they also strike me as meaningless official jargon. I order another round of drinks and tell him I mainly regret losing my chance with Human Resources because of my wife. She feels my job with Scottish Arterial is killing me. The man says, “I suspect you need a total change of scene. Any plans for a holiday this year?”
I say, “Not this year,” and explain that my wife hates leaving home, even for a few days, because she is sure we cannot afford it. She says such suggestions threaten our marriage and make her feel I am battering her. I then notice it is twenty minutes to ten, say goodbye and leave, but as usual nowadays I call for a quick drink at two or three other pubs on my way home.
I open our front door shortly after midnight and hear gentle snoring from the darkened bedroom. I undress without switching on the light but the window curtains are not completely drawn. By gleams from a street lamp outside I see a tumbler of clear liquid on my wife’s bedside table. Is it water? Gin? Vodka? Does she drink as much alcohol in my absence as I do in hers? I refrain from investigating and slip in beside her. The rhythm of her snores alters slightly as she snuggles cosily against me. I lie basking in that cosiness. This is now the pleasantest part of my life; perhaps it always was. She mutters something that sounds like “I wish she had chosen a different star.”
“Who are you talking about?” I ask. She is obviously talking in her sleep, but even then can sometimes answer questions. After a moment she mutters that they’re burying the bird.
“What bird?” I ask, trying to imagine the dream she is having. After a while she says, “A swan.”
Her dreams are as impenetrable as my own.
I continue basking in her warmth, dimly haunted by a feeling that tomorrow I should rise early and do something. I cannot remember what, but Karen will know. Karen is amazingly efficient and good at covering up for me; besides, nowadays in Britain no professional person as close to retiral as I am is ever sacked for inefficiency.
I wait patiently for sleep
to cover me all up
like a cloak.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
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