is he like, Marjorie?’
She didn’t answer. We’d got as close as this to fighting about him before, but she was sensible enough to recognize male insecurity for what it was. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. ‘You’re tired,’ she said.
‘I missed you, Marj.’
‘Did you really, darling?’
I nodded. On the table alongside her there was a pile of books: Pregnancy and Anaemia, Puerperal Anaemia, Bennett, Achresthic Anaemia, Wilkinson, A Clinical Study, by Schmidt and History of a Case of Anaemia, by Combe. Tucked under the books there was a bundle of loose-leaf pages, crammed with Marjorie’s tiny writing. I broke the chocolate bar lying next to the books and put a piece of it into Marjorie’s mouth.
‘The Los Angeles people came back to me. Now there’s a car and a house and a sabbatical fifth year.’
‘I wasn’t …’
‘Now don’t be tempted into lying. I know how your mind works.’
‘I’m pretty tired, Marj.’
‘Well, we’ll have to talk about things some time.’ It was the doctor speaking.
‘Yes.’
‘Lunch Thursday?’
‘Great,’ I said.
‘Sounds like it.’
‘Sensational, wonderful, I can’t wait.’
‘Sometimes I wonder how we got this far.’
I didn’t answer. I wondered too. She wanted me to admit that I couldn’t live without her. And I had the nasty feeling that as soon as I did that, she’d up and leave me. So we continued as we were: in love but determined not to admit it. Or worse: declaring our love in such a way that the other could not be sure.
‘Strangers on a train,’ said Marjorie.
‘What?’
‘We are – strangers on a train.’
I pulled a face, as if I didn’t understand what she was getting at. She pushed her hair back but it fell forward again. She pulled a clip from it and fastened it. It was a nervous movement, designed more to occupy her than to change her hair.
‘I’m sorry, love.’ I leaned forward and kissed her gently. ‘I’m really sorry. We’ll talk about it.’
‘On Thursday …’ she smiled, knowing that I’d promise anything to avoid the sort of discussion that she had in mind. ‘Your coat is wet. You’d better hang it up, it will wrinkle and need cleaning.’
‘Now, if you like. We’ll talk now, if that’s what you want.’
She shook her head. ‘We’re on our way to different destinations. That’s what I mean. When you get to where you’re going, you’ll get out. I know you. I know you too well.’
‘It’s you who gets offers … fantastic salaries from Los Angeles research institutes, reads up anaemia, and sends polite refusals that ensure an even better offer eventually comes.’
‘I know,’ she admitted, and kissed me in a distant and preoccupied way. ‘But I love you, darling. I mean really …’ She gave an attractive little laugh. ‘You make me feel someone. The way you just take it for granted that I could go to America and do that damned job …’ She shrugged. ‘Sometimes I wish you weren’t so damned encouraging. I wish you were bossy, even. There are times when I wish you’d insist I stayed at home and did the washing-up.’
Well, you can’t make women happy, that’s a kind of fundamental law of the universe. You try and make them happy and they’ll never forgive you for revealing to them that they can’t be.
‘So do the washing-up,’ I said. I put my arm round her. The wool dress was thin. I could feel that her skin was hot beneath it. Perhaps she was running a fever, or perhaps it was passion. Or perhaps I was just the icy cold bastard that she so often accused me of being.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a bacon sandwich?’
I shook my head. ‘Marjorie,’ I said, ‘do you remember the caretaker at number eighteen?’ I walked across to the TV and switched it off.
‘No. Should I?’
‘Be serious for a moment … Charlie the caretaker. Charlie Short … moustache, cockney accent – always making jokes about the landlords.’
‘No.’
‘Think for a moment.’
‘No need to shout.’
‘Can’t you remember the dinner party … he climbed in the window to let you in when you’d lost your key?’
‘That must have been one of your other girls,’ said Marjorie archly.
I smiled but said nothing.
‘You don’t look very well,’ said Marjorie. ‘Did anything happen on the trip?’
‘No.’
‘I worry about you. You look pretty done in.’
‘Is that a professional opinion, Doctor?’
She screwed her face up, like a little girl playing doctors and nurses. ‘Yes, it is, honestly, darling.’
‘The diagnosis?’
‘Well it’s not anaemia.’ She laughed. She was very beautiful. Even more beautiful when she laughed.
‘And what do you usually prescribe for men in my condition, Doc?’
‘Bed,’ she said. ‘Definitely bed.’ She laughed and undid my tie.
‘You’re shaking.’ She said it with some alarm. I was shaking. The trip, the journey home, the weather, that damned number eighteen where I was now in mass production, had all got to me suddenly, but how do you explain that? I mean, how do you explain it to a doctor?
4
The senior officer in Control Suite at commencement of game is CONTROL. Change of CONTROL must be communicated to Red Suite and Blue Suite (and any additional commanders), in advance and in writing. CONTROL’S ruling is final.
RULES. ‘TACWARGAME’. STUDIES CENTRE. LONDON
You might think you know your boss, but you don’t. Not unless you’ve seen him at home on Sunday.
There are only three trains to Little Omber on Sunday. The one I caught was almost empty except for a couple of Saturday-night revellers, three couples taking babies to show Mums, two priests going to the seminary and half a dozen soldiers connecting with the express.
Little
