Which was true, up to the time of going to Greece, though with so many freedom loving women about I had often thought of it.
“I still love you, and you alone, and always shall,” I said, refilling her cup. “Telling lies is only the way to find out the truth about anything. If I concoct fantastic rigmaroles to entertain you it’s only because your life is taken up by the unremitting work of caring for old crocks, when you’re too tired to go to the cinema or theatre. Many a time when we were in bed I’ve told you I’d spent a couple of hours with my mistress, and given you such an explicit account you melted in my arms and asked me to do the same to you as I’d done to her. We both knew it was all lies, but you can’t deny it led to a session we both enjoyed. Everything concerning my trip to Greece is true, except for the bits I put in about my seductions, to spice up matters for your amusement, which I’ll elaborate on in bed later, after I’ve made a spaghetti supper, to be drunk with a bottle of that Bordeaux I laid down last year. While I’m in the kitchen preparing our love feast I want you to be upstairs getting some well-earned sleep. I can’t say fairer than that, can I, my ever enduring love?”
If you can’t make your wife feel good how can you do the same for anybody else, or even for yourself? She stood up to do as she was told, which I had learned no lady-doctor could resist. “Michael, you’re wonderful. I’m sorry I get on at you.”
A dose of homeopathic nagging was only a backhanded form of love, and I didn’t mind, as long as it showed itself in some way. We kissed affectionately. “Come down for cocktails and canapés in an hour. I’ll light the candles on the dining room table, and try not to burn my fingers.”
I did all I said, and she appeared for dinner wearing an amazing silk ball dress, taken from her mother’s wardrobe after she had died, which gave her the stance and figure of a queen. The rest had put a glow back into her face, and though I’d been as busy as all get out trying to make amends for my neglect of her, the kitchen was like a culinary battlefield — yet I mustered enough energy to suggest I’d been playing darts in the office all day. I was formally enough dressed from my kit over the garage, though I had changed my tie.
Naked in my arms that night she said: “I don’t want you to go away, but if you must I’ll understand, and not worry. Just let me know you’re safe every few days.”
On my progress from one place of refuge to another, taking evasive action against anyone after my guts, I would be careful to tell her where I was heading next, knowing I would be all right, and though optimism may tarmac the highway to hell — or a worse locality — I’d enjoy all merry facilities on the way. “I agree to call you more than every few days, if I can manage it, but if you don’t hear from me for a while you have Moggerhanger’s phone number, and can leave a message. He’ll know how to get in touch.”
“I know you can take care of yourself.”
“I promise. So let’s stay in bed for the next few days.”
“It would be heaven, but one of the other doctors is at a conference in Australia, and I’m needed to hold the fort. I love you for suggesting it, though.”
The poor overworked medical drudge set the alarm for half past seven, while I stroked the hair from across her face saying: “I’ll think of you every minute I’m away.”
“And I’ll think of you, my love.” Then she went straight off to sleep.
On opening my eyes in the morning I found a scrawled note by the bed: “Love you, Michael. Do take care, for my sake, and come back soon,” which I kissed and put into my pocket, not allowing the anguish to take me over.
I sat a long time over breakfast, since I’d cooked it myself, which gave the opportunity to consider the way my life was going, and ponder on what future there could possibly be for such as me. But I didn’t think about it for too long, because at my age only those who have no money go into the black hole of self-examination.
After clearing up the kitchen so that Frances wouldn’t have to do it on coming wearily home, and leaving a response to her love note, I went into the living room and picked up her spare ‘Doctor On Call’ notice. A few months ago her car had been broken into, and one of those was the only thing stolen, the radio in any case gone from the previous smash of the side window. The card in my windscreen might deceive some Green Toe Gang scum into thinking the car couldn’t be mine. As Moggerhanger said, you can’t be too careful, and must consider everything, because if you didn’t you’d soon have nothing left to think with. Not that I needed to reinforce my behaviour with the wisdom or otherwise of Chairman Moggerhanger’s homilies. Self-preservation had been bred in me from birth, though why I had committed so many mistakes in spite of it was not for me to say. The time had come, however, to stop making them.
Chapter Seventeen
On the opposite seat a woman of about forty, with black well-lacquered hair and a few vertical lines in her upper lip, face otherwise unsullied, looked as if she had been crying. I noted her good quality luggage on the rack, and the stylish leather briefcase clutched to her chest. Nothing affects me more than a woman’s tears. “Are you all right?”
Her Leslie Miserable features managed a smile. “Thank you for asking, but it’s nothing that a little distance won’t cure.”
Since she was on a train I had to believe her. “It looks as if it’s going to rain,” I said, “but experience tells me that every cloud has a silver lining.”
A very fine handkerchief dried her face. “I can only hope it does where I’m going, otherwise what would be the point?”
Curiosity, and perhaps concern, told me I had nothing to lose: “And where might that be?”
“I’ll get to Stansted airport at least, won’t I?” she said, after a moment or two. “To find out where I’m going. I’ll wander among the checking-in places, and decide on a destination at the last minute.”
I offered a cigarette, but she didn’t smoke. “That’s a rather novel way of doing it. It’s also a method I admire, because I used it myself once. I was fed up to the back teeth with my humdrum life so went to Heathrow and jumped on a plane for New Zealand. A lovely country, very friendly and easy to live in. I had a wonderful time, and stayed three months. Then I had to come back because my credit cards had run out.” All lies, of course, but the best way to help people in despair is to spin a similar account of one’s own. “But why go to Stansted instead of Heathrow?”
She looked at me as if I was daft to ask. “Isn’t it obvious? As soon as my husband reads the note saying I’ve left him he’ll think of Heathrow, which is our nearest airport.”
“You sound sensible.”
People are always glad to talk to a stranger. “All my life I’ve tried to be,” she went on. “For the last few years I’ve kept back as much money as I safely could from the three hundred pounds a week my husband allows for the housekeeping. I saved it up in fifty pound notes, and now I have ten thousand pounds to help me on my way.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, he sounds rather generous, giving so much to run the house.”
“I have to say that meanness was the last of his faults,” she said with a bitterness I couldn’t yet understand. “I hid money in my underwear drawer, knowing he’d never look there. I had to hope the house wouldn’t be broken into, though I supposed it was safe enough, with so many locks, bolts, double glazing, barred windows, burglar alarms and high-powered lights around the outside. No wonder it took me so long to get out. The money’s in this briefcase, all of it cash so that I don’t have to bother with credit cards. He might get on my trail if I did.”