‘Today is a special day,’ said Mavie. ‘It’s a very special November day.’
Mr McCarthy laughed. ‘Every Saturday is a special day for me. Every Saturday is outlined in red on my heart.’ And he initiated some horseplay, which prevented Mavie from explaining.
Born beneath the sign of Scorpio, she was meant to be strong, fearless and enterprising. As a child she had often been in trouble, not because of naughtiness but because she had been dreamy about her work. She dreamed now, dominated by an image of Mr McCarthy rushing out for flowers. She saw him returning, blooms everywhere, saying he had telephoned to put off his Saturday appointment and had telephoned his home to say he had been called away on vital business. She felt his hands seeking the outline of her ribs, a thing he liked to do. They lay in silence for a while, and increasingly she felt low and sad.
‘How lovely you are,’ murmured Mr McCarthy. ‘Oh, Mavie, Mavie.’
She squeezed the length of pale flesh that was Mr McCarthy’s arm. She thought suddenly of the day the coal-heaver had arrived and felt her neck going red at the memory. She remembered the first day, rolling down her stockings and seeing her lover watching her, he already naked, standing still and seeming puzzled, near the electric fire. She had not been a virgin that day, but in the meanwhile she had not once been unfaithful to him.
‘Tell me you love me,’ Mavie cried, forgetting about her birthday, abruptly caught up in a new emotion. ‘Tell me now; it worries me sometimes.’
‘Of course it does. Of course I do. I’m all for you, Mavie, as I’ve said a thousand times.’
‘It’s not that I doubt you, honey, only sometimes between one Saturday and another I feel a depression. It’s impossible to say. I mean, it’s hard to put into words. Have you got a fag?’
Mr McCarthy shook his head on the pillow. She knew he did not smoke: why did she ask? It was like the custard sauce all over again. When he went to the trouble of inventing stomach trouble, you’d think she’d take the trouble to remember it.
‘You don’t smoke. I always ask and you always don’t say anything and I always remember then. Am I very irritating to you, honey? Tell me you love me. Tell me I’m not irritating to you.’
‘Mavie.’
‘You don’t like me today. I feel it. Jesus, I’m sorry about the mackerel. Tell the truth now, you don’t like me today.’
‘Oh yes, I do. I love you. I love you.’
‘You don’t like me.’ She spoke as though she had not heard his protestations; she spaced the words carefully, giving the same emphasis to each.
‘I love you,’ said Mr McCarthy. ‘Indeed I do.’
She shook her head, and rose and walked to the kitchen, where she found cigarettes and matches.
‘My Mavie,’ said Mr McCarthy from the bed, assuring himself that he was not finished yet, that he had not fully exacted his pleasurable due. ‘Mavie, my young heart,’ he murmured, and he began to laugh, thinking that merriment in the atmosphere would cheer matters up. ‘Shall I do a little dance for you?’
Mavie, cigarette aglow, pulled the sheets around her as Mr McCarthy vacated the bed and stood, his arms outstretched, on the centre of the floor. He began to dance, as on many occasions before he had danced, swaying about without much tempo. When first he had performed in this way for her he had explained that his dance was an expression of his passion, representing, so he said, roses and presents of jewellery and lamé gowns. Once Mr McCarthy had asked Mavie to take the braces off his trousers and strike him with them while he acted out his dance. He was guilty, he said, because in their life together there were neither roses nor jewels, nor restaurant dinners. But Mavie, shocked that he should feel like that, had refused his request, saying there was no cause for punishment. Sulkily, he had maintained otherwise, though he had not ever again suggested chastisement.
‘How’s that?’ said Mr McCarthy, ending with a gesture. Mavie said nothing. She, threw back the bed-clothes and Mr McCarthy strode jauntily towards her, a smile shaping beneath his moustache.
‘I often wonder about her,’ Mavie said a moment later. ‘It’s only natural. You can’t help that.’
Mr McCarthy said: ‘My wife’s a hard case. She’s well able to take care of herself. I’m on a leash where the wife is concerned.’
‘I don’t even know her name.’
‘Oh, Mavie, Mavie. Isn’t Mrs McCarthy enough?’
‘I’m jealous. I’m sorry, honey.’
‘No bother, Mavie. No bother, love.’
‘I see her as a black-haired woman. Tall and sturdy. Would you rather we didn’t speak of her?’
‘It would be easier, certainly.’
‘I’m sorry, honey.’
‘No bother.’
‘It’s only jealousy. The green-eyed monster.’
‘No need to be jealous, Mavie. No need at all. There’s no love lost between Mrs McCarthy and myself. We never go together nowadays.’
‘What sign is she under?’
‘Sign, love?’
‘Sagittarius? Leo? When’s her birthday?’
Mr McCarthy’s small eyes screwed up.
He looked through the lashes. He said:
‘The 29th of March.’
‘You make an occasion of it, do you? In the home, with the children around? You all give her presents, I suppose. Is there a special cake?’
‘The wife likes a jam-roll. She buys one at Lyons.’
‘And the children get her little gifts? Things from Woolworth’s?’
‘Something like that.’
‘When I was little I used to buy presents in Woolworth’s. My dad used to take me by the hand. I suppose you did, too. And your wife.’
‘Yes, love, I suppose so.’
‘I often think of your wife. I can’t help it. I see her in my mind’s eye.’
‘She’s a big woman,’ said Mr McCarthy meditatively. ‘Bigger than you, Mavie. A big, dark woman – more than that I won’t say.’
‘Oh, honey, I never meant to pry.’
‘It’s not prying I mind, Mavie. No, you’re not prying. It’s just that I don’t wish to soil the hour.’
When Mr McCarthy had said that, he heard the words echoing in his mind as words occasionally do. I don’t wish to soil the hour. Mavie was silent, feeling the words to be beautiful. I don’t wish to soil the hour, she thought. She drew her fingernails along the taut skin of Mr McCarthy’s thigh. ‘Oh God,’ said Mr McCarthy.
She knew that when he left, at twenty to four, she would sit alone in her dressing-gown and weep. She would wash the dirty dishes from lunch and she would wash his lovingly: she would wash and dry his egg-cup and be aware that it was his. She knew that that was absurd, but she knew that it would happen because it had happened before. She did not think it odd, as Mr McCarthy had often thought, that she, so pretty and still young, should love so passionately a man of fifty-two. She adored every shred of him; she longed for his presence and the touch of his hand. ‘Oh, my honey, my honey,’ cried Mavie, throwing her body on the body of Mr McCarthy and wrapping him up in her plump limbs.
At half past three Mr McCarthy, who had dropped into a light doze, woke to the awareness of a parched throat and a desire for tea. He sighed and caressed the fair hair that lay on the pillow beside him.
‘I’ll make a cup of tea,’ said Mavie.
‘Merci,’ whispered Mr McCarthy.
They drank tea in the kitchen while Mr McCarthy buttoned his waistcoat and drew on his socks. ‘I’ve bought a bow tie,’ he confided, ‘though I’m still a little shy in it. Maybe next week I’ll try it out on you.’
‘You could ask me anything under the sun and I’d do it for you. You could ask me anything, I love you that much.’