The Old Devils

       'Well... this morning. Can't remember what time.

       One moment nothing could have been further from my mind and the next I was full of it.'

       'And you reckon you can just turn up like this, out of the bloody blue?'

       'You could always chuck me out. I'd go quietly. You know that.'

       'Still the same old Alun, eh?'

       'Pretty much, yeah.' He paused. 'Go for a drive, shall we?'

       This· apparently innocent invitation held overtones for them that resounded from thirty years or more back, when their drives had taken them to a convenient spot behind the mental home, in better weather to the woods on the far side of the golf links and occasionally to the Prince Madoc out at Capel Mererid, in whose snug they had more than once behaved in a fashion that had never quite ceased to perturb Alun in retrospect, even today.

       'No need,' said Sophie in reply. Her manner was still faintly tinged with resentment. 'There won't be anyone along.'

       'What makes you so sure?'

       'I'm sure.'

       'Yes, but what makes you so sure?'

       'I'll tell you later.'

       'No, tell me now.'

       'All right,' she said. 'When Victor puts him in a taxi he always gives me a ring to let me know. Because once when he stayed very late he pitched up passed out on the stool thing in the passport-photo booth at Cambridge Street station. And it just so happened that old Tudor Whittingham was on his way back from London and spotted him and fetched him home in a taxi, another taxi. He couldn't even remember being put into the first taxi.'

       Alun pondered. 'But Victor giving you a ring won't stop him pitching up passed out at the station or anywhere else, will it?'

       'No, but it sort of hands over the responsibility, see. I can understand it.'

       'Oh, and I can. What does Victor think? About how that arrangement might, er, have a bearing on your own plans for, er, whatever it might be.'

       'I don't know. I don't know what any of them think.'

       'Who does? Has it come in handy before?'

       'If I ever tell you that it's bloody going to be later.'

       'Has that arrangement with Victor come in handy before?' he asked later.

       'Do you consider you have the slightest right to expect me to answer that?'

       'Absolutely not and absolutely none. Presuming on an old friendship.'

       'You are a bugger. Well, sort of, just from time to time. Not ridiculous. Not like when... '

       'No, of course not. How much does he know?'

       'Same as ever, the whole score and nothing at all.'

       'I'd say you and he have a pretty good life together on the whole.'

       'I don't know about together exactly, but yes, we do really. Most afternoons while he's in town I'm down the shop.'

       'Yes, the serviceable shop. I remember well. What do you actually do there?'

       'I look at a pattern-book occasionally, and friends come in, and I drink a lot of coffee. I do about as much as he does at the Glendower. All quite relaxed. He knew all about me when he married me, of course. Well, quite a lot about me.'

       'You two haven't been married all that terrifically long, have you?'

       'No, Not what you'd call terrifically long, only twenty-two years.'

       'Good God, is it that much?' said Alun absently. 'Well now, you've never had children, have you? I suppose that's... '

       'Just as well and no one could have put it clearer, and quite right too. You've forgotten, you've only just remembered I've always never had children. I don't know, some men would have done their homework before they barged in for a quick snuggle, or at least a bit of bloody revision.' She was dodgy again for a moment. 'How's your life then?'

       'Fine. Never changes.'

       'Oh? In that case I suppose you'll be looking up a few old friends round the neighbourhood. Like a couple of dozen. Always been like that with you, hasn't it?'

       'The Don Juan syndrome. Rather a high-flown name, I've always thought. You know what they say? Comes from a desire to degrade and humiliate women. Well, there may be something in it, but if there is you'd have expected me to be particularly hot on women who'd be better off all round for a spot of degradation and humiliation, go round the place bloody well begging for it, like Muriel and fishface Eirwen Spurling. And I tell you frankly they leave me cold.'

       Sophie had not listened attentively to this. 'Beats me,' she said, 'why a bloke married to someone like that has to go messing around with· all and sundry.'

       'You mentioned homework, well homework or no homework I remember you saying that to me slightly more than twenty-two years ago, and I'll tell you again now what I told you then: like buggery it beats you, you understand it through and through. You know you're right  _- has__ to go messing around. No choice involved - necessity. Easier, wiser, kinder... to accept it. But to hell with the years. Forget 'em. No problem where you're concerned. Believe it or not, I can't really remember how you used to look. Whenever I try I keep seeing you as you are now. You're just not different enough. Isn't that amazing, isn't that... splendid, isn't... that... marvellous.... '

       Much too late to spoil it the telephone-bell rang on the landing.

       'That might be Victor now,' said Sophie.

       Left to himself, Alun glanced briefly and incuriously round the capacious bedroom. Large and small, the things in it looked as if getting through money had been a principle of selection, starting with moulded wallpaper apparently encrusted with gems. His mind was traversed by banal, inescapable thoughts about the passing of time. Quite a lot of time had indeed passed, but so far to surprisingly small effect. What he had said to Sophie just now about her appearance and so on was of course untrue, though it would have been much untruer, one had to admit, of most other people he had known that long. But in a general way, applied to experience, it had a bearing. All sorts of stuff, for instance what had been taking place a little earlier, seemed much as before, or at any rate not different enough to start making a song and dance about. This state of affairs might well not last for ever, but for the moment, certainly, the less it changed the more it was the same thing, and the most noticeable characteristic of the past, as seen by him, at least, was that there was so much more of it now than formerly, with bits that were longer ago than had once seemed possible. Alun went for a pee.

       When he came back to the bedroom Sophie had returned and was dressing.

       'How long have we got?'

       'Fifteen minutes minimum,' she said without looking up.

       'I've done it in two and a half in my time, and with cuff-links and shoelaces.'

       'Not so much talk.'

       Tying his tie, Alun saw in the dressing-table mirror what he had not properly seen direct and earlier, that across from the double bed where they had lain there stood a made-up single bed. 'Who sleeps there?' he asked.

       'He does. It's where he usually is.'

       'Usually is? You mean sometimes he comes and-'

       'No, no, it's where he lands up. I kick out in the mornings, see, and he goes over there when it gets too much.'

       'What a jolly sensible set-up.'

       Something about its description puzzled Alun, but he had never been one to be afflicted with disinterested curiosity and he had long forgotten the matter when, with six minutes to spare, he and Sophie came to say good-bye in the hall. (Six minutes, eh? Not such a marvellous arrangement.)

       'Lovely to see you,' she cried as if he had indeed just dropped in for a cup of tea, then changed register and said 'You are a bugger' again, but resignedly this time.