Ruth Rendell - Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

She had a sister in Bedford and he a brother in Ireland and another in Hong Kong, but they had no friends. So geared is society to an eating-and-drinking-together ethos, and eating was something they were obliged to avoid in public, that they were unable to keep friends or make new ones. One by one, people they knew drifted away when their invitations were refused and they were never themselves invited. Michelle’s greatest dread had been that somehow they would be obliged to accept a summons to tea or supper and Matthew, confronted by butter or a jug of milk or pot of honey, would turn white and begin that dreadful dry retching. Better repulse people than risk it.

She had only one confidante. And that confidante had become a friend. One day, nearing despair and terrified that he couldn’t go on much longer, she had sat in her kitchen with Fiona, while Matthew worked slowly and feebly at his computer, and told her everything. And instead of laughing at a middle-aged man who couldn’t eat and a middle-aged woman who couldn’t stop eating, Fiona had sympathized, seemed to understand, and even suggested remedies. She’d lived on such a varied diet, such novel and sophisticated food, she had all sorts of ideas for an anorexic who’d like to eat if only he could. A year later, which was last year, Michelle told Fiona that she’d saved Matthew’s life and they would both be eternally grateful.

When they got back from Waitrose to their house in Holmdale Road, West Hampstead, Michelle set about preparing Matthew’s lunch. It was to include several of the foodstuffs Fiona had suggested and that Matthew found acceptable.

“Peanuts!” Fiona had said. “Very nourishing, are peanuts.”

Matthew managed to utter the word “greasy.”

“Not at all. Dry-roasted peanuts. Delicious. I love them.”

It would be an exaggeration to say that so did he. He loved no kind of food but he tolerated dry-roasted peanuts, as he tolerated her other suggestions: crispbread, Pop Tarts, madeira cake, hard-boiled eggs chopped up with parsley, Parmesan cheese grated to a powder. Baby spinach leaves and arugula, Japanese rice crackers, muesli. Over that year, his health improved a little and he was slightly less emaciated. Since then, though, the Pop Tarts, which were the most caloric on the list, had fallen from favor. He couldn’t help it. With all his heart, he wanted to go on liking them but it was no good. Fiona recommended sponge fingers and shortbread instead.

Michelle put a lettuce leaf on his plate, twelve dry-roasted peanuts, a slice of hard-boiled egg with powdered Parmesan, and a piece of Ryvita. She hoped, too, that he would drink the small wineglassful of pineapple juice but she wasn’t banking on it. While she decorated his plate with these scraps, she ate peanuts herself and the rest of the egg and a hunk of olive bread with butter. Matthew smiled at her. It was his way of not looking at his plate, to turn his head away from it and smile at her as he thanked her.

“I just saw Jeff Leigh go by,” he said, picking up one peanut. “Is he never going to get a job?”

Neither of them much cared for Fiona’s boyfriend. “I’d so much like to think he wasn’t with her for her money,” said Michelle. “I’d like to think he was disinterested, darling, but I don’t. He expects her to keep him and that’s the truth of it.”

“Fiona likes to be in control. I don’t mean to criticize. To some it would be a compliment. She may want him to be dependent on her.”

“I hope you’re right. I want her to be happy. They’re getting married in June.”

Matthew ate another peanut and a fragment of Ryvita. Michelle had long ago mastered the art of not watching him. He sipped the juice. “I’m afraid her friends won’t think much of him if he does nothing and lets her keep him. He seems to have some skills. He’s done a few useful jobs about the house for Fiona, putting in an electric outlet for one, and if you remember, he was something of a wizard on the computer when he came in here to write those letters or whatever it was he did.”

“Job applications, he said. That was in October, nearly five months ago. I can’t eat this lettuce, darling, or any more nuts. I’ve eaten the Ryvita.”

“You’ve done very well,” said Michelle, taking his plate away and bringing in a kiwi fruit, sliced, the core removed, and half a sponge finger.

Matthew ate two slices, then a third to please her, though he nearly choked on it. “I’ll do the dishes,” he said. “You sit down. Put your feet up.”

So Michelle heaved her huge bulk on to one end of the sofa and put her slender legs and dainty feet, in which every delicate bone showed, up on the other end. She had the Daily Telegraph to read and Matthew’s Spectator , but she felt more like just resting there and thinking. Six months ago Matthew wouldn’t have had the strength to carry out the plates and glasses, stand at the sink, and wash them. If he’d insisted on washing up, he’d have had to sit on a stool to do it. The small improvement in his health and weight was due to Fiona. Michelle had come to care for Fiona, who was a real friend, almost like a daughter. Without envy and nearly without longing-for hadn’t she her darling Matthew?-she could look at Fiona’s slender figure, long, straight, blond hair, and sweet, if not classically good-looking, face with nothing but admiration. Their houses were semidetached, but hers and Matthew’s-though now considered a very valuable property more for where it was than for its design or convenience-was greatly inferior to Fiona’s with its rear extension, large conservatory, and loft conversion. Michelle had no envy about that either. She and Matthew had enough space for their wants, and the value of their house had gone up by a dazzling 500 percent since they bought it seventeen years before. No, it was Fiona’s future happiness that concerned her.

Jeff Leigh had first been seen in Holmdale Road in the previous August or September. Fiona introduced him to them as her boyfriend, but he didn’t move in until October. He was handsome, Michelle had to acknowledge, healthy-looking, regular-featured, a little heavy for her taste. Thinking like that made her laugh. It seemed in the worst of taste to say she could fancy only thin men . Jeff had a sincere and almost earnest face. You could say that he looked as if he really cared about you, what you were saying, and who you were; he was a truly concerned human being. This made Michelle think he didn’t care a toss. And when he offered her one of his Polo mints, as he always did, he smiled to himself as she took it as if saying, Aren’t you fat enough? She loathed his jokes. Though he was out a great deal, he earned nothing, while Fiona, a successful banker, earned a lot and had inherited a sizeable sum when her father died last year.

Michelle wished she and Jeff would postpone their marriage for a while. After all, they were living together; it wasn’t as if they were sexually frustrated-she recalled with tenderness how she and Matthew hadn’t been able to wait more than twenty-four hours-so marriage surely wasn’t imperative. Would she have the courage or the impertinence to suggest gently to Fiona that waiting a little might be a good idea?

It was comforting, Michelle thought before she drifted off into sleep, how the worst things that happen to one can sometimes lead to good. For instance, when Matthew had twice fainted in the classroom, when he had to sit down all the time in the science lab and could barely walk the distance to the Senior Staff Room, they had known he would have to resign. What would they live on? He was only thirty-eight. Apart from a little dabbling in journalism, there was nothing he could do but teach. She had long ago given up work to look after him, to occupy herself in the neverending, nearly hopeless, task of attending to his nourishment. Could she go back? After an absence of nine years? She’d never earned much.