about the state of the nation, but usually she will be free to carry on with her daily chores.
Now she hums, alternately, themes from Beethoven’s sympho-
nies, snatches from Ella Fitzgerald’s Cole Porter Songbook and the choruses of Beatles hits, as she dusts the bookshelves.
Is this enough? she thinks as a cloud passes across the window. Or
perhaps it has crossed her heart. Will this be enough? Can it sustain her and if so for how long? How long before she returns to life on
her own? It must endure, she concludes, at all costs. She must do
everything she can to accept Roy’s less salubrious habits, together with his idleness, for the sake of the satisfaction and security she craves.
Stephen, she knows, is beginning to show a restive reluctance
to put up with Roy’s ways and to conceal his dislike. An unusual
thing for an unusually courteous young man, she thinks; and so
far expressed in minute turns of the head, mild facial expressions
and marginally infelicitous phrases that, it seems, only she can
decode.
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Perhaps he has been brought to this. He worships her, she knows.
She will have to talk to Stephen. He must understand. He must bear
it. He must disguise his feelings. She knows that he cares for her and does not like Roy, but he simply must.
4
‘Do you enjoy living here?’ asks Anne as they sip their sherries some five weeks later.
‘Oh yes,’ says Roy. ‘Oh yes.’ He glances surreptitiously at his
watch and resists the urge to shake it for fear – no, in the hope – that it may have stopped. But he knows it hasn’t. Good God, have they
really only been here for twenty- five minutes?
All this for this scrawny, unimpressive man and his blowsy wife.
He casts them a smile that might as well be a grimace. Roy has had
to spend almost the whole of Saturday exiled from the house while
Betty primped and prepared it, spending hours, it seemed, over
whether the extravagant bouquet of cut flowers she had bought
should sit on the coffee table or the small walnut sideboard. They’ll bring flowers anyway, he’d said forlornly; it’s a waste of money. And sure enough they have.
This morning he has been subjected to geriatric hyperactivity, a
running commentary on the preparations and a lengthy debate over
what he should wear. Good God, he knows full well how to turn
himself out. He’d had to put his foot down.
So here they sit, drinking sherry, the component parts of this odd
gathering, all of them transparently ill at ease apart from Roy, in spite of their quite hopeless attempts to pretend otherwise.
It is cramped in the small living room. There is a real risk that
someone will knock over one or more of Betty’s knick- knacks.
Michael and Anne perch awkwardly on the edge of the small sofa.
Their unprepossessing daughter, Emma, with spectacles, lank hair
and an unspecified skin problem, sits on a kitchen chair. Stephen sits on the stairs. Roy thinks, where do they get their ugliness from?
Certainly not from Betty. Her hubby must have been something to
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behold, with dominant genes. Michael, Stephen and Emma resem-
ble to him a family of weasels, with their beady eyes and sloping
foreheads. Not to mention their snarly, unpleasant Mancunian twangs.
Betty is in continual motion between them, covering the small
patch of carpet furiously hither and thither, fussing with nibbles, muttering irrelevancies thirteen to the dozen. Roy leans back in his chair. On one level he is quite enjoying this. Their discomfiture at meeting him for the first time is amusing.
He stifles a yawn and looks outside. At least they have a decent
vehicle. Michael’s large metallic German car stands at the kerb in
the rain. So this nonentity must amount to something despite the
evidence.
Someone has spoken to him. The lids close momentarily over his
eyes as he contains his boredom and strives for civility. ‘Pardon?’ he says.
‘I said, you’ve acclimatized to life outside the metropolis all right?’
asks Michael with infinite patience but in a voice that suggests he is dealing with an imbecile.
Acclimatized. Yes, that’s the kind of word this bespectacled geek
would use. He even calls his mother by her given name. Betty this,
Betty that; not Mother or even Mum. No respect. Disgraceful. But
it is necessary to hold one’s temper in check.
‘Oh yes,’ he says with a thin smile that even he thinks may not be
entirely convincing. ‘It’s not so hard. I like living here.’
‘And you sold your place in London?’
Cheek. Roy knows what he’s driving at. But he answers calmly.
‘No. Not yet. I’m thinking about it, and considering my invest-
ment options.’ He looks in Betty’s direction and smiles.
‘You play the market, then?’ asks Michael with a persistence Roy
might not have credited.
‘Oh no. Not really. No, my money’s safe. I have an associate from
the old days. A broker who’s looked after me for many years. What-
ever he comes up with, I’m OK. We’ll be all right, won’t we, my
dear?’
‘Pardon?’ says Betty, flustered as she is interrupted on her way to the kitchen. ‘Oh yes, of course.’
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They all smile at one another insincerely and then sip their sherry.
You don’t like me, thinks Roy. Except Betty of course. You don’t like me. And I don’t care. He chuckles inwardly, and then starts. It is
becoming harder, much harder, as time goes on, to maintain that
necessary veneer of politesse and feigned eager, smiling interest.
The ageing process. He must not merely try harder; he must do bet-
ter. For all their sakes he must show himself an engaged and
enthusiastic participant, a welcome initiate in the bosom of this
complacent coterie, not an interloper.
But it is so very hard. Tolerance has never been his strong suit, he will freely admit – to himself. Disguise of intolerance, yes, but that’s a very different thing. It has been entertaining over the years, as well as rewarding, to mask his true feelings with an indulgent smile and a kind word, for the greater good. But now he is short of time and, it has to be said, low on stamina. Yet he must make the effort.
‘So you worked in the City?’ asks Michael as, shuffling and edg-
ing, they gain their appointed places at the table Betty has laid in the tiny kitchen.
There is barely room for the six of them and with difficulty they
extend their elbows behind them to place Betty’s carefully pressed, ancient linen napkins on their laps.
Roy pauses for a beat to assure equanimity. He says cheerfully, ‘At one time. I was in property. Among other things. I’ve had a few jobs in my time. I can’t say that I was one of the big players. The City then wasn’t what it is today.’
Stephen thinks: that smile, when he turns it on, is avuncular. Repulsive but avuncular. The ruddy cheeks, the shining eyes, the oozing
confidence, it fits perfectly. The smile of the assassin, he thinks, and wonders whether others see it this way, unburdened by his preju-dices and the knowledge that he has recently acquired of this man
at close quarters. Roy, even in old age, is a fairly impressive act.
He observes Betty, bustling around so far as bustling is possible in such a small space. She is somewhat out of breath, from anxiety, he thinks, as she attends diligently to the needs of her guests, distribut-ing plates, pouring wine, passing bread. The candles are lit and her 22
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