Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [15]
‘Are you going somewhere?’ he demanded. ‘It’s gone seven, you know.’
‘This gentleman’s from the Bible,’ said Binny. ‘We were just having a little chat.’
‘Well, I should hurry it up if I were you.’ Edward pushed past them and went into the kitchen.
‘Now that your man’s home,’ the black man decided, ‘I’d best be going. He’ll want his tea.’ He told her he’d leave a copy of his magazine and she ought to look at the questions at the back. Possibly when he called next week she’d have answered a few of them.
‘I shouldn’t count on it,’ said Binny, stung at the speed with which he was prepared to be on his way now that ‘her’ man had returned. He hadn’t minded wasting her time; it hadn’t occurred to him that she too might have been wanting her tea.
Edward poured her out a drink before she went upstairs to do her face. He congratulated her on the table – he admired the flowers in the centre. He forbore to mention that the vase could do with a wash.
‘Food smells good,’ he said, anxious to be appreciative.
‘There’s nothing cooking yet,’ she said. ‘It isn’t time.’
He sat her on his lap and, relinquishing his pipe, kissed her. She couldn’t respond wholeheartedly because of her headscarf. She felt faded and work-worn.
He said huskily, ‘Are the children gone?’
She nodded.
‘Can’t we go upstairs?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not in the mood. Lucy was awful.’
‘I’ve had the devil of a day,’ said Edward. ‘One thing after another.’
‘She made Alison cry.’
‘The telephone never stopped ringing.’
‘I feel odd,’ she confided. ‘That man telling me there was nothing to fear – and earlier on when I was out shopping people kept waving.’
Edward attempted to push his hand inside the front of her coat but it was tightly buttoned.
‘Why my door?’ she asked.
‘I’d knock on your door,’ Edward said urgently. ‘Any time.’
‘You’ve been drinking,’ said Binny. She suddenly remembered the taxi drawing into the kerb and felt resentful. He never came in his car in case somebody recognised the number plate and told his wife. ‘I can’t imagine why you think you’ve had the devil of a day. What with your eight-course lunches and visits to the pub—’
‘Three,’ he corrected.
‘Nobody cooked my lunch. And look at the way that man ran off because he thought it was time for your tea. Talk about the chosen people of this world—’
‘He didn’t look chosen to me,’ said Edward. ‘Somebody obviously tried to break his neck.’
He wanted Binny to get into the bath so that he could scrub her back. She said she’d already bathed, and he said why didn’t he get in the bath then and she could wash his back.
‘I’m not having you wallowing and snorting in my clean bath,’ she told him, and went upstairs to take off her coat and scarf.
She stood in the cramped bedroom and combed her hair. She felt crushed, flattened in some way. It was Edward’s fault, coming in a taxi like that and not wanting to know about Lucy being rude. He always slid away when she mentioned the children. Of course his own son was too busy learning Latin and Greek and generally behaving like Little Lord Fauntleroy to cause him a moment’s trouble. Why, she wondered, was Edward always trying to get her into soapy water? It must have some connection with his days at boarding school; he probably thought it more hygienic to do it in the bath.
She didn’t know why she felt so despairing inside. All the big issues were over and done with – it wasn’t likely now that she’d get pregnant and even if she did, nobody, not even her mother, was going to tell her off. She didn’t have any financial problems, she didn’t hanker after new carpets. She didn’t hanker after anything – certainly not Edward with a block of soap in one hand and that pipe spilling ash down her spine.
She was compelled suddenly to stand very still. She felt like an animal in long grass scenting smoke on the