Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [20]
He heard the man say, ‘Yes . . . no complications . . . about half an hour ago.’ When he came out of the box he was smiling.
‘Congratulations,’ Simpson said grudgingly.
‘Ta,’ said the man.
Simpson dialled the number. ‘Hello . . . is that Marcia?’
‘No, it isn’t, I’m afraid,’ said a masculine voice. ‘Hold on, I’ll get her.’
Marcia came to the phone and asked who it was.
‘It’s me . . . George. Was that the candidate fellow I just spoke to?’
‘He’s out,’ she said.
‘Oh. It was Lloyd, was it?’
‘No it wasn’t, sweetie. Just a friend. Why are you ringing?’
‘We were out for dinner and I thought I’d say Hello.’ He’d always impressed on Marcia that he wasn’t the sort of chap to run around behind his wife’s back. That wasn’t his style at all. He and his wife, he had told her, went their own separate ways. Within certain limits, he was a free agent. ‘We’re in a very nice house in the park,’ he said.
‘With a call box?’
‘There’s an office in the house. The fellow’s a merchant banker. I wondered if you’re free tomorrow night?’
‘Oh, sweetie . . . what a shame. I’m not.’
‘Well, what about lunch then?’
He thought he heard someone whispering at the other end of the line.
‘Look here, sweetie,’ Marcia said. ‘Give me a tinkle at the office in the morning. I’ll let you know then.’
‘All right,’ he said.
Hobbling, he scurried back up the road.
Edward gave the guests a little sherry to sip before dinner. He didn’t offer any to Binny. The Simpsons wanted to sit on the sofa, but Edward forestalled them. ‘It’s a shade uncomfortable,’ he said, and laughed. He had made love to Binny many times on the sofa, though it was too short for him to lie full length upon it. His left knee, exposed to constant friction on the hair-cord covering of the floor, was permanently scarred. When he was in the car sometimes, driving to work, or in the office talking to a client, he would gently touch this proof of passion with his fingertips and wince with happiness. He was ready, should Helen notice the wound, to tell her he feared he was becoming increasingly knock-kneed as the years advanced.
‘I do admire those cushions,’ Muriel said. She would have liked to go somewhere and attend to her wet hair.
‘Have one,’ said Binny. ‘Have one.’ And she placed a cushion on a chair at the table and told everybody to sit down. She couldn’t concentrate on the cooking with the Simpsons standing about looking uncomfortable. Edward opened a bottle of wine.
The guests perched on the damaged chairs and put their elbows on the table to steady themselves.
Muriel frowned at her husband. He was bent sideways, dragging the cloth with his stomach, doing something out of sight. ‘The traffic,’ she said. ‘It was simply chaotic. We thought we’d never get here, didn’t we, George?’
‘Don’t tell me,’ protested Edward. He walked backward and forward in front of the mirror, holding a glass in his hand.
‘No trouble with parking though,’ said Simpson. ‘Not here at any rate.’
‘Never any trouble here,’ Edward agreed.
‘You don’t do any parking here,’ said Binny.
6
They began dinner at a quarter past nine. Edward wondered agitatedly how he could possibly manage to eat, help with the washing up, and be out of the house by half past ten at the latest. It would seem fearfully abrupt.
There was grapefruit to start with.
‘Excellent, excellent,’ Simpson said, gouging the fruit from its skin with a spoon that had buckled, without warning, in his hand.
‘The reason the loaf looks funny,’ explained Binny, ‘is because one of my children was hungry.’ Her voice quivered slightly. Recovering, she handed the sugar bowl to Muriel. ‘You’ve got four, haven’t you? All boys. Edward told me.’
‘Two, actually,’ interrupted Simpson.
‘Two girls,’ Muriel said. ‘We’re quite pleased with them. Of course, I never went out to work or anything like that, and I didn’t have a nanny when they were younger. I think it’s important to give them one’s undivided attention,