Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [51]
‘My dear chap,’ cried Edward. ‘Don’t say another word.’
Simpson had no intention of doing so. He was embarrassed at recalling the woman sitting in the hall with her back to the door. It would have been far more sensible if he’d made a break for it that way; one heave at her ankles and he’d have been down the steps in a jiffy.
There was no fraternisation between the gunmen and their hostages while morning tea was drunk. They each stayed in separate halves of the room, rubbing their eyes and yawning.
Ginger, using the top of the fridge as a desk, was writing a letter. Earlier he had asked Binny for pen and paper and she’d torn the middle section out of Alison’s spelling book and given it to him. He wanted a dictionary as well, but she couldn’t find one.
Edward sat on the floor and leaned his head wearily against the radiator.
‘Please forgive me,’ said Binny. She squatted earnestly in front of him, cupping her hands round a mug of tea. ‘I realise I’ve been selfish. I’ll go and talk to Helen when it’s all over. I’ll make her see I’m not important.’
‘Shh,’ he said.
‘I’ll make her understand it was just a diddle on the side. It didn’t mean a thing.’
‘But it does,’ he said. ‘You’ve never understood.’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’ll make it all right. You’ll see.’
He searched his pockets again and fell back defeated. ‘I don’t know that I want it to be all right,’ he said. ‘I see things now in a different perspective. I’ve been thinking about love—’
‘Love?’ she said, looking away from him in embarrassment.
‘It was always a stumbling block as far as I was concerned . . . right from childhood. Of course, my father—’
‘Shall I get you some more tea?’ Binny asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t want tea. What I felt for my father, my school, was quite normal. In the circumstances. Then later, after I’d suffered that shock, I used other emotions, but I thought it was the same thing. You see what I mean?’
‘Well,’ Binny said dubiously. ‘It’s not crystal clear.’
‘I met that rotter Muldoon, you know, a few years ago at some conference or other. He seemed to have shrunk. Do you know, he didn’t remember me. It was quite genuine . . . his forgetfulness. And I’d thought of him for thirty years. Isn’t it amazing?’
‘Very,’ said Binny.
‘He looked quite prosperous. Didn’t look as if he’d been near a cricket pitch for years. I found myself apologising because I’d drunk the last of the water in the jug. I’m always apologising . . . doing my best. It’s a symptom. I’ve read about it since.’
‘You’ve read a lot,’ Binny said.
‘I mean one should apologise . . . I think courtesy is very important, but it can be carried too far. I don’t see the harm in telling her I want to lead a different kind of life. Do you? She does have her meetings to fall back on. I don’t honestly think she’d mind.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Binny. It was typical of Edward to start talking in these terms when she was filthy dirty and worn out and they might be shot at any moment. She thought of all the times she had leaned towards him over the dinner table in some restaurant and willed him to say something like this. He’d talked instead about old Witherspoon and old Carmichael, until the lovely feeling went from her heart and she sat stiff as a poker looking down at the menu, unable to order artichokes or prawns or anything really special and tasty, because she might choke on them with disappointment. They would have turned to ashes in her mouth.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘You’re overwrought.