The Ex-Wives Read Free Page B

machine, their single, bachelor bedsheet turning, entwined with their pair of Y-fronts, a parody of the embraces they had once known . . .’ He stopped. Maybe this was a bit over the top. But no; her face had become softer, blunter somehow. Even the photographer had sat down heavily in the one good armchair and was fumbling for his cigarettes.
    â€˜At night they wander the streets, watching young men buying bunches of flowers at the Top Price Late Nite Store; young men, clutching a bottle of wine, eagerly springing up front steps and pressing the bell of their beloved. They pass pubs whose windows, nowadays tactlessly unfrosted, display tableaux of loving couples who, between kisses, argue playfully about what film they’re going to see that night,ringing their choices with biro in their outspread copies of
Time Out
.’
    Her eyes were moist; so were his. When she switched on her tape recorder, her fingers trembled. ‘Tell me about your little room,’ she said.
    It wasn’t little, actually; it was quite large. But she was obviously deeply affected. He had her now; he was an actor, after all. George Kaufman had said: if you hook your audience in the first ten minutes, you’ve got them for the play. And dammit, this story was true. He himself was quite overwhelmed.
    â€˜Of course, she kept most of the furniture,’ he said, kicking aside some takeaway containers as he crossed the room. ‘Except one or two family heirlooms even
she
didn’t have the gall to nick, mostly because they’re so hideous,’ He pointed to the sideboard. ‘That was my granny’s. The door’s broken, where she kicked it in.’
    â€˜Your granny?’
    â€˜No no. Jacquetta. My ex-wife. We were having a row.’ He pointed to the wall. ‘This is the only picture she let me keep. An incredibly dull lithograph of my old Oxford college.’
    Penny nodded. ‘It is dull, isn’t it.’ She picked up a piece of pizza crust. ‘Shall I throw this away?’
    He nodded. ‘I always leave the edge, don’t you?’ He pointed out the curious china object that the casthad given him when he had played
Lear
in Hartlepool; could she make out what it was? She couldn’t.
    He went to the mantlepiece, moved aside a bottle of Bells, and pointed to a photo. ‘These are my sons, Bruno and Tobias.’
    â€˜Aren’t they sweet!’
    â€˜I’ve got some more, somewhere.’
    â€˜More what?’
    â€˜Children. Older than this, though.’
    She looked at the two smiling faces in the tarnished frame. ‘When do you see them?’
    â€˜Weekends. When she lets me.’
    She pointed to a glass tank. ‘What’s this?’
    â€˜Their stick insects.’
    She peered into the wilting foliage. ‘Where are they?’
    â€˜Difficult to spot them. You see, they keep quite still and they look just like sticks. Sometimes I look in there and think: maybe that’s the way to go through life – in camouflage, not moving. The only way to avoid the pain.’
    That did it. She was his. And within a month she had moved in.
    Pulling George behind him, Buffy made his way along the parade of shops. Eight years had passed since then. Abercorn Hardware had become theVideo Palace. There were Arabic newspapers at the newsagents, and kiwi fruit, each with a little 50p sticker on it, outside what was once a proper greengrocers but was now Europa Food and Wine. 5op each! Schoolboys sauntered, sucking ice lollies; they seemed to be let out at all hours of the day, now. One of them said: ‘It was him what stole it. I was well gutted.’
    What did he mean by that?
Well gutted.
Buffy had to keep in the swim, for the sake of his sons. Bruno and Tobias were teenagers now; they had put stick insects behind them. They mustn’t think of him as an old fuddy-duddy. He had a suspicion they found him vaguely dated and irrelevant, like an ionizer.
    It was