The Sleeping Partner Read Free

it’s not a lot of good going on pretending. I won’t
be around any longer to trouble your conscience or to cramp
your style.
    I’m taking a flat in London for a few weeks while things
straighten themselves out. I’m not leaving the address because
I think you might try to see me, and I believe it would be
better if we didn’t meet again. If you really want to say anything
in answer to this, write to the bank and they will forward it.
    I’ve taken a few clothes, but if I want more I’ll send for them.
    With regret and – still some affection.
    Lynn.
    Someone was knocking. I folded the letter and put it back in its envelope. ‘ Michael Granville Esq.,’ she had written, ‘Greencroft, Hockbridge, Beds.’ I shoved the envelope into the pocket of my dressing-gown and went to let Mrs Lloyd in.
    â€˜Good morning, Mr Granville. Nasty morning, isn’t it.’ She folded her umbrella and propped it by the door and insinuated herself past me. ‘You never can trust those bright evenings. But the weather forecast was wrong – all wrong.’
    I said: ‘My – watch stopped. I forgot – to wind it.’
    She glanced inquisitively at me through her thick spectacles and then at the mess I’d left in the kitchen from making the evening meal. ‘I expect it’s keeping these late hours. I always go to bed as soon as telly finishes. Otherwise I shouldn’t be up to see Mr Lloyd off. I’ll make you a cup of tea right away.’
    Mrs Lloyd was always a shade too sweet for me. I said bluntly: ‘Mrs Granville’s not here.’
    â€˜No, Mr Granville, so she told me. You’ll be quite the bachelor for a few days, I suppose.’
    I looked at her but her glasses had glinted away. ‘You knew?’
    â€˜Mrs Granville told me just before I left yesterday. She walked down to the corner with me to post two letters. I said I’d post them, but she said she wanted to do it herself. I expect we shall manage, shan’t we?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said, wondering whom the second letter was to. ‘I expect we shall manage.’
    â€˜I’ll get everything for your supper so you’ll just have to switch on. I’ll lay it for you ready and then you can leave everything for me to clear tomorrow. I hope her mother will be better soon.’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. So Lynn had covered up. Mrs Lloyd with her intense nose for scandal hadn’t smelt this one out yet. She soon would. Presently I found I’d gone upstairs and was shaving. I cut myself on the chin, and couldn’t find my own toothpaste and had to use Lynn’s.
    I wondered then, and tried to think it out, where the first crack had really shown, where the first wrong move was made. Had I made a bloomer in ever building a new factory with a government priority and encouragement in a satellite town, and uprooting Lynn from our tiny flat in London and expecting her to take new roots in the country? Should I have stayed where I was, cramped and rat-ridden in EC? But could overwork and neglect ever really break a marriage that hadn’t got dry rot already in its foundations? Perhaps the smart boys were right and the seeds of this sort of crack-up were sown twenty or thirty years ago among the frustrations and fixations of childhood.
    I went to the works as usual. Sometimes when you’ve had a partial knock-out something goes on functioning even when the higher levels are closed.
    I remember getting into the car and carefully noting that the petrol was low. And I remember as I turned in the drive I thought, I wonder if those laurels will get rooted out after all. I stopped at the garage at the corner and got ten gallons and then was going to drive off without paying. The man there grinned and said: ‘Shall I book it, Mr Granville? Any time … Your credit’s good, you know.’
    My credit was good. Different from ten years ago when I’d