The Love Department by William Trevor

Author:William Trevor
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241969304
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2014-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

14

Once upon a time they might have laughed because they could not help it, or played some game they understood, communicating yet not seeming to. How could it be, Eve thought, that a tartan-clad monkey had leapt upon Mrs Hoop and that the Bolsovers would never come to laugh together over that ridiculous fact? Would they refer again to the arrival in their house of an elderly stranger with a sweeping-brush? Would they shake their heads over what Mrs Poache must have thought of the increasing pandemonium? Or wonder what tale had been borne to Mrs Linderfoot on her couch? She thought they mightn’t.

The guests had gone their way, shaking hands in the hall, Captain Poache staggering, his wife seeming less vexed than she had been, Mr Linderfoot saying he’d like to come again, the Clingers quarrelling. Mrs Hoop and her friends had gone off also, the three of them in a taxi, since that had seemed the best way. The house had been silent then, for James had not spoken, nor had she. James had sat down and she had stood with an unlighted cigarette between her fingers, and James had fallen asleep.

Eve felt a headache beginning to thump behind her brow. She lit and smoked the cigarette, which made her headache worse. James slept in his chair, his mouth slightly open, his body full of brandy.

One by one, the scenes passed before her: moments of her marriage day, for she continued in her obsession about it and she knew the day well. She stood about, and walked and spoke; she was there in white, saying the right thing, moving among people: the scenes were like parts of a slow film. Would she, she wondered, take to a sofa like Mrs Linderfoot, when the children had grown up and gone? Would she lie there and dream all afternoon of the distant past, of a man she had married on a sunny day? What did Mrs Linderfoot think about? Or Mrs Clinger, come to that? Or Mrs Poache?

‘Oh, James,’ cried Eve, running across the room and putting her arms about the form of her sleeping husband.

James did not hear, nor did he move. But Eve talked on, speaking of marriage, saying that it was worth an effort. She said he must seek some work of a different order. She said that they must talk together, and she viewed them in her mind, talking together in the future, as once they had. They talked in her future, at breakfast and in the evening. They turned off the television set, saying the programmes had deteriorated, and not meaning that at all. They talked in bed and at the weekends. They sat in silence, knowing that the talk was there.

‘Oh, James,’ cried Eve, closing her eyes and feeling her headache. ‘I never understood a thing.’

She believed at that moment that she had not raised a finger as their marriage had drifted into boredom. ‘No marriage should be kept by children,’ said Eve. ‘We must stand on our own feet.

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