Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn

Author:Michael Frayn [Frayn, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2015-07-21T04:00:00+00:00

Eight

God knows I’m a failure, an insignificant speck of human nothingness trampled on indifferently by every casual passer-by, thought Dyson as he followed his wife out of the kitchen into the living-room, with his fists clenched in his trouser pockets, and his face set in an unyielding frown, but there is one thing in this world that I’m not going to stand for, and that’s being nagged by my wife. I’m not reduced to that.

God knows, he thought, I shouldn’t say anything about it if she nagged me in any halfway reasonable manner. I’m used to being treated like dirt – I’m not proud. It’s this nagging by saying nothing that I can’t stand. It’s this terrible pseudo-­rational nagging by just carrying on normally, as if she wasn’t nagging me at all. It’s this stupid leaving me to guess what I’m being nagged about. Well, I’m honestly not going to spend the whole of Saturday morning putting up with this sort of thing. I’ll just go out of the house without a word, and stay at my club for a few days. Or I would if I had a club.

‘Look, Jannie,’ he said reasonably, following her back to the kitchen, ‘just tell me what it is you’re going on about. That’s all I ask.’

‘I’m not going on about anything, John,’ said Jannie.

‘Yes, you are, Jannie.’

‘No, I’m not, John.’

‘Look, we both know we’re having an argument! Let’s not have another argument about whether we’re having an argument or not!’

Jannie gazed into the food cupboard, picking up cereal packets and shaking them to see if they needed replacing.

‘There’s some coffee in the pot, if you’d like to light the gas,’ she said.

Dyson lit the gas absently. It was self-defeating, this sort of nagging, he thought. That’s what I really object to. If I haven’t the slightest idea what the hell I’m being nagged about, how the hell can I possibly do anything about it?

‘Put some milk on, too, will you, John?’

He put some milk on, sighing. I mean, he thought, I know what’s she’s up to, all right. I’m not a complete fool. This was the classic method of brainwashing, after all, used by interrogators, priests, and psycho-analysts alike. ‘I think you have something you want to tell me’ – that’s what their technique was. Then they simply waited for you to accuse yourself.

Jannie sat down at one corner of the great kitchen table and began to write a shopping list. Dyson stood by the stove, gazing down at her with serious ferocity.

‘Jannie . . .’ he began.

‘Yes, John?’

Dyson stopped, frowning harder.

‘Why do you call me John in that tone of voice?’ he demanded.

‘Don’t you like me calling you John?’ asked Jannie, not looking up from her shopping list.

‘You don’t normally go round calling me John all the time.’

She didn’t answer. Good God, he thought, I should like to do something that would really make her jump out of her skin for once. He pictured himself smashing both fists down in the middle of the kitchen table, or taking a china jug off the shelf and hurling it across the room.

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