After his conversation with Carl May, Gerald Coustain put down his cordless telephone and said to his wife Angela, ‘The man’s a monster.’ They sat in the garden. She was setting examination papers in Α-level European history: she had lean academic fingers. He was potting out delphiniums: he had plump and clumsy ones: he was a civil servant of the stout complacent kind. She did not reply: what was the point: she knew Carl May was a monster. The sun went behind clouds; the wind was suddenly cold: there was rain in it.
‘I think perhaps we should go indoors,’ he said.
‘Why’s that?’ she asked, absently, lost somewhere in the Boer War. ‘It will stop in a minute: it’s only spitting.’
‘There is a possibility the rain is radioactive,’ he said.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ she said. ‘Things like that don’t happen.’
But she gathered up her papers and they went inside. He left the delphiniums to take their chances.
‘Perhaps we should change our clothes and shower?’ he said.
‘I would rather die than do anything so extreme,’ she said.
‘Death itself is extreme,’ he said.
‘If you envisage this alleged radiation as life-threatening,’ she said, ‘shouldn’t you be measuring it to find out? Or something?’
‘Our organization is a little sketchy,’ he said, ‘and I am not getting much cooperation where I had hoped to find it. I can’t get through to the Department. The lines are jammed.’
‘Perhaps you should go in to the office,’ she suggested.
‘On a Sunday? I spend Sundays with my family.’
‘All the same,’ she said.
‘Besides which,’ he said, ‘it’s safer indoors. Bricks and mortar offer some small protection. No one would expect it of me, to go in to the office through radioactive streets on a Sunday.’
He felt her disapproval and stood out against it. He must be allowed to make his own decision, surely.
‘How is poor Joanna?’ he asked, to change the subject. Angela had been Joanna’s best friend, until the divorce. After that, of course, the relationship had become difficult.
‘Joanna was never poor,’ said Angela. ‘Nothing poor about Joanna. Her house would make two of this, she has a park rather than a garden, her month’s alimony is my year’s housekeeping.’
‘In the circumstances, Carl May was generous. I would not be so generous, if I caught you at it.’
She laughed. It was hardly likely that he would. She was plain as a pikestaff, warts and moles all over the place and hairy legs. People were amazed at the match. He’d been a good-looking man when young: he could have done better for himself. But he hadn’t wanted to: he’d wanted her: and as for her, she didn’t give two figs for her looks. Their children, surprisingly, were all handsome, in a tall, strong-jawed way, and being male, their facial hair was not a matter for concern.
‘That way he can control her,’ said Angela. ‘If she accepts his generosity.’
‘I suppose it is better to be controlled than ignored,’ he said. ‘Poor thing.’
‘She has a young friend,’ said Angela. ‘The gardener: the man who pots out her delphiniums.’
‘You’re making it up.’ Gerald Coustain did not want to know this.
‘But I saw him when I went round the other day. She was looking wonderful. Not quite so perfect and clear-cut as she usually is – a little blurred around the edges. Swollen-mouthed. Sex, I suppose.’
‘What were you doing round there, in any case? I’d rather you didn’t call on her. Meet for lunch, of course, in town, if you insist. But not too close, Angela. No home visits: especially not if what you say is true. Carl May might see you as an accomplice. Be prudent.’
‘If your promotion depends on my prudence, you’ve had it anyway,’ said Angela. ‘Hadn’t you better be getting along to the office?’
‘There are no trains to speak of, not on Sundays.’
‘Then get a taxi.’
‘Certainly not. It is not a question of my promotion, Angela, but of your safety. God knows what Carl May might do next. He had his wife’s lover written off, blanked out, knocked off the perch, however you want to express it –’
‘Murdered. But there were special circumstances. One can’t condone it, of course.’
‘It has hardly reached “condone”, Angela. One doesn’t even know about it! Just don’t get involved, that’s all. I hope she has the sense not to boast about her lover to you ladies, or this one won’t last two minutes either.’
‘You ladies!’ she scorned him. ‘You ladies! Where has your courage gone? Can’t say boo to Carl May, can’t get to the office in case the rain’s radioactive –’
In the end he went, as she knew he would. Angela served as her husband’s conscience. Women who play this role are often as plain as pikestaffs – indeed, the plainer the better: Angela had a grey skin, a double chin, short grey greasy hair and wore belted navy blue around a waist almost larger than her hips, and her husband was never rude to her, or tried to make her unhappy.