Gerald Coustain said to his wife Angela, ‘I don’t know what’s got into that fellow Carl May.’
Angela said, ‘Is he any worse than he usually is?’ They were eating fish and chips in a Chinese chippie with an eat-here section. With the meal, which included slices of white bread and butter, they drank sweet tea. This was their favourite food. They resented spending good money on food they liked less at expensive restaurants.
‘Yes he is,’ said Gerald. ‘He’s saying what he thinks on television. He’s usually much too discreet for that. There’ll be a public outcry. People can hear the sound of jackboots marching, the minute he opens his mouth.’
‘I expect it’s his new girlfriend,’ said Angela. ‘People who’re foolish in one direction become foolish in them all.’
‘What makes you think he has one?’
‘Joanna rang me up in a state. Something had set her off.’
‘That’s not very reasonable of her,’ he said, ‘if what you say is true, that she’s having it off with the gardener. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.’
‘Yes,’ said Angela, ‘but neither likes the other having any.’
‘Is he a good gardener?’ asked Gerald, when he had absorbed this.
‘She didn’t say. I expect so. She’s very fussy about that kind of thing. Always having her curtains cleaned and her wallpaper changed, and her kitchen units brought up to date.’
‘I’m a good gardener,’ said Gerald.
‘I know you are, my dear,’ she said. They each took a chip from the other’s plate, in a gesture of continuing love and trust.
‘Now she has a lover,’ said Gerald, hopefully, ‘we won’t have to ask her to the lido again, will we? We won’t have to be sorry for her.’
‘I rather liked her coming to the lido with us. I think she enjoyed it. She looks very good in a cossie, I must say. Didn’t you think so?’
‘I didn’t notice. She looked down her nose at me,’ said Gerald. ‘I had to stay wrapped in my towel. I didn’t want her to see my paunch. There was nothing I could do about my varicose leg. She stared at that. No wonder Carl May got rid of her.’
‘It would be a better idea,’ said Angela, ‘if you got rid of your paunch and your varicose veins. Eating here won’t help. If only something healthier was our favourite food. Do you think the fish is radioactive?’
‘Pretty well everything is,’ said Gerald, sadly, ‘if we’re to go by our new monitoring equipment. But I’m not sure if it’s been calibrated correctly. We’ll just have to hope for the best. You don’t mean to go round and see Joanna, I hope? You know my feelings about getting too close. All of us at the lido is obviously a good deed: you and her together smacks of a conspiracy.’
‘She’s my friend,’ said Angela. ‘I really do like her. She keeps saying things I don’t expect!’
‘If being her friend makes him your enemy, it isn’t safe. I’ve told you that. I always take care to be very polite to him.’
‘I think,’ said Angela, ‘they ought to get back together again. I think they still love each other in their hearts.’
He was pleased she thought so; a professor of Modern History both so wrong-headed and so romantic at heart; his wife, sharer of his chips.