fifty-five year-old skin wrinkling and the once-firm flesh sagging?
Would nakedness destroy the illusion of desirability? Perhaps, but he
suspected something more complex. It was obscurely connected with the
way his own body had aged, he thought, as he climbed into his cavernous
underpants. She was always decently clad; therefore he never lusted
after her; therefore she never had to reveal how undesirable she found
him. Such a combination of deviousness and sensitivity would be
characteristic.
She said: “What are you going to do?”
The question caught him off balance. He thought at first that she must
know what he was thinking, and be referring to that; then he realized
she was continuing the conversation about the business.
He fastened his suspenders, wondering what to tell her. “I’m not sure,”
he said eventually.
She peered closely into the mirror, doing something to her eyelashes.
“Sometimes I wonder what you want out of life.”
He stared at her. Her upbringing had taught her to be indirect and never
to ask personal questions, for seriousness and emotion spoiled parties
and caused ladies to faint. It would have cost her considerable effort
to inquire about the purpose of someone’s existence.
He sat on the edge of his bed and spoke to her back. “I must cut out
brandy, that’s all.”
“I’m sure you know it has nothing to do with what you eat and drink.”
She applied lipstick contorting her mouth to spread it evenly. “It began
nine years ago, and your father died ten years ago.”
“I’ve got printing ink in my blood.” The response came formally, like a
catechism. The conversation would have seemed dislocated to an
eavesdropper, but they knew its logic. There was a code: the death of
his father meant his assumption of control of the business; his ulcer
meant his business problems.
She said: “You haven’t got ink in your veins.
Your father had, but you can’t stand the smell of the old works.”
“I inherited a strong business, and I want to bequeath to my sons an
even stronger one Isn’t that what people of our class are supposed to do
with their lives?”
“Our sons aren’t interested in what we leave them. Michael is building
his own business from scratch, and all Andrew wants to do is vaccinate
the whole of the African continent against chicken pox.
He could not tell how serious she was now. The things she was doing to
her face made her expression unreadable. No doubt it was deliberate.
Almost everything she did was deliberate.
He said: “I have a duty. I employ more than two thousand people, and
many more jobs are directly dependent upon the health of my companies.”
“I think you’ve done your duty. You kept the firm going during a time of
crisis–not everyone managed that. You’ve sacrificed your health to it;
and you’ve given it ten years of your life, and.
God knows what else. Her voice dropped on the final phrase, as if at the
last minute she regretted saying it.
“Should I give it my pride as well?” he said. He carried on dressing,
tying a tight little knot in his necktie. “I’ve turned a jobbing
printer’s into one of the thousand biggest companies in the country.
My business is worth five times what my father’s was. I put it together,
and I have to make it work.”
“You have to do better than your father.”
“Is that such a poor ambition?”
“Yes!” Her sudden vehemence was a shock.
“You should want good health, and long life, and my happiness.”
“If the company was prosperous, perhaps I could sell it. As things are,
I wouldn’t get its asset value.”
He looked at his watch. “I must go down.”
He descended the broad staircase. A portrait of his father dominated the
hall. People often thought it was Derek at fifty. In fact it was Jasper
at sixty five. The phone on the hall stand shrilled as he passed. He
ignored it: he did not take calls in the morning.
He went into a small dining-room large one was reserved for parties,
which were rare these days. The circular table was laid with silver
cutlery. An elderly woman in an apron brought in half a grapefruit in a