you.” I tried not to smile, but I felt – what was it? To be honest, I felt excited. A mysterious visitor? A moment before, I’d been advising myself not to think about the Roger file ever again, and now I was secretly thrilled at the idea of this man who had been looking for me. What if it was Winterton?
“Was he … quite old?” I said.
Tony laughed. “Incredibly old!”
I laughed as well. “A bit dusty?”
“Incredibly dusty!”
“Dishevelled?”
“Incredibly dishevelled, yes!”
He seemed relieved that I knew who he was talking about.
“He said he was a friend of Mary’s?” he said, with that modern upward inflection that suggests a question.
“That’s it,” I said. I sounded quite hearty, which indeed I was. Perversely enough, the idea of a visit from Winterton was quite cheering me up.
“Apparently she worked with him on some project at the library.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Some project at the library.”
He went back down the path and I shut the door. Then I put down the dog and laughed. Watson looked up at me with a quizzical air and wagged his tail, but I could hardly explain to him why I was so happy that the game was afoot; I didn’tremotely understand it myself. Surely I didn’t want to know more about the evil Roger? In the end, just to say something, I resorted to Mary’s standard address to Watson, whenever he came back dirty from digging in the garden.
“Ah,” I said. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”
Three days were to pass before Dr Winterton called on me. Perhaps he wanted to give me time to finish my unpacking – which turned out to be such a lengthy and demoralising process that I loved Mary all the more for the way she had stoically undertaken it so many times on my behalf. In the interim, while I waited for his visit, I tried to adopt a normal domestic routine, but being at home brought me closer than ever to my sense of loss. In the evenings I tried to watch television, but quickly gave up: everything touched me too deeply. Nature programmes, detective dramas, and worst of all, the news – everything mercilessly underlined the same theme: it was all death, death, death, and all entirely unsupportable. Polar bear cubs starved in the snow, prostitutes were stabbed in urban underpasses, old age pensioners opened the door to teenage psychopaths armed with screwdrivers. The only recourse was to watch quizzes; but, sadly, those were impossible, too. Mary and I had watched University Challenge together, and she had invented a game whereby we would shout answers to the science questions in unison, and keep a running score of our (random) successes. Over the years we grew rather good at identifying types of mathematical question, and would take it in turns to shout “Minus one!” – which more often than not (odd, but true) was the correct answer to the seemingly meaningless questions involving x and y . We laughed a hollow laugh at the astronomy questions; we were seriously competitive on history and literature; she was shocked by my terribleignorance of art; we were both hilariously bad at identifying great composers from even their most famous compositions. “Giotto!” I would say, regularly, to the art questions. “Haydn!” she’d say to anything musical. Not long before she died, there was a week when Minus One and Giotto and Haydn were the correct answers to starter questions. We laughed and laughed. It was the triumph of hope over ignorance.
Speaking of literature, since Mary had died, there were two lines from Hamlet that I found I couldn’t stop thinking of. One was “How all occasions do inform against me,” and the other was: “And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘one.’ ” I know it’s fashionable to think that Shakespeare was not personally bereft when he wrote Hamlet (or that he didn’t need to be), but I am positive, from that second line, that he was. Since Mary died, I have looked at people bothering about
“Was he … quite old?” I said.
Tony laughed. “Incredibly old!”
I laughed as well. “A bit dusty?”
“Incredibly dusty!”
“Dishevelled?”
“Incredibly dishevelled, yes!”
He seemed relieved that I knew who he was talking about.
“He said he was a friend of Mary’s?” he said, with that modern upward inflection that suggests a question.
“That’s it,” I said. I sounded quite hearty, which indeed I was. Perversely enough, the idea of a visit from Winterton was quite cheering me up.
“Apparently she worked with him on some project at the library.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Some project at the library.”
He went back down the path and I shut the door. Then I put down the dog and laughed. Watson looked up at me with a quizzical air and wagged his tail, but I could hardly explain to him why I was so happy that the game was afoot; I didn’tremotely understand it myself. Surely I didn’t want to know more about the evil Roger? In the end, just to say something, I resorted to Mary’s standard address to Watson, whenever he came back dirty from digging in the garden.
“Ah,” I said. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”
Three days were to pass before Dr Winterton called on me. Perhaps he wanted to give me time to finish my unpacking – which turned out to be such a lengthy and demoralising process that I loved Mary all the more for the way she had stoically undertaken it so many times on my behalf. In the interim, while I waited for his visit, I tried to adopt a normal domestic routine, but being at home brought me closer than ever to my sense of loss. In the evenings I tried to watch television, but quickly gave up: everything touched me too deeply. Nature programmes, detective dramas, and worst of all, the news – everything mercilessly underlined the same theme: it was all death, death, death, and all entirely unsupportable. Polar bear cubs starved in the snow, prostitutes were stabbed in urban underpasses, old age pensioners opened the door to teenage psychopaths armed with screwdrivers. The only recourse was to watch quizzes; but, sadly, those were impossible, too. Mary and I had watched University Challenge together, and she had invented a game whereby we would shout answers to the science questions in unison, and keep a running score of our (random) successes. Over the years we grew rather good at identifying types of mathematical question, and would take it in turns to shout “Minus one!” – which more often than not (odd, but true) was the correct answer to the seemingly meaningless questions involving x and y . We laughed a hollow laugh at the astronomy questions; we were seriously competitive on history and literature; she was shocked by my terribleignorance of art; we were both hilariously bad at identifying great composers from even their most famous compositions. “Giotto!” I would say, regularly, to the art questions. “Haydn!” she’d say to anything musical. Not long before she died, there was a week when Minus One and Giotto and Haydn were the correct answers to starter questions. We laughed and laughed. It was the triumph of hope over ignorance.
Speaking of literature, since Mary had died, there were two lines from Hamlet that I found I couldn’t stop thinking of. One was “How all occasions do inform against me,” and the other was: “And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘one.’ ” I know it’s fashionable to think that Shakespeare was not personally bereft when he wrote Hamlet (or that he didn’t need to be), but I am positive, from that second line, that he was. Since Mary died, I have looked at people bothering about
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