Read Online Holiday by Stanley Middleton - Free Book Online Page B

declarations. She had, she lived with, her husband, expressed her pleasure at the condition, but declined to make it a matter of eternity. He’d no proof of her infidelity, did not believe that she’d been unfaithful, but was driven by her to understand she was undeterred, immorally irresponsible.
    The small boy on the next table had finished dinner and had been whisked away to bed by his father. Residents whispered congratulations to the wife, who queened it with her coffee, smiling openly at Fisher. Again he’d no idea why this was: perhaps she set her cap at him or perhaps her pleasure at being allowed ten minutes to herself in a beautiful dress with no dishes to wash left her so content that she demonstrated her pleasure to the nearest presentable male. Fisher returned the smile, but was surprised when she picked up her cup and came the three or four feet to sit at his table. The rest did not know how to take this, minded their own business openly.
    Her conversation meant little.
    She talked about a motor-boat trip they’d decided against, the number of ice-creams a child should be allowed, and finally she described her husband’s behaviour in an amusement arcade. Now she pitched her voice low, not publicly, as she sketched the feverish thrusting of coins into the one-armed bandits, his bad temper when she’d remonstrated with him, his childishness. ‘You allow him in there, and he goes beserk,’ she whispered. ‘Mad for money. He isn’t at home. He’s ever so generous. But there he’ll change a pound note and glue himself to the machine until it’s gone.’ She questioned him, keeping her voice small, in intimacy. Under the light dress her skin burnt in hot gold, matching the heat of words.
    Fisher answered stiffly.
    To tell the truth he was frightened. Viewed from a yard or two’s distance on the beach or in the house she was attractive, the belle. Now she approached, she changed, coarsened into the typist-suburban housewife who talked inanities or ironed in semi-detached houses the country over. This tested him. Why should she malign her husband, invite him to join in?
    Her husband returned, showed mild amusement at her change of position, but not at the lack of coffee. The girl, clearing away from other tables, rushed to supply him.
    ‘Are they in bed?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes.’ A slow monosyllable.
    ‘Tony asleep?’
    ‘Well away. Colin wants you to go up.’
    She nodded, picked up her cup to drain the dregs, crooking her finger. She disassociated herself by that movement from demanding children, kitchen chores, but she soon left. The husband began to talk. A quantity surveyor he did not like holidays away from home, where he would have preferred straightening the garden, or working the lathe in his toolshed, but claimed he had to come away for his family’s sake.
    ‘Hard on a woman, y’know,’ he said. ‘This is the only relief she gets. A fortnight off once a year.’
    Fisher sat impressed; the man observed, slaved for his wife, lived for his kids. Now, at this table, he apologised because he came home from work late, had to travel away, couldn’t romp daily with the children. Fisher drew him out; he’d made built-in cupboards, done the brick-laying for the garage, added a conservatory, all inside four years, and yet felt guilty. Was he lying? Did he drudge at his property to dodge or exclude his wife so that now she complained of him. Here was no compulsive gambler, this honest man.
    The wife returned, blonde hair brushed again.
    Fisher, back straight in his chair, asked them out for a drink. They ought not to leave the children who might wake. Fisher, superior, did not press, allowed them to decide on the pub at the street-corner once they were certain the youngsters were away.
    While they waited this certainty, Fisher was summoned to the phone to speak to his father-in-law. Vernon invited him over. He refused at once, but gave his reason. Even as he explained, the whole thing sounded bogus