BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Chapter One
Calle Rawson runs alongside the railway-line from
Olivos to Martinez, both of which lie in one of the more fashionable parts of
the Northern suburbs of Buenos Aires. Depending on your taste of course, the
street is largely one of nice houses with nice gardens, but a sterner vision of
life and its obligations might see beyond the trappings of comfortable
middle-class Argentina, and focus on the water in the streets, the neat piles
of dog-shit on the grass verges, and the noise and pollution of both the
‘collectivos’ (local buses ) and the trains.
Just at this precise moment when the story begins, a
keen observer of the human scene would have noticed a rather tall and
bespectacled black man, who, despite the heat and humidity of November in
Buenos Aires was wearing a jacket and tie. Obviously not Argentine, - he was
striding vigorously, and obviously not an American – he was walking, some might
have taken him for a Brazilian, but in fact Kelvin Potter was British and he
loved striding along Calle Rawson to his home in Martinez. Kelvin whose life
was a meticulously organized mesh of things that ‘must be done’, thought that
the brisk walk backwards and forwards to his home was something that every
chair-bound, busy young professional ought to do. His wife Christine and many
others had explained to him that there was a frequent and quite cheap train
service that ran from Olivos to Martinez with only one stop in La Lucila, and
as such it was a useful alternative on rainy days, or very hot days or days
when one was late. Kelvin had his obligation to walk so he ignored his wife,
his friends, and the railway-line.
At 29 years old, Kelvin was very good at ignoring
things. He ignored any non-English speaking Argentines, thus mortally offending
quite a large number of his colleagues at El Colegio San Matteo (St. Mathew’s
Bilingual School in Olivos) and 95% of his neighbours who had
long since stopped greeting him with the punctilious ‘Buen Día’ exchanged
between those who crossed you regularly in the street whoever you were. He had
also made a conscious decision to ignore Spanish, which as he explained
patiently to any of his English-speaking colleagues who would listen, had once
been the language of the Inquisition, and was thus unworthy of being learned
given the intellectual pace of his life. He read the Buenos Aires Herald,
tutting loudly at the typographical mistakes, shopped in supermarkets, and in
the case of emergencies, shouted loudly but slowly in clearly enunciated
syllables. Anyone who insisted in speaking more than ten words of Spanish got a
cold smile and was ignored.
For many years, Kelvin had also ignored the fact that
his skin was black. It seemed to him to be an irrelevance in life, especially
in an intellectual life. Those who would have stood up to applaud such an
attitude would just as quickly have sat down again once they had heard the
quite long list of other irrelevancies. These included sexual equality, the
rights of children, and religious tolerance. He felt that none of these applied
to him (and were therefore irrelevant per se)
since he was a male, childless agnostic, and had no wish to alter his
status. Christine, who was as irrelevantly blond and blue-eyed as he was black,
was relevant to his life principally because her work as a journalist took her
away from the house once she had prepared breakfast and washed to dishes and
left for God knows where, until she returned in the evening to cook dinner and
again wash up. Whenever anyone asked him about her, his reply was always the
same, “Chris? Oh yes – fine! Fine, I think!” Speculation was intense.
Their house, for which St. Matthew’s paid the rent,
was in a street called Paraná. Like the famous river for which it was named, it
generally was full of fast-flowing water which cars and ‘colectivos’ navigated
with some care and much back-wash. During his brisk walk to Martinez, Kelvin
ignored every aspect of the predominantly Spanish-speaking street of Rawson. He
had no curiosity at all about the architectural design, colours, or settings of
his neighbours’ houses and gardens, because he had never noticed
them. During his frantic striding-out, he analysed ideas, events and problems
of the day, - an exercise in concentration which, had he only noticed, had
involved him in a frequent series of near accidents. This afternoon’s brisk
walk had not been so very much different, except for a special stimulation. He
had thought of a new idea to push aside the boring weekend to come. Kelvin
turned into the gate of his disheveled garden feeling elated, - and somewhat
relieved. Weekends were generally long, boring and irrelevant!
At the same moment that Kelvin pushed open the garden
gate, Christine – she much preferred Chris, -was making her way out of the
newsroom of the Buenos Aires Herald. Chris enjoyed working as the Deputy
Day-time Editor in charge of Social Events, even though it was not the most
exciting job in a newspaper. The Herald had acquired pedigree since its
foundation in 1876 by William Cathcart, and some very justified fame for
courage during the military dictatorships in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
Moreover, although her job, which was pretty boring really, kept her away from
the night-time bustle of the newsroom, she enjoyed the company of her
colleagues who were largely people of her own age and who lived in similar
situations to hers. What was even better was that they largely Argentine or
Anglo-Argentines and represented the only people she met who were related to
the reality of Argentina. She spent her day proof-reading endless pieces of
information on the activities of local churches, bi-lingual school events for
pupils, parents and former pupils, and the unctuous hand-rubbing welcomes to
Alcoholics Anonymous, painting classes, yoga workshops, and encounters with extra-terrestrial
civilizations. Then she rewrote them, often to the speechless fury of their
original authors.
The Editor couldn’t have cared less about anything she
wrote. He never read the Social Announcements. Too many of his friends and
acquaintances attended both the Methodist Church meetings and those of
Alcoholics Anonymous, - or should have, - and all of them had attended
bi-lingual schools. In addition he was sure that his professional staff
understood that Christine’s job was a sexually speculative social event with
any prospects of permanent tenure dependant on the rubbing-out of the word
‘speculatively’. He always greeted her warmly, praised her efforts and her
figure generously, and frequently reminded her that if she ever needed a hand,
his – which by this time was parked lightly on her butt, - was always
available. He was sure that she had got the message, as indeed she had. At 27,
and after six years of marriage to Kelvin, she often wondered what ‘it’ would
be like. Even her editor would have been shocked at the unmentionable images
that ‘it’ brought to her mind, but she was practical. ‘It’ would not be cheap.
One of her female Anglo-Argentine colleagues greeted
her cheerfully. “Off home, Chris? Mind-blowing day?” Chris grinned. “Well, I
wouldn’t say that exactly, but the Irish Embassy is having a poetry-reading on
Friday. Fenian poets. Sounds wild, doesn’t it? Do you want me to get
you a ticket? I’ll get my mate Mary O’Donnell to put you in the front row.
Fancy it?” “Not really, no! Thankfully
I’ve got a date!” They laughed a cheerful goodbye.
Entering the lift, Chris felt her daily dose of anger
rising as the pleasures of work faded into the vacuum of home life. She really
couldn’t remember why she had decided to marry Kelvin, and this was the double
lash of self-flagellation. If she had just decided to live with him, then their
relationship would have been long over by now. But she had insisted on
marriage, and Kelvin who really hadn’t taken much notice of the word
‘marriage’, and therefore ignored it, had agreed on the condition that they got
married in the Registry Office, and not in a church of any denomination
whatsoever. This had suited Chris just fine. As famous at university for her
bursts of caustic sarcasm in debate and pointed directness on more personal
levels, as she had been for her graceful beauty, their relationship had been
applauded for its open radicalism. Kelvin was ‘coloured’, to use the discreet
phrase of the times, and she was the owner of traditional white female beauty.
This was the future of Britain, many people thought. And it was true that this
had occurred to her as a justification to stifle her doubts, just as their open
sexual relationship - really far too torrid for those who already obviously jealous
– had partly convinced her that their love would last forever. How ironic! Sex was one of the things that
Kelvin thought must be done, preferably on Friday and Saturday, since it didn’t
interfere with his work at school. He ignored Chris’ physical needs since it
was obvious that if his own had been satisfied, hers must have been as well.
Orgasms, as he often observed, were mutual. Within their closed circle of
friends, no one bothered to argue probably since no one listened. And Chris had
long given up complaining.
The real reason why she married him, was that it
annoyed her father, which was the same reason as her radical social views were
far removed from what one expected to hear from the privately-educated
daughter, - and only child - of a Bank Manager. Her mother’s early death when
she was nine saw her packed off to boarding school, where she had felt only a
little less lonely than when she was at home. She often thought that Daddy had
blamed her for his wife’s death from lung cancer, and perhaps even for the
forty cigarettes a day that her mother had smoked had smoked. She resented his
punctilious care for her welfare, icy cold and hug-less in its lack of emotion.
By the time she took English at university, she had found her revenge in the
irritation caused to him by her support for sexual freedom, cultural
liberation, women’s rights, and the ordination of female and, - if possible –
gay priests. Dating and cohabitating
with a socialist black boy, - even though his father was a successful barrister
and about to become a Member of Parliament, - was only another slap in her
father’s face. But what had been the
result of her revolution. Her father was now dead after he ran smack into a
motorway bridge, she was alone, sexually frigid and totally ignored, with a man
who never noticed her, and her professional value would only be measured by the
sexual gratification she gave to her boss.
She tightened her grip on her shoulder-bag, braced her
shoulders, and stepped out of the lift. Within seconds she had disappeared into
crowds of commuters heading for Retiro Station. She merged into the thousands.
She was good at merging.
The Irish Embassy in Buenos Aires is much busier than
you might imagine, especially if you are one of those people who evaluates
international importance by what you see and hear on CNN International or BBC
World News. True there isn’t the bustle
you find inside the American Embassy or the mind-blowing queues of visa seekers
which stretched outside the Spanish Consulate in Calle Guido in the times
before Spain went bust almost taking the rest of Europe with it. But from the
sixth floor of the Bluesky Building in swish neighbourhood of Recoleta, it
represents the Republic of Ireland not
only in Argentina, but also in Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. In
addition it is the cultural beacon for the community of Irish descendents, the
largest such community outside the English-speaking world. Though Mary
O’Donnell didn’t see herself exactly as a beacon, she felt proud to be serving
the Republic in Buenos Aires, even from the lowly post of schools’
liaison-officer.
The telephone rang
inside her corner of the office she shared one of the Cultural Attaché’s
secretaries, bringing her back abruptly from the exit door to duty. The
embassy’s School Project corner was in full swing and the call might be
important, though not, she imagined to herself with brutal honesty,
earth-shattering. Irish Embassies generally didn’t do earth-shattering. That
was left to other more pretentious nations. Stretching her angular frame across
her desk, she grabbed the receiver before it could ring off and in her prefect
Spanish, - learnt in Spain and so not always totally understood by some
‘porteños’ – answered, “Embajada de la Republica de Irlanda. Buenos Tardes.”. Fortunately there were
only eight words, otherwise Kelvin would have ignored her. His unmistakable
accent was easy to recognize. “Mary
O’Donnell, por favor.” Her surprise was
only momentary. Phone calls from Kelvin were fairly common and fairly
inconvenient. “Oh,
Hi there Kelvin. This Mary here! How are you? How is Chris?” “Chris? Oh yes, - Chris. Well, she’s fine – I
think!” There
was a long pause while she waited for Kelvin to explain why he was calling, and
he waited to be asked. In the end,
normal conversation behavior won out, and Mary asked, “So,
what’s up, Kelvin? Nothing amiss, I hope”
“No.
Not at all! Exactly the opposite. It’s just that I’ve had a super idea for the
weekend and wanted to get you all organized!” “Well Kelvin, - I was just setting off home………… “ “Oh great, so you’re not really busy at all, and this won’t take very
long! Well my brilliant idea is ………. “ Mary
sighed heavily and perched her nearly six-foot frame on a chair. It was the Fenian Poets’ Night tomorrow, and
she just wanted to get home early at least tonight.
“What?” Being
French, Edith Lemoigne had some slight problem with the ‘wh’ sound in English,
ignoring the ‘h’ with Gallic élan. “A new language? Kelvin is crazy.” “Perhaps not strictly in the medical sense of
the word,” replied Mary, “but he certainly isn’t quite normal sometimes.” The
flat they shared overlooked a cluster of quieter streets in Vicente Lopez, even
though the main door of the building opened out onto a wide and busy street
that led directly to Avenida del Libertador. Seated together on opposite sides
of a small kitchen table, they could peer down onto relative calm. Just outside
the boundaries of the Federal Capital, they enjoyed what many foreigners
relished about living in this part of Greater Buenos Aires; quiet shady streets
with plenty of corner shops running close to fast and cheap transport.
Mary reached out
and took another ‘croissant’ from the basket between them, which she now pushed
towards her companion. Edith rejected them, quietly but firmly, in just the same
way as she rejected Argentina. ‘Medialunas’ as croissants were called in
Spanish, are as faithful an imitation of the French original, as so many other
aspects of life in Argentina, where French influences in architecture, the
visual arts, cooking, design, and school administration reflect the Gallic
preferences of the country’s Upper Middle Class. She couldn’t explain her
mistrust, even to Mary, but she recognized its effect in her work. At the
tourist bureau of the French Embassy, she could feel the antagonism inside her
as she coordinated the numbers of airline tickets sold to French carriers, and
the numbers of tours booked inside France into financial figures. Barbarians
flocking to Rome, she thought, - and then flocking back still Barbarians. It seemed
to her that Argentines have the gaucheness of all Americans both in the South
or North of the continent. They were more impressed by the new design of a
coca-cola bottle than the roof of a cathedral.
She also knew that her only reason for staying in Buenos Aires was her
relationship with Mary, and sadly, she also knew that Mary accepted their
relationship, but never allowed herself to think about it.
Although they were
very similar to look at, - tall, slim, short-haired with sharp, angular facial
features, - they were very different in temperament. Mary hated her native
Catholicism, but still measured morals by its standards, while Edith thought
that moral distinctions were both hypocritical and unkind, but when one made a
moral evaluation of oneself, it had to brutal in its frankness. So Mary
suppressed her sexual attraction to Edith as something basically immoral though
highly comforting, while Edith recognized her attraction to Mary openly, but
also saw that it was a relationship that one day quite soon would have to end.
So, in general, they lived together quite peacefully and with a great deal of
mutual kindness and, for Mary’s sake, discretion. If asked, they both pointed
out that there was only one bedroom in the flat so they had to share it and the
only bed that it held. Not surprisingly their friends neither believed them nor
cared, “So when is this
get-together?”, Edith asked, sipping her coffee. “Saturday. Kelvin says to come
round for lunch. Chris is going to cook something special.”
“ I wonder if Chris knows!”
Victoria James
tossed back her long, well-groomed, and discreetly-dyed light brown hair and
put down the telephone. “That was Kelvin”, she announced to the world in
general, and to Peter Milanowski in particular. Peter was sprawled on his back
on the floor of her living room, legs cased in Levi jeans, reading a book of
short-stories in French. Victoria was determined to get him into her bed one
day, although she couldn’t say when. After nearly 10 years of friendship, she
had realized that he wasn’t exactly the randy type. Peter looked across from
his book at her, “Oh, - Kelvin. I was just thinking yesterday that I should
drop round and see him this weekend. How is he?” A lot of people thought Peter
always looked worried, but Victoria and anyone else who knew him well, realized
that he was in fact more a fussy bachelor, and loneliness made him careful
about keeping his friends as friends. He and Victoria went back a long way, but
much to her disappointment he seemed only interested in friendship, and much to
the general disbelief of their friends they weren’t lovers. “Well, he certainly seemed excited!” she
said, “and that always bodes ill. My mother used to say that nothing good comes
out of excitement – except some rather exceptional sex on occasions, of
course.” Peter doubted that very much, since Victoria’s mother had had two
great passions, - gardening and alcohol. The second had rapidly come to
dominate the first, - she had once planted a rose bush in the outhouse lavatory
bowl, - and all other pleasures had given way to gin and tonic or the
occasional glass of neat vodka. She had died a spectacular death in the centre
of the city, when raucously drunk, she had fallen from her perch in the window
of the 68 bus under the wheels of a beer lorry. Both the drama and the irony
had been appreciated as the greatest of sensations in a long life of
sensations. Victoria might try to forget the truth, but he and the rest of the
Anglo-Argentine community remained appreciative of The French teacher retreated
from the double hit to his masculine vanity Now he was really blushing,
especially since a truthful answer to both questions would have been ‘yes’.
It was then, as in
all forms of human combat, that Fate descended on their carriage, and took a
hand. The train shuddered suddenly and then jerked violently forward,
propelling M. Talleyon wildly in her direction, arms flailing and hand-hold
lost, causing right his eye to rebound off Chris’s left breast. She pushed him
away vigorously and he staggered backwards to sit on the lap of an over-dressed
business man. From there, he slowly slipped to the shaking floor. His humiliation
was as complete as her victory. As a final insult, it was a Bolivian lady who helped
him to his feet, holding him firmly in her work-stained hands. For the rest of the
journey they remained in silence and with their backs turned to each other.
Chris walked
normally and never strode, but turning into the rickety front-gate of their
dilapidated garden on Paraná Street, she felt agitated. She had known perfectly
well the real intentions behind M. Talleyon’s enquiry about Victoria, her
closest friend. And he had known just how much that friendship was a
stabilizing factor for her in a world which was increasingly fragile
emotionally. After trying to push the gate open, she gave vent to her agitation
by turning her back on it and heeling it viciously. ‘Stupid gate!’, she
thought. ‘Stupid gate and a stupid husband who can’t fucking-well fix it,
because he’s just as fucking stupid as the fucking gate! What a stupid fucking
intellectual crap-artist he is!’ Then feeling guilty at her unbridled temper,
but a lot more tranquil for letting it out, she drew out her key and opened the
door. She reflected that her outburst, fortunately silent, had been one of
those truly enlightening moments in her long – ‘It’s only seven years for God’s
sake. It just feels like seventy!’ – and trying marriage. “Kelvin”, she shouted, “are
you home?” The silence that echoed with her call, calmed her even more. Turing
into the living-room, she flopped down on the couch.
‘We are six
friends’, she ruminated, chin pressing into her chest and arms folded, ‘We are
penned up and isolated in a world of introspective boredom, waiting for
something to happen, and pretending that something does.’ At least, Mary and
Edith had each other, although – despite her own and others’ frequent
speculation – she had never understood or been really interested in who did
what to whom, or even if they actually did anything else than dote on each
other. Neither she nor Kelvin even doted, and according to Victoria, Peter
Milonowski was a dead number with a dead member. So what kept them together?
And, now rambling a little, why did she only feel comfortable with Victoria?
But she knew the answer really. It was simply that all of the stories about
Victoria’s crazy mother were true, and plastered all over the archives of the
Buenos Aires Herald. Yes, there were definitely some advantages to working
there. She could check on everybody and she had! Victoria’s mum had been
totally crazy and generally drunk, and her madness and her drinking had been
dramatic, tragic, and hilariously funny. So, for her at least, Victoria and her
story were at least real! Perhaps this was why the speculation about Victoria
was intense. Was everybody waiting for her to go bonkers as well? But, in
Chris’s opinion, nobody could be more normal than Victoria, and when she seemed
not to care or to want to react to the stories and speculations that flowed in
whispers behind her back, it was because she didn’t care and so refused to react. Her supposed ‘affair’ with
Peter, the mysterious source of her wealth, and her assumed bisexuality aroused
no emotion in her except boredom. Chris
sighed heavily. Tomorrow was Friday, and tomorrow would be better. As for
today, it was time for a shower! She got up and started to climb the stairs.
Like most people
inside the privacy of their own homes, and on their way to the
soul-invigorating benefits of hot water, Chris’s progress up the stairs was
slowed down by the removal of surplus items of clothing, such as her socks,
shoes, and sweater, and these were firmly clutched in her hand as she turned
into the landing and saw a pair of feet lying at the end of the double-bed.
They were of course Kelvin’s. She recognized the distinctive yellow stripes
than ran up and down the blue cotton. “He’s dead”, she thought to herself with
some feelings of curious pleasure, but turning into the bedroom she saw that he
was reading. “I did
shout hello, when I opened the door, you know”, she said accusingly. He gave her a quick glance. “Yes, I
heard you”, he replied but in a tone which said that she had distracted him
from his reading. “And you didn’t think to answer?” she asked testily. “I’m rather stuck in this
book, I’m afraid. It’s terribly interesting though not very innovative, and I
must finish it before everyone gets here on Saturday.” He flashed the cover at
her. It read ‘Discourse Analysis in the EFL Classroom’. Her silence a she
removed the rest of her clothes was deeply and analytically pensive. She had
had to pieces of prior knowledge confirmed: firstly she was far less
interesting, -even almost naked- than the book, and secondly everyone was
arriving for lunch on Saturday. Whether that ‘everyone’ was the complete staff
of St. Matthew’s, or their four close friends, or the entire Argentine marine
corps, she did not know, but she was not so sure now, that Friday was going to be better. “Have you
thought about a menu for Saturday. I did tell everyone that you would cook
something special!” All this was said without his eyes leaving the
book. “But you never told me, Kelvin” she said icily. “Once again
you left me out of your plans.” Anger rose slowly but steadily from her guts. He
seemed genuinely surprised. “Didn’t I say something yesterday?” “You said absolutely nothing
all day yesterday. I doubt we even exchanged ten words!” “Why
was that? Were you upset? or in one of your bad moods or something?” “Upset? I
am always upset! You don’t talk! You
never talk, - at least talk to me! Her voice rose. “When do I even get a ‘good morning’ from you? You speak
only when you want something, - specially when you want to criticise me!” “I would have thought that that
was perfectly normal. People should
only talk when there is something to say. We don’t have to spend every single
day of our lives chattering away like a pair of chipmunks, do we? I, at least,
need time to think and to read. If you want to talk say so. Open your mouth and
speak. But do NOT expect me to divine your female moods!” “I
spoke when I came in, Kelvin. I called hello. You didn’t answer!” “Why did I have to answer?
You could see my bag in the hall, couldn’t you?" She kicked her clothes across
the floor, turned on her heels, and stormed off to the bathroom, flashing a
quick look down the stairs as she crossed the landing. His bag was there! She
hadn’t seen it. Slamming the bathroom door as hard as she could, she gave
herself over to soap and hot water.
Thirty minutes
later, when most of her anger had flowed with the soap and water down the
plughole, she re-entered the bedroom. Kelvin was still there, sprawled on the
bed reading. There had been a time when she would have tried to explain to him
that blue socks with yellow stripes just did not go with green trousers and a
purple shirt. However, she had long ago realised that Kelvin despised all the
dictates of fashion, - or said he did – as ‘artistic trivia unworthy of a real
brain’, and thus ignored them. She
supposed that this did not necessarily mean that he held Da Vinci in contempt,
but she was well aware that he despised the Impressionists as ‘adolescent
doodlers’, and all religious art as ‘superstitious, childish crap’. In fact, he
ignored most art and all architecture except – not so surprisingly- some
British artists (all male and non-religious) who were ‘acceptable’ for their
socialist tendencies, and ‘interesting’ in their social commentaries. Thus
Constable and Lowry lay entombed together, shrouded in Kelvin’s approval
awaiting the final judgement.
“So what exactly is
happening on Saturday?” she asked in a mildly icy tone. A surprising thing
happened. Kelvin actually put down his book, laced his fingers across his chest,
and became animated, even though – as always – he began with a pause.
“Actually, I have
to admit that I’ve had a truly brilliant idea. One that will bring us all
closer together and give us a bit of creative fun!”
Chris bit her
tongue. With Kelvin, information always came at a price, and even if she were
to interrupt with one of her sarcasms, he would never notice. “Have you ever asked yourself,
Christine, why the six of us are such close friends? And why we spend so much
time together?” “Yes,
I have actually! And I came to the conclusion that our social glue is nothing
more than boredom.”
Kelvin showed no sign of having heard her and simply carried on. “We are
exiles. We are foreigners in a culturally-ignorant society which clouds it
values with materialism and cheap nationalism! We represent something that most
people here don’t want or care about. We are multi-cultured thinkers, who
always have something original and inspiring to move us forward, but we are
condemned to wander in a cultural desert where the perimeters of life are
marked out by mate, football, and tangos.” He stopped in triumphant silence
waiting for her agreement. She took advantage of the pause. “But Kelvin ... for
Heaven’s sake ..... football? ... maté? ...... and tangos? That isn’t the
Argentina I work in. This place has its own culture. It’s just different, not
inferior. In Britain, we mark out our boundaries by football, beer and the
telly! What’s the difference?” “The
difference is that at home, although the ‘hoi polloi’ does exist, there is a
vibrant intellectual caste. We have Covent Garden, The Philharmonic, books, serious newspapers, and the B.B.C. What
on earth is there here to entertain us? “ “Kelvin,
have you ever tried reading Jorge Luis Borges, or Julio Cortázar?” “Good Heavens, no! They’re written in
Spanish!” “Well, -
that’s the language of Argentina! And what about the Colon?” “The Colon? It looks nice, I
admit, but the Italians do it so much better!” He sniffed to show that he was
peeved. Chris sighed heavily, inhaling the patience needed to get the prosaic
information necessary to plan for Saturday, and exhaling the frantic desire to
expose his idiocy. She had learned very early in life not to joust at
windmills. “So we are six for lunch?’” “Right.”
The conversation
might have ended there, but life with Kelvin had taught her that listening was
a great defence, and absolutely necessary. As had happened often in her life,
her husband was doing the planning and she was going to do the work. ‘Never
dump your frustrations on the heads of friends’, she thought, and sucking in
her breath again she said, ”Well, you had better tell me what we are doing
then! There’ll be extra tea and coffee to think about, and I have to organise
the food, booze, and bits as well.”
She perched on the
end of the bed to listen, thinking that this would take about an hour. It took
two hours even though she never made another remark nor asked a single
question. At the end her back ached, her head was going round and round with
concentrating, and she realised that she would need another shower to wash the
boredom from her torso.
1st May 2014
There are about three chapters ready ... BUT .... I have decided to rewrite it because it is rather jerky and unpolished. And it isn't saying the things I want to say!
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