road,’ Petunia said. A couple of hundred yards. At the rate they were travelling, that was going to take a while. ‘I’m so grateful and so very very sorry.’
‘It is me who should be grateful. If I weren’t with you I would have to be doing my accounts. I hate doing my accounts.’
‘I don’t know what came over me. Everything just started whirling. Next thing you know I was on the floor. Do you know, that’s the first time I’ve ever fainted. Managed to get to eighty-two without doing it. Bad luck for you, eh?’
‘I won’t hear of it,’ said Ahmed.
The day was clear and cold. The light was so bright that Ahmed had to hold up his hand to block it out when they crossed the road. He could feel Mrs Howe’s thinness; he could feel her trembling, either with cold or shock or fatigue or a little of all three. Petunia knew that he could feel her shaking and was also conscious that this was the first time she had touched a man other than her son-in-law and grandsons since Albert died.
For Ahmed, who felt that he was always in a rush, that any given day was at its heart an equation with too many tasks and too few minutes, the list of things to do never shrinking while the time in which to do things constantly contracted, there was something very strange about moving so slowly. It was like one of those exercises where they make people walk backwards, or wear blindfolds in their own houses, to make the familiar feel different. He could feel – he couldn’t help himself – a wave of the irritation he so often felt, at so many different things, in the course of an ordinary day. At the same time he managed to slow himself down and check the irritation, by telling himself that there was no point in doing a good deed if all it made you do was feel bad-tempered.
‘Just suddenly everything was going round,’ said Petunia, still on the subject of her first-ever faint. Then she said, ‘Here we are,’ and opened the gate of number 42. The window had some old-fashioned coloured glass in it, an abstract circular pattern. Ahmed – he couldn’t help himself – wondered for a moment what the house was worth. If it was tatty on the inside but structurally sound, which would be his best guess, one and a half million.
‘I’m fine from here,’ said Petunia.
‘Let me see you in,’ said Ahmed. He helped her over the threshold. His guess had been right. There was clean but old carpet and ugly wallpaper with a flower pattern, and a telephone in the hallway. One million six. Ahmed reprimanded himself and gave Mrs Howe his full attention. There was some back-and-forth about whether he should call her daughter for her, or call a doctor, and her saying she wouldn’t hear of it, and then to get rid of him Petunia had to promise that he could bring the newspaper around on days when she wanted it –she didn’t get a daily delivery because she didn’t want a daily paper. They were mostly full of rubbish and why would she want to keep up anyway?
‘OK, OK,’ said Ahmed. ‘Let me write the telephone number down.’ He had a biro but no paper, and went to look for some in the scraps on the table beside the doorway, next to the telephone. There were leaflets for pizza and curry; he took one up and wrote the number on the back.
‘I’ll put it by the phone,’ he said. ‘Call!’ As he was replacing the leaflet on the hall table he noticed that Petunia too had a card with a picture of her house on it.
‘We had one of those this morning,’ he said. ‘ “We Want What You Have.” ’
‘When you’re my age, nobody wants what you have,’ said Petunia, and Ahmed laughed.
‘We older people have to stick together, Mrs Howe,’ he said. Normally she would have made a joke back, but she was too preoccupied, too deep inside herself, to properly register what he had said.
8
T he most unpopular woman in Pepys Road walked slowly down the pavement, taking her time, spreading fear and confusion. She looked from right to
‘It is me who should be grateful. If I weren’t with you I would have to be doing my accounts. I hate doing my accounts.’
‘I don’t know what came over me. Everything just started whirling. Next thing you know I was on the floor. Do you know, that’s the first time I’ve ever fainted. Managed to get to eighty-two without doing it. Bad luck for you, eh?’
‘I won’t hear of it,’ said Ahmed.
The day was clear and cold. The light was so bright that Ahmed had to hold up his hand to block it out when they crossed the road. He could feel Mrs Howe’s thinness; he could feel her trembling, either with cold or shock or fatigue or a little of all three. Petunia knew that he could feel her shaking and was also conscious that this was the first time she had touched a man other than her son-in-law and grandsons since Albert died.
For Ahmed, who felt that he was always in a rush, that any given day was at its heart an equation with too many tasks and too few minutes, the list of things to do never shrinking while the time in which to do things constantly contracted, there was something very strange about moving so slowly. It was like one of those exercises where they make people walk backwards, or wear blindfolds in their own houses, to make the familiar feel different. He could feel – he couldn’t help himself – a wave of the irritation he so often felt, at so many different things, in the course of an ordinary day. At the same time he managed to slow himself down and check the irritation, by telling himself that there was no point in doing a good deed if all it made you do was feel bad-tempered.
‘Just suddenly everything was going round,’ said Petunia, still on the subject of her first-ever faint. Then she said, ‘Here we are,’ and opened the gate of number 42. The window had some old-fashioned coloured glass in it, an abstract circular pattern. Ahmed – he couldn’t help himself – wondered for a moment what the house was worth. If it was tatty on the inside but structurally sound, which would be his best guess, one and a half million.
‘I’m fine from here,’ said Petunia.
‘Let me see you in,’ said Ahmed. He helped her over the threshold. His guess had been right. There was clean but old carpet and ugly wallpaper with a flower pattern, and a telephone in the hallway. One million six. Ahmed reprimanded himself and gave Mrs Howe his full attention. There was some back-and-forth about whether he should call her daughter for her, or call a doctor, and her saying she wouldn’t hear of it, and then to get rid of him Petunia had to promise that he could bring the newspaper around on days when she wanted it –she didn’t get a daily delivery because she didn’t want a daily paper. They were mostly full of rubbish and why would she want to keep up anyway?
‘OK, OK,’ said Ahmed. ‘Let me write the telephone number down.’ He had a biro but no paper, and went to look for some in the scraps on the table beside the doorway, next to the telephone. There were leaflets for pizza and curry; he took one up and wrote the number on the back.
‘I’ll put it by the phone,’ he said. ‘Call!’ As he was replacing the leaflet on the hall table he noticed that Petunia too had a card with a picture of her house on it.
‘We had one of those this morning,’ he said. ‘ “We Want What You Have.” ’
‘When you’re my age, nobody wants what you have,’ said Petunia, and Ahmed laughed.
‘We older people have to stick together, Mrs Howe,’ he said. Normally she would have made a joke back, but she was too preoccupied, too deep inside herself, to properly register what he had said.
8
T he most unpopular woman in Pepys Road walked slowly down the pavement, taking her time, spreading fear and confusion. She looked from right to
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