Cushing's Crusade by Tim Jeal

turned to Derek and said:
    ‘Don’t mind me asking but what’s that thing you’re clutching?’
    Derek had forgotten the azalea, concealed under light wrapping paper.
    ‘A present for you.’ He handed it to her. She unwrapped it carefully and then got up and came over and kissed him lightly on the forehead. A delightful little joke for her to share with Charles; see how pleased the old fool is by a moist peck on the forehead; little things like that convince him that I’m a dutiful wife.
    ‘Of course you know that flowers are sexual organs on stalks,’ Charles said throatily, with an arch wink at Diana. ‘Saying it with flowers can be a pretty risqué business.’
    Diana was examining the plant more closely. ‘It wasn’t like this when you bought it?’ Derek noticed that it was twisted over onone side. He had obviously managed to knock it against the wall in his dash up the stairs. ‘If it was,’ Diana went on, ‘you’d better take it back.’
    ‘It must have happened in the tube. I’ll buy another. I’m sorry.’
    ‘No need to be sorry; isn’t it the thought that counts? I expect it’ll recover.’
    Derek found her tone patronizing and derisive. It was as if she had assumed all along that if ever he gave her anything he would have dropped, sat on or spoilt it in some other way before making a presentation. He realized just how much it had cost him to suppress his anger earlier on when he’d listened to their exhibition of accomplished lying. His voice shook as he said, ‘Of course it won’t recover. Half the stems are snapped off. What are you going to do? Put them in splints or phone a tree surgeon?’
    ‘It wouldn’t have been very tactful if I’d told you I intended throwing it out. Be reasonable.’
    ‘It would at least have been the truth. Did you think I couldn’t take it?’
    Charles had started laughing again. Derek realized that he must have thought his show of anger an act specifically put on for his amusement. Why not give him his money’s worth? Derek took the plant from his wife and went back to his chair. For the next minute or so he snapped off all the stems and pulled off every leaf. He then gave it back again to Diana.
    ‘Highly symbolic,’ chortled Charles. ‘A brief play about man’s destruction of nature. You ought to submit it to a fringe theatre group.’
    ‘Utterly puerile,’ cut in Diana angrily.
    ‘What did you think?’ Derek asked Giles. ‘Did it look to you like a short piece of avant-garde theatre or a short piece of childish petulance?’
    ‘I couldn’t see what was wrong with it to begin with. It was a bit bent but it could have been tied to a stick.’
    ‘If you couldn’t see, you need another pair of glasses,’ snapped Diana.
    Giles blushed deeply. ‘I got this pair last month. I may beblind but not that blind.’ For a moment Derek wondered whether the boy was going to cry, but instead he went on, ‘I thought it was ungrateful, if you want to know.’ Before anybody could say anything he had jumped up and left the room.
    ‘He’s a bit self-conscious about his glasses,’ Derek said for Charles’s benefit. ‘Hasn’t been wearing them for long.’ Derek smiled wanly at Diana, who scowled back at him.
    ‘You forced him to take sides, so don’t pretend I did the damage,’ she came back at him.
    As soon as Derek could see that his wife was giving Charles such a fine exhibition of the worst side of her nature, he felt better and his own anger ebbed away. He decided to try and make her look still more unreasonable. He turned to Charles with a rueful smile.
    ‘Give your wife a plant and see what happens. It wasn’t even a very good plant either; just a cheap azalea.’ He paused. ‘Did you read about the children who swallowed laburnum seeds and had to have their stomachs pumped? The average English garden’s a death trap for the incautious.’
    ‘Belt up, can’t you?’ Diana exploded.
    ‘Then there’s giant hog-weed,’ Derek went on