Family Album by Penelope Lively Page B

with, or a chat about the local council’s latest cock-up. One woman eyes him and thinks furtively that he is rather good-looking, a bit like that American writer who married Marilyn Monroe, but the wife at Allersmead is no Marilyn Monroe—oh, dear me, no.
    In fact, Charles is not in this affluent English suburb on a spring evening in 1982, but amongst the Bushmen of the Kalahari, to which he has never been, and in an Israeli kibbutz, and scrutinizing the lifestyle of seventeenth-century French peasantry, and casting a speculative eye on the family of Queen Victoria—didn’t some rather odd child management go on there? He is getting back into the chapter, this walk is doing him good, the malaise of the last hour or two has eased. He wonders what Alison has for supper. He thinks that he might be able to get back to his desk later—he often finds the evenings conducive to work.
    Macaroni and cheese. He recognizes supper as he comes in through the front door. A favorite with the children. He turns into his study, minded to make some quick notes.
    At once, as he steps into the room, he knows that something is awry. There is a sense of invasion, of disorder. The dog flops off the armchair, tail wagging. But the dog is not at issue. Charles has seen now—he has seen the floor, the desk.
    Paper. But paper as paper should never be. What he sees is paper in ribbons, in shreds, in a blizzard of long white fragments—a spaghetti blizzard of paper, spread out on the carpet, sliding from the desk. A paper storm that has replaced the neat pile of typescript that he left.
    He flings himself upon it. He finds some intact pages beneath. But much is blitzed, blasted, scissored into a porridge of white strips on which dance bits of words, letters, punctuation marks. There can be no recovery, no first aid, whoever did this was assiduous.
    Charles grabs a handful of paper and bursts into the kitchen. The family is assembled, most already sitting at the table, Alison at the cooker in front of a steaming dish of crusty golden macaroni and cheese. She turns: “ There you are, dear . . .” Then she stares: “Oh . . .”
    “Who?” roars Charles. “ Which of you?” Strips of paper stream from his fist. Every face is now turned to him. All are apparently amazed, aghast.
    “Who?” demands Charles—calmer now, intent, focused. “ Who has been in my study and cut up my typescript?” His gaze sweeps across the eight faces, and there floats through his head the realization that today he has offended at least four of those present; four have looked at him with eyes that registered—at that particular moment—deep resentment.
    Silence. Alison’s hand is apparently frozen in midair, serving spoon in hand. Paul is looking out the window. Gina stares at her father. Time is suspended.
    Clare says, “Aren’t we going to have supper now?”

THE SILVER WEDDING
     
     
     
     
    “D id you do it?” asks Philip.
    “No.”
    They are in the flat, in bed. Gina stares at the ceiling.
    “So who did?”
    “Actually,” she says. “I don’t know. Perhaps Paul. Maybe not Paul.”
    “Haven’t you ever asked him?”
    “We don’t discuss it,” says Gina.
    “Why ever not?”
    Gina shrugs. “Who knows?”
    There is a pause. Philip says, “It has its funny side. In retrospect. Not at the time, I imagine.”
    “No. Nobody laughed, I can tell you that. No way.”
    Philip considers. “Sandra? She comes across as a bit . . . devious.”
    “No. She wouldn’t have been interested in something like that.”
    A further pause. Philip is evidently intrigued. “An adult? Surely not?”
    “Ingrid or my mother?” Gina is impassive. “Not inconceivable.”
    “Whew! That would put an interesting spin on things. Actually I reckon it was the kids—Katie and Roger. For a laugh.”
    Gina shakes her head. “Katie and Roger were the good ones. And Clare was only five or six.”
    “Did he publish the book?”
    “Oh yes. It did rather well. He was much