had, of course, arisen from the fact that Marilyn Cripps had one – though hers was Victorian and original to the house. The installation had cost more than Slider had been eager to spend, but he had been unable to think of a convincing reason to refuse it, especially given the elephant of guilt he could always see out of the corner of his eye whenever he was with his wife.
So there it was, gleaming white pvc, octagonal, double-glazed, with black-and-white-tile effect Cushionfloor, and Sanderson print curtains all round – ‘So we can entertain in here at night,’ Irene had explained when he baulked at the extra cost. The material seemed unnaturally expensive to him, though to be fair Irene had made the curtains up herself and done a beautiful job of it, thermal lining, contrasting piping, pelmets, tie-backs and all. But that was only the beginning: next there had to be special conservatory furniture – a bamboo sofa and chairs with cushions tomatch the curtains, and a glass-topped coffee table just for starters. More would undoubtedly follow – she had already hinted at an indoor fountain.
‘You want it nice now we’ve got it, don’t you?’ she had said in wounded tones when Slider protested mildly about the outlay. He thought it had looked nice completely empty, and Matthew had confided in a rare moment of masculine sympathy that it would be perfect for a three-quarter-size snooker table he had seen advertised in a Superman comic his friend Simon had lent him. But Kate, who was growing up horribly fast, had been on her mother’s side, and was already promising to make vol-au-vent cases, which she had just learned at school, for the inaugural cocktail party.
Slider went through it and out into the garden: an oblong of grass with a path up one side and a rather drab collection of shrubs round the other two; a paved patio with two half-barrel tubs planted with red geraniums, blue lobelia and white alyssum. He felt another pang of guilt. The garden had always been his responsibility, and he liked gardening, but he had found less and less time to do anything about it, and of late years Irene had taken over the function. As a result, anything that was complicated or involved a lot of work had been quietly eliminated. It looked like her garden now, not his – and whose fault was that?
Standing brooding like a heron, he remembered the garden of his childhood home, the rows and rows of vegetables looking so ugly in the rain (why did he always remember the vegetable garden in the rain?) and the ranks of shaggy chrysanthemums, the fruit trees and the pale rambling rose down the bottom by the potting shed, the hollyhocks which had been his mother’s favourites and which were always blighted with some disease or other, chocolate-spot or rust or whatever it was called.
Now that
was
a garden! It smelled like a garden, too, of earth and rot and manure; full of birds and slugs and earwigs; the dank potting-shed a haven of mouldy sacks, cobwebs and woodlice. This present garden had no smell, no wildlife, no natural chaos. It was just an oblong of tidiness, bland and sterile. He stared at it with a sense ofloss. He didn’t belong. He had been away too long, so that even when he was here the place rejected him. Where were they all, anyway? They no longer even bothered to tell him where they were going, though Irene must have been expecting him back or she wouldn’t have laid out the salad.
He had to get out. The fact was that they didn’t need him or want him any more. He would take the first opportunity to talk to Irene – calmly and sensibly – tell her everything, tell her he was leaving. She wouldn’t really care, not any more.
Not tonight. And not until Joanna was back. But the first chance he had after that.
They came back all together when he was watching the late news on ITV. The children went straight upstairs, as was their wont, to the privacy of their own rooms into which –as guaranteed by Magna Carta,
So there it was, gleaming white pvc, octagonal, double-glazed, with black-and-white-tile effect Cushionfloor, and Sanderson print curtains all round – ‘So we can entertain in here at night,’ Irene had explained when he baulked at the extra cost. The material seemed unnaturally expensive to him, though to be fair Irene had made the curtains up herself and done a beautiful job of it, thermal lining, contrasting piping, pelmets, tie-backs and all. But that was only the beginning: next there had to be special conservatory furniture – a bamboo sofa and chairs with cushions tomatch the curtains, and a glass-topped coffee table just for starters. More would undoubtedly follow – she had already hinted at an indoor fountain.
‘You want it nice now we’ve got it, don’t you?’ she had said in wounded tones when Slider protested mildly about the outlay. He thought it had looked nice completely empty, and Matthew had confided in a rare moment of masculine sympathy that it would be perfect for a three-quarter-size snooker table he had seen advertised in a Superman comic his friend Simon had lent him. But Kate, who was growing up horribly fast, had been on her mother’s side, and was already promising to make vol-au-vent cases, which she had just learned at school, for the inaugural cocktail party.
Slider went through it and out into the garden: an oblong of grass with a path up one side and a rather drab collection of shrubs round the other two; a paved patio with two half-barrel tubs planted with red geraniums, blue lobelia and white alyssum. He felt another pang of guilt. The garden had always been his responsibility, and he liked gardening, but he had found less and less time to do anything about it, and of late years Irene had taken over the function. As a result, anything that was complicated or involved a lot of work had been quietly eliminated. It looked like her garden now, not his – and whose fault was that?
Standing brooding like a heron, he remembered the garden of his childhood home, the rows and rows of vegetables looking so ugly in the rain (why did he always remember the vegetable garden in the rain?) and the ranks of shaggy chrysanthemums, the fruit trees and the pale rambling rose down the bottom by the potting shed, the hollyhocks which had been his mother’s favourites and which were always blighted with some disease or other, chocolate-spot or rust or whatever it was called.
Now that
was
a garden! It smelled like a garden, too, of earth and rot and manure; full of birds and slugs and earwigs; the dank potting-shed a haven of mouldy sacks, cobwebs and woodlice. This present garden had no smell, no wildlife, no natural chaos. It was just an oblong of tidiness, bland and sterile. He stared at it with a sense ofloss. He didn’t belong. He had been away too long, so that even when he was here the place rejected him. Where were they all, anyway? They no longer even bothered to tell him where they were going, though Irene must have been expecting him back or she wouldn’t have laid out the salad.
He had to get out. The fact was that they didn’t need him or want him any more. He would take the first opportunity to talk to Irene – calmly and sensibly – tell her everything, tell her he was leaving. She wouldn’t really care, not any more.
Not tonight. And not until Joanna was back. But the first chance he had after that.
They came back all together when he was watching the late news on ITV. The children went straight upstairs, as was their wont, to the privacy of their own rooms into which –as guaranteed by Magna Carta,
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