On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks Page B

herself blushing slightly. “Yes. Anyway, I hardly went there, because Louisa was ill and she was being treated in hospital in London.”
    “Is she okay now?”
    “Yes, but it was frightening at the time. She was very ill for a year. Eventually they discovered she had an allergy to wheat. As long as she watches what she eats she’s fine. And then I was pregnant with Richard and it looked as though I might lose him. So what with one thing and another, Charlie was pretty much on his own in Moscow, which he didn’t like.”
    Frank pushed his soup bowl to one side; in the saucer were some crackers in an unopened cellophane pack.
    “And what about you? You seem to me like a very happy person.”
    “I suppose so. I have every reason to be.”
    “Charlie?”
    “Yes, of course. And our children.”
    “Tell me about Charlie.”
    Mary looked at the open notebook.
    “Pardon me,” said Frank, swiftly putting it away in his pocket.
    Mary thought of Charlie, and the thought made her smile. “He’s a remarkable man. He’s … I don’t know. I don’t know where to start. Why do you want to know?”
    Frank spread his hands. “You don’t have to tell me.” He cut a piece off the end of his steak with the knife in his left hand, speared it with the fork in his right, dipped it in sauce, laid down the knife and rapidly transferred the fork to his left hand, ready to eat the piece of meat.
    Mary watched the shuttling maneuver.
    “But maybe you’d like to tell me,” said Frank. “Maybe you have things on your mind.”
    “Well …” Mary hesitated: the thought of her family made her feel precariously fortunate. “I suppose the first thing you’d say about Charlie is that there’s not much middle ground. No moderation in anything. He’s very kind, very clever, very funny. His moods, though. If you had to put them in order, they’d probably be elation first, then despondency. Then exhilaration, then despair. Things like pensive, hopeful or patient wouldn’t come in until about number twenty on the list. I don’t think content would come in at all.”
    “What does he despair about?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone quite knows, least of all Charlie. I think it’s partly a fear of boredom.”
    It was a long time since Mary had discussed Charlie with anyone, and Frank, in his abrupt way, was an effective questioner. He seemed always slightly to misunderstand, which made her eager to correct him, to clarify, and go on. She did not pause to wonder if this was professional technique. Frank seemed so disconnected from the world that she could not tell what he was thinking, or if he felt anything at all; yet talking to him did make her feel better. She had not been able to share with Charlie her feelings about the children’s absence: she could not put into words her physical loss without sounding self-pitying. As for her mother, Charlie could understand and sympathize well enough, having lost both his own parents, but there was really nothing to say beyond the platitudes on which she and her father had fixed.
    “You finished with that, ma’am?” The waiter held the plate with her half-finished chicken sandwich. She nodded, and he took it away.
    “This thing with your mother,” said Frank. “Do you know how sick she is?”
    “We’re still waiting to find out for sure, but you know how it is with cancer. You have to be prepared for the worst. You expect it.”
    “How old is she?”
    “A fair age. Seventy-two. It’s not that it’s unfair. Most of my friends have lost parents, one or two have lost brothers and sisters, or children, which must be unbearable. But I suppose I never thought it would happen to either of mine.”
    Mary took a cigarette from the pack Frank proffered. She said, “You never get over the way you view them as a child, they seem indomitable, eternal, and their death is the worst disaster that could happen—the end of the world. Even when you’ve grown up, it seems to belong