Whenever I call her she offers me advice. And today she says she’s decided never to pretend to a motive that’s false. Someone once accused her of stealing money. She denied it. Then she decided to make a joke of it. She said, How else am I supposed to get by on what I make? She says, When you do that, it leaves an impression on the person. That youre capable of stealing. Before the utterance she was beyond reproach.
I think about the underwear. When I mentioned to Lydia they could belong to a lover, she accepted it. This made the idea ridiculous. But now I’m thinking of it again.
21 I asked Max what he thought of being a father. He’s excited. I know he hadnt wanted children, but now he’s eager. He has all the books.
We dine at the old Victoria Station. Every year it’s a new restaurant, but we still call it the Victoria Station, or 290 Duckworth. Tonight it’s serving Caribbean and Mediterranean food. I order stifado, a Greek beef in cinnamon broth. Max the Moroccan lamb. But the tapas are best, scallops in the half shell basted in basil, cold marinated halibut in shredded red cabbage, shrimp in red sauce. A litre of red wine.
Max drives to his place and we play chess. And then I walk home. It takes twelve minutes to walk home from Max’s, through the basilica grounds. The cold, silent night. I am tired. I wake up with the shock of a cat sniffing my face. Then I remember Iris is taking care of one.
22 On Lydia’s deck I can hear a delicate cheep from the neighbour’s soffit. I make coffee but decide to abstain. I lean over the rail. I can distinguish three distinct bird voices. A family has begun. A little family of three. I had told Max again how I want to get married, how Lydia is hesitant. Max said the same thing happened with Daphne: She said it was too early. And so I got her pregnant.
What?
A little hole in the condom. Works great.
Are you suggesting
I’m suggesting you force her hand. You want to get married, you want to have a kid, that’s obvious.
What’s so obvious about it?
The way you are with Una.
Two deep cheeps and a little high cheep.
23 Lydia and I walk along the river with Tinker Bumbo and Una. We have Una for the afternoon. And Una wants to be with Lydia. Una looks at Lydia with the eye of wonder. Lydia is a woman, a woman not her mother. Mothers dont count. It’s sunny but chilly and we look at the houses along Circular Road. We stop in one driveway and speak to a Mrs Chafe. We admire the daphne and the sherbet yellow forsythia, both of which flower before growing leaves.
I wonder, I say, if that means anything about Daphne. Does she bloom before her leaves come out?
Una asks if these are oak trees. The branches are bare, so it’s hard to tell. I am studying the bark on the trunks. Mrs Chafe picks up last year’s fallen leaf and says no. An oak leaf has a coastline rivulet.
I would never have thought, in spring, to pick up last year’s leaf.
24 Alex Fleming’s studio overlooks Water Street. I can see the first three letters in the Esso tank farm. She has turned from her computer and drafting table. The screen is sophisticated. She is a woman with a lot of software.
I show her the poems I’ve written on the seven deadly sins. Her gaze turns professional. For the first time she is looking, in my presence, at something coldly.
Theyre very good, she says. I can work with these.
Her apartment is devoted to small art objects. Bits of rusted metal on the fireplace mantel. The hearth filled with wooden dolls. Images from magazines have been cut out and spliced. I can see a corner of her high bed behind an open door in the hall.
Alex will build seven objects to accompany my text. She says,You and Maisie are the first writers I’ve mentioned it to. I want to get Max in on it as well. I think it’ll be you and me, and Max and Maisie.