Shuttlecock

[20]

Today Quinn said to me, ‘Hear you’ve been coming into work early, Prentis. That’s commendably diligent of you.’ A tiny, ironically indulgent smile. But his eyes gave a little rigid stare, as if to show he knew everything and was gloating in his knowledge; as if, even with one of those podgy, pink hands of his, he could pick me up, tie me in knots, crush me. He had come down for once from his eyrie, down his flight of steps, and was favouring us with a visit. He was going round, this little plump man, amongst his juniors, who are all bigger and stronger than he, and yet they were saying, as he handed out routine instructions, ‘Thank you sir. Yes sir.’

‘By the way, any more thoughts on C9?’

Today he wore a white carnation.

And tonight Marian said, ‘It’s not like you to bring home work from the office. What’s going on?’

All this week — in spite of what I promised Marian — I have been going in early to secure any mail addressed to me, and then at night, at home, staying up late, going over those details on Z, pondering and making notes, so that when I’ve at last gone to bed Marian has been asleep. We hardly exchange words. But tonight she was awake, her eyes peering at me over the covers. When I shrugged off her question and said, clambering into bed, ‘A special job I have to do,’ she looked hard and searchingly at me for a while, then twisted round and hunched up like something going into its shell. She lies with her knees drawn up, her body curled and her chin lowered into her throat so that, even though the weather is hot, she looks like someone huddling for warmth and protection.

Marian, I wish I knew.