Wasted Years

Twelve

When Lorna saw Kevin Naylor come through the door of the building society office something inside her gave a clear and definite lurch. Mind you, something like that had been happening pretty much every time anyone came in, right from when they’d first opened. Her mum had told her last evening when they’d talked on the phone, take a few days off, you shouldn’t go straight back, not after what happened; her friend, Leslie, when she’d called round, see how Lorna was, she had said more or less the same. Even Mr Spindler had wondered if she oughtn’t to take one of her statutory sick days.

But, no, she’d felt all right, no bad dreams, nothing like that. After all, it wasn’t as if anything terrible had actually happened.

Still, there it was, this roll of her insides whenever she heard the door ring open, whenever she saw it begin to swing back. It was just that, well, when she realized it was Kevin her insides gave it that little extra. Nothing wrong with that: only natural

“I was wondering,” Kevin had said, “if you could spare a little more time.”

It had been Lorna’s idea to stop off on the way and pick up some lunch.

“We have to eat, don’t we? I mean, no law against that.”

She suggested the Chinese takeaway just across from the lights on Alfreton Road, more or less opposite the garage. From there it was easy for Kevin to double-back around the block, park on the Forest, the broad swathe of concrete where weekends they did Park and Ride.

This time there were no more than a dozen or so cars there, mostly close together. Funny how people tended to do that, as if there was safety in company. Kevin had drawn up away off from the others, facing up towards the trees.

“This is nice,” Lorna said. “How’s yours?”

Chewing, Kevin mumbled something that might have been, “Fine.”

Lorna had chosen prawn crackers, sweet and sour pork; Kevin the spare ribs. She leaned a little against the inside of the car door now, watching him lick the sauce from his finger ends.

“We should do this properly some time.”

“What’s that?” Kevin asked.

“Eat Chinese. You like it, don’t you? Chinese food?”

“I like this.”

“That’s what I mean. Only one evening, in a restaurant, what do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“You mean because of your wife?”

Kevin shook his head. “She doesn’t like Chinese. Says it’s too salty. Makes her ill.”

Lorna was lifting a piece of pork towards her mouth with a plastic fork, grinning.

“What?”

“I wasn’t thinking of asking her,” Lorna said.

Kevin looked up through the windscreen towards the cluster of trees; someone in an off-white sheepskin coat was walking a pair of Sealyhams, holding their leads unnaturally high, the way he’d seen owners do on television, at Cruft’s Dog of the Year Show.

“Where do you go?” Lorna asked.

“You mean to eat?”

“With your wife, yes.”

“I don’t know as we do, much.”

“But, like, something special?”

“Like what?”

“Anniversary.”

For their last anniversary, their third, Kevin had sent a card, bought flowers, stood in line at Thornton’s for one of those little pink boxes for which you chose your two special chocolates before the assistant ties it up with pink ribbon. The lights had been off at Debbie’s mother’s house when he’d arrived, all save for the one that was always left on in the porch to put off burglars. After waiting three-quarters of an hour, Kevin had left the flowers on the doorstep with the chocolates, gone home and taken a bacon and egg pie from the freezer, sat down in front of EastEnders and eaten it out of the foil, not quite warmed through.

“Nothing special,” he said.

Inside the car it was getting warm, the windows beginning to take on a film of steam. Lorna offered him the last of the prawn crackers and when he shook his head, broke it in two with her teeth, biting with a light crunch, slowly. A fragment of cracker, white, stuck to a corner of her mouth, white against the fine, dark down of hair.

She was looking at his hands, resting on his lap. “You ever take it off?” she asked. “You wear it all the time?”

She was staring at the wedding ring on his hand.

“Sometimes,” he said.

Lorna nodded. “My sister’s husband-they’ve been married eleven years-she’s quite a lot older than me-would you believe it, I’m the youngest? — anyway, he claims, her husband, he’s never removed his wedding ring since they got married. Not for one second. D’you believe that?”

“I suppose …”

“But you, you said sometimes. Meaning …?”

“It’s a little loose. Not quite as tight as it should be. Sometimes if I’m washing my hands … in the shower …”

She thought about Kevin taking a shower, standing there, his back towards her, water splashing over him. His backside.

“We ought to get going,” Kevin said, looking at his watch.

Lorna raised an eyebrow the way she’d seen Julia Roberts do it once, that movie.

“To the station,” Kevin said.

“Look at some photos, that’s what you said.”

“That’s right.”

“If it’s there, I’ll know it. I mean, the way he came over to me first off, not a care in the world. The look on his face when he pushed through the bin bag and told me to fill it. No way I’m going to forget that.”

Kevin switched on the engine, but Lorna wasn’t through talking,

“You know what gets me?” she said. “What really gets me?”

He looked at her: no.

“When Spindler came in this morning, that’s the area manager, oh, he was nice enough to Marjorie and me, good job well done, all the flannel-not that he was going to give us any money for it, no bonus, nothing like that. All the thousands we saved them. But, no, what’s he droning on about all the time is Becca, poor Becca and what a terrible shock she had, how it’s affected her. Makes me sick. It’s not as if anything happened to her. Wasn’t her that got a hammer aimed at her head. No, there she is hopping up and down on one leg, practically weeing herself.” She stopped, reading the expression on his face. “Sorry, I’m boring you, rattling on.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just …”

“We ought to be going.”

“Afraid so.”

Kevin released the hand brake and slipped the car into gear.

“What you ought to tell your wife,” Lorna said, as they were turning right on to Forest Road West, “next time she goes Chinese, ask them to leave out the monosodium glutamate. You can do that, you know. Tastes a lot less salty.”