‘Exactly what do you mean by that?’
‘You know. On and on. Complaining. Usually about a man.’
‘If only there were never any occasion to.’
‘Come, now. You don’t hear us men going on and on.’
‘You have no occasion to.’
‘Can it really be as simple as that?’
‘Possibly not. Well, that’s interesting, isn’t it. The thing that’s wrong with women is that they go on and on, and the thing that’s wrong with men is that they don’t.’
‘Do you think I should do my Joe Cocker number tonight, or that Bryan Ferry one?’
‘Honestly, Geoff. This is no time for joking. Nicola might be in real trouble.’
‘Not her. That chic little Nothing Hill set-up with the deluxe plumbing and the stuffed shirt laying down the old claret. No way. She probably just wants some help with her vol-au-vents.’
‘Geoffrey: you are an idiot. I think you’d really better make yourself scarce tonight after all. Do the Joe Cocker. Now bugger off and let me get some work done.’
Susannah worked from home, and Geoffrey was a lecturer at a former polytechnic, so between them they just managed to service the mortgage on a house in Clapham which they had bought before the neighbourhood became quasi-fashionable. They had one clever child; they could not afford another. Later on that day Susannah gave Geoffrey a shopping list and he went to Sainsbury’s and got everything in, plus some caramels.
‘What’s this?’ said Susannah, unpacking.
‘Caramels.’
‘What for?’
‘For you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, why not?’
‘Why?’
‘A token of my esteem.’
‘Oh, I wish.’
‘And my love, admiration, gratitude, etcetera.’
‘Oh, yeah. Want one?’
‘Well, since you ask. Just one.’
The clever child, a boy of nine, at this moment came home from school. ‘Cor!’ he said. ‘You’re eating sweets! Cor!’
‘Well, we’ve been good today,’ said his father.
‘So what else is new?’ said the child, whose name was Guy.
‘Give me a kiss,’ said his mother. ‘Alright,’ said Guy, and obliged. ‘Want one?’ she asked, offering the caramels. He took one. ‘Do you want to see my poem?’ he asked them. He was invited to read it to them, and did so. ‘Cor!’ said Susannah. ‘That’s really whizzy. Well done!’ ‘I wish I could write like that,’ said Geoffrey. He meant it, too: any adult might have wished as much. But there you were.
They were all sitting around the kitchen table eating spaghetti and drinking the wine Nicola had brought, except for Guy, who was drinking chocolate-flavoured milk. When they were all done, Guy obtained permission to go and watch television and the adults sat back and sighed at each other.
‘So how’s Jonathan?’ said Susannah.
Nicola was smoking a cigarette. She fiddled with her lighter. ‘I’m not exactly sure,’ she said. ‘Are there grounds for concern?’ asked Susannah, who had from the inception of this relationship believed that there just possibly could be.
‘Well. You see …’
‘Go on.’
‘I went out last night to buy some cigarettes.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘We’d been sitting around watching telly; it was a perfectly average evening.’
‘Yes, I know the sort of thing you mean, we have those too.’
‘And so, anyway, I went out to that offy and got the fags and came straight back, and when I got in, Jonathan called out to me and said, Come in here, I want to talk to you. So I did, I mean I hadn’t even had a chance to take off my coat, and he told me, he said—’
She broke off.
‘Yes?’
‘He said, I want you to move out.’
‘He what?’ cried Susannah.
‘Just like that?’ asked Geoffrey.
‘Yes, just like that.’
Her interlocutors sat there, stunned and appalled.
‘I mean,’ said Susannah, ‘had you no suspicion beforehand—’
‘No, none. I mean, absolutely none.’
‘He must be round the twist.’
‘He seemed perfectly rational.’
‘That’s when they’re at their worst.’
‘Ho hum,’ said Geoffrey.
‘You shut up, you,’ said Susannah.
He ignored this. ‘What happened then?’ he asked.
‘Well—’ said Nicola; and at some length she managed to relate the rest of the conversation and to describe the sensations which it had induced in her.
Her friends were still appalled but they were no longer stunned.
‘He’s a complete and utter rat,’ said Susannah. ‘It’s a merciful release.’
‘Do you really think so?’ said Nicola unhappily. The relating of the tale had left her shaken.
‘Absolutely,’ said Susannah. ‘He’s a rat.’
‘Well, perhaps not exactly a rat,’ said Geoffrey. ‘But certainly a prat. A prat, definitely. But that was always obvious. I mean, just look at the guy. You’re better off without him, much.’
‘But I love him,’ said Nicola, and burst into tears. Susannah slid her chair around until it was beside Nicola’s, and put her arm around her friend’s shaking shoulders. ‘There, have a good cry, darling,’ she said. ‘Susannah’s here.’ She continued to hold her as close as she could, patting her back from time to time, and meanwhile she turned her head and shot a withering look at her husband. ‘Piss off,’ she mouthed at him, and after raising his eyebrows he muttered an excuse and got up and left the room.
‘There,’ said Susannah, ‘there, there. Have a good cry. Stupid men. There, there.’
Nicola at last dried her tears, and sat silent and desolate while Susannah made some tea. She looked down at her teacup. ‘Jonathan may be a rat,’ she said. ‘That is, he is acting like a rat, at the moment. And he might go on being a rat now for good. But he isn’t a prat. Truly he isn’t. I know you think so, but really he isn’t.’
‘That was Geoff’s word, not mine,’ said Susannah.
‘But I suppose you agree,’ said Nicola.
‘Well, every rat is ipso facto a prat,’ Susannah pointed out.
Nicola had on reflection to concur.