‘But not in Clyde’s case?’
She resented that. Too familiar. ‘No!’
Ben sat back. ‘Sorry.’ He smiled self-effacingly: ‘Too familiar.’
Again she was disarmed, and surprised at his perceptiveness. Word for word!
‘It’s all right.’ She took a sip of wine. ‘But what do you mean you’re “told” demonstration of affection is important? Don’t you know?’
Ben grinned honestly. (No harm in honesty when you’ve got little else to offer.) ‘Well, look at me, I’m not likely to have had much experience in that area, am I? Let alone success.’
Helen was disarmed further, because it seemed so plausible. ‘Oh Ben … But you’re a lovely bloke …’
He grinned. ‘That’s what I tell all the girls – all the time. But nobody seems to believe me.’ He added sadly: ‘Except my mother.’
‘I don’t believe it!’
‘See? It works.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got your sympathy. Your disavowal of my physical limitations. But, unfortunately, that’s all I get.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘Oh, I’ve got lots of women friends. I get along famously with women as a gender. But unfortunately sympathy only works that far.’
Again she wondered whether he was trying to steer the conversation in a certain direction, despite his expression. ‘You’ve never been married?’
‘Married? I’ve never had a woman I didn’t pay for.’
That took her aback. That was astonishing self-effacement. ‘Whores, you mean?’
Ben sighed cheerfully. ‘But even that’s not on these days, with Aids.’ He grinned at her. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve been tested and I’m a Lloyds A1 insurance prospect.’
She blinked. Why should she worry? She began to change the subject, and Ben groaned: ‘Oh, my big mouth …’ He looked at her apologetically. ‘Sorry – again. Why should you worry? But that was just a figure of speech. Believe me …’ he put his hand on his breast solemnly and said, not entirely truthfully, ‘I have enough bitter experience of life not to be so presumptuous as to think I could talk you into the sack.’
Helen stared at him a moment. Then she dropped her head and giggled. ‘Oh, you’re funny.’
Ben nodded wearily. ‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’
‘Both!’
‘I knew it,’ Ben sighed, ‘I knew I couldn’t just be funny ha-ha.’
‘I mean unusual—’
‘Almost rare,’ Ben solemnly agreed. ‘My mother thinks I’m an endangered species. She thinks I’m beautiful.’
Helen threw back her head and laughed. It all seemed terribly funny. Little Ben Sunninghill … ‘But you are, Ben! I mean, you’ve got the loveliest smile. It makes you … shine. And it’s so … laughy.’
‘Got to have a sense of humour with a face like this,’ Ben agreed. ‘What about the nose? I could have it straightened, but not shortened, regrettably. Because, like most people, I do need the actual nostrils at the tip.’
Helen snorted into her wine glass. ‘And you’ve got the loveliest eyes, Ben! I mean, they’re so naughty. And kind.’ She smothered her mirth, her eyes moist, and waved at little Dundee. ‘Like getting me him.’
Ben smiled. ‘I’m glad.’
Helen wiped the corners of her eyes. ‘And,’ she said brightly, ‘you’ve got all your hair!’
‘All over,’ Ben agreed.
‘It shows virility!’
‘I tell the girls that, but I’m just told. I’m a fire-hazard.’
She laughed at him: ‘Oh, Ben …’
He smiled, then picked up the new doorlocks and the coil of electrical cable. ‘Well, I’ll fix the locks and extend that generator switch to your bedroom. To outwit the spooks.’
Helen brought her mind to this change of subject.
‘Oh, that’s very kind of you, but Clyde said it’s best where it is.’
Ben said: ‘You’re the one who lives here all alone each night with the spooks, not Clyde. It’s just a simple override switch, so you can shut down the generator from your bedroom when you go to bed. Clyde will still be able to start it and stop it from the kitchen.’
‘Really?’ she said. ‘Why didn’t he know that?’
‘Maybe Clyde’s not a smart-ass like me.’
Ben changed the locks while Helen got her laundry together. Then she fed Dundee while Ben started work on the switch. The puppy wolfed down his food. ‘Like he’s never had meat before!’ she called happily from the yard.
‘Probably hasn’t, living with Jack Goodwin.’
‘Oh, he’s gorgeous!’
‘Jack or Dundee?’
‘Dundee! Oh, Jack’s a real miser. And a terrible gossip. “Radio-Jack”, we call him – tell him anything and it’s all over the Outback by nightfall. Who’s a beautiful boy, then?’
‘Me. Ask my mother.’
‘Oh, you ass!’ She came back into the kitchen, holding a glass of wine. ‘Oh, dear … I’m having a lovely day. Now then – got any laundry you want done? Smart-ass.’ She burst into giggles.
Ben picked his wine glass up from the floor and took a sip. ‘No, thank you, only dirty people need machines to do their laundry. I did mine by hand this morning.’
‘Well, it can’t be very dry. Where is it? In a plastic bag in your saddle-bag?’
‘Right.’
‘Right, and where is it?’
‘Just behind the saddle.’
‘I mean the bike, you fool. Even I can figure out where the saddle-bag is once I find the bike. But I didn’t see it when I came back from Billy’s.’
‘Outside your front door. Black, you can’t miss it, the only black 1000cc Harley-Davidson there.’
‘Oh, you ass!’ She marched to the front of the house. She ferreted through his saddle-bag and found the wet clothes. She took them to the line in the yard, and hung them up. Socks, underpants, vests, shirts. Then she took one shirt down again and returned to the kitchen.
‘Well, this garment needs strong machinery.’ She stuffed it into the washing-machine with her own laundry.
‘Thank you. But you can’t start up the generator to do the washing while I’m working on these wires.’ He added: ‘You could, but you’d have to bury me soon afterwards.’
‘Standing up beside Oscar?’
‘So the grave would have to be a bit deeper, and that ground’s hard. Not that much deeper,’ he admitted reasonably.
She prepared lunch while he led the cable along the kitchen walls and down the passage, tacking it to the skirting board. He bored a small hole in the doorframe and fed the wire through into her bedroom.
It was not very feminine; it seemed a worn, hard-up sort of room. On the far bedside table was a framed photograph of a man, doubtless Clyde: Ben peered across at it, but couldn’t make out much. On the dressing-table near the door was a photograph; four children. Taken recently, Ben thought. The