He waved away a seagull from trying to get its beak into his glass of ale. “The trouble was he came back to haunt her. While she was cleaning the house he’d tell her not to do this or that. It was unnerving. If she did what he told her it was always the wrong thing. She was afraid of having an accident. He was trying to get at her, as he’d done all his life. There are men like that, though I can’t think why.
“She got rid of the ghost, though. He was standing by the bath while she was taking a shower, and she turned the water on him. He couldn’t stand that. Maybe all ghosts can’t. But he vanished, and never showed up again. So if a hubby ever comes back as a ghost, Muriel, you’ll know what to do.”
We were startled when her laugh ended in a weird scream. “Men! I can’t believe the things that happen when Ernest tries to help me in the house.”
“Surely you appreciate his assistance?” I caught Bill’s wink, hidden from Muriel by the splatting of a mosquito on his forehead. “It must be useful.”
“Ah yes,” she said, “he tries, I’ll say that for him. But you’ll never believe what happened a few weeks ago.”
“I’ll believe anything you tell me, darling. Won’t we, Michael?”
“I had so much work to do, stories and articles to finish, that he volunteered to help me by vacuuming the flat. It was getting towards filthy, and time someone did it, so I let him try his hand, the sort of simple job he’d often seen me or the cleaning woman do. Anyway, I thought he’d feel wanted if I let him help mummy. I needed the time it would take me to do it. ‘I’ll vacuum your study,’ he crowed. ‘I’ll do the hallway as well. Every room will be so clean you won’t know them afterwards.’ How marvellous, I thought, he’s not so useless after all.
“He got going, while I went through some papers in the living room. The whine of the busy little bee pulling the machine all over the floors, as if he was doing a very thorough job, lulled me into thinking life was improving. He can turn into a dependable house husband, I told myself, and can go on doing it whenever the cleaning woman goes on holiday to Jamaica for two months. I might not even need her anymore. In half an hour his task was over. He moved me out of the living room so that he could do that as well. Then I went back to work in my study.
“I almost died. I shrieked. I frothed at the mouth. Do you know what he’d done? To plug the vacuum cleaner in he’d pulled all the plugs from my computer system and sent a month’s work down the chute. I hadn’t done the back up had I? But even so, he rushed in at my screams, thinking I’d put my fingers into a live socket and electrocuted myself. I wished I had, or I wished I’d done it to him, finger by finger. ‘I’ll kill you,’ I raved, as his not so pretty face went red with guilt and chagrin. ‘You godforsaken idiot, what did you do that for?’
“‘I had to plug it in somewhere,’ he said. ‘Oh did you?’ I cried. ‘Well, what’s this, and this? And bloody this?’ I did widdershins, pointing out all the plugs he could have used with nothing attached. How I didn’t murder him with the breadknife I’ll never know.”
“What an awful thing to happen,” Bill said smarmily. “Yet you’ve got to have a bit of sympathy. Everybody makes mistakes.”
“Not like that,” she said.
He passed my packet across. “Have a fag, duck.” After she’d lit up from his match with a shaking hand he reached to stroke her bare arm. “Don’t let it bother you. I’d do a lot better than that, though, if it was me who had the job of looking after you. I’d even sweep under your carpets.”
My battered face was still giving schtuck, but life was pleasant again, sitting by the blue water, an afternoon breeze cooling me as I listened to their billing and cooing. Her look was unmistakable as she pressed his hand: “I wish it had been you.”
“I’ll leave you two lovebirds, while I take a stroll along the strand.”
He let rip with his top of the world hee-haw laugh: “Don’t get like that, Michael!”
My knee wasn’t as badly hurt as I’d expected, though it might have been worse if I hadn’t walked. A couple of lovely French women were lying almost nude on the beach, but with my face so botched I didn’t see any point trying to chat them up. Cars on the quay were being loaded onto a ferry, and seeing little else of interest I went back to the hotel tables.
Bill and Muriel had gone to fuck their arses off in his room, and good luck to them, I thought, hoping to do the same with Sophie in a few days. Life seemed pointless after my fight, and the days of playing snakes-and-ladders with the black hatchback. Having got shot of my pursuers all I had to do was deliver and receive Moggerhanger’s goods which, having a one-man battalion of the British Army as my backup force, should go according to plan.
I was interested on seeing Muriel’s morose husband come out of the hotel with a towel over his shoulders. He sat by me. “You don’t know where my wife is, by any chance? I’ve been looking everywhere, and can’t find her.”
“She’s in my mate’s room,” I said, “having a very enjoyable experience. I expect he’s already slipped it in a few times.”
Thick smoke seemed to shift over his eyes. They closed, hoping to get rid of it. Then they opened, wide, looking at me again as if he hadn’t heard right. He tugged at his natty beard. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Take it as you like.”
“And if I do believe it, do you suppose I’ll go in, find them, and humiliate myself still further by getting into a fight with a man like that?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Dogs aren’t noted for loyalty,” he said. “You can never do anything about a bitch on heat.”
“If you say so.”
“She’s only getting her own back because I bedded the au pair three years ago.”
“Life can be a can of worms,” I said.
“So I knew this had to happen, sooner or later.”
The throbbing bites at my face kept me in an unkind mood. “It probably happened sooner than you think.”
“You may be right.” The twist of his unpleasant lips wasn’t hidden by the beard. “A bitch always finds her dog.”
“Steady on,” I said, “you’re talking about my best friend. Why not just go into his room, get them unstuck, and give them a pasting? My old pal Bill loves a fight.”
“Short of entertainment, are you?”
“Not necessarily.” I couldn’t have cared less. “But she entertained us right enough when she told us about how you’d busted all her computers when you were using the vacuum cleaner. Had us in stitches.”
The revelation knocked him about a bit. “She did, did she? Well, all I can do in return is explain myself.” He filled a Peterson pipe, puffed it into life as if setting fire to a haystack, and wiped away a tear with a corner of the towel around his neck. To call the boy for a couple of brandies was the least I could do for him. “The trouble is,” he said, not blenching at the first scorching touch of firewater, “I’m split in two.”
“Only two?”
“I’ll explain further. You have the time?”
I nodded, willing to let Bill have plenty of leeway, in exchange for the help he’d given me. “The thing is,” he went on, “one side of me is pragmatic and easygoing.”
“Pragmatic?”
“Practical. Taking things as they come.”
“Sounds Greek to me.”
“It is.” He smiled at my lack of education, though I’d know what it meant, only wanting to push him on a bit. “But,” he said, a tad wanly, “there’s another side of me that’s rigid and authoritarian.”