Chapters (27)
Alison’s red Toyota was in the drive when Pearly reached home, and he parked on the street so that she wouldn’t be blocked when she wished to leave. He expected to hear them talking as he came into the living room. They weren’t there, but through the french doors he could see them both on the patio, lying barefoot on the green quilted deckchairs with the stand of the sun umbrella between them, the garden beyond, and then the silver birches in the Pratts’ section. Maybe they were talking, maybe they were just enjoying each other’s presence without the need for any other communication, as best friends do. Pearly was pleased to see them so and was about to open the doors and join them when Alison reached out and took her friend’s hand. Neither turned a head towards the other, just joined fingers in relaxed embrace. As Pearly watched, Alison moved her thumb in gentle caress on the back of Helen’s hand.
What to make of that? Pearly didn’t know, but the intimacy created was such that he no longer felt he could intrude. He turned and went quietly to his study. When had he last held his wife’s hand with such gentleness or made more than a perfunctory enquiry concerning the things most dear to her? Every marriage has a degree of separation no matter how successful it is or how long it lasts. I want you to tell your wife about it, Deidre had said, and after what he had witnessed on the patio, Pearly wondered if he should interpret her request in a different way. So many of the things that Pearly had assumed he understood had become aspects of uncertainty.
He recalled an argument with Helen when the children were small. What had caused it and quite what it was about were lost, but he remembered they were all standing by the green-and-white striped Antigua Boatsheds on the Avon during a Christchurch visit. There were punts, canoes and ducks, other people, and fluid movement in the willow trees that mimicked the soft flow of the river. Warmth of the sun on his back. None of those things was the reason for his recollection, however; rather, it was her accusation that he lacked delicacy. ‘You have no delicacy whatsoever,’ she’d said bitterly. Pearly hadn’t been able to make any reply. He knew she was right, but he was uncertain what delicacy consisted of and how it was acquired.