Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge Read Free Book Online Page A

but Edward answered casually, saying, ‘What? Oh, the time . . . Jolly early if you ask me.’ It wouldn’t do to get her into a state.
    After half an hour Binny said the chops were ruined. Greatly alarmed, he rose to his feet.
    ‘Well, almost,’ she amended. ‘What shall I do with them?’
    He didn’t know what to advise. Helen produced perfectly edible meals in an effortless way, and he was a bit thrown by the atmosphere of panic generated by Binny at the stove.
    ‘Well, look at them,’ Binny shouted, bringing the grilling tray to the table and thrusting the chops under his nose.
    They were a little wizened, he thought, but otherwise normal. ‘They’re lovely,’ he said. ‘Simply lovely.’
    ‘Don’t you ever do any cooking?’ she asked. There was a hostile note in her voice.
    He bent over the crossword and prayed the Simpsons would arrive soon.
    Some minutes later Binny demanded to know if he did any washing.
    ‘Washing?’ he queried, playing for time.
    ‘Do you wash your smalls?’
    ‘We’ve a washing machine,’ he said.
    ‘Even for your smalls?’
    ‘It’s for everything,’ he said. ‘Big or small.’
    She wanted him to describe his washing arrangements in detail.
    It seemed a funny thing to be interested in. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I put my clothing, underpants, socks and so forth, in a polythene bag in the bathroom and Helen places them, in due course, in the machine.’
    ‘And you let her?’ Binny cried, as though they were discussing coal-heaving or some equally strenuous job.
    Inwardly he grew rattled. It was unfair of Binny to attack him over his underpants just because the Simpsons were late and she was worried about the chops. ‘Look here,’ he protested, ‘I have enough to do in the office, you know, without worrying about the washing. Helen’s in all day. It’s no trouble if you’ve got a machine. Besides, I don’t know how to load the thing. As a matter of fact she won’t let me touch it. It’s her department.’
    ‘Do you sleep with her?’
    The question was so unexpected that his mouth fell open. He felt he’d suffered a minor stroke. ‘My love,’ he began inadequately.
    ‘You do, don’t you?’
    ‘No, no,’ he protested. He knew she knew he was not telling the truth. ‘She’s not one for that sort of thing,’ he floundered. ‘Not now. She’s gone off it.’
    Binny abandoned her place at the stove and came to sit at the table. She smiled lovingly at him.
    He said uneasily, ‘I do care for you, you know. I really do.’
    ‘We all go off it,’ said Binny. ‘Us women.’ She held her fourth glass of wine to her lips and drank. ‘Until somebody exciting comes along. Like you,’ she added generously and, reaching out, attempted to touch his cheek.
    He ducked, thinking she was going to strike him.
    ‘Take Helen,’ she continued. ‘She’s used to you. You’re the old sod that’s part of the furniture.’
    It wasn’t, he felt, a flattering description. Still, Binny was smiling in an affectionate manner. He allowed her, without flinching, to caress his face.
    ‘You’re not a mystery any more,’ she told him. ‘Probably if you stayed very still she’d run a duster over you. But if a bloke came along, someone she’d never set eyes on, well . . . stands to reason, doesn’t it?’
    ‘Does it?’ he said.
    Binny withdrew her hand and thumped the table. ‘I bet you if the milkman rushed in and grabbed old Helen, she wouldn’t say no.’
    ‘Perhaps not,’ he said dubiously. He had a mental picture of his wife moving serenely about the kitchen in her housecoat, and the youth from United Diaries running through the door in his striped apron and flinging her to the floor. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘There’s always the possibility that she might phone the police instead.’
    Outside it had grown dark. The block of flats across the street was transformed into a glittering mass of glass and concrete. Behind net curtains shadowed with the leaves of