Leather Wings by Marilyn Duckworth Read Free Book Online

scooping food on to his tongue, smiling because he might have shocked her.
    “You were telling Jania about the dinosaurs.”
    “So?”
    “You seemed to enjoy the idea of the dinosaurs. Aren’t they a failed experiment, too? They died out. At least we’re still around.”
    “So far. We’re trying hard not to be.”
    “Oh dear. Don’t you say any of this to Jania.”
    “Would I? Give me some credit.”
    “Huh.”
    At this point the waiter offers a lemon sorbet to clear the palate between courses. She looks at Rex and decides to accept. There is a taste in her mouth less pleasant than fish.
    It could be that she needs something like lemon sorbet to clear the palate between husband and lover. At one time Rex and Donald were disparate breeds, but age is giving them qualities in common. One might take his mouth out at night, the other put his in, but essentially they are becoming two old men and the implication is that she will become an old woman. Surely not? Rex’s conversation plunges her below the surface of optimism, the level where she usually swims. At one time not long ago the sole they have eaten was swimming hopefully in the sea. She feels flattened out. Children are supposed to keep you young, but perhaps that doesn’t apply to grandchildren — she has certainly noticed her years in a new way since Jania was posted to them via United Airlines.
    Yesterday after work in the car park, with the dark ceiling lowering above them, Donald had said something she didn’t like.
    “Does it ever occur to you we might have been going on for too long?”
    “What do you mean? You mean you’re sick of me?”
    “No, I don’t mean that at all. But I’ll have to put you on my headstone if we carry on like this.”
    “So what are you saying? You are sick of me.”
    “I’m not. I’m just thinking about dying.”
    “Don’t you dare!”
    “It isn’t a threat. Not about me dying, just dying in the abstract. An old schoolfriend did it the other day, I saw it in the Post. Makes you think. Perhaps we should have lived our lives differently.”
    “How different? No you and me?”
    “I can’t conceive of that. No, I’d like to have done more, not less. A second career, more children perhaps.”
    “More mistresses?”
    “Well, of course.”
    He was joking. Or was he?
    “You didn’t give me a taste,” Rex complains now. “Was it nice?” He waits patiently for his wife to return to him. “The zabaglione?”
    “Sorry.” She is back. Sighs. “We can’t afford to do this too often, but I think we should do something. Tuesday films are cut price I think. I do miss a good screen. Before the world ends,” she adds.
    She has made him laugh.
     
    At home Jania is conducting the babysitter around her bedroom city. The main street, with shops and bank and post office, the church, the hospital (new), the houses. Some of the inhabitants are only paper and not very thick paper at that — they won’t stand up but have to lounge around on their beds. The babysitter suggests she transfer the paper dolls to the hospital as permanent inmates and fill their places with the more substantial, healthy plastic dolls.
    Jania looks worried at this and shakes her head.
    “Why not?”
    “They’re not sick. I’d have to make them sick. Or crash them in a bus. I don’t have a bus.”
    “Couldn’t you just swop their names over?”
    Jania is shocked. “They’re people! That’s Dawnis and he’s Dennis. You can’t change people over!”
    “Oh. Well I think you should get into bed. It’s awfully late, you’ll get me into trouble.”
    “I don’t want to.” Jania sits. “I’m busy. Mrs Debenham’s coming to the hospital to visit her husband, he’ll be sad if she doesn’t come.”
    “It’s only a game, it’ll still be there in the morning. Get into bed.”
    “I don’t have to.”
    “Yes you do.”
    “Why?” Jania sits. They are still sitting here on the bedroom floor when Esther and Rex return from the