September Starlings Read Online Free Page B

A Bed Spring’ should be played on everyone’s wedding night. The next day, my disgraceful husband sat for two whole hours on the beach in a string vest, knee-length swimming trunks, flippers. And he wore a knotted handkerchief on his head. He was getting into the swing of it, he said, was becoming a comic figure from a postcard. Skegness was not ready for him, had become too sedate. But I was not sedate and I was ready for that lovely man.
    This bed is vast, king-sized. Entombed in its barren acres, I miss the squeaks and I feel like a pea on a drum, a pimple on the moon’s cold surface. Perhaps I should buy another, a single bed for a single woman. No, I’ll never be single in Benaura. What a name that is! He manufactured it, of course, took one syllable from Benjamin, two from Laura. ‘It’s daft,’ I said. He had prepared an answer. For him, it almost translated into ‘bene’ and ‘atmosphere’, implying that our house is surrounded by a halo of goodness. Has it been extinguished, then? Ben, Ben, my poor, sweet, gentle man.
    As soon as the curtains are opened, I smell rain and feel the wind rushing across the creaking leaded window. Weather can be shut out now by a second sheet of plain glazing, costly interior panes supplied by some company in Speke. The rep did not understand my desire to hold on to the frail lights, but I studiously resisted his photographsof patio doors in pale-brick dormer bungalows, of square pebble-dashed semis with sturdy plastic bays that were ‘a dead ringer for mahogany’.
    After a quick wash in the en suite so-called master bathroom, I make up my face. Sometimes, when he isn’t here, I loll about in Jodie’s old cast-offs, frayed jeans, long sweaters that almost cover my knees, then ankle boots or, if the climate is friendly, those thonged sandals called Jesus-wellies. But today, I pat my face dry, apply moisturizing foundation, blusher, lipstick, a greyish shadow that emphasizes my irises, still clear and blue after fifty-odd years. The ‘odd’ doesn’t matter – half a century is enough, a reasonable number at which to stop counting.
    I have kept my hair long, because Ben loves flowing tresses on a woman. All the fashion magazines insist that ladies of mature years should have short hair, but what do they know? The comb catches in a knot, twangs its teeth while breaking free. Perhaps those women’s weeklies are on the right track after all. Tresses is definitely the wrong word. Wires might be nearer the mark, because my hair has toughened over the years and with various treatments, some performed by an effeminate and very pleasant young man called Adrian, others delivered in a hospital and against my better judgement. Still, they saved my life, I have to admit grudgingly. But my once healthy mop has faded to a salt-and-pepper blonde that performs cruel dentistry on many a comb.
    I pull on my French navy suit, a good jersey wool with a scooped neck and elbow-length sleeves. A pearl choker hides the slight creping at the throat, while a quick dab of Chanel does its best to lift my spirits. She will be here shortly. She will stand on my doorstep with her back to the sea and she will make me know my guilt, my inadequacy.
    It is not my fault, I tell myself firmly, noting yet another worn patch on the stair carpet. It is a beautiful staircase with three turns and two small landings partway up. We bought the big, draughty house for its stairs and for an ill-treated fireplace in one of the living rooms. We have beenkind to the fireplace, have released it from its prison of paint and Formica. My cat has not been kind to the staircase, though. He has sharpened his claws on the carpet and on some finely carved rails.
    It is not my fault. A chap called Alois Alzheimer messed about with brain tissue in 1907. He left his findings and his name for posterity, so my husband suffers not from senile dementia, but from Alzheimer’s disease. I am twenty years younger than Ben and, until