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October
2007
Cont'd …
TWO
Graham brought his typewriter, his manuscript, his books. They decided to convert the bedroom into a study, dismantling the wardrobe so as to be able to put the desk in the window where it would get more light. Graham put his Olivetti on the desk, arranged his manuscript and dictionaries and said: ‘Rooftops. How can I fail to finish my book with all these rooftops?’
Margaret brought in a lamp from the sitting-room and put some dried flowers on the desk. She got out an old kettle so that Graham could make coffee whilst he was working. They debated whether or not to buy him a proper typist’s chair but decided to wait and see how he got on with an ordinary one – they didn’t have that much money to throw around, after all. Perhaps later they could buy one if he found he really needed it. Margaret cleared the shelves to make space for his books: the ones which were too big they piled neatly on the floor.
When all was finished, the ‘writer’s corner’, as they called it, looked splendid: halfway to being a writer’s den, as Graham ironically remarked. ‘And when I don’t know what to write I can always go back to bed to think about it.’ He smiled. It was an enormous relief to him. For the last three months he had had to work in the library, because the room he had rented since his separation was so unsuitable and the one he had at the polytechnic was permanently under siege. ‘Always some student wanting to know what I think about Jean-Paul Sartre,’ as he put it. ‘You’d think they’d be more up to date, wouldn’t you?’ But now at last he had somewhere to work in peace: now he could finish the book he had been trying to get finished for the last two and a half years.
They adopted a routine: term had started, and Margaret had to get up early to go to the primary school where she taught, and so they both decided to get up at seven. This gave them plenty of time for breakfast and got Graham off to a flying start – he worked best in the morning. At seven the alarm would go and they would roll over and hold each other in silence for a few minutes before getting up. Now that they were both happy, they found it easy to get up in the morning; besides, it was a marvellous autumn and one golden morning just followed another. Graham would stand looking at the chestnut tree outside the window whilst Margaret made the bed and. put some music on the record-player (she loved Bach, Vivaldi and Handel in the morning – Debussy and Ravel at night).
Then would begin the kitchen-dance, as they called it. The kitchen-dance had been invented out of necessity and was fast becoming an art-form in its own right. It was necessary because Margaret’s flat had no bathroom: there was a shower in the corner of the kitchen by the fridge, and just the sink to wash at. Side by side they would stand, arms reaching past each other for toothbrushes and towels, Graham shaving and Margaret doing her face in the same mirror. Sometimes they would catch the true age in each other’s face and find it beautiful. And as they stood there they would reach behind them to switch off the kettle, or to turn the toast, or to check that the eggs were not over-boiling. For breakfast they had a lightly-boiled egg each, two slices of toast (Margaret’s more lightly done than Graham’s) and sometimes a bowl of cereal. They always drank tea. On Saturdays they would lie in for an extra hour and then one or other of them would go to the baker’s round the corner and bring back croissants still warm from the oven. On Sundays Margaret would make porridge and Graham would cook eggs and bacon – frying, scrambling or poaching the eggs according to their mood. His fried eggs had improved: he never broke them these days. But whatever he might have done with them, they would have tasted good. Everything was good at breakfast. And after breakfast Margaret would go off to school and Graham would sit down at his desk, Margaret sometimes pausing on the stairs to hear the first clickings of the typewriter before rushing out into the chill, quiet brilliance of the street.
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