Childish Things. Robin Jenkins

were two bottles on the table. Yes, it was good wine. My heart rose a little.

      When her back was turned, I peeped into the fridge and saw cheese, cold meat, and beetroot. If the goulash was uneatable, I would still have something to eat with the wine.

      She was stroking her rear. ‘What do you think of my pants, Gregor?’

      ‘Very attractive, Millie.’

      ‘Imitation ocelot. I’ve got a nice round bottom, haven’t I?’

      ‘You have.’

      ‘Susan Cramond accused me of showing it off. She was jealous. She’s got nothing here at all. It’s not womanly to have a skinny bottom, is it?’

      ‘No, it isn’t.’

      ‘Mind you, I had an awful job getting into them, and I expect it’ll be an awful job getting out of them, unless of course I have assistance.’

      There was that giggle again.

      I sat down at the table and poured wine into the two glasses. I only half-filled hers.

      ‘More for me, please, Gregor.’

      ‘But wine makes you sad, Millie.’

      ‘It won’t tonight, I assure you. I’m very happy, haven’t you noticed? Isn’t it funny, Gregor, I’m going to get a divorce and you’re a widower.’

      What was funny about that?

      ‘We’ll both be free.’

      What was she getting at?

      ‘Ready for your goulash, Gregor?’

      ‘Thank you, Millie. Not too much, though. My stomach’s been bothering me these last two or three days.’

      ‘Is it nerves, do you think?’

      ‘It could be.’

      She heaped my plate with the nauseating stuff.

      She sat down and ate with relish. She drank her wine as if it was water.

      ‘Drink it slowly, Millie,’ I said.

      I was beginning to feel alarmed. At any moment she might break down.

      ‘I said I had something very important to say to you, Gregor.’

      Whatever it was, I tried to put it off. ‘If you divorce Bill, do you think he’ll marry this Mrs Cardross?’

      Too late I realised that that was a damned tactless thing to say.

      She answered calmly enough. I should have been warned. ‘I don’t care if he marries her or not. I expect he will, for he’s always wanted children and I couldn’t have any. Did you know, Gregor, that I couldn’t have children?’

      ‘No, Millie, I didn’t know.’

      To humour her, I was eating the goulash as if I liked it.

      ‘We won’t bother with them, will we, Gregor?’

      ‘Not a bit, Millie.’

      ‘We won’t bother with anyone, when we get married.’

      I was pouring wine when she said that. So great was the shock that I missed my aim and spilled it on the table-cloth. This was plastic, in green-and-white squares. I could never have married a woman that put a plastic cloth on her table.

      But I had to be serious and very careful. In the war, I had had experience of mines. Here was one seated across from me.

      ‘I’m not saying I’ll make you as good a wife as Kate, but I’ll do my best.’ She dropped her voice and smiled lewdly. ‘After we’ve eaten, we’ll go upstairs. I want you to prove to me that making love should be done tenderly. Tulloch stabbed at me with that awful thing of his as if he wanted to hurt me. He did hurt me too. You won’t, will you, Gregor?’

      She had to be stopped, she had to be told that what she was saying was hysterical nonsense, but how to do it without hurting her feelings or causing her to scream, like a wounded ocelot?

      ‘But, Millie,’ I said, desperately and mendaciously, ‘I promised Kate I would never marry again.’

      ‘I’m surprised Kate made you give such a promise, but she wouldn’t have if she’d known it was me you were going to marry. You see, when I visited her in hospital, just days before she died, we had a very private talk about you, Gregor. She said that she was worried about you. You pretended to be so sure of yourself, but you weren’t really.’

      Some of that was true, but what had it to do with Millie? Kate had liked her but hadn’t respected her much, thinking her too submissive!

      Thank heaven I would soon be safe in California.

      ‘I was thinking of going with you to California, Gregor, but I was afraid it would spoil my chances of getting a quick divorce. So, I’m sorry, Gregor, I can’t go with you.’

      ‘That’s all right, Millie. I understand.’

      ‘Will you write to me?’

      ‘Of course I will.’

      ‘Every day?’

      ‘I might not manage every day.’

      ‘Well, twice a week at least. I’ll write to you every day. I don’t think I’ve got Madge’s address.’

      She ran out of the kitchen and in a minute was back with a writing pad and a pen.

      I was tempted to write down a false address. A letter a day from Millie would rouse suspicions. Better if all those letters went astray.

      But I could not bring myself to do it. I felt, obscurely, that I ought to be on Millie’s side and not against her. So I wrote down the right address.

      ‘Thanks, Gregor.’ She flung her arms round my neck. Her lips kissed my ear. ‘If we went upstairs, who would know?’

      Who indeed? She didn’t even have a cat.

      The thought of doing away with her flitted into my mind. As she had said, who would know? Of course, it flitted out again just as fast.

      Suddenly she let go of me and again ran out of the kitchen, in such a hurry that I thought she had an urgent need to go to the lavatory, having drunk too much wine and having eaten too much goulash.

      She came louping in, as naked as an ocelot and as fierce-looking. I was reminded of a painting in the Glasgow Art Gallery, by a Dutch artist: the same doll-like face, small breasts, big stomach, sparse pubic hair, and knock-knees. One big difference, though, was that the woman in the painting looked wistful, whereas Millie looked rapacious.

      With a twirl she turned round, showing me her most attractive feature. Alas, I saw only a pallid steatopygosity.

      I felt pity, not desire. I realised that she was not right in her mind.

      Had she really loved Tulloch and wanted him back, in spite of his cruelties?

      ‘Take off your clothes, Gregor,’ she whispered.

      I had a memory, of childhood, myself aged five or so, and a girl – was her name Bessie Greenloaning? – also aged five, doing ‘dirty things’ in a coal cellar; that was, examining each other’s private parts. Here I was, at 72, threatened with a similar experience.

      ‘I want to see it, Gregor. Tulloch never let me see it. He made me hold it but he never let me see it.’

      All I could say or rather stammer was ‘I think you should go and put on your clothes, Millie.’

      This was a woman whom for years I had looked on with lust but also with goodwill and affection. I owed her something, but how could I repay it? I remembered how she had ecstatically praised Tulloch to people who had known how contemptuously he had treated her. Still loving him, she was in a pitiful plight, from which there was no escape.

      ‘Are