This is the Life

Terri had had enough of Frank too, as his drinking had moved from heavy to alcoholic levels. So she divorced him and she bought a small bungalow in a retirement village. She wasn’t so young any more, but who was? And she was still attractive and had the proverbial heart of gold.

‘So why’d you go round to see Terri? Just visiting?’

‘No, she called me about her guttering, asked me if I could fix it. It had come loose. There’s supposed to be some maintenance guy round there for all that, but he’s up to his eyeballs. So I took a ladder and went over with the ute after work.’

Louis had a ute – a utility vehicle, a battered old Nissan van with a flat-bed trailer and a silver aluminium box screwed to the flat-bed, in which you could keep tools, and which you could secure with a padlock.

‘So was that okay?’

Long pause.

‘Yeah. I fixed the gutter and she asked if I’d like to have a cup of tea, so we had some tea and we were sitting there talking, you know, about Frank and what have you—’

‘How is Frank?’

‘He’s in hospital. He’s got diabetes now and something wrong with his liver. He kept coming round and wanting me to go drinking. I’d just have a couple of beers, but that wasn’t enough for him. He’d bring Scotch as well, and when I refused to drink any more, the last time he came round, he lost his temper and we had a row. And I haven’t seen him since.’

‘Ah.’

‘Anyway, I was sitting there with Terri, and I don’t know what got into me or what came over me, but right out of the blue I suddenly said and I don’t know why, I said, Terri, would you like to go to bed with me?’

Silence then, like Louis wanted me to ask a question or needed some prompt to continue. I wanted to sound politely curious but not pruriently nosy.

‘Wow, well, that’s pretty direct, Louis. No kind of preamble then? Just straight out with the main question.’

‘Well, I don’t know what came over me. It just came out.’

It had to have been about seven years since he’d split up with Kirstin. I wondered if he’d been celibate all that time, but that’s not the kind of question you ask your brother.

‘So how did she react? What did she say?’

‘Well—’

I heard a faint but colourful chuckle.

‘Well – she said okay.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Just like that!’

‘Yeah. Just like that!’

‘Were you surprised?’

‘I was shocked at myself for saying it!’

‘Well – well done.’

That was pretty inappropriate, but I didn’t know what else to say right then.

‘Yeah,’ Louis agreed, then went silent again, as if maybe fishing for further queries or compliments.

‘So – eh – how did that go?’

‘Great. And then she asked me to stay to dinner.’

‘Least she could do,’ I said.

‘I mean, I’ve known Terri for years,’ Louis said. ‘And always liked her. But not, you know—’

‘In that way?’

‘No. But just sitting there, well, I don’t know what came over me.’

‘Lust?’ I suggested. But Louis just laughed.

‘I’m going back to see her again next week,’ he said.

‘So it could be a regular thing.’

‘Have to see,’ he said.

I still had the feeling that he would have appreciated a few more questions but I couldn’t think of any. And he never asked me about my sex life. In fact Louis never asked me much about my own life at all. His baseline appeared to be that my life was okay and further enquiries were not necessary and would have been superfluous.

‘Well, I hope it all works out,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ Louis said, and he was sounding a little pleased with himself now, I thought, as if he was the only man in the world to have persuaded a woman into bed, which annoyed me somewhat, as I’d done a bit of that too in my time, in a modest way, but who hasn’t?

We chatted a little while longer and then we hung up, promising to talk again soon.

It was my turn to call and I rang him a couple of weeks later.

‘How’s it going, Louis? How are things with Terri?’

‘Oh, okay. Okay.’

‘Still seeing her?’

‘Oh yes. I go round once a week and help out at the bungalow and do a little decorating or whatever, and then stay for dinner and, you know – do the business.’

‘Do the business?’

‘You know, do the business.’

‘You’ve got such a poetic way with you, Louis.’