Open Writing

'Asked if he'd ever been to America, the poet Philip Larkin said no, he hadn't - and added that he hadn't been anywhere else, either.'

Trillott looked round the table. 'A delightful little tale, don't you think?'

Some eyes met his, others stared down at the plates in front of them.

'Now,' said Trillott's wife brightly, 'would anyone care for a second helping?
What about you, Garth? And you too, Adam? Graham? And -'

*
'For god's sake,’ she said later, 'they're only 10-year-olds from a housing estate and you talk to them about Philip Larkin, as if he crops up in their everyday chat.'

'Oh,' said Trillott, by now full of whisky, 'comme ci, comme chat.'

'And what's that supposed to mean?'

'Not a lot, I suppose.' Soon he was asleep in his armchair.

*
He was still asleep when she went out. 'He may be a travel writer,' she thought, 'but
he doesn't know his way around my mind.'

Ted Brundy was waiting for her in his flat. 'You look frazzled,' he said.

'I certainly am,' she said, 'but at least I know how to unfrazzle.'

'Yes,' he said, gazing, 'that is one of your special talents.'

'Naughty,' she said with a smile.
*
'Where've you been?' Trillott asked, waking up.
'Oh, I dropped in on Garth's mother.'
'And what did she have to say?'
'Not much.'

'I thought you might have been to see your old pal Brundy.'

'And what's that supposed to mean?'

'I mean the creep who's been bonking you for the past three months.'

'Actually, for the past three years,' she almost said.