Free The Children Of Dynmouth by William Trevor Page A

standing in this house when his mother was dead. But the moment passed.
    In the rectory the twins sat at the kitchen table with their parents, all of them eating poached eggs.
    ‘Horrible,’ Susannah said.
    ‘I said horrible,’ Deborah said. ‘I said horrible when Mummy.’
    ‘I said horrible when Mummy.’
    ‘I looked round and saw Mummy. Soon’s Mummy’s in the room I said horrible. You weren’t even looking, Deborah.’
    ‘When Mummy bringed the eggs I said horrible, Susannah.’
    ‘Mummy, Deborah’ll get dragons after her.’
    ‘Dragons and dragons and dragons and dragons and –’
    ‘You eat up your egg, Susannah.’
    ‘Too tired, Mummy.’
    ‘Now, now,’ Quentin said, finishing his own egg.
    ‘Too tired, Daddy. Mouth too tired, Daddy. Terribly, terribly tired. Terribly, terribly, terribly.’ Susannah closed her eyes, clenching the eyelids tightly. Deborah closed hers also. They began to giggle.
    Lavinia felt weary. She snapped at her daughters, telling them not to be tiresome.
    ‘Supper,’ Mrs Abigail announced in Number Eleven High Park Avenue, entering the sitting-room and discovering that Timothy had taken no notice whatsoever of her request about the sherry. He’d put his zipped jacket on again and was sitting on the sofa on one side of the electric fire. Gordon was in his usual armchair, on the other. The curtains were drawn, the fire threw out a powerful heat. Only a table-lamp burned, its weak bulb not up to the task of fully illuminating the room. The effect of this half-gloom was cosy.
    ‘Oh, time for another.’ Commander Abigail gave a brief little laugh, expertly aiming the sherry decanter at Timothy’s glass and speaking to his wife as he did so. ‘Sherry, dear girl? Take a pew, why don’t you?’
    She stood by the door, one foot in the hall, the other on the patterned sitting-room carpet. ‘Don’t mind if I do, sir,’ she heard Timothy saying after Gordon had refilled his glass, as though he had totally forgotten what she’d said to him. He even smiled at her through the gloom. ‘Yes, take a pew, Mrs Abigail,’ he even said, the words sounding foolish on his lips. The very sight of him was foolish, a child with a glass of Cyprus sherry in his hand, awkwardly holding it by the stem.
    ‘It’s just that it’ll all be overcooked,’ she said quietly, and her husband replied – as she knew he would – that they wouldn’t be more than another five minutes. She also knew that he’d enjoyed inviting her to take a pew in that casual way when everything was ready to eat. He gave the child sherry in order to irritate her. It was a pity he was like that, but it couldn’t be helped.
    She closed the door and returned to the kitchen. She turned on the wireless and washed up some dishes. Voices were chatting their way through a word game. An audience laughed noisily at what was being said, but Mrs Abigail didn’t find any of it funny. Quite a few times in their marriage it had been suggested that she didn’t possess a sense of humour.
    Mrs Abigail had married her husband because of his need of her and because, in her sympathy and compassion, she had felt affection for him. There was an emptiness in her marriage but she did not ever dwell on it. For thirty-six years he had been at the centre of her life. She had accepted him for better or for worse: in no way did she permit herself to believe that she was an unhappy woman.
    She ladled pieces of chicken and vegetables on to three plates and placed them in the oven. On the wireless the word game came to an end and a play began. By the time she’d strained the peas and scooped the mashed potatoes from the saucepan into a dish she heard her husband’s voice in the hall, talking about pride.
    ‘A certain pride,’ he repeated as he sat down at the dining-room table. He smoothed the ginger of his small moustache with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand. ‘You were proud to be an Englishman, Timothy, once upon a