Free Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge

himself, he walked down the dark passage to the bathroom and locked the door. He looked at his watch and saw it was five minutes after ten o’clock. Helen would be home at eleven by the latest. He wished he hadn’t gone on to that Miriam woman about his garden; describing his wife sitting on a striped deckchair in the sunshine had made him feel uncomfortable, disloyal. There were things he hadn’t said. It wasn’t only his home-grown vegetables that gave him a sense of achievement; it was having Helen there to appreciate them that counted. Not in a million years would Binny tell him the peas were firm and sweet, and economical into the bargain.
    He drew the bolt on the outer door leading to the garden, and flung it wide. The rain bounced on the concrete yard below. Beyond the high wall rimmed with pieces of broken glass, there were cultivated lawns edged with trees; behind the sycamore leaves and the apple blossom, lights shone in the houses. He stepped gingerly on to the little wooden veranda and leant on the rail. The party wall was crumbling in places. The rambling rose in next door’s garden, old and fiercely stemmed, clung to the perished bricks and snaked in an impenetrable thicket along the top. He had tried to encourage Binny to see the possibilities of a town garden. It’s no good, she’d said. I can’t be bothered. He didn’t think he would have done very much himself, for all his talk – a few dwarf roses, a Climbing Caroline, some bulbs in spring. There wasn’t the scope for landscape gardening on a grand scale.
    He was startled at that moment by a loud knocking on the front door. He gripped the rail of the veranda tightly and stared down at the dark pit of the yard. Who in hell’s name could it be? He felt the beat of his heart accelerate wildly. The most dreadful coincidences leapt to his mind. Helen had driven someone home from her meeting, male or female, someone taken frightfully ill – no, not frightfully, they’d have called an ambulance, just unwell. This sick person happened to live in Fulton Street, and damn and blast she hadn’t wanted to go home straight away but had decided to visit a friend. That was it . . . this female was often taken ill and this friend of hers had the right sort of medicine. Even now, Helen was on the step supporting this god-awful invalid, and Binny was insisting that both of them should come inside . . .
    He looked desperately about the yard, searching for a way of escape. He couldn’t climb over the rambling rose; he’d be ripped to pieces. Nor could he manage to straddle the four foot of stout chicken wire that the neighbours on the other side had added to their wall to keep out Binny’s children.
    He strained his ears listening for voices at the door, footsteps up the hall. His hair was so plastered to his head with rain that drops ran down his cheeks like tears. The house was silent. After a while he relaxed, thinking he must have imagined the sounds. The city was never quiet at night, just as it was never entirely dark. He could see the glow of light that the streets beyond the houses threw up against the sky.
    He must break with Binny – the strain was becoming too much for him. He had enough to do as it was, answering phone calls, coping with clients, studying the latest changes in the tax laws. After a tiring day in the office and a visit to Binny in the evening, it was a miracle he didn’t drop dead from sheer exhaustion. Sometimes when he returned home, dark rings under the eyes and clothing sprinkled with cat hairs, his wife – allowing her cheek to be brushed by his lips – would suggest that he was doing too much.
    Binny had threatened to part with him often enough. Separated from her, he would be like a ship wrenched from its moorings; rudderless, he would be engulfed by enormous waves of grief. He’d have his heart torn out in the process. Binny said No, it wouldn’t be like that at all: more like a rowing boat rocking a bit when