Free The Lemon Table by Julian Barnes

quick,” said Merrill.
    “I saw Steve the other day.”
    “And?”
    “Not good.”
    “It’s heart, isn’t it?”
    “And he’s far too overweight.”
    “Never a good idea.”
    “Do you think there’s a connection between the heart and the heart?”
    Merrill gave a smiling shake of the head. She was such a funny little thing, Janice. You never knew which way she would jump. “I’m not with you there, Janice.”
    “Oh, do you think you can get a heart attack from being in love?”
    “I don’t know.” She gave it some thought. “I know something else you can get a heart attack from though.” Janice looked puzzled. “Nelson Rockefeller.”
    “What’s he got to do with it?”
    “That’s how he died.”
    “What’s how he died?”
    “They said he was working late on an art book. Well, I never believed that for a minute.” She waited until it was certain Janice had got the point.
    “The things you know, Merrill.” And the things I know too.
    “Yes, the things I know.”
    Janice pushed her breakfast away to make room for her elbows. Half a bowl of granola and a round of toast. Two cups of tea. Liquids went through her so fast nowadays. She looked across at Merrill, at her beaky face and flat, unconvincing hair. She was a friend. And because she was a friend, Janice would protect her from what she knew about that awful husband of hers. It was just as well they had met only as widows; Bill would have loathed Tom.
    Yes, she was a friend. And yet … Was it more that she was an ally? Like it had been back at the beginning. When you were a child, you thought you had friends, but in fact you only had allies—people on your side who would see you through until you were grown up. Then—in her case—they fell away, and there was being grown up, and Bill, and the children, and the children leaving, and Bill dying. And then? Then you needed allies again, people to see you through until the end. Allies who remembered Munich, who remembered the old films, which were still the best, even if you tried to like the new ones. Allies who helped you understand a tax form and open little pots of jam. Allies who worried just as much about money, even if you suspected that some of them had more of it than they let on.
    “Did you hear,” Merrill said, “that Stanhope’s deposit has doubled?”
    “No, what is it now?”
    “A thousand a year. Up from five hundred.”
    “Well, it’s certainly nice. But the rooms are very small.”
    “They’re small everywhere.”
    “And I shall need two bedrooms. I’ve got to have two bedrooms.”
    “Everyone needs two bedrooms.”
    “The rooms at Norton are big. And it’s downtown.”
    “But the other people are boring, I’ve heard.”
    “Me too.”
    “I don’t like Wallingford.”
    “I don’t like Wallingford either.”
    “It may have to be Stanhope.”
    “If they double the deposit like that you can’t be sure they won’t double the charges just after you move in.”
    “They’ve got a good scheme where Steve is. They ask you to post a notice saying what you can do to help—like if you can drive someone to hospital or fix up a shelf or know about IRS forms.”
    “That’s a good idea.”
    “As long as it doesn’t make you too reliant on others.”
    “That’s a bad idea.”
    “I don’t like Wallingford.”
    “I don’t like Wallingford.”
    They looked at one another harmoniously.
    “Waiter, would you divide this check?”
    “Oh, we can divide it ourselves, Merrill.”
    “But I had the egg.”
    “Oh, stuff and nonsense.” Janice held out a ten-dollar bill. “Will that do it?”
    “Well, it’s twelve if we’re sharing.”
    Typical Merrill. Typical bloody Merrill. With the money the campus groper left her. A thousand dollars a year just to stay on the waiting list is small change to her. And she had the juice as well as the egg. But Janice merely unsnapped her purse, took out two dollar bills, and said, “Yes, we’re sharing.”

Hygiene

R ight,