Free The Lemon Table by Julian Barnes Page B

saving money. Well, that was true. The pension didn’t stretch as far as it had at first. He’d long ago given up his subscription to the club. Apart from the annual regimental dinner, he only needed to go up to town if his gnashers went wrong and he didn’t trust the local vet to fix them. Made far more sense to stay in a b-and-b near the station. If you had the full works for breakfast, managed to play your cards right and sneak an extra sausage, you were set up for the day. Same again on the Friday and that would get you through till you got home. Back to base. Reporting for duty, all salad spinners present and correct, Ma’am .
    No, he wouldn’t think of that yet. This was his annual leave. His two days of furlough. He’d had his hair cut as per. Had the blazer cleaned as per. He was an orderly man, with orderly expectations and pleasures. Even if those pleasures were not as strong as they once had been. Different, let’s say. As you got older, your head for the sauce wasn’t what it used to be. You couldn’t tie one on like in the old days. So you drank less, enjoyed it more, and ended up just as newted and owly as before. Well, that was the principle. Didn’t always work, of course. And the same with Babs. How he remembered that first go-round, all those years ago. Surprising he did, given his condition at the time. And that was another thing, being newted and owly didn’t seem to make any difference to the honourable member then. Three times. You old dog, Jacko. Once to say hullo; once the real business; then once more for the road. Well, why else did they sell rubber johnnies in packets of three? A week’s supply for some chaps, no doubt, but when you’d been saving it up as he had …
    True, he could no longer tie one on like he used to. And the honourable member wasn’t up to the three-card trick anymore. Once was probably quite enough if you had your senior citizen’s railcard. Wouldn’t do to strain the ticker. And the idea of Pamela having to face something like that … No, he had no intention of straining the ticker. The ceremonial sword in its scabbard, and just a half-bottle of champagne between the two of them. They used to get through a whole bottle in the old days. Three glasses each, one for each go-round. Now it was just a half—something on special offer from that Thresher’s near the station—and they often didn’t finish it. Babs got heartburn easily and he didn’t want to be too kiboshed for the regimental dinner. Mostly they talked. Sometimes they slept.
    He didn’t blame Pamela. Some women just went off it after the change. Simple matter of biology, nobody’s fault. Just a question of female wiring. You set up a system, the system produces what it’s designed for—namely, sprog manufacture, witness Jennifer and Mike—and then shuts itself down. Old Mother Nature stops lubricating the parts. No surprise, given that Old Mother Nature is decidedly of the female persuasion. No one’s to blame. So he wasn’t to blame either. All he was doing was making sure his machinery was still in working order. Old Father Nature still lubricating the parts. A matter of hygiene, really.
    Yes, that was right. He was straight with himself about it. No weasel words. Couldn’t exactly discuss it with Pam, but as long as you could look yourself full in the shaving mirror. He wondered if those chaps he’d sat opposite at the dinner a couple of years ago could do that. The way they’d talked. A lot of the old mess rules had gone, of course, or were just ignored, and those little turkey-cocks had been pretty much rat-faced by the start of the dinner and had started maligning the fair sex before the port was passed. He’d have put them on a charge himself. The regiment had taken on a few too many clever-dicks lately, in his opinion. So he’d had to listen to the three of them holding forth as if the wisdom of the ages was at their beck and call. “Marriage is a question of what you can get