Free The Island Walkers by John Bemrose

you all that shopping.”
    Even Gordie laughed. Alf saw him at the rear, grinning like a kid desperate to be one of the gang.
    Before he left with his party, Prince paid Alf a compliment that made Alf’s face burn. “This is the salt-of-the-earth sort,” the executive said, looking around at everyone, “that keeps a company going. Without the Alf Walkers, you might as well call it quits.” The tour had cost him an hour he could hardly afford, but he was cheerful enough about having to stay late. The future was suddenly looking awfully rosy. It was nearly eight before he left the mill and made his way along Bridge, stopping by the plate-glass windows of Bud Mackie’s Motors.
    In the showroom, a navy-blue Impala rotated slowly. One door was open, revealing the instrument panel, seats swathed in creamy leather. And what clean lines the car had, compared to his old Biscayne! Yes, fins were definitely out — even the snug, horizontal fins of his Biscayne seemed clumsy and old-fashioned now. He gazed at the flawless, flowing surfaces: the deep-blue panels disappearing and reappearing endlessly, as in a dream.

6

    “ I SUPPOSE HE’S ALWAYS buttering people up like that. Saves having to pay them more.”
    “Don’t be so modest,” Margaret told him. “You deserve it, Alf.”
    She was sitting opposite him, while he shook HP Sauce on his dry chop and tried to suppress the tide of his excitement. He hadn’t meant to tell her about Prince’s compliment, he felt too much like a schoolboy bringing home news of some minor triumph, but it had just popped out.
    Through the screens came the distant cries of children at play in the park across the river. Backlit by late sun, Margaret was sitting forward in her chair, with her elbows on the table, her forearms crossed, her hands spread on her shoulders in a way that made her seem young, eager.
    “I’ll be happier when I see it lead to something definite.”
    “I don’t know why it wouldn’t —”
    “It all depends whether Prince remembers me. I mean, when they get around to deciding on the job. If he has anything to do with it at all —”
    “Honestly, love, I should think you’d get it with or without his help. If they want the best —”
    He frowned at his plate — it seemed to be tempting fate, to be talking like this — but he was pleased at her support. How long had it been since she’d looked at him as if he were her beau again, his head full of plans? He kept frowning, but he was irrepressibly buoyant. When he’d finished eating, he went out to the garden. Dusk had sifted from the opaque, shadowy mass of Lookout Hill. The sharp, earthy scent of tomato was in the air. He cupped his hand under one of the great lobed beefsteaks, hefting its coolness, and to his surprise it released itself into his palm.
    Later, in bed, he sat listening to the thin cry of his wife’s zipper from the walk-in closet where she undressed. Slipping from under the covers, he crossed the floor and peered around the door. She was just bending to step out of her half-slip. He gazed at her wide upper back, cut by the stark white statement of her bra.
    “Would you like a cuddle?” It was their word for making love. They had not made love for weeks, there hadn’t seemed time or energy for it, the feeling.
    She hesitated, and he seemed to hover over an emptiness. The worst of it was, he felt he was asking her for his reward, for bringing her good news.
    “Well I was counting on it,” she said, giving him a smile over her bare shoulder. He wasn’t sure he believed her. But he crept back to bed, satisfied enough.
    He waited for her under the sheet, already hard, waited as she went down the hall to the bathroom, waited as she turned on the taps and flushed the toilet and squatted to put in her diaphragm with a sound of cracking knees, waited as she came back up the hall, detouring to check on Jamie and Penny, waited as she closed the door and slipped out of her dressing gown in the dimness