Free Expo 58: A Novel by Jonathan Coe Page A

before pudding had been served. As soon as she had gone, her brother proceeded to describe to his guests, in the most intrusively intimate detail, the nature of his invalid sister’s many ailments, which between them, he lamented, kept her more or less bedbound for most of the day. The tactless, bantering way in which he handled the subject had confirmed Thomas’s already growing dislike of his new acquaintance; a dislike further strengthened by the feeling that Sparks had spent much of the meal regarding his wife with what could only be described as a leer. Since then, all the same, he had kept up a reasonably polite front towards his neighbour. By nature, Thomas was not inclined towards antagonism. He would mutter a civil, ‘Morning, Sparks,’ if ever they passed in the street, and indulged him with the occasional idle chat across the back garden fence in sunny weather. None the less, he had not forgotten those hungry glances thrown in Sylvia’s direction over the dinner table.
    ‘Morning, Sparks,’ he said to him now. ‘How’s that poor sister of yours keeping?’
    ‘Oh, no better, no worse,’ Mr Sparks replied, with his accustomed breeziness. ‘Bed sores – that’s the latest thing. Big red ones. All over her b-t-m . I’ve been rubbing cream on them every day for the last two weeks.’
    Thomas stared at him. ‘Really,’ he said, as flatly as he could. He was acutely conscious that every customer in the crowded shop was being made privy to this dialogue, and felt that a swift change of subject was called for. ‘Still, you’re looking well, at least. No troubles of your own, on the health front, I assume?’
    ‘Spoken too soon,’ said Mr Sparks, shaking his head with a rueful smile. ‘Corns. I’m a martyr to them. It’s my feet, you see. The awkward size of my feet.’
    Thomas glanced down. There was nothing unusual about his neighbour’s feet, so far as he could see.
    ‘You astonish me,’ he remarked.
    ‘I’m a three-quarter size,’ Mr Sparks elaborated. ‘Eight and a halves are too small. Size nines are too big. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m a unique specimen.’ There was a note of quiet pride in this conclusion.
    ‘So they either rub, or pinch, I suppose,’ said Thomas, sympathetically.
    ‘They rub, or they pinch. Precisely. I’m caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.’
    ‘Can’t you get a pair made specially?’ Thomas asked – in response to which, Mr Sparks burst out laughing.
    ‘D’you think I’m made of money, old man? I couldn’t afford anything like that. Not possibly. Why, I can barely keep me and Judy going as it is. No, those little beauties’ – he pointed at a shelf behind the counter, where there was a pile of little boxes bearing the label Calloway’s Corn Cushions – ‘those are my only salvation.’ Suddenly it was Sparks’s turn to be served, and with a lamentable attempt at a flirtatious smile for the girl on Saturday-morning duty, he said: ‘A packet of Mr Calloway’s finest, please, my lovely. And another tube of that wretched ointment – for the relief of the tender nether quarters of the unfortunate Miss Sparks, if you would.’
    After this, to Thomas’s annoyance, Sparks waited for him outside the chemist’s shop, with the clear design of their walking back together. A further conversation was inevitable: Thomas managed to steer it gently away from Miss Sparks’s physical complaints and towards the less distasteful subject of football. Then, when they reached the gate of his own little front garden, a further misfortune presented itself: Sylvia was outside, trowelling the soil in their tiny flower bed, getting ready to plant a few rows of bulbs. She straightened up when she saw them, a hand on her aching back, and said: ‘Good morning, Mr Sparks. I put the kettle on only two minutes ago. Would you care to join us for a cup of tea?’
    Frowning, Thomas followed his wife and his neighbour indoors. He knew exactly what was