Free Expo 58: A Novel by Jonathan Coe Page B

going on here: his imminent departure was weighing on Sylvia’s mind and, subconsciously, bestowing unnecessary attentions upon Mr Sparks was her way of punishing him for it. ‘I’m sure you like it strong and sweet, don’t you, Mr Sparks?’ she said, bringing the teapot in from the kitchen, and bending over him much too closely while she filled his cup. Sylvia had quickly regained her figure after giving birth, and even improved upon it: the breasts from which she fed the baby were fuller and more rounded than before, a fact which could scarcely escape Mr Sparks’s notice as he inclined himself slightly but eagerly towards her, his nose almost brushing the neckline of her dress, obviously breathing in her scent. ‘Milk and two lumps, please, Mrs Foley,’ he said hoarsely, looking up and holding the gaze of her hazel eyes for several moments too long. Thomas looked on with indignant surprise.
    ‘I must say, Foley’, Mr Sparks said, after Sylvia had returned to the kitchen to cut some slices of walnut cake, ‘that you’re a damned fool, if you want my honest opinion.’
    ‘Why so?’ Thomas asked, pretty sure that he wanted nothing of the sort.
    ‘Leaving the little woman all by herself while you swan off to Belgium, of all places. If I were you I wouldn’t leave her alone for more than ten minutes.’
    Thomas stirred his tea, masking his irritation.
    ‘I don’t quite see what you’re driving at, old man,’ he said.
    ‘Well, after all, six months is a deuce of a long time,’ said Mr Sparks. ‘Aren’t you worried that she’s going to miss you?’
    ‘How considerate of you to think it,’ said Sylvia, coming back with the cake. ‘But I believe that aspect of it hardly troubles Thomas at all.’
    ‘Well, I don’t think it at all gallant of him.’
    ‘I shall be coming back at weekends, you know,’ said Thomas. ‘Some weekends, at any rate.’
    ‘And I suppose there are such things as letters, and telephones.’
    ‘Of course there are. We shall maintain a passionate correspondence.’
    ‘All the same,’ said Mr Sparks, ‘there are some . . . routine little tasks that only a man can carry out. And I would just like you to know, Mrs Foley, that if you ever have any requirements in that direction, I am always at your disposal. Just one ring on the doorbell, and I shall come running.’
    ‘Why, Mr Sparks, whatever can you be suggesting?’ asked Sylvia, with a delighted smirk.
    Mr Sparks blushed to his roots. ‘Oh – I only meant,’ he mumbled, ‘that if you were to need a light bulb changing, or a shelf putting up, or anything in that line . . .’
    ‘I see,’ Sylvia replied, allowing herself the remains of a smile as she sipped her tea. ‘Well, that is very kind of you. What do you think, darling? Isn’t that a handsome offer of Mr Sparks’s?’
    Thomas gave her a glassy stare, and merely observed, after a few moments’ pause: ‘Sparks was telling me that he’s a martyr to corns, these days. Almost prostrated with them, he is. He was limping like nobody’s business on our way home.’
    If this remark was intended to dampen the sympathy that seemed to be developing by the minute between Sylvia and Mr Sparks, it actually had the opposite effect. Sylvia flashed him a look of sincere concern, and said: ‘That’s dreadful. Corns can be a terrible worry. My mother’s suffered for years. And her mother before her. It runs in the family.’
    ‘Does your mother use these?’ asked Mr Sparks, and produced his packet of corn cushions. ‘They stick over the affected area, you see, but with a hole in the middle, so that –’
    Thomas had heard enough. Letting out a contemptuous sigh, he took a large bite from his cake, and then went to answer the telephone as soon as it started ringing in the hallway. On his return he found that the medical demonstration had run its course, and Mr Sparks had, instead, resumed his campaign of promising devoted assistance to the abandoned bride.
    ‘You