Free Instances of the Number 3 by Salley Vickers Page B

to be punctual.’
    ‘Good heavens! A psychoanalyst!’ Bridget, who prided herself on being unsurprisable, was surprised.
    ‘No, my joke…’
    Bridget was relieved. She disliked anything of that sort—though the thought of a psychoanalyst sweeping chimneys was appealingly bizarre.
    ‘My joke—my daughter’s married a shrink—so I tease the son-in-law. Tell him she only married him because of her dad being like clockwork. A father complex, they call it!’
    ‘Do you think it’s true?’ Bridget was intrigued. She had read that the Irish were said to be unanalysable because they couldn’t distinguish external reality from their own unruly Celtic unconscious.
    ‘About Corrie having a father complex?’ asked the sweep. He was on his knees delicately fitting long wooden-handled brushes together. ‘This’ll be starlings’ nests.’
    ‘I meant psychoanalysis,’ said Bridget, embarrassed. ‘I wouldn’t be so rude as to ask about your relationship with your daughter.’ The sweep had nonplussed her—not at all common.
    Mr Godwit was lying on his back staring up the chimney. ‘Yup, starlings,’ he announced. ‘Little blighters. Be about half an hour doing this. All right for you?’
    Bridget made tea for them both and came and watched as the sweep turned and furled his brushes with a dexterous competence. ‘If you go outside you’ll see the brush head coming out the chimney. My dad used to ask me, “Can you see the starling, then, sitting on top?”’
    He seemed an unusually cheerful man and without the knack of being irritating which the perennially cheerful often have.
    ‘Godwit,’ she said over a second mug of tea, remembering how he had introduced himself, ‘Godwits are birds, aren’t they?’
    ‘Black-tailed, Bar-tailed—you get them round Pembrokeshire. Wonderful coastline for waders.’
    ‘I bought this house because of the rooks,’ said Bridget. It was the first time she had told anyone.
    ‘That’s lucky. Rooks won’t go where there’s bad feeling. They building yet?’
    They went outside. Bundles of nests made black raggedy marks in the elm trees against the sunlight. ‘I saw a charm of goldfinches last week,’ said Bridget, not noticing that she was showing off.
    ‘It’s famous for birds, Farings,’ said Mr Godwit. ‘Tell you what, if you like, next time I’m going to the coast I’ll take you down there with me birdwatching.’
    Bridget, who was unexpectedly pleased by this offer, had trouble finding her bag to pay him. In the end it was the sweep who found it, wedged behind a box of books. A red-leather-bound Shakespeare lay on the top.
    ‘You like to read then? That’s a tenner.’ For all his good humour he gave the impression of being a shy man. ‘Shouldn’t be surprised if she did have a father complex—my daughter. Called Cordelia, she is. The wife’s idea, not mine!’
    It was not until supper—cheese on toast by the fire—and listening to the radio that Bridget remembered that the clocks went forward that night. Marianne, a hypochondriacal woman who painted furniture, was supposed to be delivering some chests to the Fulham house because for reasons to do with her health—which she would always go into—she could not manage deliveries during shop hours.
    Bridget had asked Zahin if he could be at the house to take in the chests on the Sunday. ‘But of course. It will be the utmost pleasure, Mrs Hansome.’
    ‘Don’t exaggerate, Zahin,’ said Bridget, laughing.
    ‘O Mrs Hansome…’
    ‘All I need is to be sure you will be there. Marianne is a pain, if you want to know. If there is no one in she will just go off and then God alone in his mystery knows when I shall get the chests.’
    ‘Mrs Hansome, like the Lord Himself I will be there. You can rely on me!’
    But she hadn’t remembered to tell him about the changed hour.
    Bridget rang the London number and got the answerphone. Damn. She had no idea if Zahin listened to it. Probably he did, but better not