Free The Man in the Shed by Lloyd Jones Page A

Only in the photograph did Mr Simpson notice the woman’s bad teeth. She was laughing and he could see the black pits of her teeth and the swollen gums.
    Here were people—men and women the Simpsons’ age—laughing and crying. There was a jokester among them—a man with a shaven head and twinkling blue eyes who every so often rose out of his seat and shouted something that cracked everyone up at the Simpsons’ end of the bus. To the front of the bus were younger faces—young men and women—and Mr Simpson wondered if they were relations, perhaps even the offspring of marriages forged in newly adopted countries.
    Mr Simpson looked at his watch, as was his custom before turning off the bedside light. It was ten o’clock when he sealed his face with a smile and closed his eyes. He never really managed to fall asleep. The bus rocked and on corners pitched him sideways. When next he opened his eyes the lights in the bus were out. It was quiet. Maggie was sitting upright, wide awake but lost in thought. Mr Simpson had to shake her arm to make her aware that he was no longer asleep. He said hewould like a peppermint. Maggie felt around in a bag for the peppermints. The rustling of the peppermint bag was unreasonably loud, like in a picture theatre, and Mr Simpson was suddenly aware of the other noises.
    Across the aisle in the tight confines of their seat, Andrei and Lenka rested awkwardly in each other’s arms. Towards the back of the bus, in the aisle, a man lay on top of a woman who still had her shoes on.
    Once, many years ago, Mr Simpson and Maggie had made love on the floor of a bach—and an hour later sat in the same spot with the Ralstons eating a ham salad.
    Mr Simpson took a peppermint from his wife, and popped it in his mouth. He noted Maggie’s restlessness, a certain look that overtook her face when he occasionally breached a rule of etiquette, and wondered if it was the noise of him sucking the peppermint. Then she whispered, ‘Have you noticed?’ Yes, he nodded. He had noticed. ‘Those poor people,’ she whispered. She felt that they should give up their seat.
    ‘For the time being. We can do that at least,’ she said, and she gave a slight nod for Mr Simpson to check the aisle behind.
    Two couples were embracing. Mr Simpson reached across to the nearest pair and tapped the man on the trouser leg. The man lifted his foot and shook his leg, and went on kissing the woman. This time Mr Simpson pulled on the man’s coat, and was more successful.
    A man with grey sideburns and crew-cut turned around. He was perhaps a few years Mr Simpson’s junior, but he hadheld and continued to hold his woman like a teenager, both hands around her waist, her crotch pulled in against his own. Mr Simpson might have thought of the time he switched on a light to surprise his daughter with Grant Wicks. But there was no such terror in the eyes of the Russian man—not even surprise. More a patient kind of curiosity. But the woman understood before he did and gave a big smile and a push when she saw Mr Simpson and his wife stand up from their seat.
    The Russian man clasped Mr Simpson by the shoulders and nodded formally. Mr Simpson gave the man a pat on the shoulder. Maggie was smiling happily. She felt proud; and Mr Simpson knew that part of that pride was for himself. He knew he had done something that his wife would never have expected him to do.
    ‘Hold me,’ she said. Mr Simpson did what was asked of him. Mrs Simpson put her hands against his chest, to steady herself, and then rested her head there. They stayed like that for a few minutes; then his wife looked up. She wanted him to kiss her. Mr Simpson wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and cleared his throat, as if he was about to deliver a few words, and kissed his wife.
    ‘That was nice,’ she said, and put her head back against his chest.
    Mr Simpson was watching the Russian couple making love on their seat, and he was wondering what he and Maggie would