Free The Man in the Shed by Lloyd Jones Page B

look like. He watched the heave of the man’s body—and the woman’s mouth open to catch bubbles of air. The expertise in the man’s limbs caused Mr Simpson to wonder ifhe would appear the same, and whether after such a long separation from Maggie he would be able to restrain the greed of his body, and how could one sustain the greed without the separation?
    Once he had thought about leaving Mrs Simpson. It was after the birth of their second child, and Mr Simpson had started to think about other women. It turned out to be a passing thing. And, of course, he had never told Maggie. Now he turned his thoughts to the young faces in the front of the bus. And as he watched he wondered which life the Russian man was thinking of, at that particular moment.
    All of a sudden the motion stopped. The man’s head fell to one side; the woman’s eyes opened and smiled at Mr Simpson. Maggie crouched down and scratched around in her bag until she found the bottle of Vitell. She poured a cup and handed it to the woman, who had to reach over the man’s shoulder to receive it.
    ‘Spasiba,’ she said.
    The man whispered something, and the woman said in hesitant English, ‘Thank you.’
    She kissed the man’s forehead and gently pushed him up, and as he reluctantly rose he pulled up his trousers, and the woman flicked her coat over her legs. She slapped the seat beside her, rose, and said something in Russian. The man agreed.
    ‘Yes,’ he said and, nodding at the Simpsons, gestured to the space left behind.
    Mrs Simpson laughed. ‘Oh no,’ she said. Then she smiledup at her husband. Mr Simpson rested a hand on his wife’s hip. The other couple moved away. The man patted Mr Simpson’s cheek with his hand. Mr and Mrs Simpson resumed their seat.
    ‘I feel so …’ she began to say, but Mr Simpson cut off the sentence with his lips. For a moment he wondered how things would appear in the morning and, back home, what he and Maggie would tell their friends. Then he felt inside his wife’s coat for her breast, and discovered the nipple ready.

where the harleys live
    A group of them had been swapping stories about their parents: about life growing up under other people. Harley had told a story about his father, the ritual surrounding the family car, and the way his mother had driven the old man everywhere. His father was a big man, in the physical sense, who wore buttoned-up cardigans. He hardly ever spoke, and sat with his hands folded in his lap, while his wife drove him to the Phillips plant, to the bowling club, and home from the RSA. On Friday evenings she would lead him up the path to the house, quietly guiding him at the elbow, and, despite the gallons of alcohol slurping around inside of him, there wasalways a terribly serious look on his father’s face.
    Easterman told how it had been necessary to lie to his elderly grandmother, and tell her he was marrying a Catholic. He had married a dental nurse, Karen. They married at Our Lady of Mercy. There is a photo on the Eastermans’ wall. Mark in his number ones, Karen in white, there they are smiling down at the crowd gathered on the steps of the church. Karen appears to be touchingly surprised by the crowd that has turned out. Easterman, on the other hand—you sense he is about to reach for his speech notes.
    It was later at that same party that Easterman drew Harley aside to tell how he had fallen for Mary-Anne Richmond. ‘Does she know?’ Harley asked—without intending the insult. The Richmonds he had known for years. Terry Richmond was in Japan to sew up a deal with a rubber-technology plant to bring in a hardwearing synthetic rubber. He ran a small factory further up the line, a large tin-roofed warehouse in a paddock, turning out shoe soles. As for Mary-Anne, she had a useful profile about town. She was always out and about, getting involved with things. She was someone you called when you needed someone to knock on doors. There was a time when she marched around the