In the ankle department

: I still after more than four months wore a brace, though now of removable aluminum and strapping, not plaster. No one would promise I'd be able to ski on the final outcome and meanwhile all but the shortest journeys required sticks. I had tired of hopping up and down my Hampstead stairs, on my return there, to the extent of renting an apartment of my own with an elevator to take me aloft and a garage in the basement, and I reckoned life had basically become reasonable again on the day I drove out of there in my car: automatic gear change, no work for the left foot, perfect.
A day or two before he was due to go into hospital for his check-up mentioned in passing that Judith was coming to collect him from the bank after work to go with him to the hospital, where he would be spending the night so as to be rested for the whole day of tests on Friday.
She would collect him again on Friday evening and they would go home together, and he would have the weekend to rest in before he returned to the office on Monday.
I'll be glad when it's over, he said frankly. I hate all the needles and the pulling and pushing about.
When Judith has settled you in, would she like me to give her some dinner before she goes home? I said.
He looked across with interest, the idea taking root. I should think she would love it. I'll ask her.
He returned the next day saying Judith was pleased, and we arranged between us that when she left him in the hospital she would come to join me in a convenient restaurant that we all knew well: and on the following day, Thursday, the plan was duly carried out.
She came with a glowing face, eyes sparkling, white teeth gleaming; wearing a blue full-skirted dress and shoes with high heels.
is fine, apart from grumbling about tomorrow, she reported, and they gave him almost no supper, to his disgust. He says to think of him during our filet steaks.
I doubt if we did. I don't remember what we ate. The feast was there before me on the other side of the small table, Judith looking beautiful and telling me nonsensical things like what happens to a blase refrigerator when you pull its plug out.
What, then?
It loses its cool.
I laughed at the stupidity of it and brimmed over with the intoxication of having her there to myself, and I wished she was my own wife so fiercely that my muscles ached.
You'll be going to Australia . . .I said.
Australia? She hesitated. We leave in three weeks.
So soon.
's sixty the week after next, she said. You know he is. There's the party.
Henry, Val and I had clubbed together to give a small sending-off in the office after his last day's work, an affair to which most of Banking's managers and their wives had been invited.
I hate him going, I said.
To Australia?
From the bank.