The Paua Tower by Coral Atkinson

did, the dialogue of anger could be supplemented with the peremptory way dishes were handled, meat carved (Roland) or custard poured (Lal).
    This argument was ostensibly over Roland’s French lessons but, though Roland didn’t know it, the origins lay much earlier in the morning. Lal had opened her eyes to the new day, checked there was no bleeding in the night, touched her husband’s pyjama-clad arm and said: ‘I’m three days late, Roly, and I feel kind ofstrange. I think maybe — you know. Wouldn’t it be wonderful?’
    ‘What?’ Roland had said, opening his eyes.
    ‘I think I might be.’ Lal rolled across the bed to face him.
    ‘Oh, that,’ said Roland, who had heard similar pronouncements on numerous occasions and every time Lal’s conviction of pregnancy had been proved wrong.
    ‘You don’t sound as if you’re very pleased,’ said Lal, removing her hand.
    ‘No point getting all excited when you don’t know. It just makes for disappointment,’ said Roland, shutting his eyes again.
    ‘You don’t think I am,’ said Lal, sitting up in the bed and pulling the eiderdown off Roland’s side as she did so.
    ‘Didn’t say what I thought,’ said Roland, pawing the cover back.
    ‘It’s pretty obvious,’ snapped Lal.
    ‘We’ve been through this before,’ said Roland, scrunching a pillow behind his head.
    ‘But I feel different this time.’
    ‘You always say that.’
    ‘No I don’t.’
    Roland had spent the morning in the vicarage garden, snapping the dead heads off the roses, trimming the cotoneaster hedge. He knew he should be preparing his sermon but the warm air and bright sky kept him outside. He had arranged to have his first French lesson with Amélie Baldwin on Monday afternoon and still hadn’t told his wife.
    ‘Think I need a bit of something new,’ he said to Lal as he cut into a sausage at lunch.
    ‘New?’ Lal lowered her fork.
    ‘Yes, feel a bit stale, need to keep the old brain working.’
    ‘I thought the boys’ club you were suggesting would keep you occupied. Fit, too, if you start coaching a rugby team.’
    ‘Thought I might take up French again.’
    ‘You want to learn French? Whatever for?’ said Lal, the water jug in her hand.
    ‘I just do,’ said Roland.
    ‘And who’s going to teach you?’ said Lal, putting the jug down without filling her glass.
    ‘Mrs Baldwin, the bank manager’s wife. She’s French, you know.’
    ‘And you’re going to pay her?’
    ‘Something; it’d only be small.’
    ‘Really,’ said Lal, picking the jug up again.
    ‘Come on, Lal, what’s wrong with it?
    Lal sighed.
    ‘Tell me,’ insisted Roland, wiping his mouth with a napkin and adopting what he hoped was a look of full attention.
    ‘Where do you want me to start? We’ve little enough ourselves — we can only have a maid because the government helps pay Mavis, half the parish is out of work, almost starving …’ Lal stopped to put the water jug down again with an exaggerated bump. ‘And presumably you haven’t thought that there may be a child.’
    After lunch Roland sat at the table in his study playing with the bobbles that decorated the edge of the tablecloth. He knew Lal was furious, though, as ever, she had said little, just spooned up her queen pudding and helped Mavis clear the table without saying a word. When the maid had taken the tray out of the room Lal had said, ‘Go ahead. Have the lessons if they’re what you want. It will mean less money going somewhere else — to the poor probably. And I won’t be here this afternoon. I’ll be out sorting linen at the depot.’ Then she was gone, shutting the door with sufficient extra force to indicate anger, without resorting to a proper slam.
    Maybe Lal was right; maybe it was unreasonable to expect their limited resources to cover the two shillings Roland had agreed to pay, and if the money was going spare its rightful place, as Lal implied, was surely with the poor, not indulging some personal whim. Roland