Undercurrent by Frances Fyfield Page A

across the dry moat for a soldier facing the inner keep, it would seem like a long way.

    What were they like, these ghosts? she had asked. Small and pale from living in the dark, he had told her. And angry. They think everyone is an enemy. Maybe they were prisoners here. A castle has many uses. But then Neil was a mixed man. He's not a man at all, Angela had said in her divorce petition. Not his fault, with diabetes and all, poor sod. He just can't get it up. Or only once in a blue moon.

    They ascended the steps back to the battlements on the far side and paused to look at the view.

    The lampposts on the pier were lit, ten pairs of them like benign sentinels, delineating the length of it. There was a slight mist, blurring the lights and making the glow from the caff blur at the edges.

    Saturday night was party night. Out to sea, Maggie watched the hazier, moving lights of a ferry on the horizon, passing far beyond the lightship. The effect was jaunty.
    'Doing something nice tonight, Neil?'

    He hesitated. Sometimes he was overwhelmingly talkative, a real confessor, but not consistently.
    On one day he had told her all about the ghosts in great detail, and then never mentioned them again. Or, he would talk about Angela and himself, sometimes with a fury of indignation which made her wonder about his uncertain temper. She only bloody well stayed with me so we could look like a pair and adopt . . . or, Poor cow, can't blame her, can I? Anyway, she helps me out here sometimes, and Tanya loves coming here. Knows it as well as I do. Can't complain, can I ?

    The frankness with which he revealed anything depended upon drink consumed, the place he was in, the weather conditions, the state of his incipient depression, not necessarily in that order.
    He could reveal more on a crowded street corner than in a closed room with the lights off, she would take a bet on that. The battlements were ideal; he felt free up here and it usually loosened his tongue.

    'Well, it could be a terrific evening. Could be a disaster.' 'A woman, then,' Maggie stated.
    'How did you guess? You psychic or something?'

    'Me? Get on with you. Obvious, isn't it? Nothing is the recipe for triumph or disaster except an evening out or an evening in, for that matter, with a woman.' She shrugged. 'Or a man, in my case. Same difference, same-'

    'No. It isn't the same. It never is the same for a man like me. You don't know what it's like. I can fancy a woman rotten; I can sense she fancies me, but I never know if I'm going to be able to do anything about it. Variable response, you know. Chaotic, unpredictable response, if you must know.

    Deeply unreliable and embarrassing, made worse by emotion, if you must know. The more I want, the less I can do. Erectile dysfunction, caused by diabetes. Try telling a woman about that the first time you kiss her.'
    'Difficult.'
    'Bloody impossible.'

    They stared out to sea in silence. The ferry twinkled out of sight. The lightship was turning, slowly.
    'Only I've been to the doctor,' Neil continued without prompting. She knew better than to prompt. 'Not for the first time, I can tell you. You've gotta go a dozen times to a dozen bloody quacks before you can find one who doesn't laugh. And then tell you to do something which doesn't hurt or make you sick. Thank God for a gay doctor. No sniggering.'

    'So what's he given you?'
    'Viagra. Only enough to experiment. What did you think?' 'I was asking, not thinking. This girl, does she know?' 'Know what?' Neil was defensive.
    'Know what she might be in for. . .'

    He shrugged. 'Not any more than I do, really. She told me the other day how she really likes the fact I'm such a gent, so sensitive and all that, but wasn't it time. . .? I'm hoping she's in for a roll in the hay with a normal bloke. That's all. And that,' he added, banging his fist against the wall so hard that he made himself wince, 'would be absolutely fucking terrific.'

    She smiled at him and took a small, unobtrusive