Little Bits of Baby Read Online Free PDF Page B

and devote your expensive time to infants?’
    â€˜A little over seven years ago. Or is it eight now? Our son, Robin.’
    â€˜Oh Peter, I’m so sorry. How did he ..?’
    â€˜No, no. He didn’t die; he went to live in a monastery. At Whelm.’
    â€˜Good lord! That God-forsaken place. Though, of course, it can’t be God-forsaken. Not if it’s a … Sorry. Go on. How often do you go and see him?’
    â€˜Never. Well, Andrea has once, but I couldn’t face it. I prefer to remember him as he was. Andrea writes most of the letters, too. I think she rather wanted them to be her duty.’
    â€˜ Duty ?’
    â€˜Treat, then. She could go to see him there every six months, I think, but they prefer her to leave him alone and simply telephone. She talks to the man in charge. The Brother Superior, or whatever.’
    â€˜Abbot.’
    â€˜That’s it. When Robin gave up everything and went there, Andrea went to pieces rather. He’d already left home, really, by going to university, but this seemed so much more final.’
    â€˜Like a death, in fact?’ Marcus suggested.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Fascinating.’
    â€˜And suddenly it seemed wrong to be spending three quarters of my life away in an office full of people who weren’t my friends and never would be, so I left work – although I still have the odd dabble in the market to make ends meet – and we set up the kindergarten. Andrea had been teaching in nursery school for years already and knew the ropes. It got off the ground in no time. It seems that having a husband-wife team was the chief attraction, paternal roles being the fashionable thing then.’
    â€˜Though of course it was you who had done the going to pieces rather than Andrea.’
    â€˜No. I …’ Peter met Marcus’s smile and capitulated. ‘What makes you so sure?’
    â€˜Women strong enough to teach in nursery school for years don’t crack up.’
    â€˜She was very upset.’
    â€˜But not half as upset as you.’
    â€˜You’re the one that’s getting volunteer counselling.’
    â€˜Did I ask for it?’ Marcus held up withered hands. Peter laughed. ‘It’s only because patients without friends or family make them nervous, they find things tidier with visitors. Now. It’s time for you to keep your assignation with your young gentleman friend and we haven’t talked about me nearly enough. So. Business. I’ve been revising my will.’
    â€˜Why should that concern me?’
    â€˜No reason at all, my dear,’ Marcus assured him, eyebrows raised. ‘I won’t be leaving you anything – the pleasure of my company in my last months will have been reward enough – but I want you to be my executor.’
    â€˜I’m touched, but shouldn’t it be an old friend?’
    â€˜All my old friends are abroad and anyway they’re all too decrepit and sentimental or just too plain dead to be of any use. You’d do very well. It won’t involve much. I’m leaving everything to one or two people and besides, the capable Miss Birch will be handling all the money side of things, but you’re such a charmer you can make the necessary phone calls. I’m getting bored of this filthy view and all this lying around so I intend to be dead within the next two months, which doesn’t give you long to organise the concert.’
    â€˜What concert?’
    â€˜Listen, darling, and I’ll explain. I have vaguely Quakerish longings in me and I’ve set my heart on scrapping the whole funeral bit and having a concert of music and readings instead. So much kinder to my amour propre than all that stuff about dust and worms. Miss Birch will give you a list of people to contact. The musicians will all be paid handsomely, so none of them will say no, and the readers, well, I’ll organise the readers.’
    â€˜But, if it’s