"Your trouble is," Arthur said as he lit his first cigarette of the day, "you never think... cough... splutter... of anything... choke... gasp... but... gasp... gasp... sex."
Nancy looked at him darkly as Arthur thumped his sternum with a closed fist.
"You're... oh God that's better... cough... cough... nothing like the first... gasp... one of the... choke... choke... day... You're trouble is you're a... cough... cough... nympho bloody maniac. You know... cough... hawk... hawk... I'm not... hawk... well."
"It's not surprising," Nancy replied disdainfully, "if I'm a nymphomaniac then you're a fagomaniac. Anyway I'm not a nymphomaniac; I just want a normal sex life."
Arthur seemed to have overcome his first cigarette of the day paroxysm and his breathing settled down to a steady wheeze.
"Eighty a day, that's all I smoke, you know that, and it's the only pleasure I've got... and anyway, what do you mean by a normal sex life?"
"Oh, never mind," sighed Nancy. They seemed to have had this discussion before.
She looked across the table at her twenty year fate and remembered when they had first met. Now balding and gaunt, back then Arthur had been dark haired, gleaming of eye, and constantly hard of penis. He had been perhaps a bit on the short side, and he was twelve years older than Nancy, but his potency seemed to make up for what he lacked in inches – inches related, that is, to his overall height and not his male ember which lacked nothing regarding measurement lengthwise.
Now, as that once mighty member hung slackly down his trouser leg, and his rheumy eyes stared down at his breakfast plate, he had to decide whether to eat or light up another cigarette.
The cigarette won.
It was strange, Nancy thought, Arthur couldn't leave her alone before they got married; then came the "false alarm," and marriage. Very quickly after that Arthur had gone off the boil – sexually speaking, especially when, having missed one menstrual period that led to the hurried wedding ceremony, Nancy got her next one in due time. At that point Arthur had seemed to be a trifle miffed.
What held them together now was on Nancy's side the joint ownership of the house, a life insurance policy taken out on Arthur's life, and some medical knowledge that the doctor had confided to her, but not to Arthur.
Arthur was suffering from emphysema and somehow she couldn't bring herself to "leave the poor sod."
"Aaaagh," Arthur was clearing his throat ready to make a pronouncement.
Wheezily he said, "Shouldn't be surprised if you're getting it with some of them young blokes at that college you go to."
"That's a horrible thing to say," protested Nancy. "I've never been unfaithful."
"No, I don't suppose they'd be interested in a woman your age," he sneered, "so you just go on... wheeze... wheeze... bothering me."
Nancy had heard this before and on the previous occasions she had not let it hurt her, but this time Arthur got through. Her fortieth birthday was due in a month, and like a lot of people of that age she was beginning to question her attractiveness to the opposite gender.
Actually her attendance at the college had to some extent affirmed her attractiveness, in that while it was not true that she had been "getting it" with some of the young male students, they at least seemed to take an interest in her.
Unlike Arthur she had retained something of her youthful good looks and if anything maturity had enhanced them, and like many women her age she was probably at her best, neither a foolish giggling girl nor an arthritic sufferer from dementia.
The "college" referred to was a sort of second chance place, where those who had failed or hadn't completed high school, could have another attempt. Nancy had been taking a few subjects there and this brought her into contact with young people. In fact the college had proved to be something of a lifeline for her; lifting her out of the gloom of Arthur's ambience and the perpetual smell of cigarette smoke.
She felt tears starting to flow and rising from the table she said, "That... that was a... a bloody cruel thing to say."
Arthur, realising how wounding he had been, tried to make amends, but another paroxysm of coughing held up speech and meanwhile Nancy left the room.
She was due at a nine o'clock English class, so she got together her things and without saying goodbye to Arthur, left the house.
Arthur, who had been unemployed for nine months, and although he hadn't yet faced up to it, he would ever work again. He sat on eating his breakfast rapidly so he could get to the next cigarette.
He thought about his lot in life, and decided that he was lucky to have Nancy to cook and clean for him, and put up with the meagre income they got from his superannuation money – which was very little because he hadn't come anywhere near the designated retirement age of sixty five – and the bit they got as a top up from social services.
Feeling guilty for having made that crass remark about Nancy's age, he recalled his many "bits on the side" that Nancy had never known about - or at least he hoped she hadn't because she'd ever said anything. Anyway even his philandering had slowed and then stopped since he started to suffer from what he told himself was bronchitis.
Such is our human ability to deceive ourselves that Arthur had come to believe that he was suffering from some form of permanent of bronchitis. Such doctors and specialists as he had seen quickly noted that Arthur was not the sort of man you put things to in plain terms, so any documentation he was likely to see was couched in esoteric medical jargon.
It was only the local GP who had warned Nancy that Arthur was incurably sick. In giving her this information he had laid upon her yet another burden plus feelings of guilt if she ever thought of leaving Arthur.
The English class cheered her up a little. But afterwards, having no other classes for that day, the memory of Arthur's words came back to her. Not wanting to go home she wandered across the college sports field to where a high bank divided it from the river.
She sat on the top of the bank and gloomily watched some ducks and coots go about their food scavenging.
Normally Nancy could remain stoical in the face of adversity, but for some reason she felt unusually fragile that day and Arthur's thoughtless remark had got through to her.
"Perhaps," she thought, "I was cruel to him. I threatened him... his manhood... but... "
She recalled her words, almost casually spoken, "I wish we still made love."
"But then," she thought, "we haven't made love for... " She realised she couldn't remember the last time, and anyway they had slept in separate beds and then separate rooms because Arthur's constant coughing and hawking kept her awake at night. How long ago was it since she moved into a separate room; three years... perhaps a little longer, but even before that... "
She felt she should not have said it. "It's not his fault he can't get it up." For the moment she felt sorry for Arthur, and failed to remember that even before she had left the connubial bed Arthur's penis had been a rare visitor to her vagina.
As Arthur wouldn't face the truth about his sickness, so Nancy had not faced a probable reason for Arthur's early neglect of her; and if from time to time she had thought Arthur was going elsewhere for his sexual fun, she had dismissed the idea.
Such is our ability to delude ourselves.
Now, as she sat on the river bank she felt the weight of those years, from when as a happy eighteen year old bride, and apparently pregnant, she had joyfully if hurriedly, married Arthur. Now when she was teetering on the edge of middle age, Arthur was on a downhill run that had no chance of turning upwards, short of a miracle.
She started to sob and the tears flowed.
"Hi Nancy."
It was Cynthia, another mature age student that Nancy had got to know.
"What are you doing out here on your own, why... hey, what's the matter, get a bad mark for your essay?"
"No," gulped Nancy.
"Then why the tears?"
"Oh, its just everything; I feel... feel... oh... I don't know, its all so... so bloody depressing."
"Everything?"
Nancy managed a weepy smile and said, "It's just me, I feel so old and ugly... so... so... it's all pointless."
"Now stop that Nancy, and tell Aunty Cynthia all about it."
