Despite the Angels - By Madeline A Stringer Page 0,121

you.” Kathleen’s speech was very slightly slurred and David looked at her more closely.

“Have you been drinking again?”

“There you go again. Nothing I say is valid. Always blamed on drink, or PMT, or something. Never on you. Bollocks.” She sat down and rested her head on her hand, staring at him angrily. David looked back at her, partly glad that the girls were away at a friend’s house, but mostly wishing they were here, to defuse Kathleen’s wrath. Maybe she wouldn’t be drunk if they had been here.

“What have I done to upset you, Kay?”

“Still the same. No change. Still argue about everything I want. Never come home and offer that we’ll go away somewhere, I always have to ask.”

“How could I offer? When would I get the chance? You’re nagging at me about it all the time.”

“Well, if you suggested it first, it would be nice.”

“I’d have to suggest on the second day of a holiday that we’d go somewhere else. That’s when you start nagging.”

“That’s a lie. I love our holidays. Why else would I want to go?”

David reached for the ketchup. “I don’t know why you want to go, love. I know you love it the first day. I’ve said that before, I love you the first days. Then you change back and push me away.”

“I told you, years ago, no vasectomy, no touch.”

“Not that again? You seemed to get over that idea, actually, you were quite friendly for a few months after that,” David reached out for Kathleen’s hand. “Let’s try to recreate that. How did we do it?”

“Haliken did it, David,” said Jotin, “we needed you off that hook and he pulled out the stops, got Kathleen to feel more sexy. Couldn’t keep it up, though, sorry.”

“I don’t remember how I felt. I only know you are always on at me.”

“Oh, Kay,” David sighed, “I don’t think expecting to make love to your wife is abnormal, you know. I think most men do it.”

“Maybe they’ve all done what their wives asked.”

“You’re not trying to tell me you think every other man out there has had an operation?”

“Sandra’s husband has,” Kathleen sniffed, “so she feels respected. Not just used.”

David stared at her. His friend Ken had been home this summer and had confessed that he had had ‘the snip’ as he called it. But he had five children, so he had to ‘do something drastic’, as he had said. His wife had had to have a section for her last delivery, twins who had been lying the wrong way. “And we only have to look at each other, and she’s pregnant,” he had boasted. “You’re lucky, just the one set of twins, and then freedom!” David thought back over all this and wondered if Ken had done it as a gesture of respect to his wife. Seemed a bit cold. The way he had nudged David and winked didn’t seem cold at all. Quite the opposite. Kathleen’s angry voice called him back to the present.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“I’m sorry, I was thinking. Ken had a vasectomy.”

“First good thing I’ve heard about Ken, then. He has some sense.” She got up and went over to the counter, where a heap of papers languished, waiting to be dealt with. She rummaged through them and pulled out a coloured leaflet, which she slapped down on the table in front of David. He picked it up. ‘Family Planning Services’, it was headed, and then, ‘Vasectomy’. He read through it and looked at Kathleen again, his fish growing cold on the plate between them.

“Why now, Kay? You haven’t mentioned this for ages. Are you feeling like being cuddlier for some reason?”

“You want me in that way. That’s the deal. Or no more at all.”

“Not even on holidays?” David tried to keep the mood light, but found he was struggling.

“Not even then.”

“Oh, Kay. You don’t leave me much choice, do you?”

“Yes. You always have choices, Davy. Leave her. For goodness sake, you’d get more sex if you did! We’ll watch you, keep you safe till Lucy leaves Martin. Once little Aisling is a bit bigger, once Martin has finished his course, we reckon she’ll see sense and run. Come on, no operations now. Dawn is waiting for you to be ready for her.”

David sat woodenly and stared ahead of him. He couldn’t work out why this suggestion bothered him so much.

“My fault. I’m saying too much. NO VASECTOMY! Leave her!”

“I’ll leave the choice to you, Kay.” Jotin screeched