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with me…”
“Anthony, really. This is not necessary.”
He looked up at her. In this pose, the man cast back into the soft cushions of the settee,
the woman on her feet, looking down, they were in a bizarre parody of a proposal. He clutched at her
fingertips with fervor.
“Gerry…I meant everything I said. If I had married you back in the fifties I should have
been a very different sort of man. A better man.”
He is likely right, Gerry thought, looking down at their hands. Both wrinkled. His
trembling. For men rise or fall based entirely on what the women in their lives demand of them.
“I must go with you,” he said again. “Back to London. Bombay holds nothing for me
now.”
She shook her head. “You belong here, Anthony. You always did.”
Now he released her hand and struggled to his feet. “It is not too late,” he said, his
voice quavering, his eyes wild with fear. “Not too late at all. You could have saved me then, and you
might still save me now. Give me something to live for, my darling. Rehabilitate me, challenge me,
dangle a purpose in front of me so I might even yet find, at this late point, an incentive to stand and
walk.”
Good God, thought Geraldine, stepping back. Was he always like this? What a fool I
have been.
“Anthony,” she said firmly. “Do come to the door and compose yourself enough to bid
me a proper goodbye. I am 69 years old and only God knows how many years I have left or how they
shall play themselves out. But you must try to understand me when I say this. I expect more from my
life than the opportunity to be useful to a man.”