Standing on the front stoop, Aimée chatted with Rennie about nothing in particular: a card he had noticed, on the hall table, for an upcoming art exhibit; his daughters; Pierrot; the cold April light. She watched as he crossed the street, unlocked his car door and drove away.
Back inside, she appraised the empty living room. It was, she concluded, too quiet and dim. She plumped the pillows on the sofa, rearranged the lilacs in one of the cut glass vases and shifted the heavy canterbury—on which Rennie had left (intentionally? she’d have to call him) a worn leather-bound book of music—to the corner of the room. Then she sat down, buffeted by a sudden updraft of…what? dissatisfaction? hopelessless? something more like vanity or futility (she had wondered, fleetingly, on noticing a slight brown tinge to the frill of the convallaria, why she bothered at all). And now sadness—remote yet familiar—settled mote by mote, like a fine dust, on her consciousness. Aimée looked around. What had Larkin written?
Books; china; a life
Reprehensibly perfect.
Was that it? Her fingers brushed some crumbs from the little celadon saucer onto the polished tray. She was pleased to see, anyway, that the petit fours were gone. She hoped that Rennie had liked them.
