And in the March she said something to me that I did not understand and did not pursue.
She said: "How's Laurie getting on?"
Which is an ordinary sentence. Except that she said it with her hand on my arm and she said getting on, not keeping, and she waited about four seconds for an answer with her face doing something.
And I said: "Oh, you know. Working himself into the ground."
And she said: "Mm." And then she talked about the fair.
I have thought about that mm for a year.
That woman knew. Her husband had told her, obviously, because people tell their wives, which is the entire joke of it.
And she asked me at a school gate in the kindest way she could manage, and I gave her the complaint-with-a-flag-in-it, and she heard a woman who either did not know or did not want to, and she made the only decision available to her in about a second and a half, which was to talk about the fair.
