Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

“That’s the way it is,” said Doug, “and anybody who says it isn’t is a liar. Hands up anyone who has made love to his wife within — let’s take a low figure — the last month.”

No hands went up.

“Okay,” Doug said, “so don’t let’s have any more of this Ann Summers crap.”

Bill said suddenly, “How old is your wife, Doug?”

Doug sat up. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” he said.

Bill shrugged. “Nothing,” he said, “just interested, that’s all.”

Doug seemed to decide that there was no trap in the question and subsided.

“Thirty-two,” he said.

Bill turned to me. “Tom?” he said.

I thought about it, and took a low figure. “Caro’s thirty,” I said. “She’ll be thirty-one in October.”

Harry said musingly, “Tricia’s twenty-nine.”

Bill nodded. “About the same age as Melanie,” he said. He pushed his glasses up on that pudgy little nose and sipped his brandy. His face had taken on a sort of inward-turned look, as if he were doing some sort of calculation. Very gifted for that sort of thing, was our Bill. At sixteen he’d been a sort of infant prodigy, creating a revolutionary kind of video game on the cutting-edge computer his parents had given him for his fifteenth. At eighteen he’d been hired by one of the software monsters, but he found that too restricting, left to found his own software shop. He’d invented some sort of digital doohickey that all the world fell over themselves to buy, he’d sold the licences, and at thirty he had been on the way to being rich. Since then he had consolidated things, regularly turned out new software products, and taken on a lot of staff. He’d told me recently that he was on the verge of some sort of giant breakthrough. He’d explained what it was, but I didn’t understand it. I believed him, but I didn’t understand it.

So, four rather pudgy men in our forties, we sat and thought for a bit. I don’t know what we thought about exactly, perhaps about the fact that we were all at least fifteen years older than our wives, and why was that?

I suppose we had all put it off for too long, the getting married, the settling down and founding a dynasty business. Too busy, too intent even to think about it. I knew I was leaving it too long, but when you’re climbing up the dealership ladder, you’re pretty preoccupied. By the time I had the two BMW franchises, it was pretty late. I know most men manage to do it, but there we were, presented for your inspection, four men who had reached the age of forty or thereabouts, looked around, and realised, Hey, aren’t I supposed to be married? Isn’t that how it goes? And so we all had. And with enough money to attract the right sort of female we had all married, not trophy wives — I’m not saying that — but the sort of woman who is beautiful, knows it, and demands and needs exactly the right sort of expensive setting to flourish in. The sort of setting that men like us were willing and ready to provide.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that we didn’t love our wives. Far from it. I knew for a fact that Doug took on Mrs. Evans so that Suzanne would never have to lift a finger; Harry took Tricia to the south of France every year, or sent her, rather, since he found it difficult to leave the trading floor, especially in those rocky times; Bill gave Melanie free rein at Harrods; and for her last birthday, I had given Caroline the Japanese cabriolet she’d been pining after for so long. So you couldn’t say we didn’t love them, could you?

No, you couldn’t say that.

Bill

Bill said, “It’s probably just a sort of hen party.” Bill died, too, the little software nerd. Just nine weeks after Harry, as it happened. Melanie came home one night after a girls’ night out with the other wives and found him in the bathroom. Evidently he’d slipped on the soap and cracked his skull on the side of the bath. That hadn’t killed him outright, but he’d fallen facedown in the bath and drowned in nine inches of water.

Harry said suddenly, “I hate hens. And chickens.”

We all looked at him, then.

He looked back at us. “Well, I do,” he said defensively. “I hate them. I hate the way they walk around not really looking at anything. You ever looked into a chicken’s eyes?”

“Not for any length of time,” said Bill. No one laughed.

“Empty,” said Harry, “absolutely empty. No feeling, no sense. They just stalk around.” He got up and started to walk around us with that weird, hesitant walk that chickens have. He was making that soft, crooning noise that they make.

“And every so often,” Harry said, “they spot something, and they look at it.” He jerked his head and looked sideways at the ground. “Like that.”

We had to laugh, because even in his chinos and polo shirt, Harry did look like a hen, and that sudden darting sideways look was exactly like a hen’s.