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Hillman had a flat tire. Sydney took off his jacket so as not to soil it, and went to work with the jack and a wrench. Meanwhile, Alicia found a soft drink machine and came back with containers of sick-making orange pop. Sydney would have liked a bottle of lager after his exertions, but he couldn’t have gotten one, because it was eleven, and the pubs closed at 10:30 P.M.
    “Isn’t it good Mrs. Lilybanks didn’t come,” Alicia said, “with this flat. I wouldn’t have known what to do with her.”
    “Um-m.”
    They were taking off again, after Sydney had left half his container of pop standing up on the curb, because he could not see a rubbish can anywhere. Alicia was still sipping hers. They had rung Mrs. Lilybanks around six and asked her if she would like to go with them tonight, but she declined, saying she had had a hard day in the garden.
    “She’s got a gardener,” Sydney said. “She must be pretty delicate.”
    “Just a part-time gardener. Twice a week. Mr. Cocksedge from Brandeston.”
    “Cocksedge?” Sydney smiled. “What a name. Cock sedge or cock’s edge?”
    “Oh, Sydney, I don’t know.”
    And Alicia’s maiden name was Sneezum. Her whole name sounded like a sneeze, the inhaled suspense of Alicia, the confirmation of Sneezum! Sydney had used to tease her about her name and make them both laugh, using her name to sneeze by when he had to sneeze.
    “She told me she had a bad heart. She may not live another two years,” Alicia said in a tone of quiet respect, as if she spoke about a relative.
    Alicia had become very close to Mrs. Lilybanks during the painting sessions. They had both talked now and then in a quiet, absent way that had been curiously revealing, Alicia thought, and very good for her, at least. She had told Mrs. Lilybanks about Sydney’s difficulties with his work, his discouragement just now, and even hinted at her fears their marriage would not last. Mrs. Lilybanks had talked about habit, daily life leading to lasting love, and of the crucial second to fourth year in marriage. Mrs. Lilybanks said she had had something of the same feeling in her marriage, though her husband had been very successful as a naval engineer.
    “Not so nice for the daily. Coming in one afternoon and finding Mrs. Lilybanks dead in her chair,” Sydney said.
    “Oh, Sydney! How awful! What a thing to think about!”
    “It could happen. Couldn’t it? She’s alone most of the time. Why should you think she’d be so obliging as to kick off when the daily or somebody else is there? . . . She’ll probably die in bed, like my grandfather. Died in an afternoon nap. Certainly must’ve been peaceful, because no one in the house knew it until they tried to wake him up.”
    Alicia felt uncomfortable and vaguely annoyed, also. “Do we have to keep talking about dying?”
    “Sorry. I’m a plotter,” Sydney said, slowing down to avoid hitting a rabbit that was zigzagging all over the road. The rabbit ran off to the left, up a grassy bank. “I think of a lot of things.”
    Alicia said nothing, not wanting to prolong the conversation. It would happen, of course, probably while she and Sydney were still living in their house. Alicia’s eyes filled with tears—sentimental and dramatic tears, she thought reproachfully. She’d never be able to look at Mrs. Lilybanks again without thinking she might die any minute, and it was thanks to Sydney’s unnecessary remarks. “I wish you could put some of your plotting into your work where it belongs,” she said. “Some in your novel, for instance.”
    “I’m working on the damned novel. What do you think I’m doing?”
    “You’re working on the back part. Maybe it needs a plot all the way through. If you’re going to work on it for a while, why not try putting some plot in all the way through?”
    “And why not stick to your painting and let me do the writing?”
    “All right, but something’s the matter with The Planners , or it’d sell. Isn’t there?”