Conversation

with the dawn a grey chill came into the room. He reached for the bottle and she suddenly burst out: “I used to like your hands but I’ve changed my mind. They’re the hands of a clerk.”

He replied, trying to be cruel, “You have the hands of a plumber.”

Her head jerked, as if he had struck her, but she laughed. She clapped her workman’s hands, full of scratches, the nails chipped and rimmed with black, and she snorted with delight.