あらすじ
David stood naked in front of the full length bathroom mirror desperately trying to pull in his annually expanding stomach. "For God's sake Ruth," complained David, "I remember when I used to have a six pack and now it's a bloody firkin!" Ruth had just walked into their bathroom carrying several assorted towels; she was wearing her full length cotton dressing gown, buttoned to the collar, furry flip flops and had her hair covered by a bathing cap. She hung a clean hand towel over the rack beside the sink. "Yes, dear," she answered politely as she put the remainder of the towels in the airing cupboard. Ruth moved over to the shower, deftly removed her clothing, without revealing a single inch of her body to David, and then stepped nimbly into the shower, quickly closing the frosted glass door behind her. David watched her progress, through the mirror, with incomprehension while slowly shaking his head from side to side at her obvious embarrassment. "Ruth?" Ruth turned on the shower and stood under the warm water allowing the rivulets to massage away her morning sleepiness as they trickled down her face. "Yes, dear?" David was studying the end of his nose, trying to scratch off an emerging liver spot hoping it was a piece of dirt. "We've been married thirty years now." "Thirty three, dear." "Thirty three?" he mumbled to himself in disbelief. He wondered where his life had disappeared to. "I'd have done less for mass murder." "What's that, dear? I didn't hear you." "Nothing darling; I was just wondering, that's all." "What about?" "Well, the kids have grown up, and thankfully, have left home, and now there is just you and I left all alone in this house." David emphasized the word alone'. "So what's your point, dear?" David checked the mirror once more and reconciled himself to the depressing fact that Adonis' was not a description that could in any way be related to a valid picture of his body. He resigned from trying to pull in his tub of a stomach. "Well, I've kissed and fondled every square inch of your body; so why do you still come into the bathroom looking like Scott dressed for an Antarctic expedition?" "Because I'm in the bathroom, dear." David surrendered. He knew it was useless trying to get a decent answer off her at this time in the morning. "He's probably right," thought Ruth "but I'm not showing him that I look like a dried prune." She looked down at her rapidly aging body and was filled with revulsion. "Where did these spare tyres come from? Spare tyres; they look more like bloody steam rollers! Oh why oh why doesn't it seem to matter how many aerobics classes, massages, toning sessions and miles of swimming that I do that I still can't get rid of this flab...Mind you on the positive side, it does hide the wrinkles." Ruth clenched her fingers around her excess belly fat and to her disgust found more than an inch; it was more like bordering on a mile. She let out a small frustrated groan. Taking off her bathing cap she started to massage her hair with one of her many shampoos and noticed, to her horror, that some of the hairs from her head were collecting around the plug hole. "Oh my God, if I lose any more hair I'll need a wig! Damm! Twenty years ago I had so much hair I couldn't decide which hairstyle to put it into. Now I daren't even think about a pageboy." Ruth released another groan. "I don't want to look like my mother and resort to pink perms; it looks so old." David returned to inspecting himself in the mirror distressed that the years have been so unkind to him. He peered closely at his face and spotted another hair growing out of the tip of his nose. He pinched it, pulling the offending hair from its root then, after his eyes had stopped watering, gazed at the receding hair on his head. "God's having a laugh!" he was speaking to no one in particular. "He's taking the hair from my head and sticking it on my nose, up my nose and in my ears! What's that all about?" "Sorry, Dear, I can'