Pal Junior and Jason Dunn as brothers-in-law and squash partners

Palinurus Maciver Junior and Jason Dunn are brothers-in-law who build a routine friendship around squash, but their Wednesday games also become the setting for a less conventional intimacy. What begins as an invitation to play together develops into a recurring arrangement involving Dolores, revealing how readily their sporting companionship can turn into private collaboration. Jason’s account finally returns to the sports-centre car park, where the routine breaks because Palinurus does not appear.

Family Connection and First Impressions

Jason’s marriage makes him Palinurus’s brother-in-law, bringing him into the Maciver family’s orbit. His account briefly associates improving family relations with the dispute over Moscow House, which belonged to three family members, including Cressida Maciver. The recollection supplies a family setting for the brothers-in-law’s later companionship, though it does not make the precise change in those relations the centre of their story.

Jason’s first impression of Palinurus is more favourable than he had anticipated. He finds him sociable and well-connected, someone he could have a drink with rather than the monster Jason had half expected. That initial ease matters: their partnership does not begin as a formal family obligation but as a personal liking, confirmed when they meet again at the sports centre.

The Wednesday Squash Partnership

At the sports centre, Jason sees Palinurus playing squash with Vic Chakravarty, a consultant whom Jason regards as exceptionally quick on court. From the company Palinurus keeps, Jason infers that Palinurus must also be a strong player. Palinurus is pleased to see him and suggests that they play sometime; Jason agrees. Their regular Wednesday-night games grow from this encounter, giving the relationship a dependable rhythm rather than leaving it at the level of a single friendly meeting.

The timing suits Jason for a second reason. Kay Kafka, Helen Dunn’s stepmother, visits Helen on Wednesdays, and Jason uses the games as an excuse to leave the two women together. He describes Kay and Helen as exceptionally close. Squash therefore functions not only as recreation but as a practical arrangement within Jason’s marriage: it gives the women time together while allowing the men to meet separately. The account presents that convenience as part of why the weekly pattern works for both men.

From Court Booking to Shared Arrangement

One Wednesday, Jason arrives to find Palinurus in the foyer with bad news: the court has been double-booked, and another party has arrived first. Jason is disappointed; Palinurus appears comparatively relaxed. When Jason suggests having a drink instead, Palinurus declines, explaining that he has made other arrangements. He hesitates before asking whether Jason might be interested in joining him, then explains that a woman he sometimes sees is willing to meet two men if she likes the look of them.

Jason’s response is shaped by curiosity and by strain in his own sex life. He says Helen had become less interested in sex after becoming pregnant, and that the effort was beginning to seem greater than the reward. The passage makes this part of his explanation for accepting Palinurus’s proposal, not evidence that he and Helen had ended their relationship. Palinurus’s invitation converts a disrupted squash evening into an opportunity for sexual contact, while Jason’s frank retrospective narration makes clear that he is both surprised by the offer and willing to consider it.

Palinurus goes to the car park to see whether the woman has arrived, then calls Jason outside. Dolores is waiting in the back seat of Palinurus’s car. Jason notices her pale appearance and long black hair, and records that she looks him over before nodding. He objects to the prospect of doing anything in the car park, concerned that the car’s movement might attract attention from people at the sports centre. Palinurus drives them to Moscow House instead. The change of location marks the shift from the public, ordinary setting of their squash games to a private meeting arranged by Palinurus.

A Routine That Breaks

The meeting with Dolores becomes a regular Wednesday arrangement. Jason describes the sequence as established and discreet: the men meet in the sports-centre car park, travel in Palinurus’s car, keep a low profile as they reach The Avenue, spend about an hour at Moscow House, and return to the car park before going home. Jason believes the arrangement harms no one. He also thinks it indirectly helps his marriage because he bothers Helen less, while expecting that the affair with Dolores will end after the twins are born and married life returns to normal.

That confidence gives the final recollection its force. Jason says he never imagined events would end as they did, then recalls waiting in his car at the sports-centre car park for Palinurus. After a while Dolores gets into Jason’s car and says something must have happened. Her mobile calls to Palinurus’s phone reach a device that is switched off; a call to his shop receives no answer. Jason then borrows her phone to call Palinurus’s home and learns that his wife has not heard from him either. The waiting place where their weekly partnership began becomes the scene of uncertainty: the ordinary routine remains recognizable, but Palinurus is missing from it.

Meaning of the Relationship

The relationship is defined less by a dramatic declaration of affection than by repeated acts of trust and coordination. Palinurus welcomes Jason, chooses him as a squash partner, and later invites him into a sexual arrangement that Jason accepts. Jason, in turn, gives a candid account of his motives and of the practical details surrounding their meetings. Their closeness is therefore shown through access: shared recreation becomes access to Palinurus’s private plans and to a recurring sexual life beyond the court.

At the same time, the account preserves the limits of what that closeness means. The evidence establishes mutual ease, regular contact, and a shared secret, but does not describe a formal promise or a broader emotional confession between them. The abrupt final absence unsettles the routine without resolving what either man understood the partnership to be. Its significance lies in that contrast: a dependable weekly appointment had made Palinurus part of Jason’s ordinary schedule, so his failure to appear turns a familiar meeting place into a sign that something has gone wrong.