There was something in her face, a lost desperation, that made his harden. He crouched beside her, scowling, baring his teeth, gently fitting his thumb on her windpipe, looking straight into her dark eye. She breathed hoarsely, and coughed. He let his thumb drop.
‘What’s that for, Fred?’
‘You swear you don’t do that with Charlie?’
‘How could I?’
‘What do you mean? You could show him.’
‘But why? Why do you think I want to? Fred!’
The two pairs of deep eyes, in bruised flesh, looked lonely with uncertainty into each other.
‘How should I know what you want?’
‘You’re stupid,’ she said suddenly, with a small maternal smile.
He dropped his head, with a breath like a groan, on to her breasts, and she stroked his head gently, looking over it at the wall, blinking tears out of her eyes. She said: ‘He’s not coming home to supper tonight, he’s angry.’
‘Is he?’
‘He keeps talking about you. He asked today if you were coming.’
‘Why, does he guess?’ He jerked his head up off the soft support of her bosom, and stared, his face bitter, into hers. ‘Why? You haven’t been stupid now, have you?’
‘No, but Fred … but after you’ve been with me I suppose I’m different …’
‘Oh Christ!’ He jumped up, desperate, beginning movements of flight, anger, hate, escape – checking each one. ‘What do you want, then? You want me to make you come, then? Well, that’s easy enough, isn’t it, if that’s all you want. All right then, lie down and I’ll do it, and I’ll make you come till you cry, if that’s all …’ He was about to strip off his clothes; but she shot up from the bed, first hastily draping herself in her white frills, out of an instinct to protect what they had. She stood by him, as tall as he, holding his arms down by his sides. ‘Fred, Fred, Fred, darling, my sweetheart, don’t spoil it, don’t spoil it now when …’
‘When what?’
She met his fierce look with courage, saying steadily: ‘Well, what do you expect, Fred? He’s not stupid, is he? I’m not a … he makes love to me, well, he is my husband, isn’t he? And … well, what about you and Alice, you do the same, it’s normal, isn’t it? Perhaps if you and I didn’t have Charlie and Alice for coming, we wouldn’t be able to do it our way, have you thought of that?’
‘Have I thought of that! Well, what do you think?’
‘Well, it’s normal, isn’t it?’
‘Normal,’ he said, with horror, gazing into her loving face for reassurance against the word. ‘Normal, is it? Well, if you’re going to use words like that …’ Tears ran down his face, and she kissed them away in a passion of protective love.
‘Well, why did you say I must marry him? I didn’t want to, you said I should.’
‘I didn’t think it would spoil us.’
‘But it hasn’t, has it, Fred? Nothing could be like us. How could it? You know that from Alice, don’t you, Fred?’ Now she was anxiously seeking for his reassurance. They stared at each other, then their eyes closed, and they laid their cheeks together and wept, holding down each other’s amorous hands, for fear that what they were might be cheapened by her husband, his girl.
He said: ‘What were you beginning to say?’
‘When?’
‘Just now. You said, don’t spoil it now when.’
‘I get scared.’
‘Why?’
‘Suppose I get pregnant? Well, one day I must, it’s only fair, he wants kids. Suppose he leaves me – he gets in the mood to leave me, like today. Well, he feels something … it stands to reason. It doesn’t matter how much I try with him, you know he feels it … Fred?’
‘What?’
‘There isn’t a law against it, is there?’
‘Against what?’
‘I mean a brother and sister can share a place, no one would say anything.’
He stiffened away from her: ‘You’re crazy.’
‘Why am I? Why, Fred?’
‘You’re just not thinking, that’s all.’
‘What are we going to do, then?’
He didn’t answer and she sighed, letting her head lie on his shoulder beside his head, so that he felt her open eyes and their wet lashes on his neck.
‘We can’t do anything but go on like this, you’ve got to see that.’
Then I’ve got to be nice to him, otherwise he’s going to leave me, and I don’t blame him.’
She wept silently; and he held her, silent.
‘It’s so hard – I just wait for when you come, Fred, and I have to pretend all the time.’
They stood silent, their tears drying, their hands linked. Slowly they quieted, in love and in pity, in the same way that they quieted in their long silences when the hungers of the flesh were held by love on the edge of fruition so long that they burned out and up and away into a flame of identity.
At last they kissed, brother-and-sister kisses, gentle and warm.
‘You’re going to be late, Fred. You’ll get the sack.’
‘I can always get another job.’
‘I can always get another husband …’
‘Olive Oyl … but you look really good in that white naygleejay.’
‘Yes, I’m just the type that’s no good naked, I need clothes.’
‘That’s right – I must go.’
‘Coming tomorrow?’
‘Yes. About ten?’
‘Yes.’
‘Keep him happy, then. Ta-ta.’
‘Look after yourself- look after yourself, my darling, look after yourself…’
The day I had promised to take Catherine down to visit my young friend Philip at his school in the country, we were to leave at eleven, but she arrived at nine. Her blue dress was new, and so were her fashionable shoes. Her hair
