Part 6 (2/2)

”Oh no,” said Mrs. Winner, seeing I still did not make a move. ”Do you think you're made any different from the rest of us? You think I haven't seen all you got before now?”

It was partly her contempt that made me stay. Partly. That and my pride.

I sat down. I removed my shoes. I unfastened and peeled down my stockings. I stood up and unzipped then yanked off the dress in which I had delivered the valedictory address with its final words of Latin. Ave atque vale Ave atque vale.

Still reasonably covered by my slip, I reached back and unhooked the fastenings of my bra.s.siere, then somehow hauled the whole thing free of my arms and around to the front, to be discarded in one movement. Next came my garter belt, then my panties-when they were off I balled them up and hid them under the bra.s.siere. I put my feet back into my shoes.

”Bare feet,” said Mrs. Winner, sighing. It seemed the slip was too tiresome for her to mention, but after I had again taken my shoes off she said, ”Bare. Do you know the meaning of the word? Bare.”

I pulled the slip over my head and she handed me a bottle of lotion and said, ”Rub yourself with this.”

It smelled like Nina. I rubbed some on my arms and shoulders, the only parts of myself that I could touch with Mrs. Winner standing there watching, and then we went out into the hall, my eyes avoiding the mirrors, and she opened another door and I went into the next room alone.

It had never occurred to me that Mr. Purvis might be waiting in the same naked condition as myself, and he was not. He wore a dark blue blazer, a white s.h.i.+rt, an ascot scarf (I did not know it was called that), and gray slacks. He was hardly taller than I was, and he was thin and old, mostly bald, and with wrinkles in his forehead when he smiled.

It had not occurred to me either that the undressing might be a prelude to rape, or to any ceremony but supper. (And indeed it was not to be, to judge by the appetizing smells in the room and the silver-lidded dishes on the sideboard.) Why had I not thought of such a thing? Why was I not more apprehensive? It had something to do with my ideas about old men. I thought that they were not only incapable but too worn down, made too dignified-or depressed-by various trials and experiences and their own unsavory physical decline to have any interest left. I wasn't stupid enough to think that my being undressed had nothing to do with the s.e.xual uses of my body, but I took it more as a dare than as a preliminary to further trespa.s.s, and my going along with it had more to do with the folly of pride, as I have said, more to do with some shaky recklessness than with anything else.

Here I am, I might have wished to say, in the skin of my body which does not shame me any more than the bareness of my teeth. Of course that was not true and in fact I had broken out in a sweat, although not for fear of any violation.

Mr. Purvis shook hands with me, making no sign of awareness that I lacked clothing. He said it was a pleasure for him to meet Nina's friend. Just as if I was somebody Nina had brought home from school.

Which in a way was true.

An inspiration to Nina, he said I was.

”She admires you very much. Now, you must be hungry. Shall we see what they've provided for us?”

He lifted the lids and set about serving me. Cornish hens, which I took to be pygmy chickens, saffron rice with raisins, various finely cut vegetables fanned out at an angle and preserving their color more faithfully than the vegetables that I regularly saw. A dish of muddy green pickles and a dish of dark red preserve.

”Not too much of these,” Mr. Purvis said of the pickles and the preserve. ”A bit hot to start with.”

He ushered me back to the table, turned again to the sideboard and served himself sparingly, and sat down.

There was a pitcher of water on the table, and a bottle of wine. I got the water. Serving me wine in his house, he said, would probably be cla.s.sed as a capital offense. I was a little disappointed as I had never had a chance to drink wine. When we went to the Old Chelsea, Ernie always expressed his satisfaction that no wine or liquor was served on Sundays. Not only did he refuse to drink, on Sundays or any other day, but he disliked seeing others do it.

”Now Nina tells me,” said Mr. Purvis, ”Nina tells me that you are studying English philosophy, but I think it must be English and philosophy and philosophy, am I right? Because surely there is not so great a supply of English philosophers?”

In spite of his warning, I had taken a dollop of green pickle on my tongue and was too stunned to reply. He waited courteously while I gulped down water.

”We start with Greeks. It's a survey course,” I said, when I could speak.

”Oh yes. Greece. Well as far as you've got with the Greeks, who is your favorite-oh, no, just a minute. It will fall apart more easily like this.”

There followed a demonstration of separating and removing the meat from the bones of a Cornish hen-nicely done, and without condescension, rather as if it was a joke we might share.

”Your favorite?”

”We haven't got to him yet, we're doing the pre-Socratics,” I said. ”But Plato.”

”Plato is your favorite. So you read ahead, you don't just stay where you're supposed to? Plato. Yes, I could have guessed that. You like the cave?”

”Yes.”

”Yes of course. The cave. It's beautiful, isn't it?”

When I was sitting down, the most flagrant part of me was out of sight. If my b.r.e.a.s.t.s had been tiny and ornamental, like Nina's, instead of full and large nippled and bluntly serviceable, I could have been almost at ease. I tried to look at him when I spoke, but against my will I would suffer waves of flus.h.i.+ng. When this happened I thought his voice changed slightly, becoming soothing and politely satisfied. Just as if he'd made a winning move in a game. But he went on talking nimbly and entertainingly, telling me about a trip he had made to Greece. Delphi, the Acropolis, the famous light that you believed couldn't be true but was true, the bare bones of the Peloponnesus.

”And then to Crete-do you know about the Minoan civilization?”

”Yes.”

”Of course you do. Of course. And you know the way the Minoan ladies dressed?”

”Yes.”

I looked into his face this time, his eyes. I was determined not to squirm away, not even when I felt the heat on my throat.

”Very nice, that style,” he said almost sadly. ”Very nice. It's odd the different things that are hidden in different eras. And the things that are displayed.”

Dessert was vanilla custard and whipped cream, with bits of cake in it, and raspberries. He ate only a few bites of his. But after failing to settle down enough to enjoy the first course, I was determined not to miss out on anything rich and sweet, and I fixed my appet.i.te and attention on every spoonful.

He poured coffee into small cups and said that we would drink it in the library.

My b.u.t.tocks made a slapping noise, as I loosened myself from the sleek upholstery of the dining room chair. But this was almost covered up by the clatter of the delicate coffee cups on the tray in his shaky old grasp.

Libraries in a house were known to me only from books. This one was entered through a panel in the dining room wall. The panel swung open without a sound, at a touch of his raised foot. He apologized for going ahead of me, as he had to do since he carried the coffee. To me it was a relief. I thought that our backsides-not just mine but everybody's-were the most beastly part of the body.

When I was seated in the chair he indicated, he gave me my coffee. It was not so easy to sit here, out in the open, as it had been at the dining room table. That chair had been covered with smooth striped silk, but this one was upholstered in some dark plush material, which p.r.i.c.kled me. An intimate agitation was set up.

The light in this room was brighter than it had been in the dining room, and the books lining the walls had an expression more disturbing and reproving than the look of the dim dining room with its landscape pictures and light-absorbing panels.

For a moment, as we left one room for the other, I had had some notion of a story-the sort of story I had heard of but that few people then got the chance to read-in which the room referred to as a library would turn out to be a bedroom, with soft lights and puffy cus.h.i.+ons and all manner of downy coverings. I did not have time to figure out what I would do in such circ.u.mstances, because the room we were in was plainly nothing but a library. The reading lights, the books on the shelves, the invigorating smell of coffee. Mr. Purvis pulling out a book, riffling through its leaves, finding what he wanted.

”It would be very kind if you would read to me. My eyes are tired in the evenings. You know this book?”

A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad.

I knew it. In fact I knew many of the poems by heart.

I said that I would read.

”And may I ask you please-may I ask you please-not to cross your legs?”

My hands were trembling when I took the book from him.

”Yes,” he said. ”Yes.”

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