Part 6 (1/2)

A week pa.s.sed. During this time her initially vague but insistent unease began to a.s.sume a more definite shape. She was soon able to cla.s.sify her objections to the presence of Albert under the following four headings: smell, drink, flatulence, and other. As for the first three, it was quite likely, she realized, that they existed in some relations.h.i.+p of complex interdependence which she was not equipped to understand. Dorothy had of course a.s.sured her that he had forsworn alcohol for the remainder of his natural life, but this a.s.surance seemed to be at odds with various circ.u.mstances, such as the fact that on the second morning of his residence, Maria, in attempting to leave her bedroom at seven thirty, had found herself unable to open the door, the obstruction, it transpired, being Albert's prostrate body, which had fallen there several hours earlier on its way to the bathroom, intending no doubt to relieve itself of the rum with which it had been privately regaling itself all evening. This incident, which Dorothy laughingly brushed off as a 'relapse', turned out to be the first in a series.

Furthermore, Albert did not take easily to everyday domestic life. His attempts to use the vacuum cleaner resulted more often in the breakage of fragile objects, such as small items of china, or chairs, than in any noticeable improvement in the appearance of the carpet. When trying to use the shower he flooded the bathroom. He could not cook. He disliked Maria, or so his terms of reference would seem to imply, for he was heard to describe her as a 'miserable slag'. He very rarely spoke to her directly at all, although this may have been for want of opportunity, since her excursions from her bedroom became increasingly infrequent. On the other hand he appeared to like Dorothy, whom he affectionately called 'Dotty', and he would willingly execute small commissions for her, little tasks which she imposed on him as a manifestation of her trust. For instance, she would give him sixty pounds, and ask him to go to the supermarket and do the week's shopping for the three of them, barely uttering a word of reproach when he returned after half an hour with a loaf of bread, a pork pie, and seven bottles of gin. These were the sorts of minor failings, marginal errors of judgment owing as much to inexperience as to anything else, which Maria cla.s.sified as 'other'.

By the end of the first week, she knew that she was going to have to find somewhere else to live. It crossed her mind more than once, as it has conceivably the reader's, that this was precisely the outcome that Dorothy, mortified by the failure of her recent advances, had intended to provoke, and that no sooner would Maria have packed her bags and gone than Albert himself would be quietly booted out and left to resume his former life. But she realized that to charge Dorothy with this intention would only be to invite further wide-eyed accusations of cruelty and cynicism. So she found herself in a tricky situation, and not for the first time. Weighed down by unhappiness, and bored with always having to keep it to herself, she thought that it might alleviate the problem a little to talk about it with someone, a friend, say, supposing one could be found. Idly she flicked through her address book. There were three entries, under for Bobby, R for Ronny, and S for Sarah. She remembered that it would be no use trying her brother, because he had gone back to visit her parents for the weekend. What about Ronny? She smiled, none too cheerfully, as she recalled another time, nearly eight years ago, when she had surprised herself by choosing to visit him at a moment of crisis. A fat lot of good that had done her. But he had changed since then, and so had Maria, and although he was still as silly as ever about wanting to marry her, she no longer felt uncomfortable with him, in fact quite the reverse, for there was something about the very familiarity, amounting even to predictability, of his behaviour, which inspired in her a real and otherwise unavailable sense of comfort. She decided there and then, with a thrill of pleasure, to phone him. They had not seen each other since the night of the dinner party. How surprised he would be to hear from her!

But there was no answer. So Maria phoned Sarah, and they arranged to meet for dinner that evening. Sarah nominated a restaurant in Hampstead.

She looked slightly more plump and pale than when Maria had last seen her, on the day of her wedding. As usual, they kissed before sitting down together, but it was only Maria who did so with any fervour.

'Well, this is nice,' said Sarah, unnecessarily.

Maria smiled.

'It was nice to hear from you. It was a very nice surprise.'

'I just wanted to see you, that's all.' Maria paused, then asked: 'How do I look, Sarah?'

'You look very nice. And very well,' said Sarah, staring fixedly at her fillet of sole while waiting for the tartare sauce to come.

'No, how do I really look. You weren't looking at me.'

Thus prompted, Sarah examined Maria with some attention.

'Actually you don't look too well. I'd noticed already, but I didn't think it would be polite to say so.'

'I don't want you to be polite. I want you to be my friend.'

'Why, Maria? Is anything the matter?'

'I'm unhappy. I think I'm going to move out of the flat. Only I don't know where to go, or what to do.'

A tear fell from the corner of Maria's eye. Fortunately the waiter, who arrived at that moment with the tartare sauce, had his handkerchief with him and was able to wipe her cheek.

'Thank you,' said Maria, feeling very stupid.

'We must remember to give him an extra tip,' said Sarah, when he had gone, and added earnestly: 'Maria, you must tell me everything. You must tell me all about what's gone wrong. You have my undivided attention. Can I have your lemon if you're not going to use it?'

First of all Maria told her about Dorothy's attempted seduction. Sarah was shocked and a little embarra.s.sed. She blushed.

'That does surprise me,' she said. 'Still, one always finds problems with shared accommodation. Don't misunderstand me, Maria, I enjoyed living with you and Dorothy very much. But it doesn't really bear comparison with having your own home, and sharing it with the man you love. Living with friends, by which I mean girl friends, of course, is all very well while you're still young and you haven't found your place in the word, but it can never really be as nice as married life. I don't want to give you a lecture, Maria, just because I happen to have the benefit of more experience than you, but you can have no notion of how lovely it is to share everything with the man you love, a bed, your food, your money, your home, all your thoughts and experiences, your whole life, in fact.' A thought now struck her, and she laid down her knife and fork. 'But I was forgetting, you've been married already'

'Yes.'

'I'm sorry, Maria. How thoughtless I'm being. Of course, it doesn't always work out as well as it has for me. How is little Edward?'

'I never see him. I thought you knew that.'

There was a long and frosty silence. Finally Maria, determined to retrieve something constructive from her friend's sentimental outburst, but feeling, at the same time, less and less sympathetic and interested, asked coldly: 'So you think that marriage is probably the answer to all my problems, and everybody's else's.'

'It's not quite as simple as that, of course, Maria,' Sarah answered, with a sweet smile. '”Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures”, as somebody once said. I don't want to generalize, because that would mean nothing to you. I can only speak out of my own experience, and over the last few months I've known such happiness...' She paused and reflected. 'It's not enough, you see, Maria, just to be friendly with someone. You'll never get deep into life like that. There must be intimacy, close, personal and physical intimacy. To share a meal with someone, for instance. I mean, here we are, sharing a meal together, at least, we would be 'she looked around angrily in the direction of the kitchens ' if they'd hurry up and bring us the next course. Honestly, I'm ravenous. Anyway, here we are, sharing a meal, but there's no real intimacy in it, do you see what I mean? It's not like sitting down to a meal with your husband, a meal which you've cooked yourself, and watching him eat it, watching him watch you eat, talking all the time with your eyes. Do you see what I mean?'

Maria considered her own recollections of married mealtimes.

'But when you hear the sound of food in his mouth,' she said, 'don't you feel like stabbing him with the carving knife?'

Sarah, thinking that she was joking, smiled.

'Of course not.'

'Is there nothing about him that you find repulsive? What about when you're having s.e.x?'

'Maria!'

'Whenever I saw Martin naked, I always wanted to chop it off. I'd never seen anything so grotesque.'

'Don't be silly. There's nothing ugly about...' here her voice sank very low'...men's privates. You're embittered, Maria, and you forget, because it was all such a long time ago. You've forgotten what it was like.'

This was far from the truth, for Maria had not forgotten, and never would forget, about p.e.n.i.ses. She had had them up the front, round the back, down the hatch, and dangled in front of her nose, and was rather hoping that she would never have to see one again in her life. But she didn't bother to say so to Sarah.

'Did you never love Martin, Maria?'

She shrugged. 'As you say, it was all such a long time ago...'

'Have you ever been in love at all? Ever?'

She laughed. 'You asked me the same question once before. But that was even longer ago.'

'But have you, Maria? Have you ever been in love?'

'No,' she answered, since even heroines tell lies occasionally. And she knew that it was a lie even as she said it, because she was thinking of a day in Oxford, the day of the storm, when she had waited for so long in the dreadful heat, and f.a.n.n.y had told her that a man had rung. The noises of the restaurant died away and for a moment she could only hear the clatter of her feet on the stairs as she ran up to her room to cry.

Then she noticed that Sarah had leant forward and was holding her hand. She withdrew it.

'Anyway,' she said, 'what's the use of talking about marriage if I haven't even got anyone to marry.'

'Well,' said Sarah, 'there's Ronny.'

This actually made Maria laugh. 'Now who's being silly!'

'I'm not being silly. You say you haven't got anyone to marry. But look how often Ronny's asked you.'

'Yes, and look how often I've refused him. I'm very fond of Ronny, you know. Very fond. But that will never happen.'

'Why not?'

'Oh, I don't know.' Maria sighed, and pushed her plate away. 'I've got other plans, I suppose.'