'They're not in the same place, they're all over Oxford. I couldn't hope to reach them in the time.'
'Oh, what a bore.'
'I'm sorry, but if you'd let me know you were coming....'
I still wouldn't have done anything about it, he finished in his mind. At her remark about the demerits of sleeping alone a little alarm-bell of uneasiness had sounded there; it continued to purr away as he came to recognise that she was talking and behaving in an entirely different style from the one she had used at Burgess Avenue the previous Saturday. No cheerful confidence or confidingness now, no long eager speeches; instead, languor with a querulous edge to it. Above all, the Kelly of Saturday would never have tried to get him to cancel his seminar, would on the contrary have offered to leave at once in case he had preparations to make. So he had been half justified in not recognising her straight away. He had meant what he had said about being glad to see her; he only hoped that the uneasiness would turn out to be misplaced, that things were going to take a turn for the better after the last twenty hours or so, that she was no more than tired or perhaps shy without Brenda's diluting presence. Ah!-Saturday—Kelly would certainly have—
'How's Brenda?'
'Oh .... she's fine, thanks.'
'I bet she doesn't come here much, does she? No, I thought not, she wouldn't be able to stand it and quite frankly I'm surprised you can, Jake. I mean look at this, pretend you haven't seen it before and look at it properly.' Kelly indicated the padded chair she had just got up off. 'Isn't it absolutely revolting?'
'I know it's not very nice, but I don't spend much time here, so....'
'What happens when you entertain?—oh of course you're going to tell me you don't entertain. I can't understand how a cultivated man like you can bring himself to live in such, well I can't call it squalor because it isn't actually dirty or damp or anything but it's pretty damn slummy you have to admit. Not even a picture to take your eyes off it. And honestly these curtains, you'd have thought .... Oh I say that really is something. How gorgeous.'
Jake joined her at the window where she was apparently admiring the buildings on the far sides of the quad. 'Yes it is pretty good, isn't it?'
'What is it, early eighteenth century?'
Christ, he thought mildly. 'Yes, about then.'
'It must make up for a lot, having that out there in front of you all the time. What's the other way?'
She turned and made for the open bedroom door, past which daylight was to be seen. He followed her.
'There's not a great deal, but....'
'Do you mind?'
'No, go ahead.'
The bedroom window showed a stretch of wall and part of the rear quad of Jesus College. Kelly looked appreciatively at them for a few moments and started to back to the sitting room, or so Jake thought till he made to follow her and found she had shut the door and was facing him with her back to it.
At first he felt only mild surprise and puzzlement. 'What....'
'Jake, listen to me, this is important and we don't have very much time. We haven't known each other very long but I feel we appreciate each other and I don't know about you but I can say I trust you. It's an old- fashioned expression but I wish you well, and that's good because I can do something for you, I can help you with your problem. You might not think so but I've had a lot of experience, you could almost call it training. You put yourself in my hands and it'll all work out. You just leave everything to me and I mean everything. Okay? Right, let's go.'
All this was said in such a friendly, reasonable tone that Jake couldn't believe she meant what he knew she meant until she crossed the room, a matter of no more than a couple of strides, quick ones in this case, and dosed with him, her arms round his neck and what Ed and Rosenberg would call her pubic area pushing into his. Jake had had to evade or discourage amorous females before, though admittedly none as forceful as this, and without Ed and Rosenberg and all that, and in particular without Eve, he would probably have done better than do what he did do, which was to pull Kelly's arms away and thrust her from him and call on her in a frightened voice to leave him alone, leave him alone.
She showed her teeth; as he had noticed before they were good enough teeth, white and regular, but this time he saw something about the way they were set in the gums that told him beyond all doubt who it was she had reminded him of on Saturday. He was horrified and got ready to defend himself, crouching with his balls tucked between his thighs, but she didn't come at him, didn't even throw anything at him, perhaps because there wasn't a lot to throw, no ashtray, no water-jug or tumbler and again no pictures. All she did was shove the bedside lamp on to the floor, which did no more than knock the shade off its frame, and abuse him verbally. She used not only what is often called foul language in great copiousness and diversity but also foul ideas, and produced surprising variations on the themes of old age and its attendant weaknesses. After some minutes she stopped all at once in mid-incivility and seemed taken by a fit of violent shivering. By degrees she moved to the side of the bed and sat down on it with her hands on her knees. Then she started to weep.
Jake had come across lachrymose females before too, but never one like this, never one who gave such a sense of intolerable pressure within, as if what was being wept over was growing faster than it could be wept away. 'Sorry,' she said as the tears flew from her eyes, 'sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry....' She must have said it a hundred times, each time if possible with a different inflection. Jake sat down next to her, though not very close to her, gave her a clean handkerchief out of his drawer, and kept telling her it was all right, and in the end she stopped saying sorry and merely sobbed continuously.
'You aren't planning to expose Ed or anything like that, are you?' he asked as soon as he thought she might be listening.
She shook her head violently.
'You're just one of his patients, and Rosenberg's, aren't you?'
This time she nodded so hard it involved her whole body.
