drank.
'That'll be one and a penny.'
'Oh, sorry. Wasn't it better at all when you got married?'
She rang up the money carefully.
'Oh yes. By the standards I had then it was marvelous. Not having to worry about it ending, and him not going away all the time. But after a bit it was no better than what had gone before. Especially sex. Sex was what you did in bed, and eating was what you did at table, and plays were what happened in theaters and so on. You know-'I think we've just got time for a quick one/ Now you could make that funny and lovely, darling. But you ought to have heard the wonderful statesmanlike calculatingness he used to say it with. I think… I think… if we're reasonably quick… His favorite moment for that was just before the evening drink or going out. He liked to get it out of the way, he said, so that he could look forward to settling down undisturbed to a good night's rest. So then I had a couple of lovers and he was very good about it. I don't know whether I'm saying that sarcastically or not. As long as I was happy, he said.'
'What about kids?'
'He was rather the same about them. If I wanted them then it was all right by him. So I didn't have any.'
'I don't quite see that.'
'It's like sex, James. It's no good if one of you just has no particular objection. I reckon that sort of thing undermines at least as many women as sex not being all right. Anyway… then Casement turned up. Can I have a cigarette?'
He gave her one and lit it.
'Casement's line straight away was wanting me to let him take me away from all this. What there was of this, he meant. He was marvelous at first. My best before you. So then we got married. We were back in England by this time. I'd lived with him for about eight months and thought I knew him.'
One of the students now came to the bar and ordered three halves of bitter. She served him before going on.
'The moment we got married he started being different. I don't like that, James, people being different all of a sudden. About three nights a week he'd get angry with me, usually when we'd had people to dinner or been out somewhere and he'd had some drinks. He'd wait until we were getting ready for bed, and then he'd bring up something I'd said or done during the evening which had made him angry. It didn't matter much what. If I'd said I liked one of his friends, it proved I was a bitch because it meant I wanted to go to bed with him. And if I hadn't liked one of his friends, then that made me a bitch too because I was fed up because the chap hadn't made a pass at me. And so on. The next stage was him hitting me. Mainly punches in the stomach and slaps in the face. He was very careful not to bruise me where it showed. Then I'd cry, of course, and then he'd cry too and start comforting me, and then he'd end up by fucking me. Then he'd be perfectly cordial and nice until the next time.'
She had said this as quietly as ever, but faster, and with an occasional quick deep breath between sentences. Churchill watched her. He thought she had better tell him everything now she had started.
'I kept trying to leave him, but he kept coming and bringing me back. He was good at that. He was so charming that nobody believed what I told them about him. I could hardly believe it myself when it wasn't happening. And I tried lawyers, but cruelty's very difficult to prove, and he always let up as soon as anything like that was in the wind. He stopped altogether when I had my sister to stay, so she went off thinking I was a hysterical liar. Then something happened that showed me what it was all about. I could have realized before, if I'd taken it in properly, that he almost never fucked me except after he'd been hitting me.'
Catharine's shoulders were hunched. She pushed her hand towards Churchill along the top of the counter. He took it and squeezed it.
'I had terrible toothache and the dentist couldn't see me straight away and I was lying on my bed groaning, and when I went out to go to the bathroom there was Casement on the landing playing with himself because I'd been groaning. So he hit me worse than he'd ever done before and sort of raped me on the landing. After that I stopped being able to deal with my life at all, any of it.'
'Where is he now?' said Churchill quickly.
'Oh, he's off. He won't come near me now, not even near enough to have a divorce. Me going mad would be sure to come out and that would be very disgraceful. I think he's feeling a bit ashamed of himself, too. He's a very moral, respectable man.'
'Oh, for Christ's sake.'
She sighed very deeply, then smiled. 'You see? It was very nearly all right, telling you that. Not even very depressing. It'll have gone altogether soon. But listen, I meant what I said about Casement being moral and everything. That was the whole trouble with him. If he'd said, ‘Look, ducks, here's this whip. I'm going to give you a bloody good belting with it if you don't mind, because that's what I like doing. No hard feelings, eh? Then we'll make love and I'll take you out somewhere nice for dinner,' if he'd said that, well, I'd have known where I was. I might even have co-operated. But that would never have done for Casement. That would have been immoral, you see. He had to have a reason. It took me about three months to work that out and when I had I started getting better straight away.'
Churchill leaned over the bar and kissed her.
'You won't be different all of a sudden, will you?' she asked.
'Of course I won't.'
'My God, what's the time? Last orders, gentlemen,' she called. 'Last orders, please.'
'Was he religious?'
'Well, there was just a touch of that, I suppose. He didn't go to church, but he was always saying how grateful he was for his Nonconformist upbringing. He was very responsible in lots of ways. Good about money, paying bills as soon as they came in, not driving when he was drunk, saying he was bored by all the filth on the stage and in the cinema, all that kind of thing. Yes, sir, the same again?'
