«Roger and that young girl. God, it sickens me!»
«I know. But Priscilla is the problem.»
«What am I to do, Rachel, what am I to do?»
Rachel, relaxed, barefoot, did not reply. She was gently stroking her face where I had imagined the bruise. We were reposing now in deck chairs. She was relaxed yet animated, in a characteristic way: what Arnold called her «exalted look.» A bright expectancy blazed in her pale freckled face and in her light brown eyes. She looked alert and handsome. Her reddish golden hair was deliberately frizzed out and untidy.
«How mechanical they look,» I said.
«Who? What?»
«The blackbirds.»
Several blackbirds were walking jerkily about like little woundup toys upon the clipped grass path.
«Just like us.»
«What are you talking about, Bradley?»
«Mechanical. Just like us.»
«Have some more milk chocolate.»
«Francis likes milk chocolate.»
«I feel sorry for Francis, but I do see Christian's point.»
«All this intimate friendly talk about 'Christian' makes me feel ill.»
«You mustn't mind so much. It's all in your head.»
«Well, I live in my head. I wish she was dead. I wish she'd died in America. I bet she killed her husband.»
«Bradley. You know I didn't mean any of those violent things I said about Arnold the other day.»
«Yes, I know.»
«In marriage one says things which are, yes, mechanical, but it doesn't affect the heart.»
«The what?»
«Bradley, don't be so-«How heavy mine is, like a great stone in my breast. Sometimes one feels suddenly doomed by fate.»
«Oh brace up, for God's sake!»
«You don't hate me for having seen-you know, you and Arnold, the other day?»
«No. It just makes you seem closer.»
«I wish, I wish she hadn't met Arnold.»
