«Good night!»
WL here's Arnold?»
«Gone to the library. So he says. And Julian's gone to a pop festival.»
«I sent Arnold that review. Did he say anything?»
«I never see him reading his letters. He said nothing. Oh Bradley, thank God you've come!»
I hugged Rachel in the hall, behind the stained glass of the front door, beside the hall stand, next to the coloured print of Mrs. Sid– dons which I could see through the red haze of her hair. Still imprinted on my eyes was the vision of her broad pale face as she opened the door, crumpled into an ecstasy of relief. It is a privilege to be received in this way. There are human beings who have never been so welcomed. Something of Rachel's age, of her being wean. no longer young, was visible too and touching.
«Look, come upstairs.»
«Rachel, I want to talk-«You can talk upstairs, I'm not going to eat you.»
She led me by the hand, and in a moment we were in the bedroom where I had seen Rachel lying like a dead woman with the sheet over her face. As we came in Rachel pulled the curtains and then dragged the green silk counterpane off the bed. «Now, Bradley, sit down beside me.»
We sat down rather awkwardly side by side and stared at each other. I felt the roughness of the blankets under my limp hand. The welcoming image had faded and I was rigid with confusion and anxiety.
«I just want to touch you,» she said. And she did touch me with her finger tips, lightly touching my face and neck and hair, as if I were a holy image.
«Rachel, we must know what we're doing, I don't want to behau badly.»
«Guilt would interfere with your work.» She lightly closed my eyes with her finger tips.
I jerked away from her. «Rachel, you aren't just doing this to spite Arnold?»
«No. I think I started thinking about it, somehow out of self-defence, and then that awful time, you know, in this room, you were here, you were inside the barrier as it were, and I've known you so long, it's as if you had a special role, like a knight with a charge laid upon him, my knight, so necessary and precious, and I've always seen you a little as a wise man, a sort of hermit or ascetic-«And it always gives ladies particular pleasure to seduce ascetics.»
«Perhaps. Am I seducing you? Anyway I've got to perform an act of will. Otherwise I shall die of humiliation or something. I feel it's a holy time.»
«This could be a pretty unholy idea.»
«It's your idea too, Bradley. Look where you are!»
«We are both conventional middle-aged people.»
«I'm not conventional.»
«Well, I am, I'm pre-permissive. And you are my best friend's wife. And one doesn't with one's best friend's wife-«
«What?»
«Start anything.»
