«Do you always-have-difficulties?»
» 'Always' has no force here. I haven't been with a woman for many years. This privilege is unwonted and unexpected. And I cannot rise to it.»
«Undress. I just want to hold you.»
I felt appallingly cool, still seeing myself. I took off my shoes and socks, my trousers, pants and tie. Some sort of self-protective instinct made me retain my shirt, but I let Rachel with hot trembling fingers undo the buttons. As I lay in her arms quite still and physically chilled, and her hands moved timidly about me, I saw above the haze of her hair through a gap in the curtains the leaves of a tree moving about in the breeze, and I felt that I was in hell.
«You're icy cold, Bradley. You look as if you're going to cry. Don't worry, my darling, it doesn't matter.»
«It does matter.»
«It'll be better next time.»
There won't be a next time, I thought. And then I felt so overpoweringly sorry for Rachel that I really put my arms around her and drew her up against me. She gave an excited little sigh.
Then. «Rachel! Hey, where are you?» Arnold's voice below.
Like spirits of the damned pricked by the devil's fork we bounded up. I began scrabbling for my clothes which had got into a tangle on the floor. They appeared to be plaited into each other. Rachel had pulled on her blouse and skirt with no underclothes. She leaned on me as my hands still plucked vainly at inside-out trousers and her breath tickled my ear. «I'll take him down the garden.» Then she was gone, closing the door behind her. I heard voices below.
I glided out and down the stairs and opened the front door. I pulled it to very softly after me but it would not close. I pulled it harder and it banged. I ran down the path and slipped upon some moss and came down with a crash. I staggered up and began to run away down the road.
At the end of the next road I was slowing down to a quick walk when, just as I rounded the corner, I cannoned straight into somebody. It was a girl dressed in a very short striped garment, she had bare legs and bare feet, she was Julian.
«So sorry. Oh Bradley, how super. You've been visiting the parents. What a shame I missed you. Are you going to the station? May I walk along with you?» She turned and we walked on together.
«I thought you were at a pop festival,» I said, breathless, frantic with emotion, but concealing it.
«I couldn't get on the train. At least I could have done if I didn't mind being squashed, but I do, I'm a bit of a claustrophobe.»
«So am I. Pop festivals are no places for us claustrophobes.» I was speaking calmly, but now I was thinking: She will tell Arnold that she met me.
«I suppose not. I've never been to one. Now you're going to lecture me about drugs, aren't you?»
«No. Do you want a lecture?»
«I wouldn't mind one from you. But I'd rather it was on Hamlet. Bradley, do you think Gertrude was in league with Claudius to kill the king?»
«No.»
«Do you think she was having an affair with Claudius before her husband died?»
«No.»
