«No. You've just played along out of vague affection and pity. Oh don't protest, I know. As for Arnold not taking you seriously as a libertine, that can hardly surprise you. The funny thing is, Arnold does care for you a lot.»
«Yes,» I said. «And the funny thing is that though I think in some ways he's a real four-letter man, I care for him a lot.»
«So you see, the real drama is between you and him. I'm just a side issue as usual.»
«No, no.»
«I don't mean a literal wink, you fool. Ah well, my little bid for freedom didn't last long, did it. It ended in a sordid undignified scrabbling little muddle and Arnold taking over once again. Oh God, marriage is such an odd mixture of love and hate. I detest and fear Arnold and there are moments when I could kill him. Yet I love him too. If I didn't love him he wouldn't have this awful power over me. And I admire him, I admire his work, I think his books are marvellous.»
«Rachel, you can't!»
«And I think that review of yours was spiteful and stupid.»
«Well, well.»
«You're just eaten up with envy.»
«Let's not argue about that, Rachel, please.»
«I'm sorry. I feel so sort of broken. I feel resentment against you for not having had the grace or luck to- rescue me or defend me or something. I don't even know what I mean. It isn't that I want to leave Arnold, I couldn't, I'd die. I just want a little privacy, a little secrecy, a few things of my own which aren't absolutely dyed and saturated with Arnold. But it seems to be impossible. You and he are going to start up again-«What a phrase!»
«You'll be talking your intellectual talk together and I'll be outside washing up and hearing your voices going on and on and on. It'll be just like the old days.»
«Listen, dear Rachel,» I said. «Why shouldn't you have a private place? I don't mean a love affair, neither of us has the temperament for that. I dare say I'm terribly repressed, not that I mind. And an affair would involve us in lies and would be wrong-«How simply you put it!»
«I don't want you to encourage you to deceive your husband-«I'm not asking you to!»
«We've known each other for years without ever coming really close. Now we suddenly blunder up against each other and it goes all wrong. We might now recede again to the previous distance or even farther. I suggest we don't. We can be friends. Arnold was holding forth about how he and Christian were friends-«Was he?»
«I suggest that you and I settle down to construct a friendship, nothing clandestine, all cheerful and above board-«Cheerful?»
«Why not? Why should life be sad?»
«I often wonder.»
«Why shouldn't we love each other a bit and make each other happier?»
«I like your 'a bit.' You're such a weights-and-measures man.»
«Let's try. I need you.»
«That's the best thing you've said yet.»
«Arnold could hardly object-«He'd love it. That's the trouble. Sometimes, Bradley, I wonder whether you have it in you at all to be a writer. You have such nai've views about human nature.»
