And I used to cry in front of him, I'd sit and cry for hours with sheer misery, sitting there in front of him, and he'd just go on reading the paper.»
«That's just nonsense, Priscilla.»> «Oh Bradley, if only we hadn't killed that child-She had already been onto this subject at some length.
«Oh Bradley, if only we'd kept the child-But how was I to know I wouldn't be able to have another one? That child, that one child, to think that it existed, it cried out for life, and we killed it deliberately. It was all Roger's fault, he insisted that we get rid of it, he didn't want to marry me, we killed it, the special one, the only one, my dear little child-«Oh do stop, Priscilla. It would be well over twenty now and on drugs, the bane of your life.» I have never desired children myself and can scarcely understand this desire in others.
«Twenty-a grown-up son-someone to love-to look after me-Oh Bradley, you don't know how I have yearned day and night for that child. He would have made all the difference to Roger and me. I think Roger began to hate me when he found I couldn't have children. And it was all his fault anyway. He found that rotten doctor. Oh it's so unjust, so unjust-«
«Of course it's unjust. Life is unjust. Do stop whingeing and try to be practical. You can't stay here. I can't support you. Anyway I'm going away.»
«I'll get a job.»
«Priscilla, be realistic, who would employ you?»
«I'll have to.»
«You're a woman over fifty, with no education and no skill. You're unemployable.»
«You're so unkind-«
The telephone rings again.
The oily ingratiating tones of Mr. Francis Marloe.
«Oh Brad, please forgive me, but I thought I'd just give a tinkle to ask how Priscilla is.»
«Oh good. Oh Brad, I just thought I'd tell you the hospital psych said better not leave her alone, you know.»
«Rachel told me yesterday.»
«I don't want to know things like that.»
«You and Dad made me feel so ashamed and inferior in the old days, you were both so cruel to me and Mum, Mum was so unhappy-«
«Either you must return to Roger or you must make some definite financial arrangement with him. It's nothing to do with me. You've got to face up to things.
«Bradley, please, will you go and see Roger-?»
«No, I will not!»
«Oh God, if only I'd taken my jewels with me, they mean so much to me, I saved up to buy them, and the mink stole. And there's two silver goblets on my dressing table and a little box made of malachite-«
«Priscilla, don't be childish. You can get these things later.»
«No, I can't. Roger will have sold them out of spite. The only consolation I had was buying things. If I bought some pretty thing it cheered me up for a while and I could save out of the housekeeping money and it cheered me up a little bit. I got my diamante set and I got a crystal-and-lapis necklace which was quite expensive and-«
«Why hasn't Roger telephoned? He must know you're here.»
«He's too proud and hurt. Oh you know, in a way I feel so sorry for Roger, he's been so miserable, shouting at me or else not talking at all, he must be so terribly unhappy inside himself, really wrecked and mentally broken somehow. Sometimes I've felt he must be going mad. How can anyone go on living like that, being so unkind and not caring any more? He wouldn't let me cook for him any more and he wouldn't let me into his room and I know he never made his bed and his clothes were filthy, and smelt and sometimes he didn't even shave, I thought he'd lose his job. Perhaps he has lost his job and didn't dare to tell me. And now it must be even worse. I kept the house a bit tidy though it was hard to when he so obviously didn't care. Now he's all alone in that filthy pigsty, not eating, not caring-«I thought he was surrounded by women.»
«Bradley, please would you go to Bristol-«It sounds to me as if you're dying to go back to the man-«Please would you go and get my jewels, I'll give you the key.»
«Oh do stop going on about your jewels. They're all right. They're legally yours anyway. A wife owns her own jewellery.»
«The law isn't anything. Oh I do want them so, they're the only things I've got, I haven't got anything else, I haven't anything else in the world, I feel they're calling out to me-And the little ornaments, that stripy vase-«Priscilla dear, do stop raving.»
«Bradley, please please go to Bristol for me. He won't have had time to sell them yet, he won't have thought of it. Besides he probably imagines I'm coming back. They're all still in their places. I'll give you the key of the house and you can go in when he's at the office and just get those few things, it will be quite easy and it will make such a difference to my mind, and then I'll do anything you like, oh it will make such a difference-The front doorbell rang at this point. I got up. I felt stupidly upset. I made a sort of caressing gesture to Priscilla and left the room, closing the door. I went to the front door of the flat and opened it.
Arnold Baffin was outside. We moved into the sitting-room, smoothly, like dancers.
Arnold's face, with any emotion, tended to become uniformly pink, as if a pink light had been switched onto it. He was flushed so now, his pale eyes behind his glasses expressing a sort of nervous solicitude. He patted my shoulder, or dabbed at it with the quick gesture of one playing «tig.»
«How is she?»
«Much better. You and Rachel were so kind.»
«Rachel was. Bradley, you're not angry with me, are you?»
«What is there to be angry about?»
«You know-they did tell you-that I went off with Christian?»
«I don't want to hear about Mrs. Evandale,» I said.
«You are angry. Oh Christ.»
«I am NOT angry! I just don't-want to-know-«I didn't intend this, it just happened.»
«All right! So that's that!»
«But I can't pretend it didn't happen, can I? Bradley, I've got to talk to you about it-just to make you stop blaming me-I'm not a fool-after all I'm a novelist, damn it!-I know how complicated-«I don't see what being a novelist has to do with it or why you have to drag that in-«I only mean I understand how you feel-«I don't think you do. I can see you're excited. It must have amused you very much to be the reception committee for my ex– wife. Naturally you want to talk about it. I am telling you not to.»
«But Bradley, she's a phenomenon.»
«I am not interested in phenomena.»
«My dear Bradley, you must be curious, you must be. If I were you I'd be dying with curiosity. There's hurt pride, I suppose, and-«There's no question of hurt pride. / left her.»
«Well, resentment or something, I know time doesn't heal. That's the silliest idea of all. But God, I'd be so curious. I'd want to see what she'd become, what she was like. Of course she sounds like an American now-«I don't want to know!»
«You never gave me any idea of her. To listen to you talk-«Arnold, since you're such a clever novelist and so full of human psychology, please understand that this is dangerous ground. If you want to imperil our friendship go ahead. I can't forbid you to be acquainted with Mrs. Evandale. But you must never mention her name to me. This could be the end of our friendship, and I mean it.»
«Our friendship is a tough plant, Bradley. Look, I just refuse to pretend that this thing hasn't happened, and I don't think you ought to either. I know people can be awful dooms for each other-«Precisely.»
«But sometimes if you face a thing it becomes tolerable. You ought to face this, and anyway, you've got to, she's here and she's determined to see you, she's absolutely mad with interest, you can't avoid her. And you know, she is a most enormously nice person-«I think that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say.»
«All right, I know what you mean. But since you still feel so emotional about her-«I don't!»
«Bradley, be sincere.»
«You've met her, you've discussed me, you think she's 'a most enormously nice person-«Bradley, don't shout. I-«
