Look At Me Part 3

*Just checking,' she said. *I don't seem to have seen you for ages. What's going on?'

*It's a bit difficult just now,' I replied. *Can I ring you when I get home? We're frightfully busy, and I can't talk at the moment.'

There was a pause, and I could hear her drawing on her cigarette.

*You know, you've changed.,' she said. *What's happened to you? You used to be more amusing. More forthcoming. I feel there's a barrier these days. You say one thing, and you mean another.' She paused again. *Deceitful, really,' she p.r.o.nounced.

*Alix,' I said slowly, *there's nothing like that. There's nothing to tell.'

She went on, in a very reasonable tone of voice, *Well, if that's the way you want it. But it's a bit disappointing, f.a.n.n.y. I had hopes of you. I thought you might really turn into something. And this business with James... Well, it's not really fair on him, is it? You think of yourself a bit too much, you know.'

There was a little silence, and a slow exhalation of smoke, and she murmured,'... dragging it out like this.' I made no answer to this, although I wondered if she was right. Dr Leventhal was clearly waiting for me to go away and get on with my work, but all I could think of saying was, *Let me ring you back when I get home.'

*Do you love him?' she asked me suddenly.

Instinct, wariness, caution, or all three, dictated my reply.

*No,' I said.

For I think that this was the truth. My confidence that my pleasure would increase and become love had been checked. The easy future that I had imagined had somehow disappeared, and been replaced by the need to be complicated, slightly underhand, pretending that all was well, pretending it to James, and, in a slightly different version, pretending it to Alix. I should not, I felt, have been put in this position. I should have been defended. James should have defended me. And then I thought that she was perhaps right, that I had not considered him sufficiently in the matter. I did not quite know what he wanted. I was not sufficiently experienced to guess. There was, perhaps, a miscalculation in my hopes. I would revise the position after our holiday together, and then I would be able to tell Alix. Who must not, however, know about the holiday until after we were safely together in Kent.

When I walked back, slowly, into the Library, I saw Olivia's eyes on me, a little sorrowful, and I smiled rea.s.suringly at her and went back to work.

That afternoon Alix. telephoned again, and this time she was much more cheerful.

*The thing is,' she announced, without preamble, *Jack and Barbara have invited us to lunch on Sunday, and I thought the four of us might go down in the car. It's somewhere near Bray. We might as well go; it'll save cooking. And I could do with a break.'

*I was going to the Benedicts',' I murmured, wretchedly aware that Olivia could hear me.

*Oh, come on, f.a.n.n.y. You can get away for once in a while. Don't be such a bore. It's frightfully ungracious.' Quite suddenly she was antagonistic, which frightened me, and I felt it necessary to placate her.

*Of course I'll come,' I said.

*That's better,' she replied. *Why don't you come round to us about elevenish? That way James can have a lie-in. His poor feet must be worn out.'

*Well, we can fix things on Friday,' I said. *I don't know what James...'

*Friday? Oh, Friday. Well, I'm not too sure about Friday, actually. Nick might be working late. I'll give you a ring.'

That evening James took me out for a meal, just the two of us, and my fears were allayed when he walked me home, although it was not our usual walk. And there was no tray of coffee, because Nancy had not expected us home so early, and was still in the kitchen, watching television. We, or rather James, told her not to bother because he would have to leave straight away. I said, *Are you going to walk back?' and he laughed, and answered, *Not tonight.' I felt a pang of sadness that the old routine had been so lightly abandoned and then reproached myself because I seemed to be attaching so much importance to outward forms. He took my face in his hands, perhaps seeing my expression change, and said, *Don't be sad, Frances. Sweet, serious Frances. My dear good girl,' and that made me a little happier because then I knew that he was not blaming me for anything. But I did not like going to bed so unusually early, and I did not sleep well.

The next day, at the Library, when the telephone rang, I found myself stiffening with alarm, and then perceptibly relaxing when Dr Leventhal failed to materialize in the doorway. My remission, however, was short-lived, because in a few minutes he came through the door and said, *Frances, a word with you, please.'

I followed him out, thinking with dread of that time when Nancy had telephoned to tell me to come home, that she thought I ought to call the doctor. My heart was beating so hard that when he said, *I have had a call from Dr Simek,' I nearly collapsed with thankfulness, as if I expected the time to start running backwards and all my hard-won a.s.surance to desert me. I could hardly hear what Dr Leventhal was saying, and he looked at me closely.

*Are you quite well, Frances? There's a lot of this *flu going about, you know.'

I said that I was quite well, although I felt a little off-balance.

*As I was saying, I have had a call from Dr Simek. He is quite poorly, I'm afraid. The *flu, you know, and now his doctor has advised a rest. But he left some notes here and he wondered if you would take them round to him this evening. He seems to think you know what he wants. Take a taxi, of course. I will repay you from petty cash.'

I was exasperated with Dr Simek, with the fact that I was never to escape from performing this sort of dreary service. In the taxi my mind seethed with images of pleasure from which I was excluded: warmth, intimacy, company, shared meals. I had not been doing anything that evening, so that this did not really inconvenience me. I was simply in a state of tension from which there seemed to be no release.

Dr Simek lived in a large, dull house, up a few worn steps, somewhere near the World's End. The door was opened on to steamy light and a smell of cooking by a woman in an ap.r.o.n, whose face I could not see. I told her my name and why I had come. *Ah, yes,'she said, in a rather surprisingly cultured foreign accent. *He worries about his work. I will take you up.' She motioned towards a staircase carpeted with faded red. *If you would be so kind...'That was obviously the origin of the phrase. I asked her to go ahead of me, which she did. She knocked on the door of a room on the second floor.

*Dr Simek,' she murmured, and then, in a louder tone, *Dr Simek. A lady to see you.'

The door opened and a hoa.r.s.e voice said,'Thank you, Mrs Lazowska. Most kind.' The landlady, or whatever she was, smiled at me, and nodded her head. I found myself nodding back, and then I went in.

It became clear to me at a glance that Dr Simek was quite ill. He was seated by an ancient gas fire with a saucer of dusty water in front of it, and he was wearing an old silk dressing gown, with a silk scarf tucked into the neck. The room was lit by a bright centre light and contained a narrow divan bed, a chest of drawers with china handles, such as might have come out of a housemaid's attic, a bookcase with a brick under one side, where the leg had come off, and a little table, on which stood a radio tuned to some foreign station. On the back of the door hung one of those awfV1 plarnic wardrobes, containing Dr Simek's overcoatand h.is suit. He himself was seated in a chair covered in rubbed and fading velvet; he made as if to get up, but I went over to him, and put my hand on his shoulder, and he brought the other hand up and patted mine, and smiled.

I had thought I should find him in low spirits, but he seemed to have recovered a certain worldliness, a certain sophistication. When I handed over his file of notes, he inclined his head and murmured, *Most kind', and nodded to me to put them on the table. I asked him how he was, and he made a little face, and said, *As you see, Miss Frances. As you see', and then, perhaps because he felt that he had been asking for sympathy, he fitted a yellow cigarette into his old-fashioned cigarette holder, and asked me to sit down. I sat on the bed, because there was nowhere else to sit, and there was another knock on the door, and it opened to reveal Mrs Lazowska, with two tall gla.s.ses of lemon tea on a tray. *Your tea, doctor,' she said. *And for your guest.' She put a small plate of strange biscuits on the table, and urged, *Eat, please. Please.'Dr Simek inclined his head to her, as if dismissing her, and she took this as her cue to go.

It was very quiet, except for the roar of the gas fire, and very hot. The tea was scalding, but I drank it as quickly as I could. I was anxious to get out of there, and yet constrained by some old politeness, as if I were a child again, on my honour to behave well. Dr Simek took a lump of sugar in slightly trembling fingers, inserted it between his strong old teeth, and took a draught of tea. The gesture, which was repeated several times, made him seem incredibly foreign, and reminded me, perhaps in the way his lip lifted, that he had been a vigorous man, and, from the way his landlady treated him, an important one. He seemed in no sense apologetic about his surroundings or his dressing gown, and I felt young and slightly awkward. Searching for something to say, I looked round the room and my eye fell on a photograph of a very beautiful woman, on his chest of drawers.

*Is that your wife?' I asked, aware that this was a crude question.

*My daughter,' he replied. *Zdenka.'

*She is very beautiful,' I said.

*Yes,' he said. *She was beautiful.' And the fingers trembled a little more, and the gla.s.s of tea was raised, and emptied, and lowered again. Then another yellow cigarette was inserted into the holder, and it was quite clear that Dr Simek was ready for me to leave.

*I hope you will be better soon,' I said lamely. *We have missed you at the Library.' And he gave a fine ironic smile, as if he knew how little difference his presence or his absence made. I stood up, for suddenly this had become unbearable, and held out my hand. He laid his cigarette holder aside, and tried to get up, but found the effort too much. His face sagged as he fell back, and I went over to help him, but with great and unexpected strength he pushed on his arms and stood up, steadied himself with his hand on the back of the chair, retrieved his cigarette holder, composed his face into an expression of worldly good humour suitable to leave-taking, and inclined his head in farewell. He did not, perhaps could not, shake my hand, but remained braced against the back of his chair, his other hand gripping the amber holder.

This image was so powerful, and so disturbing, that when I got home I wrote it down.

And it haunted and irritated me so much that I was longing to see my friends and more than ready for my outing on Sunday. I made an effort and pushed all my doubts and suspicions to the back of my mind, and we had the most wonderful time. We raced out to Bray in the car, James and I sitting in the back, and when James took my hand I looked at him and he looked back and I knew that everything was all right again. It was a fine, sunny day, too good to be indoors, as Alix said, and we decided to cut the lunch and just drive on.

*Barbara always was a bit of a bore, anyway,' Alix decided, waving away our objections. *I can tell her we lost our way. And then when we really have nothing better to do we can start all over again.'

We had lunch in a pub by the river, and Alix and Nick decided that we ought to have a walk. They went off together arm in arm, gazing into each other's eyes, and James and I looked at each other again and smiled. Then we went off on our own, but we just walked round the garden. The weather had turned warmer, as if spring were already on the way, and we were able to sit down together on a bench and watch the river.

Later that afternoon Nick insisted on taking our photographs. I took theirs, and I don't know whether they came out or not. Then Nick took mine. I found it on my desk two days later. It shows me sitting in a garden chair, in my blue woollen shirt and my blue pullover. I look very young, very trusting, very carefree. Very happy. I have it still. It is the only photograph of myself that I possess.

Eight.

After that lovely day our attention seemed to slacken, our hold on each other to dwindle. There were only ten days to go before Christmas overtook us. We had a little party in the Library, mainly for the benefit of Mrs Halloran. Dr Leventhal poured sherry carefully into rather small gla.s.ses, and I handed round some mince pies. It was not a tempestuously joyful occasion, although Mrs Halloran, who had attired herself in green, with much occult pewter jewellery, had a good time, and after four gla.s.ses of sherry became rather sentimental and made a few hazy predictions for the New Year. *All you wish yourselves, girls,' she proclaimed, as she was to do later in the afternoon when I took her a cup of tea, and later than that, when she could finally be persuaded to leave.

Nick came to the party, and James looked in but did not stay. I had not seen Nick for just over a week, since he took our photographs in that garden, and I was surprised to notice a change in him. He was of course charming to Mrs Halloran, whom he teased as usual, and I was impressed that he stayed as long as he did, for there was nothing there to keep him, and his face, when 116, not creased into his usual golden smile, fell into a sort of blankness. This was so unlike him that I wondered if he were ill, although he looked perfectly well. He looked... ill at ease, at fault, preoccupied. He looked as if his attention were miles away. He looked absent, pa.s.sive. He refused my mince pies with a brief automatic smile, then lapsed into a sort of reverie, jerking out of it only to flirt with Mrs Halloran. I wondered if anything had happened, and when we were both out of earshot of the others I asked him. He threw up his hands and made a mock grimace of guilt, and said, *Sorry, sorry. I'm not very sociable, am I?'which did not answer my question. I remembered the gesture rather than the words. After puzzling for some minutes I remembered that it was the sort of gesture he had used to make when he had not read Dr Simek's article. Or invited him to dinner.

This last reflection worried me. It was then that I realized that I was being slowly excluded from the dinners with the Frasers, or rather that was what I imagined. We had not met for a week. It was of course possible that the Christmas rush had caught up with them, although I did not see why this should impinge on their evenings. It did seem to keep James very busy, for he had numerous small nieces and nephews to think about, and I was all ready to help him shop for them, but he was good at shopping, he explained, and it was easy enough for him to go to Harrods. I had bought all my presents, because Christmas no longer seemed important to me; I just wanted to get it over, and to get away to the Benedicts' house, at Plaxtol, with James.

We were not very busy in the Library, which was just as well because Alix kept telephoning me. Sometimes she would say, *No news. just keeping up to date,' and I would put the telephone down and feel absurdly disappointed. I found myself anxious for news, for information. But at other times she was far more worrying, and my knowledge that Dr Leventhal was becoming increasingly testy at the length of these calls compounded my feelings of irritation and of fear. She took her time over these calls, which now all had the same theme: that I was inconsiderate, that I simply didn't know how to treat people, that I had been far from polite to herself and to Nick, and that if I was going to carry on like this I ought to stop seeing James.

*But why should IF I protested, when she first put this to me. *What harm am I doing him?'

*You're simply standing in his way. He feels committed to you, and you've told me there's no future in it.'

*I've said nothing of the sort...'

I could hear her lighting a cigarette and inhaling. *You said you didn't love him, didn't you?'

*But that doesn't mean I can't see him. I enjoy being with him. I enjoy his company. He enjoys mine.' I found that I was pleading with her, for the right to continue to see James. *Why does it have to change? We were very happy...'

*There you are, you see,'she cried triumphantly. *You were very happy. Or rather you were very happy. It's all self with you, isn't it? What about him? Do you think he's happy?'

I said, *I'll have to go now', because I was so disturbed that I didn't know how to go on. I wondered if I had really made James unhappy, and if so, what I could do about it. I wondered why he had not told me that he was unhappy, although I did remember his face, stern and downcast on too many occasions when we were together, the eyelids severe. His hands no longer touched my face, as they used to do, but stayed clasped in his lap; their astonishing gentleness had disappeared, and they looked angry again, hard and red. But if the terrible truth was that he no longer loved me, why had he not said so? And if he no longer loved me, why were we going away together? And if he no longer loved me, what had changed him?

It was this last intolerable doubt that kept me connected to Alix, who obviously held the key to the whole dilemma. She must have encouraged James to talk to her, as he had not yet done to me; she must know more than I did. The uneasiness of my situation blinded me to the fact that she had no business to meddle in it, and that I would be justified in asking him not to confide in anyone but myself, if indeed he had anything to confide. The last sensible part of my brain told me that the whole thing was a fabrication, that Alix was bored, that she could not resist a situation which seemed to her *interesting', and that she might indeed simply be using it for distraction, for entertainment. Because I no longer entertained her. I no longer confided in her. I had repaid her attentions with ingrat.i.tude. And that if James were confiding in her it was because he was a better guest than I was and knew what was expected of him. Knew what was due to Alix. That he was humouring her.

This particular line of thought led to a truth which was not welcome. If he were humouring her, it was at my expense. And if he were doing this, then he was less than the totally honourable man that I had supposed him to be. But I could not believe this, although I remembered his new severity, which was quite unlike the severity which had marked him before I knew him properly. Before he loved me. Which led me to the other intolerable truth, which was that he had fallen in love with Alix. Or that Alix had fallen in love with him and was trying to estrange us.

When this thought came I found I could not dislodge it and it swirled round and round in my head with full accompaniment of ugly and erotic images. I saw the three of them in some hateful collusion, as I had once Pictured them at the breakfast table, laughing. Pictured here enjoying a joke. My madness disposed them in arrangements which I did not know I knew. I heard Mrs Halloran saying once again, *She has him by the b.a.l.l.s', and I acknowledged the power and capricious will of Alix, her mastery, her autonomy, her fearlessness. She who must be obeyed. I saw Nick's abstracted face at our little Christmas party, and I thought I understood it. I saw James being drawn away from me, because I was too dull to keep his interest. I had thought that we were happy in our modest way, with our walks, our coffee. I thought of our impending holiday, and I knew that I could not go through with it if these questions were unresolved.

On an impulse, I seized my purse, went down to the public telephone in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and dialled Alix's number.

*I'd like to talk to you,' I said, *about what you were saying. About James and me.'

She sounded very weary, very reasonable.

*I'm not sure that there's any point.' I could hear the cigarette being inhaled. *I've made myself clear. If you don't love him - and you've said you don't - you're duty bound to tell him that you can't go on with it. That's all there is to it.'

*But it isn't,' I protested. *I have some feelings in the matter, you know. You don't seem to understand that. And that's what I want to talk to you about.'

She sighed. *Well, then, come round on Sunday. He'll be out then. It's his mother's birthday. Come about four.'

I said, stupidly, *I can't. I've got to go and see Miss Morpeth. I go once a month and I can't not go just before Christmas.'

*Oh, for Christ's sake,' she exploded. *That's exactly what I mean. Your little habits. Your little routine. And you expect him to fit into that.'

*Alix,' I said, steadying my voice, *this is idiotic. I don't even know what it's all about. We must talk. Can't I come another day? What about Monday evening? I could come to you after work...'

There was a pause. Then, *We're joining Maria on Monday. I'd have to ask her. Oh well, why not? Yes, come on Monday.'

I was shaking when I put down the telephone. I felt as if I were about to come up for judgment, at a court which was already prejudiced against me. And I still could not see what I had done that was so wrong. I was, as I saw it, not only blameless but completely harmless. I was not forcing James to do anything that he might not wish to do. In fact I was not forcing him to do anything at all. Perhaps that was what was wrong, I thought. Perhaps he is the sort of man who likes to have things decided for him. Perhaps he is so upright and severe that I must initiate changes. That I must ask him why he hesitates, tell him that it is all right. That I must make him love me.

I have said that I did not love him in the fatal sense. By that I mean that he was not a drug, an obsession, like that time of which I never speak. I did not have to strive for his attention, I did not have to abandon everything when he appeared, I did not have to squander all my resources at a sign from him. In fact, after the debas.e.m.e.nt of that previous time, I experienced with James a renewal of innocence, and I felt more at home with that innocence than with that cynicism of desire and contempt so strangely mingled that I had previously known. That secrecy, that urgency, that bitterness, that lack of hope... I had enjoyed the openness of consorting with an eligible man (how prehistoric that sounds!) in full view of others, after those stratagems and those returns in the early hours of the morning, weeping, my coat huddled round me to conceal the clothes so hastily put on and now creased. The concealed pain, the lying morning face. I could not go through that again.

I wanted, you see, to make it all come out right this time. I wanted contentment and peace for myself and for him and I wanted the approbation of others. Perhaps, above all, the approbation of others. I wanted it to go according to plan; I even wanted the small satisfactions of congratulations and good wishes. I wanted to see the smiles on the faces of Mrs Halloran and Dr Simek as they raised gla.s.ses to me. I wanted, for once in my life, a celebration. To make up for all the sadness, all the waste and confusion, all the waiting, the sitting in sickrooms, the furtive returns and the lying morning face. I wanted, more than anything, a chance to be simple, once again, as I was meant to be, and as I had been long ago, a long, long time ago.

I wanted an end to shabbiness, to pretence, to anxiety, to dissembling. That last time, the time of which I never speak, had been so unendurable and also so baffling. I had found myself rising, somehow, to expectations which I did not fully understand: grossness, cruelty, deceit. I had been humiliated, and had been enjoyed precisely because I was humiliated. It was all so different from what others had believed of me. I had managed, somehow, to live two lives. But in the end it was the more respectable of those lives that I had inherited. I minded, of course. Oh yes, I minded. But at the same time I knew that whatever people say and whatever they put up with and whatever they get away with, love should be simple. And it is. It is.

Now, once again, it seemed that I must keep spontaneity at bay, must maneuvre and keep watch. I would do what was required of me - although I was by now so confused that I could not quite decide who required it. I trembled to lose James, my spirit failed at the thought of the expertise ranged against me, I prepared to do battle. But my heart was no longer in it.

I ran up the stairs and knocked on his door, something I had never had to do before. He looked surprised to see me, and rather distant, encased in that professional persona of his. When I explained that I wanted to see him that evening, that, please, I must see him that evening, he gave a little smile, shook his head, as if humouring a child, and told me that he would pick me up after the Library closed, at six.

All that day I trembled steadily, close to anger but not quite angry enough. I was tense with anxiety, with despair, for I doubted my ability to inspire love. If, as it seemed, I had become so uninteresting so quickly, how could I put matters right at this late stage? I was not a powerful woman, able to bend others to my will, nor was I particularly malleable, and therefore able to bend to the will of others. I was not distinguished by notable caprices, I was not irresistibly attractive; I was simply well behaved and rather observant - a bad combination. And my tongue, I am told, is sharp. I was certainly extremely reasonable, but that very quality seemed to deprive me of expectation. Why should anyone care to please me, or exert themselves to try, when I made so few demands? I knew this, I had always known it, but now the knowledge seemed to render me doubly ineffective. At one stage during that long day I caught myself literally wringing my hands, and then I knew how seriously I was dismayed.

I could have been different, I think. Once I had great confidence, great cheerfulness; I did not question my purpose or the purpose of others. All that had gone, and I had done my best to replace it. I had become diligent instead of spontaneous; I had become an observer when I saw that I was not to be allowed to partic.i.p.ate. I had refused to be pitiable. I had never once said, Look at me. Now, it seemed, I must make one more effort, one more attempt to prove myself viable. And if I succeeded, I might be granted one more opportunity to do it all over again. I did not dare to think what would happen if I failed.

At half-past five I slipped out of the Library and went to wash my hands, which were clammy. I looked at myself in the gla.s.s and I saw my neat watchful face, my alarmed eyes, my white lips. From my bag I took a little-used lipstick and made my mouth pink, then rubbed some of the colour into my cheeks. I willed myself to relax and smiled pleasantly at myself in the gla.s.s. When I returned to the Library, Olivia said, *There's a call for you', and her eyes were as wide and alarmed as my own. I went into Dr Leventhal's room and picked up the telephone; it was, of course, Alix, very friendly, with an invitation to dinner for that same evening.

*I can't,' I said. *James is taking me out.'

*Yes, he rang to tell me. I thought it would be simpler if you came over here, and then we could put you into a taxi and all have an early night.'

*Well, no,' I said carefully, although I was frightened and annoyed. *I want to talk to him.'

*You can talk to him here,' she said. She sounded not only inexorable but very reasonable. She made it seem as if there could be no point in my not doing as she wished, and that it would save trouble all round if I agreed to do so straight away.

I merely said, *Not tonight.

*All right, all right, there's no need to snap at me.'

*I didn't...'

*Just send him home early, that's all I ask. He looks worn out. You might think of that for a change, when you can spare a minute from your old ladies.'

*I'll see you next Monday,' I said tightly, trying to control my voice, and waited for her to ring off, which she did, without a further message.

I think it was then that I decided that I was at Alix's mercy, and because this shocked me so much I took a pull at myself and became more realistic. If, as was unquestionably the case, I had incurred Alix's displeasure because of James's attachment to me, then it seemed as if I must renounce him in order to get back into favour. This was so palpably ridiculous that I gave up the idea straight away. I would, I decided, throw in my lot with James, explain the situation to him, make it seem not serious, even rather amusing, and then ask him what he thought about it. I must, above all, clear the air. I was becoming morbid, I told myself He put his head round the door just after six, and nodded, and I picked up my bag and went out to join him. Some instinct made me turn round and I saw Olivia looking at me. Our eyes met, and although I had said nothing to her, she smiled st.u.r.dily and raised her clenched fist. In her delicacy, she made no move to leave, in case it should be thought that she was observing James and myself.

I could eat very little at the restaurant, although I believe that the food was excellent at this Italian place: James lunches there most days. He did not seem to notice as I cut up the food and pushed it around my plate; he did not even look at me, although he was in good spirits and very talkative. He seemed to be addressing a point somewhere to the right of my head, and although I wanted to pay attention and seem interested I had some diffficulty in understanding what he was saying. I blamed my own distraction, but in lucid moments I realized that he was being deliberately inconsequential; he was talking about matters and even about people I did not know and in that way I could not join in. He was defending himself against me. I could make no inroads on his attention although I knew that it was there, warily, waiting for an ambush, and determined to avoid one. My heart beat strongly, uncomfortably, and all at once I was anxious to get out of the restaurant, to get home, to have him to myself. But he was in no hurry, it seemed, and I could not engage his attention. He would not even meet my eyes. Look at me, I wanted to say. Look at me.

At last he asked for the bill and I waited by the door, b.u.t.toning up my coat, tugging at the belt in my haste. It had begun to rain, a fine thin drizzle, and the air felt dank, unhealthy. When he joined me I wanted to take his hand, but he was busy with wallets, with pockets; one hand went to his collar and another to his jacket, to pull it down under his coat, and then at last we set off, side by side, out of step, saying nothing. Then we came closer to each other, instinctively, in the ugly night, and after a while my hand stole out and took his, and that was how we reached the flat, silent, but hand in hand again.

There was no sound from the kitchen and I a.s.sumed that Nancy had gone to bed early. Our tray was on the kitchen table, and I left it there. I flung off my coat and went into the drawing room; I switched on the fire and the lamps and turned round to find him standing in the middle of the room, deep in thought. I went up to him and put my arms round his waist, round his damp coat, which he was still wearing, and then I laughed and said, *Darling, you're soaking. Take this off.' He hesitated, and I laughed again, and tugged at the sleeve, until he shrugged his way out of it. I pulled the two stools in front of the fire, but he did not join me. Instead he sat down in my mother's chair and eased his collar away from his neck. He looked wary, distant, and it seemed to be up to me to take that curiously affronted expression off his face. I could not bear his strangeness. So I started talking, as larkily as I could, and I perched on the arm of the chair, and after a time he grinned and pulled me down on to his lap. It occurred to me that one of us was behaving rather oddly and I a.s.sumed it to be me. But his silence appalled me. So I went on talking. I stopped eventually, and looked at him, and smiled, and stood up, and took his hand, and led him into my bedroom, and as I collapsed gratefully on to the bed I relaxed and pulled him towards me. I could feel his heart beating; I could feel his hands tearing at my dress. I thought, but it should not be like this, there is no need... I reached up for him but suddenly he broke free and stood up and said, *Not with you, Frances. Not with you.' And as I lay there he turned his back on me and walked jerkily over to the bookcase, and stood there with his back to me. After a minute I sat up, and waited for him to turn round, to explain. But he would not, and eventually I got up and went over to him, and asked him what was wrong. I edged round him so that I was facing him, and I said, *What is it? What is it?' I said, *What is the matter?', thinking that I had angered him in some way. But he did not answer. And then, I think, I knew that I had lost him long before the evening had ever started.

I looked down at myself, at my creased dress, the collar slightly torn. I looked at him, but he would not meet my eye. I went out of the room and back into the drawing room and stood by the fire. Eventually I heard him come in, but I remained standing, with my back to him. I heard him come towards me, and hesitate' and then I heard him go out, and then I heard the front door close very quietly behind him. After a while, I raised my eyes to that mirror, hanging by its chains over the fireplace, and I saw my white face, the eyes staring, and the mouth swollen and open, the unaccustomed lipstick smeared all over it. Then, very slowly, I bent down and switched off the fire, and the lights, and went to bed.

The next day I worked steadily, much as usual. The Library was quiet. The telephone did not ring, although I found myself waiting for it. I planned to say that I was not well, if anyone called, and that I was going home. I would then go home. I think I hoped that this would happen, and that people would get worried about me. I think I hoped that if I went home James would eventually come and find me, and that in that bedroom I could somehow reconstruct that evening and make it all right, and then we could begin again and be once more what we had been to each other. But the telephone did not ring, and I was left undisturbed.

I hoped that James would come to me at last, if only to explain to me what had happened. It seemed to me that I had simply not understood some difficulty, and that once I did I could laugh and pretend that it did not matter. *Was it the wrong moment?' I planned to say. *I was quite worried. I thought I had done something to offend you.' And then he would laugh, almost out of relief that I had understood and was not upset, and then, if I was very careful, we could begin again. I had this all worked out, and I did not even worry that he did not appear that day, or the following day, because I realized that he had had a shock, and that he was annoyed, and that he did not know how to explain. I began to wonder if I should go to him, and make it easier for him that way, but I could not quite bring myself to do that. I knew that it might be necessary, but I kept putting it off. I thought that I might have to force things into the open before the following Monday, when I should see him at the Frasers'. I could not quite trust myself to behave as if nothing had happened.

But as the hours ticked slowly past, it began to seem as if this was what was going to happen. I felt - and there was not a minute of the day when this matter did not occupy my whole attention - that he should be allowed absolute freedom in this matter, that I should not Put any pressure on him, that I should simply put him first. I began to wonder if I had ever done this and realized, sadly, that perhaps I had not. My enjoyment of those tiny routines, which, when I now came to think about them, seemed to dwindle into the occupations of a child, or an invalid, had of course misled him. It wasevident to me that I should have got to know him better, that I should have sensed in him a complication, a sort of refusal... But I had not sensed this. I had not even been aware of it. But if cleverer, more adult eyes than mine had perceived this and had tried to protect him, and in so doing had tried to warn me, then in fact Alix was blameless of anything except rather too much mystification. I realized that I would have to tell her eventually, if James did not speak to me of his own accord, and the knowledge filled me with disgust. And yet, as the time crept on, and James did not appear, I slowly became reconciled to the fact that I would have to go to Alix for an explanation, that it would become something no longer confined to the two of us, but once again a matter among the four of us, as it had been in the beginning.

But on no account would I tell her that he had said, *Not with you, Frances. Not with you.' I heard those words over and over again, and in the end I came to understand that he had found me... not suitable in that way; that he had looked on me only as a friend, that this was a friendship that must be preserved in its nursery simplicity, with its healthy walks and its cups of coffee. I thought that I had probably mistaken that early excitement, which I had felt in both my mind and my body, but which he had evidently not felt in the same way. This realization left me numb. And I had told him so much: I had asked Olivia for the house at Plaxtol, and I had shown James that I expected him to be there with me, just as if... just as if he would want to be. Just as if I meant anything at all to him in that way. I could never own up to this. Although I knew that Alix, and even Nick, would demand a full accounting, I knew that I could never let them know how mistaken I had been.

As the three days that separated me from the weekend slowly pa.s.sed, and James still did not appear, my expectations fell away and died, and I knew that he would try to bury the incident and pretend that it had not happened, that he might never refer to it, might not even tell Alix and Nick. I perceived that it might be a matter of good manners to let it all drop, and that it was up to me to terminate our arrangement as un.o.btrusively as possible. On the following Monday I would be bright and entertaining, for now I needed my friends more than ever. I would plead tiredness when it came to going home, and quite naturally hail a taxi, and I would somehow let it be known that it was all over. It was, after all, what they wanted, in their various ways. And I must not be mulish or uncomfortable about this: it was nearly Christmas, and we were going to have to celebrate together. So that I must be very light-hearted. I would tell Olivia that we had decided not to use the house, and I knew that she would not ask me any questions. I would tell her some time. But not yet.