Symposium Read Free Page B

the driving force, there.’
    ‘Nor do
I,’ said Ernst, for after all, he was a fair-minded man. ‘Not that I admire his
paintings. If there are messages in pictures I have got the message. I tell
you, Ella, that those flat backdrops like posters — deserted dodgems at the
seaside or a wooden impassive nurse standing beside a Red Cross van — remind me
of the bureaucratic life. Yet he sells for exaggerated prices.‘
    ‘Chris
Donovan hypes them up. Of course she believes in Hurley,’ said Ella, and she
thought, Ernst can’t help mixing up the price of a thing with the thing itself.
    ‘Nothing
sings, nothing flows. There are only inanimate signs. They blow neither hot nor
cold because they can’t blow at all,’ said Ernst. ‘And yet they fetch
thousands.’
    It was
true that Ernst had good taste. He went to auctions and enjoyed the putting of
a money value on every work of art. He knew it was the wrong attitude, but he
couldn’t get out of the habit. He was a Catholic. When he visited the Pope,
even then, he couldn’t help calculating the Pope’s worldly riches
(life-proprietor of the Sistine Chapel, landlord of the Vatican and contents …).
Ernst knew it was a frightful habit, but he told himself it was realistic; and
it was too exciting altogether ever to give up, this mental calculation of what
beauty was worth on the current market.
    By
unspoken consent Ella and Ernst were not sleeping together any more. If only
she knew whether he had slept with Luke. How promiscuous was Luke? The dread
disease. For that matter, if only he knew she had not slept with Luke there
would be a break in the tension. As it was you slept with everyone they had
slept with for the last ten years. There were contraceptives, but it would be
an innovation for Ernst. She thought, you can die of it ten years hence and I don’t
want to. Ernst thought the same. The trouble was they didn’t know Luke, and
perhaps Luke didn’t know himself.
    Thinking
of Luke now, Ernst’s head swam. No sex, absolutely no sex. Romantic love has
changed, but absolutely so. Nobody in their senses can be carried away any
more, secure in the simple swallowed pill. Now people watch each other. Ella
suspects me. She suspects that I suspect her. We could both be right. It’s like
that vile practice of watching to see if your wife, your husband, goes to Holy
Communion. Now they watch for the contraceptive act.
    Ernst
began to think of his work. Heads of states and their minions sitting at large
round tables with interpreters and bottles of mineral water, having such slow,
such slow, conversations. Elementary thoughts.
    ‘Chris
and Hurley are planning a dinner in a few weeks’ time. I hope you’ll be here?’
said Ella.
    ‘Yes,
I’ll be in London next week for a month.’
    They
walked home. The Greek food they had eaten lay on their stomachs like stodgy.
They agreed: no more Greek food. Never again.

 
     
     

     
     
     
    IT was the first week of October, over two weeks before the dinner that
Chris Donovan and Hurley Reed were planning to give in London. Venice was still
warm, still crowded at the Rialto Bridge, St Mark’s Square and the other main
points of profuse attraction. Margaret Damien, so recently Margaret Murchie,
and her husband William were on the second week of their honeymoon, the first
of which they had spent in Florence. With only a few days left, they were
writing postcards as they sat in Florian’s overpriced café.
    ‘Venice
is a whore,’ said William.
    ‘You’re
not writing that down, are you?’ said Margaret. ‘It goes through the open post.
People can read.’
    ‘No,
but it’s what I think,’ he said cheerfully.
    But
Margaret became solemn. ‘We should think positively,’ she said. ‘Venice is,
after all, unique.’
    One of
the things he admired about his wife was her moralistic tendency, and
especially her refusal to speak ill of anybody. It was old-fashioned and
refreshing. Very unusual and people noticed