The Bachelors Read Free Page B

bought for, thought
for, provided for, and overwhelmed by her in the years to come. He saw, as in a
vision, himself coming round from his animal frenzy, his limbs still jerking
and the froth on his lips — and her shining brown eyes upon him, her
well-formed lips repeating as he woke such loving patronising lies as: ‘You’ll
be all right, darling. It’s just that you’re a genius.’ Which would indicate,
not her belief about his mental capacity but her secret belief in the
superiority of her own.
    After
the affair had ended Ronald took to testing his memory lest it was failing him
as a result of his disease. On the Saturday morning when the small thin man,
Patrick Seton, had been pointed out to him in the café as one who was coming up
for committal on Tuesday, Ronald, having faintly felt a passing sense of
recognition, and left the café, and gone home, began once more to think of the
man. But Ronald could not recall him or anything to do with him. He wished he
had asked Martin Bowles the man’s name. In a vexed way, Ronald sorted out his
groceries, chucking them into their places in the cupboard. Then he went across
to the pub.
    There,
drinking dark stout, were white-haired, dark-faced Walter Prett, art-critic,
who was looking at a diet sheet, Matthew Finch, with his colourful smile, and
black curly hair, London correspondent of the Irish Echo, and Ewart
Thornton, the dark, deep-voiced grammar-school master who was a Spiritualist.
These were bachelors of varying degrees of confirmation.
    Ronald
was actually forbidden alcohol, but he had found that the small quantity which
he liked to drink made no difference to his epilepsy, and that the very act of
ordering a drink gave him a liberated feeling.
    He took
his beer, sat down at his friends’ table and soundlessly sipped. In nearly five
minutes’ time he said, ‘Nice to see you all here.’
    Matthew
Finch ran a finger through his black curls. Sometimes a desire came over Ronald
to run his fingers through Matthew’s black curls, but he had given up wondering
if he were a latent homosexual, merely on the evidence of this one urge. Once
he had seen a married couple rumple Matthew’s hair in a united spontaneous gesture.
    ‘Nice
to see you all together,’ Ronald said.
    ‘Eggs,
boiled or poached only,’ Walter Prett read out in a sad voice from his diet
sheet. ‘Sour pickles but not sweet pickles. No barley, rice, macaroni—’
he read quietly, then his voice became louder, and even Ronald, who was used to
Walter Prett’s changing tones, was startled by this. ‘Fresh fruit of any kind,
including bananas, also water-packed canned fruits,’ Walter remarked modestly. ‘No
butter,’ he shrieked, ‘no fat or oil,’ he roared.
    ‘I’ve
got mounds of homework,’ said Ewart Thornton, ‘because the half-term tests have
begun.’
    Matthew
went over to the bar and brought back two pickled onions on a plate, and ate
them.

 
     
     
    Chapter II
     
    IT WAS six o’clock in the
evening of that Saturday in a third-floor double room in Ebury Street. Patrick
Seton sat in a meagre arm-chair which, since he was narrow at the shanks and
shoulders, he did not fill as people usually did. Alice Dawes was propped in
one of the divan beds, still half-dressed. Her friend, Elsie Forrest, sat on
the other divan and folded Alice’s skirt longwise.
    ‘If
only you would eat something you would see the thing in proportion,’ Elsie
said.
    ‘God, how
can I eat? Why should I eat?’ Alice said. ‘You ought to build up your strength,’
Patrick Seton said in his voice which seemed to fade away at the end of each
sentence.
    ‘What’s
the use of her building up her strength if she’s going to lose it that way?’
Elsie said.
    ‘It was
only a suggestion,’ Patrick said, so that they could hardly hear the last syllable.
    ‘Well,
I’m not going to do it,’ Alice said. ‘You’ll have to think of something else.’
    ‘There’s
this unfortunate occurrence next week….’
    ‘I