The Meddlers Read Free Page B

proof that I bore you, that you don’t care about me—”
    “No!” He almost shouted it. “That isn’t just, and you bloody well know it! I just want to know if your anger is because of the way the project has absorbed me lately, or if it’s simply the ill-mannered forgetfulness I showed last night—which I don’t deny, and for which I again apologize.”
    “Wasn’t it enough? And I’ve accepted your apology. I’ve had to.”
    “Not completely. And it isn’t only last night I’m talking about. You’ve been edgy for months.”
    “Have I? I hadn’t noticed particularly. Of course, I’ve been worried about Ian, and the way you and he—”
    “Please, not that. Not now.”
    “—and I’ve not been well. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
    “Of course I have! And it’s worried me. But I suspected you were—well, feeling the way you did because of the way I’ve been wrapped up in work, rather than because of any change in your condition.”
    She produced a smile of pure triumph. “I knew you hadn’t noticed. How all occasions do inform against you, George! Sir Peter says he wants to do another pyelogram soon. He’s been talking again about the possibility of dialysis.”
    “What?” George stared at her. “But I saw him only yesterday! He said nothing to me!”
    She smiled sweetly. “I told him not to. Insisted that he respect my confidence as a patient. He knows how busy you are, of course, and quite understood.”
    “Marjorie! Why do you do this to me? You say I shut you out ofmy work, but you shut me out… If you’re ill again, I’ve got to know!”
    “Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” she said, clearly enjoying herself. “Not really. You know what an old woman Apthorp can be. Forget it. There’s nothing really new. I’ve got a bit puffed up again, had a few headaches. Nothing very much. And I suppose you could be right.”
    “How do you mean?”
    She sat down opposite him and propped her chin on her hands and gave him the look of limpid honesty at which she was particularly gifted.
    “I have been—well, a little more resentful of this project than any others. Two years now, isn’t it? And you’ve retreated further and further into it, and I’ve been jealous. I can’t deny it.”
    She’s done it again. She’s made me angry with her anger, and then turned it around so that I’m eaten up with guilt because she’s been ill and I haven’t noticed, and now she’s taking the blame on herself and making me feel worse than ever. Oh, God, how convoluted can a woman’s mind be?
    George stared at her and suddenly ached to get away, to take his coat and his briefcase and get into the car and escape to the haven of the Unit and work and the baby and… which brought him back to the reason for his starting to probe her feelings about the project. Complication on complication, Pelion on Ossa!
    And then he said it aloud: “Pelion on Ossa.”
    “What?”
    “I should join your drama group. I’m thinking in quotations.”
    “Why Pelion on Ossa? What’s piling on what?”
    I’ll have to plunge now, he thought. I’ll have to, and risk it.
    “Complications. I’m going to need your help with the project.”
    She stared at him, her mouth slightly open so that her rather small even teeth gleamed in the thin October sunshine that was now filling the kitchen. “My help?” she said slowly.
“Mine?”
    “Yes. Well, perhaps cooperation would be a better word.”
    She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them he was puzzled by the blankness in them.
    “Oh. For one mad moment I thought—well, never mind. Whatsort of cooperation? Do you want to move into the hospital altogether, and get me to put up with losing the little of your company I do get? Or are you going to start getting even less money than you do now, and want me to take a cut in the housekeeping? Which is it?”
    “It’s just a matter of giving your token consent to something that—”
    The telephone buzzed sharply, and