Vac Read Free Page B

glancing at the harsh woman as she answered, otherwise gazed steadily into blankness. She was restored and without hope. I begged the woman to receive the girl but she was adamant. For her, the unstable were merely the ordinary and this was no urgent case. The woman was competent. I sensed that behind the facade ofblunt questioning she had probed the girl’s state and found it tolerable.
    — Get some sleep. Have you any pills? See that she gets a night’s sleep.
    I eased Sue back into the car. Folly. Why had we come? She was calm enough now. The sister leered faintly as I started the engine and backed out. An easy victory for her. These girls are viable. A little firmness. All this tearing about in the night.
    And indeed Sue was verging on cheerfulness when we finally slid up to her door.
    So that was a night out. Home from the champagne ball at dawn. The machines, at least, had danced. Our cities have become pavilions for jubilant machines through which two-legged mammals shuffle warily. Good-night—er—good- morning, Sue. Glad I could help a little. Thanks for that chaste peck. My wife? Actually we’re—kind of—separated.
    But our cultured hill is too small to enforce durable separation. My sense of your presence, immanence, never wanted and, less reticent than deity, you repeatedly confirmed it by an Appearance. I spied you in the morning with John, on the ‘terrasse’ of the coffee bar. Odd to find John at this side of town. Excellent fellow. Best English breeding and yet entire family liquidated by German sanitation squads. Slightly swarthy—like a young English aristocrat back from Bermuda.
    — Naturally I think you’re a bastard.
    Loves us both, this man. Pronunciation impeccable but inflection subtly mentions Poland. The hordes of the abused. Never heard of any of them again. Fire on my right and curiosity on my left. Exposed in a novel way.
    — I’ve made myself comfortable—well—
    Nothing bizarre. Three old friends having coffee on a bright morning. Doesn’t matter if anyone sees us. Comfortable? It’s a comfortable room, of course. Of course, I knew you’d be all right. Everything kept candid.
    — Possibly we could have dinner together?
    — Waiter, three more coffees, please.
    — John, give us another fag. So you’ve stepped in smartly, eh?
    — God, you are a bastard.
    — Only superficially.
    Jaunty as ever.
    — Possibly we could have dinner together?
    — All right.
    Is it a good idea? New modes of calculation seem to be asserting themselves. Grin not quite effortless.
    — Possibly we could have dinner together?
    And after dinner? No, mustn’t weaken. Be snarling again in a week. Must see it through. A civilized trio in the most cultured part of Hampstead.
    — Still jobbing or broking or whatever?
    — God, you are—what is it, another cigarette?
    Aware of her differently. Mine. Not mine. Close. Not close. Gay. Hardly gay. The discs of the broken columns at Sunium. The cold, wet heather. The trains drumming through that ghastly night in the lay-by. Yogurt and brandy with George. Too much to shed. But I’ve been cunning. Lose nothing. Just a kind of holiday, a vacation.
    — Shall we have dinner together—one night?
    — All right.
    A fat, grey faun, George darting over the site. The great crag shouldering the broken temple. George, the gas-man, stooped muttering over inscriptions older than monotheism. Then the time for krasi. Very demanding, wine, in hours. We loved Athens and it seemed to reciprocate.
    — Then—tomorrow night. Have to go now.
    — A date?
    Your eye shot sparkling challenge.
    — Yup.
    Our convention was candour. No shame. Damn it, I’d made that point often enough. You say you’re comfortable? What is behind your mad eyes? Your hair is on fire. There must be constituents of flesh and the world in your passion. No harmin having dinner together. May you never find me ludicrous.
    I stood in the old living room where I now slept. The five fish—four carp, three