‘Perhaps it would have been better if you had in fact chosen a stupid and insensitive woman?’ suggested Molly. ‘Or you shouldn’t have always let her know what you were doing? Stupid! She’s a thousand times better than you are.’
‘It goes without saying,’ said Richard. ‘You always take it for granted that women are better than men. But that doesn’t help me much. Now look here, Molly, Marion trusts you. Please see her as soon as you can, and talk to her.’
‘Saying what?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t care. Anything. Call me names if you like, but see if you can stop her drinking.’
Molly sighed, histrionically, and sat looking at him, a look of half-compassionate contempt around her mouth.
‘Well I really don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘It is really all very odd. Richard, why don’t you do something? Why don’t you try to make her feel you like her, at least? Take her for a holiday or something?’
‘I did take her with me to Italy.’ In spite of himself, his voice was full of resentment at the fact he had had to.
‘Richard,’ said both women together.
‘She doesn’t enjoy my company,’ said Richard. ‘She watched me all the time—I can see her watching me all the time, for me to look at some woman, waiting for me to hang myself. I can’t stand it.’
‘Did she drink while you were on holiday?’
‘No, but…’
‘There you are then,’ said Molly, spreading out her flashing white hands, which said, What more is there to say?
‘Look here, Molly, she didn’t drink because it was a kind of contest, don’t you see that? Almost a bargain—I won’t drink if you don’t look at girls. It drove me nearly around the bend. And after all, men have certain practical difficulties—I’m sure you two emancipated females will take this in your stride, but I can’t make it with a woman who’s watching me like a jailor…getting into bed with Marion after one of those lovely holiday afternoons was like an I’ll-dare-you-to-prove-yourself contest. In short, I couldn’t get a hard on with Marion. Is that clear enough for you? And we’ve been back for a week. So far she’s all right. I’ve been home every evening, like a dutiful husband, and we sit and are polite with each other. She’s careful not to ask me what I’ve been doing or who I’ve been seeing. And I’m careful not to watch the level in the whisky bottle. But when she’s not in the room I look at the bottle, and I can hear her brain ticking over, he must have been with some woman because he doesn’t want me. It’s hell, it really is. Well all right,’ he cried, leaning forward, desperate with sincerity, ‘all right, Molly. But you can’t have it both ways. You two go on about marriage, well you may be right. You probably are. I haven’t seen a marriage yet that came anywhere near what it’s supposed to be. All right. But you’re careful to keep out of it. It’s a hell of an institution, I agree. But I’m involved in it, and you’re preaching from some pretty safe sidelines.’
Anna looked at Molly, very dry. Molly raised her brows and sighed.
‘And now what?’ said Richard, good-humoured.
‘We are thinking of the safety of the sidelines,’ said Anna, meeting his good-humour.
‘Come off it,’ said Molly. ‘Have you got any idea of the sort of punishment women like us take?’
‘Well,’ said Richard, ‘I don’t know about that, and frankly, it’s your own funeral, why should I care? But I know there’s one problem you haven’t got—it’s a purely physical one. How to get an erection with a woman you’ve been married to fifteen years?’
He said this with an air of camaraderie, as if offering his last card, all the chips down.
Anna remarked, after a pause, ‘Perhaps it might be easier if you had ever got into the habit of it?’
And Molly came in with: ‘Physical you say? Physical? It’s emotional. You started sleeping around early in your marriage because you had an emotional problem, it’s nothing to do with physical.’
‘No? Easy for women.’
‘No, it’s not easy for women. But at least we’ve got more sense than to use words like physical and emotional as if they didn’t connect.’
Richard threw himself back in his chair and laughed. ‘AH right,’ he said at last. ‘I’m in the wrong. Of course. All right. I might have known. But I want to ask you two something, do you really think it’s all my fault? I’m the villain as far as you are concerned. But why?’
‘You should have loved her,’ said Anna, simply.
‘Yes,’ said Molly.
‘Good Lord,’ said Richard, at a loss. ‘Good Lord. Well I give up. After all I’ve said—and it hasn’t been easy, mind you…’ he said this almost threatening, and went red as both women rocked off into fresh peals of laughter. ‘No, it’s not easy to talk frankly about sex to women.’
‘I can’t imagine why not, it’s hardly a great new revelation, what you’ve said,’ said Molly.
‘You’re such a…such a pompous ass,’ said Anna. ‘You bring out all this stuff, as if it were the last revelation from some kind of oracle. I bet you talk about sex when you’re alone with a popsy. So why put on this club-man’s act just because there are two of us?’
Molly said quickly: ‘We still haven’t decided about Tommy.’
There was a movement outside the door, which Anna and Molly heard, but Richard did not. He said, ‘All right, Anna, I bow to your sophistication. There’s no more to be said. Right. Now I want you two superior women to arrange something. I want Tommy to come and stay with me and Marion. If he’ll condescend to. Or doesn’t he like Marion?’
Molly lowered her voice and said, looking at the door, ‘You needn’t worry. When Marion comes to see me, Tommy and she talk for hours and hours.’
There was another sound, like a cough, or something being knocked. The three sat silent as the door opened and Tommy came in.
It was not possible to guess whether he had heard anything or not. He greeted his father first, carefully: ‘Hullo, father,’ nodded at Anna, his eyes lowered against a possible reminder from her that the last time they met he had opened himself to her sympathetic curiosity, and offered his mother a friendly but ironic smile. Then he turned his back on them, to arrange for himself some strawberries remaining in the white bowl, and with his back still turned enquired: ‘And how is Marion?’
So he had heard. Anna thought that she could believe him capable of standing outside the door to listen. Yes, she could imagine him listening with precisely the same detached ironic smile with which he had greeted his mother.
Richard, disconcerted, did not reply, and Tommy insisted: ‘How is Marion?’
‘Fine,’ said Richard, heartily. ‘Very well indeed.’
‘Good. Because when I met her for a cup of coffee yesterday she seemed in a pretty bad way.’
Molly raised swift eyebrows towards Richard, Anna made a small grimace, and Richard positively glared at both of them, saying the whole situation was their fault.
Tommy, continuing not to meet their eyes, and indicating with every line of his body that they underestimated his comprehension of their situations and the implacability of his judgement on them, sat down, and slowly ate strawberries. He looked like his father. That is to say he was a closely-welded, round youth, dark, like his father, with not a trace of Molly’s dash and vivacity. But unlike Richard, whose tenacious obstinacy was open, smouldering in his dark eyes and displayed in every impatient efficient movement, Tommy had a look of being buttoned in, a prisoner of his own nature. He was wearing, this morning, a scarlet sweat