Part 48 (1/2)

Tea was just what he wanted; Ellen had somehow known that, as his mother always knew it. Ellen was drinking it only for company's sake and making eyes at him over the rim of the cup. G.o.d, the illusion there can be in a single cup of hot tea! In the first cup, anyway. But it would be quite like Helen to materialize ever so faintly, just when he was relaxing, though it would have been difficult for her to find anywhere suitable to sit in the bijou flatlet. The only armchair was filled with copies of The Natural World, so that Ellen was sitting on the foot of the divan, with her legs pressed together in the most ladylike degree. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were firm as c.o.c.klesh.e.l.ls.

She rose chastely and came for his empty cup.

”More?”

He faintly shook his head. Normally, he would have accepted and probably gone on accepting, but now he felt unequal even to drinking tea. He was a haunted man.

Ellen took the cups back into the kitchenette, and he could hear her tidily was.h.i.+ng them up. She put the milk back in the refrigerator, and what was presumably the ingredient itself back into a little cabinet which shut with a click and was probably marked Tea. She returned to the living room and, standing before a small octagonal looking gla.s.s in which the reproduction of ”The Childhood of John the Baptist” had-previously been reflected, began to comb her silky but st.u.r.dy hair.

Laming a.s.sumed from this that they were about to depart and felt most disinclined. It was as when at last one reaches Bexhill or Gognor Regis and the beach is calling, but never before has one felt more promise to lie in mere musing in and upon one's new bed and, thus, half slumbering one's life away.

Ellen combed and combed; then she tied a wide cherry-colored sash around her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and reentered the divan with him. He could smell the scent she had sprayed on her neck and shoulders in the bathroom. Even her eyes were brighter than ever under the influence of some ointment. Her hand began once more to explore Laming. To his surprise, he roused up immediately, and was bemused no more. It might have been the brief and partial breaking in of daily life that had half stupefied him. He tied Ellen's sash tighter than ever with the strength that is supposedly male; so that her bright eyes clouded like pools.

Hours later once more; it was not merely dark but black as blindfold, and they were both lying on the floor, relis.h.i.+ng its hardness through the carpet, which stretched from wall to wall, though that was but a short way, however one measured it. Ellen's body was hard too, now that there was resistance. Their legs tangled like rubbery plants. She showed him things that can only be done in the dark, however clumsily, things he would never be able quite to evade or reject.

Laming felt an agonizing, sciatic pain and writhed upwards, though Ellen's arms were still around his waist.

He saw that from what must have been the ceiling, or at least very near the ceiling, a pair of pale eyes were looking expressionlessly down on him, on the two of them. He could even see some hint of the bone structure surrounding the eyes. Then there was another pain, like a gutting knife ripping out his tendon.

He yelled out, from the pain and from the vision. Instantly, Ellen was all softness and tenderness, a minstering angel of the midnight. He clenched his eyes shut, as he had so often done in childhood and at school, however foolish it might seem to do it when all was dark anyway.

Midnight! Or could it be even later? He had no idea what had become of his watch. He only knew that his mother must have started worrying long since. Her dependence on him was complete, so that much of the time he quite forgot about her.

He was lying on his back with Ellen on top of him, embracing him, enveloping him, enchanting him. Her released bosom pressed tenderly down on him, and her mouth rested softly on his chin. In the end, she had reconciled him to reopening his screwed up eyes, which were about the level of her head. He had to give himself a mental jerk in order to perform the operation, but he really knew quite well that the other eyes, or face, would have gone. They never remained for very long.

When they had the light on and were walking about again, he still felt the sciatic stress, very much so. He was positively limping, though Ellen could not have been nicer about it, more sympathetic. It proved not to be midnight at all, let alone later. It was only about quarter to eleven.

”Doesn't your sister want to come home sometimes?”

”Not when we want the flat, silly.”

They walked, arm in arm, to Major House station. Even the jazz on the radio had mostly stopped.

”I'm seeing Helen on Wednesday,” he remarked idiotically.

”And me on Sat.u.r.day,” she responded. ”Same time and place. OK?”

There was a kind of pause.

”OK, Laming?”

”OK,” said Laming.

She kissed him softly and disappeared down the station steps with complete composure, utter serenity.

It was only just after quarter past when Laming put his key in his mother's front door. Though his mother was pale, she was so glad to see him that it was quite easy to explain that another chap had suggested that he and Laming go to the movies and that the picture had proved much longer than they had thought, and so forth. The film had been about climbing in the High Andes, Laming said, and there were wonderful shots of llamas.

”I thought they were in the Himalayas, Laming.”

”These were llamas with two l's, Mumsey dear. As if they were Welsh llamas. They have almond eyes and they spit.”

The explanations were practicable because he had in fact seen the film, without having bothered to tell her. It had been shown some weeks ago in the canteen next door to the office, where many of the men found their way for lunch. It was being circulated to such places by some adult educational organization. The oddest things prove in the end to have a use of some kind, Laming reflected. He had often noticed that.

”What's the matter with your leg, Laming?”

”I think I've twisted it somehow.”

”Better see Dr. Pokorna on Monday before you go to work.”

”It'll be quite well by Monday, I promise, Mumsey.”

She still looked doubtful, as well as pale.

”I promise.”

What he could never decide about her was whether she really took it for granted that girls were a matter of indifference to him.

”Something wrong with your leg, Laming?”

”I seem to have twisted it, Helen. I've no idea where.”

”What have you been doing with yourself since our little party?”

”Same old grind.” Really, he could not bring himself to meet her eyes. He did not see how he ever again could meet them, look right into their paleness. What was he to do?

”Not many people here,” he said.

”We mustn't let ourselves be affected by numbers. We must behave and react exactly as we should if the theater were packed.”

”Yes, of course,” said Laming, though he did not know how he was going to do that either.

Furthermore, the curtain simply would not go up. Even though no one new had come in for ten minutes by Laming's watch, the watch that had been lost in the big bed.

”Did you enjoy our party?” asked Helen.

”You know I did, Helen.”

”Ellen said she thought you didn't like her.”

”Of course I liked her, Helen.”

”Don't you think she's very attractive in her own way?”

”I'm sure she is.”

”I sometimes feel quite a shadow when I'm with her, even though I may be that much cleverer.”

”She doesn't seem to speak very much.”

”Ellen's a very nice person, but she happens to be the exact opposite to me in almost every way,” explained Helen. ”I should adore to change places with her once in a while. Don't you think that would be great fun?”