Hello, Lollipop, he said.
He smacked her on the behind that yielded with the soft report of complaisant flesh.
Oh, Clem, she said, not chocolates again!
No, he said. Oysters.
His hat landed neatly on an oak peg in the hall.
You’re bold, she giggled. That’s what’s the matter with you. And I’m slimming, she said. Oh dear!
Go on, he said. You can tell me something else.
Really, she said. Look. I’ve taken off quite a lot from the hips.
She pressed her hands on her flanks. There were dimples on the backs of her hands.
I suppose there’s no harm in a girl amusing herself, he said.
Then he put his arm round her waist, looked down in that way that always got them, was a sure fire, if you closed your eyes a bit you had them eating out of your hand.
Oh, Clem, Clem, she said, I’m glad you’ve come.
And why shouldn’t I’ve come? he asked.
Pressed herself up, was easy as a house on fire, with violet soap, or whatever it was, or dusting herself with powder, that big puff with a pink ribbon she had in a jar on the chest of drawers, was like a big pink puff, or two.
Eh? he asked.
I dunno.
It was only Tuesday.
You don’t realize, she said.
No. We never do.
She began to pout. The line of her lips looked wet. She had painted it in a bow.
You’re cruel, she said.
He squeezed her face.
Want to go bye-bye?
No, she said.
It made you laugh, the way they carried on, when it didn’t make you sick.
All right, he said. We’ll go on standing in the hall.
She shrugged her shoulders, stood in the silence of linoleum squares, and the smell of pickles from lunch. Hagan began to laugh.
I think you’re a swine, she said. She went down the passage in a tap-tap of yellow linoleum squares.
Yes, she yawned, I think you’re a swine.
When you turned over the bed wheezed sleepily. Lying in bed at night, sometimes you were not quite sure which was Ernest and which was bed. Poor Ernest, who was also a twinge of conscience. A fly on the ceiling scraped its wings.
What? he said.
Nothing. I meant to get this bloody mattress teased.
Had said to Ernest, and it was winter, not that night going to the pictures, and perhaps she had a cheek to write, but she couldn’t hold out any longer so had to write and say…
Did you get a surprise when I wrote? she asked.
When?
Silly! The first time, she said.
No, he said lazily.
I like that!
The bed wheezed as he turned over. Talking in the afternoon was a bit too much of a good thing, and she always had to talk, if he put up his shoulder as protection would still talk over the ridge.
You’re not very sociable, she said.
Her voice did not altogether mind. It stroked him, her hand stroked his arm, tugged at the small reddish hairs. There was an accent of voluptuous achievement in Vic Moriarty’s gesture, in the cadence of her voice.
You don’t know what it means to me, Clem, she said. That first time. I thought I’d go crazy, Clem.
The yard droned with afternoon. He thought he would like to go to sleep. The room was a blur through half-closed eyes.
You’re not going to sleep, Clem?
She put her arm under his neck, bolstered up his head in a way that could only be uncomfortable.
What do you think I am? he said. A machine?
Face looked over him sagged down, was a sag, was Vic Moriarty, a pink blur. He opened his eyes and frowned.
You needn’t speak like that, she said.
Anyway, it’s time I went. There’s those horses waiting at the blacksmith’s shop.
Have it your own way, she said.
Her breasts shook with resignation as she fell back on the bed.
And there’s Ernest, he said.
Why d’you have to say that?
There’s always Ernest, he said.
She looked at him as he got off the bed, stood with his back to her in the light quenched by the half-drawn blind. His back looked hard. She wanted to get off the bed herself, and touch him again, to make sure. Saying things like that. And he did not love her, she knew, was hard, like his body. He began to put on his pants.
You needn’t bring in Ernest, she said.
No? he said, from the depths of his shirt. All right, then, we’ll leave him out.
She turned away her head. She did not want him any more. Talking about Ernest. Ernest’s lips were blue that night. But she felt good. He made her feel good. She rubbed her cheek against the pillow and heard him putting on his boots.
Well, he said, Poppet, I’ll be seeing you.
She looked at him.
When?
She did not care.
Some time, he said.
Lay there and weeks and weeks was an awful thought of Happy Valley like before and if this happened again and you heard that ticking mahogany clock and it got right inside you was sharp and said you did not care but you did you did and that was the awful part.
Clem, love, she said, you’ll make it soon?
Clem Hagan looked down. Well, it was one way of passing the time, and you’d go off your rocker out at Glen Marsh if it wasn’t for coming into town.
Yes, he said. Pretty soon.
In leaving you could promise anything. He tapped her on the shoulder and left.
Vic Moriarty lay on the bed, slackened, and tried to think and not to think, because if she thought, she thought of Ernest, or the things Clem said to hurt, or perhaps just said. She lay with her eyes closed. Her breasts moved stolidly with her breath. Now and again the distance clucked as reality became a hen, was no longer words spoken in halfsleep, I’m crazy about you, Clem, she said, that the room took up and gave back into her ears, making her smile, making her say it again. Vic Moriarty lay there smiling, heaped in a dopey lump of female flesh that has abandoned its reserve and now enjoys the advantages of flesh that is really in no way partial to constraint. She smiled to herself with all the abandon of people indulging their intimate thoughts, the sort of moment that wears an expression of ultimate foolishness for all but the responsible, and these are mercifully unaware.
She lay there well on into the afternoon. She dozed. Then she began to feel cold. She woke, and there was goose-flesh on her arms. She shuddered back under the eiderdown. But she felt cold. I’m a fool, she said, lying here and someone might come in, or Ernest back from school, but if only you could lie here always, forget those plates in the scullery that Gertie didn’t wash, and that it is going to be winter soon, he will come again, you don’t mind how often come, even though sometimes he makes you want to cry, if only he come again, because if he doesn’t he doesn’t and he doesn’t come he…Vic Moriarty clambered out of bed and put on a dressing-gown. It had big black poppies on a purple field. Ernest said, put on that dressing-gown, I like you in that dressing-gown, he said. Ernest would come home. Here am I lolling about, she said. Friday, Saturday, Sunday perhaps, or wouldn’t come. She went into the sitting-room to get a cigarette. Her lips were tight on the cigarette. The smoke made her cough. I’m thinking like a tart, she said, but what’s a tart anyway, and I do all he wants, darn those pants that I haven’t finished yet, long pants on a man if you please, and there’s always that stink of asthma powder in the place, what I don’t endure.