Diane knew that George was supposed to be ‘an awful man’, though equally she had the fascinated forgiving feeling about him which she shared with other Ennistone ladies. She felt nervous with him at first and awaited the sudden uncontrolled rages for which George was famous. They did not come. George and Diane, it appeared, simply got on well together. George was often moody and irritable and sarcastic, but never seriously angry. Diane, it must be admitted, knew how to keep her head down. She did not contradict. He spoke of how he could rest with her, find repose. They chattered easily. George disliked ordinary expressions of tenderness. Profound or sentimental topics were equally banned. There was a sort of lightness and hardness in their converse. Diane learnt a new language, a new kind of banter, which was their usual mode of communication, and it was in teaching her this that George might reasonably have claimed that he had ‘awakened her intelligence’. For a time, and although his visits were entirely irregular and whimsical, their ease together was such that Diane had dreams of a ‘real life’ somehow to be realized with George. Time would perhaps change their relationship, redeem it, and in doing so redeem him. If she had been a shrewder woman, and if she had been less afraid of him, for she remained afraid of him, even though he behaved so quietly with her, she might have tried to prompt the redemptive process and encourage him to leave his wife by threatening a withdrawal of her favours at a time when he was most addicted to them. However, Diane did not do this. Such blackmail would sort ill with the ideal role which she planned for herself in George’s life, and anyway she lacked the nerve and the wit. Meanwhile she was gratified to know that George, so outrageous elsewhere, was a lamb to her, and this gave her a comforting sense of superiority. In this she paused and rested. She knew that she was envied by women who would of course never have admitted it. (Though neither of them spoke of their relationship it had become common knowledge.) However, Diane also knew that George’s kindness to her depended on her good behaviour. At first she had embraced his monastic ‘rule’ as one in hopes of heavenly joy. Later the narrowness of her life irked her and although her love for George did not diminish, she had less hope of salvation. She lived in a world of idleness and waiting. She smoked and drank. She watched television. She had once hoped to gain some sort of education from George, but now if she got an ‘improving’ book from the library he just laughed at it. She experimented with cosmetics and altered her clothes. She went to Bowcocks and to Anne Lapwing’s Boutique and bought scarves and cheap ‘accessories’ to cheer herself up. She went to the Institute, then hurried back. George came less often now and it was some time since he had made love to her, though he remained as possessive as ever. Once, recently, he had said to her in a gentle tone, ‘If you ever have anything to do with either of my brothers, I will kill you.’ He smiled and Diane laughed.
Would George be able to ‘afford her’ now that he had lost his job? She was poorer, kept by George, than when she had plied her trade freely. Would she not, for him, face poverty, destitution? For him, with him, yes. But as it was? Would it not have to end, must it not end, yet how could it end? She had made loving George her sole occupation. She had no friends, no social life. There were a few women with whom she talked at the Baths, but these were not the women she would have chosen to talk to. Nun-like, she did not look at men, and they avoided her. She did not envisage running away, it was impossible to vanish, it was too dangerous and too expensive. Besides she did not want to, she had given her life to George, thoughtlessly, stupidly, but just as tenderly and devotedly as if he had been her dear husband. A Women’s Lib group in Burkestown had made themselves known and indicated that if ever she needed help they would ‘stick by her’, hide her, spirit her away, they appeared to suggest. They seemed kind and sincere but Diane did not pursue the acquaintance. They thoroughly disapproved of George and she was afraid he might think she was plotting with them. She began to be afraid of things he might imagine, lies people might tell him. She was aware that people eyed her in the street, stared at her at the Baths, but Diane pretended not to notice, not even caring to know whether the looks were friendly or hostile. In the past Gabriel McCaffrey had smiled at her. So had Tom McCaffrey. They certainly knew of her relation with George, yet they had smiled. Diane could not be glad since she could not respond and these mysterious tokens increased her sense of isolation. She did not from day to day imagine that George intended to leave her. Yet lately she had begun to feel that a time of crisis was at hand. Perhaps this was simply an expression of her own unconscious desire for a crash, a final solution. Did she not sometimes, darkly, fear that in spite of everything George would kill her in the end?
‘I’m more popular than ever now that I’ve killed my wife,’ said George.
‘I am not amused.’
‘Well, I had a good try. Better luck next time.’
‘You ought not to speak like that about her,’ said Diane. Her mission to ‘save’ George scarcely now extended beyond such improving remarks, which pathetically hinted at a complicit superiority. Who was she to tell George how to behave, or to indulge in cries of ‘poor Stella’? Sometimes it seemed as if George were prompting just such admonitions so as then to crush them with violent sarcasm.
‘I hoped she’d drown, but alas it was not to be.’
‘Don’t talk silly.’
‘I’ve had several more of those letters from women. Bash your wife and get sympathetic letters from women. Shall I read you one?’
‘No.’
‘“Dear George McCaffrey, I feel I must write to express my sympathy. I have thought a lot about you and feel I know you well. People are so unkind they don’t try to understand. I know you are a lonely unhappy man, and I feel sure that I would be able to —”’
‘Oh stop!’
‘“Please feel free to telephone me —”’
‘Horrid, stop!’
‘Why horrid? It’s well meant.’
‘Well meant!’
‘Maybe a kind word does help. Maybe we don’t say enough kind words.’
‘You despise kindness.’
‘You would like to think so.’
‘I don’t mean — ’
‘Lonely women sitting in lonely rooms. You ought to be sorry for them.’
‘I am a lonely woman sitting in a lonely room. I am sorry for myself.’
‘I think I’ll ring her up.’
‘Go on then, there’s the telephone.’
‘God bless women, they never write a man off. Men judge, women don’t. What would we do without them? That women’s world of quietness and forgiveness to which we return battle-scarred. You soothe and animate our images of ourselves.’
‘What about our images of ourselves?’