Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess

not at me, but in pleasure at his performance.
           "Strafing Jesus again," I said. "I'm not impressed. Besides, that means nothing any more. I gave it all up today. I went to Farm Street and had it all out, or up. I made my choice. You can't shock me any more with your adolescent atheism."
           "Fergus in the shop told me that in the army they split up the different religions by saying Catholics this side, C. of E. that, and fancy buggers in the middle. So you and I are now both fancy buggers." He giggled. "And you gave up Jesus for me."
           "I gave up the Church because of the inescapability of living in sin. If you like, you can say I did it for you."
           "Charmed, old thing. Awfully flattered." He forked his stew with a boy's spoiled pout making him look silly and ugly, also desirable. "I say, this is awful muck. Why don't we go and eat out? Celebrate being fancy buggers together."
           "A matter of money, Val. I have exactly two shillings and ninepence farthing."
           "Wouldn't take us very far, would it?"
           "You said you were starved. This seems edible enough." I ate some. "Many a starving German would give his back teeth for it."
           "Wouldn't need any teeth at all, would he? It's just mush." He spooned some of the thin grey sauce out of the ragout dish and deliberately let it slowly ooze onto the tablecloth.
           "Don't do that, laundry costs money. That's a silly thing to do."
           "Anyway, I don't believe the Germans are starving. I think it's just government lies. Oh, this horrible war. When's it going to be all over?"
           "Nineteen nineteen. Nineteen twenty-one. Does it matter? You're not going to be in it."
           "Nor are you. Well, I'm hungry, but not hungry enough for that muck. I think I'll go home. I can always say I'd a pain in my chest and they let me off tonight. Mother got a nice leg of lamb. Father managed to find some Christmas whisky for the butcher, ten years in the vat or something. Novelists don't have anything to barter, do they?"
           "Nor poets."
           "Except their lives, except their lives, except their lives. Die on the Somme or at Gallipoli and your poetic name is made forever. Still, I'm in the Keats tradition. A poet with phthisis."
           "You're talking silly nonsense. You could have bread and margarine and jam if you like. And a nice cup of tea." I put my hand persuasively on his. He snatched his hand away. "What is the matter with you, Val?"
           "I don't know. Don't maul me. I don't like being mauled."
           "Val, Val." I got out of my chair and on my knees beside him. I took his hands, which were limp enough, and kissed each in turn, over and over.
           "Slobberer. Making me all wet."
           "There's something on your mind. Something's happened. Tell me."
           "I'm going home." He started to get up, but I pushed him back into his chair, saying: "No. Don't say that. Don't break my heart."
           "There speaks the popular novelist. 'And then he tried to take him in his arms, slobbering over him.' No, that's not popular novel stuff, is it? Not yet." (Did he say not yet? The danger of memory is that it can turn anyone into a prophet. I nearly wrote, some lines back, "1918. November the something. Does it matter?")
           "Be honest with me, Val, darling. Tell me what the matter is."
           "Go and sit down. You must get used to not kneeling any more."
           "Some things have to be done kneeling." It was a coarse thing to say; it was the spray off a mounting wave of desire. He ignored that but looked at me with a lifted upper lip. I went to the gas ring and put the kettle on for tea. I had no coffee.
           Val said, "It's all take with you and no give."
           "I give my love, my devotion. But I take it that you've begun to want more."
           "Not me. Not want.