boring in books except for poetry.”
“You never read poetry.”
“I do now.”
“I guessed that,” he said.
“That lack of memory is why people are unfaithful, as it is so curiously called. When I see closed shutters I know there are lovers behind them. That is how the memory works. The rest is just convention and small talk.”
“Why lovers? Why not someone sleeping off the wine he had for lunch?”
“No. Lovers.”
“A middle-aged man cutting his toenails in the bathtub,” he said with unexpected feeling. “Wearing bifocal lenses so that he can see his own feet.”
“No, lovers. Always.”
He said, “Have you missed him?”
“Missed who?”
“Who the bloody hell are we talking about?”
“The Italian commander billeted here. He was not a guest. He was here by force. I was not breaking a rule. Without him I’d have perished in every way. He may be home with his wife now. Or in that fortress near Turin where he sent other men. Or dead.” She looked at the doctor and said, “Well, what would you like me to do? Sit here and cry?”
“I can’t imagine you with a brute.”
“I never said that.”
“Do you miss him still?”
“The absence of Jack was like a cancer which I am sure has taken root, and of which I am bound to die,” said Netta.
“You’ll bu-hury us all,” he said, as doctors tell the condemned.
“I haven’t said I won’t.” She rose suddenly and straightened her skirt, as she used to do when hotel guests became pally. “Conversation over,” it meant.
“Don’t be too hard on Jack,” he said.
“I am hard on myself,” she replied.
After he had gone he sent her a parcel of books, printed on grayish paper, in warped wartime covers. All of the titles were, to Netta, unknown. There was
Fireman Flower
and
The Horse’s Mouth
and
Four Quartets
and
The Stuff to Give the Troops
and
Better Than a Kick in the Pants
and
Put Out More Flags
. A note added that the next package would contain Henry Green and Dylan Thomas. She guessed he would not want to be thanked, but she did so anyway. At the end of her letter was “Please remember, if you mind too much, that I said no to you oncebefore.” Leaning on the bar, exactly as Jack used to, with a glass of the middle sister’s drink at hand, she opened
Better Than a Kick in the Pants
and read, “… two Fascists came in, one of them tall and thin and tough looking; the other smaller, with only one arm and an empty sleeve pinned up to his shoulder. Both of them were quite young and wore black shirts.”
Oh, thought Netta, I am the only one who knows all this. No one will ever realize how much I know of the truth, the truth, the truth, and she put her head on her hands, her elbows on the scarred bar, and let the first tears of her after-war run down her wrists.
T he last to return was the one who should have been first. Jack wrote that he was coming down from the north as far as Nice by bus. It was a common way of travelling and much cheaper than by train. Netta guessed that he was mildly hard up and that he had saved nothing from his war job. The bus came in at six, at the foot of the Place Masséna. There was a deep-blue late-afternoon sky and pale sunlight. She could hear birds from the public gardens nearby. The Place was as she had always seen it, like an elegant drawing room with a blue ceiling. It was nearly empty. Jack looked out on this sunlighted, handsome space and said, “Well, I’ll just leave my stuff at the bus office, for the moment” – perhaps noticing that Netta had not invited him anywhere. He placed his ticket on the counter, and she saw that he had not come from far away: he must have been moving south by stages. He carried an aura of London pub life; he had been in London for weeks.
A frowning man hurrying to wind things up so he couldhave his first drink of the evening said, “The office, is closing and we don’t keep baggage here.”
“People used to be nice,” Jack said.
“Bus
“You never read poetry.”
“I do now.”
“I guessed that,” he said.
“That lack of memory is why people are unfaithful, as it is so curiously called. When I see closed shutters I know there are lovers behind them. That is how the memory works. The rest is just convention and small talk.”
“Why lovers? Why not someone sleeping off the wine he had for lunch?”
“No. Lovers.”
“A middle-aged man cutting his toenails in the bathtub,” he said with unexpected feeling. “Wearing bifocal lenses so that he can see his own feet.”
“No, lovers. Always.”
He said, “Have you missed him?”
“Missed who?”
“Who the bloody hell are we talking about?”
“The Italian commander billeted here. He was not a guest. He was here by force. I was not breaking a rule. Without him I’d have perished in every way. He may be home with his wife now. Or in that fortress near Turin where he sent other men. Or dead.” She looked at the doctor and said, “Well, what would you like me to do? Sit here and cry?”
“I can’t imagine you with a brute.”
“I never said that.”
“Do you miss him still?”
“The absence of Jack was like a cancer which I am sure has taken root, and of which I am bound to die,” said Netta.
“You’ll bu-hury us all,” he said, as doctors tell the condemned.
“I haven’t said I won’t.” She rose suddenly and straightened her skirt, as she used to do when hotel guests became pally. “Conversation over,” it meant.
“Don’t be too hard on Jack,” he said.
“I am hard on myself,” she replied.
After he had gone he sent her a parcel of books, printed on grayish paper, in warped wartime covers. All of the titles were, to Netta, unknown. There was
Fireman Flower
and
The Horse’s Mouth
and
Four Quartets
and
The Stuff to Give the Troops
and
Better Than a Kick in the Pants
and
Put Out More Flags
. A note added that the next package would contain Henry Green and Dylan Thomas. She guessed he would not want to be thanked, but she did so anyway. At the end of her letter was “Please remember, if you mind too much, that I said no to you oncebefore.” Leaning on the bar, exactly as Jack used to, with a glass of the middle sister’s drink at hand, she opened
Better Than a Kick in the Pants
and read, “… two Fascists came in, one of them tall and thin and tough looking; the other smaller, with only one arm and an empty sleeve pinned up to his shoulder. Both of them were quite young and wore black shirts.”
Oh, thought Netta, I am the only one who knows all this. No one will ever realize how much I know of the truth, the truth, the truth, and she put her head on her hands, her elbows on the scarred bar, and let the first tears of her after-war run down her wrists.
T he last to return was the one who should have been first. Jack wrote that he was coming down from the north as far as Nice by bus. It was a common way of travelling and much cheaper than by train. Netta guessed that he was mildly hard up and that he had saved nothing from his war job. The bus came in at six, at the foot of the Place Masséna. There was a deep-blue late-afternoon sky and pale sunlight. She could hear birds from the public gardens nearby. The Place was as she had always seen it, like an elegant drawing room with a blue ceiling. It was nearly empty. Jack looked out on this sunlighted, handsome space and said, “Well, I’ll just leave my stuff at the bus office, for the moment” – perhaps noticing that Netta had not invited him anywhere. He placed his ticket on the counter, and she saw that he had not come from far away: he must have been moving south by stages. He carried an aura of London pub life; he had been in London for weeks.
A frowning man hurrying to wind things up so he couldhave his first drink of the evening said, “The office, is closing and we don’t keep baggage here.”
“People used to be nice,” Jack said.
“Bus
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