The Bachelors by Muriel Spark Page A

Seton.’
    ‘Yes,
she seems to be in love with him.’
    ‘Did
you think so?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Lovely
girl, isn’t she? And carrying a child inside her.’
    ‘Very
attractive.’
    ‘D’you
think I’ve a chance with her?’
    ‘Chance
of what?’
    ‘Well,
it would have to be marriage. She’s expecting the child, moreover. It makes her
more desirable; not many would think so, but I do.’
    ‘I
think you’ll have a chance after Patrick Seton has served a few months of his
prison sentence.’
    ‘Don’t
you think she’d be the sort of girl who would wait for him?’
    ‘Not
after she had heard his previous convictions read out in court.’
    ‘The
age of him,’ Matthew said, ‘and the look of him! What does she see in him, a
girl like that? You would never see such a match in Ireland except in rare cases
where the man had a bit of money and the girl was homeless.’
    ‘She is
obviously a soul-lover,’ Ronald said.
    ‘She’s
in love with his spiritualism, that’s what it is. He must know a few tricks.’
    ‘I
think he’s a genuine medium, from what I’ve heard.’
    ‘I hope
he doesn’t get his divorce. It might not come off. Then Alice—’
    ‘From what
I recall,’ Ronald said, ‘he isn’t a married man at all. At least, it wasn’t
declared the last time he was in court.’
    ‘He’s
supposed to have been married for twenty-five years; so Alice says.’
    ‘Well,
perhaps he lied to the court. But there’s usually a question of maintenance
orders. I distinctly recall his being described as a bachelor.’
    ‘What a
good memory you’ve got,’ Matthew said. ‘Thanks,’ said Ronald, and smiled at
himself in the glass window of a shop.
    ‘Why
should he talk about a divorce if he isn’t married, though?’ Matthew said. ‘Do
you think he intends to marry Alice at all?’
    ‘I’ll
find out what I can from Martin Bowles. He’s prosecuting counsel.’
    Matthew
stopped walking and was looking out over the full-flowing river at the lights
on the opposite bank.
    ‘Have
you been eating lots of onions?’ Ronald said. ‘No, not since yesterday. Can you
smell them in my breath?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Come
on, let’s have a drink to take it away before I pick up Alice. They don’t like
the smell of onions in your breath. Do you really think Patrick Seton is a
bachelor?’
    They
sat in the public house and debated the question of Patrick’s being a bachelor,
and if so, why he had told Alice the story of a divorce.
    ‘Perhaps
he’s putting her off from day to day,’ Matthew said. ‘You could understand it;
her wanting to be married for the child, and him not wanting to marry at all.
He may be a bachelor like us in that respect.’
    Ronald
silently contemplated the no-betting notice on the wall.
    ‘He has
no intention of marrying her at all,’ Matthew said, becoming fierily convinced
of it. ‘What do you expect of a spiritualist? His mind’s attuned to the ghouls
of the air all day long. How can he be expected to consider the moral
obligations of the flesh? The man’s a dualist. No sacramental sense. There have
been famous heresies very like spiritualism — they—’
    ‘Have
another drink,’ Ronald said, who was accustomed to long evenings of proof that
Matthew had emerged from his Jesuit school well versed in the heresies.
    ‘Take
the Albigensians. Or take the Quietists even. The Zoroastrians. Everything
spiritual. Down with the body. Against sex—’
    ‘Against
marriage,’ Ronald said. ‘All bachelors. Like us.’
    ‘I
think the spiritualists have sex.’ Matthew looked broodly at his knees. ‘I’m
afraid we are heretics,’ he said, ‘or possessed by devils.’ His curls shone
under the lamp. ‘It shows a dualistic attitude, not to marry if you aren’t
going to be a priest or a religious. You’ve got to affirm the oneness of
reality in some form or another.’
    ‘We’re
not in fact heretics,’ Ronald said, ‘under the correct meaning of the term.’
    ‘Well,
we’ve got am