The Bachelors by Muriel Spark Page B

heretical attitude, in a way.’
    ‘Not in
fact. But does it worry you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Do you
want to marry?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then
you’ve got a problem,’ Ronald observed and went to fetch more drinks.
    ‘I
suppose an heretical attitude is part of original sin,’ Matthew said as soon as
Ronald returned within hearing. ‘You can’t avoid it.’
    Ronald
said, ‘The Christian economy seems to me to be so ordered that original sin is
necessary to salvation. And so far as remaining single is concerned that
applies to a lot of people.’
    They
walked to Battersea where their attention was caught by the sound as of a horse
galloping. They looked up a side street in the direction of the sound and found
it to come from a man lying on his back outside a pub. His legs were kicking
out and his heels clop-clopped on the pavement. A few people had gathered in
the roadway and a young policeman circled round the man as if he were a tiger.
    ‘Is he
drunk?’ Matthew said.
    Ronald
went over to the young policeman. ‘Turn his head to one side,’ he said, ‘or he
might damage his tongue.’
    ‘Are
you a doctor?’ said the policeman.
    ‘No,
but I understand fits. The man’s an epileptic.’ Ronald took his own wedge of
cork from his pocket and handed it to the policeman. ‘Stick this between his
teeth. Then kneel on his knees and try and get his boots off.’
    ‘There’s
an ambulance coming,’ said the policeman. ‘He could bite his tongue in the
meantime,’ Ronald said. ‘There could be a lot of damage. I’d shove in the wedge
if I were you.’
    The
policeman knelt and grasped the man’s head. He tried to thrust the wedge into
the frothing mouth, but the man’s convulsions kept throwing the policeman off.
    The
policeman looked up at Ronald. ‘Would you mind trying to get his boots off,
then, sir?’
    ‘I
doubt if I cam do it,’ Ronald said. He was greatly agitated, for if there was
one thing he did not like to see it was another epileptic. The thought of
touching the man horrified him. ‘Matthew!’ he called out. ‘Come and lend a
hand.’
    Matthew
approached and, as Ronald instructed, threw himself upon the man’s jerking
knees. The policeman jammed the wedge between the teeth. Ronald felt for the
shoes as one thrusting his hands into flames. He shut his eyes, and felt for
the laces, loosened them, threw the shoes aside so violently that one of them
nearly hit an onlooker, and sprang back from the kicking figure.
    The man
was still jerking when the ambulance arrived, and he was lifted up by two men
in hospital uniform and taken away.
    ‘Did it
upset you?’ Matthew said as they went down to look at the river.
    ‘Yes,’
Ronald said.
    ‘Will
you be all right?’
    ‘Oh
yes, I’ll be all right.’
    Matthew
went off to telephone to his sister and then to read a novel called Marie Donadieu in Lyons’ Corner House until it should be time to go and meet Alice, while
Ronald walked part of the way home, and then, feeling unsafe, took a taxi the
rest of the way. There, he resisted taking his phenobarbitone, shaky though he
was, for on occasions of extra stress he rather cherished the feeling of being
more alive and conscious than usual, he cherished his tension and liked to see
how far he could stand it. This evening he got ready for bed without any
intimations of an approaching fit, and although he had his little drugs ready
to take, he did not take them, and managed to get a living troubled sleep
instead of a dead and peaceful one.

 
     
     
    Chapter VII
     
    ‘WHAT is the size of the
chalet?’ Patrick breathed indifferently.
    Dr. Lyte
said, ‘Oh, large enough for two. There are four or five rooms, but as I say it
is very difficult of access. You are only a kilometre and a half from the
frontier on the one hand and only three from the bus stop on the other, but
that’s as the crow flies. If you aren’t a fairly good climber you would have to
be a crow.’ He laughed. Patrick did not. ‘I wouldn’t