her cheek.
‘You’re a ravishing woman,’ he said. ‘Always were and always will be. God bless.’
‘Good night, dear Tim. Don’t forget me.’
Silly thing to say. He wouldn’t question it; one more sweet titillating nothing, appropriate to the silly time and place.
Not a valediction.
He had not come back. Hall, study, dining-room, drawing-room: she opened doors and saw the face of each in turn, sunk in lugubrious hostility, emanating greyness and decay, like animals behind bars, or manic-depressives in a private bin. Already midsummer dawn fainted pre-natally in the high uncurtained windows. He was upstairs … But already she knew along the vibrations of her nerves that there was nobody on the next floor. The house of a widow. Above the married floor, the floor of the children sunk in the routine of normal nursery sleep seemed cut off as if by a zone of concrete.
She climbed slowly to her bedroom; and it was not till she had rapidly undressed and washed that she looked almost perfunctorily into his dressing-room and saw his empty bed, pyjamas laid out upon it, sheet turned down. She shut the door, drew the blue silk curtains close, got into her big bed and switched the lamp off.
He was everywhere outside in the whole of London, he was nowhere. Gone to his club. Walking the streets. Gone to a hotel. Picked up a tart and gone home with her. Gone—but it wasn’t possible?—to Dinah. Yes, it was possible. Certain in fact. She’d known it all the evening. Almost at once she fell into bemused half-consciousness, then slept a whirling sleep for half an hour, started broad awake again, the inside of her head stretched dry and taut, and ringing like a shaken tambourine. Someone was moving in the house. Above, in the night nursery? No. Below her, far down, and not a noise at all, but ponderable silence, as if someone heavy with intention were standing still: as a burglar might stand, or a murderer. She lay in a super-sensory trance, conjuring footsteps, breathing, creaking, a hand brushing her forehead, from invaded space. He was in the house. He was weight, silence. He was still no one, nothing.
The door of his dressing-room flew open soundlessly. He turned from the wash-basin and saw her standing in the doorway in her nightdress, her hair rumpled, her eyes like hot coals boring into him. He finished drinking a tumblerful of water in long gulps without a break.
‘Thirsty,’ he said. He put down the glass and mopped his forehead with a towel. ‘Whew! Ain’t it stuffy? The air’s like a damp dishcloth in this house.’
His voice was level, matter-of-fact: he might just have come in from the office on an ordinary day. He twisted himself to examine his dinner jacket: one sleeve and shoulder were streaked with whitish dust. He picked up a clothes brush and started removing this in a collected way. His face in the half light looked perfectly calm, unnaturally pale.
She vanished, closing the door noiselessly.
He took off his clothes and lay down on the bed naked, his feet crossed, his hands behind his head—a reflective pose. After a while he swung himself into a sitting position on the bed’s edge, propped his elbows on his knees, sank his forehead in his hands and remained thus, absent-mindedly running his fingers through his hair till it stood on end, and groaning once or twice vaguely under his breath like a person disturbed in sleep. Presently he got up, opened the door into her bedroom, stood a moment considering the dark blot of her head against heaped pillows, the mound of her body curled sideways under the blanket, then stalked across the room and sat down on the bed, near the foot of it.
After a few minutes she turned on her back and scrutinized him under lowered eyelids. What an extraordinary sight—planted there in an attitude that seemed one of contemplation, without a stitch on, his hands clasped loose between his thighs, his powerful shoulders easy. A long time since she had seen him stripped.
‘You’re a ravishing woman,’ he said. ‘Always were and always will be. God bless.’
‘Good night, dear Tim. Don’t forget me.’
Silly thing to say. He wouldn’t question it; one more sweet titillating nothing, appropriate to the silly time and place.
Not a valediction.
He had not come back. Hall, study, dining-room, drawing-room: she opened doors and saw the face of each in turn, sunk in lugubrious hostility, emanating greyness and decay, like animals behind bars, or manic-depressives in a private bin. Already midsummer dawn fainted pre-natally in the high uncurtained windows. He was upstairs … But already she knew along the vibrations of her nerves that there was nobody on the next floor. The house of a widow. Above the married floor, the floor of the children sunk in the routine of normal nursery sleep seemed cut off as if by a zone of concrete.
She climbed slowly to her bedroom; and it was not till she had rapidly undressed and washed that she looked almost perfunctorily into his dressing-room and saw his empty bed, pyjamas laid out upon it, sheet turned down. She shut the door, drew the blue silk curtains close, got into her big bed and switched the lamp off.
He was everywhere outside in the whole of London, he was nowhere. Gone to his club. Walking the streets. Gone to a hotel. Picked up a tart and gone home with her. Gone—but it wasn’t possible?—to Dinah. Yes, it was possible. Certain in fact. She’d known it all the evening. Almost at once she fell into bemused half-consciousness, then slept a whirling sleep for half an hour, started broad awake again, the inside of her head stretched dry and taut, and ringing like a shaken tambourine. Someone was moving in the house. Above, in the night nursery? No. Below her, far down, and not a noise at all, but ponderable silence, as if someone heavy with intention were standing still: as a burglar might stand, or a murderer. She lay in a super-sensory trance, conjuring footsteps, breathing, creaking, a hand brushing her forehead, from invaded space. He was in the house. He was weight, silence. He was still no one, nothing.
The door of his dressing-room flew open soundlessly. He turned from the wash-basin and saw her standing in the doorway in her nightdress, her hair rumpled, her eyes like hot coals boring into him. He finished drinking a tumblerful of water in long gulps without a break.
‘Thirsty,’ he said. He put down the glass and mopped his forehead with a towel. ‘Whew! Ain’t it stuffy? The air’s like a damp dishcloth in this house.’
His voice was level, matter-of-fact: he might just have come in from the office on an ordinary day. He twisted himself to examine his dinner jacket: one sleeve and shoulder were streaked with whitish dust. He picked up a clothes brush and started removing this in a collected way. His face in the half light looked perfectly calm, unnaturally pale.
She vanished, closing the door noiselessly.
He took off his clothes and lay down on the bed naked, his feet crossed, his hands behind his head—a reflective pose. After a while he swung himself into a sitting position on the bed’s edge, propped his elbows on his knees, sank his forehead in his hands and remained thus, absent-mindedly running his fingers through his hair till it stood on end, and groaning once or twice vaguely under his breath like a person disturbed in sleep. Presently he got up, opened the door into her bedroom, stood a moment considering the dark blot of her head against heaped pillows, the mound of her body curled sideways under the blanket, then stalked across the room and sat down on the bed, near the foot of it.
After a few minutes she turned on her back and scrutinized him under lowered eyelids. What an extraordinary sight—planted there in an attitude that seemed one of contemplation, without a stitch on, his hands clasped loose between his thighs, his powerful shoulders easy. A long time since she had seen him stripped.
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