his hands. Julia was ashamed to have been caught out manipulating the argument, and was keenly aware of the disproportion between the relief of the starving and a television parlour-game. But there was nothing to do, and she wished miserably that he would go away. After a few moments’ silence he stood up and went to the door.
‘You know, you can be just as much use, over here,’ she said timidly; on this he got out, silently and fast, pulling the door sharply behind him.
Oh, Christ, Julia thought, how horrible I am. She was always capable, after the event, of seeing what she had done with some clarity and not too much evasion. She admired herself for this, and felt her lack of self-deceit as a strength in reserve.
On this occasion she was disturbed and pleased to note that she felt strongly that at all costs she must not go away from Ivan. Her life consisted of a series of passionate encounters with, and evasions of, a series of potential perfect friends. She had only once been unfaithful to Thor, some years earlier, because the situation as she saw it seemed absolutely to demand it, and Julia always submitted unquestioningly to the beauty of a situation. It was true that she had taken care, in an elaborately unconscious way, that the situation should not be repeated. But she alternated, normally, between an overexcited readiness to fall slightly in love and a weary scrambling out of the complications resulting from the last love into which she had fallen. She thought fleetingly of Simon, who was different, and began a letter.
‘Dearest Ivan, it is getting intolerable to be snowed up here for so long. You can’t possibly believe how primitive thingsget in a place where supplies of coal and milk, even, things one thinks one has a right to, become blocked. You know, this house has always been a bit like that. A great air of normality, but it doesn’t quite run. Supplies of things I think are essential are blocked, and one has to exist on resources one finds one hasn’t after all got. My sister Cassandra lives naturally at that level – she’s appallingly self-contained, she’s a genuine brooder, unlike me, I hope, whatever you say. At the moment I die for a good joke, a real bawdy companionable joke. Even after a funeral. Thor thinks I take to jokes as other people take to drugs, but I can’t be any different, I need a good belly-laugh to remind me I’m human. I miss nice fallible human beings, like you, dreadfully. Oh, why are you not here?’
She stopped, and crossed out that sentence. She began again. ‘Rather a row has arisen, which it may amuse you to read about, since I have, as usual, Behaved Badly.…’
Chapter 6
C ASSANDRA climbed up to her bedroom; as she went past Julia’s door she heard raised voices. She closed herself in and turned up the window-seat. She was reading, in the spare hours, with a kind of illicit excitement, all the past volumes of her journal, and the other manuscripts – exercise books of blank verse and heroic dialogue, notes for an unwritten epic. There were wads of it, limp and compressed now, so prodigal of energy then. We were fearfully articulate, she thought. When she started reading, she noticed with detachment the rawness of the feeling; after half an hour she was invariably absorbed.
Someone knocked. Cassandra jumped as though caught out in an indecency, pushed the papers together and called, ‘Come in.’
Deborah closed herself in almost conspiratorially, and looked down on her aunt. Cassandra stood up. ‘Yes?’ she said.
Deborah walked over, closed the window-seat, climbed up on it and looked out. This air of taking possession irritated Cassandra, who was reminded of the times when she had found Julia seated there, reading her books with apparent composure, flushing and laughing when told to get out.
‘What do you want?’ she said crossly, somewhere between her angry adolescent self and the minatory don she had become.
‘I wanted to talk to you. But not
‘You know, you can be just as much use, over here,’ she said timidly; on this he got out, silently and fast, pulling the door sharply behind him.
Oh, Christ, Julia thought, how horrible I am. She was always capable, after the event, of seeing what she had done with some clarity and not too much evasion. She admired herself for this, and felt her lack of self-deceit as a strength in reserve.
On this occasion she was disturbed and pleased to note that she felt strongly that at all costs she must not go away from Ivan. Her life consisted of a series of passionate encounters with, and evasions of, a series of potential perfect friends. She had only once been unfaithful to Thor, some years earlier, because the situation as she saw it seemed absolutely to demand it, and Julia always submitted unquestioningly to the beauty of a situation. It was true that she had taken care, in an elaborately unconscious way, that the situation should not be repeated. But she alternated, normally, between an overexcited readiness to fall slightly in love and a weary scrambling out of the complications resulting from the last love into which she had fallen. She thought fleetingly of Simon, who was different, and began a letter.
‘Dearest Ivan, it is getting intolerable to be snowed up here for so long. You can’t possibly believe how primitive thingsget in a place where supplies of coal and milk, even, things one thinks one has a right to, become blocked. You know, this house has always been a bit like that. A great air of normality, but it doesn’t quite run. Supplies of things I think are essential are blocked, and one has to exist on resources one finds one hasn’t after all got. My sister Cassandra lives naturally at that level – she’s appallingly self-contained, she’s a genuine brooder, unlike me, I hope, whatever you say. At the moment I die for a good joke, a real bawdy companionable joke. Even after a funeral. Thor thinks I take to jokes as other people take to drugs, but I can’t be any different, I need a good belly-laugh to remind me I’m human. I miss nice fallible human beings, like you, dreadfully. Oh, why are you not here?’
She stopped, and crossed out that sentence. She began again. ‘Rather a row has arisen, which it may amuse you to read about, since I have, as usual, Behaved Badly.…’
Chapter 6
C ASSANDRA climbed up to her bedroom; as she went past Julia’s door she heard raised voices. She closed herself in and turned up the window-seat. She was reading, in the spare hours, with a kind of illicit excitement, all the past volumes of her journal, and the other manuscripts – exercise books of blank verse and heroic dialogue, notes for an unwritten epic. There were wads of it, limp and compressed now, so prodigal of energy then. We were fearfully articulate, she thought. When she started reading, she noticed with detachment the rawness of the feeling; after half an hour she was invariably absorbed.
Someone knocked. Cassandra jumped as though caught out in an indecency, pushed the papers together and called, ‘Come in.’
Deborah closed herself in almost conspiratorially, and looked down on her aunt. Cassandra stood up. ‘Yes?’ she said.
Deborah walked over, closed the window-seat, climbed up on it and looked out. This air of taking possession irritated Cassandra, who was reminded of the times when she had found Julia seated there, reading her books with apparent composure, flushing and laughing when told to get out.
‘What do you want?’ she said crossly, somewhere between her angry adolescent self and the minatory don she had become.
‘I wanted to talk to you. But not
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