The Lake of Darkness by Ruth Rendell Page A

again tomorrow,” he said bitterly.
    She said in a very low voice, not much above a whisper, “I never wear it.”
    “You still haven’t told me where he thinks you are.”
    “At Annabel’s, the girl who lives in Frognal, the one I see on Mondays. Martin, I thought we could-I thought we could sometimes meet on Mondays.”
    He went over to the drinks cabinet and poured himself some brandy. He held up the bottle. “For you?”
    “No, I don’t want anything. I thought Mondays and-and Saturday afternoons, if you like. Russell always goes to White Hart Lane when Spurs play at home.”
    He almost laughed. “You know all about it, don’t you? How many have there been before me?”
    She shrank as if he had made to strike her. “There haven’t been any at all.” She had a way of speaking very simply and directly, without artifice. It was partly because of this, that like him she had no sharp wit, no gift of repartee, that he had begun to love her. Begun, only begun, he must remember that. Caution, be my friend!
    “We aren’t going to see each other any more, Francesca. We’ve only known each other two weeks and that means we can part now without really getting hurt. I think I must have been a bit crazy, the way I went on last week, but there’s no harm done, is there? I’m not going to come between husband and wife. We’ll forget each other in a little while, and I know that’s the best thing. I wish you hadn’t-well, led me on, but I expect you couldn’t help yourself.” Martin came breathlessly to the end of this speech, drank down the rest of his brandy, and recalled from an ancient film a phrase he had thought funny at the time. He brought it out facetiously with a bold smile. “I was just a mad impetuous fool!”
    She looked at him sombrely. “I shan’t forget you,” she said. “Don’t you know I’m in love with you?”
    No one had ever made that confession to him before. He felt himself turn pale, the blood recede from his face.
    “I think I loved you the day I brought those horrible flowers and you said”-her voice trembled-“that no one sends flowers to men unless they’re ill.”
    “We’re going to say good-bye now, Francesca, and I’m going to put you in a taxi and you’re going home to Russell and Lindsay. And in a year’s time I’ll come and buy some flowers from you and you’ll have forgotten who I am.”
    He pulled her gently to her feet. She was limp and passive, yet clinging. She subsided clingingly against him so that the whole length of her body was pressed softly to his and her hands tremulously on either side of his face.
    “Don’t send me away, Martin. I can’t bear it.”
    He was aware of thinking that this was his last chance to keep clear of the involvement he dreaded. Summon up the strength now and he would be a free man. But he longed also to be loved, not so much for sex as for love. He was aware of that and then of very little more that might be said to belong to the intellect. His open lips were on her open lips and his hands were discovering her. He and she had descended somehow to the cushions of the sofa and her white arm, now bare, was reaching up to turn off the lamp.
    Martin hadn’t much experience of love-making. There had been a girl at the L.S.E. and a girl he had met at a party at the Vowchurches and a girl who had picked him up on the beach at Sitges. There had been other girls too, but only with these three had he actually had sexual relations. He had found it, he brought himself to confess to himself only, disappointing. Something was missing, something that books and plays and other people’s experiences had led him to expect. Surely there should be more to it than just a blind unthinking need beforehand and afterwards nothing more than the same sense of relief as a sneeze gives or a drink of cold water down a thirsty throat?
    With Francesca it wasn’t like that. Perhaps it was because he loved her and he hadn’t loved those others. It must be