is more satisfying to Audrey than anything they do to each other: his insouciance, standing there rinsing out the prophylactic device in the rose-patterned bowl, pulling it between the mangle rollers of his chubby little fingers so that the water spurts . It reminds her that it was instruction that formed the greater part of his seduction: he described how she should insert the pessary beforehand – and then after use the syringe to sluice herself out while squatting above a different bowl. Audrey had admired Gilbert Cook for this commitment to the technical aspects of free love, far more than his written advocacy thereupon. – Admired him for this – and for his abjuration of all jealous sentiments . I tell you, m’dear – he said on that first occasion, as he curled his hand to simulate her vagina and spoke of how to exterminate the troubleshome spermatozoa – not sholely sho that I may enjoy your delightsh without, um, complicationsh – although I do fervently wish to enjoy them, and on thoshe termsh preshishely – but in order that you may enjoy shimilar, or in all probability far greater onesh, with whomshoever you choose. His teacherly approach to the exercise of deflowering her had been what I needed , the hot suffusions of shame and guilt coming first, and then, in response to his instruction, she found herself left free to enjoy – that first time as well – his demonstration. Yet, despite the vigour with which he impressed upon her his vision – that the shex relashion ish all about ush, if diffushed , and that we do not do it, either like pershonsh or animalsh , but attract it, like lightning-conductorsh – Audrey was appalled to discover herself after their second liaison exhibiting all the symptoms of a love-struck moon calf , some diaphanous Daphne or vapid Venetia , who cared nothing for the New Dawn of womankind, but only the old and poetical ones. Now, setting the slug down, he comes to sit beside her and says, Tell me, why d’you shpeak of thish inshident now – of your father’sh conshorting with proshtitutes and their pornographersh – ish it becaushe we have jusht . . . fucked? Audrey strokes the green damask of Venetia Stanley’s chaise-longue and runs a finger around one button, then a second. No, she says eventually, no, Gilbert, it’s not that . . . it’s . . . How she loathes Venetia Stanley without ever so much as having clapped eyes on her . Try as she might to prevent herself, Audrey has asked him whether their relation is physical – although he disdains the idea: Venetia? M’dear, she’s a baby, she’s shwaddled in the eternal childishnessh of wealth, shponged and pampered by her nurshing maids and wet nurshed at houshe parties . . . That may be so, yet for Audrey the closeness between the society lady and the socialist is insupportable , especially here, where a portrait photograph of her attired as Diana the Huntress stares down from a nearby whatnot . . . it’s the umbrellas. Aha, the umbrellash, the fruitsh of your laboursh. He mussav a way of fixin’ ’em – his dentures – because holding forth in drawing rooms or public meetings his tone is full and loud as sounding brass , while at such times as these, at his ease, divested of his clothing, his hair dishevelled, comes this endearing lishp. She counters: I don’t make umbrellas, Gilbert, or brollies, or garden tents, or portable pavilions for the bloomin’ beach – I’m a typewriter, I make words. Such words : Dear Sir, in respect of your order of the 15th instant, I regret to inform you that we are unable to supply the precise numbers of the Peerless and the Paragon models that you requested due to Fox’s tardiness in fulfilling our own order for their patented Aegis frames. As I know you appreciate, all Ince & Coy umbrellas are finished to the highest standards and employ the Aegis frame as a matter of course due to their superior quality and efficiency. We are consigning by carrier a gross of the
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