"All that's superficial, what's the word I want, frivolous. It's all--what's the word--"Gratuitous."

"It's not part of real life, of what's compulsory. My life is all compulsory. My child, my husband, compulsory. I'm caged."

"I could do with a few more compulsory things in my life."

"Rachel, I think you're raving. A striking simile, but really I never heard such tosh."

"Well, perhaps I'm just describing how it is with me and Arnold. I'm just a growth on him. I have no being of my own. I can't get at him. I couldn't do so even by killing myself. It would interest him, he'd have a theory about it. He'd soon find another woman he could get on with better, and they'd discuss my case."

"Rachel, these are very base thoughts."

"Bradley, how I adore your simplicity. As if I understood that language any more! You're talking to a toad, to an earthworm cut in two and wiggling."

"Rachel, do stop, you're upsetting me."

"You are a sensitive plant, aren't you. And to think that I saw you as a sort of knight errant!"

"Such a bedraggled one--"You were a separate place. Do you understand?"

"A wide plain where you could set up your tent? Or are these similes getting out of hand?"

"You mock everything."

"I don't, it's just a habit of speech. Surely you know me by now."

"Yes, yes, I do actually. Oh I've messed everything up. I've even spoilt you. Now Arnold has taken you over too. He cares for you far more than he cares for me. He takes everything."

"Rachel. Listen. My relation to you is not part of my relation to Arnold."

"Brave words. But it is now."

"Please try to remember what he said this morning, you know, when he asked you--"

"Oh how you do hurt and annoy me! He said something like, 'Don't feel you can't go and see Bradley now. In fact you'd better go and see him straight away. He'll be in a frenzy to see you and discuss our conversation. Why not go and see him and have a frank chat, have it all out. He'll talk more to you than to me. He's a bit sore and it'll do him good. Off you go.' "

"God. Does he think you'll report your conversation with me to him?"

"Maybe."

"And will you?"

"Maybe."

"Is Arnold having an affair with Christian?"

"You're in love with Christian."

"Don't be silly. Is Arnold--"

"I don't know. I'm getting bored with that question. Possibly not in the strict sense. But I don't care. He acts as a free man, he always has. If he. wants to see Christian he sees her. They're going into business together. I couldn't care less whether they get into bed together too."

"Rachel, now do try to be mqre precise. Does Arnold really believe that I'm just pestering you against your will? Or did he invent that to smooth things over?"

"I don't know what he believes and I don't care."

"Please try. Truth does matter. What exactly happened yesterday after Arnold arrived back and we were--Please describe the events in detail. I want a description beginning, 'I ran down the stairs.' "

"I ran down the stairs. Arnold had gone out onto the veranda. So I dodged through the kitchen and into the side passage and then came into the garden as if I'd just seen him, and I took him down to the end of the garden to show him something and I kept him there and that seemed all right. Then about half an hour later Julian turned up and said she'd met you and you'd said you'd been at our place."

"I didn't say it. She assumed it and I didn't deny it."

"Well, that comes to the same thing. Then Julian started to talk about the boots you'd bought her. I must say I was rather surprised. You are a cool customer. Anyway, Arnold raised his eyebrows, you know the way he does. But he said nothing while Julian was with us."

"Wait a moment. Did Arnold notice that Julian was wearing my socks?"

"Ha! That's another thing. No, I don't think so. Julian went straight on upstairs to try the boots on. I didn't see her again till after Arnold had gone to see you. Then she explained about the socks. She thought it was a great joke."

"You see, I just shoved them in my pocket and--"All right, I imagined it all. Here they are, by the way. I washed them. They're still a bit damp. I told Julian not to mention you to Arnold for a while. I said he was so cross about that review. So I trust the sock incident is closed."

"He asked me why I hadn't said you'd been."

"What did you say?"

"What could I say? I was completely taken by surprise. I laughed and said you'd annoyed me. I said you'd been rather emotional and I'd turned you out, and felt it would be kinder to you not to tell Arnold."

"Couldn't you think of anything better than that?"

"No, I couldn't. While Julian was there I couldn't think, and then I just had to say something. My head was full of nothing but the truth. The best I could do was to tell half of it in a garbled form."

"You could have invented a complete falsehood."

"So could you. There was no need to let Julian assume you'd been visiting us."

"I know, I know. Did Arnold believe you?"

"I'm not sure. He knows I'm a liar, he's often enough caught me in lies. He lies too. We accept each other as liars, most married couples do."

"Oh Rachel, Rachel--"

"You grieve over such an imperfect world, do you? Anyway he doesn't really mind. If I have some sort of thing on it eases his conscience and leaves him more free. And as long as he's in control and can bait you a bit it may even amuse him. He doesn't take you seriously as a threat to his marriage."

"I see."

"And of course he's quite right. There is no threat."

"Isn't there?"

"No. You've just played along out of vague affection and pity. Oh don't protest, I know. As for Arnold not taking you seriously as a libertine, that can hardly surprise you. The funny thing is, Arnold does care for you a lot."

"Yes," I said. "And the funny thing is that though I think in some ways he's a real four-letter man, I care for him a lot."

"So you see, the real drama is between you and him. I'm just a side issue as usual."

"No, no."

"I don't mean a literal wink, you fool. Ah well, my little bid for freedom didn't last long, did it. It ended in a sordid undignified scrabbling little muddle and Arnold taking over once again. Oh God, marriage is such an odd mixture of love and hate. I detest and fear Arnold and there are moments when I could kill him. Yet I love him too. If I didn't love him he wouldn't have this awful power over me. And I admire him, I admire his work, I think his books are marvellous."

"Rachel, you can't!"

"And I think that review of yours was spiteful and stupid."

"Well, well."

"You're just eaten up with envy."

"Let's not argue about that, Rachel, please."

"I'm sorry. I feel so sort of broken. I feel resentment against you for not having had the grace or luck to--rescue me or defend me or something. I don't even know what I mean. It isn't that I want to leave Arnold, I couldn't, I'd die. I just want a little privacy, a little secrecy, a few things of my own which aren't absolutely dyed and saturated with Arnold. But it seems to be impossible. You and he are going to start up again--"What a phrase!"

"You'll be talking your intellectual talk together and I'll be outside washing up and hearing your voices going on and on and on. It'll be just like the old days."

"Listen, dear Rachel," I said. "Why shouldn't you have a private place? I don't mean a love affair, neither of us has the temperament for that. I dare say I'm terribly repressed, not that I mind. And an affair would involve us in lies and would be wrong--"How simply you put it!"

"I don't want you to encourage you to deceive your husband--"I'm not asking you to!"

"We've known each other for years without ever coming really close. Now we suddenly blunder up against each other and it goes all wrong. We might now recede again to the previous distance or even farther. I suggest we don't. We can be friends. Arnold was holding forth about how he and Christian were friends--"Was he?"

"I suggest that you and I settle down to construct a friendship, nothing clandestine, all cheerful and above board--"Cheerful?"

"Why not? Why should life be sad?"

"I often wonder."

"Why shouldn't we love each other a bit and make each other happier?"

"I like your 'a bit.' You're such a weights-and-measures man."

"Let's try. I need you."

"That's the best thing you've said yet."

"Arnold could hardly object--"He'd love it. That's the trouble. Sometimes, Bradley, I wonder whether you have it in you at all to be a writer. You have such nai've views about human nature."

"When you will something a simple formulation is often the best. Besides, morals is simple."

"And we must be moral, mustn't we?"

"In the end, yes."

"In the end. That's rich. Are you going to leave Priscilla with Christian?"

This took me aback. I said, "For the present." I could not decide what to do about Priscilla.

"Priscilla is a complete wreck. You've got her on your hands for life. I've had second thoughts about minding her, by the way. She'd drive me mad. Anyway, you'll leave her with Christian. And you'll go there to see her. And you'll start to talk with Christian and you'll start discussing how your marriage went wrong, just like Arnold said you ought to do. You don't realize how confident Arnold is that he's the centre of every complex. It's little people like you and me who are mean and envious and jealous. Arnold is so self-satisfied that he's really generous, it's real virtue. Yes, you'll come to Christian in the end. That's where the end is. Not morality but power. She's a very powerful woman. She's a great magnet. She's your fate. And the funny thing is that Arnold will regard it all as his doing. We are all his people. But you'll see. Christian is your fate."

"Never!"

"A muddler hoping to be forgiven. That sounds humble and touching. It would possibly be very effective in one of your books. But I've got a kind of misery that makes me blind and deaf. You wouldn't understand. You live in the open with all of you spread out around you. I'm mangled in a machine. Even to say it's my own fault doesn't mean anything. However don't worry too much about me. I expect all married people are like this. It doesn't prevent me from enjoying cups of tea."

"Rachel, we will be friends, you won't run away into remoteness? There's no need to be dignified with me."

"You're so self-righteous, Bradley. You can't help it. You're a deeply censorious and self-righteous person. Still, you mean well, you're a nice chap. Maybe later I shall be glad you said these things."

"Then it's a pact."

"All right." Then she said, "You know there's a lot of fire in me. I'm not a wreck like poor old Priscilla. A lot of fire and power yet. Yes."

"Of course--"You don't understand. I don't mean anything to do with simplicity and love. I don't even mean a will to survive. I mean fire, fire. What tortures. What kills. Ah well--"Rachel, look up. The sun's shining."

"Don't be soppy."

She threw her head back and suddenly got up and started off across the square like a machine which had just been quietly set in motion. I hurried after her and took her hand. Her arm remained stiff, but she turned to me with a grimacing smile such as women sometimes use, smiling through weariness and a self-indulgent desire to weep. As we neared Oxford Street the Post Office Tower came into view, very hard and clear, glittering, dangerous, martial and urbane.

"Oh look, Rachel."

"What?"

"The tower."

"Oh that. Bradley, don't come any farther. I'm going to the station."

"When shall I see you?"

"Never, I expect. No, no. Ring up. Not tomorrow."

"Rachel, you're sure Julian doesn't know anything about--anything?"

"Quite sure. And no one's likely to tell her! Whatever possessed you to buy her those expensive boots?"

"I wanted time to think of a plausible way of askinS her to saY she hadn't met me."

"You don't seem to have employed the time vel7 profitably."

"No I--didn't."

"Good-bye, Bradley. Thanks even."

Rachel left me. I saw her disappear into the crowd, her battered blue handbag swinging, the plump pale flesh ex" her upper arm oscillating a little, her hair tangled, her face dazed and tired- with an automatic hand she had scooped up the hanging shoulder strap. Then I saw her again, and again and again. O^frd Street was ful1 of tired ageing women with dazed faces, push*ing blindly against each other like a herd of animals. I ran across the road and north -wards towards my flat.