"Sit down, sit down, please forgive me, it's just that you both look so happy, I can't help myself. Marigold, will you be mother?"

"I suppose this is some sort of sick joke?"

"No, no--" I was serving tea on the mahogany night table. I had put Julian's chair well back out of the way.

"You'll be turning nasty in a minute."

"Roger, please relax, please just talk to me quietly, let's be gentle and reasonable with each other. I'm very sorry I was so unpleasant to you both down in Bristol. I was upset for Priscilla, I still am, but I don't regard you as wicked, I know how these things happen."

Roger grimaced at Marigold. She beamed back. "I wanted to put you in the picture," he said. "And I want you to do something for us, if you will. First of all, here's this." He put a large gaping carrier bag onto the floor beside my feet.

I peered down and then began to dig into it. Necklaces and things. The enamel picture. The little marble, or whatever it was, statuette. Two silver cups, other oddments. "That's good of you, Priscilla will be so pleased. What about the mink?"

"I was coming to that," said Roger. "I'm afraid I sold the mink. I'd already sold it when I saw you last. I agreed with Priscilla it was a sort of investment. I'll let her have half the proceeds. In due course."

"She mustn't worry," said Marigold. She had advanced her smartly shod blue patent-leather foot up against Roger's shoe. She kept moving her arm so that her sleeve lightly and rhythmically brushed his.

"All the jewels are there," said Roger, "and the little things from her dressing table, and Marigold has packed all the clothes and so on into three trunks. Where shall we send them?"

I wrote down the Notting Hill address.

"I didn't pack all the old cosmetics," said Marigold, "and there were a lot of old suspender belts and things--"And could you tell Priscilla we want the divorce to get going at once? Naturally I will make her an allowance."

"We won't be poorly off," said Marigold, sweeping her sleeve across Roger's. "I shall go on working after the little one is born."

"What do you do?" I asked.

"I'm a dentist."

"Good for you!" I laughed out of sheer joie de vivre. Fancy, this charming girl a dentist!

"You've told Priscilla about us, of course?" said Roger, sedate.

"Yes, yes. All shall be well and all shall be well, as Julian remarked."

"Julian?"

"Julian Baffin, the daughter of a friend of mine."

"You must go, my children," I said, rising. I could not bear any longer not being alone with my thoughts. "I will arrange everything for the best with Priscilla. It remains to wish you both every happiness."

"I confess you've surprised me," said Roger.

"Being beastly to you two won't help Priscilla."

"You've been sweet," said Marigold. I think she would have kissed me, only Roger piloted her off.

"Cheery-bye to my favourite dentist!" I shouted after them.

"He must be drunk," I heard Roger say as I shut the door.

I went back to lying face downwards on the black woolly rug.

"Guess what I've got in this bag!" I said to Priscilla.

It was the same evening. Francis had let me in. There was no sign of Christian.

Priscilla was still occupying the upstairs "new" bedroom with the rather tattered-looking walls of synthetic bamboo. The oval bed, which had black sheets, was tousled, doubtless just vacated. Priscilla, in a rather clinical white bath-robe, was sitting on a stool in front of a low very glittering dressing table. She had been staring at herself in the mirror when I came in, and returned to doing so after greeting me without a smile. She had powdered her face rather whitely and reddened her lips. She looked grotesque, like an elderly geisha.

She did not reply. Then she suddenly reached out to a big jar of greasy cold cream and started plastering it upon her face. The red lipstick merged into the grease, tingeing it with red. Priscilla spread the pinkish mess all over her face, still gazing devouringly into her own eyes.

"Look," I said, "look who's here!" I put the white statuette onto the glass top of the dressing table. I laid the enamel picture and the malachite box beside it. I drew out a mass of entangled necklaces.

Priscilla stared. Then without touching the stuff she reached out and took a paper tissue and began wiping the red mess off her face.

"Roger brought them for you. And look, I've brought you the buffalo lady again. I'm afraid she's a bit lame, but--"And the mink stole? Did you see him?"

"It's no good. I should never have left him. It isn't fair to him. And I think away from him I'm literally going mad. All chances of happiness are gone from me. Just being with myself is hell all the time anyway. And here in this meaningless place I'm with myself more. Even hating Roger was something, it meant something, being made unhappy by him did, after all he belongs to me. And I was used to things there, there was something to do, shopping and cooking and cleaning the house, even though he didn't come home for his supper, I'd cook it and put it ready for him and he wouldn't come home and I'd sit and cry watching the television programme. Still it was all part of something, and waiting for him at night in the dark when I went to bed, listening for his key in the door, at least there was something to wait for. I wasn't alone with my mind. I don't really care if he went with girls, secretaries in the office, I suppose they all do. I don't feel now that it matters much. I'm connected with him forever, it's for better and worse, worse in this case, but any tie is something when one's drifting away to hell. You can't look after me, obviously, why should you. Christian's been very kind, but she's just curious, she's just playing a game, she'll soon get tired of me. I know I'm awful, awful, I can't think how anyone can bear to look at me. I don't want to be looked after anyway. I can feel my mind decaying already. I feel I must smell of decay. I've been in bed all day. I didn't even make up my face until just before you came, and then it looked so terrible. I hate Roger and the last year or two I've been afraid of him. But if I don't go back to him I'll just dissolve, all my inwards will come pouring out, like people who are just going to be hanged. I can't tell you what the misery's like that I'm in."

"Oh Priscilla, do stop. Here, look, pretty things. You're pleased to see them again, so there's something that gives you pleasure." I plucked up a long necklace with blue and glassy alternate beads out of the pile and shook it free and opened it out into a big O to put round her neck, but she gestured it violently away.

"Did he send the mink?"

"Well--"

"He wants to get married--" Her mouth had become flabby and her speech blurred.

"Yes, Priscilla--"

"He's had this girl for a long time--"Yes."

"She's pregnant--"Yes."

"So he wants a divorce--"Yes. Dear Priscilla, you've understood it all and you must face it all--"

"Death," she murmurred, "death, death, death--"Don't give way, my dear--"Death."

"You'll soon feel better. You're well rid of that heel. Honestly. We'll make a new world for you, we'll spoil you, we'll all help, you'll see. You said yourself you'd go to the cinema more. Roger will give you an allowance, and Marigold is a dentist--"And perhaps I could pass my time knitting little things for the baby!"

"That's better, show a bit of spirit!"

"Bradley, if you knew how much I hated even you, you'd know how far beyond any human hope I am now. As for Roger--I'd like to stick--a red-hot knitting needle--into his liver--"Priscilla!"

"I read about it in a detective story. You die slowly and in terrible agony."

She had turned on her side and was sobbing quietly, rather breathlessly, her mouth shuddering, her eyes awash with tears. I had never seen anyone so inaccessibly miserable. I felt an urge to put her to sleep, not for good of course, but if only one could have given her a shot of something just to stop this awful weeping, to give some intermission to the tormented consciousness.

The door opened and Christian came in. Gazing at Priscilla she greeted me inattentively with a sort of "holding" gesture which, it occurred to me, was the height of intimacy. "What is it now?" she said to Priscilla sternly.

"I've just told her about Roger and Marigold," I said.

"Oh God, did you have to?"

Priscilla suddenly started to scream quietly. "Scream quietly" may sound like an oxymoron, but I mean to indicate the curiously controlled rhythmic screaming which goes with a certain kind of hysterics. Hysterics is terrifying because of its willed and yet not willed quality. It has the frightfulness of a deliberate assault on the spectators, yet it is also, with its apparently unstoppable rhythm, like the setting-going of a machine. It is no use asking someone in hysterics to "control themselves." By "choosing" to become hysterical they have put themselves beyond ordinary communication. Priscilla, now sitting upright in bed, gave a gasping "Uuuh!" then a screamed "Aaah!" ending in a sort of bubbling sob, then the gasp again and the scream and so on. It was an appalling sound, both tortured and cruel. I have four times heard a woman in hysterics, once my mother when my father shouted at her, once Priscilla when she was pregnant, once another woman (would that I could forget that occasion) and now Priscilla again. I turned to Christian raising my hands distractedly.

Francis Marloe came in grinning.

Christian said, "Out you go, Brad, wait downstairs."

I ran down the first flight, then went more slowly down the second flight. By the time I reached the door of the dark brown and indigo drawing-room the house had become entirely silent. I went in and stood with my feet well apart, breathing.

Christian entered.

"She's stopped," I said. "What did you do?"

"I slapped her."

I said, "I think I'm going to faint." I sat down on the sofa and covered my face with my hand.

"Brad! Quick, here, some brandy--"Could I have some biscuits or something? I haven't eaten all day. Or yesterday."

I really did feel, for that moment, faint: that odd absolutely unique sensation of a black baldacchino being lowered like an extinguisher over one's head. And now, as brandy, bread, biscuits, cheese, plumcake became available, I also knew that I was going to cry. It was many many years since I had wept. What a very strange phenomenon it is, little perhaps they realize who use it much. I recalled the dismay of the wolves when Mowgli sheds tears, in the Jungle Book. Or rather, it is Mowgli who is dismayed, and thinks he is dying. The wolves are better informed, dignified, faintly disgusted. I held the glass of brandy in both hands and stared at Christian and felt the warm water quietly rising into my eyes. The quiet inevitability of the sensation gave satisfaction. It was an achievement. Perhaps all tears are an achievement. Oh precious gift.

"Brad, dear, don't--"I hate violence," I said.

"It's no good letting her go on and on, she tires herself so, she did it for half an hour yesterday--"All right, yes, all right--"Why, you poor pet! I'm doing my best, honest. It's no fun having a near-crazy in the house. I'm doing it for you, Brad."

"Brad, what is it, you look extraordinary, something's happened to you, you're beautiful, you look like a saint or something, you look like some goddamn picture, you look all young again--"You won't abandon Priscilla, will you, Chris?" I said, and I mopped the tears away with my hand.

"Did you just notice something, Brad?"

"What?"

"You called me 'Chris.' "

"Did I? Like old days. Well, but you won't? I'll pay you--"Oh never mind the dough. I'll look after her. I got onto a new doc. There's a treatment with injections she can have."

"Good. Julian."

"What was that?"

I had just uttered Julian's name aloud. I got up. "Chris, do you mind, I must go. I've got something very important to do." Think about Julian.

"Brad, please--Oh, all right, I won't keep you. But I want you to say something to me."

"What?"

"Oh that you forgive me or something. That there's peace between us or something. You know I just loved you, Brad. You saw my love as a sort of crushing force or a will to power or something but I just wanted to hold you. And I did really truly come back here to you and for you. I thought about you out there and what a fool I'd been. Of course I'm not a romantic crazy. I know our thing couldn't work then, we were so young and God we were stupid with each other. But there was something I saw in you which didn't leave me alone. I used to dream we were reconciled, you know in dreams at night, real dreams."

"Me too," I said.

Christian entered.

"She's stopped," I said. "What did you do?"

"I slapped her."

I said, "I think I'm going to faint." I sat down on the sofa and covered my face with my hand.

"Brad! Quick, here, some brandy--"Could I have some biscuits or something? I haven't eaten all day. Or yesterday."

I really did feel, for that moment, faint: that odd absolutely unique sensation of a black baldacchino being lowered like an extinguisher over one's head. And now, as brandy, bread, biscuits, cheese, plumcake became available, I also knew that I was going to cry. It was many many years since I had wept. What a very strange phenomenon it is, little perhaps they realize who use it much. I recalled the dismay of the wolves when Mowgli sheds tears, in the Jungle Book. Or rather, it is Mowgli who is dismayed, and thinks he is dying. The wolves are better informed, dignified, faintly disgusted. I held the glass of brandy in both hands and stared at Christian and felt the warm water quietly rising into my eyes. The quiet inevitability of the sensation gave satisfaction. It was an achievement. Perhaps all tears are an achievement. Oh precious gift.

"Brad, dear, don't--"I hate violence," I said.

"It's no good letting her go on and on, she tires herself so, she did it for half an hour yesterday--"All right, yes, all right--"Why, you poor pet! I'm doing my best, honest. It's no fun having a near-crazy in the house. I'm doing it for you, Brad."

"Brad, what is it, you look extraordinary, something's happened to you, you're beautiful, you look like a saint or something, you look like some goddamn picture, you look all young again--"You won't abandon Priscilla, will you, Chris?" I said, and I mopped the tears away with my hand.

"Did you just notice something, Brad?"

"What?"

"You called me 'Chris.' "

"Did I? Like old days. Well, but you won't? I'll pay you--"Oh never mind the dough. I'll look after her. I got onto a new doc. There's a treatment with injections she can have."

"Good. Julian."

"What was that?"

I had just uttered Julian's name aloud. I got up. "Chris, do you mind, I must go. I've got something very important to do." Think about Julian.

"Brad, please--Oh, all right, I won't keep you. But I want you to say something to me."

"What?"

"Oh that you forgive me or something. That there's peace between us or something. You know I just loved you, Brad. You saw my love as a sort of crushing force or a will to power or something but I just wanted to hold you. And I did really truly come back here to you and for you. I thought about you out there and what a fool I'd been. Of course I'm not a romantic crazy. I know our thing couldn't work then, we were so young and God we were stupid with each other. But there was something I saw in you which didn't leave me alone. I used to dream we were reconciled, you know in dreams at night, real dreams."

"Me too," I said.

"What tosh, my dearest dearest Chris."

"Oh sure, but all the same--you know something, suddenly I feel you're open to me, right open to me--I can walk straight in and there's welcome written on the mat--Brad, say those good words, will you, say you forgive me, say we're really reconciled and friends again at last."

"Of course I forgive you, Chris, of course we're reconciled. You must forgive me too, I wasn't a patient man--"Sure I do. Now thank God we can talk at last, talk all about how things were and about the bloody fools we used to be, make it all good again, buy it back, that's what 'redeem' means, doesn't it, what happens in the pawn shop. When I saw you crying for Pris- cilla I knew it was possible. You're a good man, Bradley Pearson, we can make it together if only we open our hearts--"Chris, dear. Please!"

"Brad, you know in a way you are my husband, I've never really stopped thinking of you that way, after all we were married in church, with my body I thee worship and the whole sacred caboodle, we were pure in heart once, we meant well by each other, we really cared, didn't we, didn't we care?"