Lucky Jim

'Quite. And how did he take that?'

'Not too well. He came back with a lot of things about me being my own mistress, and I was to do what I wanted to do, and wasn't to feel I was tied in any way. It made me feel rather mean.'

'I can understand that all right.'

She leant forward and put her elbows on the low circular table between them. 'You see, Jim, in a way I think it was rather a bad thing my coming to meet you at all. But I'd said I would and so I had to come. And, of course, I still wanted to, just as much as I did when you asked me. But I've been thinking it all over, and I've decided… Look, shall we have our tea first, and then talk about it?'

'No, tell me now, whatever it is you want to say.'

'All right, then. It's this, Jim: I think I was a bit carried away by one thing and another then, when you asked me to come today, I mean. I think I wouldn't have said I'd come if I'd had time to think what I was doing. I'd still have wanted to come just as much, though. I'm sorry to have got on to this straightaway, we've hardly had time to say hallo to each other, but you can see what I'm leading up to, can't you?'

Dixon didn't reflect that this attitude would make his task an easy one. He said in a flat voice: 'You mean you don't want to go on with this?'

'I don't really see how we could go on with it, do you? I wish I'd left all this till later, but it's been rather on my mind. You see, you're sort of stuck up here, aren't you? Or do you get to London fairly often?'

'No, I hardly ever go there.'

'Well then, the only chance we'd have to see each other would be when Bertrand asked me to come and stay with his parents, like now, and I wouldn't feel right about sneaking off to see you the whole time. And in any case…' She stopped and made a facial movement which caused Dixon to turn round in his chair.

A youthful waiter had approached, his footfalls silenced by the carpet, and was now shifting from one foot to the other dose by, breathing through his mouth. Dixon thought he'd never seen a human frame radiating so much insolence without recourse to speech, gesture, or any contortion of the features. This figure swung a silver tray in an attempt at careless grace, and was looking past Dixon at Christine. When Dixon said 'Tea for two, please' the waiter smiled faintly at her, as if in lofty but sincere commiseration, then swung aside, allowing the tray to rebound from his kneecap as he walked off.

'Sorry; what were you saying?' Dixon said.

'It's just that I am, oh, tied up with Bertrand, that's all. It's not so much a question of having obligations towards him or anything like that. I just don't want to behave foolishly. Not that I think there's anything foolish about coming to see you. Oh, I just don't seem to be able to put it in any way that sounds at all sensible.' Little by little and intermittently, she was adopting her 'dignant' tone and physical attitude. 'I'm afraid all I can ask you to do is try to understand. I know that's what people always say, and I don't feel I understand very well myself, so how I can expect you to I don't know, but there it is.'

'You're going back on what you said about being rather fed-up with Bertrand, then?'

'No, all that's still quite true. What I'm trying to do now is take the rough with the smooth. The rough parts are still as rough as they were when we talked about it in the taxi. But I must make an effort; I mustn't walk out of things just when I feel like it, I can't go about expecting people to behave as I want them to the whole time. There's bound to be a certain amount of up and down in a relationship like the one I'm having with Bertrand. It's no use getting in a paddy about that, it's got to be accepted, even if I don't want to accept it. The trouble is I've got to push you around while I'm doing it.'

'Don't worry about that,' Dixon said. 'You must do as you think best.'

'Whatever I do can't be very satisfactory,' she said. 'I feel I've been very stupid the whole way through.' Though her pose was now complete, Dixon barely noticed it. 'What I want to stop you thinking is that I was being frivolous about, you know, letting you kiss me and saying I'd come today, and all that. And I meant everything I said; I wouldn't have said it otherwise. And I don't want you to think that I was doing it just for fun or that I've decided since I don't like you enough, or anything like that. It's not like that and you're not to think it is.'

'That's all right, Christine. You can forget about that part of it. Oh… here we are.'

The waiter reappeared at Dixon's side with a loaded tray. This he half-lowered, half-dropped to within an inch of the table; then, with an offensive exaggeration of care, he laid it soundlessly to rest. Straightening up, he gave another smile, this time at Dixon, paused, as if to emphasize his non-intention of setting out any of the tea-things, and moved off counterfeiting a heavy limp.

Christine began moving crockery about and pouring tea. When she gave him his cup she said: 'I'm sorry, Jim. I didn't want to be like this about it. Have a sandwich?'

'No thanks, I don't want anything to eat.'

She nodded and began eating with every appearance of appetite. Dixon was interested by this conventional absence of conventional sensitivity; for almost the first time in his life a woman was behaving in a way alleged to be typical of women. 'After all,' she said, 'you've got your commitments with Margaret, haven't you?'

He sighed rather tremulously; although the worst part of the encounter was theoretically over, without yet having had on him the numbing effect he knew it soon would have, he still felt nervous.' Yes,' he replied.' That was what I was going to tell you about this afternoon, only you got in first. I came here to tell you that I thought we shouldn't see any more of each other from my own point of view, because of my business with Margaret.'

'I see.' She began eating another sandwich.

'Things have all rather come to a head in the last few days, as a matter of fact. Since the Ball, really.'

She looked at him quickly. 'There was a row over that, was there?'

'Well, yes, I suppose you could say that. A good deal more than a row, actually.'

'There you are, you see. I was causing all sorts of trouble by sneaking off with you like that.'

'Don't be silly, Christine,' Dixon said irritably. 'You're talking as if you were the one who initiated everything. If anybody was responsible for all sorts of trouble, as you call it, it was me. Not that I think I'm much to blame for anything, any more than you were. It was all perfectly natural. All this self-reproach strikes me as a bit forced.'

'I'm sorry; I must have put it badly. I wasn't forcing anything as far as I knew.'

'No, I don't suppose you were for a moment. I didn't mean to sound hot under the collar. The Margaret business has been getting me down rather.'

'How bad was it? What did she say to you?'

'Oh, she said all sorts of things. There wasn't much she could have said she didn't say.'

'You make it sound pretty formidable. What actually went on?'

Dixon sighed again and drank some tea. 'It's all so… complicated. I don't want to bore you with it.'

'You won't bore me. I'd like to hear, if you feel you want to tell me. It's your turn, after all.'

The grin she gave with this remark nearly put Dixon right off his stroke. Was she really finding this funny? 'That's right,' he said heavily. 'Well, there's a lot of past history that's all mixed up with it, you see. She's a decent girl really, and I like her a lot, at least I would if she'd only let me. But I've got tied up with her without really meaning to, though I know that sounds ridiculous. When I first met her, last October some time, she was going round with a fellow called Catchpole…' He gave a compressed, but otherwise only slightly edited, account of his past relations with Margaret, finishing with their visit to the pictures the previous evening. He gave a cigarette to Christine, who'd eaten all the food the waiter had brought, took one himself, and said: 'So now it's all more or less on again, though I shouldn't like to have to explain just what it is that's more or less on again, and on's a bit vague too. I don't think she knows quite how interested I've been in you, by the way, and I don't imagine she'd thank me for telling her.'