“I’ll certainly take the car,” she said and left.
Half a minute after the front door was slammed Colin heard Bill say, “I suppose I can come back now that people have stopped shouting. Have you a pain there?”
Colin, looking down, noticed his hand was pressing his midriff and was surprised to feel tension there. He nodded.
“It goes away when she comes back,” Bill told him. “Will we look at the meat?”
But Colin knew nothing about serving a complex meal. He phoned his father and asked him to come earlier to help with an unexpected snag, then he went upstairs and changed his clothes for less festive ones.
15
Gordon was the only guest who did not find the party perplexing. The rest expected Colin to be less taciturn than at college but between short spasms of small talk he was more so. He had not told them he was living with a woman yet the place had a feminine look. His father (who they met for the first time) served the meal with eager assistance from a small boy who said he was Bill Belfrage and that his mother had gone to fetch a friend and would turn up eventually.
“Her movements are sometimes slightly erratic,” he explained.
“Bill Belfrage!” said Doctor Schweik thoughtfully. “In my psychology class last term I had a student called Mavis Belfrage. Your mother perhaps?”
“Yes!”
“A good-looking woman who asked interesting questions but, as you say, was a little erratic. Who has she gone to fetch?”
Bill looked at Colin who seemed listening for a sound outside the room. Schweik repeated his question. Colin said, “I think he’s called Evans.”
“Evans? Clive Evans? He used to sit beside Mavis in my psychology class and he too asked interesting questions. I look forward to meeting them once more.”
The other guests knew each other almost as little as they knew Colin. Schweik became the star of the party because he could talk with little or no help from others. After the meal three guests gave reasons for leaving early, the rest gathered near the fire. Bill, refusing to go to bed, dozed on an armchair with his hands in his pockets.
“For years no one has been a more radical critic of the system than myself,” said Schweik, “but an extended bureaucracy is no answer to the problems created by a bureaucracy.”
“I’m glad you said that. It so definitely did need saying,” said another lecturer who was inclined to fawn on Schweik.
“That was a lovely piece of meat Colin,” said the other lecturer’s wife.
“These ego-powered rebellions change a few superficial details and leave us with even more unwieldy superstructures,” said Schweik. “Colin will agree with me.”
“I’m trying to keep an open mind,” said Colin.
“Do you see a solution?” asked the other lecturer.
“None, because I see no problem. Our societies are shaped by technological evolution, the only effective historical manifestation of the human will when religion fails. Since the shaping process is often painful many feel compelled to exclaim and proclaim and campaign, especially in democracies where crushed worms are permitted to wriggle. But nobody is being badly crushed in comfortable little Britain where the Labour Party draws its strength from the support of the trade unions.”
“Do you know what you’re talking about?” asked Gordon who was listening with an obvious mixture of amusement, boredom and exasperation.
“Unfortunately yes. And now I regret I can stay no longer,” said Schweik glancing at his wristwatch. “It is a pity. I would have liked to meet charming Mavis again. One remembers interesting students because the majority are dead timber, psychologically speaking.”
“So why teach them psychology?” asked Gordon.
“Ah Mr Kerr, we academics are entitled to question everyone but our paymasters!” said Schweik smiling and standing up. “May I offer you a lift into town Mr Kerr?”
“Very kind of you. Yes, you may. The last bus went twenty minutes ago.”
The guests left and Colin gently shook Bill awake saying, “Go upstairs Bill. I’ll wait for her.”
“Pull yourself together,” said Bill, yawning. “Things aren’t as bad as you think.”
He wandered off to bed. Colin waited.
At half past three she came home and looked into the living-room with the cool sympathy of a surgeon visiting a patient after an operation.
“Hullo,” she said.
“Hullo.”
“How did it go?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“Yes. I suppose that’s what frightened me away. You’re brooding. You should be in bed.”
He neither moved nor looked at her. She said, “If you want me to apologize I will. I’ll even try to be abject. Will I apologize?”
“No.”
“Then I may as well go to bed myself.”
On a gentler note she added, “Come to bed Colin. I’ll be nice to you. You know I can be, sometimes.”
“No.”
“Well, good night. I ought to feel guilty but I’ve worn that feeling out. I told you I was a bitch at the very start, Colin.”
“Can you not change, Mavis?”
“O yes. One day I’ll be old and lonely because nobody will find me attractive. Meanwhile you must either kick me out or let me stay. Brooding can’t alter that.”
“It must.”
“Well, Colin, if you think of something don’t wake me with it. I’m very tired.”
She went to bed and he continued thinking hard. The problem was that he could not sleep without her and could not join her in bed without loathing himself.
16
He wakened her at eighteen minutes past six, switching on the bedside light, sitting on the mattress edge and saying eagerly, “I know what to do, Mavis! I know what to do!”
Dazed and puzzled she opened her eyes saying, “What’s happening?”
“Nothing. I’ve just worked out what to do. You see, you hurt and humiliated me tonight, publicly, without needing to. I won’t be able to rest until I’ve hurt you back.”
With open right hand he smacked her on one cheek, with open left hand hit the other, then lay beside her watching the result. Since she neither cried nor winced the pain may not have been great. Her bewildered look did not change until suddenly blushing red all over she scrambled out of bed away from him, staring and stammering faintly, “You..! You..!”
She seized a hairbrush from the dressing-table and raised it defensively or threateningly, he could not say which but assured her, “I’m all right now. We’re even. Now I can rest.”
She thrust her face close to his and asked in a quiet, breathless voice, “Happy are you?”
“No.”
“Never mind. You’ve beaten a woman. You must think yourself a real he-man.”
“No, but now I’m able to sleep.”
“Never mind. It’ll do your ego a power of good.” Thrusting her face close to his she yelled, “Would you like to do it again?”
“Twice was enough.”
She sneered, scooped clothes from a chair and went to the door. He sighed and said patiently, “Come back to bed Mavis.”
She spat at him and went out.
He lay listening to her rouse and dress an unwilling Bill Belfrage and order him downstairs. She returned to the bedroom and, ignoring his remark that all this fuss was needless, took several things from the wardrobe and went downstairs. Colin arose and followed. Dressed for outdoors she knelt on a bulging suitcase on the lobby floor, tightening straps and watched by Bill who was similarly dressed.
“Where are we going Mavis?” Bill asked querulously. She did not answer. Colin said, “You can tell him — I won’t hound you.”
Through clenched teeth she muttered, “I don’t know where we’re going.”
“Stay here till you do,” said Colin. “Sleep in Gordon’s old room if you’ve finished with me.”