The woman waited until he was within reach, and then, with a quick right hand, so quick he never even saw it coming, she smacked him hard across the front of the face. And when he sat down on the bed and began to cry, she took the knife from his hand and went swiftly out of the room, down the stairs to the hall, where the telephone was.
My Lady Love, My Dove
It has been my habit for many years to take a nap after lunch. I settle myself in a chair in the living-room with a cushion behind my head and my feet up on a small square leather stool, and I read until I drop off.
On this Friday afternoon, I was in my chair and feeling as comfortable as ever with a book in my hands – an old favourite, Doubleday and Westwood’s The Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera – when my wife, who has never been a silent lady, began to talk to me from the sofa opposite. ‘These two people,’ she said, ‘what time are they coming?’
I made no answer, so she repeated the question, louder this time.
I told her politely that I didn’t know.
‘I don’t think I like them very much,’ she said. ‘Especially him.’
‘No dear, all right.’
‘Arthur. I said I don’t think I like them very much.’
I lowered my book and looked across at her lying with her feet up on the sofa, flipping over the pages of some fashion magazine. ‘We’ve only met them once,’ I said.
‘A dreadful man, really. Never stopped telling jokes, or stories, or something.’
‘I’m sure you’ll manage them very well, dear.’
‘And she’s pretty frightful, too. When do you think they’ll arrive?’
Somewhere around six o’clock, I guessed.
‘But don’t you think th
ey’re awful?’ she asked, pointing at me with her finger.
‘Well…’
‘They’re too awful, they really are.’
‘We can hardly put them off now, Pamela.’
‘They’re absolutely the end,’ she said.
‘Then why did you ask them?’ The question slipped out before I could stop myself and I regretted it at once, for it is a rule with me never to provoke my wife if I can help it. There was a pause, and I watched her face, waiting for the answer – the big white face that to me was something so strange and fascinating there were occasions when I could hardly bring myself to look away from it. In the evenings sometimes – working on her embroidery, or painting those small intricate flower pictures – the face would tighten and glimmer with a subtle inward strength that was beautiful beyond words, and I would sit and stare at it minute after minute while pretending to read. Even now, at this moment, with that compressed acid look, the frowning forehead, the petulant curl of the nose, I had to admit that there was a majestic quality about this woman, something splendid, almost stately; and so tall she was, far taller than I – although today, in her fifty-first year, I think one would have to call her big rather than tall.
‘You know very well why I asked them,’ she answered sharply. ‘For bridge, that’s all. They play an absolutely first-class game, and for a decent stake.’ She glanced up and saw me watching her. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s about the way you feel too, isn’t it?’
‘Well, of course, I…’
‘Don’t be a fool, Arthur.’
‘The only time I met them I must say they did seem quite nice.’
‘So is the butcher.’
‘Now Pamela, dear – please. We don’t want any of that.’
‘Listen,’ she said, slapping down the magazine on her lap, ‘you saw the sort of people they were as well as I did. A pair of stupid climbers who think they can go anywhere just because they play good bridge.’
‘I’m sure you’re right dear, but what I don’t honestly understand is why –’
‘I keep telling you – so that for once we can get a decent game. I’m sick and tired of playing with rabbits. But I really can’t see why I should have these awful people in the house.’