Helena by Leo Barton

were
disturbing the net result was very satisfactory.
    So life went
on. I lived with Gregory for three years like this, faithful,
loyal. We never did go abroad, at least no further than a dutiful
trip to Rome, an occasional weekend in Normandy, a summer holiday
in Spain; but the talk about babies, at least from Gregory, became
more incessant and insistent. I found it strange that I didn't want
a child. I loved children. It was my job after all. I loved caring
for them, wiping their noses. The more wretched they were the more
my natural emotion was moved. However, something prevented me from
that further commitment as far as Gregory was concerned. Behind his
back, I still took the pill each month. Gregory would look at me,
waiting to see if I had menstruated, and each month he would be
vaguely disappointed that the hoped for pregnancy had not
occurred.
    So the years
passed. I settled into my job. We still talked vaguely about moving
abroad, about Gregory taking on a parish, about having children. If
anybody had asked me at the time that I met you whether or not I
was happy, I would have said yes, unreservedly. Life did seem a
little dull, a little boring. My desire for different or more was
edged into the recesses of my mind. Life was settled and I had
settled for it.
    There was, as
there always are, disputes, arguments, bones of contention. Gregory
would complain about the amount of time I spent on my work; I would
argue with him about his lack of support in my chosen profession.
Occasionally, I or he would take out our frustrations on each
other, but nothing exceptional, nothing that couldn't be resolved
once the anger had subsided with a quiet talk, a kiss, a joke,
whatever. I never again lost my temper with him as I had done that
time he came to see me during my examinations. In fact, the subject
was completely dropped from conversations, neither of us ever
mentioning it again, nor did I ever talk to him about my
dissatisfaction with my sex life.
    However, the
day I met you in the gallery I was angry with Gregory. The previous
night he had come in and told me that he had to go away for two
weeks to a conference in Kenya, as part of a Christian charity
delegation. He couldn't postpone, and he didn't see why I was
getting so angry with him. How it wasn't possible for me to
understand that helping starving, destitute people was so much more
important than being around for a couple of weeks for his wife. He
never said as much but the implication was that I was being
selfish. It was one clever little trick of Gregory's this,
deflecting criticism by making you feel guilty about your meanness,
and your silly little materialistic aspirations.
    The next day,
yes, Freddie, that day, I woke up still feeling angry with him. He
tried to kiss me on the cheek but I spurned him in my sulky mood,
and then, after he had gone, I decided to ring in work and tell
them that I was sick. I had barely had a day off since I started
and the thought of facing my students and then a gruelling two
hours meeting later - I had become a teacher governor for my school
- was intolerable.
    I lounged in
bed for an hour, my mind veering between my annoyance with Gregory
and the guilty feeling that I shouldn't have shirked my
responsibility by taking the day off.
    Suddenly, the
idea came to me, in my mild depression, that I should do something
with the day. Remembering the great time I had had when I first
came to London and forgetting how long ago it was since I'd had a
stroll in the city centre, I decided to get dressed and go out.
    I know we
often talked about this, Freddie, the seeming arbitrariness of our
meeting and that aching sensation, at least for me, that somehow
you were my destiny, the personification of a fate that with the
passing of time seemed so predictable, so obvious: my life's path
could only have taken this course. But I cannot say I took the tube
to the centre searching for a man. The links in the chain are
incredible. I was in the