duplicity.
I felt surprisingly little guilt; shame, perhaps, yes, almost certainly shame, when I looked at my husband's sleeping face and even at his ungainly aspect as he sat slumped in his chair, oblivious to the television blaring out its multi - coloured attractions. But what I mostly felt was energy, and it was true that I was never tired. I identified with the young people I passed in the street, bare-armed, bare-legged in the beautiful summer light, rather than the slow-moving and so respectable women issuing from flats like mine at an hour when I had already done my hasty shopping and was willing to sacrifice the rest of the morning to the preparation of Digby's dinner. He complained that the casseroles I left in the oven for him were too heavy, that they gave him indigestion, but what little conscience I had left was appeased by the care I put into the composition of those meals, as if they would count in my favour at some hazy moral tribunal which might or might not take place. I was not sure about this, although it seemed likely that at some point a reckoning would be demanded of me by a higher power, albeit one with which I had long since ceased communication.
At other times I felt distressed when pierced by a shaft of unwelcome insight, for I knew that Digby was in many ways superior to Edmund, even knew that Edmund was a worldly character, aware of his entitlements and indifferent to any form of censure. His handsome appearance and attributes had in some fashion secured him permission to act as he pleased; this too seemed to me to be a law of nature. And he had after all not put anyone in jeopardy: his children were healthy, his position in life assured, his wife apparently complaisant. On this last point I chose not to ask questions, either of myself or of Edmund, who would, I knew, frown at what he would consider a breach of etiquette. At that same moral tribunal I would be obliged to acknowledge that her cynicism, her disabused indolence, might have been earned the hard way, that it was entirely possible that she knew everything, that the two of them were parties to an arrangement that I could hardly understand. I was relatively inexperienced, and remarkably stupid for my age. I was in fact older than those girls I passed in the street, but too young to identify with those other women with their shopping baskets and their no doubt spotless consciences. I was too busy living in the present, making my own calculations of occupation and urgency before setting out for Britten Street and the exalted time I was able to spend in the garden, as a prelude to the evening's fulfilment.
Therefore it was with a feeling of supreme annoyance, as if my movements had been unnaturally checked, that I was waylaid on the stairs to my own flat by Mrs Crook, whose invitation to coffee I could hardly refuse. It was after all eleven o'clock in the morning, and I had time to roast the chicken which I would leave for Digby. Yet I felt hampered and distracted by the invitation, and followed her unwillingly into her flat, which was a mirror image of our own. I felt that my safety depended on my keeping my distance from this kind of woman, from the species of which Mrs Crook was an outstanding representative.
“ One hardly sees you these days, ” she said. “ Not that one ever saw much of you. Such a private little person. ” This last remark was faintly disparaging, as if she had decided that private little persons were not qualified to provide much in the way of interest for persons such as herself, whose company she thought worthy of greater deference than I was likely to offer. Meekly I took my seat in her overstuffed drawing-room, while she occupied herself with the coffee (which I knew would be too weak) in the kitchen. I calculated that I had half an hour before I could be back at home to take Edmund's telephone call informing me of his own movements and of his availability that evening. He was not always free; demands on
I felt surprisingly little guilt; shame, perhaps, yes, almost certainly shame, when I looked at my husband's sleeping face and even at his ungainly aspect as he sat slumped in his chair, oblivious to the television blaring out its multi - coloured attractions. But what I mostly felt was energy, and it was true that I was never tired. I identified with the young people I passed in the street, bare-armed, bare-legged in the beautiful summer light, rather than the slow-moving and so respectable women issuing from flats like mine at an hour when I had already done my hasty shopping and was willing to sacrifice the rest of the morning to the preparation of Digby's dinner. He complained that the casseroles I left in the oven for him were too heavy, that they gave him indigestion, but what little conscience I had left was appeased by the care I put into the composition of those meals, as if they would count in my favour at some hazy moral tribunal which might or might not take place. I was not sure about this, although it seemed likely that at some point a reckoning would be demanded of me by a higher power, albeit one with which I had long since ceased communication.
At other times I felt distressed when pierced by a shaft of unwelcome insight, for I knew that Digby was in many ways superior to Edmund, even knew that Edmund was a worldly character, aware of his entitlements and indifferent to any form of censure. His handsome appearance and attributes had in some fashion secured him permission to act as he pleased; this too seemed to me to be a law of nature. And he had after all not put anyone in jeopardy: his children were healthy, his position in life assured, his wife apparently complaisant. On this last point I chose not to ask questions, either of myself or of Edmund, who would, I knew, frown at what he would consider a breach of etiquette. At that same moral tribunal I would be obliged to acknowledge that her cynicism, her disabused indolence, might have been earned the hard way, that it was entirely possible that she knew everything, that the two of them were parties to an arrangement that I could hardly understand. I was relatively inexperienced, and remarkably stupid for my age. I was in fact older than those girls I passed in the street, but too young to identify with those other women with their shopping baskets and their no doubt spotless consciences. I was too busy living in the present, making my own calculations of occupation and urgency before setting out for Britten Street and the exalted time I was able to spend in the garden, as a prelude to the evening's fulfilment.
Therefore it was with a feeling of supreme annoyance, as if my movements had been unnaturally checked, that I was waylaid on the stairs to my own flat by Mrs Crook, whose invitation to coffee I could hardly refuse. It was after all eleven o'clock in the morning, and I had time to roast the chicken which I would leave for Digby. Yet I felt hampered and distracted by the invitation, and followed her unwillingly into her flat, which was a mirror image of our own. I felt that my safety depended on my keeping my distance from this kind of woman, from the species of which Mrs Crook was an outstanding representative.
“ One hardly sees you these days, ” she said. “ Not that one ever saw much of you. Such a private little person. ” This last remark was faintly disparaging, as if she had decided that private little persons were not qualified to provide much in the way of interest for persons such as herself, whose company she thought worthy of greater deference than I was likely to offer. Meekly I took my seat in her overstuffed drawing-room, while she occupied herself with the coffee (which I knew would be too weak) in the kitchen. I calculated that I had half an hour before I could be back at home to take Edmund's telephone call informing me of his own movements and of his availability that evening. He was not always free; demands on
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