The Complete Short Stories. Muriel Spark

suiting, had departed, Ariadne said, “I’m so glad you’re going to stay with them. I hated the thought of your being all alone for the next few weeks.”

      “Do you know,” Sybil said, “I don’t think I shall go to stay with them after all. I’ll make an excuse.”

      “Oh, why not? Oh, Sybil, it’s such a lovely place, and it will be fun for you. He’s a poet, too.” Sybil could sense exasperation, could hear Ariadne telling her friends, “There’s something wrong with Sybil. You never know a person till you live with them. Now Sybil will say one thing one minute, and the next … Something wrong with her sex-life, perhaps … odd …”

      At home, thought Sybil, it would not be such a slur. Her final appeal for a permit to travel to England had just been dismissed. The environment mauled her weakness. “I think I’m going to have a cold,” she said, shivering.

      “Go straight to bed, dear.” Ariadne called for black Elijah and bade him prepare some lemon juice. But the cold did not materialize.

      She returned with flu, however, from her first visit to the Westons. Her 1936 Ford V8 had broken down on the road and she had waited three chilly hours before another car had appeared.

      “You must get a decent car,” said the chemist’s wife, who came to console her. “These old crocks simply won’t stand up to the roads out here.”

      Sybil shivered and held her peace. Nevertheless, she returned to the Westons at mid-term.

      Désirée’s invitations were pressing, almost desperate. Again and again Sybil went in obedience to them. The Westons were a magnetic field.

      There was a routine attached to her arrival. The elegant wicker chair was always set for her in the same position on the stoep. The same cushions, it seemed, were always piled in exactly the same way.

      “What will you drink, Sybil? Are you comfy there, Sybil? We’re going to give you a wonderful time, Sybil.” She was their little orphan, she supposed. She sat, with very dark glasses, contemplating the couple. “We’ve planned – haven’t we, Barry? – a surprise for you, Sybil.” “We’ve planned – haven’t we, Désirée? – a marvellous trip … a croc hunt … hippo …”

      Sybil sips her gin and lime. Facing her on the wicker sofa, Désirée and her husband sit side by side. They gaze at Sybil affectionately, “Take off your smoked glasses, Sybil, the sun’s nearly gone.” Sybil takes them off. The couple hold hands. They peck kisses at each other, and presently, out-rageously, they are entwined in a long erotic embrace in the course of which Barry once or twice regards Sybil from the corner of his eye. Barry disengages himself and sits with his arm about his wife; she snuggles up to him. Why, thinks Sybil, is this performance being staged? “Sybil is shocked,” Barry remarks. She sips her drink, and reflects that a public display between man and wife somehow is more shocking than are courting couples in parks and doorways. “We’re very much in love with each other,” Barry explains, squeezing his wife. And Sybil wonders what is wrong with their marriage since obviously something is wrong. The couple kiss again. Am I dreaming this? Sybil asks herself.

      Even on her first visit Sybil knew definitely there was something wrong with the marriage. She thought of herself, at first, as an objective observer, and was even amused when she understood they had chosen her to be their sort of Victim of Expiation. On occasions when other guests were present she noted that the love scenes did not take place. Instead, the couple tended to snub Sybil before their friends. “Poor little Sybil, she lives all alone and is a teacher, and hasn’t many friends. We have her here to stay as often as possible.” The people would look uneasily at Sybil, and would smile. “But you must have heaps of friends,” they would say politely. Sybil came to realize she was an object of the Westons’ resentment, and that, nevertheless, they found her indispensable.

      Ariadne returned from Cairo. “You always look washed out when you’ve been staying at the Westons’,” she told Sybil eventually. “I suppose it’s due to the late parties and lots of drinks.”

      “I suppose so.”

      Désirée wrote continually. “Do come, Barry needs you. He needs your advice about some sonnets.” Sybil tore up these letters quickly, but usually went. Not because her discomfort was necessary to their wellbeing, but because it was somehow necessary to her own. The act of visiting the Westons alleviated her sense of guilt.

      I believe, she thought, they must discern my abnormality. How could they have guessed? She was always cautious when they dropped questions about her private life. But one’s closest secrets have a subtle way of communicating themselves to the resentful vigilance of opposite types. I do believe, she thought, that heart speaks unto heart, and deep calleth unto deep. But rarely in clear language. There is a misunderstanding here. They imagine their demonstrations of erotic bliss will torment my frigid soul, and so far they are right. But the reason for my pain is not envy. Really, it is boredom.

      Her Ford V8 rattled across country. How bored, she thought, I am going to be by their married tableau! How pleased, exultant, they will be! These thoughts consoled her, they were an offering to the gods.

      “Are you comfy, Sybil?”

      She sipped her gin and lime. “Yes, thanks.”

      His pet name for Désirée was Dearie. “Kiss me, Dearie,” he said.

      “There, Baddy,” his wife said to Barry, snuggling close to him and squinting at Sybil.

      “I say, Sybil,” Barry said as he smoothed down his hair, “you ought to get married again. You’re missing such a lot.”

      “Yes, Sybil,” said Désirée, “you should either marry or enter a convent, one or the other.”

      “I don’t see why,” Sybil said, “I should fit into a tidy category.”

      “Well, you’re neither one thing nor another – is she, honeybunch?”

      True enough, thought Sybil, and that is why I’m laid out on the altar of boredom.

      “Or get yourself a boyfriend,” said Désirée. “It would be good for you.”

      “You’re wasting your best years,” said Barry.

      “Are you comfy there, Sybil? … We want you to enjoy yourself here. Any time you want to bring a boyfriend, we’re broadminded – aren’t we, Baddy?”

      “Kiss me, Dearie,” he said.

      Désirée took his handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed lipstick from his mouth. He jerked his head away and said to Sybil, “Pass your glass.”

      Désirée looked at her reflection in the glass of the French windows and said, “Sybil’s too intellectual, that’s her trouble.” She patted her hair, then looked at Sybil with an old childish enmity.

      After dinner Barry would read his poems. Usually, he said, “I’m not going to be an egotist tonight. I’m not going to read my poems.” And usually Désirée would cry. “Oh do, Barry, do.” Always, eventually, he did. “Marvellous.” Désirée would comment, “wonderful.” By the third night of her visits, the farcical aspect of it all would lose its fascination for Sybil, and boredom would fill her near to bursting point, like gas in a balloon. To relieve the strain, she would sigh deeply from time to time. Barry was too engrossed in his own voice to notice this, but Désirée was watching. At first Sybil worded her comments tactfully. “I think you should devote more of your time to your verses,” she said. And, since he looked puzzled, added, “You owe it to poetry if you write it.”

      “Nonsense,” said Désirée, “he often writes a marvellous sonnet before shaving in the morning.”

      “Sybil may be right,” said Barry. “I owe poetry all the time I can give.”

      “Are you tired, Sybil?” said Désirée. “Why are you sighing like that; are you all right?”

      Later, Sybil gave up the struggle and wearily said, “Very good,” or