Life in the West. Brian Aldiss

undressing. A particularly brilliant dragonfly, with outstretched wings of crimson and viridian, glittered in a block of perspex on her side of the bed. She kept her gaze on it instead of looking at Squire.

      ‘Pleasant occasion, darling. Multo conviviality, as father used to say. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as you appeared to be doing.’

      ‘It was all too apparent you weren’t enjoying yourself. That dreary doomed way you toyed with your Chicken Kiev …’

      ‘What do you mean? You could see I enjoyed myself. It was visible to all. And I ate up all my Chicken Kiev.’

      ‘Absent-mindedly.’

      He removed his blazer, saying controlledly, ‘I drank a bit more than I intended. Grahame was well away, wasn’t he? Think he’d get back to The Lion safely?’

      She made no answer. Instead, she disappeared behind her Chinese screen, in the shelter of which, since she had decided she was ‘getting too fat’, she preferred to undress.

      ‘Oh shit,’ he said, ‘if you’re refusing to talk to me, I’ll go downstairs and get myself another whisky. You’re brewing up for something – I know the expression “bottled fury” when I see it in the flesh. Tell me what the matter is, tell me what bloody mortal sin I’ve committed now.’

      ‘Don’t start swearing, Tommy.’ Her voice, heavy with reproof, from behind the gold-limned outline of a Cathaian mountainside. ‘It’s always a sign of guilt.’

      ‘Why do you damned well say I didn’t enjoy this evening? Any reason why I shouldn’t have enjoyed myself, apart from those hang-dog looks you kept giving me?’

      ‘You never even glanced at me, so how would you know?’

      ‘I did look; I was enjoying myself. I told you.’

      Her face partially appeared, as if to get a sight on him, then withdrew behind the screen again. ‘You know what I mean. There’s enjoyment and enjoyment. Absent friends and all that …’

      ‘What absent friends, for heaven’s sake?’ He put his blazer on again. ‘You’re not insinuating that we should have taken your mother with us?’

      ‘I’ve long ago ceased to expect you to be decent or even civil to my mother. I mean, it wasn’t quite the same for you, was it, without that – that girl of yours, that Laura.’

      ‘If you’re referring to Laura Nye, I’ve not a clue what you’re talking about. You were told, she’s gone to London. Grahame told you.’

      ‘That’s what makes her an absent friend, isn’t it? Gone to sleep with some young stud of hers, I suppose. That’s what models are all about, isn’t it?’

      He strode round the bed and dragged the screen back. Teresa stood there in her powder-blue dressing-gown, drawn to her modest full height, unmoving.

      ‘Come out of there if you’re going to insult me and Laura. She’s not a “model”, as you sneeringly call her. She has worked with Peter Brook and was in Shakespeare at the Old Vic for three years.’

      ‘I’d never trust anyone who was in Shakespeare for three years.’

      ‘Oh, this is just stupid, Tess. You’ve had too much gin. Let’s get to bed and go to sleep, and perhaps you’ll talk sense in the morning.’

      She said, ‘I suppose you were playing Shakespeare on the beach this afternoon. What was it? You’re a bit long in the tooth for Romeo …’

      It was very quiet outside. He went and peered through the curtains, over the balcony, at the garden and fields beyond, faintly visible in the starry night. Mist was gathering.

      ‘Come on, Tess, give it up. You’re spoiling for a fight and I’m not. You’re just making us miserable.’

      She sat down on the side of the bed and selected a cigarette from the silver box she kept there. Lighting it with a shaking hand, she said, ‘How typical of you to pretend that I’m making the misery. You’ve been away all over the world, I’ve hardly seen you from one month’s end to the next. You come back, and I find you’ve got a new girl in tow. After all the trouble we had three years ago, I thought you’d learnt wisdom.’

      He made to speak but she raised a hand. ‘I’m talking, aren’t I? You can have your say afterwards, though I’m not sure if I’ll listen. I’m fed up, Tom, utterly fed up. What sort of marriage is it? If you want to know, I drove up to the headland this afternoon and watched you with that woman through binoculars. I saw you mauling her about, cuddling her, kissing her, feeling her tits – in front of the others, too. How do you think I liked that, eh? You bastard!’

      ‘Christ!’ He ran the palm of his hand up his forehead and into his hair. ‘Teresa, you’re just being tiresome and exercising that suspicious nature of yours. Neither you nor I are anything to do with the world of television or show biz or whatever, and once “Frankenstein” is finished and in the can at the end of August, that will be the end of it as far as I’m concerned. I shall go back to work as usual.

      ‘But we both know about show biz. Different pressures, different moeurs. Sure, I did put my arm round Laura’s shoulder. It was breezy, she was cold, and she needed cheering up. Nothing more to it than that. So just drop the whole subject right here and now. Did you feel good, spying on me?

      ‘I admit I’ve been away a bit, but we agreed that this was my chance and I took it. “Frankenstein” is a marvellous opportunity and a new subject and I’m proud of it. But this period will shortly be over, then we’ll live a more normal sort of life. Simply let me sail through it without having emotional problems with you.’

      Teresa came round the bed, shuffling her bare feet into fluffy slippers as she walked.

      ‘Men are such bloody liars. I tell you I saw you with her through the binoculars. Now you expect to jump into bed with me and screw me, don’t you? Whatever’s to hand, eh, Tommy Squire? You’ve been fucking that bitch in Singapore and all over the map, haven’t you?’

      ‘No.’ He regarded her woodenly, head down, face heavy, the flesh of his jowls creased as he faced her charge, his eyes defensive, angry.

      His monosyllable – or his pose – stopped her before she reached him. She coughed furiously over the cigarette, fist to her mouth.

      ‘You bloody liar! Sagittarius woman with Cancer man – I should have known all along it would never work out. You’re a philanderer, you philander even with your mind, you’re rootless, you live only for yourself, don’t you? Well, why don’t you go back to Yugoslavia and live the way you used to live there?’

      ‘Don’t be silly, dear, you’re working yourself up for nothing. I’ve no wish to return to Yugoslavia. I’m too old, I want a peaceful life.’

      ‘A fine way you go about it. I suppose you’ll tell me you’re undergoing the male menopause next. That girl must have loved all that sort of thing – a case of Much Ado About Nothing, wasn’t it? Get out! I’m not having you in this bedroom with me. Go and sleep in one of the guest rooms. You’re no better than a guest.’

      He moved slowly, like a man in a dream, picking up his pyjamas, his brass carriage clock from the bedside table, and his mug of tea.

      ‘The stars may be moving against us, Tess, but that is not my wish. We have to make our own decisions and not pretend we are helpless. You must behave less cruelly to me.’

      ‘It’s your behaviour not mine that’s at fault.’

      Squire wandered for a while through the vacant rooms of the Hall, unable to rest. He was familiar with the dimensions of the house from childhood, could walk them unhesitatingly with his eyes closed. In the dead of night, this familiar substantial presence was doubly comforting. Every room held for him a different ambience; by its temperature, its smell, its silences, the very texture of its air or the creak of its oak floorboards, he could tell which room he was in, and respond to its character.