18

The tea shop, like many teashops, was called the Copper Kettle, but I doubt whether there was a kettle in the place. If you ordered tea it came black, in a glass with a raffia holder, and you sweetened it with brown sugar. They only served black bread. There was music, Italian twist, on tape. It was very dark, for which I was grateful.

“I’ve made it my business,” Bob Conway said, “to find out a few facts about Jake Armitage. He’s been bashing around for years, but I suppose you know that.”

“Bashing around?”

“Author’s perks. He gets the ones the stars don’t want. There’s a pub quite near the studio — well, I suppose there are pubs quite near any studio. Pricey, I should think, for a couple of hours, but that wouldn’t matter to him, would it?”

“I only wanted … not to be the only person to know. If I’d gone on being the only person, Jake wouldn’t have cared.”

“He certainly wouldn’t. He rang her this morning, you know that?”

“Yes. He told me.”

“Oh. Well, he’s been sending her flowers to the studio every day, right up till yesterday. You know that?”

“It’s the florist. Jake never remembers to cancel anything. He never …”

“Don’t be daft, duckie. He’s crazy about her. She told me so herself. He’s mad about her.”

If you walk into a torture chamber and ask to be tortured, there’s no sense in complaining at the pain. If you go up Sam’s lane with Mr. Simpkin, you have only yourself to blame if he assaults you. Pain and evil are there for the asking, nobody’s going to protect you from them. Homilies on samplers, tracts of facts, legends inscribed on a dying soul, I knew them all.

“He doesn’t love her,” I said.

“Love? What’s love? It was Dante before this, it seems they were always necking on the set until she got fed up with him. He’s not much good in bed, I understand. A bit on the small side.”

I knocked over the chair as I got up. He grabbed my wrist. Still holding it, he got up, came round the table, picked up the chair, forced me back into it. The wound screamed and I doubled up, my arm being dragged back across the table.

“I’m ill …” I said. “Please …”

“You had an abortion, didn’t you?”

I nodded.

“You know why you had an abortion? Because Beth’s a good girl at heart, she would have left him. He made you have it, so he could keep Beth. It’s a charming thought, isn’t it?”

“Let me go … let me go.”

“Be your age, then. Let’s discuss this thing sensibly. We’re both in the same boat, we need to get together.”

I drew my hand back; it felt broken.

“Now,” Conway said. “Are you going to divorce him?”

I shook my head.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. I don’t give a damn about Armitage, but I care for Beth. As it happens, I love Beth. That may sound crazy to you, but it’s the truth. I don’t intend to lose her. I’m going to go off now and lay every woman I can find and I’m going to tell Beth every time I do it. I’m going to make her suffer, by Christ, she’s going to hear the lot — when, where, how, how often, and let me tell you I’m no under-sized egg-head, I know what I’m up to. But Beth, no, I’ll leave Beth alone. I wouldn’t touch her with a barge-pole, not if she took her pants off and came crawling …”

“I’m going now.”

“Oh no, you’re not. We haven’t finished. If he ever rings her or sees her again, I’ll fry him. You understand? I’ll blast him. You’ll tell him that.”

“No.”

“You’d better. He’s not a grown man, your husband, he’s a puking boy. He can’t even lay a girl without the whole world knowing it. Beth says he made her sick with his slop. I made her swear on the baby’s head that she was telling me the truth. I brought the baby in and I told her to swear on its head. That’s how I feel about it. If he tries to get in touch with her, I’ll know, you understand? So tell him to keep off.”

“You must tell him yourself.”

“I don’t want to speak to him. I don’t want to hear his pansy voice.”

“Is that all? I want to go.”

“Just one more thing. I’m checking on Beth, you see. She swears she’s telling the truth, but I’m checking on her. If she can lie about one thing, she can lie about another. I could go and ask all the girlies at the studio, of course, but since you’re here …”

I stared at him. His hand crept across the table and climbed on to mine like a small, hot animal.

“Is it true that when he’s in bed he likes to …”

I was running and crying, my arm braced across my stomach. It was a one-way street, the pavement very narrow. Jake, oh Jake, where are you? Save me, I’m dying. I turned into a broad street and stopped running. A dark stain was spreading over the front of my skirt. I pulled my coat together and walked with small steps, trying to keep my body stiff. It’s my own fault, my own fault. Everything’s my own fault. I knew I was parting with reason because this senseless nagging, that it was my own fault, kept on in some part of my head that didn’t exist. Now it was saying my name. I walked on, carrying my reason like a high, tugging balloon. It’s your own fault, and then my name. Somebody took my arm, forcing me to stop. I looked very closely into a man’s face, and he was saying my name.

“Giles,” I said.

His hand was still on my arm. He was looking at me. I watched pleasure change to bewilderment, bewilderment to anxiety. He was kind and good, he always had been. Where his hand touched my arm suffering flowed to and fro, a mutual transfusion of pain. He began to speak, but I left him in the middle of what he was saying because I could not bear the pity that he was about to feel.