Read Online Anger by May Sarton - Free Book Online Page A

small Vuillard’s on either side of the fireplace. Over the gray and white striped sofa opposite Ned had hung a Bonnard, the Mediterranean very blue seen over a terrace and the tops of trees. He never tired of looking at it. Anna and he had agreed from the start that this was to be their own atmosphere, not that of his mother’s house, dark and cluttered with objets d’art and eighteenth-century English furniture, nor that of her mother’s, for that matter, inhabited by heavy old Swedish furniture with some Italian pieces mixed in. How he had admired Anna’s forthright refusal of various things his mother wanted to bestow! “It doesn’t feel like me,” she had said more than once. “It’s too grand, Mrs. Fraser.”
    And to Ned she had apologized, “But we can’t live her life, Ned. Even if she is hurt. I can’t help that!”
    â€œYou’re so fierce about it.”
    â€œI’m fierce because it’s so hard to be definite and not give in, can’t you see?”
    At that time everything that now irritated Ned had seemed rather wonderful, including Anna’s blunt honesty.
    Fonzi interrupted these thoughts by barking excitedly. How did he know? For it was some minutes before he heard Anna’s key in the lock. She came in, flushed, her arms filled with roses, and went right past Ned to the kitchen to put them in water. Ned picked up three red ones that had fallen and followed her in a strange silence, for Anna had not uttered a word and neither had he.
    â€œHere, you dropped these … some fellow’s heart’s blood, no doubt!” Ned laid them on the counter on top of the others.
    â€œI’ve got to change first.” He helped her off with her coat. “Hang it up, will you?”
    And she left him there, his arms filled with purple velvet and sable, stroking the fur absent-mindedly. Then he went to the hall closet and hung the coat up. Impossible to tell yet what her mood might be. But his own ancient Burberry hanging beside her coat gave him an idea. He slipped it on, took Fonzi’s leash, and as the excited barks rang out, knocked on the bedroom door, “I’m taking Fonzi for a walk while you change, Anna.”
    â€œAll right,” her voice sounded quite cheerful. “That’s a good idea.”
    When he got back a half-hour later, Anna was waiting, stretched out on the sofa in a dressing gown. Fonzi ran to her, his tail nearly wagging itself off and she sat up and took him onto her lap. “Oh my Fonzi … I thought you’d never come back. I’m starving, Ned.”
    â€œWell, let’s eat. Everything’s ready, as you see.”
    â€œKind of you,” she said, taking her place and snatching a piece of celery, devouring it, entirely absorbed in crunching it up.
    â€œWell,” Ned asked, “how did it go?”
    â€œYou don’t really want to know, do you?”
    â€œAs you please.”
    For a second she met his eyes and wondered how to stop the spiral of irritation which they both knew was already starting to build up.
    â€œI did well, Ned. I think I did, although that maddening man changed the tempo in the Abschied … slowed it down and me down, so twice I was nearly out of breath. I got the silence, though, at the end. There must have been thirty seconds of silence before the applause.”
    â€œBravo!”
    â€œIf you could only say that with some warmth!” The letdown from the heat of the concert hall, the standing ovation, the whole atmosphere she had come from, was impossible to convey to this man, her husband, who could say bravo in the tone one might use to tell a dog to lie down.
    â€œYou know I can’t. I can’t shout and wave my arms sitting opposite you at a table. What do you expect?”
    This Anna chose to ignore. She was eating her cold chicken with gusto.
    â€œYou are hungry.”
    â€œI’ve been running a marathon …