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

you never have understood what a performance like this takes out of me.”
    â€œNor perhaps what the exhilaration is of holding an audience spellbound for an hour. My evening was, it must be granted, rather a different kettle of fish.”
    â€œThere was a lot of coughing and I wanted to kill them!”
    Ned couldn’t help smiling at the absurdity of it, the fury of Anna’s feelings.
    â€œI know I’m ridiculous,” as usual she felt put down, no longer able to hold on to her triumph, watching it taken from her as Ned always managed to do in one way or another. “I ought to be shot at dawn.”
    â€œThat is a slight exaggeration, my dear.”
    â€œWhy is it, Ned, that you can only use an endearment ironically?” Anna knew that she was asking for trouble but something in her wanted trouble, wanted anything that could bring her down from the high tension wire of the performance, get rid of the tension. She pushed her plate aside.
    â€œHave some more chicken, Anna.”
    â€œNo thanks.”
    â€œWe forgot the champagne but there is dessert. Felicia made trifle … we can have some now.”
    They went out companionably to the kitchen where Anna served the trifle and licked the spoon, and Ned, after a nerve-wracking struggle, got the champagne open. The cork flew up to the ceiling, just missing a porcelain duck on a high shelf.
    â€œWow, that was close!” she said, delighted. “Now give me a kiss.” His lips just brushed her cheek. “A butterfly could not do it more passionately,” she teased.
    â€œI hope you notice it’s the real McCoy … Cordon Bleu.”
    â€œYes, I noticed. We are being extravagant.”
    â€œIt’s not every day that Anna Lindstrom sings with the Boston Symphony.”
    â€œIt’s not every mezzo-soprano who has a husband with influence.”
    â€œDon’t hold it against me.”
    â€œDon’t spoil it. Fonzi is waiting to lick the plates!”
    They sat down. Anna lifted her glass without lifting her eyes, took a swallow and put the glass down. “There’s nothing like it, is there?” She was thinking that the only safe area now between her and Ned was food and drink. Almost anything else they might talk of—except Fonzi of course—had pain in it or had the capacity to make pain surface. And all too often the pain took the form of anger. She looked at him then, trying to read his closed face as he tasted the trifle.
    â€œTell me about your German banker.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t interest you.”
    At this she laughed. “How do you know if you never try? Give me the benefit of the doubt! What did he look like?”
    â€œI really can’t remember.” And it was possible, she thought, that this was the truth. The German banker was simply a counter in a game for Ned. “But he was extremely civil at any rate. The Germans are in a peculiar position because of our high interest rates. Also the dollar has not really rallied. They had everything to gain from a weak dollar in some ways, and in others, it is damaging because of trade.”
    â€œIt sounds like a maze. Don’t you get terrified at times that it is a maze and you will all finally get lost trying to find the center?” But even as she spoke Anna knew that this kind of teasing simply bored Ned. “I know I am idiotic,” she said. “After all I never went to college.”
    â€œYou had better things to do.” It was a perfunctory response. He yawned then, “It’s really been rather a long evening, Anna. Let’s go to bed.”
    â€œWe never talk about anything real. What has happened to us?” Anna got up and took the dishes into the kitchen, followed by Fonzi who now gave a sharp bark of distress. “Oh Fonzi, my darling, I quite forgot you,” she said, setting the plate down for him to lick. “It’s not every dog who eats off a Copenhagen