Read Online The Essence of the Thing by Madeleine St John - Free Book Online

used to be: I say, what are you doing in here? Oh, don’t do that now—come and watch Forty Minutes —come for a walk—let’s catch that film at the Electric—Nicola, where are you?
    And Nicola had described none of this to Lizzie or even to Susannah: it was not a phenomenon one could easily describe, even to oneself. And even less could she have described or even mentioned that scene, which might amount to almost nothing after all, of a few months past, that very tiny scene, more of an entr’acte, but nevertheless—this was very superior stagecraft—disturbing, chilling: a scene which had left her more truly, more deeply, in dread, and more strenuously determined to carry on, bravely: for almost surely, after all, nothing was wrong.
    Jonathan had been half sitting up in bed, reading a book, waiting for her: she was still occupied at the dressing table. She was wearing the white satin nightdress: she could remember each detail (you see) quite clearly: another present from Jonathan.
    This was the time of the day—last thing before bed—when she took the pill. She was looking at the packet as she spoke. She said, I’m going to have to stop taking this in about six months’ time. And he’d said, oh really, why? And she’d said, you have to stop after a while and do something else, otherwise there are certain risks. Do you want me to do something, he said; and she said no, after all, there isn’t really anything acceptable that a man can do. What’s the alternative? he asked. That’s where it gets rather tricky, she said; and she explained all the alternatives and why each was tricky. Which only leaves, she finished, the Roman Catholic method. But we’re not Roman Catholics, he had said. She had laughed. And actually, she had said, none of the Roman Catholics I know use that method either. Not unless they actually want to have children. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, we don’t actually want to have children either. So you’d better choose one of the other Roman Catholic methods.’ And he went back to his book.
    She felt as cold as steel when she got into bed; her heart was frozen. He put down the book and switched off the lamp and they lay silent in the darkness. He won’t touch me, she thought. I don’t even want him to. After a while he reached out and very slowly, carefully, began to untie the bows which secured the shoulder straps of the white satin nightdress, and then very slowly, carefully, he began, as if nothing were wrong, to make love to her; and after a while, nothing, for the moment, perhaps at all, was wrong.

26
    ‘What are you doing in here?’
    ‘I’m just trying to make some room in this cupboard.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘For Nicola. In case she comes to stay for a bit.’
    ‘Oh, Lord. Can’t she leave her things on the floor like everyone else?’
    ‘No of course she can’t. Look, if I take these shelves out, and you put up a rail, she could use this to hang up her clothes.’
    ‘Who says I’m going to put up a rail?’
    ‘God does. I’ll buy one tomorrow and you can put it up when you get back from the poly.’
    ‘The university , you mean. She might not even come. A waste of a good rail and what’s worse my time.’
    ‘No, it’ll be dead handy whatever happens. Now all these things—have we got any more of those wooden boxes we had?’
    ‘You mean those wine crates? There might be a few under the stairs.’
    ‘Could you be a darling and look? Then I can put all this junk in them and we’ll be all set to go.’
    ‘Oh, Lord.’
    ‘You’d be lost for words without the Lord, wouldn’t you?’
    ‘Well, we all would; the whole thing you know was His idea in the first place. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God .’
    ‘Isn’t that beautiful.’
    ‘Yes, and since beauty is truth and truth beauty it is therefore also true .’
    ‘So if you could just fetch me those crates. And I’ll just look out some sheets. I’ll have to pinch some