Corollaries And Complications

24

Corollaries And Complications

    “Have one of these, Marianne,” said John Aitken earnestly. He gave her an anxious smile and added: “I don’t know what they are, but they’re very nice.”

    Marianne knew precisely what the savouries were, as she’d made them herself. She forbore to point this out to John, however, but took one and thanked him, smiling nicely as she did so. John flushed behind his curly beard, and retreated, failing to offer the plate of savouries to anyone else. He propped his shoulders against the wall of the staff-room and—still holding the plate of cooling savouries—stared dreamily across the room at her.

    Marianne was now talking and laughing with Caro and Charlie, so she didn’t notice this. Pam Anderson and Peter Riabouchinsky, however, from their different points of vantage, had noticed with interest the whole of the interchange, and it had confirmed their separate but identical suspicions about John’s feelings towards  Marianne. Both of them, therefore, thought of him as “poor John”. John would have been quite indignant had he known of this: he was humbly aware that there was no reason why lovely Marianne should ever look twice at him, but he took this as a natural state of affairs and didn’t see himself as an object of pity because of it. Beautiful girls, in John’s experience, never did look twice at him, never had, and never would.

    From the other side of the room Missy Nakamura—it was a staff, senior students and belongings do—also observed John’s behaviour, and felt considerably annoyed by it. The Nakamuras had had quite a lot to do with John, what with them all having found themselves at The Blue Heron Motel when they first arrived in Puriri, and Missy—on no grounds whatsoever, apart from his very evident niceness and harmlessness—had decided that John would be just right for Jo-Beth. What Jo-Beth herself thought of this notion Missy had no idea, since she hadn’t asked her. She had asked her, very casually, what she thought of him; Jo-Beth had replied casually that he was okay, she guessed. Further than this Missy hadn’t dared to go: she knew Jo-Beth too well: one hint that her relatives thought John was suitable for her and she’d ignore him for the rest of her life! Missy gave a tiny, cross sigh and absently ate a small cylindrical bread thing which turned out to be absolutely horrible.

    “What are those little things?” she said weakly to nice Val from the library, who was also eating one.

    Val, being a local, was used to New Zealand’s obsession with tinned asparagus. “Miniature asparagus rolls. Pam brought them, I think; they’re nice, aren’t they?”

    “Yes,” agreed poor Missy untruthfully.

    Veronica was chatting to Hamish and that poor dreep of an architect that, God knew why, Dad seemed to set such store by. She could see that her husband had his usual coterie of female admirers gathered round him. She was no longer annoyed by this phenomenon, as she certainly had been during the first six months of their marriage, merely rather amused and slightly scornful. All of the female Honours students seemed to be in the present group—even Mirry, laughing immoderately at something Peter had just said. Glo Withers, not surprisingly, was actually holding Peter’s arm and—also not surprisingly, given the ghastly Glo’s known habits—shaking her rather too revealed boobs as she laughed even more immoderately than Mirry. Veronica herself was wearing a high-necked dress in thin violet wool, as the weather was quite cool, even though Labour Day was just around the corner and lectures had finished for the year—hence the party. Well, bugger the female: why hadn’t she worn something sexy and revealing, too? Irritably she dismissed the thought and tried to focus her mind on what Hamish and Donald Freeman were talking about. As this was the imminent commissioning of the Institute’s library wing, a subject, she considered, of no intrinsic interest, her attention wandered again. Good grief: the militant Darryl Tuwhare had now joined Peter’s group and was laughing and talking with as much animation and, apparently, as much enjoyment as the rest of them!

    Donald wished miserably that Dr Macdonald would go away and leave him in peace. He wished that Dr Cohen, of whom he was genuinely terrified, would stop looking down her nose at him. He wished he hadn’t taken one of those pastry things, it had chilli powder or something in it and had burnt his mouth, and there was nowhere to deposit its remains. He wished he hadn’t let Dr Riabouchinsky give him a glass of vodka—he hated vodka, it always gave him a headache, but only the girls had been drinking wine, and he hadn’t liked to ask for that instead. He wished Caro wasn’t here. He wished to God he hadn’t come. In fact he rather wished he was dead. He listened to Dr Macdonald enthusing over the building and tried to smile. When Dr Cohen said abruptly: “Where’s the computer room going to be, again?” he was almost glad—although this was a very sore point—because it meant he could stop trying to smile.

    He explained nervously where the computer room was going to be. Veronica hadn’t remembered that this was a sore point and had only asked for the sake of saying something. Nervous young men bored her; a glazed expression came over her face and she soon stopped listening to Donald’s stumbling and involved reply. She began to wonder how soon they could decently nip off home.

    Peter was seldom bored at social events but he could see his tall wife’s glazed expression from right across the room and realized that he’d better do something about rescuing her, or she’d be in a filthy mood by the time they got home. He extricated himself adroitly from the group of admiring students and crossed the room. He slipped his arm inside Veronica’s.

    “Oh; there y’are,” she said in an offhand voice, lighting up like a Christmas tree.

    “As you see,” said Peter placidly. He gave the arm a little squeeze. Veronica—apparently unconsciously—gave a happy sigh.

    Peter smiled at Donald, but as he’d earlier registered the young man’s unhappiness made no attempt to engage him in conversation when Hamish seized the opportunity to escape, but merely removed his wife from the poor young man’s orbit as soon as he decently could.

    “He is very unhappy, that poor young man,” he said to her, handing her a glass of orange juice.

    “Eh?” replied Veronica vaguely.

    “Young Freeman—he is very unhappy.”

    Veronica blinked at him. “What the Hell did you expect? You wanted Caro to dump him, and she has; didja think he’d be jumping for joy, or something?”

    “I did not exactly want her to dump him, only to take up with Charlie; unfortunately that entailed dumping poor Donald as a—eugh—as a corollary.”

    She looked at him with a kind of horrid fascination. “As a corollary—yeah.”

    Peter sighed. “So now there is poor young Donald without anyone. Now, who...?” He looked speculatively round the room.

    “Jesus, haven’t you done enough damage there? Leave the poor sod alone, for God’s sake!”

    Peter raised his eyebrows. “But one cannot leave him in that state, moy dear. He is very young, of course; perhaps one of the students...”

    “Not the Ghastly Glo!” said Veronica quickly, getting interested in spite of herself.

    “No, certainly not; she eats noice young men loike Donald for breakfast,” he agreed. “Perhaps maybe...” He looked over to where Missy and Jo-Beth were talking to Val. “Come, moy dearest,” he said briskly, taking Veronica’s arm firmly; “I think we circulate, hein?”

    In the course of the evening Peter saw to it that Donald spent some time with Jo-Beth, with Val, and with all three of the unattached female Honours students. He’d forgotten that Val, besides being extremely shy of very smartly dressed young men with beautiful haircuts, had good reason to dislike Donald, who had once reduced her to tears over some minor matter to do with the design of the new library; and was blissfully unaware that Jo-Beth, being as intelligent and practical as Caro, with whom she got on famously, but not nearly such a sensualist, found Donald’s charms very much outweighed by his almost total ignorance of any subjects other than his own. Two of the students were only apparently unattached, a fact of which Peter was also unaware: their boyfriends had refused categorically to accompany them to anything as boring as an Institute party—especially with exams looming on the horizon. The third student didn’t have a boyfriend but unfortunately Donald didn’t fancy her in the least.

    He did quite fancy Glo Withers—her figure reminded him of Caro’s—but no-one introduced him to her and he didn’t manage to work up the nerve to introduce himself. Glo noticed him—she was the sort of girl who automatically notices all the men at parties—but in spite of appearances didn’t quite have the brass face to walk up and introduce herself to a bloke who seemed to be bosom buddies with the Director, the Deputy Director, and the Senior Research Fellow. She went and chatted up Hector McIntosh from the Honours class, who had about as much oomph as a piece of chewed up and spat out wet string, and observed with malicious enjoyment his absolute terror at her overtures. This soon palled, however, and when one of the other girls offered her a lift home she accepted with relief.

    Donald went home as soon as he decently could. He drove very sedately down the northern motorway to the city, for in spite of his misery over Caro he wasn’t in the least suicidal; but when he got home he cried into his solitary pillow for quite a long time.

    “That was a nice party, wasn’t it?” said Missy in a voice of forced brightness as they drove the short distance to the house they were sharing on Hinemoa Street.

    Fred, as he always did at parties, had sampled a lot of strange food, drunk a variety of non-alcoholic beverages, and chatted to his colleagues about their mutual subject. “Sure,” he agreed amiably, pleased that his wife had enjoyed herself.

    “Wasn’t it, Jo-Beth?” pursued Missy unwisely.

    “No!” said Jo-Beth in a voice of suppressed violence. “It was the pits!”

    “Oh,” said Missy uncertainly.

    “I guess it wasn’t that exciting,” said Fred temperately, “but it was okay, I thought.” His sister didn’t reply. Fred added uneasily: “The food was okay.” Jo-Beth still said nothing. “Most of it,” added Fred cautiously.

    Jo-Beth snorted.

     Hurriedly Missy said: “Those asparagus things sure were odd, though; did you try them, Fred, honey?”

    “Uh... Which were they?”

    They embarked on a discussion of the food at the party. Jo-Beth stared out into the night. She couldn’t bring herself to join in their chatter; on the other hand, she didn’t want to say anything else that would betray her own misery; so she held her peace. As soon as they got home she hurried off to her room.

    Missy made a pot of tea very slowly—Fred usually liked a cup of tea after a party. When they were sitting at the kitchen table sipping it she said unhappily: “I don’t think she’s settling in too well, Fred.”

    “No,” agreed Fred simply. He drank tea. “Give her time,” he suggested. “It’s only been a few weeks.”

    “Uh-huh.” Missy sipped her tea slowly. There was a pause. “She likes the job,” she added with determined optimism.

    “Yeah,” Fred agreed. There was another pause. “Did you try that L&P stuff?” he asked hopefully. “Kinda like a...” He sought for words. “A lemon soda-pop,” he ended weakly.

    “No,” replied Missy severely. “Don’t change the subject, Fred.” Fred looked at her uneasily.

    “She’s very unhappy; we’ve got to do something, Fred!”

    “Don’t you think it might be better to—uh—just let her work it through, honey? It takes time to get over the sort of thing she’s been thr—”

    “No!” said Missy energetically. “She needs taking out of herself!”

    Not for the first time Fred silently acknowledged that his sweet, capable little wife had a Helluva lot in common with his bustling, managing, super-capable little mother and, in fact, in another twenty-five years or so would probably turn out very like Hannah. As he adored both of them this thought didn’t perturb him; but he was very glad that he himself had an absorbing profession in which he’d be able to bury himself when Missy’s energies got to the public service stage, like Mom’s.

    Missy drank tea. “She needs to meet a few more people.” She herself had already joined a play group, to which she and baby Harry went several mornings a week, a mah-jong club which met every Tuesday afternoon (she had a passion for this strange game and it didn’t disturb her in the least that all the other members were over sixty), and an exercise group which met twice a week at the big pool at the new Community Centre in Pohutukawa Bay in order to bob up and down and wave its arms and legs about in the shallow end to the accompaniment of raucous and unsuitable pop music. This was only a start, of course, but Missy had certainly met more of the local inhabitants than Jo-Beth, immured in the Institute’s unlovely prefab, had been able to do.

    Fred shuffled his feet, pretty sure of what was coming next. Sure enough, Missy said determinedly: “I think we ought to ask a few people over, honey.”

    “Yeah,” he agreed unenthusiastically. “That’d be great.”

    “Who shall we ask?” With appalling energy Missy began to compile a list of names. Fred smothered a yawn. After a while a thought occurred to him and he had to smother a smile. Finally she ran down.

    “Missy—” he said cautiously.

    “What?”

    “All these people...”

    “What about them?” said Missy, looking at him with suspicion. He had that silly smirk of his on his face.

    “Well—uh—they’re all couples,” said Fred, trying not to grin.

    “Ye-es... Oh!” said Missy, goggling at him in consternation. Fred gave a snort of laughter. “Oh, dear,” said Missy in a weak voice. She met his eye and began to giggle.

    When they’d finally pulled themselves together she said: “Well, who?”

    A rather glum silence fell in the pretty little kitchen that the owners of the rented house in Hinemoa Street fondly imagined they’d done up very nicely, and that the Nakamuras thought was charmingly old-fashioned (Missy), like something out of the ark (Jo-Beth), and real homey (Fred).

    Eventually Fred said weakly: “There’s John from the Institute.”

    “Ye-ah... I don’t think she likes him all that much, really. He’s very English...”

    “Yeah,” agreed Fred gloomily. “Still, we could ask him.”

    “Yes,” agreed Missy. She sighed. “There must be someone else, Fred!”

    “I can’t think of anyone,” Fred replied simply.

    Nor could Jo-Beth, though she didn’t put it exactly like that to herself—in fact, because John was so very quiet, and so very unassuming, and, as Missy had correctly pointed out, so very English, she hadn’t even thought of him as a man at all, but more, perhaps because of the beard, as a kind of cuddly but sexless bear. So, in Jo-Beth’s opinion, it wasn’t a case of there not being anyone else: it was a case of there not being anyone. Period.

    She told herself it was stupid, she was suffering from the White Knight syndrome or something, expecting a great big man to come along and solve all her problems for her—snatch her up on his charger and ride off into the sunset with her—but this sternness with herself didn’t actually help her to feel less miserable, especially when she could see the evident happiness of couples such as Caro and Charlie, or Peter and Veronica. –This last, incidentally, being a conjunction which she found quite staggeringly incomprehensible and hadn’t believed at all when Marianne first mentioned it to her, thinking that she must be making an obscure Kiwi joke—but realizing, of course, as soon as she knew her a little better, that Marianne would never have done such a thing.

    So Jo-Beth buried herself in her work—which certainly pleased Caro, and did a lot for the efficiency of the library, but didn’t improve her own emotional well-being.

    As for John—he certainly had noticed Jo-Beth, for even a rather lost and bewildered, homesick Englishman couldn’t fail to register a group of neat little Japanese-American people. But he was scared of Americans: they were always so bright and competent and cheerful, and he felt himself to be fumbling and inept in their presence. And he had never before actually met any Japanese people: there had certainly been Japanese tourists in Bath, but John had studiously avoided the haunts of tourism during the season; and there had been no Japanese academics at his university. Certainly he himself had non-English relatives—but they were neither American nor Japanese. Unlike Hamish, he hadn’t been of sufficient academic eminence to be always dashing off to the sort of international conference where one inevitably comes across persons of many races and nationalities; so he hadn’t even that sort of casual encounter to help him with the Nakamuras. He wasn’t at all prejudiced in the matter—not even, he decided on examining his conscience when faced with his own unease with his new acquaintances, subconsciously—just at a loss as to how to take them. Fred, of course, was easy: he was merely a fellow academic, and John simply treated him as such. But the two girls were a very different matter: so bright and brisk. Physically they were both so pretty, and so small, and neat, and... clean, he decided miserably, that they made him feel totally inferior, and crumpled, and clumsy, and unwashed—even though he knew he wasn’t unwashed at all! “Crisp,” he decided mournfully, one day when Missy, driving home from the supermarket, offered his own struggling, burdened and sweating form a lift, “crisp” was the word that best described them.

    Missy on this occasion smiled and chatted as cheerfully as usual. Since she wished to indicate that John should get himself a car, rather than struggle home carrying his bags of groceries, most of her chat was on the subject of cars; as John wasn’t interested in cars and didn’t enjoy driving, and was rather glad that Puriri was too small to make a car necessary, this topic didn’t strike quite the right note.

    And not only were the Nakamura women so frighteningly crisp, they were also very, very pretty—intimidating in itself—and at the same time, with their flat, oval faces, neat little noses and slanted dark eyes, so very, inescapably, foreign. Missy was perhaps less so, for she wore her hair in a short mop of careless curls; but Jo-Beth had what she called “bangs” and what, if he’d thought about it, John would have called a fringe; this and her thick, chin-length straight hair considerably reinforced the Japanese-doll look. She was only five-foot one, which didn’t help, either: John was five-foot eleven, and fairly bulky with it. Confronted by tiny, neat, crisp Jo-Beth, he felt, he told himself—gloomily, but with a trace of the humour of which he was capable in happier times—like an elephant confronted by a mouse.

    So during their unavoidable encounters in the library—Caro, after the first couple of weeks, having thankfully put the day-to-day running of the place into Jo-Beth’s capable hands—he tended to avoid direct eye-contact with her. Jo-Beth found this distinctly odd, and rather off-putting, though doing her best to put it down charitably to his Englishness. And it certainly reinforced her impression of him as some kind of sexless, blundering, fuzzy animal.

    Perhaps Jo-Beth mightn’t have been so miserable if New Zealand hadn’t seemed so utterly foreign. It was the small things that were the hardest to take. Things like the gas cooker, and the separate toilet that was at the other side of the house from the bathroom, and the hours the stores were open; and the fact that they were called “shops,” not “stores”... That sort of thing. She felt quite lost and off-balance. The more she took herself to task for this, the less she seemed to recover her mental equilibrium. It seemed to make it worse, somehow, that this was an English-speaking country; things, she obscurely felt, should have been the same as back home.

    Missy had been thrown quite off-balance, too, by her first few forays to the Puriri supermarkets: things that she took quite for granted were either unobtainable or so overpriced as to be quite out of reach on Fred’s fellowship; on the other hand, there was a cheap abundance of so many things that had been quite out of their reach back in the States. “Would you believe the price of this lamb, honey?” Fred examined the supermarket’s packaged lamb—priced at what most New Zealanders over the age of thirty could have told him was an outrageous level in a country that overproduced the stuff—and agreed that it was incredibly cheap. Missy also enthused over the price of dairy products here; she didn’t realize that milk had only recently become available in cartons and that the locals were still smarting over the quite unjustifiable price-hike that had accompanied this latest evidence of Progress. Enthusiasm gave place to indignation, however, when Missy discovered the price of such things as tuna, and chicken, and citrus fruit, not to mention the quality of the latter, which was shocking in the supermarkets, though a little better in the green-grocer’s shop which she discovered some time later. Much as Fred loved Mexican, she decided regretfully that it would have to be banished to the category of very special treat. Since she was a Californian it didn’t occur to her that for a fraction of the price of the tinned and packaged stuff she could buy nearly all of the raw ingredients, and make her own chilli con carne from scratch—and even, at a pinch, a reasonable facsimile of tortillas. But after all, supermarkets are pretty much the same the world over, and once Missy had got accustomed to these regional differences she soon felt pretty much at home.

    Not so Jo-Beth. At work she saw very little of Fred or Charlie, since they were both workaholics and Fred, in fact, rarely surfaced even for coffee breaks; she felt herself to be surrounded by people who were all firmly rooted in a British tradition that was totally foreign to her own way of looking at the world.

    The rest of the library staff, the secretarial staff and, of course, all of the students would have hotly denied this imputation of Britishness, and the colonial stigma attached to it. Their families had all been New Zealanders for generations—well, a hundred years, at least, a lot in a country where European settlement only began around 1840. Most of them were so un-British as to have no desire at all to visit Britain; the colonial habit of referring to the place as “Home” had vanished with the generation that sent its sons to fight in the Second World War.

    Peter, of course, would thoroughly have understood Jo-Beth’s feeling about their colleagues’ Britishness, but unfortunately he struck her as even more dauntingly foreign than the rest of them, and she didn’t broach the subject with him—or, indeed, any subject outside strictly professional ones. Peter’s sharp eyes saw that the pretty little Japanese-American was thoroughly homesick, but he decided to wait and see how she settled down, rather then intervene at this stage.

    All of the library and secretarial staff were very kind to Jo-Beth and invited her to their homes for a meal at least once. Jo-Beth was grateful for their kindness; but it couldn’t be said that she really enjoyed any of these social events. For one thing, the food was so awful! Alone of the last two generations of their family, Jo-Beth actually liked Japanese food, and didn’t mind what her mother referred to scornfully as “all that pointless fiddling around” that preparing it entailed. Jo-Beth was also into health foods and very anti the sort of pre-packaged convenience foods that Missy relied on so heavily. She wasn’t offered convenience foods by any of her New Zealand hostesses, however: on the contrary, in spite of all the advertising media and the supermarkets could do to persuade them otherwise, all these ladies, faced with entertaining a foreigner, immediately fell back on the sort of traditional fare that their own mothers and grandmothers had served up. So poor Jo-Beth was faced with huge meals of roast lamb with gravy and mint sauce, not only from the motherly Pam Anderson and from Noelene, the Institute’s middle-aged office assistant, but from her contemporaries Val and Marianne; or roast pork with gravy and apple sauce from Caro, who couldn’t really afford pork, but had decided to give herself and Danny a treat while she was at it. All of these meals were accompanied by mounds of roast vegetables: potatoes, of course, and the local sweet potatoes, and pumpkin, which none of them—not even Caro, because Charlie had considerately not pointed it out to her—realized that Americans didn’t eat as a vegetable; and, at Pam’s, where the whole tribe of large sons was present for the occasion, roast parsnip into the bargain.

    Jo-Beth felt quite stunned at the close of that particular evening—not because, as might have been the case back home, all of the boys talked at once, but because they barely uttered at all! Was it her? Didn’t they like her? thought poor Jo-Beth, smiling brightly and doing her utmost to maintain a flow of cheerful conversation in the face of the three Anderson boys’ determined silence. She wasn’t to know, of course, that she was face-to-face with the normal inarticulateness of the Antipodean male—compounded, in this particular instance, by their terror of her own bright articulateness.

    She’d expected Val’s assistant, Julia, who was younger than any of them, to provide something different, but no: Julia’s flat came up trumps for the occasion of Jo-Beth’s visit with a huge shoulder of lamb that they’d got on special at the supermarket and which took absolutely ages to cook in their superannuated oven—and which none of them knew how to carve. Fortunately, in Jo-Beth’s opinion, they forgot about roasting the vegetables until it was too late to put them in, so they had mashed potato, a mashed carrot and parsnip mixture (the way their mums had got them all to eat parsnip in their youth) and frozen peas. Jo-Beth enjoyed this evening the most, though all of those present were several years younger than her: it put her in mind of her own college days. Julia and her friends were cheerful, noisy, and apparently uncomplicated young people; after a certain initial shyness they all talked loudly and happily of their own affairs; they ate huge amounts of their badly carved lamb and drank huge amounts of a coarse red wine, and didn’t notice that Jo-Beth ate very little of her meat (which to her palate was nauseating: sheepy and greasy) and didn’t drink very much of the wine.

    To Jo-Beth’s bewilderment, after the initial burst of invitations all her hostesses, though remaining perfectly friendly at work, appeared to dump her. This, like the roasts, was a typical Kiwi custom: it was the norm to socialize, in the sense that the civilized world understood the term, very little, and at that only with the members of one’s extended family and within a very limited circle of acquaintances, generally dictated by proximity or a shared church, sports club or, in the case of younger couples, play group. The over-lavish hospitality of the Carranos that Charlie had experienced was very much the exception. Absorbed as they were in their own tiny worlds, and buoyed up by the consciousness of having nobly done their duty by her, none of Jo-Beth’s erstwhile hostesses realized for a moment how miserably lonely she was. They all assumed, without really thinking about it, that because she had her brother and his wife out here with her she couldn’t possibly be lonely.

    In this they were quite incorrect. Jo-Beth was very fond of Missy and Fred but she didn’t really have many interests in common with them; and they in their turn were as absorbed in themselves and their baby as any young couple in their situation would be. Indeed, Jo-Beth was only sharing the rented house in Hinemoa Street until her own apartment was ready. Missy and Fred would have been perfectly happy for her to stay on, but quite apart from the fact that she valued her privacy, their cosy complacency was driving her quietly nuts. Missy said worriedly to Fred that Jo-Beth’d be lonely, but Fred replied robustly that if she was she could always come on over here, it was only a couple of blocks. Missy agreed to this; but she went on quietly worrying about the lack of suitable men on Jo-Beth’s immediate horizon; after a while she decided firmly that they must all join the local tennis club.

    Under more normal circumstances, Caro and Marianne might well have spotted that all wasn’t well with their new colleague; but circumstances weren’t exactly normal for either of them. Caro was in the first throes of her torrid relationship with Charlie; it was all she could do to concentrate on her work, and while she would have noticed if Jo-Beth had been overtly unhappy she was very far from grasping what underlay her new Deputy’s cheerful manner. And Marianne had problems of her own. Well, not quite problems, perhaps; but...

    “You know he’s fallen for you in a big way,” said Pam Anderson, perching a hip on Marianne’s desk at five to five, just when they should all have been thinking about packing up for the day. Pam didn’t normally work this late, and when she did she had an unfortunate tendency to assume that other people were as free as she was to hang around the Institute gossiping.

    “Oh, Pam!” Marianne protested. She suppressed an urge to look at her watch; Maurice had said he’d be at the flat by five-twenty at the latest: Lady Black had gone down to their married daughter’s place in Nelson, and Maurice was going to stay with Marianne for a whole week! “He hasn’t,” she added weakly.

    Noelene had come in with a sheaf of photocopying in time to overhear the salient parts of the conversation. She gave an explosive giggle. “Yes, he has, Marianne; didn’t you see the way he was looking at you at the party last week? He was absolutely mooning over you!”

    “Nonsense, Noelene,” said Marianne in a voice that attempted to be quietly repressive. “You’re imagining things.”

    Noelene and Pam exchanged glances, and snickered.

    “Are those the copies of the First-Year exam?” pursued Marianne, pinkening.

    “Eh? Aw, yeah; I kept them covered, like you said,” said Noelene in self-congratulatory tones. She dumped the photocopying on Marianne’s desk.

    “Thank you, Noelene,” said Marianne, repressive still. “You can pack up now.”

    This ploy didn’t work; Noelene giggled again and said: “So what about this John Aitken thing? What’re you gonna do about it?”

    “It isn’t a ‘thing’, and I’m not going to do anything about it,” said Marianne crossly, going pinker than ever.

    “He really has fallen for you, poor thing,” put in Pam.

    Marianne didn’t respond.

    Noelene said thoughtfully: “He’s quite nice, really.”

    “All right; you have him, then!” said Marianne crossly.

    The middle-aged Noelene was an excellent typist; but she was blonde and fluffy and got very giggly at the slightest opportunity. Now she giggled even more explosively and replied that Bri ’ud have her guts for garters at the mere thought. Besides, it wasn’t her that John Aitken fancied, was it? She and Pam both laughed.

    “You’re making the whole thing up, the pair of you!” said Marianne crossly. She began stowing the photocopies away in her filing cabinet.

    Pam replied: “No, we’re not; it’s—it’s patently obvious!”

    Thanks to Maurice’s tutelage Marianne now knew that this phrase, which Pam had produced rather proudly, was tautologous. She bit back a sharp reply, compressing her lips. Pam looked at her doubtfully. Noelene repeated uncertainly: “He’s quite nice, really.”

    “I know he is,” said Marianne in a muffled voice into her filing cabinet. “I just don’t happen to fancy him, that’s all.”

    “Poor John,” said Pam—again.

    Marianne fiddled unnecessarily with the photocopies. Pam, who had only intended a bit of gossip and a cosy giggle, felt that the whole thing had got a bit out of hand. “Well—I’d better go and tidy my desk, I suppose.”

    “Yes,” said Marianne in a muffled voice. “I’ll be locking up soon.”

    Pam vanished. Noelene looked uncertainly at Marianne. “Um—I’d better go and pack up, too.”

    “Yes,” said Marianne into the filing cabinet.

    Noelene bolted off to the little cubbyhole that she shared with more banks of filing cabinets and the latest overflow of cartons of books for the library.

    Marianne leaned her forehead on her hands that were grasping the top drawer of the filing cabinet and said to herself: “Oh, dear!”

    Now that the subject had been brought to her notice she realized, modest though she was, that Pam and Noelene were perfectly correct, and that John Aitken had, indeed, fallen for her; though hopefully (Maurice didn’t like her to say that but sometimes it seemed the only word)—hopefully, then, not in a big way. Why on earth hadn’t she realized? Well, she supposed she had sort of noticed, only she hadn’t quite—quite believed it. What an idiot! What on earth would Maurice say— No; that was silly, of course she mustn’t tell Maurice, what on earth was she thinking of, he’d only be jealous, and quite unnecessarily. Maurice, Marianne had discovered to her utter astonishment, did suffer from jealousy, and quite acutely, too, in spite of his worldliness, his sophistication, and his many years of experience.

    It had only been a week ago, in fact—just a couple of days before the Institute’s party—that she’d been brought to realize just how real Maurice’s jealousy was. It had been, all in all, a very disturbing evening, and it was small wonder that two days later at the party Marianne hadn’t been up to noticing a shy, blundering English political scientist.

    It had started off as a perfectly nice evening; they had booked seats for the play...

    “Mmm, that’s a nice outfit, Little Sweetie,” Maurice had said, coming up behind her. He slipped his hands around her boobs, and squeezed gently, pressing himself into her rump as he did so. He buried his face in her nape and breathed deeply. “Mm-mm—you smell good.”

    “Arpège,” replied Marianne with satisfaction.

    “What say we give the play a miss, eh?” he said—exactly as she’d known he would.

    She gave a shaky laugh but said firmly: “No, it’d be a pity to waste the tickets; besides, I really want to see it.”

    Maurice gave a resigned groan and kissed her neck. “Slave-driver! What the Hell am I going to do with this all evening?” He ground himself against her rounded bum.

    Marianne gave a shudder of pleasure, giggled, and replied: “Save it till later—it’ll be nicer if you save it!”

    “Ya reckon?” said Maurice, with a snort of laughter. He squeezed her boobs again and said on a hopeful note: “Might go off, though, if we don’t take care of it straight away.”

    “Never mind,” returned Marianne, laughing, “we can always do something about it, you know.”

    Maurice gave a very dirty laugh, pressed himself into her once more, and reluctantly released her.

    After this promising start to the evening he was in a very good mood and didn’t find fault with their seats—which were excellent, but that wouldn’t have stopped him if he’d been in a bad mood—or with the first act of A Doll’s House, which was quite embarrassingly bad—God knew why these Antipodean semi-amateur companies imagined they could do Ibsen—still, at least he’d talked the little sweetie out of Measure For Measure last month; now, that would have been a really bad scene, thought Maurice, pleased with his own acumen and with his grasp of what he fondly imagined to be the vernacular of Marianne’s contemporaries.

    During the first interval—which was quite long: the city’s sole professional repertory company, if it hadn’t grasped such finer points of technique as picking up one’s cues quickly and not standing stock still with one’s mouth slightly open while waiting for one’s cues, had certainly grasped the point that you could make money at the bar in the intervals—during the first interval, then, Maurice procured Marianne a glass of dry white wine, informed her that this plonk’d probably be undrinkable, added that he must take a leak, he’d been—with a wink—too damned stiff to do so earlier, and disappeared. Marianne blushed, and choked into her wine. After a little she recovered herself sufficiently to look about her. She was very glad that she’d worn her new cream silk suit, because the little lounge, or bar, or whatever it was, was entirely upholstered in crimson velvet—seats, walls, the lot; even the carpet was crimson, with a truly diabolical pattern of gold curlicues.

    Against this startling background the coloured and patterned dresses of most of the women looked really nasty. Marianne’s heavy cream silk suit, on the other hand, with its tight skirt, tight square-shouldered jacket with a peplum-like flare at the waist, and long, tight sleeves that came down in little points over the backs of her hands, looked superb.

    Certainly Micky Shapiro, fighting his way through the crowd at the bar with a glass of red plonk in his fist, thought so. “Marianne! Hullo! What are you doing here?”

    Composedly Marianne replied: “Hullo, Micky; I’m watching the play.” She even gave a little laugh as she said this; but she went very pink, too. Micky’s heart hammered absurdly—could the pinkness be for him?

    He came right up to her and said—mendaciously: “Not alone, I hope?”

    “No,” replied Marianne, going pinker than ever and looking round her in an unfocussed, confused sort of way.

    With a sickening lurch of his stomach Micky realized she must be with her bloke.

    “Mind if I join you until your escort comes back?” He didn’t wait for a reply, but sat down immediately, determined to find out once and for all just who the bloke was—and, incidentally, just what the Hell it was that he had that Micky Shapiro didn’t.

    “No! Of course not!” she gasped. After a moment she appeared to pull herself together, however, and said politely: “Are you by yourself, Micky?”

    Micky pulled a rueful face. “Yeah. Susan was supposed to come with me, but she cried off at the last minute: said she had too much swot to do. Wasted all last weekend on the boat, of course: if there was a degree in messing about in boats, she’d be in line for a First!”

    Marianne chuckled, and agreed, but added wistfully: “She doesn’t know how lucky she is.”

    Micky had often forcibly made this very point to his elder daughter, but was rather surprized to hear it from the lips of someone of Marianne’s age; so he replied cautiously: “How do you mean, exactly?”

    “Being able to go to varsity and do a degree; and—” she looked shyly at Micky—“having a father who—who understands; who wants her to go.”

    Micky wasn’t at all sure that he liked this last; he had maintained, God knew at what damage to his libido, he sometimes thought wryly, a neuter, avuncular stance towards Marianne, ignoring Susan’s frequent representations as to the foolishness of such a proceeding; but that didn’t mean he wanted to be considered by her as some sort of father figure. He replied cautiously: “Didn’t your father want you to go to university?”

    “It wasn’t that, exactly; at least, that would be putting it too strongly. It wouldn’t have crossed his mind that I might even be capable of going; and to do him justice, I certainly never thought of it when I was Susan’s age. No-one in our family’s ever been to varsity; and if I had wanted to we couldn’t have afforded it.”

    Micky looked at her sympathetically but at the same time he was rather embarrassed. Everyone in his own comfortably-off family had been to university as a matter of course—even his sister Fee who, God knew, didn’t have two penn’orth of brain to rub together.

    Marianne smiled at him suddenly, finished her wine, and said: “It’s just since I started working at the Institute that I kind of wish... Well, I suppose it’s made me aware of what I’ve missed, that’s all.”

    Micky’s good resolutions were swept away on a wave of love and pity. He laid his hand over her pretty one where lay on her cream silk knee and said in a husky, shaking voice: “Poor little darling.”

    Marianne’s soft brown eyes looked quickly up at him in a kind of startled wonder. Micky flushed; his body came electrifyingly to attention; and it was at this precise moment that Maurice Black returned from his protracted trip to the gents’ bog, having at last shaken off the old chum who’d buttonholed him on the way back from it.

    Bristling all over with male possessiveness, Maurice stood over Marianne and rumbled: “Didn’t know you two knew each other.”

    And sweet young Marianne looked up at old Maurie Black, went extremely pink, and said: “Oh! Maurice! Um—yes; we sometimes go sailing together—with Susan, Micky’s daughter.”

    Maurice glared at her; she added in a shaken voice: “I didn’t realize you knew Micky.”

    “Sometimes play backgammon together at the Club,” growled Maurice. “How are ya, Shapiro?” he added belatedly.

    If Micky hadn’t been so involved in the scene himself, he told himself much later, he’d have had to laugh. As it was, he felt himself go white to the lips and wondered, in an odd, detached way, if he was going to vomit. He stood up and replied mechanically: “Fine, thanks; how’re you?”

    Maurice replied brusquely: “Very well,” and sat down quickly beside Marianne on her banquette. He put his arm across her shoulders—defiantly, Micky decided later, thinking about it—and said to her in a confidential voice: “How was that wine, Sweetie?”

    “Oh,” said Marianne in a flustered voice, picking up her empty wine glass: “it—well—it was all right, I suppose. Not very good, really, I suppose,” she ended lamely.

    Maurice’s free hand came across and closed on hers. Feeling sicker than ever, Micky said: “Well, I must be pushing off.”

    Maurice gave him a dismissive glance and said: “See you at the Club some time, eh?”

    “Yes; of course,” he agreed stiltedly. “Uh—goodbye, Marianne—nice to see you again.”

    Marianne could feel the tension in Maurice’s body and her voice shook as she replied: “Goodbye, Micky; tuh-tell Susan that she should have come, after all.”

    “Yes; I’ll do that,” said Micky. “Well—goodbye.” He hurried off.

    He sat through the rest of the play in a sick turmoil, telling himself repeatedly that it was impossible, that he must have read too much into it—knowing all the time that he hadn’t. Oh, God: it was sick! Little Marianne and old Maurie Black—how could she? Black was old enough to be her bloody grandfather—God knew what use he could be to her! Unfortunately his treacherous brain then began to conjure up all too explicit pictures of just how Maurice could be of use to her, and of what she could do for him. When he got home he drank a lot of brandy and went to bed half drunk and wholly miserable.

    When Shapiro had pushed off Maurice was unable to prevent himself from saying grumpily: “How the Hell didja meet him?”

    “Oh,” Marianne replied in a vague voice, “he’s the Institute’s lawyer, you know—at least, his firm is.”

    Maurice grunted.

    As he still had his arm across her shoulders Marianne leaned into his side. His hand tightened on her arm; after a moment he said in a more mollified tone: “Know his daughter, too, do ya?”

    “Susan; yes,” returned Marianne. Maurice didn’t say anything; she added timidly: “She’s at university: she’s one of our Second-Years.”

    Maurice grunted again. After a bit he said: “Want another drink?”

    “No, not really, thanks; you were right—it wasn’t very drinkable.”

    He gave a gratified grunt this time. Marianne pressed closer to him. After a little he asked: “Like the play so far, Little Sweetie?”

    “Ooh, yes!” said Marianne, her face lighting up with transparent enjoyment. “What surprizes me is it’s so modern!”

    Maurice grinned. “Women’s Lib and all that, eh?”—Marianne nodded earnestly. “Famous for it, Ibsen was,” said Maurice informatively. He began to search his capacious memory for an appropriate book on the subject to suggest to her—mustn’t be too boring, put the little sweetie off.

    “Was he?” said Marianne wistfully. “I suppose that’s the sort of thing that everybody knows...”

    “Yes,” agreed Maurice vaguely.

    She reddened.

    “Eh?” said Maurice, starting. He looked at the blush, squeezed her, and said: “Nobody’s born knowing it, Sweetie!”

    She giggled. “No, I s’pose not!”

    Maurice smiled encouragingly into her eyes.

    Emboldened, she ventured:  “We were just talking about that sort of thing...”

    “Oh?” said Maurice, trying to conceal his annoyance.

    “Mm... I was just saying how lucky Susan Shapiro is, to be able to go to university.”

    He snorted. “Learn a lot more from a decent course of reading than ya will from that load of half-baked no-hopers!” he informed her, dismissing his former colleagues’ pretensions to anything without a qualm.

    Marianne pinkened. She didn’t feel qualified to argue with him on the stimulus to be gained from lectures and from direct contact with other minds in seminars and tutorials, so it was just as well that the bell rang at that moment.

    Maurice rather wanted to suggest they go home instead of sitting through the rest of the play, which in his opinion was only going to get worse, not better. But after seeing her holding hands with bloody Shapiro he was feeling distinctly shaken, and rather doubted if he could get it up just yet. Besides, she was enjoying the damn thing... He stood up slowly and said: “Come on, if you want to see the rest of it.”

    He brooded throughout the rest of the performance—it did get worse, he noticed moodily, not really caring. During the second interval, which, as was the repertory company’s custom, was even longer than the first, he left Marianne’s side only to get them each a drink. She had fruit juice and he defiantly had coffee, even though it would probably keep him awake. He sat very close to her in the bar and said very little. After a while Marianne said timidly: “Are you very bored, Maurice?”

    “No. Wanna go to bed, that’s all,” growled Maurice.

    Marianne went bright pink. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Maurice showed her the tip of his tongue. She went even pinker and looked quickly away. Very stiff, Maurice chuckled complacently.

    However, he was silent during the long drive home to her flat in Puriri. Marianne didn’t notice his silence, having bawled her eyes out at the dénouement of the play—which she would no doubt have done whatever the resolution of the drama, Maurice decided in a moment of clinical detachment. She subjected him to a relentless analysis of the heroine’s motives throughout most of the journey.

    Finally he said: “Darling, I can’t concentrate on my driving; talk about it later, eh?”

    “Righto! Sorry!” she gasped, and fell mercifully silent.

    Maurice fully intended to be extremely masterful with her the minute they got home—if there was any thought of bloody Shapiro in that pretty little head of hers he was damn well going to chase it out. Only it didn’t quite work out like that.

    They got into the bedroom—same sort of décor as in the old place, but new, plain terracotta velvet curtains that in his freely expressed opinion were a Helluva lot smarter than the old ones—and he helped her off with her little fake-fur jacket and hung it up for her.

    “Thank you, Maurice,” said Marianne, smiling at him. She stepped out of her shoes.

    Maurice came up very close. To his utter dismay he found he was trembling all over like a chidden dog. He put his hands on her shoulders. She looked trustingly into his eyes and slipped her hands onto his waist.

    Her eyes widened. “You’re shaking, Maurice!”

    Maurice was afraid he was going to bawl. “Take me to bed, Sweetie,” he said, hardly able to get the words out for the chattering of his teeth.

    Marianne looked at him uncertainly, and went over to the bed and peeled back the covers. She glanced at him doubtfully. Maurice just stood there, shaking. She began to unbutton her suit jacket, still watching him. When he still didn’t move she undressed quickly, laying her clothes on a chair.

    “Come on,” she said, going up to him and taking his hand. She led him over to the bed and began to help him off with his jacket. Maurice, teeth gritted, tried to help her with his clothes but without much effect. At last she had everything off him but his pants and underpants. She began to unbuckle his belt. Maurice pushed her hands away.

    “Get into bed,” he said hoarsely.

    She got into bed, looking a bit scared.

    Trembling violently, Maurice shucked his remaining garments and climbed in beside her. He hid his face in her shoulder. “Turn that damn light out,” he mumbled.

    Marianne had absorbed wide-eyed his dictum that only the boring, inhibited bourgeoisie did it with the lights out. Dumfounded, she switched the bedside lamp off.

    Shuddering against her, he groaned: “Jesus, lemme just get into you, Marianne!”

    “All right,” said Marianne faintly, unable to believe her ears.

    Still shaking, he got on top of her and plunged at her clumsily. She repressed a gasp. “God! Help me,” he groaned.

    Timidly she reached for him. “Like this?”

    “Yes—guide me,” said Maurice between his teeth.

    She peered at his face but the room was so dark she couldn’t see him. She did her best to guide him, hoping she was aiming it right and feeling a bit of a fool because she didn’t really know how to do it. However, it was all right, because she felt his tip touch her. Then he groaned and she let go—just in time, because he plunged it into her fiercely. Marianne gasped.

    Maurice was long past any sort of control over himself. He fucked hard and wildly for a very short time.

    Marianne held his back tightly but was too amazed—without kissing her or anything! she thought confusedly—to think of moving with him, let alone attempting to enjoy it. Very soon he made his first sharp barking noise, and then came with his usual sharp gasp and more barking noises—“coughing like an old man stag in rut” according to him, but Marianne privately thought it was more like a puppy choking on a bone. Then he collapsed on her with all his weight.

    Marianne was very squashed, but it was lovely. She lay there feeling quite blissful with Maurice’s body squashing hers, and with Maurice’s penis quite discernibly shrinking in her. His heart thudded wildly against her—Marianne, now used to this phenomenon, was no longer afraid, as she had been the first few times, that he was about to have a heart attack—and his body was drenched in sweat.

    “I do love you, Maurice,” she said softly.

    Maurice was past replying, but he pressed his lips against her cheek.

    After quite some time, when Marianne, who had taken several cautious and too-short breaths, was starting to feel really suffocated, but when she was also, confusingly, starting to feel that she really might like to come herself—though why she should feel like that when he was all limp inside her and almost falling out she was at a loss to know—Maurice gave a deep sigh, and rolled off her. He drew her into his side without saying anything. She put her head on his shoulder. He took several deep breaths, then unexpectedly reached to draw her hand across to his limp member. It felt soft and sticky.

    “Nice,” he rumbled.

    “Mm,” she agreed.

     After a moment he muttered: “Fix you up in a minute.”

    “Mm,” she agreed. “No hurry,” she added.

    In a few moments she realized, with surprized amusement, that he was asleep.

    He slept for an hour, during which time Marianne remained awake in a state of amused tenderness, which gradually gave way to a cross realization that she’d need to have a pee fairly soon, and it would be well-nigh impossible to get out of bed without waking him up. Fortunately, however, he woke up of his own accord before she’d actually got to bursting point.

    “God,” he mumbled groggily, “was I asleep?”

    “Yes.” She sat up and edged to the side of the bed. “I must just go to the bathroom.” She hurried off.

    When she came in again he had the bedside lamp on and was sitting up with his silver curls all ruffled, looking rather flushed. “Marianne—”

    Marianne smiled at him. “Would you like a drink?”

    “No—yes; a fruit juice, ta,” said Maurice, running his hand distractedly over his curls. “Marianne—” But Marianne had vanished again.

    When she handed him his juice and got in beside him again Maurice took a great gulp, swallowed determinedly, and said: “I’m Hellishly sorry, Sweetie.”

    “What for?” she said blankly.

    His dark, thin face flushed. “Behaving like a pig,” he said hoarsely. She didn’t reply. He glared into his glass and said: “Haven’t behaved like that since... Jesus! Since I was in my twenties.” Marianne was silent. “My early twenties,” Maurice clarified his point.

    “It’s all right; I don’t mind.”

    “I bloody do,” said Maurice grimly. He drained his juice and put the glass down on the bedside table with a snap. “Look—Marianne,” he said, turning to her with a strained, anxious expression.

    “It’s all right; you couldn’t help it,” she said, smiling at him.

    “No,” agreed Maurice in a shaken voice. He put his arm round her and said into her ear: “Want me to fix you up now, Little Sweetie?”

    “Yes, please,” she said, going very red.

    Almost himself again, Maurice gave a tiny chuckle.

    “Maurice?” said Marianne into his shoulder.

    “What, sweetie?” purred Maurice. “Want me to do something special for you, eh?”

    “Not exactly,” she said into his shoulder.

    “Uh—what is it, then?” he groped.

    “Could you do it with the light out?” said Marianne squeakily.

    Above her dark head Maurice’s face flushed crimson. “Wouldja like that?” he said hoarsely.

    “Yes,” she said timidly. “Before—when you— I mean after you... It was awfully nice, just lying there in the dark. Sort of... cosy. Intimate.”

    Silently Maurice switched out the light. “Come down in the bed, my little sweetie,” he said huskily.

    Some time later, when Marianne’s head was again on his shoulder, he startled her by saying abruptly: “Why was that feller holding your hand?”

    “What?” said Marianne groggily.

    “Shapiro; why the Hell was he holding your hand?” /

    “Oh—him,” she said, pulling herself into reluctant awareness. “He—he was just sorry for me, I think.”

    Maurice said nothing.

    Now much more awake and beginning to perceive what his extraordinarily atypical performance earlier had been in aid of, she added carefully: “We were talking about varsity, and how Susan was very naughty last weekend and didn’t do her swot, so she had to stay home and do it tonight.”

    Maurice grunted.

    “And I was just saying how lucky Susan is, and how I wish I’d been able to go to varsity at her age.”

    He grunted again.

    “That was when he touched my hand.”

    Maurice was silent.

    Marianne added cautiously: “He wasn’t really holding it, you know.”

    He snorted.

    After a while he said: “Why haven’t you ever mentioned him to me?”

    Help, he was jealous, all right! So she replied in a carefully casual voice: “I suppose it never seemed important.”

    “Oh,” said Maurice.

    Carefully not examining exactly why she’d never mentioned Micky to Maurice, Marianne thought about yawning. This worked, and she yawned. Then she said in a sleepy voice: “I s’pose I know lots of people that I’ve never mentioned to you; I mean, we talk about more important things, don’t we? Books, and history, and all that.”

    He grunted, and squeezed her upper-arm.

    Marianne yawned again—once she got started it was very easy to go on yawning, especially if she was sleepy anyway.

    “Better go bye-byes, eh?” said Maurice, who was staying the night. –Suzanne thought—or at least allowed him to assume she thought—that he was with an old friend in town.

    “Mm.”

    She did go to sleep quite soon. Maurice lay awake for some time, regretting the coffee he’d drunk at the theatre and regretting even more making an abject ass of himself tonight. Experienced though he was, it didn’t dawn on him that his loss of control had roused in Marianne not the scorn he felt it thoroughly deserved, but a tender protectiveness.

    Marianne woke before he did and lay watching him for some time, ignoring the pressure in her bladder, with a maternal little smile on her face. Finally she gave a little sigh and slipped out of bed to go to the bathroom. When she came back he was awake and had thrown back the bedclothes to expose his erect member. Marianne’s gaze was irresistibly drawn to it and she went very pink.

    “Didja have a bit of a wash, Sweetie?” asked Maurice, getting down to brass tacks.

    “Yes,” she admitted, turning puce.

    “Good; ’cos I think I might be able to give you a bit of a treat this morning,” he said complacently.

    Marianne giggled. Her gaze slid back to his equipment. Maurice raised his pelvis suggestively and gave a little groan of pure pleasure.

    “Ooh, Maurice, you’re so... It’s so wonderful!” said Marianne, now frankly goggling at him.

    “Come and hold me.” When she did he sighed deeply and said: “Get up here and show me what you’ve got.” This injunction was familiar to Marianne, so she did. “Ve-ry interesting,” he purred.

    Marianne gave an explosive giggle.

    “Shall we take it from here, eh?”

    She giggled again. “Okay!”

    Soon after that it got very passionate and strenuous, and Marianne surprized herself very much by telling him—quite loudly, too—that she wanted to be on top. Maurice was terribly pleased by this, and offered her quite a lot of encouragement and advice. He thought he was very much in control of it all; until the point where her face flushed darkly, her fingernails dug painfully into his shoulders, and she cried: “Oh, Maurice! Oh, Maurice! Be hard in me! Oh, Maurice!”

    “Christ!” responded Maurice, rising magnificently to the occasion. “I’ll come if you do that, sweetie!”

    “Yes!” panted Marianne. “I want you to, I want you to— Oh, Maurice!” Then she clenched and screamed, and Maurice let go in a wonderful shower of fireworks in pounding darkness.

    “Golly!” he croaked as she lay on top of him, panting and exhausted.

    “Mm!” she agreed.

    They laughed shakily, and gasped for breath.

    When he could speak properly, and she’d snuggled up against his chest as usual, he said: “Not bad for an old un, eh?”

    “Won’ful,” said Marianne groggily.

    He grinned. “Like to see that bloody Shapiro chap do any better.”

    “’Oo?” she mumbled.

    “Nothing,” purred Maurice happily. “You have a wee rest, eh, Little Sweetie.”

    “Mmf,” replied Marianne.

    Maurice grinned.

    Marianne’s articulation hadn’t recovered but her brain had been perfectly clear and lucid for some time; now it thought to itself: “Oh, dear! He is awfully jealous! Well, I don’t see what else I can possibly do to convince him!” The brain giggled; the faintest shadow of a twitch moved in one corner of her mouth, which wasn’t yet quite at the stage of responding to the brain’s messages.

    Since then Maurice had showered Marianne with quite unnecessary but very enjoyable attentions: flowers, phone calls, boxes of chocolates, more scent than she knew what to do with... His decision to spend the next week with her rather than go fishing with an old mate as he’d originally planned was due entirely, she recognized clear-sightedly, to his jealousy of Micky Shapiro—and apparently of every other man she knew: he had a spate of questioning her closely about the members of the Institute. When she’d realized what his questions were about Marianne had gone very red. “This is ridiculous, Maurice!” Maurice got very huffy. “What’s ridiculous about it? You’re a very attractive woman!”—“But they’re not interested in me.”—“What’s wrong with ’em? They all a load of poofs, or something?”—“No, but—” The silly argument had gone on for some time, and Maurice had appeared quite unconvinced at the end of it.

    Head against her hands on the filing cabinet drawer, Marianne sighed deeply. She could manage Maurice’s jealousy—there wasn’t anything to managing it, really, she just had to go to bed whenever he wanted to; and as she always wanted him, anyway...

    No, Maurice wasn’t the problem. Nor—though he was an additional complication—was nice, bumbling John Aitken. No, the problem was Micky Shapiro. For Marianne, no longer the sweet innocent who had goggled at Maurice Black in—and out of—her fluffy apricot towel, had seen quite unmistakeably as he sat opposite her in the theatre bar on a small crimson chair, that Micky wanted her. Looking back to that first evening with him in The Tavern and then at the Chez Basil Marianne thought, a little doubtfully, and then with a growing conviction, that he’d always wanted her. Even on the boat—there’d been times... She’d thought that she’d just imagined it, that she was just being vain, or that knowing Maurice had somehow put dirty thoughts into her head about how other men might react to her... Only she hadn’t imagined it at all.

    “Oh, dear!” said Marianne again over her filing cabinet, as all these unwelcome thoughts came flooding back to her—just when she thought she’d got rid of them, too; when she was looking forward to a nice week with Maurice...

    Micky hadn’t been in touch with her since the night of the play—not that there was anything surprizing in that: they normally met about once a fortnight, usually to go sailing. Susan was always there, and sometimes Allyson, too. Micky had asked her to dinner a couple of times, but both of these had been cosy family affairs, with his daughters present. So Marianne wasn’t worried that he hadn’t contacted her; on the contrary, she was worried that he might. Maybe, since he’d seemed content with a totally asexual relationship up to now, he might just pretend that—that he’d never meant—that holding her hand and saying what he’d said and looking at her like that—her colour rose—hadn’t meant a thing. But she didn’t see, really, how either of them could pretend it hadn’t happened. The minute he looks at me I’ll think of it, and I’ll know he knows I’m thinking of it! she thought distractedly. Oh dear—why does everything have to be so complicated—why can’t things just be simple?

    Not surprisingly, the filing cabinet supplied no answer to this cri de coeur. She sighed yet again, closed the cabinet, and since it now contained the First-Year exam papers, conscientiously locked it.

    I suppose I’ll just have to tell him we’d better not see each other again, she thought gloomily. She didn’t pause to analyse exactly why she felt so gloomy about it, because somewhere at the back of her mind she had decided quite firmly that she only felt friendly towards Micky: she enjoyed his company, but only as a friend; and she would miss their sailing trips—but it was no good encouraging him to think that things could be any different, because they couldn’t.

    Less than a year earlier, Marianne had been unhappy because there was no man in her life. Now that there were three, she was quite sure she wasn’t unhappy—no woman who was the object of Maurice Black’s expert attentions could be unhappy—but an impartial observer, noticing the frown on her pretty forehead at this precise moment, might not have been so sure of that.

    Certainly Peter, sticking his head round her door to say goodnight, was rather taken aback by the frown. “Marianne? is anything wrong, moy dear?”

    She gave him a pale and artificial smile. “No, of course not.”

    Peter looked entirely unconvinced, came right into the office, pushed the door to behind him, and said: “If there is anythink at all worrying you, moy dear, I would be most happy—no, most privileged—to listen, if you should wish to talk about it.” He tempered this formal speech with a twinkle, and added: “I am a most discreet old person in whom to confoide, you know, moy dear.”

    Marianne’s hands went to her cheeks in that little gesture which Maurice, in more intimate circumstances, had found so charmingly feminine. “I know— I mean— There isn’t anything, really.”

    This last phrase of course meant that there really was something, the more so since she was now very flushed. He said seriously: “I am old enough to be your father, you know; and I am quoite unshockable.” He paused; perhaps maybe that had not been quite the right thing to say to a nice girl like Marianne? “I would not loike to think,” he continued hesitantly, “that perhaps you were upsetting yourself about something that we moight sort out together, if we talked about it.”

    Much as she liked Peter, Marianne couldn’t possibly have brought herself to discuss her love life with him: he was a man, he wasn’t closely related to her, and, really, she didn’t know him at all well—the first of these points being the crucial one: she certainly wouldn’t have discussed it with her father. She went redder than ever and said agitatedly: “There isn’t anything wrong—really!”

    Peter replied cautiously: “Sometoimes it’s not easy for a young woman, working in an envoironment where there are many men. If someone has been bothering you, moy dear, I really do feel it is something you should tell me.” He twinkled at her again and added: “You are a most valuable member of our staff, moy dear Marianne, and it is part of moy job to see that you are quoite happy with us!”

    “It isn’t work,” said Marianne, betraying to Peter’s sensitive ear that it was certainly something. “I love the job.”

    He perched on the edge of her desk and said: “And nobody is annoyink you?” He put his head on one side and looked at her like a very inquisitive robin.

    Poor Marianne felt as if she was under a microscope. Cheeks burning, she replied hoarsely: “No, of course not.”

    Peter said in a vague voice: “Sometoimes men can be very silly.”

    “Yes. But I can deal with that; I’m used to— I mean, most of the staff at the Carrano Group were men...” Her voice faded out. “You know what I mean,” she said faintly.

    He smiled nicely. “Da; I am quoite sure you can handle any silliness, moy dear; and of course if it was more serious, you would report it to me, non?”

    “Yes, of course, but nobody here’s like that!” she gaped.

    He hadn’t thought so. “No; but sometoimes it is difficult, is it not? Perhaps when it is a noice man, maybe one who is far from home, and rather lonely...” He let his voice trail off artistically.

    “I suppose,” said Marianne in rather a high voice, “that one just has to be kind but firm in a case like that.”

    Peter realized with astonishment that that was as far as he was going to get. The sweet pink mouth had closed in a firm line. She picked up the papers on her desk and put them into a drawer.

    Feeling quite flattened, he stood up. “Well, moy dear, if ever anythink is upsettink you, you know I am always here.”

    “Yes; thank you, Peter,” said Marianne politely.

    Vanquished, Peter bade her goodnight, and left.

    Alone in her office, Marianne pressed her hands to her burning cheeks. It sounded as if Peter had noticed... After all, if John Aitken was being obvious enough for Pam and Noelene to notice it, then it was quite likely that Peter would, too: he was very—very... not clever, exactly, though he was that, too... Well , very much the noticing kind. Oh, it was awful! thought Marianne distractedly. Now she’d have to—to really squash poor John, and he didn’t deserve that, he was too nice... Tears started to her eyes; she took a clean pink tissue from the box on the corner of her desk, and blew her nose fiercely. Why can’t things just be simple? she thought again.

    Perhaps if she’d been able to bring herself to discuss this matter with Peter he could have pointed out that she was blowing up meek John Aitken’s mild infatuation out of all proportion: being offered savouries that no-one else gets a sight of and being mooned at across a staffroom might be somewhat embarrassing, but hardly enough to cry over. But since she’d refused to confide in Peter there was no-one to point this out to her. After a little she worked herself up into quite a state of grumpiness towards poor John: he ought to know better, at his age! she decided crossly.

    She didn’t allow it to occur to her that it was the Micky Shapiro complication, rather than the John Aitken one, which was at the root of her grumpy tearfulness.

    What with these encounters, and all the brooding they provoked, she was later getting home than she’d intended to be.

    Maurice was in the kitchen, doing things with steak and garlic. “You’re late,” he pointed out crossly.

    Marianne was too nice to return a sharp answer to this. She merely replied tiredly: “I got held up at work.”

    Maurice had unconsciously expected an apology and was both astonished and suspicious when he didn’t get one. “Doing what?” he demanded crossly.

    “Oh—work... And talking to Peter.”

    “What—Riabouchinsky?”

    “Yes.”

    Scowling horribly, Maurice began to put an edge on the carving knife which—just like a woman—she’d let get Hellishly blunt, again. “You wanna watch out for him,” he informed her. “Got a Helluva reputation as a ladies’ man, ya know.”

    Marianne didn’t reply.

    The scowl deepened. “Goes tom-catting all over town, from what I’ve heard,” he said loudly to the carving knife. “Known for it.”

    “Maurice, that’s just silly!” cried Marianne. “He’s absolutely devoted to his wife; I’ve never seen two people so much in love!”

    Maurice snorted. He tested the carving knife cautiously with his thumb, and said: “How long they been married, now?”

    Flushing brightly, she cried: “Stop it, Maurice! It’s—it’s too silly for words! Peter adores Veronica! And how you can think that I—” Her voice cracked. “Goodness, if you don’t know by now that you’ve got nothing to be jealous of!”

    Infuriatingly, Maurice changed tack. “Well, no need to get your knickers in a twist,” he said mildly. “Only giving you a friendly warning, y’know.” He tried the blade with his thumb again. “What the Hell have you been doing to this knife?” he said grumpily.

    “Nothing,” said Marianne, in what was as near a sulk as she had ever managed.

    He grunted. “Feels like it.”

    Marianne looked at his slender back. It radiated animosity. “What are you making?” she asked weakly.

    “Nothing, at this rate,” he grumbled, picking up the grindstone again.

    Marianne burst into tears.

    This might not have been an entirely grown-up thing to do; and no doubt it was the sort of female-stereotypical thing that many of the books Caro had lent her enjoined today’s woman not to do; but given their two personalities it was probably the best thing she could have done. Maurice was too old to change his spots; he wasn’t the sort of man who could be joked out of the grumps; arguing with him only made him more obstinate; and, as Marianne had long since discovered, it was quite impossible to discuss a situation like this rationally with him (whatever the books said) because he either refused to admit there was a situation at all, or went into a terrific sulk. But at Marianne’s tears he was overcome with remorse, laid aside the carving knife, put his arm round her and led her tenderly into the sitting-room, where he sat her on the sofa, poured her a Cognac, and sat down with his arm around her while she drank it.

    “Had a hard day, Little Sweetie?”

    “Yes,” sighed Marianne against his slender but very male shoulder.

    Maurice kissed her hair. “Why don’tcha pop off and have a nice hot bath while I’m getting the tea?”

    “Yes,” she sighed. “I think I will.”

    So Marianne had a nice hot bath and after a while Maurice came and looked at her in it, all pink and steamy, and got himself rather excited.

    He forgot his jealousy for the rest of the evening, and Marianne forgot her grumpiness, and didn’t give a thought to either John Aitken or Micky Shapiro.

    So the tears might have been said to have worked rather well. And although Marianne was capable of counterfeiting a yawn or two, she was quite incapable of bursting into tears on cue. The tears had been a perfectly natural, feminine reaction to a stressful situation that she couldn’t handle. Or, if you’d read Caro’s books, they’d been a conditioned female stereotypical signal to which Maurice had responded in the conditioned male stereotypical way—his “father” to her “child”, according to some of the books. –At points like this in the books Marianne was apt to pinken, say “Oh, yes,” to herself in a discovering sort of way, and make a note; for her part, Caro would give a terrifically pleased snort, thump her knee or the table, and exclaim “Too right!” Neither of them had yet made the discovery that reading, understanding and agreeing with the books did not actually affect their own behaviour, when it came to the crunch.

    At any rate, on this particular night Marianne and Maurice, after their unpromising start, were both very happy.

Next chapter:

https://themembersoftheinstitute.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-sylvie-complication.html