The Bachelors (23 page)

All at
once, Ronald quite liked her.

‘I have
died,’ she said, ‘many deaths.’

‘Tell
me,’ he said, ‘how that has happened.’

She
pushed back her hair from her bumpy forehead. She had a warped young face.

‘I have
loved too much and trusted too much,’ she said, perceiving the success of her
style, ‘I have given and I haven’t received.’

‘Have
you had a lot of sex relations?’ Ronald said.

‘I have
had sex without any relationships. I don’t know why I’m telling you this the
first five minutes.’

‘You’ve
met the wrong chaps,’ Ronald said.

‘All
the chaps are wrong ones. If they aren’t married they are queer; if they aren’t
queer they are hard; if they aren’t hard they are soft. I can’t get anywhere
with men, somehow. Why am I telling you all this?’

‘I’m
the uncle type,’ Ronald said.

‘Why d’you
say that? Are you interested in psychology? — I’m very interested in
psychology. Why are you the uncle type?’

‘Because
everyone tells me their troubles,’ Ronald said.

‘And
don’t you tell people your troubles?’

‘No,’
Ronald said, ‘my troubles are largely self-evident and I’m not the filial type.
To be able to tell people your troubles you have to be a born son. Or daughter,
as the case may be.’

‘I must
be a born daughter,’ Elsie said, ‘according to psychology.’

‘At the
moment you’re being a niece if I’m being an uncle. Let’s keep our terms of
reference in order.’

‘Well,
I know a Father Socket,’ Elsie said. ‘He’s just let me down badly. I looked on
him as a father, and now I’ve found out he’s a homosexual.’

‘You
can overlook that,’ Ronald said, ‘if you think of him as second cousin.

‘I can’t
overlook it. I hate queers. I want to conceive a child.’

‘Fond
of babies?’

‘Not
particularly. It’s not a question of having a child so much as conceiving a
child by a man I love.’

‘You’d
better get a husband,’ Ronald said. ‘That would be the obvious course.’

‘There
aren’t any husbands that I know of. My own brother’s unfaithful to his wife; it
makes me sick. And he expects me to encourage him. “Lend us your room for the
afternoon, Elsie,” he says. And when I won’t lend the room he says, “You’re not
much of a sister.” I said, “I object to the type of woman you pick up with.” So
I do. I couldn’t have them coming here. That’s what my brother’s like. I always
knew he would make a rotten husband.’

‘You’d
better find a husband that isn’t like your brother.’

‘There
aren’t any husbands so far as I’ve met. All the men I know want to lean on me
or take it out on me. I did all Father Socket’s typing. That friend of yours,
Matthew Finch, he only wanted to commit a sin with me and he ate a lot of
onions and breathed on my face so I shouldn’t enjoy it. If he’s your friend, I
can only say—’

‘Oh, if
he’s my friend, we might leave him out of the discussion.’

‘Now,
there’s another thing — the way you men stick together against us.’

‘Haven’t
you any friends?’

‘Well,
there’s Alice.’

‘We’ll
leave her out of the discussion, then.’

‘No we
won’t. Alice is a case. She’s mad in love with that little weed Patrick Seton.
I’ll admit he’s a brilliant medium. But what else is there to him? Now she’s
getting a child by him. And what’s he done about it? Wanted her to have it
taken away. She thinks he’s going to marry her, and she’s mistaken. I’ve told
her. I’ve told Alice. I’ve told her he’ll never marry her. He says he’s getting
a divorce, and the divorce never happens. And she believes him. Any
awkwardness, and he recites poetry to her to explain everything away. I’ll bet
he hasn’t got a wife. He was never the husband type from the start. He won’t
marry Alice. She refuses to see that.’

‘Then
why are you defending him, like a sister?’

‘I’m
not defending him at all, I’m—”

‘You’re
concealing the evidence of his forgery.’

‘Oh,
the letter — I’m hanging on to that. I know that’s what you’ve come for. But I’m
keeping it and I’ll take the consequences. I’ve already faced the consequences.
So you can go.’

Ronald
got up and went to take his coat off the hanger.

‘Stay
the night,’ she said, ‘and I’ll give you the letter in the morning.’

Ronald
sat down again. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Why?
Don’t you want to sleep with me?’

‘No,’
Ronald said.

‘Why,
tell me why? Is there something wrong with me?’

‘Uncles
don’t sleep with nieces,’ Ronald said.

‘Isn’t
that carrying the idea a bit far?’

‘Yes,’
Ronald said, ‘it is. I’m not an uncle, I’m a stranger. That’s why I can’t sleep
with you.’

‘Am I a
stranger?’

‘Yes,’
Ronald said.

‘You’re
only playing for time,’ she said. ‘I’m well aware you’re trying to handle me.
It’s the letter you’re after. Take all and give nothing.’

‘I
thought we were having an interesting conversation, mutually appreciated as
between strangers,’ Ronald said.

‘Yes,
and when you go away you’ll feel “Well, I haven’t got the letter but at least I
cheered up the poor girl for an hour.” And what d’you suppose
I’ll
feel?
It’s much better for men not to come at all if they’re always going to go away
and leave me alone. I’m not lonely before they come. I’m only lonely when they
go away.’

‘There’s
a whole philosophy attached to that,’ Ronald said. ‘It turns on the question
whether it’s best not to be born in the first place.’

‘That’s
a silly question,’ she said, ‘because if you weren’t born you couldn’t ask it.’

‘Yes,
it is silly. But, since one has been born, it’s one of the mad questions one
has been born to ask.’

‘I
think it’s better to be born. At least you know where you are,’ Elsie said.

‘Aren’t
you contradicting yourself?’ Ronald said.

‘I don’t
care if I am. There’s a big difference between feeling lonely after a man’s
gone away and not being born at all. Being born is basic. You don’t need to
have company in the same way as you need to be born.’

‘There’s
a lot in what you say,’ Ronald said.

‘I say
it’s a mistake to have company, I wish I could stop it.’

‘You
only need stick a note on your door saying “Away for a few weeks” and leave it
there.’

‘I
haven’t the guts,’ she said. ‘And I don’t get much companionship out of the men
I know. All they want is sex, and perhaps we have an evening out with sex in
view, but they’re anxious to get back to their mums and aunties or their wives.’

‘You
should make them entertain you without sex, ‘Ronald said, ‘— an intelligent
girl like you.’

‘They
don’t want intelligence. They don’t come if there’s no sex. I’m a sexy type, I
get excited about it. And that’s what they like. But it only leaves me lonely.’

‘Don’t
you enjoy it at the time?’

‘No.
But I can’t do without it, and these men know it. They fumble about with their french
letters or they tear open their horrible little packets of contraceptives like
kids with sweets, or they expect me to have a rubber stop-gap all ready fitted.
All the time I want to be in love with the man and conceive his child, but I
keep thinking of the birth-control and something inside me turns in its grave.
You can’t enjoy sex in that frame of mind.’

‘I know
the feeling,’ Ronald said, ‘it’s like contemplating suicide.’

‘Have
you thought of committing suicide?’

‘Yes,’
he said, ‘but something inside me turns in its grave.’

‘I’ve
thought of suicide, but in the end I always decide to wait in case another
possibility turns up. I might meet a man that wants to live with me and not keep
slamming the door in my face with birth control. There were plenty wanted to
live with Alice before she took up with Patrick Seton. And now
she’s
in
for a let-down, though she won’t admit it. But at least she’s had her sex with
a baby coming up.’

‘You
can’t have babies all over the place,’ Ronald said. ‘It isn’t practical.’

‘I
know,’ she said.

‘Will
you give me back the letter?’ Ronald said.

‘Why
should I?’

‘Because
you took it,’ Ronald said.

‘It’s
the first time I’ve taken anything worth having off a man. And I want to keep
it.’

‘What
for?’

‘It may
come in useful. It may help Alice. If Patrick gets convicted she’ll be in the
cart. I’d like to see him in gaol, but still he’s Alice’s man, and I don’t see
why I shouldn’t destroy the evidence against him. I’m quite sure it’s a
forgery.’

‘You
won’t destroy the letter,’ Ronald said.

‘How do
you know?’

‘It has
too many possibilities of exploitation. You could form a blood-brotherhood with
several persons out of that letter. You have already offered to give it to me
if I slept with you.’

‘Well,
how do you know I would have given it to you in the end?’

‘You’re
mistaken if you think it’s going to make any difference to the evidence against
Patrick whether you keep it or not,’ Ronald said. ‘There are photo-copies which
will be accepted in court together with evidence of the loss of the original.’

‘Why do
you want it, then?’

‘To
save my own reputation. I get jobs from the police in the detection of
forgeries. I shouldn’t have told anyone about this document — that was my
mistake. And it’s obviously my responsibility that it was stolen. But if I can
produce the letter after all, the matter will be forgotten.’

‘If I
give you the letter will you promise to come and talk to me again?’

‘No,’
Ronald said.

‘I don’t
see why I should give you the letter. You’ve been talking as a friend and
getting round me, and all you want is the letter.’

‘I’m
not a friend, I’m a stranger,’ Ronald said. ‘I’ve quite liked talking to you.’

‘Well,
I’m a stranger too. And I’m keeping the letter. There’s a price on it.’

‘Give
it to me for love.’

‘What
love do I get out of it?’

‘That’s
not the point.’

‘Well,
you’ve got a nerve, I’ll say that. But you all come for what you can get.’

‘Give
it to me for love,’ Ronald said. ‘The best type of love to give is sacrificial.
It’s an embarrassing type of love to receive, if that’s any consolation to you.
The best type of love you can receive is to be taken for granted as a
dependable person and otherwise ignored — that’s more comfortable.’

‘It’s
all talk,’ she said. ‘I’m tired. I’ve been doing a late shift at the “Oriflamme”.’

‘Well,
think about it in the morning.’ He took down his coat and shouldered his way
into it.

‘If I
give you the letter now,’ she said, ‘will you come back again some time?’

‘It’s
unlikely,’ he said. ‘You go to bed. Thank you for talking.’

‘If I
don’t give you the letter what will you do?’

‘I’ll
come back and try again.’

‘Christ!’
she said, ‘you’re driving me mad.’ She went over to the window and thrusting
her arm far into the deep makeshift hem, drew out a four-folded paper. ‘Take it
and run quickly,’ she said. ‘Run now before I change my mind.’ She came and
pushed it into the pocket of Ronald’s coat. ‘Go away,’ she said, ‘get out of my
sight.’

He sat
down in his coat and smoothed out the paper. ‘You’ve crumpled it but let’s hear
what it sounds like,’ he said and read aloud,

‘Dear Patrick,

I
would like you to accept the enclosed cheque for two thousand pounds. Please
use the money to further your psychic and spiritualistic work. I leave the details
of its disposal entirely to you.

May
I say how greatly I admire and have been inspired by your great Work. I shall
never be able to thank you enough.

Yours
sincerely,

Freda
Flower.

‘You’ve
crumpled it,’ Ronald said, ‘but at least you haven’t folded it. In forgery
detection you have to watch out for the folds.’

‘Why’s
that?’

‘Sometimes
a line has been inked over after the fold has been made. The forger very often
has second thoughts about the job after the paper has been folded, and to make
everything perfect he unfolds the paper again and he touches something up; let’s
say the stroke of an ‘f’. It’s possible to see under the microscope if that
sort of thing has been done.’

‘Is
that what Patrick’s done, do you think?’ She peered over at the letter. ‘It
looks like a woman’s writing to me.’