Alice Hartley‘s Happiness. Philippa Gregory

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СКАЧАТЬ was a statuesque and beautiful woman long neglected, and the other was a shrimpy and sexually-frustrated youth. By the time that Michael’s window had lightened with the early sunlight of summer they were mutually satisfied, and mutually exhausted. They both believed themselves to be deeply in love.

      There was an abrupt loud knocking on the door. Michael clutched at Alice wide-eyed.

      ‘Could that be your husband, Mrs Hartley?’ he asked in a frightened whisper.

      Alice beamed with satisfaction at the thought. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You answer it, I’ll hide by the sink.’

      The sink in Michael’s room was recessed in the wall. If Alice stood very still and breathed in and did not breathe out, she could not be seen in a casual inspection of the room from the door.

      Michael nodded, bundled as many of the scarves as he could grab under the bed, and opened the door.

      ‘Urgent message,’ said the porter. ‘You Michael Coulter?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Michael.

      ‘Urgent message from the Dean’s secretary,’ said the porter. ‘Thought I’d bring it straight over.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Michael said. He took the envelope and came back into the room, closing the door behind him.

      Alice was red-cheeked and gasping.

      Michael turned the envelope over and over in his hands.

      ‘I suppose I’d better open it,’ he said.

      She took it from him with a quick authoritative movement and passed her broad hand first one side of the envelope, and then the other.

      ‘There is nothing in here which will distress you,’ she said certainly. ‘Objects have auras just as people do. There is nothing in here which will cause you any pain. This has a healthy aura. It will be news of a development for you, for growth. Nothing bad.’

      Michael was deeply impressed. He opened the envelope with new confidence. It read:

      REGRET TO INFORM YOU,

       AUNTY SARAH NEAR DEATH. COME AT ONCE.

      It was signed ‘Simmonds’ with the letters ‘GP’ afterwards.

      Michael looked blankly at Alice.

      ‘Were you very close to your Aunty Sarah?’ she asked.

      Michael shook his head. ‘I hardly know her,’ he said. ‘She is much older than my father, a funny old biddy who lives out in the old vicarage at Rithering. I’ve only been over once since I’ve been here. I should have gone more often I suppose.’

      ‘There you are then!’ Alice said triumphantly. ‘The auras are never wrong. I said it was a healthy aura.’

      ‘Not very healthy for Aunty Sarah,’ Michael said reflectively.

      Alice paused. ‘She is just moving to another plane,’ she said. ‘Will you go and see her at once?’

      ‘Will you come?’ Michael asked quickly and then blushed. ‘I mean’, he said, ‘I suppose you’ve got loads of other things to do, moving house and all that.’

      Alice looked surprised, she had forgotten the furniture. She had, in any case, nowhere to go.

      ‘That can wait,’ she said. ‘We do not yet know each other well, Michael, but I can promise you that I would never waste my time on trivial housewife details.’ She hissed the word housewife through clenched teeth. She had not forgotten Charles’s slight on her carrot cakes. ‘Not when there are elemental forces at work. The great chasms of death and birth are around us all the time. We must be ready for them. I will come with you.’

      Michael threw his arms around her naked waist and pressed his face into her neck. He felt a sudden stirring as if his deepest essences were ready for plunging again, but Alice gently disengaged herself.

      ‘Not now,’ she said softly. ‘We must go to your Aunt. The old lady will be waiting for you, she may want your help to move her into a fresh astral plane. You must centre yourself, root yourself in the earthly elements. I will help you.’

      Michael nodded obediently, put both feet into one trouser leg and fell to the floor.

      Alice regarded him with affection. ‘Get dressed,’ she said. ‘I have to go to the health centre and see someone. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

      She threw her gown over her head and tied half a dozen scarves about her person, three on her head, one on each wrist, one at her waist, and slipped from the room.

      Outside, the campus was quiet with the early-morning stillness of centres of great learning. Students were not yet awake and those faculty members who had survived the most recent wave of redundancies and were still clinging to salaries and offices were writing their novels, their guides to Provence, and malicious letters to specialist journals. Alice glided easily across the dew-soaked grass with her wide dancing stride and ran lightly up the steps to the university medical centre and into the counselling room.

      Professor Hartley was at the window, he had been watching her. Sitting in his shadow was a small elderly woman in grey. She wore pale grey shoes, stone-grey tights under a buff-grey skirt. Her shirt was grey silk, her cardigan was shapeless-grey. Her hair was natural grey. Her smile was professionally serene.

      ‘Welcome, Alice,’ she said kindly.

      Alice tossed her an angry look. Her husband she totally ignored.

      There was a short silence. Professor Hartley seethed in silence like a small culture of poisonous yeast.

      ‘Shall I start?’ the counsellor asked.

      Alice, who had been gazing sulkily at her red varnished toes peeping through her golden sandals, glanced up and shrugged her broad shoulders. The Professor nodded.

      ‘I notice you have arrived separately this morning,’ the counsellor said, her voice carefully neutral. ‘Would you tell me, Alice, why that is?’

      Alice glowered at her. ‘I imagine you know perfectly well.’

      The counsellor’s raised eyebrows and innocent look expressed total bafflement. ‘What do you mean, Alice?’ she asked with playgroup patience. ‘Remember our rule here: no ambiguous statements!’

      Alice jerked her head at Professor Hartley who was standing with his back to the window, blocking the light. ‘I imagine Charles has told you that I have left him!’ Alice said defiantly.

      The counsellor put her head on one side like a small grey canary. ‘And if he had told me, and please notice, Alice, that I do not say he has told me, what do you imagine that Charles would say about you?’ she asked.

      Alice laughed shortly. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Not again. I have wasted years trying to work out what Charles thinks. I have wasted a lifetime trying to please him.’ She pointed an accusing finger at the counsellor. ‘You have wasted hours and hours trying to work out what Charles wants. I am here today to say only one thing: that I am not coming into this СКАЧАТЬ