Love, Again. Doris Lessing
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Love, Again - Doris Lessing страница 28
Название: Love, Again
Автор: Doris Lessing
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9780007389391
isbn:
‘No, it’s not our American sponsor.’
Mary Ford went off down the stairs, that solid young woman like a milkmaid in jeans – her joke. Sandy asked to use the bathroom. Molly went to the door, with Bill just behind her. Sarah, returning from showing Sandy to the bathroom, saw that Bill, unable to resist the waves of longing from Molly, had bestowed himself in an embrace. Molly was dissolved in it, eyes closed. Over Molly’s head Bill saw Sarah. He put Molly away from him; she went blindly off. Bill came to Sarah, slid his hand down her back, and kissed her. On the mouth. Nothing at all brotherly about this kiss. He breathed in her ear, ‘See you, Sarah,’ and slid a hot cheek against hers. Sandy could be heard coming from the bathroom, and before he appeared, Bill had quickly stepped back from the embrace and was going out. Sarah watched the two young men depart down the stairs.
She returned to her bedroom and sat on the edge of her bed and listened to Stephen. He was talking in broken sentences. ‘What is this all about, Sarah? What is it? I don’t understand. If only I could understand it…’ He was on the other end of that line for perhaps half an hour. Silences. She could hear him breathe, long, sighing, almost sobbing breaths. Once she thought he had put down the telephone, but when she said, ‘Stephen?’ he said, ‘Don’t go, Sarah.’
Later he said, ‘I suppose I must go and help Elizabeth. I said I would. She does need me, you know. Sometimes I think I’m just an irrelevance, but then I see she relies on me. That’s something, I suppose.’ Then, ‘Sarah?’
‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘And I rely on you. I can’t imagine what you’re thinking. I feel as if something has come up from the depths and grabbed me by the ankle.’
‘I understand, absolutely.’
‘You do?’ He was disquieted: solid and equable Sarah, that was her role.
Act Two ended with Julie’s miscarriage of Rémy’s baby, theatrically so much easier than the death of a small child, which, they knew, would have take the play over, have had the audience awash with tears. Besides, a child was always a nuisance at rehearsals, and if they took her to France she would need minders and nannies. Interesting, how much discussion went on about this. Some found the decision cynical. Henry particularly did. He said, ‘It’s much easier to believe that this child didn’t mean all that much to her, oh no, it was just one of those things, she was pregnant and then she had a miscarriage, too bad.’ Henry had a small son, carried photographs of his family, American-style, showed them to everybody and rang his wife every night. Andrew Stead certainly didn’t like it. He protested that his child had been callously disposed of. In life, he pointed out, Rémy had gone to the house in the forest to play with the child, had begged the family to see that the child was a reason for marriage. Then Bill reminded them that Julie had had a real miscarriage, of his child. Everyone forgot that, he complained. He was sure Paul minded about that miscarriage. Julie had said he did. The journals were consulted. Everyone was reading them. Sarah took her stand on what would ‘work’. The point was the effect on the townspeople. They said that Julie had killed her child. But in the play they say Julie induced a miscarriage by swimming in the forest pool’s icy water. The essential thing was that she must be blamed for the loss of the child. ‘And we can’t have two miscarriages – two deaths.’ Attempting an echo, from Oscar Wilde, she said, ‘To lose one child is sad, to lose two simply careless.’ She noted that the Americans did not laugh but the English did. The English in this context included Bill Collins. Sandy and Bill broke, on a single inspiration, into a recital of ‘Ruthless Rhymes’, an exuberant performance.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.