Читать книгу The Essence of the Thing - Madeleine John St. - Страница 10

They were all sitting around the kitchen table eating spaghetti and drinking the wine Nicola had brought, except for Guy, who was drinking chocolate-flavoured milk. When they were all done, Guy obtained permission to go and watch television and the adults sat back and sighed at each other.

‘So how’s Jonathan?’ said Susannah.

Nicola was smoking a cigarette. She fiddled with her lighter. ‘I’m not exactly sure,’ she said. ‘Are there grounds for concern?’ asked Susannah, who had from the inception of this relationship believed that there just possibly could be.

‘Well. You see …’

‘Go on.’

‘I went out last night to buy some cigarettes.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘We’d been sitting around watching telly; it was a perfectly average evening.’

‘Yes, I know the sort of thing you mean, we have those too.’

‘And so, anyway, I went out to that offy and got the fags and came straight back, and when I got in, Jonathan called out to me and said, Come in here, I want to talk to you. So I did, I mean I hadn’t even had a chance to take off my coat, and he told me, he said—’

She broke off.

‘Yes?’

‘He said, I want you to move out.’

‘He what?’ cried Susannah.

‘Just like that?’ asked Geoffrey.

‘Yes, just like that.’

Her interlocutors sat there, stunned and appalled.

‘I mean,’ said Susannah, ‘had you no suspicion beforehand—’

‘No, none. I mean, absolutely none.’

‘He must be round the twist.’

‘He seemed perfectly rational.’

‘That’s when they’re at their worst.’

‘Ho hum,’ said Geoffrey.

‘You shut up, you,’ said Susannah.

He ignored this. ‘What happened then?’ he asked.

‘Well—’ said Nicola; and at some length she managed to relate the rest of the conversation and to describe the sensations which it had induced in her.

Her friends were still appalled but they were no longer stunned.

‘He’s a complete and utter rat,’ said Susannah. ‘It’s a merciful release.’

‘Do you really think so?’ said Nicola unhappily. The relating of the tale had left her shaken.

‘Absolutely,’ said Susannah. ‘He’s a rat.’

‘Well, perhaps not exactly a rat,’ said Geoffrey. ‘But certainly a prat. A prat, definitely. But that was always obvious. I mean, just look at the guy. You’re better off without him, much.’

‘But I love him,’ said Nicola, and burst into tears. Susannah slid her chair around until it was beside Nicola’s, and put her arm around her friend’s shaking shoulders. ‘There, have a good cry, darling,’ she said. ‘Susannah’s here.’ She continued to hold her as close as she could, patting her back from time to time, and meanwhile she turned her head and shot a withering look at her husband. ‘Piss off,’ she mouthed at him, and after raising his eyebrows he muttered an excuse and got up and left the room.

‘There,’ said Susannah, ‘there, there. Have a good cry. Stupid men. There, there.’