Читать книгу The Essence of the Thing - Madeleine John St. - Страница 11

Nicola at last dried her tears, and sat silent and desolate while Susannah made some tea. She looked down at her teacup. ‘Jonathan may be a rat,’ she said. ‘That is, he is acting like a rat, at the moment. And he might go on being a rat now for good. But he isn’t a prat. Truly he isn’t. I know you think so, but really he isn’t.’

‘That was Geoff’s word, not mine,’ said Susannah.

‘But I suppose you agree,’ said Nicola.

‘Well, every rat is ipso facto a prat,’ Susannah pointed out.

Nicola had on reflection to concur. ‘Alright then,’ she said. ‘Let’s say he’s a prat. But he’s the prat I love.’ She paused. ‘Actually, I’ve never been absolutely sure what prat means, exactly.’

‘I’ve never been absolutely sure what love means, exactly.’

‘It means, that even when someone acts like a rat, and/or a prat, you still want to stay with them.’

‘Some people would call that masochism.’

‘Oh.’

The abyss opened up before her. Who knew what anything meant, exactly? How far into that darkness would one have to fall, or painstakingly climb, before one discovered meaning and truth – even assuming that they were, ultimately, there to be found? She scrambled as far away from the edge as she presently could.

‘The trouble is,’ she said, ‘that one goes on fancying a person. No matter how badly they might behave.’

‘Yes, that is the trouble, alright,’ said Susannah. ‘That’s all the trouble.’

‘It must be a sort of trick,’ said Nicola, wondering. ‘To make sure that we go on reproducing, no matter what. Not that sex these days has anything to do with reproduction; but still.’

‘We’re hooked up to the old mechanism, nevertheless. It’s a mean old trick alright.’

They were both silent for a while. Susannah at last very tentatively spoke. ‘Did this thing last night,’ she said, ‘really come out of the blue? Had you really no idea that it might be in his mind?’

Nicola didn’t answer immediately She was trying to collect her memories and her thoughts. ‘There have been a few rat-like moments,’ she said. ‘But nothing like this. Nothing suggesting this.’ She paused again, and sat, thinking. ‘Perhaps I’ve been simply obtuse,’ she said slowly.

‘I always think it’s better to be obtuse than paranoid,’ said Susannah.

Nicola smiled wanly. ‘At least the paranoid are always prepared,’ she said. ‘For the worst, I mean.’

‘Were you prepared for the best?’ asked her friend. There, at last, clearly, it was. ‘Yes,’ said Nicola. ‘I thought it was only a matter of time, I mean, not very much time, before we’d decide to marry.’

‘Marriage being “the best”, eh?’

‘It must be, mustn’t it?’

‘Until we think of something even better.’

‘What could that be?’

‘Ah, if we only knew.’

Guy entered the room. ‘Tell us,’ said Susannah, ‘what could be better than marriage, Guy?’ ‘Salvation,’ he replied. His elders howled. ‘Where do you learn these words?’ asked Susannah. ‘I learned that in RE,’ said Guy. ‘I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it’s meant to be very good, so it might be better than marriage.’

‘Can’t you have both?’

‘Well, I suppose so, but salvation is still probably the better of the two.’

‘The better of the two,’ repeated Susannah. ‘Very good, Guy. Very good.’ ‘OK,’ he said. He now remembered what he had come in for. ‘Can I have another caramel?’