Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [82]
‘If I could afford to buy the clothes she buys.’ Chanel, Lanvin,—the pages of Vogue floated before her eyes—Molyneux, Groult….At one of those cheap-smart shops where cocottes buy their clothes, off Shaftesbury Avenue, there was a model for sixteen guineas. ‘He likes her because she’s attractive. But if I had the money…’ It wasn’t fair. He was making her pay for not being well off. She had to suffer because he didn’t earn enough to buy her good clothes.
And then there was the baby. He was making her pay for that. His child. He was bored with her, because she was always tired and ill; he didn’t like her any more. That was the greatest injustice of all.
A cell had multiplied itself and become a worm, the worm had become a fish, the fish was turning into the foetus of a mammal. Marjorie felt sick and tired. Fifteen years hence a boy would be confirmed. Enormous in his robes, like a full-rigged ship, the Bishop would say: ‘Do ye here in the presence of God, and of this congregation, renew the solemn promise and vow that was made in your name at your Baptism?’ And the ex-fish would answer with passionate conviction: ‘I do.’
For the thousandth time she wished she were not pregnant. Walter might not succeed in killing her now. But perhaps it would happen in any case, when the child was born. The doctor had said it would be difficult for her to have a baby. The pelvis was narrow. Death reappeared before her, a great pit at her feet.
A sound made her start violently. The outside door of the flat was being furtively opened. The hinges squeaked. There were muffled footsteps. Another squeak, the hardly perceptible click of the spring latch being carefully let back into place, then more footsteps. Another click and simultaneously the light showed yellow under the door that separated her room from his. Did he mean to go to bed without coming to bid her goodnight? She lay quite still, quiveringly awake, her eyes wide open, listening to the noises that came from the other room and to the quick terrified beating of her own heart.
Walter sat on the bed unlacing his shoes. He was wondering why he had not come home three hours before, why he had ever gone out at all. He hated a crowd; alcohol disagreed with him and the twice-breathed air, the smell, the smoke of restaurants acted on him like a depressing poison. He had suffered to no purpose; except for those painful exasperating moments in the taxi, he had not been alone with Lucy the whole evening. The hours he had spent with her had been hours of boredom and impatience—endlessly long, minute after minute of torture. And the torture of desire and jealousy had been reinforced by the torture of selfconscious guilt. Every minute they lingered at Sbisa’s, every minute among the revolutionaries, was a minute that retarded the consummation of his desire and that, increasing Marjorie’s unhappiness, increased at the same time his own remorse and shame. It was after three when finally they left the club. Would she dismiss Spandrell and let him drive her home? He looked at her; his eyes were eloquent. He willed, he commanded.
‘There’ll be sandwiches and drinks at my house,’ said Lucy, when they were in the street.
‘That’s very welcome news,’ said Spandrell.
‘Come along, Walter darling.’ She took his hand, she pressed it affectionately.
Walter shook his head. ‘I must go home.’ If misery could kill, he would have died there in the street.
‘But you can’t desert us now,’ she protested. ‘Now that you’ve got thus far, you