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By Root 2174 0

Divorce proceedings are hell, you’ve got to think, you’ve got to decide, you’ve got to lie. I believe she’s got another chap, I don’t want to know. She goes away a lot, I only wish she didn’t keep coming back, I suppose it’s convenient. The sheer endless destructive bloody spitefulness, the wanton breaking of all the little tentacles of tenderness and joy, all the little spontaneous nonsenses that connect one human being with another. I do try to communicate with her sometimes, and she says the most hurtful thing she can think of in reply. One’s soul becomes numb with the endless blows—and of course one becomes a sort of fiend oneself, that goes without saying, one becomes ingenious in evil. I’ve seen it in other cases, the spouse who feels guilty, even irrationally, is endlessly the victim of the whims of the other, and can take no moral stand. That leads to mutual terrorism. And oh, when we still used to sleep together, lying awake at night and finding one’s only consolation in imagining in detail how one would go downstairs and find a hatchet and smash one’s partner’s head in and mash it into a bloody pudding on the pillow! Ah, Charles, Charles, you know nothing of these marital joys. Have some more whisky.’

‘Thanks. And how’s the little girl? What’s her name? Angela.’ This was Pamela’s daughter by her previous marriage to ‘Ginger’ Godwin.

‘She’s not so little now. Oh, she’s at school. At least I suppose she is, she goes somewhere every day. I ignore her, she ignores me, we never got on. I don’t think Pam sees her either. Pam is drunk a lot of the time now. It’s an edifying scene. Oh Charles, you’re so lucky to have escaped bloody scot free from all those frightful wounding traps where one’s blood flows and one yells with pain and watches oneself becoming a devil. You’re so out of it all, God, you’re clever. You’re such a smooth clean bugger, Charles, your face is so clean and so smooth and pink like a girl’s, I bet you only shave once a month, and your hands are so clean and your bloody nails are clean (look at mine) and you’ve got away with everything, scot free, scot bloody free. Yes, yes, I must get on with getting the bloody divorce, but that means communicating with Pamela and I can’t—I can’t face sitting down with her, or trying to sit down, we don’t sit down any more in each other’s presence, and trying to make a rational plan to rid each other of each other. Maybe she doesn’t want it anyway! It may suit her to live here and use this house as a base for whatever she’s doing! I pay a pretty large amount into her bank every month—’

‘Can’t she get a job or—’

‘Fob? Pam? Laissez-moi rire! Pam was never an actress, she was a starlet. She can’t do anything. She’s lived on men all her life. She lived on Ginger and she lived on some other poor American fish before that and God knows who before that. Ginger still pays her fantastic sums in alimony. And of course she’ll only consent to leave me if I agree to do the same. And do you know, I’m still paying alimony to Rosina, though she’s earning five times what I am. Suis-je un homme, ou une omelette? Sometimes I wonder. I was so bloody fed up and anxious to get rid of her I signed everything. God, if you would only remove Pamela too! You’re a lucky dog. Good clean fun every time and then you ditch them. Christ, you even got away from Clement. Why did I never learn?’

‘If you think I had a joy-ride with Clement—’

‘The trouble with you, Charles, is that basically you despise women, whereas I, in spite of some appearances to the contrary, do not.’

‘I don’t despise women. I was in love with all Shakespeare’s heroines before I was twelve.’

‘But they don’t exist, dear man, that’s the point. They live in the never-never land of art, all tricked out in Shakespeare’s wit and wisdom, and mock us from there, filling us with false hopes and empty dreams. The real thing is spite and lies and arguments about money.’

It might seem from this account that Perry was doing all the talking, and indeed by the end of the evening he was. He is endowed with an Irish flow of words, and when