Love Read Online Free PDF

room.
    ‘Of course, I can hardly expect you to be faithful to me.’
    ‘So that’s it!’ thought Lee and knew the affair was at an end. He chose his words carefully.
    ‘I dunno. You’ve got every right to
expect
me to be faithful to you but whether I am or not, that’s a different kettle of fish, isn’t it?’
    She continued to stalk around the room so stormily he became embarrassed for her as her behaviour seemed far in emotional excess of the circumstances.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me yourself?’
    ‘No business of yours.’
    ‘Thank you,’ she said ironically.
    ‘Look,’ said Lee. ‘Something’s biting you over and above me pulling a piece of stray.’
    ‘To hear you talk, who would ever believe you were an undergraduate?’
    At that, Lee decided to hurt her feelings.
    ‘Here, are you scared I’ll give you crabs or something, or some vile disease?’
    When she kicked him with her naked foot, he realized this analysis was correct and, as he went sprawling, he began to laugh. This made her angrier than ever.
    ‘Couldn’t you have told me about this girl yourself?’
    ‘I haven’t got a talking mouth,’ said Lee. He returned again to his oriental squat and turned upon her vengefully the full, disconcerting force of his dazzling smile for it had never occurred to him to tell her about Annabel since this other woman was so unimportant to him. Not that Annabel was, as yet, important to him. She lit a cigarette curtly, averting her head so as to regain her composure. It was a pleasant room, full of books and newspapers. Lee read a spine or two.
    ‘You are quite irrelevant to me, a thing. An object. The first time I slept with you, it was an
acte gratuit
. An
acte gratuit
,’ she repeated with some irritation for he did not seem to understand her. ‘Do you know what I mean?’
    Lee said nothing, out of spite.
    ‘It was meaningless and absurd. It was a contentless act but, then, everything was contentless as if nothing cast any shadow, except my children and I couldn’t communicate with them.’
    She fell silent. Lee glanced at her from under his lashes, half sorry for her, half extremely irritated. The silence lengthened. At last he stood up.
    ‘Well, I’d better be getting along,’ he said.
    ‘You’re a rat,’ she said. ‘You rat.’
    Lee wanted nothing except to get out of the house as quickly as he could and would have agreed to anything she said. He nodded briskly.
    ‘Yeah, I’m a rat,’ he said. ‘A rat of working-class origins,’ he amplified.
    At that, she jumped up and pummelled him with her fists.He caught hold of her wrists and hit her once. She subsided immediately and touched her cheek wonderingly with her fingertips.
    ‘She’s got funny eyes,’ said Lee. ‘I quite like her, if you want to know. She doesn’t say much. And she’ll probably have to go when my brother comes home, anyway.’
    In moments of stress, his grammar-school accent collapsed completely. He was surprised to appreciate the extent of his agitation and also to hear his own words; since he never spoke anything but the truth, he must have become attached to Annabel. He was bewildered and blinked a little. Due to his chronic eye infection, his eyes watered under bright lights, weariness or strain; the lights were low but his eyes began to water. She pulled away her hands for the touch of his skin had become unbearable to her and gazed at him with wonder as she recalled his past physical tenderness. She was full of unbelieving pain to realize at last such caresses had been quite involuntary and, in a sense, nothing to do with her, no kind of tribute.
    ‘What the fuck do you want from me, anyway?’ demanded Lee with some brutality. ‘You want me to ask you to leave your husband and come and live with me?’
    ‘I’d never do that,’ she said immediately.
    ‘Well, then,’ said Lee and sighed. At this time, he did not appreciate shades of meaning. He thought a door must either be open or closed and that, in