The Accidental Woman Read Online Free PDF

Yes, that’s it.’ He peered more closely at the mirror. And I think I know how to start. I think I know where the change will have to be made. I shall grow… a moustache.’
    Maria left him to it, walked out into the sunlight. Bright blue summer. She walked into town, jostled with the shoppers, gazed at the buildings, sat in a cafe, tried to feel part of a crowd. It didn’t work. She heard the noises, distinguished the words, saw the faces, but at a distance, even now at a great distance. Alone. Alone, she left the cafe and walked towards Magdalen bridge. Light played on the water, shot it through with a cleaner green, light lit up her hair as she began her slow return. She trailed, conscious all around her of beauty, fond of the warm and pleased by the sense of a day already on the wane. A tremor of gladness, that’s all, hardly noticed, and hardly to be trusted, for she had only her own word for it, alone.

3. Two Companions
    Next year Maria was given a room to herself, which was a relief, by now. It meant that she could stand undisturbed at the window and watch the greyness thicken into black. The leaves, and then the lights. She saw very little of Charlotte. Their paths crossed, occasionally, as paths do, try as you may, and at first Maria was worried lest their sudden meetings should each and always begin on a note of private panic, those little frantic moments of rehearsal, followed by the heavy cheerful hello, delivered to the earth. But Charlotte, it soon became clear, did not want to say hello to her any more, which suited Maria, down to the ground.
    There were six rooms on her landing. She was expected to share a bathroom and a lavatory with her neighbours, which she did not mind, because after all such arrangements, whatever their other drawbacks, rarely involve the bathroom or the lavatory being occupied by more than one user at a time. The kitchen was another matter. She was also expected to share the kitchen, and this of course was out of the question. And yet to be certain of having the kitchen to herself, she would have had to cook her meal at a ridiculous hour, at midnight for example, which as it happens is exactly what she got into the habit of doing. And even then, she was not always alone, for Maria had in those days a friend, a new friend. Of her five neighbours, four were the usual harmless lunatics, but one was a girl called Sarah, and in her Maria found something very like a sympathetic spirit, for her she felt something bloody close to friendship, if the truth be told. And so they would do things together sometimes, they came to each other’s rooms, and talked, and Maria found herself asking, on these occasions, the question So what? far less often than she had in the days when she used to be friendly with Louise.
    On grey afternoons Maria would go to Sarah’s room, or Sarah would come to Maria’s room, and they would pass the time together, perhaps in silence. For there is not much to talk about, even between friends. Sometimes they would listen to music together, on the radio or on the record player, drinking tea, or they would read together, in silence. It was a happy time. Maria would look back on it, very occasionally, at a great distance, and think of how happy she had been then, slightly exaggerating of course, and she would feel a small shudder take place inside her, not unrelated to fear, and not unrelated to those other emotions which produce tears. There is nothing more miserable than the memory of happiness, a position which can be held from various standpoints, as will be shown in some of the following chapters. By the same token, or do I mean the opposite token, there is nothing more pleasurable than the anticipation of happiness, and when I say nothing, I do not use the word lightly. For happiness itself, it seemed to Maria, had very little meaning in relation to the time spent either looking forward to it or remembering it. Furthermore the actual experience of it seemed