The Man Who Went Down With His Ship Read Online Free PDF Page B

Dorothy, and beautiful as she undoubtedly was—tall and blonde with a low, soft voice—there was something bitter and resentful about her. She didn’t so much object to the wealth and power of his society friends, as not see why she, who was better looking and more intelligent than almost every one of them, didn’t have such wealth and power herself. Deep down, too, she didn’t see why she, with all her advantages, should at the age of thirty-nine have a bald fifty-five year old and half-crazy poet as a lover, instead of some smooth, good-looking, probably crass industralist whom she might loathe but who at least allowed her to forget that by birth, upbringing and intellectual, if not emotional inclination, she was on the side of the ugly, the persecuted and the sick. Of course he was being unfair thinking such things of her; and even if there was an element of resentment in her feelings towards his friends she was perfectly justified in objecting to Louise’s behaviour. Nevertheless, he did wish she wouldn’t use such crude, debased jargon like ‘rich bitches’ and ‘fascist cows’; and he did wish she would see that the more immediate question was not how his friends were going to behave, but what was to be done about her and Matilda. It was all very well his deciding to be a hero. Should, though, the writer of that letter be serious and do something to either of them, he’d never forgive himself.
    A point he put to Dorothy when he had finished sulking, andwhen he had added, after perhaps half a minute, that ‘just because Louise is like that, it doesn’t mean that everyone else will be. Besides, maybe she was just feeling out of sorts this evening.’
    ‘Out of sorts, my arse,’ Dorothy snarled, and blew the smoke of her Gauloise in his face. ‘I bet she’s already been on the phone telling all her friends that you’ve finally gone too potty and you’re really going to have to be ditched.’
    If the thought of Louise and her like had called forth scorn, however, the suggestion that he would never be able to forgive himself if she and Matilda were kidnapped, or had acid thrown in their face, or were murdered, provoked only a smile from Dorothy. ‘I don’t suppose I’d ever forgive you either, lovey,’ she said, and gave him a kiss. ‘But I’m sure they weren’t serious. What did the police say?’
    Alfred shrugged. ‘They said they weren’t serious. They said that people who write anonymous letters rarely are. But you can’t be sure, can you? And frankly …’
    ‘Well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I can’t just disappear. I’ve got to work. And I don’t see Tilda giving up her horses, or her boys, just because someone’s threatening to kill her.’
    ‘No, I guess not. I just thought—oh, I don’t know.’ Alfred sighed. ‘Maybe I am jejune, and tiresome, and boring. And in a way, you know, I liked everyone to think I had behaved badly. But I really didn’t, you know,’ he muttered, once again sounding petulant; or like a baby who is sure he’ll never be believed. ‘In fact, I mean I know it sounds terribly immodest or unmodest. But I was practically the only person who didn’t.’
    *
    A statement which, Alfred admitted to himself over the days and weeks ahead, as he settled down to his task, wasn’t strictly true. What would have been more accurate, though it mighthave sounded still less modest, was that while some people had behaved very badly indeed and he, he had to say, had behaved very well, most people had behaved neither badly nor well. They had simply—behaved. Had done what they had been told to do by whoever had the presence of mind to give them an order, of it hardly mattered what nature. Had not done what they had not been told to do, even if under normal circumstances they would have done it like a shot. And had, by and large, closed their minds to the evidence of their senses, and neither seen nor heard what, also under normal circumstances, would have