The Parasite Person Read Online Free PDF Page B

been dialled yet. He could grasp just enough of what she was saying to feel sure that she was right, but beyond this his mind was a blank.
    He decided to allow himself a little flare-up of petulance. Why not? After all, they’d been living together for over a month now, surely it didn’t have to go on being so bloody idyllic? Not all the time?
    “Just type what’s there,” he admonished her, repressively. “There’s no need at this stage to start looking for discrepancies. Certainly not for the typist to start looking for them.”
    He was sorry the moment he’d said it; the quick dip and swing of her hair as she bent once more to her work told him he’d hurt her. He hadn’t meant to, really he hadn’t; but she shouldn’t go on at him so.
    To compensate for his momentary unkindness it was now necessary to go across and lean over her shoulder, to praise her—indeed over-praise her—for the excellence of her work, and to tell her how beautiful she’d been looking, sitting here at the typewriter so sweet and serious, and all for him.
    She melted at once, of course, and he kissed her, smudging her lipstick so that it had to be done all over again. He knew how she gloried in this sort of thing: there can’t be many history mistresses who have to re-do their lipstick twice before going in to their first lesson of the morning.
    *
    Twenty minutes later she was gone, and at the sound of the outer door closing behind her, such a wave of relief washed over him as stopped him in his tracks, absolutely appalled.
    It was the awful familiarity of the feeling that frightened him most. This was precisely and exactly the way he’d always felt about doors slamming behind his wife. Any door, anywhere, ever. In her case, of course, it had been right and proper to feel like this; reassuring, in a way, a sign that the marriage was collapsing in just the way a marriage should collapse. Almost with nostalgia, he recalled those slamming doors of his former life, ushering in, as they did, stretches of wonderful peace and silence while Beatrice sobbed in the bedroom, sulked in the kitchen, or even merely refused to speak to him, passing him on the stairs with averted, swollen eyes. Whatever the form of her withdrawal, it was always an improvement on what had gone before, and brought with it a sense of release and freedom. No doubt the relief on these occasions was only the proverbial relief experienced by those who cease to bang their heads against brick walls, but all the same it was a welcome respite, and very understandable. What was not so understandable was how this very same relief could be experienced by one who no longer has a brick wall to bang his head against; who is, on the contrary, living a life as near to paradisal as mortal man can hope for. How could it be that the emotions engendered by a sour and hostile estranged wife could be thus transposed, in their entirety, on to the image of an adored and adoring mistress? How could such a thing be possible?
    It couldn’t, obviously. There must be some other explanation; and. to Martin, with all his psychological training and know-how, the explanation was as obvious as it was reassuring.
    What was happening, quite simply, was that his nervous system had, over the years with Beatrice, become conditioned to react like this to the sound of a slamming door, so that now, like any Pavlov dog, he was incapable of reacting in any other way.
    Yes, that was it. A simple stimulus-response phenomenon, nothing to do with Helen herself or how much he loved her.
    All was explained. His boundless and unqualified love for Helen was still intact. With a clear conscience, he could now permithimself to relax into this wonderful sense of solitude, of lightness, of restored well-being, knowing that it was spurious, a mere hangover from the unhappy past. He could make himself a fresh cup of coffee, too, exactly the way he liked it, instead of in that blasted percolator. Strong and black, and with lots