The Sacred and Profane Love Machine Read Online Free PDF Page B

something.’
    ‘I understand Magnus’s case, for God’s sake, Harriet.’
    ‘All right, all right. It’s just that he must be so unhappy.’
    ‘These acute anxiety states aren’t quite unhappiness. They are not quite believed in. Magnus feels he’s going to be punished for some crime which he can’t remember, and not being able to remember is part of the guilt. But this is quite an exciting condition, and all the bumping and touching keeps the punishment at bay.’
    ‘Is he as fat as ever?’
    ‘He’s a compulsive eater.’
    ‘How I sympathize. So am I. Pass the chocolates, darling. I think you should write his case history, he’s so picturesque. I wish you could persuade him to see you at a civilized time of day.’
    ‘He’s incurably nocturnal. He even looks like a potto. He only comes alive in the evening.’
    ‘Then he takes half your night and exhausts you. Those patients are eating you.’
    ‘No, I eat them actually. Let’s get off Magnus, can we?’
    ‘Well, I’ll ring the Andersons. No, I don’t want to go without you, not there. Anderson just wants to talk shop with you. And she is so intense and odd. They asked Monty too, by the way. He refused.’
    ‘He needs to get out and see more people. Are you going over tomorrow?’
    ‘Yes. That’s unhappiness.’
    ‘He’s got to get through his mourning like a long illness. You are good for him.’
    ‘I hope so. You don’t think he’s likely to kill himself?’
    ‘Monty? No. No.’
    ‘He looks so pathetic and wretched, like a sort of lost Harlequin. And yet he looks so sort of pale and clerical too, like a mad priest in one of his stories. He only needs a black hat. If only he could start writing again.’
    ‘I suspect he’s sick to death of Milo Fane.’
    ‘All the same it must be wonderful to have invented a character that everybody knows about. There are even Milo Fane Detective Sets at the Supermarket.’
    ‘Old Monty must be coining money.’
    ‘I rather wish we had TV. There’s another Milo Fane series on. The papers say Richard Nailsworth is marvellous as Milo.’
    ‘No, girl, no. No television. Anyway you don’t like Monty’s books any more than I do.’
    ‘I’ve never said so to him.’
    ‘Don’t. Writers may know they’re bad, but there’s always a precious bit of vanity left. I’m afraid Monty’s books are all the same, at least the later ones are.’
    ‘I know, Milo has gone all moral and the victim turns out to be the murderer’s long lost mother or something. I wonder why Monty has never written a straight novel?’
    ‘He probably can’t. And there’s the cash. Earning those sums could become a habit.’
    ‘And then he marries a rich girl. Odd how money always finds money.’
    ‘Sophie might have been a better actress if she hadn’t been so confoundedly well off.’
    ‘B. darling, shall I ask Monty about – you know – lending us money?’
    ‘No, for God’s sake. Nothing’s decided yet.’
    ‘You keep saying that and I feel it’s because of me. You think I wouldn’t want to be married to a poor medical student. How wrong you are!’
    ‘I know, my darling,’ said Blaise, ‘that you’d stand by me in anything. You’d weather any crisis. I thank you and bless you. But it’s a big step and we must think —’
    ‘I’ve thought. I’m for it.’
    ‘You said it was mad.’
    ‘I just said that at first because I was surprised. And I only meant wonderful-mad. Let’s go straight ahead, and let Magnus Bowles and the rest of them find another trick-cyclist.’
    ‘You are so brave, girl darling.’
    ‘I’m not, dearest B. I’m not making any sacrifice. I don’t want to be anywhere else but right behind you, looking at the world through your eyes. I have no other being, no other vision.’
    ‘My own girl —’
    ‘Shall I say anything to Monty about the orchard?’
    ‘We can’t both borrow his money and buy his orchard!’
    ‘So I should say something about the money?’
    ‘Not yet,