Despite the Angels - By Madeline A Stringer Page 0,109
me to feel about it?”
“I didn’t expect you to know about it. I didn’t expect you to go delving into the bottom of my drawers and opening the bag I’d hidden there so it wouldn’t upset you. I thought I could have some privacy.”
“Secrecy, you mean. Married people aren’t supposed to have secrets.”
“Who says? I don’t remember promising to tell you absolutely everything I ever do or think.”
“Well you should.”
“I pooed twice yesterday. Used seventeen squares of paper altogether.”
“What?” Kathleen stopped pacing up and down the side of the table.
“You suddenly seem to think I should tell you all my private business. So I thought I’d oblige.”
“What you do in the bathroom is nothing to do with me.”
“Precisely. So my masturbation habits don’t concern you either.”
“They do. It’s sex. It’s for me.”
“Now you’re deluded. How can what I do in private be for you? After you’ve rejected me yet again? I’ve counted the number of times I’ve tried to make love to you and you didn’t allow me. I ran out of fingers a long time ago on that one.”
Kathleen stopped pacing and looked at David.
“Do I?” she said.
“Of course you do. Is it such a habit you don’t even notice? I want to have a normal marriage and you don’t. I don’t know what you want.”
“We do have a marriage. We have two daughters to prove it. And I look after the house for you, and you give me housekeeping money and, and everything.”
“Sounds like playing house.” David looked up at his wife, wondering where everything had gone so wrong. “Sit down, maybe we can talk.” Kathleen pulled out a chair and sat opposite David, picking at her nails and occasionally running her hands through her hair, as she always did when she was unhappy. She glared at David and began to sniff.
“Don’t cry. Nothing has happened.”
“Yes it has. I’ve discovered my husband is being unfaithful.”
“I have not. I could have been, but I haven’t.”
“What do you mean, you could have been? Who is she?”
David ran his hand across his eyes and closed them. He let his mind go back to that young receptionist at work, who had flirted with him so delightfully, the time they had had that impromptu party in the office, after landing the big order. They had all been a little giddy after working through most of the duty-free brought by the English supplier and she had begged him to accompany her to a party that weekend. He had wanted to go, oh how he had wanted to go - he had almost succumbed, particularly after she had cornered him in the kitchenette and kissed him, and he had held her bottom for thirty glorious seconds and felt it tighten as he gently squeezed. It had reminded him he was an attractive man, not just a nuisance, as Kathleen seemed to think.
“Oh yes, Davy, you’re attractive. She was a nice girl, you should have gone to that party. It would have got you away from Kathleen in time. We could easily have got the girl to move on to someone else and got you to Lucy. But no, you had to refuse her and go and buy that magazine to help you over it. It’s a bit ragged, why don’t you get a new one?”
“The only thing I have been unfaithful with, Kay, is a copy of Penthouse. And only because you are frigid.”
“I am NOT! How dare you?” Kathleen’s eyes flashed.
“Well, you are doing a damn good imitation, then. I’ve tried everything I can to turn you on. But nothing works, unless we go on a holiday, then you’re sexy for one day. Hence twice. Two trips this year.”
“I might get pregnant.”
“I use condoms, always. And so what if you did get pregnant? We can afford another baby.”
“The girls are nine. What would people think?”
“I don’t care what they think. They’d know we had had sex. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
“I can’t get pregnant, I just can’t.” Kathleen started to cry in earnest. Haliken leant over to Jotin:
“She’s right. She doesn’t know why, but she really can’t bring herself to have a baby. It wasn’t in the original plan.”
“You’d think all bets were off on that, we’ve made such a mess of it. But she doesn’t have to get pregnant, does she? There’s all sorts of things she could do.”
“You’ll have to tie a knot in it, if you want to come near me again.”