A Pocketful of Rye by A. J. Cronin Read Free Book Online

looking at each other, we didn’t talk much. Coffee was all we wanted afterwards, and we put it down suspiciously fast.
    Lotte’s apartment was in a new block in Kloten, quite near the airport. I drove there, parked the car at the rear of the building and was beside her as she turned the key in the door. I knew it all: living-room with small kitchen off, bedroom and nicely tiled bathroom, all furnished simply and functionally in modern Scandinavian style and excessively clean. Whenever we entered she drew the curtains in the bedroom, gave me her big warm smile and began with complete naturalness, keeping her eyes on me, to take off her clothes. Soon she was stretched out flat on the bed.
    â€˜Come quick, Laurence. It is too long since the last time … I want lots and lots of loving.’
    Stark naked, lit by the filtered daylight, she invited the physical act openly, naturally and with undisguised desire.
    Afterwards, she studied my face, so intense, it seemed to amuse her.
    â€˜We must have a cigarette.’ She rolled over, like a big languid cream-fed yellow cat, reaching to the bedside table, speaking in English which she knew moderately well. ‘Then again we have much more fun-fun.’
    That, exactly, was the trouble with Lotte. Bliss when we made love, and afterwards nothing. No tenderness, no persistent sense of belonging, nothing of that yearning which springs not from the body but from the spirit. Of course, an excess of yearning could be dangerous: to my cost I had learned how difficult it could be getting rid of a yearner, particularly the soulful type. But surely, I told myself, there should be something , a communication of the heart rather than the adrenals, that endures after the intensity of such a union. Was I asking for the moon? In this case, perhaps. The Swedes, I reflected sadly, were known as prolific copulators, they took it all in their athletic stride. A hygienic exercise.
    Lotte drew on her cigarette, her mind already diverted to the mundane.
    â€˜Who are these people you are meeting?’
    â€˜I told you, darling. A small boy and his mother. It’s odd … years ago I fancied I was in love with her. Yet in a queer sort of way I almost hated her.’
    â€˜See you go on hating. No more of the other thing.’
    â€˜You can bet on that … But Lotte, you don’t really love me.’
    â€˜So you want to be loved? Heart to heart. And pink roses round the door.’
    â€˜Don’t jeer, Lotte. I mean something deeper … that you can hold on to when you need it … when you’re not on top of the world.’
    She burst out laughing.
    â€˜When the dog barks at you in your dark street.’
    Once, misguidedly, I had tried to confide in her. I was silent. Perhaps she had sensed that she had hurt me. She said quickly:
    â€˜Ah! Love, what is that but meeting trouble? I like you much. We give each other much satisfaction. And I’m not a gold brick.’
    â€˜Gold digger,’ I corrected.
    She repeated the words, laughed, then put her arms round me.
    â€˜Come. We forget love and enjoy each other.’
    It was a quarter to five when she got up and dressed.
    With my hands behind my head I watched her out of one eye. In the comedy of life nothing is nicer than a pretty girl stepping out of short, clean white pants – you can keep all your tiddy pastel shades. The reverse process, the stepping in, now being enacted, strikes a bourgeois note. Drawing the curtains, shutting up shop. But in her perfectly fitting saxe uniform, the cockaded bonnet not the common saucy touch but elegant, she looked distressingly smart. The afternoon, which had slightly tarnished me, had put a bloom on her.
    â€˜We must hurry, or I’ll be late.’
    I sighed and heaved out of bed. My knees creaked. I was no longer young and healthy.
    â€˜I do hate leaving you so soon, Lotte. After being so close to you … it’s a wrench.’
    She shook