Love Among the Single Classes by Angela Lambert Read Free Book Online Page A

strange fluttering massage called
‘effleurage’
on my hugely inflated stomach. I panted through the second stage, proud of the midwife’s approval and of the fact that I wasn’t letting Paul down by needing drugs or gas and air; until suddenly, with unimaginable force and urgency, my new-born son was there.
    I discovered with my two subsequent babies that I possessed that most rare and practical female talent: instant birth. Our first daughter was born with such indecent haste that the midwife hadn’t even been summoned, let alone had time to reach us. Twenty minutes from first to last gasp, before she slid into Paul’s waiting hands. Textbook,’ said her father smugly; ‘total textbook.’
    I was a diligent pupil, eager to learn all that books could teach. Our shelves were a reflection of my various enthusiasms, some of them short-lived – Arthurian Britain, sixteenth-century Japan – and others prolonged over two decades. When Paul left me, and his absence turned into a definite separation, and then into a divorce, we agreed very simply that he should take the car, all the records and the stereo system, which I had used so seldom that I was still inclined to call it a gramophone, leaving me all the books.
    My walk back home from the library is another of the comforting rituals of my day. It’s only half a mile, but I can seldom resist going via the baker to buy treats for the children’s tea, even now; the Greek greengrocer, who loves to hear me say
‘Endaxi’
and
‘Malister’
, as Stavros has taught me; the flowershop or postershop or stationers. These few hundred yards are my village; here I am known and recognized and greeted and safe. Shopkeepers and sometimes even parents consult me about how to persuade their children to read; yet when I say, ‘But do you read yourself, Mr Kyriakos? Are there books around the place?’ they look baffled or offended. The Indian lady in the stationery shop tells me in her staccato, tinkling voice that it’s disgraceful the way young schoolboys come in and snigger over the men’s magazines, which she calls ‘porny books’, and how thankful she is that her own sons are safely cloistered in a fee-paying school, away from such temptations.
    It’s getting dark by the time I reach home – this time yesterday and the day before, Iwo and I were together – and the house too is in darkness. Of course: Monday is Kate’s jazz practice session and she’ll be home late. The other two are away for the rest of the week. I have the houseto myself, and more time to think about Iwo.
    Not an hour has passed all day long without my thinking about him, but those were hurried, incomplete thoughts. Now I have time to sit down and think about him in leisurely, languid detail. I start by toying with the temptation to ring him. Even though I know I won’t, nevertheless I imagine finding out his phone number: comparatively easy, now that I have his address, and then ringing the house, and asking for him, and his coming to the phone … and then what? My mind plays two possible conversations. One goes:
    â€˜Hello, Iwo? This is Constance.’
    â€˜Constance! My dear! How good! How much I have been thinking about you.’
    â€˜Oh, Iwo, me too … Didn’t we have a wonderful weekend?’
    â€˜Extraordinary.’ He would say ‘extraordinary’. It’s one of our key words.
    In counterpoint to this trusting little dialogue however there runs a more cryptic conversation.
    â€˜Hello, Iwo? It’s Constance.’
    â€˜Yes Constance, good evening.’
    â€˜How are you?’
    â€˜I am well, thank you. I am sorry I did not escort you home yesterday evening. I hope you arrived safe.’
    â€˜Oh yes, heavens yes, yes of course I did. Thank you.’
    â€˜So. You are well?’
    â€˜Oh fine, yes, fine …’
    After which it peters out in humiliation