Reality and Dreams by Muriel Spark Read Free Book Online Page B

customers, mostly very young and not very prosperous-looking.
    ‘The
less money they have,’ said Tom, ‘the more home movie-cameras they buy. I don’t
understand why.’
    ‘They’ll
put you out of business,’ said Dave.
    ‘They
look unemployed to me,’ said Tom.
    ‘Publicans
and sinners.’
    ‘How do
you know? No man has hired them. It’s in the Bible that Jesus saw those men
idle in the market place, looking for jobs. He said they should get paid just
the same as those who had work. They were waiting around all day to be hired,
and at the end of the day they said “No man has hired us.” According to Jesus,
they were entitled to their pay just the same as those who had done a day’s
work.’
    ‘My
brother-in-law is out of work,’ Dave said. ‘He was in a pizza-bar and they
sacked him to take on a man for less pay. He’s fighting a case, but in the meantime
where does it get him? And he spends more time looking for a job, going through
all the regular routes, than a lot of employed fellows. Redundancy worries me;
it hangs over us all.’
    ‘There
should always be a job for a driver, especially a cab-driver.’
    ‘Should
be. But it doesn’t work that way.’ Let us go then, you and I,…
    ‘Do you
know the lines from a poet, T.S. Eliot:
     
    ‘Let us go then, you and I,
    When the evening is spread out against the sky
    Like a patient etherised upon a table;…’?
     
    ‘No,
never heard that before.’ ‘What do you suppose it means?’ ‘Say it again.’
    Tom
repeated it.
    ‘I’d
say it means that here’s these people going out for a walk in the evening and
they’re going to discuss a third person, someone not there. And these two are
going to talk about that third person, the patient.’
    ‘Analyse
him, take him to bits?’
    ‘Something
of that. Don’t you know what it means?’
    ‘Nobody
really knows.’
    When he
got home Tom woke up Claire who had just fallen asleep. He handed out his
spectacles case to her. ‘Imagine,’ he said, ‘that this contains a present. Show
me how you would take it.’
    Claire
hesitated, smiled, put out her hand and took the case.
    ‘That’s
it!’ said Tom. ‘There is a way of accepting a present. The hand should linger.
It’s been worrying me all day. The actress who’s playing Nora snatches it as if
the present were going to be taken away from her. But you’ve got it right,
Claire. The hand should linger. It’s been nagging me all day. Now, do it again,
let’s see…’
     
    ‘My niece might well drop
out of the film,’ said Mrs. Woodstock to young Alec, the top dress designer at
Blue Moon’s. ‘She says he has been simply terrible since he recovered from his
accident. He was always a temperamental swine but now he’s insufferable. Rose
might quit, any day, any hour. Don’t be surprised if you hear.’
    ‘The
way to get things done, making scenes is definitely not,’ Alec remarked as he
stood back from Elena Woodstock to observe the effect of some pins he had put
into her dress. He came back to her and shifted two pins under her arms. ‘He
has a reputation,’ Alec said, putting his head first to one side and then to
another.
    ‘Rose
will quit,’ said her aunt. ‘Do you know what a demand he made on her yesterday?
— She had to re-do an action that involved receiving a present from a lover.
Well, Rose played it eager. She snatched the jewel case and snapped it open, as
she told me, with a kind of gasp. Was that good enough for Tom Richards? No, it
wasn’t. “You must linger,” he said, as if she hasn’t been acting these
lover-parts for three, four years. “Let the hand linger. Don’t grab.”
Well, Rose wasn’t grabbing, she was just showing eager to see what jewel her
lover had brought. And Tom said in front of everyone, “Rose, I have to talk to
you. Tonight, before you go home. I’d like you to have a drink with me as I’ve
something to explain.”
    ‘Rose
said, “The hell you have, Tom. You can explain why you’re