The Bleeding Heart by Marilyn French Read Free Book Online Page A

Beautiful, alluring, all the words we use to exalt something that is probably mechanical—electrical, chemical.
    Oh, do, do, I want to hear. What was it, when did you first notice, how could you tell I was wonderful?
    “Good God, why?”
    He gleamed at her with intensity. “Don’t you know how beautiful you are?”
    She shrugged. “There are lots of women more beautiful.” See how he lies now.
    “Probably,” he said, and she smiled. “But there was something in you—I don’t know what it was—that drew me. But I really didn’t want to do it. My head didn’t want to. If I’d wanted to, I’d have spoken to you, tried to get to know you, tried to set something up. But I didn’t want to and I determined I wouldn’t. But I couldn’t control myself. I kept feeling what I was feeling. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. And … it shook me up. And I kept thinking you must know what I was feeling, and then calling myself an idiot because how could you possibly know? And I kept expecting you to take control at some point, to rap me on the knuckles and say down, boy. Or something….”
    He sighed and leaned back and smiled at her in deep contentment.
    “But you didn’t. You didn’t say a word, damn you,” he grinned. “You could have said …”
    “Beastly weather, isn’t it.”
    “Yes! Something! You could have turned me off, you know, if you’d wanted to.”
    “Could I?” She grinned wickedly at him.
    “Oh, you knew! You did know!” He slapped the bottom of her foot, lightly. “But you know, I was also afraid you would —say, beastly weather or something like that. In a prissy schoolmarm voice. Or look at me sourly and denounce the Daily Mail. …”
    “Is that what you were reading? I should have!”
    “But I hardly expected it from you, with your hair down and your cigar and that snotty snazzy look you have. And your clothes!”
    “What’s wrong with my clothes?” Laughing.
    “Nothing, nothing! But they’re hardly what my schoolmarm would wear. An Indian shirt and six strings of beads? I counted them!”
    They laughed together, a low deep chuckle, pleased and contented.
    “And then I was terrified you’d get off at Reading, or that someone else would get on and ruin everything, and then I thought that was exactly what I wanted, that everything be ruined, that we go our separate ways and just remember a chance encounter with someone who looked appealing. It happens all the time, after all….”
    Dolores was watching him tenderly. He’s like me. Maybe he’ll understand me.
    “Sometimes I felt that even though I wasn’t doing anything, I was going too far. And then I’d think that you were going to walk off the train into the arms of some waiting man, and I’d never see you again. And I don’t know why, but that felt … unbearable.”
    His eyes appealed to her for understanding. She looked at him for a moment, then pulled herself up and across the bed to where he was lying, and took him in her arms.

2
    T HEY ATE EGGS AND bacon, which was all there was in the house. They had set the rickety kitchen table because the table in the sitting room was covered with Dolores’s notes. She was wearing an old velour robe, a man’s robe that the children had given her a few years ago when she complained about the cold and the scantiness of women’s robes and their exorbitant prices. It was a little big for her in the shoulders, but she felt luxurious in it, all that fabric, deep pile, easy lines, nothing pulling or constricting or gapping when she moved her arms or her body. It had lots of room, easy room, and she loved it. Her hair hung loose and fell over her face when she bent forward.
    Victor had put on his trousers and socks, and was padding around the kitchen trying to figure out where things might be in this odd little room. They had turned the radio on to the BBC, which was playing Prokofiev. Dolores hummed with it, to Victor’s amusement, since she frequently went off-key.
    “I can