The Circle by Elaine Feinstein Read Free Book Online

hurt.
    Michael considered: Well, he is late isn’t he.    That’s all I was saying. Sometimes you don’t like me just to say facts.
    *
    It was so close to Ben’s voice Lena was stopped by it. And now, even as she heard the door she questioned the truth of it, linked her own anxiety and Alan’s,hated their similar complaisance, their feverish dependence .
    Michael bent his black head over a book.
    Then the two boys rushed in, Alan’s face shining now, mouth wide with laughter, and Johnnie too! bold faced and giggling.
    –Missed the bus, Alan was saying triumphantly.    But great now he’s here what shall we do?
    –Football, said Johnnie instantly.
    And Michael raised his head from his book.
    Lena made no sound or move.
    –O.K., O.K., said Alan. He didn’t care. And suddenly, looking at Michael he added roughly.    Come on Michael.    And the three of them set off, out on to the untidy grass lawn.    She could hear the yells and groans clearly through the glass.
    Upstairs she opened the window and looked down on the garden. The high notes of birds, and the rising of voices from the children invisible behind the greenhouse came into her with the May smells, and the lilac.
    All the trees were green now:    yes almost she could say she was happy.
    –You can say anything. There was Ben’s voice. In her head to answer her.
    As though lies ever were what people chose to subsist in, as though truth were a thing which could ever be handed over intact. When he hated the simplicity of her readings he never took in the tones of his own presence, how every word in a conversation was coloured by when and how.    Like.
    –You look better dressed than undressed, she remembered that. That was true.    And said by herself in front of a mirror, looking at the neatness of a new dress, the unexpected pleasure of green and blue in close proximity, the deep bronze of her stockings.
    And said by him from the bed, his eyes remembering always, the others: how differently loaded the words would be. Always those other women, Mrs. T. the landlady she remembered. Well, that one at least would be fifty now, she thought with relish. And dried up surely where he best remembered.
    A sudden peal of laughter from the children reached her. There they were on the scrubby grass, both her boys with their shirts out flapping. They had set up two sticks for a goal, and mounted as dogged guard was Alan flying himself into the mud as the other two kicked the ball at him. And Michael his thin elbows working swerved and dodged and kicked round the post, his eyes brilliant with determination also.
    *
    Looking again through the window she could see that the game was changing: to tennis. And she remembered . There were only two racquets. Ben’s old one, and the good Spalding she’d bought Alan when he went to his new school. (A mistake, probably.) And now she pushed at the sash of the window to open it but it was stuck. Silently through the glass she could perceive the line of the discussion as it developed from the ceremonious unclicking of the presses, the drawing across the garden of the sheeted clothes line in preparation , the positioning of Michael at the sideline, his face bright enough for the moment.    As ball boy.
    Should she go down? On the whole she decided against it. She was tired, and perhaps she would be wrong to interfere. What, after all, could she say? So she lay on the bed, picked up the Mailer paperback and stopped listening.
    About an hour later she got up to call them in for tea. Coming in she could hear Alan’s excited voice: Gosh, that’s a great racquet, my Spalding. I playedreally well, Mum. Did you know I was a great tennis player?
    –And did Michael get a turn? she inquired.
    –Well. We let him do it a bit, said Johnnie.
    –He’s no good ,though, said Alan. The racquets are too heavy for him.
    –That’s not true, said Michael.
    –Well! you don’t play well, anyway, said Alan. He had already begun to eat