The Only Problem by Muriel Spark Read Free Book Online Page B

said.
    ‘Oh,
Nathan must stay over Christmas,’ Ruth said. ‘Paris will be crowded. And
dreadfully expensive.’ She added, ‘Nathan is a marvellous cook.’
    ‘So I
have heard.’
    Ruth
didn’t notice, or affected not to notice, a look of empty desperation on Harvey’s
face; a pallor, a cornered look; his lips were parted, his eyes were focusing
only on some anguished thought. And he was, in fact, suddenly aghast: What am I
doing with these people around me? Who asked this fool to come and join us for
Christmas? What do I need with Christmas, and Ruth, and a baby and a bloody
little youth who needs a holiday? Why did I buy that château if not for Ruth
and the baby to get out of my way? He looked at his writing-table, and
panicked.
    ‘I’m
going out, I’ll just fetch my coat,’ he said, thumping upstairs two at a time.
    ‘Harvey,
what’s the matter?’ said Ruth when he appeared again with his sheepskin jacket,
his woollen hat. Rain had started to splash down with foul eagerness.
    ‘Don’t
you want lunch?’ she said.
    ‘Excuse
me. I’m studious,’ said Harvey, as he left the cottage. The car door slammed.
The starter wouldn’t work at first try. The sound of Harvey working and working
at the starter became ever more furious until finally he was off.
     
     
    When he came back in the
evening the little house was deserted, all cleaned up. He poured himself a
whisky, sat down and started to think of Effie. She was different from Ruth,
almost a race apart. Ruth was kind, or comparatively so. Effie wasn’t
comparatively anything, certainly not kind. She was absolutely fascinating.
Harvey remembered Effie at parties, her beauty, part of which was a
quick-witted merriment. How could two sisters be so physically alike and yet so
totally different? At any moment Ruth might come in and reproach him for not
having the Christmas spirit. Effie would never do that. Ruth was thoroughly bourgeois
by nature; Effie, anarchistic, aristocratic. I miss Effie, I miss her a lot, Harvey
told himself. The sound of Ruth’s little car coming down the drive, slowly in
the mist, chimed with his thought as would the stroke of eight if there was a
clock in the room. He looked at his watch, eight o’clock precisely. She had
come to fetch him for dinner; three dinner-places set out on the table of the
elegant room in the château, and the baby swinging in a hammock set up in a
corner.
    Ruth
came in. ‘You know, Harvey,’ she said, ‘I think you might be nicer to Nathan.
After all, it’s Christmas time. He’s come all this way, and one should have the
Christmas spirit.’
    Nathan
was there, at the château, settled in for Christmas. Harvey thought: I should
have told him to go. I should have said I wanted Ruth and the baby to myself
for Christmas. Why didn’t I? —Because I don’t want them to myself. I don’t want
them enough; not basically.
    Ruth
looked happy, having said her say. No need to say any more. I can’t hold these
women, Harvey thought. Neither Effie nor Ruth. My mind isn’t on them enough,
and they resent it, just as I resent it when they put something else before me,
a person, an idea. Yes, it’s understandable.
    He
swallowed down a drink and put on his coat.
    ‘Nathan
thinks it was marvellous of you to buy the château just to make me comfortable
with Clara,’ said Ruth.
    ‘I
bought it for myself, too, you know. I always thought I might acquire it.’
    ‘Nathan
has been reading the Book of Job, he has some ideas.’
    ‘He did
his homework, you mean. He must think I’m some sort of monster. In return for
hospitality he thinks he has to discuss my subject.’
    ‘He’s
polite. Besides, it’s my subject too, now,’ said Ruth.
    ‘Why?’
said Harvey. ‘Because I’ve put you in the château?’
    He
thought, on the way through the misty trees that lined the long drive, They
think I’m such a bore that I have to bribe them to come and play the part of
comforters.
    He made
himself cheerful at the