The Takeover by Muriel Spark Read Free Book Online Page A

knows you don’t need the money and neither do I, and I don’t give him very much.” So—’
    ‘That’s not the point,’ Mary said.
    ‘Right. That’s precisely what Berto said. It isn’t the point. But now Hubert’s being so stubborn, I don’t want a scandal, especially as you and Michael live here and like it so much. It’s a problem.’
    ‘It’s a very, very big problem,’ said Mary, eager to be entirely with Maggie. ‘It’s a tremendous problem.’
    ‘And there’s that lesbian secretary living with him,’ Maggie said.
    ‘Is she lesbian?’
    ‘I guess so. What else would she be?’
    ‘I guess that’s right,’ said Mary.
    ‘She couldn’t be normal, living there with him.’
    ‘Well, it could be platonic like when you were friends with him,’ Mary said, ‘but I guess it isn’t.’
    ‘A lesbian,’ Maggie said, adding, as if to make her real point, ‘a penniless lesbian.’ With that much off her chest, Maggie now started to praise Hubert by little bits, placing Mary, who also had a few pleasant memories of Hubert, in a state of assenting duplicity.
    ‘He has been careful of the furniture,’ Maggie said. ‘He appreciates fine furniture and understands it. In fact he helped me choose it. And now I hear he still sends the Louis XIV chairs to an antique expert in Rome to be checked regularly and put right if there’s any little thing loose or frayed, you know, and maybe the wood treated. I heard only the other day. In some ways, Hubert was very thoughtful for me.’
    ‘It’s expensive, the maintenance of antiques,’ Mary said. ‘My father’s—’
    ‘Oh, I know. He can’t be all that short of money, can he?’
    Mary said, ‘I’ll find out what I can.’
    ‘Not that it matters to me,’ Maggie said. ‘Only, I mean, he can’t be all that badly off if he’s looking after my furniture, can he?’
    ‘No, he can’t.’
    ‘He didn’t open the door to the official whom my lawyer sent with a notice to quit. Pretended he was out.’
    ‘But he’d have to let you in,’ Mary said. ‘Why don’t you go yourself and have it out with him? A confrontation is always the best.’
    ‘Do you think so?’
    ‘Well, maybe. I don’t know. I mean, most of the time a confrontation is healthy when a relationship goes wrong.’
    ‘There’s nothing wrong with the relationship,’ Maggie said. ‘On my side, everything’s the same. I just don’t want to go on keeping him, that’s all. No explanation necessary. I just don’t want to go on.’
    ‘I hear he changed the locks on all the doors.’
    ‘Who told you that?’ Maggie said.
    ‘Pietro, the Bernardini son. He told us their tutor learned it from Hubert’s secretary. They changed all the locks so your keys won’t fit.’
    ‘I wouldn’t dream,’ Maggie said wildly, ‘of breaking into the house without his permission. What’s he think I am? He’s not all that bad.’
    ‘Sure, he’s got very good points. Very, very good points.’
    ‘It would be nice,’ Maggie said speaking softly now, ‘to think he wasn’t in need of actual food. I hope he has enough to eat.’
    ‘He couldn’t afford a secretary if he hasn’t enough to eat,’ Mary said in an equally low voice.
    ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Maggie said, ‘and it makes me thoughtful. There are young secretaries foolish enough to work free for a man if they believe in him. And Hubert’s secretary, the little time I saw her passing in that station-wagon of his, it was only once, for a second, well, I don’t know.…She may have ideas for the future.’
    ‘But she’s a lesbian!’ Mary said.
    ‘Who knows? Lesbians like to hook a man too, you know. Sex isn’t everything. She might want a cover. And so might he.’
    ‘Well, if he hasn’t enough to eat he’ll be starved out,’ Mary said.
    ‘Then there’s the electricity, the gas and the telephone. They’ll be cut off if the bills aren’t paid,’ Maggie said, and her voice had taken completely to a whisper, as if an