What Was She Thinking? by Zoë Heller Read Free Book Online

empty-eyed sort of chap, with one of those “developed” bodies that men acquire from heaving dumbbells about in gyms. The one time we had met previously, I had taken great pains to be polite to him and, afterwards, I had communicated my misgivings to Jennifer in the gentlest manner possible. So it was unclear why he should now be adopting this aggressive posture towards me. Not wanting to appear intimidated, I returned his stare with an icy glare of my own. And then, evidently in some sort of fury, he turned to Jennifer, grasped her by her shoulders, and kissed her. The aim, it seems, was to assert his proprietorial rights over my friend. When he finally released her, he fixed me with a horrible smile and made an obscene gesture—right there in the crowded carriage, in front of everyone. I could hardly believe it. When the train drew into the next station, I fled. For half an hour after that, I sat on a bench on the Goodge Street platform and wept.
    Watching Sue snuggle up to Sheba at La Traviata, I was reminded of all this unpleasantness, and the recollection acted as a kind of alarm. My relationship with Jennifer had been a good deal more important and profound than any nascent feelings of affection I might have been harbouring for Sheba. But the
hurt that she had inflicted had been the same sort of hurt that I was experiencing now. My mistake with Jennifer had been to attribute to her an intelligence that had never really existed. For the last six weeks, I realised, I had been making the same mistake with Sheba. Thank God that she had revealed her true colours at this juncture, before I had invested any more of my feelings! Once again, I told myself, I had made an error of judgement. Sheba was not my soul mate. Not my kindred spirit. She wasn’t, in fact, my sort at all.
    After the half-term holiday, I desisted from all the little genialities with which I had been attempting to semaphore my goodwill towards Sheba. I deliberately allowed my warm feelings to curdle into contempt. Occasionally, I confess, I went too far and stooped to some slightly childish insults. I would cough with suppressed laughter when Sheba was speaking to someone. Or I would do a dramatic double take when she walked into the staff room, to indicate my disapproval of her attire. Once, when the hem of her skirt was hanging down at the back, I made a great show of presenting her with a safety pin in front of several colleagues.
    None of these petty gestures brought me much solace. Sheba did not rise to my provocations. Mostly, in fact, she didn’t seem to notice that she was being provoked. She blushed the time I gave her the safety pin. But then she smiled and thanked me profusely, as if she hadn’t registered my animus at all.
    Eventually, in desperation, I tried a more forthright attack. Sheba came into the staff room early one morning, before the start of classes, and stood next to me at the kitchenette counter, rinsing out one of the tannin-stained cups that were designated for general use. Most of the St. George’s staff members brought
in their own mugs from home, but for some reason Sheba never bothered. I was about to comment sardonically on the dubious hygiene of her drinking vessel when Brian Bangs, the maths teacher, pushed in between us. “Hallo, ladies!” he boomed. “Good weekend?”
    Bangs is a rather pitiful man. He sports a more or less permanent shaving rash, and he is always very, very nervous. Even his most minor conversational sallies have an agonised, overmeditated quality, and he tends to pitch his voice one or two uncomfortable decibels above the standard register. Talking to him is rather like attempting to converse with a school play. I nodded at him curtly, but Sheba was more magnanimous. “Hello, Brian,” she said. “Not a bad weekend, thanks. And yours?”
    “Oh great, yeah,” Bangs replied. “I went to Arsenal on Saturday.”
    “Yes?” Sheba said.
    “Great match,” Bangs said. “Yeah, terrific