When I Was Otherwise by Stephen Benatar Read Free Book Online Page B

had needed was for all that filth and cacophony to be switched off. “Love stories, dear! I ask you! Oh ye gods and little fishes!”
    â€œDaisy, I said—”
    â€œIt isn’t important,” interrupted Dan.
    â€œBut it is important!” replied Marsha. “If we’re all going to carry on living together like this… Of course it is.”
    â€œThat’s right, dear. You tell him!” Daisy clapped her hands encouragingly. Marsha clearly had her dander up over something but at least she’d stopped moping. This would surely be a good moment to speak about Madge Fairweather.
    â€œSo I shouldn’t think there’s ever been much of a love story in that part of the world,” she ended up triumphantly, “other than on the most nauseating ‘I-hope-your-egg’s-all-right, there-there!’ sort of level. Perhaps you might call it tepid …almost…if you were somebody, that is, with a marked penchant for overstatement.”
    Marsha didn’t say anything about this then—indeed, she hardly appeared to be listening—but the following afternoon it was clear she wished to make amends. She and Dan had been to a jumble sale and had brought Daisy back a framed piece of woolwork which could have been Victorian (“A real collector’s item,” cried Daisy ecstatically—she was much moved—“I shall treasure it for ever!”) except that the colours seemed almost too fresh for that. But the bonnet and crinoline were certainly Victorian and so was the text…”and not at all in keeping, dear, with all those very pretty flowers and butterflies and trees that look like lollipops! ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged’! Oh, thank you, dear. And you, too, Dan. It’s the nicest present I’ve had in centuries!” And several times during the course of the evening she gave Marsha a sudden impulsive kiss; and didn’t once bemoan the temporary closing of the club, due to renovations.
    Indeed, it was a happy evening. Especially as dear, sweet Dan had insisted on paying for everything, even for the cider—though strictly, of course, on the q.t.!—and all her cups of coffee and cigarettes were safe.
    She felt so pleased with the pair of them.
    It was doubly unfortunate, then, that the following day Marsha should again become upset…being equally as enraged when the students didn’t come to lunch as she had been when she’d first been told they would.

8
    â€œThank you, dear, that’s very good of you,” said Daisy, taking the hot-water bottle which Marsha was holding out to her. “These September nights are getting really quite nippy—don’t you find that?” Daisy was already in bed but in expectation of Marsha’s visit she had her hearing aid clipped into the pocket of her pyjama jacket; it was a man’s one, striped. “Don’t run along at once, dear…unless, that is, you’re just too busy to stay. Sometimes it worries me how much you have to see to. I just can’t imagine how you cope. But I take my hat off to you; really and truly I do. Or I would, I mean, if I had it on! So why don’t you just sit down a moment and rest your tired old legs? Tonight, dear, I’m feeling a little…well, to tell the truth, a little lonely. That chair is a nice and comfortable one. Just sling the handbag on the floor—oh, anywhere, it doesn’t matter. ‘A handbag , Mr Worthing?’ Yes, I must say, you and Dan have made it all quite cosy for me. On the whole. But then, of course, it is six months since I moved in—would you believe it?—it hardly seems more than a week or two. And, incredibly, we still appear to be surviving, don’t we?”
    â€œWe certainly do.”
    â€œBut…”
    â€œYes, Daisy?”
    â€œI often wonder who she was, dear, don’t you?”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe woman who did that