Wicked Women by Fay Weldon Read Free Book Online Page A

opposite of helpful,” said Weena. “Parents should be left to get on with it. Then they’d have fewer children.”
    “Whose phone are you using?” asked Hattie.
    “Bob’s,” said Weena. “I’m in his bed.” There was a short silence.
    “I thought you’d finished with Bob,” said Hattie.
    “I have,” said Weena. “This was just a one-off.”
    “Do you think that’s fair?” asked Hattie.
    “You ruined his life: now just to go scrabbling about in the ruins!”
    “The problem with Bob is he never had much of a life to ruin,” said Weena.
    “His wife is well rid of him. I don’t suppose his children want to see him anyway, I don’t mean ever to fuck an employed person again. Employment saps a man’s soul. They’re forever having to get to work or find sick-notes. A man must be self-employed if he’s not to end by sweating like my editor or grovelling like Bob. Status games make lovers sweaty and grovelling. In future, I’ll stick to the self-employed.”
    “Then what are you doing there, Weena? In his bed?”
    “I need a commission. Bob can get it for me. I need to write Defoe Desmond’s biography. I’m tired of my job. I’m tired of living with my mother. I want to live quietly in the country in a grand house and be a chatelaine. I want to be acknowledged, Hattie. I want to take my proper place in life. This bed is just a starting point. The sooner I’m out of it the better. This bed is damp, sweaty and full of crumbs.”
    “Then you will be out of it soon?”
    “Of course. I just need to make another phone call. Why?”
    “Those are my crumbs, Weena. Bob and I had toast and marmalade in that bed yesterday morning.”
    Again a short silence. Then Weena spoke.
    “Your problem, Hattie, is you try to be good to men. Men prefer it if you’re terrible.”
    Weena made another phone call.
    “I really ought to be at the New Age Times,” said Weena to Defoe. “But it’s such a boring place. No one there likes me, except the editor. And he just lusts after me. Sometimes he writes my pieces for me. But since I met you, he’s rather gone off me.”
    “Why’s that, Weena?”
    “I guess it sort of shows I’m into someone else, Def. So if I lose my job, it’s your fault.”
    “I’d rather you didn’t work for a boss who lusts after you,” said Defoe.
    “A good job’s hard to find,” said Weena. “And a hard boss is good to find.”
    “What did you say just then, Weena?”
    “Forget it. Just a saying. I feel really soft and happy and lazy today. It’s the thought of seeing you on Monday. I’ve been so upset about my mother.”
    “What’s the matter with your mother?” asked Defoe.
    “She used to abuse me when I was a child, but we won’t go into that. I got away for a couple of years, but somehow I drifted back. People say she has an unhealthy hold over me. I had a pure white satin blouse and she put it through the hot wash on purpose, with all her dark things, and of course it’s ruined.”
    “That certainly seems a symbolic thing to do,” said Defoe. “I know if anyone shrinks a shirt of mine, I get very wound up indeed. Shouldn’t you leave home?”
    “I can’t,” said Weena. “I can’t afford anywhere on my salary. I need someone to take me in.”
    “Drewlove House has lots of rooms,” said Defoe, “and I’d love to, but you have your work to do and I don’t think Elaine would like it.”
    “But why not? Is she very jealous?”
    “She can be,” said Defoe.
    “But not of us, surely,” said Weena. “You shouldn’t give in to her. It’s so low and ungenerous to be sexually possessive. And it smacks of a bad sex life. I’m never jealous because I know I make men happy.” She yawned, languorously, the smell of the male bed-sitting room and its desperate sex flowing into her nostrils.
    “Where are you?” asked Defoe.
    “At my friend Hattie’s,” said Weena. “Shall I go to work? Tell me what to do.”
    “Stay where you are, sweet as you are, and