Wicked Women by Fay Weldon Read Free Book Online Page B

talk to me,” said Defoe. “Forget the New Age Times.”
    “But if I lose my job?”
    “I’ll look after you,” said Defoe.
    “I’ve always wanted to do a biography,” said Weena. “I have such an inquisitive nature, I think I could really make it work. I suppose I could always do one of you. I feel I know you so well yet there’s so much more to know. You’re so deep.”
    “Who would want it?” asked Defoe. “An old has-been like me!”
    “All kinds of people,” she said. “I’d have to come down and stay, wouldn’t I, if I was working on your biography? I’d have to know everything, go through old photographs—”
    “You would,” he said, his voice lightening.
    “Indeed you would. We’ll talk about it on Monday.”
    “If you like,” said Weena. “But I wasn’t thinking of doing much talking. Well, only over lunch, when your wife’s there. Before pottery.”
    Defoe came downstairs to find Elaine brushing out the ashes in the grate.
    “Cinderella!” he said.
    “Daphne’s coming down by train for the weekend,” said Elaine, “without Alison or the dog. She’ll be leaving Monday on the 5:15.”
    “I thought she was coming down on Tuesday,” said Defoe. “She can’t be here on Monday.”
    “Why not?” asked Elaine. Her face was smudged with soot.
    “I have an interview,” said Defoe. “The journalist’s staying to lunch, you’re going off to pottery. Call Daphne now and rearrange it.”
    “No,” said Elaine. “You do it.”
    “I don’t like having my time taken for granted,” said Defoe.
    “Daphne doesn’t need entertaining,” said Elaine. “She’s family.”
    “I suppose she is,” said Defoe. “Perhaps she’s Saunders’ child.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Saunders had a queer brother. I always thought he was a bit of a poofter himself. Saunders, your Australian lover?”
    “He was not my lover, Defoe.”
    “Then I don’t know where Daphne gets it from. I certainly don’t want Daphne round the same luncheon table as a journalist. HAS-BEEN CELEB’S OLD AGE SHAME CRAWLS OUT OF CLOSET.”
    “I’ll call Weena Dodds and put her off, shall I?”
    “I don’t have her number.”
    “I do,” said Elaine.
    “Then please don’t use it. Weena Dodds is thinking of writing my biography.”
    “Your biography!” exclaimed Elaine.
    “Why not?” asked Defoe. “Do you think no one’s interested?”
    “But all you’ve done is interview people,” protested Elaine.
    “You want to pull me down,” said Defoe. “You think finally you’ve got me to yourself and defeated me and I can’t get away. Well, you’re wrong.”
    “Defoe, I think nothing of the kind.” Elaine stood up to face him.
    She struck the ash-filled dustpan against the fire irons, by mistake, and fine pale grey powder swirled up and around her in a mist before settling on hair, face, limbs, dress. It was wood ash, almost white. “I have waited many years for us to be together, that’s true enough. What is the matter with you?”
    “You are the matter with me,” said Defoe. “You make me doubt myself. You always have. You stand there like a ghost. You are my old age. You make me decrepit before my time. You drew me away from the power source of the universe: you doomed me to mediocrity. You are right, all I ever did was interview people. Oh, you have a low opinion of me!”
    “The power source of the universe! When I met you, you were developing nuclear weapons,” stated Elaine. “Your ambition was to destroy the universe, so far as I could see.”
    She shook her dress. Wood ash puffed around. He stood further away from her so as not to be infected.
    “At least on TV,” she said, “you have done no harm, though I can’t see you have done much good.”
    “You are polluting me!” he cried. “I don’t want to be a ghost.”
    “Though it’s rare for one person on their own to do much good, so don’t reproach yourself,” she said, ignoring what she clearly saw as his