A Woman Involved Read Online Free

pure Aristotelian logic, even if he cannot prove by logic what kind of God He is – read his Summa in Theologica. He gives five proofs of God’s existence, though it’s his third argument I like best, his Actuality-Potentiality proof of a Prime or Un-moved Mover. “And this all men call God.” No intelligent man could read that book and remain an agnostic, Jack …’
    And when the floorshow came on, a troupe of limbo dancers from Jamaica, she had been unable to resist it when the pole was only twenty inches above the floor and she had kicked her shoes off and gone dancing under it, to roars of applause, her long blonde hair sweeping the floor, her arms upstretched, her jerking feet wide apart, a grin all over her lovely face; and when she had come back to the table, flushed and laughing, he had known with absolute certainty that he was going to marry this marvellous girl; he had taken her hand, and what he wanted to say with all his heart was ‘Let’s check into this hotel and make love’, but instead he said:
    ‘Tomorrow, you’re coming on a picnic, Ms Valentine, and reading Saint Thomas Aquinas to me, it’s this Actuality–Potentiality theory I’m really wild about …’
    ‘Oh? What about my lectures, Jack Morgan?’
    ‘What about my immortal soul, Ms Valentine?’
    She had agreed to try to save his soul, though not to kiss him goodnight (nor had he tried too hard, in order to impress her), but he had driven back to his digs on air, wanting to whoop and holler and toot his horn, and he had blown Mrs Garvey a big kiss instead when she came out complaining about him disturbing the house by coming in late. ‘ Mrs Garvey, be joyful, tomorrow I’m taking the most wonderful girl in the world on a picnic to read Summa in Theologica! …’
    ‘What about your lectures, Lieutenant-Commander?’
    ‘ What about my immortal soul, Mrs Garvey? – What about my immortal soul? …  ’
    And what a picnic it was! He bought Summa in Theologica as soon as the shops opened and he swotted up Saint Thomas’ third proof while the delicatessen packed up the hamper. It was an absolutely beautiful spring day for saving his soul! The sun shone bright and the birds sang and the bees buzzed and butterflies fluttered and he sang her ‘The Surrey with the Fringeon Top’ as he tootled her down the Cornish lanes in his beat-up old Volkswagen, absolutely on top of the world. And he knew he was going to live deliriously happily ever after with this wonderful girl, and it was a wonderful feeling to be totally self-confident and very, very amusing. He spread their blanket on the soft grass by the stream and popped the champagne, and the cork flew and went dancing away over the sparkling rapids and he said:
    That’s how our life’s going to be, Anna Valentine!’
    And he took her in his arms and toppled her over onto the blanket, and she grinned up at him:
    ‘What about your immortal soul, Jack Morgan? That’s what I’m bunking lectures for …’
    ‘Ms Valentine, I’ve got a complete arm-lock already on the Third Proof and I know that good Saint Thomas would approve entirely of my honourable intentions towards you …’
    And she had laughed up at him, and let him kiss her. But she had not made love to him. They really did read Summa in Theologica. While the birds sang and the bees buzzed and the stream twinkled, and the champagne tasted like nectar.
    She had not made love to him for five long, deliciously nerve-racked days, five more days of walking on air, of singing in the rain, of Summa in Theologica and everything from Karl Marx and Adam Smith to the Beatles and Beethoven, from P. G. Wodehouse to Franz Kafka, five more delightfully anguished days of lovely Cornwall country pubs, bangers and mash and cream teas, of Cornish moors and coves and beaches, long tracks along the sand, five more days of delicious frustration and almost no lectures at all; on the sixth day he had fetched her at her residence, and she had solemnly