The Parasite Person Read Online Free Page B

or had put himself in the wrong by these tirades. Helen understood him as no one else had ever done; understood that the long-repressed disappointments and frustrations of his marriage had to be got out of his system somehow, and how better than by pouring them forth into a sympathetic ear such as hers?
    And as if all this wasn’t enough, she was proving herself a marvellous little housewife as well. Tonight, for instance, late though he was bound to be, there would be no fuss or recriminations ; no “Where have you been all this time?” or “Well, don’t blame me if it’s all dried up!” No, there would be a delicious three-course meal done to perfection at whatever time he walked in; and candles on the table too, very likely, which she would light when she heard his key in the door.
    What a woman to be driving back to through the February drizzle! What a lucky man, at long last, he was!
    First, though, he must call in at home and pick up some shirts. Call in at 16, Hadley Gardens, that is—Helen hated him to use the word “home” for the house which, until the last few weeks, he had shared with Beatrice. He could understand Helen’s objection, of course—it was flattering in its way—but all the same, it’s difficult not to think of a place as “home” when you’ve lived there for nearly fourteen years.
    It felt odd to be drawing up outside the familiar house in whichhe lived no longer; odd, too, to be inserting the same old key into the same old lock, just as if nothing had happened.
    Inside, the house was in darkness. Automatically, his hand reached for the switch just inside the front door, and for a moment he stood blinking in the sudden light, waiting uneasily for his wife to pop out from somewhere. He could feel his body already braced against the encounter, whatever form it might take. Tears? Reproaches ? A handful of bills?
    “Beatrice!” he called up the dark stairs, after a few moments. “Where are you, Beet?”
    This was another thing Helen didn’t like, his addressing his estranged wife as “Beet”, but what the hell, a man can’t always be watching his step about everything, and anyway Helen wasn’t here at the moment, was she?
    “Beet!” he called again, louder, going to the foot of the stairs, “Beet, I’m here! I’ve come for my …” His voice trailed away among the echoes, and he knew now, for certain, that the house was empty. All the same, some kind of uneasy nagging of the spirit drove him to open first this door and then that, switching on the lights and noting, in each room, the blank, unlived-in look of a house in which a woman is suddenly alone, in a place much too big for her. He even peered down the cellar stairs, and tried the outside lavatory—though how she could have been there, with the back door securely bolted on the inside, top and bottom, he could not begin to imagine.
    Where the hell had she got to? The sense of outrage that was growing within him took him quite by surprise, and he stood for a moment in the chilly, white-lit kitchen trying to analyse the feeling. Why in the world should he care whether she was here or not? He’d only come to collect his things and go. In fact, it was better this way, the last thing he needed was another tearful scene. Or any more telephone messages from the solicitor, or to hear anything whatsoever about money. He was sick of hearing about money, of thinking about money, of getting letters about money … and above all he was sick of Beatrice moaning about money, her mouth pinched with grievance, her pale eyes red-rimmed under their sandy lashes, and her fists clenching and unclenching themselvesas she sought desperately for some new way of hurting him. This was quite a problem for her now that he’d left home. The old ploys, such as burning his dinner black or refusing to go to bed with him were quite obsolete now that he had Helen.
    All the same, and thankful though he was to avoid another of these scenes, Martin still