The Pumpkin Eater Read Online Free

mean not since it was last painted, about two years ago.
    â€œOf course it is a marvellous room. I’m in there most of the time now, I really live in it. I do know it very well. There’s a picture on the side wall, here, just as you come in the door, a terrible yellow and green thing, an abstract. It belongs to Jake. We don’t get rid of it, although it’s the most hellish picture you’ve ever seen. There are piles of magazines, too. We don’t get rid of things. We’ve still got bicycles in the shed that we brought from the country years ago. Quite useless. Then there’s nowhere to put the new ones.
    â€œAnyway. Jake has a study downstairs, he used to work there a lot until he got this office. His office is in St. James’s, that’s where he works now. I haven’t been there for a long time. He never liked working in the study at home, he used to feel lonely. He was always coming upstairs to talk to someone, the children, or me, or whoever was in the house. He used to cook things for himself, he was always hungry, he liked being in the kitchen. Of course Jake was an only child. We both were. There are eight bedrooms, but we’ve only got one bathroom. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
    There was a long silence. I thought he might have gone to sleep. That gas fire would send anybody to sleep; he ought to have a bowl of water in front of it.
    â€œShall I go on?”
    â€œPlease.”
    â€œIsn’t it time to stop?”
    â€œOnly if you want to.”
    â€œYou ought to have a bowl of water in front of that gas fire, you know.”
    â€œYou find it too hot?”
    â€œThe trouble is that people throw their match ends into it and they float about for days. Then the water dries up.”
    â€œYou hate … messes, don’t you?”
    â€œYes. That is something I hate.”
    â€œThey frighten you.”
    â€œPerhaps they do frighten me.”
    â€œWas …” he glanced down at his paper, “Mr. Simpkin a mess?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “To me he seemed the most terrible mess. Is that helpful?”
    He stood up, leaning on his desk like an after-dinner speaker. “We shall, I think, make progress,” he said.

2
    Jake’s father said, “I suppose you know what you’re doing. What do the children say?”
    â€œThey — ”
    â€œWe haven’t actually
discussed
it with them,” Jake said. “They are
children
, you know. We don’t have to ask their permission, do we?”
    â€œIndeed,” his father said, “I should have thought that was most important.”
    â€œI don’t understand why you want to marry Jake,” he went on, delicately biting the end off a cheese straw. “Simply don’t understand it.” He smiled in my direction, holding the straw poised for the next bite.
    â€œI know there are an awful lot of us, but — ”
    â€œOh, I’m not worrying about that, not worrying about that at all. I suppose your previous husbands pay a bit of maintenance and so on?”
    â€œA little,” I lied.
    â€œYou’ve managed so far. I should think from the look of you you’ll go on managing. Why Jake, though? He’ll be a frightful husband.”
    â€œNow wait a minute — ” Jake said.
    â€œOh, he will. A frightful husband. You’re bound to be ill, for instance. You won’t get the slightest sympathy from him, he hates illness. He’s got no money and he’s bone-lazy. Also he drinks too much.” He smiled very sweetly at Jake, congratulating him.
    â€œYou’d think he hates me,” Jake said.
    â€œNonsense, my dear boy. She knows better than that. Give her some more sherry, but don’t have another Scotch, it’s got to last me till Tuesday. Now where are you going to live, for instance?”
    â€œWe don’t know yet …”
    â€œWell, it’s entirely your own affair of