Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

we say in the creed, ‘I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,’ I just take it to mean the whole big universal Christian church. And then we say, ‘I believe in the Communion of Saints.’ Of course we don’t have statues in the church, though personally I think it would be lovely if we did.”
    Margaret said, “Coffee?” and it was understood that the formal part of the evening was over. But Lewis shifted his chair closer to Kitty and said almost genially, “So? Are we to understand that you believe in these miracles?”
    Kitty laughed. “Absolutely. I couldn’t exist if I didn’t believe in miracles.”
    Then Nina knew what had to follow. Lewis moving in quietly and relentlessly, Kitty countering with merry conviction and what she might think of as charming and feminine inconsistencies. Her faith was in that, surely—in her own charm. But Lewis would not be charmed. He would want to know, What form do these saints take at the present moment? In Heaven, do they occupy the same territory as the merely dead, the virtuous ancestors? And how are they chosen? Isn’t it by the attested miracles, the proven miracles? And how are you going to prove the miracles of someone who lived fifteen centuries ago? How prove miracles, anyway? In the case of the loaves and fishes, counting. But is that real counting, or is it perception? Faith? Ah, yes. So it all comes down to faith. In daily matters, in her whole life, Kitty lives by faith?
    She does.
    She doesn’t rely on science in any way? Surely not. When her children are sick she doesn’t give them medicine. She doesn’t bother about gas in her car, she has faith—
    A dozen conversations have sprung up around them and yet, because of its intensity and its danger—Kitty’s voice now hopping about like a bird on a wire, saying don’t be silly, and do you think I’m an absolute nutcase? and Lewis’s teasing growing ever more contemptuous, more deadly—this conversation will be heard through the others, at all times, everywhere in the room.
    Nina has a bitter taste in her mouth. She goes out to the kitchen to help Margaret. They pass each other, Margaret carrying in the coffee. Nina goes straight on through the kitchen and out into the passage. Through the little pane in the back door she peers at the moonless night, the snowbanks along the street, the stars. She lays her hot cheek against the glass.
    She straightens up at once when the door from the kitchen opens, she turns and smiles and is about to say, “I just came out to check on the weather.” But when she sees Ed Shore’s face against the light, in the minute before he closes the door, she thinks that she doesn’t have to say that. They greet each other with an abbreviated, sociable, slightly apologetic and disclaiming laugh, by which it seems many things are conveyed and understood.
    They are deserting Kitty and Lewis. Just for a little while—
    Kitty and Lewis won’t notice. Lewis won’t run out of steam and Kitty will find some way—being sorry for Lewis could be one—out of the dilemma of being devoured. Kitty and Lewis won’t get sick of themselves.
    Is that how Ed and Nina feel? Sick of those others, or at least sick of argument and conviction. Tired of the never-letting-up of those striving personalities.
    They wouldn’t quite say so. They would only say they’re tired.
    Ed Shore puts an arm around Nina. He kisses her—not on the mouth, not on her face, but on her throat. The place where an agitated pulse might be beating, in her throat.
    He is a man who has to bend to do that. With a lot of men, it might be the natural place to kiss Nina, when she’s standing up. But he is tall enough to bend and so deliberately kiss her in that exposed and tender place.
    “You’ll get cold out here,” he said.
    “I know. I’m going in.”

    Nina has never to this day had sex with any man but Lewis. Never come near it.
    Had sex. Have sex with. For a long time she could not say that. She said make love. Lewis did not say anything. He was an athletic and inventive partner and in a physical sense, not unaware of her. Not inconsiderate. But he was on guard against anything that verged on sentimentality, and from his point of view, much did. She came to be very sensitive to this distaste, almost to share it.
    Her memory of Ed Shore’s kiss outside the kitchen door did, however, become a treasure. When Ed sang the tenor solos in the Choral Society’s performance of the Messiah every Christmas, that