John Thomas & Lady Jane

stump,’ he
said.
    Connie sat on yonder stump and got an
arse full of splinters.
    ‘Who’ll come here after us?’ said
Clifford looking into the distance.
    Constance said: ‘The way things stand, I would say the
bailiffs.’
    Constance looked around vaguely. The wood seemed as yet
to hold some of the old inviolate mystery of Britain, even Druid Britain. 2
    ‘Perhaps we don’t know what will come
after us,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it will be quite different from what we expect. It
could be small purple things.’
    Yes, of course, small purple things.
His tablets are wearing off, thought Constance.
    Sometimes in the words she felt
another influence, something mysteriously alive. What it was she didn’t know,
but it was mysteriously alive. But where was it? Wherever it was, it was
mysteriously alive. She was becoming de-stabilized.
    ‘I suppose the world will come to an
end in its own way,’ she said.
    ‘I suppose so. Give me your hand.’
    ‘Why? Will that stop the world coming
to an end?’
    As he grasped her hand she felt the
life die out of her, ebb away, away from him, all her blood, which was Rhesus
negative, seemed to recoil. Blood when it recoils can cause amnesia.
    ‘You’re lovely, Constance,’ he said.
    ‘Who are you?’ she said, her blood
recoiling.
    ‘Wouldn’t you like to see more
people?’
    ‘Who are you? More people? Yes, where
are they?’ she said.
    Where are they? expecting him to
produce a crowd for her.
    Clifford apologized. ‘Sorry, I’d need
a little time to assemble them,’ he said.
    ‘Who are you?’ she said, still with
recoiling blood amnesia.
    ‘Would you like to go away for a
while?’ he asked.
    She was silent for a time, by his
watch it was one minute and fifty seconds.
    ‘Why?’ she insisted.
    ‘For your health. I’m afraid you
might get depressed and get swine fever.’
    ‘No, since I’ve been on iron
jelloids, cod liver oil and Sanatogen I don’t get depressed, I just get the
shits. What would be the good of going away?’ she said. ‘I should only think of
you all the time.’
    ‘And I should think of you,’ he said.
‘There you’d be in France thinking of me — and I’d be in Great Britain thinking of you. Wouldn’t that be exciting?’
    She was silent, her hand lay dead in
his, he buried it.
    ‘Tell me, what would be the good of
my going?’
    ‘Perhaps you need to enjoy yourself,
like the women at the night clubs. Perhaps you need to jazz and flirt and
perhaps have men make love to you or some man. I can’t do it. To me it isn’t a
necessity.’
    ‘You mean you don’t mind if I let a
man fall in love with me?’ she said.
    ‘It’s no use my minding. If you are
going to go to pieces or have a mysterious malady like swine fever, I pray to
God some man will fall in love with you quickly; an hour should do it.’
    ‘You don’t mind if there were a
child?’ she said adding to his torment. His other torment was piles. ‘You don’t
think you might lose me to one of the men who is in love with me?’
    ‘I suppose it is one of the risks I
will have to run,’ and that was the last thing he could do: run.
    ‘I’d try not to,’ she said softly.
    He gave a quick cracked laugh. Agahh
— crackle! Agahh — crackle! Agahh — crackle!
    She took the opportunity to rush
upstairs and change. She patted her fanny and said, ‘Help is on the way’.
Returning she said, ‘I don’t really want to leave if you do not want me to.’
    ‘Maybe not,’ he said. ‘There are
things more powerful than sex. Right now I can’t think of any. Whatever they
are they go much deeper. For instance whales go much deeper.’
    Whales. His tablets were wearing off.
‘Sex is only an incident, just like dinner.’ Nonsense, no one could live long
without dinner.
    ‘Probably you don’t want to leave me
for a sexual love or dinner.’
    She heard it very distinctly. Here
was her chance of a fuck. Was it coming closer? She had not betrayed anything
if whales were deeper than their love, so be it. They were both moved. 3
    Out of a cross riding just below
where they sat, a spaniel dog came towards them as if he had smelled their
emotions from afar. It must have been very strong, he lived a mile away. She
ran towards them, uttering a soft, suppressed little bark.
    ‘Come here then little doggy,’ said Constance releasing her hand from Clifford’s and holding her hand out to the dog — it bit
her.
    Out of the riding came the gamekeeper
dressed in greenish velveteen