Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym

Author:Barbara Pym [Pym, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-09-09T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tom opened his eyes reluctantly. He had been dreaming that he was back in Africa, but when he woke up and found where he really was he turned over on his side again and lay staring at the wall, distempered a rather dirty cream, on which the sun was shining brightly. Too bright to last, he thought gloomily, and closed his eyes again. Outside a train rattled by.

The night before, Mark and Digby had thought he needed cheering up and taking out of himself; they had spent a manly evening drinking beer, whose effects are not always particularly cheering. His life had started on its new lap now; no Catherine, a little Deirdre and a great deal of work. It was not the kind of life that made him leap out of bed eagerly in the mornings. He supposed it was too much to expect Mark or Digby to make tea and bring it to him, as a woman would have done, so he eventually crept into the kitchen and started to make it himself. Mark and Digby soon joined him, the latter singing an air from La Bohème, because, as he put it, the light-hearted squalor of their lives reminded him irresistibly of that opera. Tom and Mark were more taciturn, not approving of music in the early morning, and being unable to sing anyway. There was plenty of milk and cornflakes, not quite enough bread and only two eggs, but they made themselves some kind of a breakfast and then left to do a good day’s work in various libraries. It was vacation time now and there were no seminars or classes.

Tom had arranged that Deirdre should not visit him until he had got properly settled in, whatever that might entail, and so it was not until nearly a week later that she saw his new room for the first time.

‘Shall we meet some grim landlady on the stairs?’ she asked, as they approached the house with its peeling pillars.

‘No, she doesn’t live on the premises, luckily. There are just the three flats occupied by students of various kinds. Ours is on the first floor.’

‘No pictures of highland cattle,’ she said quickly, when they were inside the narrow hall of the flat.

Tom, feeling her need for reassurance, put his arm round her shoulders. ‘What have you done to your hair?’ he asked. ‘It looks like a chrysanthemum.’

‘I had it cut. Don’t you like it?’

‘Yes, of course, don’t look so worried.’ He opened a door. ‘Well, here it is, the small back room or whatever we call it.’

‘It is rather small, but very comfortable, I should think.’ Deirdre had run over to the window to hide her dismay at the general impression of meanness and shabbiness which had overwhelmed her on entering. ‘And you can see the trains from the window. That’s awfully continental, somehow,’ Her eyes, level with his, looked appealingly at him. He, used to looking down at Catherine, found it difficult to meet her glance and turned away to fumble with some glasses and a dark-looking bottle.

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