The End Of The Affair by Graham Greene

Author:Graham Greene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Vintage Classics

IV

12 September 1944.

Lunched at Peter Jones and bought new lamp for Henry’s study. A prim lunch surrounded by other women. Not a man anywhere. It was like being part of a regiment. Almost a sense of peace. Afterwards went to a news cinema in Piccadilly and saw ruins in Normandy and the arrival of an American politician. Nothing to do till seven when Henry would be back. Had a couple of drinks by myself. It was a mistake. Have I got to give up drinking too? If I eliminate everything, how will I exist? I was somebody who loved Maurice and went with men and enjoyed my drinks. What happens if you drop all the things that make you I? Henry came in. I could tell he was very pleased about something: he obviously wanted me to ask him what it was, but I wouldn’t. So in the end he had to tell me. ‘They are recommending me for an O.B.E.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

He was rather dashed that I didn’t know. He explained that the next stage in a year or two when he was head of his department would be a C.B.E., and after that,’ he said, ‘when I retire they’ll probably give me a K.B.E.’

‘It’s confusing,’ I said, ‘couldn’t you stick to the same letters?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to be Lady Miles?’ Henry said, and I thought angrily, all I want in the world is to be Mrs Bendrix and I have given up that hope for ever. Lady Miles—who doesn’t have a lover and doesn’t drink but talks to Sir William Mallock about pensions. Where would I be all that time?

Last night I looked at Henry when he was asleep. So long as I was what the law considers the guilty party, I could watch him with affection, as though he were a child who needed my protection. Now I was what they called innocent, I was maddened continually by him. He had a secretary who sometimes rang him up at home. She would say, ‘Oh, Mrs Miles, is H.M. in?’ All the secretaries used those unbearable initials, not intimate but companionable. H.M. I thought, looking at him asleep, H.M. His Majesty and His Majesty’s consort. Sometimes in his sleep he smiled, a moderate brief civil servant smile, as much as to say, yes, very amusing, but now we’d better get on with the job, hadn’t we?

I said to him once, ‘Have you ever had an affair with a secretary?’

‘Affair?’

‘Love affair.’

‘No, of course not. What makes you think such a thing?’

‘I don’t know. I just wondered.’

‘I’ve never loved any other woman,’ he said and began to read the evening paper. I couldn’t help wondering, is my husband so unattractive that no woman has ever wanted him? Except me, of course. I must have wanted him, in a way, once, but I’ve forgotten why, and I was too young to know what I was choosing. It’s so unfair. While I loved Maurice, I loved Henry, and now I’m what they call good, I don’t love anyone at all.

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