A Severed Head

Seven

My darling Georgie, I have not spent Christmas quite as I expected. On the evening when I last saw you Antonia suddenly a

M.

I finished the letter and put it hastily into my pocket. Antonia and Rosemary were descending the stairs, still trying to talk both at once.

'And the whole building has oil-fired central heating,' Antonia was saying.

I got up from where I had been sitting at the Carlton House writing-table and went over to the fireplace. It was early afternoon, but very dark outside, and the lamps had already been turned on. Two electric fires were burning in the room, but Antonia had insisted on lighting a coal fire as well, to cheer me up, as she put it.

They came in and stood side by side looking at me with the look of tender delighted concern with which women look at babies. The concern was sharpened in Rosemary's case by curiosity, in Antonia's by anxiety. Rosemary in her smart grey unobtrusive London clothes was tiny beside my wife.

'Antonia has been telling me about your flat,' said Rosemary. 'It sounds ideal. And there's a heavenly view over to Westminster Cathedral.'

'Well, you know more about it than I do,' I said. Palmer had found me a flat in Lowndes Square. It appeared to be all right.

'But you wouldn't let me tell you this morning!' exclaimed Antonia. 'Isn't he dreadful?' to Rosemary. 'Don't you even want to see it?'

'Not specially.'

'Dear heart, don't sulk,' said Antonia. 'You'll have to make some decision soon about the furniture. Rosemary and I have just been measuring curtains, and the landing and Blue Room ones will fit exactly without alteration.'

'What luck.'

'Well, I want to see it,' said Rosemary, 'even if you don't. Antonia's given me the key and I'm going over there now. Are you sure you don't want to come, Martin?'

'Yes.'

'I must be off then,' said Rosemary. 'I must say I'm limp already. I'll drop the key in this evening. 'Bye, Martin darling, 'bye, Antonia.' She patted my shoulder and then stood on her toes to peck Antonia's cheek. She and my wife seemed quite wrapped up in each other now.

Antonia saw her to the door. I could hear her saying, 'And let me know what you think about the pelmets.' The door closed.

I stood by the fireplace watching the flames, and trying to clean out an old pipe which I had found – I occasionally smoked a pipe. I heard Antonia come back into the room. She came across to stand opposite to me. I stared at her and she stared steadily back, unsmiling now. It was the first time we had been alone together since I had returned accompanied by Rosemary. Already, through the secret chemistry of the situation, Antonia and I were two new and different people. We regarded each other with a dismay behind which, in my case, there lurked an abject terror, ready to probe the difference. I felt suddenly dizzy with pain and unable to face whatever scene was to follow. I went back to scraping the pipe. I said, 'Well, you've made one person blissfully happy. Rosemary adores catastrophes.'

'Martin, darling,' said Antonia. She said it lingeringly, with an insistent tenderness of reproach. She stood there before me, her stomach pouting, her hip jutting, her body twisted in such a dear familiar way. A snowy white silk blouse, falling well open, showed off her long neck. Her bun was coiled in a neat golden ball almost as large as her head. I looked at her again and saw her sharply for the first time since our rupture as a separate person and no longer a part of myself.