The Marriage Bed by Constance Beresford-Howe

meals but could nibble bits and pieces at all hours as she chose. Instead of doing her exercises, she could spend all morning in bed with a thriller if she liked, or sit in front of TV all evening sipping stingers from the pitcher she kept on call in the freezer and visited only discreetly when he was home. Not that Max ever said a word about her large daily intake of alcohol, either because she never showed the slightest effect from it, or because he was much too wise. All the same, she drank considerably less when he was around. I sometimes suspected also (though this was pure speculation) that Billie, fond as she was of Max, preferred sleeping in their king-size bed alone. Of course, she adored all the stages of courtship – she had always been a superb flirt in the teasing manner of the forties. She even used to try a bit of the old fluttering allure from time to time on Ross, just to keep in practice. But basically I thought she could never much have liked the final act itself. She had too keen a sense of the ridiculous, and too little love of sports.
    As I lumbered upstairs with clean linen for the beds, the kids scrambled up after me, followed by Violet and the cat, in a ragged little procession. None of them liked being left alone downstairs.
    It was a pity, in a way, I thought, stepping over the dog to strip Hugh’s cot, that I’d never been able to model myself on Billie as some girls do on their mothers. Because in her feather-weight way she probably had some of her values a lot straighter than I did. In my place, for instance, she would have regarded going to bed with Ross for the first time as simply a lark, a fun thing, not for a moment to be taken seriously. Whereas I for days and days hesitated, agonized over the decision, and postponed it, until both of us were in the last stages of emotional hypertension. I’d begun to take the pill, but for some inexplicable reason couldn’t bring myself to take the plunge.
    Finally I said in desperation, “Look, this is crazy. Let me get up. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ll fail my exams. We’ll just have to keep away from each other, at least till they’re over.”
    “It would be perfectly simple if we just went properly to bed,” said Ross. “It’s all this messing around that’s bad for your nerves. Not to mention mine.”
    “No, no, I haven’t got time. I’ve got to get that medal.”
    He rolled away from me abruptly and sat up. “Right. You’re perfectly right. This is crazy. You go off and hit the books.”
    While he fished under the bed for his shoes, I buttoned my blouse, shivering though his tiny bedroom was at least eighty degrees in an unseasonable heat wave. At the spotty mirror over his chest of drawers, I rebraided my tangled hair. Whistling under his breath, he pulled a clean T-shirt over his head.
    “Guess I’ll go over to the club and see if I can pick up a game of squash.”
    “Right.”
    “See you, maybe, after the exams.”
    “Sure.”
    “Take care.”
    “Right.”
    “Good luck.”
    “Thanks. So long.”
    With extreme dignity I preceded him downstairs and out into the blaze of sunlight. At the corner we parted silently. Halfway between the student ghetto and the library I met Karen, who had not spoken to me for several weeks. I smiled. She ignored me. “Silly bitch,” I thought, “you’re way behind the times.”
    I crossed the road, entered the chill stuffiness of the library, sat down in my carrel, took out my books, and began to cry. Fifteen minutes later I was climbing the long walk-up to his apartment, only to find him just steps behind me.
    “Thought you might be here,” I said, as he pulled me in and locked the door.
    “I thought you might be, too.”
    “It’s too hot for studying anyway.”
    “Or for squash.”
    “Oh. Oh. Do that again.”
    We sank onto the bed and all clocks stopped. It became evident after a time that, for all his apparent sophistication, Ross had little more expertise than I. This in