Staring at the Sun by Julian Barnes Page B

and topping up her cup before it was empty. Perhaps he didn’t think she was defective; perhaps he wouldn’t send her back.
    She had to say something about it, though. This was what happened in marriage, after all. That evening, as they changed for dinner. She found courage when his back was turned. “I’m sorry about last night.”
    He didn’t answer. He probably was cross. She started again. “I’m sure … I’m sure next time …”
    He came around to where she was sitting on the bed and sat half beside her, half behind her. He put a big finger to her lips. “Shh,” he went. “It’s quite all right. It’s natural you’re highly strung at this sort of time. I won’t make a nuisance of myself again before we leave.”
    That wasn’t what she wanted to hear at all. It was kind enough, but it seemed almost to be changing the subject. She had to try again. They weren’t like their parents, after all, were they: they had read books, and Michael, presumably, had been to the brothels in London. She took his finger from her lips.
    “I’ll manage next time,” she said, beginning to shake a little;though perhaps this was because Michael was gripping her shoulder rather hard.
    “We aren’t talking about it,” he said firmly. “That’s enough now. You’ll do.” He placed both hands over her face in a soap-smelling caress. One covered the top of her face down to the tip of her nose; the other covered her mouth and chin. A little light peeped in between two of his slightly parted fingers. He held her there for a while, in the soft cage of his hands.
    For the last two nights of their honeymoon he didn’t trouble her. They returned to live in the two rooms Michael’s gaunt mother had allotted them in her square, cold house. The first week was not a success. Either she had a sticky-fingered struggle with her diaphragm, only to find that Michael stayed up late talking to his mother; or she didn’t bother and found him pressing up hard against her. She would go off to the bathroom, struggle and panic, then return and find him asleep, or feigning sleep.
    “Michael,” she said, the second time this happened. He grunted. “Michael, what is it?”
    “Nothing,” he said, in a voice that meant: Something.
    “Tell me.” No reply. “Go on.” No reply. “I can’t be expected to guess.”
    Eventually, in a weary voice, he replied, “It’s meant to be spontaneous.”
    “Oh dear.”
    The following night, with help from a little drink, Michael elaborated. It’s no good if it isn’t spontaneous; and for want of better, or any other, information, she agreed, It’s awful if everything’s cut and dried. There’s something sickening about getting on the boil, pardon the expression, and then having to go off the boil for ten minutes or so; she agreed, blushing inwardly and wondering how long other women took. They couldn’t go on having this charade, never coinciding, like the weathermen on a cuckoo clock; she agreed. It would probably help matters—just to begin with, just until they knew one another better—if they decided on certain days when she would … put her thing in; not, of course,that this necessarily …; she agreed. It seemed to him, thinking it over, that Saturday was one obvious time, because there was always Sunday morning as well if he was too tired on Saturday night; and perhaps Wednesday as well, at least as long as his current shift pattern continued. She agreed, she agreed. Saturday and Wednesday, she said to herself, on Saturday and Wednesday we shall be spontaneous.
    The system worked quite well. She got better at handling the box; Michael didn’t hurt her; she became used to the noises he made—the sort of noises you normally associated with small mammals. There was something distinctly nice about sex, she decided, about having your husband’s sex-hyphen joined to you, about feeling him turn childish in your arms.
    Even so, it did leave her with quite a lot of time for thought.