The Girl Who Passed for Normal by Hugh Fleetwood Page A

if he were explaining something very simple to her. “It was a matter of aesthetics for David. He was doing something creative that, if used right, could make life grow — and he was afraid it would be used to the opposite effect.”
    “Did he tell you this?”
    “No. But I know David very well.”
    Barbara made no comment.
    “And so —” Barbara could tell from his voice that he was dreaming. “— David had been here for three years. He enjoyed himself. He thought he was a foreigner living outside society, being free. But he was doing something that was very much a part of society. He was doing something that could be used to control society. And if David wanted to be free himself, he must have seen the contradiction. With you, and his life here, he saw that he was fooling himself. And so he got up one morning and left. I’m sure he’s gone back to America and will try to do something he believes is on the side of life and freedom.”
    “Rubbish.” Barbara looked down at the long unbrushedbrown hair and wanted to touch it. “I suppose you’re trying to explain it in simple terms to me, but it’s rubbish, anyway. Honestly, Marcello. I did know David a little bit myself.” Then she lay back in the chair and shook her head. “Oh, you’re probably right though. I suppose you and David were always sitting down and talking about ‘life’ and ‘freedom.’ But that’s only talk. I want David back, and I hope he hasn’t gone for your silly abstract reasons, because if he has I honestly don’t think I would want him back. I prefer to think he’s gone to America for Mary Emerson. I even prefer to think that she’s killed him. At least that would be human.” But there was no point in talking to Marcello. She knew he would win, if they kept talking, even though he was wrong. He would win, because he was strong.
    They sat in silence for five minutes and she drank her wine. Then, “I suppose you think what I’m doing with Catherine Emerson is wrong. I suppose I shouldn’t try to help her. I should let her shamble about with her mouth open, crying behind doors and being persecuted by her mother.”
    Marcello shook his head. “No. Only you shouldn’t kid yourself that if you cured that girl the world would instantly become beautiful. You’d merely have given her the possibility of seeing that it isn’t, and that something should be done about it.”
    Barbara was tired. She couldn’t fight. “Marcello, would you mind very much if I slept here tonight?” she said. “I don’t want to be alone. I’m so depressed.”
    He nodded pleasantly. “Of course. You can sleep over there — there’s a bed under all those covers. It’s probably been slept in a couple of times, but I think it’s clean.” Hestood up, and Barbara looked at his dark skin and his droopy moustaches; he was so solid, he was so much there. “That’ll be fine. It really doesn’t matter. I’m so tired.”
    The next morning Marcello made coffee. As they were drinking it, Barbara said, “Did you mind, when I went to live with David?”
    Marcello looked her in the eyes. “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I thought he was doing the wrong thing.”
    “Oh,” Barbara said. Then, after a while, she said, “Did you tell him?”
    “Yes.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He laughed, and said he knew it.”
    Barbara wondered whether he was telling the truth. She could hear David saying it, but it still hurt to think he’d said it.
    “Why did David want me to stay with him?”
    “He said he didn’t. You wanted to stay with him.”
    She hated Marcello. “He wouldn’t have put up with me if he didn’t want me.”
    “He didn’t really care.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “Why did you want to live with him?”
    “Because I love him.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Of course you do. You love him for the very reasons that he’s left you. Because he’s brilliant, and free. He’s also rather childish. That’s why he let you