Free The Twyborn Affair by Patrick White Page A

all around us.
    What, I wonder, would have happened if I had thrown myself amongst the sables, the brooches, my face burrowing into that Medici frill, or deeper, into the powdered cleavage? Would I have given Eadie cause for jealousy? (They say that women are not the worst bitches.)
    To give Mrs Golson her due, she showed greater kindness and consideration than I’ve known in years. As I sat in their gilt ‘salon’ I could have enjoyed a good cry—but kept it cold—and rightly so. All that about taking off my shoe—herself itching to undo the strap. I could not very well have had Joanie Golson pawing at what has always been my worst feature.
    That old pair of shoes I gave Joséphine—she said they were big, too big for her mother, her sister’s fiancé had tried and almost got them on. Joséphine was always candid, except in giving notice. You could have knocked me over when I saw her scuttling down the corridor at the Splendeurs et Misères des Ligures. Can’t blame her for wanting the extra money and thinking us stingy, all foreigners are believed to be rolling in money. However, that did not prevent me wanting to do her some small form of physical violence as she scuttled off and turned the corner, showing distinct signs of paint . Is Joséphine perhaps also something of a whore? If she is, I can hardly accuse her.
    No, I am not. Though the ring I wear may be part of a disguise, my natural lust has never, unless in fantasy and dream, overstepped the bounds of fidelity. And where there is true love, true lust can surely be allowed?
    Anyway, Joséphine who gave notice, and who may or may not be a whore, has been dismissed even from my best memories since she scuttled down the corridor.
    The smell of a man—that really shocked poor Joan Golson. It came out. I couldn’t help it. In spite of her appearance she’s probably refined. Her private tastes would prevent her being titillated by whatcan be a devastating stench. Not that Eadie can’t devastate in that old coat and skirt which will last for ever and which would stand up on its own thanks to compost, food-droppings, and hair from the Australian terriers which climb on her when she has passed out on the library sofa after lunch.
    But can tart herself up and be a credit to the Judge on any of those social occasions which women married to the Law are allowed to grace. She has her distinction to fall back on, features, the carriage of a head, which even her enemies (lawyers’ wives always ready to prosecute) interpret as aristocratic. Eadie in her tarnished gold brocade, the sable hem and bordered sleeves (moth-eaten to anyone who has looked as closely as her child has) but impressive to others, imperial (not surprising she gave birth to a Byzantine empress—or hetaira, according to how you size things up) wearing the few ancestral rings (scrubbed of garden soil with a toothbrush before receptions) and her father’s signet. It must have been the General’s signet which caught the eye of Joanie Sweat-Free Golson. Which led to the corked-on moustache. And drinks in the winter garden at the Hotel Australia.
    I must write to that poor cow J.G., thank her for her kindness, which I like to think was more than the steamed-up passion some women seem able to generate for another—as opposed to the freemasonry (so necessary) which also exists, along with trustful feminine affection.
    I admire women, and would like to love them—but it isn’t always possible. (Angelos, I believe, both admired and loved Anna, but only lusts after me—the hetaira, and Empress Eudoxia in name.)
    Poor Joan, I think, does not love her husband, but like that legion of wives, needs him. After apologising for his cigar smoke and his Australianness, how she glared when he came in. The Joan Golsons of this world spend their lives brooding over accents.
    I don’t think I ever set eyes on E. Boyd Golson in the past,