Free A Singular Man by J. P. Donleavy Page B

expense, just went into his thin folder and took out a single note of massive denomination. I should have turned then for home. But I couldn't because she would have gone with them and what if the night were crazy and she could say when she was a meal ready to eat, grab me by my brown thatch. I went in an-c other car, she was a plaything for the crowd. At the top of a table suggesting all the songs. Dripping candle wax on Claude's hair and he worshipped her for it and it just made him look like the victim of some crime following after of course the crime his father and mother committed getting him. She made him open his mouth and she dripped it down his throat. I thought she was carrying my being a cheapskate too far. I got up, walked across the maple, stepped through, and on the flag stones looked out at the shadows of the hills and down over the trees to the long lake. Hands flat out on the wall and she came out and saw me and thought I was vomiting. I said I ought to be. She said you have no rights on me, I'm not your possession, these are my friends, I've known them most of my life, if anything they have more claim on me than you have, but if you'd stopped your little act of silence and sulking and joined in the fun or if you just said you had no money, that you couldn't afford, or said something like that, why wouldn't I understand, I know some poor people too, but they don't mind spending money. She stepped back, put her hand under my chin and lifted it up. She said look at me, I want you to look at me, I'm commanding you to look at me, now smile, smile, bigger, O.K. you can take a handful of my brown thatch.
    And today ten years later and three days before silent night holy night when business volume is at a peak and downstairs a loud bellowing noise in the cellar with four kids pounding on the pipes. And Shirl swirling with her new cocktail dress. And I told her to shut up, and wham she goes all silent. My how things have changed. There was reason for my being the way I was. When I was young. When Shirl one weekend fell for some big blond brute who she said lifted her up and kissed her against a wall with her feet dangling. But we had got too close then and she went away a weekend begging she had to, would I let her go because she needed to stay in circulation just so she could still stay exciting to me. She said let's play with each other's emotions. Torture each other with jealousy, let's George betray the faith we have in each other and build it all up again after. And just this one weekend with the blond brute, so she could walk in the gates of the college and the blond brute could brag about how she was his date. She came back to me with not much to say except when she talked about it she got shifty eyed and started breathing heavily. Then she said I hate the way you are, you never tried to stop me.
    "George, I got an engagement tonight after dinner, so you don't mind we can call a car maybe to take you back."
    "I see."
    Shirl when she says things picks something up off a table. Puts it back. Then she goes towards the kitchen and talks over her shoulder. Wags her behind. A neat compact soft thing in the days when I was in a position to feel it. I suppose if I just went up to her now and touched it. But I have no right to presume in our separated state that I could lay hand on this part of her. There's little more than I can take of this kind of thing, because I ought to take her and the dress off and give her a boot out in the snow. No one around here to complain, Mr. Smith seen driving the stitchless Mrs. Smith into the elements. I own this land.
    "George, you're wearing your sense of ownership on your face."
    "It's my face. You've got your own face."
    "Gee thanks George."
    "Anytime. What's your engagement."
    "Interested. You want to come. These people are dying to meet you. Because you've got such a weird reputation. The way you swam at the island picnic last year. Everyone was impressed the way you dove into