Free Remedy is None by William McIlvanney Page B

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    Mrs Whitmore was content to let him do the talking. It was all she could manage to take even a neutral factual part in the conversation. She found herself wondering what it had to do with Raymond and Eleanor. It was obvious that their interest was only token. They were more concerned with finding opportunities for needling each other. Why were they always like that? It wasn’t the first time she had been at a loss to understand why they were still together. Surely it would have been more honest for them just to separate. Yet she couldn’t help asking herself what right they had to inflict themselves on other people like this. On her. She felt a revulsion from them. What did she have in common with them? What was she doing sitting in their company?
    ‘You see, I was trying to get him to tell us the price of the taxi before I got in. But he just kept saying, “Rambla beach, sor. Lovely for swim. I take you Rambla. No bother money. Later. Later”.’
    She was aware of Raymond’s eyes on her legs. Like limpets. She didn’t bother trying to distract them or to cover her legs more effectively, nor to stare him into emabrrassment. He would probably have taken any acknowledgement of his attention, no matter what form it was in, as a secret victory. He was always furtively intruding on her in this way. Sometimes when he was speaking to her he would stare very deliberately at her breasts as if it were with them that he was communicating. At other times he would engineer careful accidents and casual collisions. Sitting in at table, he would unavoidably brush against her thigh, pressing hard with his hand just as he touched her. Looking at something over her shoulder, he would lean on a little, his hand imprinting itself on her back. He always seemed to position his chair in such a way that when he faced towards her, his face was averted from Peter’s. He didn’t seem to mind about Eleanor. He probably wanted her to notice. Mrs Whitmore had mentioned his behaviour to Peter, but because of Peter’s flippancy, she had not mentioned the subject to him again, for it hurt her too deeply. She was insulted that Raymond thought he couldtake these trivial and casual liberties with her, and she was ashamed when it occurred to her what grounds he might have for thinking so. That was something else left over from the past. The present was riddled with the past. How did she think she could get over it? It had left her on the defensive about herself, inclined to sift the most trivial attitudes and remarks for concealed implications. The sort of perfunctory masculine examination that most women would construe as a personal compliment, she would distort into a personal insult, while it was nearly always no more than an impersonal instinct.
    ‘And they were in process of building another one. They seemed to look on it as a sort of stake in heaven. And they had more churches than they knew what to do with already. Ludicrous. They’d rather have the sacrament than a bite of bread on the table. Building elaborate churches and some of them living in houses the size of outside toilets.’
    She wondered how Peter could be so content in their company. He seemed to be enjoying himself, relating his traveller’s tales. But then he liked an audience of any kind. He tended to adopt this cynical worldly-wise attitude to things when he was with them. They always seemed to bring out the worst in him. Listening to him, she could barely recognize the holiday. It was as if he had been with someone else. You would have thought it had been a penance to him. But it hadn’t been like that at all. The things he mentioned were true to a degree. But he was taking them out of their context, distorting perspective. He was presenting them with isolated fragments, taken from angles that exaggerated their dimensions, and were jaundiced with cynicism. She felt betrayed in some small way that alienated her even further from the others. It made her realize again with