Charles Maine - World Without Men

Gorste recognized that he was about to drive his own mental turbulence into the comforting padded cell of amorality. For an instant he was almost the gay dog, uninhibited, free to formulate his own rules of behaviour, able to accept whatever pleasures life might have to offer if he felt so inclined, with no sense of guilt or transgression. A moment later he sensed that he was deceiving himself. Whatever E.J.’s code of behaviour might be, his was too rigidly defined. He was a married man, and he recognized the bonds and barriers of marriage, and his conscience, conditioned or not, was a very real thing. There might be such a thing as amorality, but it wasn’t for him. By his standards, the amoral and the immoral were the same thing, and the relationship that now existed between himself and E.J. was an evil thing within his own terms of reference.

E.J. left the settee and poured another drink for each of them. Gorste accepted it silently.

“Nothing to say?” E.J. asked. “Not even thank you?”

Something cynical twisted the shape of his lips a little. “Thank you, for the drink,” he murmured.

“Perhaps,” she said thoughtfully, “you think of me as too sophisticated. It’s not quite like that. I just look at life in a different way. I like to think that perhaps I can add something, however little, to the pleasure of living.”

“For whom?”

“For all concerned. It takes two people to form a liaison of :hat kind. And, after all, Mr. Gorste, what is the motive? Pleasure, surely.”

“Yes, but pleasure is not always a good motive…”

“It is neither good nor bad. It is the way one reacts to it that matters. In your case it is obviously a bad reaction, and you are worried; but it will pass. Next time the reaction will be less and the pleasure greater. That is how the human system adapts itself.”

Gorste sipped his drink slowly. “There will be no next time, E.J. What I did was against my better judgment…”

She smiled in disbelief. “I don’t remember hearing any protests. In fact you responded far more quickly and with a great deal more energy than many I could name. Why not forget about it? Push it out of your mind. Here and now at this moment it might never have happened.”

Gorste stood up and placed the half empty glass on the desk. He stared out of the window into the rain. “I am resigning,” he stated flatly. “I will let you have the usual formal notice of resignation in writing. One month’s notice is required, I believe.”

E.J. came over to him and stood behind him, putting her hands lightly on his shoulders.

“I won’t accept your resignation, Mr. Gorste. And, in any case, you won’t even submit it. By tomorrow you’ll feel quite differently…”

“It has nothing to do with you, or what happened in here, E.J. It’s well, I no longer have faith in my work. I can no longer believe that what I am doing is right, or even desirable. I’m afraid I can’t stop Sterilin at this stage; the work is too advanced. Slade can pick up where I leave off.”

He turned round to face her, his eyes solemn.

“I just want to wash my hands of the whole damned business.”

E.J. eyed him shrewdly. In the cold, flat light from the window she looked older now, and there were fine lines around her mouth and under her eyes.

“All right,” she said. “Resign if you wish. After all, you can always withdraw your resignation within the next four weeks.”

“I’m afraid you don’t really understand me, E.J.,” said Gorste.

E.J. nodded slowly. “I think I do. The real trouble, Mr. Gorste, is that you don’t understand yourself.”

Anne had to be told, of course. Now that he had assumed the pose of righteousness (and it was a pose, he realized, but an essential pose to provide a kind of spiritual stability, and fill some indefinable vacuum in his emotional make-up), he had to be consistent in himself and follow it through. It would hurt Anne considerably, and so little did he know her that he found himself unable to predict her reaction. Would she become cold and silent and malevolent, or would she be consumed in vindictive fury? Or, more happily, would she remain calm and talk about the situation reasonably and understanding^ as he himself would try to do.

Surprisingly, when he arrived home, the television set had n^een switched on. Anne was reading the evening paper much interest, and the moment he came into the room she put it down and came over to him and kissed him.

It was almost as if she had sensed what had happened and was anxious to dismiss his fears.

Gorste, obsessed by the events of the day, came to the point immediately. He said: “I’ve resigned my job, darling.” She looked at him blankly for a moment, as if something she had been about to say had suddenly been pushed out of her mind.

“I had to resign,” he went on. “I came to the conclusion that it would be unethical to continue on the research program. It’s a long-term question of morality.”

“Morality,” she echoed, puzzled. “Phil, I don’t think you ought to resign. It’s a good, secure job and you’re well paid. You can’t resign — not just yet.”

“What exactly do you mean: not just yet?”

She hesitated, then smiled coyly. “Well, darling, I’ve got a secret for you. I wasn’t sure until today.” A brief pause while she kissed him lightly on the lips. “We’re going to have a baby.”

Gorste said nothing, just stood rigidly holding her.

“So you see why you can’t resign, Phil. You’re going to need that job, and we’re going to need all the money we can get. We have to move out of the flat, perhaps buy a house. We can’t take any chances with our baby’s future, can we?” As Gorste made no response, she moved away from him and regarded him anxiously. “What’s the matter, darling?” she asked. “Aren’t you pleased?”

He seemed to come alive, as if someone had pressed a switch. “Of course,” he murmured vaguely, then went over to an armchair and sat down. Anne followed, sitting on the floor, curling herself up against his knees.

“You’re worried about something, Phil. Please tell me.” He was looking at her strangely, as if he had never seen her before. His voice when he spoke was quiet and toneless. “You’re quite sure about the baby?”

“Yes. I saw the doctor today. Another six months, he said.”

“Anne, I’ve left you on your own a great deal during the past few months. There have been evenings when I’ve had to work late…”

“It’s all right, darling. I’ve never complained, have I?”

“What I mean is, well, I’ve always trusted you, Anne…She looked up at him with wide, questioning eyes. “Philip, what on earth…?”

He chose his words carefully. “You see, it’s this way. I can’t possibly be the father of your child. I’m sterile.”

Her face, her expression, became transfixed. Slowly she stood up, holding on to the mantelpiece for support.

“Philip, you’re talking nonsense. Of course you’re the father. You don’t imagine…?”

“Nor did your first husband. Drewin never imagined that you were being unfaithful.”

Her face, paler now, was taut and suddenly older. The knuckles of the hand that held the mantelpiece gleamed white through the skin.

She said slowly: “For God’s sake, Philip, things were different then: I hated Drewin and I loved you. There has never been anyone else.”

“I’m sterile, and it was Drewin who made me that way,” Gorste stated factually. “He did it with radioactive isotopes; so you can’t be having my child. It’s just not possible.”

“You’re terribly mistaken, Philip,” she said, more calmly. “I don’t believe you’re sterile. I know about what Drewin did. He told me just before I killed him; that was why I killed him. He said he knew about us and that I was wasting my time because he’d fixed things so that you’d never be a man again…”