Finally he’s middle-aged, in two years he’ll be bald as an egg and he can’t stand it. He’s hardly in any position to be jealous, considering Madge, but nevertheless he’s overcome with despair. Everything becomes very underwater, but along comes John, who has a key to Mary’s apartment. One day James breezes in on his motorcycle with some top-grade California hybrid and James and Mary get higher than you’d believe possible and they climb into bed. He goes on about this more than is necessary and Mary finds it boring, but older men can keep it up longer so on the whole she has a fairly good time. John tells Mary how important she is to him, but of course he can’t leave his wife because a commitment is a commitment. John is married to a woman called Madge and they have two children, a charming house which they bought just before the real estate values went up, and hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging, when they have the time. Thursdays are the only days John can get away. Freedom isn’t the same for girls, so in the meantime Mary spends Thursday evenings with John. But James is often away on his motorcycle, being free. John has a steady, respectable job and is getting ahead in his field, but Mary isn’t impressed by him, she’s impressed by James, who has a motorcycle and a fabulous record collection. John on the contrary settled down long ago: this is what is bothering him. She’s in love with someone called James, who is twenty-two also and not yet ready to settle down. She sleeps with him even though she’s not in love with him.
John, who is an older man, falls in love with Mary, and Mary, who is only twenty-two, feels sorry for him because he’s worried about his hair falling out. John marries Madge and everything continues as in A.
She hopes he’ll discover her and get her to the hospital in time and repent and then they can get married, but this fails to happen and she dies. You can see what kind of a woman she is by the fact that it’s not even whiskey. Mary collects all the sleeping pills and aspirins she can find, and takes them and a half a bottle of sherry. John has never taken Mary to a restaurant. It’s not even Madge that finally gets to Mary: it’s the restaurant. Her friends tell her they’ve seen him in a restaurant with another woman, whose name is Madge. He has never complained about the food before. One evening John complains about the food. This other John will emerge like a butterfly from cocoon, a Jack from a box, a pit from a prune, if the first John is only squeezed enough. Inside John, she thinks, is another John, who is much nicer. Her friends tell her John is a rat, a pig, a dog, he isn’t good enough for her, but she can’t believe it. Crying is bad for your face, everyone knows that and so does Mary but she can’t stop. He doesn’t take off Mary’s clothes, she takes them off herself, she acts as if she’s dying for it every time, not because she likes sex exactly, she doesn’t, but she wants John to think she does because if they do it often enough surely he’ll get used to her, he’ll come to depend on her and they will get married, but John goes out the door with hardly so much as a good-night and three days later he turns up at six o’clock and they do the whole thing over again. He comes to her apartment twice a week and she cooks him dinner, you’ll notice that he doen’t even consider her worth the price of a dinner out, and after he’s eaten the dinner he fucks her and after that he falls asleep, while she does the dishes so he won’t think she’s untidy, having all those dirty dishes lying around, and puts on fresh lipstick so she’ll look good when he wakes up, but when he wakes up he doesn’t even notice, he puts on his socks and his shorts and his pants and his shirt and his tie and his shoes, the reverse order from the one in which he took them off. He merely uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a tepid kind. Mary falls in love with John but John doesn’t fall in love with Mary. They both have hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging. John and Mary have a stimulating and challenging sex life and worthwhile friends. Eventually, they can afford live-in help, they have two children, to whom they are devoted. They both have worthwhile and remunerative jobs which they find stimulating and challenging.
John and Mary fall in love and get married.
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