To Have And Have Not

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT
off to sleep with your mouth open while I lie awake
all night afraid to say my prayers even because I
know I have no right to any more. Love is all the
dirty little tricks you taught me that you probably
got out of some books. All right. I'm through with
you and Fm through with love. Your kind of pick-
nose love. You writer/
'You little mick slut.'
'Don't call me names. I know the word for you.'
'All right.'
'No, not all right. All wrong and wrong again.
If you were just a good writer I could stand for all
the rest of it maybe. But I've seen you bitter,
jealous, changing your politics to suit the fashion,
sucking up to people's faces and talking about them
behind their backs. I've seen you until I'm sick of
you. Then that dirty rich bitch of a Bradley woman
to-day. Oh, I'm sick of it. I've tried to take care of
you and humour you and look after you and cook for
you and keep quiet when you wanted and cheerful
when you wanted and give you your little explosions
and pretend it made me happy, and put up with
your rages and jealousies and your^meannesses and
now I'm through.'
'So now you want to start again with a drunken
professor?*
'He's a man. He's kind and he's charitable and he
makes you feel comfortable and we come from the
same thing and we have values that you'll never
have. He's like my father was.'
184