WOMEN AND SUCH.

We all know what men are after even if we don’t admit it, said Marlene, sitting back in her chair by the pool watching the men and woman swimming. They want domination and the rights to the bodies of women.

Humphrey shook his head slightly; gave a mild cough. Your outlook on men is rather anaemic, Marlene, he said, casting a glance that was one of mild interest. Look at the world of art and music, he offered, men have dominated for centuries. There are no great women composers or artists to compare.

Marlene looked at him disdainfully. Who has determined what is great and who is great? Men that is who. Men for men, Marlene said. Women have been deliberately overlooked and put aside. Women are by nature the real artists. Men are mere copiers. Frauds.

Humphrey laughed; looked back over the pool where swimmers drifted by. History does not lie, Marlene, nor does the gift of the gods lie with anyone other than men. It is a fact.

Marlene sipped her wine. She held her tongue with effort. She had known Humphrey for years; known him since their university days at Oxford. Her eyes slipped over him as he turned his head; watched the people in the pool. History lies, Humphrey because men compile it. Facts have to be interpreted. They do not speak for themselves. Facts are dumb by themselves.

Humphrey shook his head; gave a small grin to show his amusement.
Women are best for two things, he said, sitting back in his chair and watching Marlene’s face for signs of anger. Childbirth and sex. Without that, they are of no use.

Marlene caught her tongue about to storm at him. He knew that was rubbish; he was merely trying to rile her; get her to fall into his trap. What fools men are, she said eventually allowing herself breathing space to compile her answer. They know the real value of women, but seek to under value it because they are but children themselves and jealous of the power of women over men.

Humphrey smiled broadly. My mother was a fool, he said, she didn’t know a Monet from a chocolate box picture. She thought Nietzsche was a dancer. My father and I would sit at the dining table and amuse ourselves at my mother’s ignorance of things in art and in general.

Marlene glanced at Humphrey with coolness. Maybe your mother was the exception to the rule. Maybe your father married her because of her supposed ignorance. That does not prove that women are inferior to men at all; merely that he married a woman who was unexceptional in the areas she was questioned.

All women are such, Humphrey said. Even you, Marlene, even you have the illusion that you are equal to men. He laughed and drank his wine greedily. He sat and stared at her and smiled over his glass at her.

Marlene stared back at Humphrey with coldness in her heart. He had she felt become to like his father whom she had met way back in their university days. An old fool stuck in the dark ages of history. His father who had once tried to seduce her in the library with his hands and tongue, had failed, and had despised her ever since and so now it seemed did his son. Your understanding of women is superficial. You have an image of what women ought to be and judge them by that. If they exceed your vision of them, you deem them as whores of knowledge or queers. You know nothing of women other than that which your father poison you with, Marlene said bitterly.

Humphrey looked at the swimmers in a coldness of heart. Men are the saviours of the world. Women are the demons who try to distract them from their true vocation, bogging them down in to the mundane and the all too ordinary, Humphrey said.

Marlene sniffed out of contempt; spat into the pool in her anger. Your father tried to seduce me once; had his hands all over me in his vain attempt to bed me; but I fought him off, and he and you, have tried to put me down ever since.

Humphrey frowned. I knew nothing of that, he said. My father is an honourable man. He would not do that sort of thing.

Your knowledge of your father is less than you’re your knowledge of women, Marlene said. If your knowledge of women is based on your knowledge of your mother then your knowledge is pretty small and based on the exception rather than the rule concerning women as such.

Humphrey glared at her. His eyes taking in her way of sitting; the way she held her head just so; the way she held her hands over her glass; the way her jaw stuck out as if it despised men just for existing. My father was right about women, he said, turning his eyes upon her more deeply so that he caught every aspect of her body; the language of her movement. And you, too. You and women per se, are beneath us men. We are next to the right hand of the gods; you and women like you are demons who mock us; despise us for what we have achieved and will always achieve: greatness in the arts and in music.

Marlene sighed deeply and shook her head. It was like arguing with the imbeciles of the asylum. She got up from the table and brushed her hand through her hair. The closest you ever got to a woman is when you came struggling of the birth canal and found yourself stuck between your mother’s thighs. She closed her eyes briefly and then walked off up out of sight towards the town.

Humphrey watched her go and saw her limbs quite beautiful and her hair flowing at her back so wonderful. He watched her legs; her bottom; her waist and her back as she slowly went from his vision like some goddess of yore.