of person, right
enough.'
He began telling her the story of his married life, but curiously
enough she appeared to know the essential parts of it already. She
described to him, almost as though she had seen or felt it, the stiffening
of Katharine's body as soon as he touched her, the way in which she still
seemed to be pushing him from her with all her strength, even when her arms
were clasped tightly round him. With Julia he felt no difficulty in talking
about such things: Katharine, in any case, had long ceased to be a painful
memory and became merely a distasteful one.
'I could have stood it if it hadn't been for one thing,' he said. He
told her about the frigid little ceremony that Katharine had forced him to
go through on the same night every week. 'She hated it, but nothing would
make her stop doing it. She used to call it -- but you'll never guess.'
'Our duty to the Party,' said Julia promptly.
'How did you know that?'
'I've been at school too, dear. Sex talks once a month for the over-
sixteens. And in the Youth Movement. They rub it into you for years. I dare
say it works in a lot of cases. But of course you can never tell; people
are such hypocrites.' ...