Connolly understood all this, I think. I don't mean that he would have been able to articulate, or even to consciously formulate, the role that class played in his relationship with Sheba. But that he sensed the anthropological dimension of Sheba's interest in him and played up to it, I have no doubt.
Sheba is fascinated by the working class stereotype that Connolly seems to fit; after all, he is the only truly working class person she has ever come to know. She is also fascinated by his home life. He seems to sense this, and emphasizes the lower class aspects of his upbringing without sharing the elements such as his parents' habit of exposing them to classical music and his father's passion for history. This arrangement also shows that while Sheba was viewed as the predator, Connolly was actually the more calculating in starting the relationship.
"Everyone's always asking 'How could she? What made her take the risk'" Sheba said to me once, "But the truth is, Barbara, doing that kind of thing is easy. You know how you sometimes have another drink even though you know you're going to have a hangover tomorrow? Or, or, you take a bite of a donut even though you know it's going straight to your thighs? Well, it's like that. You keep saying No, no, no until the moment when you say, oh bugger it, yes."
Sheba genuinely cannot understand the horror felt by everyone about her affair, primarily because she knows that Connolly was at least a consenting partner within it. Her other explanation seems to be that she did it because eventually saying no doesn't work; one gets tired of being worn down and just gives in to the urge to so something, however detrimental it may be. Sheba has a tendency to minimize her actions and classes sex with an underage young man in the same category as over-eating or getting drunk.
The number of secrets I receive is in inverse proportion to the number if secrets anyone expects me to have of my own. And this is the real source of my dismay. Being told secrets is not - never has been - a sign that I belong or that I matter. It is quite the opposite: confirmation of my irrelevance.
Barbara used to think that being confidante to someone or being trusted with secrets was a compliment or a mark of the respect they had for her and her ability to be a friend. When she realizes that the opposite is true she becomes bitter and more envious of Sheba, who seems to matter far more than she does. This is also the likely reason for her telling Brian Bangs about Sheba's affair with Connolly; even if in the most negative way imaginable, she has made sure that she matters in this situation.
