Some weeks ago she had rung up to say that he was ‘going to be the last of the fighting cocks-she swore it’. Apart from anything else, they were ruining her: it was not that any of them were deliberate spongers-but then, who is? The combination, as Patty said, of a warm-hearted mother-figure who earned a good salary, and a young man with talent who was bound to earn too little, was simply fatal-she must put a stop to the thing. ‘When this brave boy flies away, then I must say no to the next.’
Joking, she continued to assist them on their way, while she, it was obvious, was doing badly in other ways than financial. She had said that if she hadn’t already had a breakdown she would be having one now-‘But one gets tired of everything, including being neurotic.’ She said that … she said a good deal, all amounting to the same thing, that she was bored with herself. The futility, the staleness, the harsh bright light of self-criticism that accompanies any stage of life where one is repeating outworn patterns of behaviour was ageing her, staling her. Yet she could not stop. She had been unable to adopt a child-she was not eligible. Common sense told her that the authorities were right: what time would she have for a child, working all day? Yet children were what she wanted. She said that when she kicked the final young man out, then that would be the end of love and she could not face sleeping alone. Looking back over her life, which included so much hard work, for politics, for the theatre, she said there was nothing in it that was real save men, making love, sex.
She said this to Mark, one of the men, both Lynda and Martha being present. She had said it laughing; but she laughed all the time, and talked compulsively, asking continuously: Well, what do you think? What have you to say? Don’t just sit there, tell me, what am I to do?
And so on.
She was doing this to all her settled friends, or as she said:’ to anyone who has managed to share the same bed with anyone for longer than a year’. She was making enemies; people were irritated by her, since, as usual, it appeared they were unable to see that she was rather ill.
She told Mark that he was an absolutely typical Englishman-that is, he was only able to stand a woman if she ‘was abroad, or dead, or married to someone else, or if he had seen her once like Beatrice from a distance’. And that if Lynda got well Mark would not be able to stand it; he’d run away.
‘He’d probably fall madly in love with you, Martha, dreaming about you from afar, because of course you wouldn’t be able to endure Mark’s being in love with you, or at least wanting you to have and to hold, you’re Mark’s female equivalent.’
All this had been at a supper-table recently. Lynda, Martha, Mark and the young man, Derek from Leeds, had been in their different ways, upset. The young man was fairly new in London and said he wasn’t used to’the free and easy ways of the intellectuals’.
‘We aren’t used to it either, ’ said Lynda. ‘I’m not an intellectual.’
‘Oh sorry, ’ he said, quickly; he was over-apologetic. But then, she had been over-angry. Feeling she had been, she said, with her special smile, ‘Oh never mind, please don’t
In return she was engulfed in a great wave of his speciality, an easy sympathy. Lynda, always responsive to warm physical steadying, again smiled, her face turning to his like a sunflower. He smiled straight into her eyes; then remembered Patty, sardonically watching. He sat back in his chair, looked down at his plate.
For the onlookers it was like seeing a large stone flung into a small pool; over-large waves had washed back and back.
This young man, now twenty-five, had used all the virtues one needs to get oneself out of the provinces into the talented city. He had been stubborn, patient, resourceful; had husbanded integrity and his talent. But, once arrived in London, he discovered that none-of these was nearly as useful as a quality he had taken for granted, a straightforward human warmth, human response. He had of course read D. H. Lawrence as part of his self-education. Now he understood what D. H. Lawrence had been on about. He understood he was a Lawrentian hero.
It was not that he had ever consciously decided to move about in these circles like a battery of sexy-emotional sympathy; it was what he found was happening. Sometimes he would fiercely say to himself that London was corrupt: and he would remind himself of provincial virtues.
‘I mean, ’ chattered Patty, her shrewd gaze on her young man’s safely lowered lids. ‘I simply can’t imagine any one of you, I mean your kind of Englishman, Mark, actually living with your loved one and liking it-I don’t mean just putting a good face on it, or being bitchy and spiteful in a long-suffering sort of way meant to be taken note of by poor wifie, or simply absenting themselves spiritually the way they do, but actually living with a woman all the way.’
‘I do.’ said Derek, speaking up stoutly for himself.
‘Yes, love, but you are different, aren’t you?’
At which point Francis had come in.
‘And now shut up, ’ said Mark to Patty.
‘Not in front of the children, ’ said Francis, smiling, his round boy’s face ever ready for hurt, looking with cautious inquiry at them all.
‘And not in front of me, ’ said Lynda.
Oh, for God’s sake, ’ said Patty, taking Francis into her camaraderie with a smile meant to be free-and-easy:’ Francis isn’t a little boy.’
‘Yes I am, ’ said Francis, paling, setting a distance. ‘If you’re on about what I think then I definitely am.’
Patty did not sense his seriousness and was about to go on. She was kicked under the table by Derek. ‘Oh damn you, ’ said she, leaning down to rub her ankle. ‘That’s tact, is it?’
‘It’s what you like, but shut up, ’ Derek had said.
Later she rang to say she was sorry; she hadn’t meant to upset anyone.
This having been the last time they had seen Patty, there was a tensing of the atmosphere as she came over the trampled grass with Derek.
He stood by Mark and began telling anecdotes about the day’s walking.
‘Come on, love, ’ said Patty. ‘We’ll never find our group again.’
‘In a minute.’
He was watching a part of the crowd where people were forming up ready to march out of the big field. Soon a banner went up, rising into the air on sticks like a horse or a cow unfolding upwards on to its feet; and under it they saw Graham Patten, who would be coming past within a dozen yards.
‘Oh, do come on, ’ said Patty, annoyed, realizing why he stood there.
‘You go ahead then, love, ’ said he. ‘I’ll catch you up.’
Patty smiled with difficulty, then stood quietly to one side waiting. They were careful not to catch her eyes.
Graham saw them, and broke ranks to come over, including them all in his benevolent showman’s smile. ‘Darling … darling …’ he murmured, kissing Martha and Lynda, and nodding to Mark who was his real object. He stood by Patty and moulded her bottom in his large hand in a way which dismissed her. Her value on the success index was badly down, partly because her neurotically anxious state made her less useful to employers; though they did not realize this, for they did not know the real reason why she was invaluable. It was partly too because the various young men, having used her and left, were malicious; and these young men had more’say’ in setting tones, moods, indices, than anybody else.
To be with Graham anywhere was to know exactly where one stood in the success market: Patty not only looked annoyed, but went pale. She said to them later that night that she had had no idea until that moment how badly she had slipped. Now she did not suffer the amorously possessive but patronizing hand as she should. She said, spurting anger: Oh for God’s sake.’ All affability, Graham raised his eyebrows, took a step away from her, and dismissed her from his attention. He turned to Mark but found Derek beside him.
Derek was signalling sympathetic understanding towards Patty; but a humorous indulgence towards Graham.
Messages flashed between Graham and Derek: they were meeting for the first time.
‘And wha
t hair, too, ’ said Graham, after a pause.’… What hair! …’ As he said this, he looked, with a melancholy not at all forced, straight into the young man’s eyes. Simultaneously he reached out a hand to fondle Patty’s hair. She had a lot of it; it was in what might be described as winsome disarray, but after all, it was greying.
Patty was now too angry to protest; at the same time she shrewdly noted the interchange between her young man and Graham, dissecting Graham’s multifunctional gesture. In fondling her hair after she had protested, he was insisting in his right to do so; also, he was putting her into the position where whether she protested again or not, she must look ridiculous. Also, he was telling her young man that he, Graham, had prior rights, that (very likely) he had had Patty at some time or another. Also, he was giving himself something to do while he recovered himself from the blow of seeing the young man. For, as the women looked at Derek from Leeds, their senses alerted by Graham’s sudden, and genuine gravity, they saw again that he was extraordinarily, marvellously, good-looking: a hero of the times, indeed. His hair, a glistening lively substance, like pale gold, worn rather long, showed ears all alert sensibility; his eyes were steadily intelligent; his mouth managed to combine the sensibility of a policeman’s or prizefighter’s with a look of being permanently damp with kisses.
In every mind suddenly danced images of love: ears, hands, buttocks, thighs and mouths whirled about them like leaves in a spring gale, and as the temperature rose, Graham, breathing fast, and laughing at himself said: ‘I grow chilly and …’
‘And I, ’ said Patty, ‘am not going to finish the quotation.’
Oh not yet darling, not yet, why should you? And I wouldn’t either, in your place.’
Graham continued to stand by them, or by Derek, while the columns unwound themselves out of the park. He had forgotten why he had come over, which was to get Mark to go on his programme.
He was about to rejoin the marchers, when he remembered, and said to Mark:’ Have you thought it over?’
Mark said:’ The thing is, I’m not short of money at the moment.’
Graham, used to his step-brother, did not look to see if he meant to be offensive: he knew he did not. Other people had found Mark offensive.
‘I’ll see all you darling people, ’ said Graham, in his manner of sending up the things he was forced to say. After a swift involuntary swoop into the young man’s eyes, he tore himself away and went off into the crowd. Derek looked after him: Graham’s new television programme showed signs of being extra-successful.
Patty said:’ And are all you darling people going home soon?’
‘Yes, ’ said Mark, ‘no speeches at any price.’
‘Then I’ll come with you if…’ She looked at her young man and said:’ Perhaps you’d rather stay with the others.’
His face lit into relief. ‘Thanks, ’ he said. ‘Thanks’ … He was already off across the grass when he remembered, turned, hastily gripped Patty in a kiss, and then ran lightly under the great damp trees to lose himself in the moving crowd.
‘Oh God, ’ said Patty aloud, in a sudden uncontrollable agony. ‘Oh God. Well that’s that, wouldn’t you say?’
‘On the whole, yes, ’ said Lynda.
‘It looks like it, ’ said Martha.
‘Anyway, ’ said Mark, ‘he’s not good for anything that I can see, except
‘Oh, yes, quite, precisely so, exactly, ’ said Patty, laughing angrily. She wept, heaved with tears, blubbered, while they went with her across the grass in the other direction towards Marble Arch.
‘I know I’m a fool, ’ said Patty, gripping Mark, who was nearest, in such violence of grief that his raincoat was pulled down his arm. She staggered, had to be held up, her face was red and swollen, like a drunk woman’s.
It was essential to get her home so she could lie down. Taxis for some reason were not about. They stood on the pavement waiting for one while Patty swore at herself and wept.
Lynda made a couple of cold and impatient remarks.
Mark said:’ You sound like some kind of spinster, Lynda.’
Lynda went very white; she reached for Martha’s hand like a little girl. A taxi came up. Mark, anguished that he had been unkind to his beloved Lynda, said:’ Lynda, you and Martha go on, I’ll come in another with Patty.’
Oh, ’ said Patty. ‘Don’t trouble about me, I’m just a fool and I deserve
‘Yes, yes, ’ said Mark and bundled her into the taxi, getting in after her. ‘You two come on then, ’ he said, and knocked on the glass for the driver to start.
Lynda and Martha stood, Lynda clutching Martha’s hand, waiting.
Among the people crossing the road from the park came Jack. He was bending over, being attentive to, a young fresh-faced girl. As he reached the pavement, he saw Martha, hesitated, decided not to show he had seen her, and went past, attending to the girl, who looked Irish, like an old-fashioned gentleman.
Martha had not seen him for a long time.
She had discovered how he earned his money. He broke in girls for a brothel. But they were prepared in a certain way; for it was a certain kind of brothel.
Jack had described the methods to Martha, while she, stupidly, had exclaimed, Yes, but I don’t see why … why did you … what is the point of… until she understood that this way of talking to her, which combined a rather offhand and insulting brutality about aims, with a meticulous, patient and indeed humble care in ‘I would like you to believe me; please believe me, Martha, that … what I want above all is trust …’ was in fact the technique used on the girls. And there was no need to ask why, how, what for, for she had only to watch her own reactions to see how it all worked.
It was essentially a process of degradation. But not a straightforward one. It would not have done, for instance, to take some girl and beat her up, or rape her, or force her into a brothel or into a compliance with this or that act. The girl had to be taken step by step along a road where she half understood and submitted to her own degradation. It was a process of psychological breaking-down. When Jack described blow by blow how such and such an innocent girl (virgins were best) was led to voluntarily agreeing to stay in the brothel, this description was a breaking-down of Martha, in so far as she was prepared to listen and accept. Because it was calculated, measured, to affect Martha.
He would see or hear of some girl new in the neighbourhood, working in a laundry or shop. She was probably provincial, or from Ireland, or perhaps from the Continent. He would drop into where she worked, was always formal, dignified, gravely interested. She usually remarked at this stage that she liked his manner, it was respectful: unlike most young men’s. But during this stage he would drop in a couple of remarks or gestures quite out of character with this correctly formal person. He would suddenly belch a string of four letter words; or goose her; it didn’t matter what-the point was, whatever he did or said was quick, and instantly concealed again behind the grand seigneur manner, which (since he was a farm boy from the high veld) sat on him like a top hat on a farm labourer. There was something insultingly wrong about it-and purposefully so.
The girl would wonder if she had imagined the rude words, the gesture. If she referred to them, he might look surprised or shocked and say, ‘What do you mean?’
At some point he said something like: ‘I have a friend who would be interested to meet you.’ She would suggest a local café; he, his house. (But he would say my friend’s house-or my flat-anything that was not the truth.)’Don’t you trust me?’ he would inquire in his melancholy resigned way when she demurred at coming to his house. She went, in the end. There she would find Jack dressed up as a Turk or perhaps an Arab. When she said:’ Why Jack, what are you doing in that costume?’ he would reply: ‘I think you are mistaken. I am Abdulla-something or other.’ She would giggle nervously; he would be gravely distant, suggesting she was bad-mannered. They would have Turkish coffee (‘flown in from my homeland’), or perhaps Turkish delight, or something of the kind. The whole purpose
of this interview was to make the girl fall in with his charade. Which might vary. For instance, he would be his own younger brother. Or perhaps there might be someone else there: another girl induced to act as his sister; or one of the other men associated with the brothel pretending to be something that he obviously was not.
She would return, confused, to her work, thinking continually about the incident, half-intrigued, half-insulted and angry. He would not come in to see her immediately-not for some days. When he came he would not refer to the occasion until she did. She would say:’ But, Jack, why were you pretending the other afternoon?’ Or:’ Was that really your sister?’ Again, he would be gravely reproachful. Yet at some point (exactly as he had used the discordant language or gesture) he would, and with sudden vulgarity, say something like:’ Oh, you can see through me, I like a girl you can’t fool.’
Even while she was smiling, flattered, very relieved that the farce was over, furious that he thought her stupid, he would have retreated back to his grand-opera dignity. He would leave her alone for a time. Not until he and whatever incident he had staged had become a memory that had more humiliation in it than pleasure, would he again drop into the shop or laundry or whatever it was. He would arrive in a state of moral indignation; at first playing a determination to preserve a wounded dignity, then (as if it were being forced out of him) reproach her for not trusting him, for listening to gossip and so on. She, naturally, protested innocence. But in order to show she trusted him, she had to go to his house (or flat or room or friend’s place) again. She went, feeling herself both falsely accused and deeply in the wrong. In Jack’s house, she was taken to one of the ambiguously furnished rooms. Nothing very much was said: the atmosphere, however, was very strong. Something might be lying around-a riding whip, or a hangman’s noose in nylon rope. ‘A friend of mine hanged himself last week-I was so fond of him.’ Meanwhile she was offered tea on a silver tea-tray, brought in by a girl, or young man, pretending to be a servant. She would probably crack and leave at this point. But he would do nothing to stop her beyond saying:’ You’re going? I am so very, very sorry. You do believe me, when I say how very sorry I am?’ She might leave altogether, and push it out of her mind: rare, that. It would appear that there aren’t so many strong-minded women; or perhaps it was that his original choices were good. She might leave the house, but find herself returning, full of incongruous emotion-she was in the wrong, she had behaved rudely. But this emotion would be in violent conflict with suspicion, unease, fear. Or she would get to the door and simply turn around and come back:’ I’m sorry, Jack, ’ she might say. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m just silly.’
The Four-Gated City Page 54
