Stories

by Doris Lessing

  But if she had tricked Tom into it, then it would have served her right, as it certainly served Peggy right, if from the start of this marriage Tom Bayley had insisted on a second bachelor flat into which she, Maureen, was never allowed to go, just as Peggy was not. She, Maureen, would have refused marriage on such terms, she must give herself credit for that; in fact, her insistence on fidelity from Tom, a natural philanderer, was doubtless the reason for his leaving her for Peggy. So on the whole she did not really envy Peggy, who had achieved marriage when she was already nearly forty with the eminent and attractive professor at the price of knowing from the start she would not be the only woman in his life; and knowing, moreover, she had achieved marriage by the oldest trick in the world….

  At this point Maureen left the brown chair for the third time, found the yellow settee obvious, and sat on the floor, in the grip of self-disgust. She was viewing the deterioration of her character, even while she was unable to stop the flow of her bitter thoughts about Peggy. Viewing herself clear-sightedly had, in fact, been as much her occupation for the last six months of semi-retreat as losing a stone and regaining her beauty.

  Which she had: she was thirty-nine and she had never been more attractive. The tomboy who had left home in Iowa for the freedoms of New York had been lovely, as every fairly endowed young girl is lovely, but what she was now was the product of twenty years of work on herself. And other people’s work too…. She was a small, round, white-skinned, big-brown-eyed black-haired beauty, but her sympathy, her softness, her magnetism were the creation of the loves of a dozen intelligent men. No, she did not envy her eighteen-year-old self at all. But she did envy, envied every day more bitterly, that young girl’s genuine independence, largeness, scope, and courage.

  It had been six months ago when her most recent—and, she had hoped, her final—lover, Jack Boles, had left her, and left her in pieces, that it had occurred to her that twenty—indeed, only ten—years ago she had discarded lovers, she had been the one to say, as Jack had said—embarrassed and guilty, but not more than he could easily come to terms with—“I’m sorry, forgive me, I’m off.” And—and this was the point—she had never calculated the consequences to herself, had taken money from no man, save what she considered she had earned, had remained herself always. (In her time with Jack she had expressed opinions not her own to please him: he was a man who disliked women disagreeing with him.) Above all, she had never given a moment’s thought to what people might say. But when Jack threw her over, after an affair which was publicised through the newspapers for months (“Famous film director shares flat in Cannes with the painter Maureen Jeffries”), she had thought first of all: I’ll be a laughingstock. She had told everyone, with reason, that he would marry her. Then she thought: But he stayed with me less than a year; no one has got tired of me before so quickly. Then: The woman he has thrown me over for is not a patch on me, and she can’t even cook. Then back again to the beginning: People must be laughing at me.

  Self-contempt poisoned her, particularly as she was unable to let Jack go, but pursued him with telephone calls, letters, reproaches, reminders that he had promised marriage. She spoke of what she had given him, did everything in fact that she despised most in women. Above all, she had not left this flat whose rent he had recently paid for five years. What it amounted to was, he was buying her off with the lease of this flat.

  And instead of walking right out of it with her clothes (she was surely entitled to those?) she was still here, making herself beautiful and fighting down terror.

  At eighteen, leaving her father’s house (he was a post-office clerk), she had had her sex and her courage. Not beauty. For like many other professional beauties, women who spend their lives with men, she was not beautiful at all. What she had was a focussed sex, her whole being aware and sharpened by sex, that made her seem beautiful. Now, twenty years later, after being the mistress of eleven men, all of them eminent or at least potentially eminent, she had her sex, and her courage. But—since she had never put her own talent, painting, first, but always the career of whichever man she was living with, and out of an instinct of generosity which was probabbly the best thing in her—she now could not earn a living. At least, not in the style she had been used to.

  Since she had left home, she had devoted her talents, her warmth, her imagination to an art teacher (her first lover), two actors (then unknown, now world-famous), a choreographer; a writer; another writer; then, crossing the Atlantic to Europe, a film director (Italy), an actor (France), a writer (London), Professor Tom Bayley (London), Jack Boles, film director (London). Who could say how much of her offered self, her continually poured-forth devotion to their work, was responsible for their success? (As she demanded of herself fiercely, weeping, in the dark hours.)

  She now had left her sympathy, her charm, her talents for dress and decor, a minor talent for painting (which did not mean she was not a discriminating critic of other people’s work), the fact she was a perfect cook, and her abilities in bed, which she knew were outstanding.

  And the moment she stepped out of this flat, she would step out, also, of the world of international money and prestige. To what? Her father, now living in a rooming house in Chicago? No, her only hope was to find another man as eminent and lustrous as the others, for she could no longer afford the unknown geniuses, the potential artists. This is what she was waiting for, and why she remained in the luxurious flat, which must serve as a base; and why she despised herself so painfully, and why she had invited Peggy Bayley to visit her. One: she needed to bolster herself up by seeing this woman, whose career (as the mistress of well-known men) had been similar to hers, and who was now well married. Second: she was going to ask her help. She had gone carefully through the list of her ex-lovers, written to three, and drawn three friendly but unhelpful letters. She had remained, officially, a “friend” of Tom Bayley; but she knew better than to offend his wife by approaching him except with her approval. She would ask Peggy to ask Tom to use his influence to get her a job of the kind that would enable her to meet the right sort of man.

  When the doorbell rang, and she had answered it, she went hastily to the big brown chair, this time out of bravado, even honesty. She was appealing to the wife of a man whose very publicised mistress she had been; and she did not wish to soften the difficulties of it by looking less attractive than she could; even though Peggy would enter with nothing left of her own beauty; for three years of marriage with Professor Bayley had turned her into a sensible, goodlooking woman, the sleek feline quality gone that had led her from Cape Town to Europe as a minor actress, which career she had given up, quite rightly, for the one she was born for.

  But Peggy Bayley entered, as it were, four years back: if Maureen was small, delicate, luscious, then Peggy’s mode was to be a siren: Maureen jerked herself up, saw Peggy push pale hair off a brown cheek with a white ringed hand and slide her a a green-eyed mocking smile. She involuntarily exclaimed: “Tom’s ditched you!”

  Peggy laughed—her voice, like Maureen’s, was the husky voice of the sex-woman—and said: “How did you guess!” At which she turned, her hips angled in a mannequin’s pose, letting her gold hair fall over her face, showing off a straight green linen dress that owed everything to a newly provocative body. Not a trace left of the sensible healthy housewife of the last three years: she, like Maureen, was once again focussed behind her sexuality, poised on it, vibrating with it.

  She said: “We both of us look very much the better for being ditched!”

  Now, with every consciousness of how she looked, she appropriated the yellow settee in a coil of femininity, and said: “Give me a drink and don’t look so surprised. After all, I suppose I could have seen it coming?” This was a query addressed to—a fellow conspirator? No. Victim? No. Fellow artisan—yes. Maureen realised that the only-just-under-the-surface hostility that had characterised their meetings when Peggy was with Tom Bayley had vanished entirely. But she was not altogether happy yet about this flo
w of comradeship. Frowning, she got out of the brown satin chair, a cigarette clumsy between her lips. She remembered that the frown and the dangling cigarette belonged to the condition of a woman sure of a man; her instincts were, then, to lie to Peggy, and precisely because she did not like to admit, even now, long after the fact, just how badly she was alone? She poured large brandies, and asked: “Who did he leave you for?”

  Peggy said: “I left him,” and kept her green eyes steady on Maureen’s face to make her accept it, despite the incredulity she saw there.

  “No, really, it’s true—of course, there were women all the time, that’s why he insisted on the hidey-hole in Chelsea….” Maureen definitely smiled now, to remind her of how often she had not acknowledged the reason for the hidey-hole. It had been “Bill’s study, where he can get away from dreary domesticity.” Peggy accepted the reminder with a small honest smile that nevertheless had impatience: Well of course I told lies and played little games, don’t we all?—that’s what the smile said; and Maureen’s dislike of herself made her say aloud, so as to put an end to her silent rancorous criticism of Peggy: “Well, all right, then. But you did force him to marry you.” She had taken three large gulps of brandy. Whereas she had drunk far too much in the months after Jack had left her, during the last weeks her diet had forbidden her alcohol, and she was out of practice. She felt herself already getting tight, and she said: “If I’m going to get tight, then you’ve got to too.”

  “I was drunk every day and night for two months,” said Peggy, again with the level green look. “But you can’t drink if you want to keep pretty.”

  Maureen went back to the brown chair, looked at Peggy through coiling blue smoke, and said: “I was drunk all the time for—it was ages. It was disgusting. I couldn’t stop.”

  Peggy said: “Well all right, we’ve finished with that. But the point was, not the other women—we discussed his character thoroughly when we married and …” Here she stopped to acknowledge Maureen’s rather sour smile, and said: “It’s part of our role, isn’t it, to thoroughly discuss their characters?” At this, both women’s eyes filled with tears, which both blinked away. Another barrier had gone down.

  Peggy said: “I came here to show myself off, because of your boasting little letter—I’ve been watching you patronise me since I married Tom, being dull and ordinary—I wanted you to see the new me! … God knows why one loses one’s sex when one’s settled with a man.”

  They both giggled suddenly, rolling over, Peggy on her yellow linen, Maureen on her glossy brown. Then at the same moment, they had to fight back tears.

  “No,” said Maureen, sitting up, “I’m not going to cry, oh no! I’ve stopped crying, there’s not the slightest point.”

  “Then let’s have some more to drink,” and Peggy handed over her glass.

  They were both tight, already; since both were in any case on the edge of themselves with fasting.

  Maureen half-filled both glasses with brandy, and asked: “Did you really leave him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ve got better reason to like yourself than I have. I fought, and I made scenes, and when I think of it now …” She took a brandy gulp, looked around the expensive room, and said: “And I’m still living on him now and that’s what’s so horrible.”

  “Well, don’t cry, dear,” said Peggy. The brandy was slurring her, making her indolent. The “dear” made Maureen shrink. It was the meaningless word of the theatre and film people, which was all right, even enjoyable, with the theatre and film people, but it was only one step from …

  “Don’t,” said Maureen, sharp. Peggy widened her long green eyes in a “charming” way, then let them narrow into the honesty of her real nature, and laughed.

  “I see your point,” she said. “Well, we’d better face it, hadn’t we? We’re not so far off, are we?”

  “Yes,” said Maureen. “I’ve been thinking it out. If we had married them, that marriage certificate, you know, well then, we’d have felt quite all right to take money, in return for everything, everything, everything!” She put her face down and sobbed.

  “Shut up,” said Peggy. But it sounded because of her tightness like “Shhrrrp.”

  “No,” said Maureen, sitting up and sniffing. “It’s true. I’ve never taken money—I mean I’ve never taken anything more than housekeeping money and presents of clothes—have you?” Peggy was not looking at her, so she went on: “All right, but I’ll take a guess that Tom Bayley’s the first man you’ve taken a settlement from, or alimony—isn’t that so? And that’s because you were married to him.”

  “I suppose so. I told myself I wouldn’t, but I have.”

  “And you don’t really feel bad about it, just because of that marriage certificate?”

  Peggy turned her glass round and round between long soft fingers and at length nodded: I suppose so.

  “Yes. Of course. And all the fun we’ve both made about that marriage certificate in our time. But the point is, taking money when you’re married doesn’t make you feel like a tart. With all the men I’ve been with, I’ve always had to argue with myself; I’ve said, Well, how much would he have to pay for what I do for him—cooking and the housekeeping and the interior decoration and the advice? A fortune! So there’s no need for me to feel badly about living in his flat and taking clothes. But I did feel bad, always. But if Jack had married me, living in this bloody flat of his wouldn’t make me feel like a bloody tart.” She burst into savage angry tears, stopped herself, breathed deeply, and sat silent, breathing deep. Then she got up, refilled her glass and Peggy’s, and sat down. The two women sat in silence, until at last Maureen said: “Why did you leave him?”

  “When he married me we both thought I was pregnant…. No, it’s true. I know what you and everyone else said, but it was true. I had no periods for three months, and then I was very ill; they said it was a miscarriage.”

  “He wants children?”

  “Didn’t he with you?”

  “No.”

  “Then he’s changed. He wants them badly.”

  “Jack wouldn’t hear of children, wouldn’t hear of them, but that little bitch he’s ditched me for … I hear you’re great friends with them?” She meant Jack and the girl for whom she was thrown over.

  Peggy said: “Jack is a great friend of Tom’s.” This was very dry, and Maureen said: “Yes. Yes! All Jack’s friends—I cooked for them, I entertained them, but do you know not one of them has even rung me up since he left me? They were his friends, not mine.”

  “Exactly. Since I left Tom I haven’t seen either Jack or his new girl. They visit Tom.”

  “I suppose one of Tom’s girls got pregnant?”

  “Yes. He came to me and told me. I knew what I was supposed to do, and did it. I said: Right, you can have your divorce.”

  “Then you’ve got your self-respect, at least.”

  Peggy turned her glass round, looking into it; it slopped over onto the yellow linen. Both women watched the orange stain spread, without moving, in an aesthetic interest.

  “No, I haven’t,” said Peggy. “Because I said: ‘You can have your divorce, but you’ve got to give me so much money, or else I’ll sue you for infidelity—I’ve got the evidence a thousand times over.’”

  “How much?”

  Peggy coloured, took a gulp of brandy and said: “I’m going to get forty pounds a month alimony. It’s a lot for him—he’s a professor, not a film director.”

  “He can’t afford it?”

  “No. He told me he must give up his hidey-hole. I said: ‘Too bad.’”

  “What’s she like?”

  “Twenty-seven. An art student. She’s pretty and sweet and dumb.”

  “But she’s pregnant.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve never had a baby?”

  “No. But I’ve had several abortions and miscarriages.”

  The two women looked frankly at each other, their faces bitter.

  “Y
es,” said Maureen. “I’ve had five abortions and one of them was by one of those old women. I don’t even use anything, and I don’t get pregnant…. How did you like Jack’s new girl?”

  “I liked her,” said Peggy, apologetically.

  “She’s an intellectual,” said Maureen: it sounded like “intelleshual.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ever so bright and well-informed.” Maureen battled a while with her better self, won the battle, and said: “But why? She’s attractive, but she’s such a schoolgirl; she’s a nice bright clever little schoolgirl with nice bright little clothes.”

  Peggy said: “Stop it. Stop it at once.”

  “Yes,” said Maureen. But she added, out of her agonised depths: “And she can’t even cook!”

  And now Peggy laughed, flinging herself back and spilling more brandy from her drunken hand. After a while, Maureen laughed too.

  Peggy said: “I was thinking, how many times have wives and mistresses said about us: Peggy’s such a bore, Maureen’s so obvious.”

  “I can hear them: Of course, they’re very pretty, and of course they can dress well, and they’re marvellous cooks, and I suppose they’re good in bed, but what have they got?”

  “Stop it,” said Peggy.

  Both women were now drunk. It was getting late. The room was full of shadow, its white walls fading into blue heights, the glossy chairs, tables, rugs, sending out deep gleams of light.

  “Shall I turn on the light?”

  “Not yet.” Peggy now got up herself to refill her glass. She said: “I hope she has the sense not to throw up her job.”

  “Who, Jack’s redheaded bitch?”

  “Who else? Tom’s girl is all right, she’s actually pregnant.”

  “You’re right. But I bet she does, I bet Jack’s trying to make her give it up.”

  “I know he is. Just before I left Tom—before he threw me over—your Jack and she were over to dinner. Jack was getting at her for her column, he was sniping at her all evening—he said it was a leftwing society hostess’s view of politics. A left-wing bird’s-eye view, he said.”