To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One

by Doris Lessing

  It was at this moment that the man turned abruptly and called the waiter and ordered wine.

  ‘What,’ she said humorously, ‘already?’

  ‘Why not?’

  For the moment she loved him completely and maternally, till she suppressed the counterfeit and watched him wait, fidgeting, for the wine, pour it, and then set the two glasses before them beside the still-brimming coffee cups. But she was again remembering that night, envying the girl ecstatic with moonlight, who ran crazily through the trees in an unsharable desire for – but that was the point.

  ‘What are you thinking of?’ he asked, still a little cruel.

  ‘Ohhh,’ she protested humorously.

  ‘That’s the trouble, that’s the trouble.’ He lifted his glass, glanced at her, and set it down. ‘Don’t you want a drink?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  He left his glass untouched and began to smoke.

  These moments demanded some kind of gesture – something slight, even casual, but still an acknowledgement of the separateness of these two people in each of them; the one seen, perhaps, as a soft-staring never-closing eye, observing, always observing, with a tired compassion; the other, a shape of violence that struggled on in the cycle of desire and rest, creation and achievement.

  He gave it her. Again their eyes met in the grave irony, before he turned away, flicking his fingers irritably against the table; and she turned also, to note the black branches where the sap was tingling.

  ‘I remember,’ he began; and again she said, in protest, ‘Ohhh!’

  He checked himself. ‘Darling,’ he said dryly, ‘you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.’ They laughed.

  ‘It must have been this street. Perhaps this café – only they change so. When I went back yesterday to see the place where I came every summer, it was a pâtisserie, and the woman had forgotten me. There was a whole crowd of us – we used to go around together – and I met a girl here, I think, for the first time. There were recognized places for contacts; people coming from Vienna or Prague, or wherever it was, knew the places – it couldn’t be this café, unless they’ve smartened it up. We didn’t have the money for all this leather and chromium.’

  ‘Well, go on.’

  ‘I keep remembering her, for some reason. Haven’t thought of her for years. She was about sixteen, I suppose. Very pretty – no, you’re quite wrong. We used to study together. She used to bring her books to my room. I liked her, but I had my own girl, only she was studying something else, I forget what.’ He paused again, and again his face was twisted with nostalgia, and involuntarily she glanced over her shoulder down the street. The procession had completely disappeared, not even the sound of singing and shouting remained.

  ‘I remember her because …’ And, after a preoccupied silence: ‘Perhaps it is always the fate of the virgin who comes and offers herself, naked, to be refused.’

  ‘What!’ she exclaimed, startled. Also, anger stirred in her. She noted it, and sighed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I never made love to her. We studied together all that summer. Then, one weekend, we all went off in a bunch. None of us had any money, of course, and we used to stand on the pavements and beg lifts, and meet up again in some village. I was with my own girl, but that night we were helping the farmer get his fruit, in payment for using his barn to sleep in, and I found this girl Marie was beside me. It was moonlight, a lovely night, and we were all singing and making love. I kissed her, but that was all. That night she came to me. I was sleeping up in the loft with another lad. He was asleep. I sent her back down to the others. They were all together down in the hay. I told her she was too young. But she was no younger than my own girl.’ He stopped; and after all these years his face was rueful and puzzled. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I sent her back.’ Then he laughed. ‘Not that it matters, I suppose.’

  ‘Shameless hussy,’ she said. The anger was strong now. ‘You had kissed her, hadn’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘But we were all playing the fool. It was a glorious night – gathering apples, the farmer shouting and swearing at us because we were making love more than working, and singing and drinking wine. Besides, it was that time: the youth movement. We regarded faithfulness and jealousy and all that sort of thing as remnants of bourgeois morality.’ He laughed again, rather painfully. ‘I kissed her. There she was, beside me, and she knew my girl was with me that weekend.’

  ‘You kissed her,’ she said accusingly.

  He fingered the stem of his wineglass, looking over at her and grinning. ‘Yes, darling,’ he almost crooned at her. ‘I kissed her.’

  She snapped over into anger. ‘There’s a girl all ready for love. You make use of her for working. Then you kiss her. You know quite well …’

  ‘What do I know quite well?’

  ‘It was a cruel thing to do.’

  ‘I was a kid myself …’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ She noted, with discomfort, that she was almost crying. ‘Working with her! Working with a girl of sixteen, all summer!’

  ‘But we all studied very seriously. She was a doctor afterwards, in Vienna. She managed to get out when the Nazis came in, but …’

  She said impatiently, ‘Then you kissed her, on that night. Imagine her, waiting till the others were asleep, then she climbed up the ladder to the loft, terrified the other man might wake up, then she stood watching you sleep, and she slowly took off her dress and …’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t asleep. I pretended to be. She came up dressed. Shorts and sweater – our girls didn’t wear dresses and lipstick – more bourgeois morality. I watched her strip. The loft was full of moonlight. She put her hand over my mouth and came down beside me.’ Again, his face was filled with rueful amazement. ‘God knows, I can’t understand it myself. She was a beautiful creature. I don’t know why I remember it. It’s been coming into my mind the last few days.’ After a pause, slowly twirling the wineglass: ‘I’ve been a failure in many things, but not with …’ He quickly lifted her hand, kissed it, and said sincerely: ‘I don’t know why I remember it now, when …’ Their eyes met, and they sighed.

  She said slowly, her hand lying in his: ‘And so you turned her away.’

  He laughed. ‘Next morning she wouldn’t speak to me. She started a love affair with my best friend – the man who’d been beside me that night in the loft, as a matter of fact. She hated my guts, and I suppose she was right.’

  ‘Think of her. Think of her at that moment. She picked up her clothes, hardly daring to look at you …’

  ‘As a matter of fact, she was furious. She called me all the names she could think of; I had to keep telling her to shut up, she’d wake the whole crowd.’

  ‘She climbed down the ladder and dressed again, in the dark. Then she went out of the barn, unable to go back to the others. She went into the orchard. It was still brilliant moonlight. Everything was silent and deserted, and she remembered how you’d all been singing and laughing and making love. She went to the tree where you’d kissed her. The moon was shining on the apples. She’ll never forget it, never, never!’

  He looked at her curiously. The tears were pouring down her face.

  ‘It’s terrible,’ she said. ‘Terrible. Nothing could ever make up to her for that. Nothing, as long as she lived. Just when everything was most perfect, all her life, she’d suddenly remember that night, standing alone, not a soul anywhere, miles of damned empty moonlight …’

  He looked at her shrewdly. Then, with a sort of humorous, deprecating grimace, he bent over and kissed her and said: ‘Darling, it’s not my fault; it just isn’t my fault.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  He put the wineglass into her hands; and she lifted it up, looked at the small crimson globule of warming liquid, and drank with him.

  He

  ‘Goodness! You gave me a start, Mary …’

  Mary Brooke was quietly knitting beside the stove. ‘Thought I’d drop in,’ she said.

  Annie Bla
ke pulled off her hat and flopped a net of bread and vegetables on the table; at the same time her eyes were anxiously inspecting her kitchen: there was an unwashed dish in the sink, a cloth over a chair. ‘Everything’s in such a mess,’ she said irritably.

  Mary Brooke, eyes fixed on her knitting, said, ‘Eh, sit down. It’s clean as can be.’

  After a hesitation Annie flopped herself into the chair and shut her eyes. ‘Those stairs …’ she panted. Then: ‘Like a cuppa tea, Mary?’

  Mary quickly pushed her knitting away and said, ‘You sit still. I’ll do it.’ She heaved up her large, tired body, filled a kettle from the tap, and set it on the flame. Then, following her friend’s anxious glance, she hung the dish cloth where it belonged and shut the door. The kitchen was so clean and neat it could have gone on exhibition. She sat down, reached for her knitting, and knitted without looking at it, contemplating the wall across the room. ‘He was carrying on like anything last night,’ she observed.

  Annie’s drooping lids flew open, her light body straightened. ‘Yes?’ she murmured casually. Her face was tense.

  ‘What can you expect with that type? She doesn’t get the beds made before dinnertime. There’s dirt everywhere. He was giving it to her proper. Dirty slut, he called her.’

  ‘She won’t do for him what I did, that’s certain,’ said Annie bitterly.

  ‘Shouting and banging until early morning – we all heard it.’ She counted purl, plain, purl, and added: ‘Don’t last long, do it? Six months he’s been with her now?’

  ‘He never lifted his hand to me, that’s certain,’ said Annie victoriously. ‘Never. I’ve got my pride, if others haven’t.’

  ‘That’s right, love. Two purl. One plain.’

  ‘Nasty temper he’s got. I’d be up summer and winter at four, cleaning those offices till ten, then cleaning for Mrs Lynd till dinnertime. Then if he got home and found his dinner not ready, he’d start to shout and carry on – well, I’d say, if you can’t wait five minutes, get home and cook it yourself, I’d say. I bring in as much as you do, don’t I? But he never lifted a finger. Bone lazy. Men are all the same.’

  Mary gave her friend a swift, searching glance, then murmured, ‘Eh, you can’t tell me …’

  ‘I’d have the kids and the cleaning and the cooking, and working all day – sometimes when he was unemployed I’d bring in all the money … and he wouldn’t even put the kettle on for me. Women’s work, he said.’

  ‘Two purl, plain.’ But Mary’s kindly face seemed to suggest that she was waiting to say something else. ‘We all know what it is,’ she agreed at last, patiently.

  Annie rose lightly, pulled the shrieking kettle off the flame, and reached for the teapot. Seen from the back, she looked twenty, slim and erect. When she turned with the steaming pot, she caught a glimpse of herself; she set down the pot and went to the mirror. She stood touching her face anxiously. ‘Look at me!’ She pushed a long, sagging curl into position, then shrugged. ‘Well, who’s to care what I look like anyway?’

  She began setting out the cups. She had a thin face, sharpened by worry, and small sharp blue eyes. As she sat down, she nervously felt her hair. ‘I must get the curlers on to my hair,’ she muttered.

  ‘Heard from the boys?’

  Annie’s hand fell and clenched itself on the table. ‘Not a word from Charlie for months. They don’t think … he’ll turn up one fine day and expect his place laid, if I know my Charlie. Tommy’s after a job in Manchester, Mrs Thomas said. But I had a nice letter from Dick …’ Her face softened; her eyes were soft and reminiscent. ‘He wrote about his father. Should he come down and speak to the old so and so for me, he said. I wrote back and said that was no way to speak of his father. He should respect him, I said, no matter what he’s done. It’s not his place to criticize his father, I said.’

  ‘You’re lucky in your boys, Annie.’

  ‘They’re good workers, no one can say they aren’t. And they’ve never done anything they shouldn’t. They don’t take after their dad, that’s certain.’

  At this, Mary’s eyes showed a certain tired irony. ‘Eh, Annie – but we all do things we shouldn’t.’ This gaining no response from the bitter Annie, she added cautiously, ‘I saw him this morning in the street.’

  Annie’s cup clattered down into the saucer. ‘Was he alone?’

  ‘No. But he took me aside – he said I could give you a message if I was passing this way – he might be dropping in this evening instead of tomorrow with your money, he said. Thursday she goes to her mother’s – I suppose he thinks while the cat’s away …’

  Annie had risen, in a panic. She made herself sit down again and stirred her tea. The spoon tinkled in the cup with the quivering of her hand. ‘He’s regular with the money, anyway,’ she said heavily. ‘I didn’t have to take him into court. He offered. And I suppose he needn’t, now the boys are out keeping themselves.’

  ‘He still feels for you, Annie …’ Mary was leaning forward, speaking in a direct appeal. ‘He does, really.’

  ‘He never felt for anyone but himself,’ snapped Annie. ‘Never.’

  Mary let a sigh escape her. ‘Oh, well …’ she murmured. ‘Well, I’ll be getting along to do the supper.’ She stuffed her knitting into her carryall and said consolingly: ‘You’re lucky. No one to get after you if you feel like sitting a bit. No one to worry about but yourself …’

  ‘Oh, don’t think I’m wasting any tears over him. I’m taking it easy for the first time in my life. You slave your life out for your man and your kids. Then off they go, with not so much as a thank you. Now I can please myself.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind being in your place,’ said Mary loyally. At the door she remarked, apparently at random, ‘Your floor’s so clean you could eat off it.’

  The moment Mary was gone, Annie rushed into her apron and began sweeping. She got down on her knees to polish the floor, and then took off her dress and washed herself at the sink. She combed her dragging wisps of pale hair and did each one up neatly with a pin till her face was surrounded by a ring of little sausages. She put back her dress and sat down at the table. Not a moment too soon. The door opened, and Rob Blake stood there.

  He was a thin, rather stooping man, with an air of apology. He said politely, ‘You busy, Annie?’

  ‘Sit down,’ she commanded sharply. He stooped loosely in the doorway for a moment, then came forward, minding his feet. Even so she winced as she saw the dusty marks on the gleaming linoleum. ‘Take it easy,’ he said with friendly sarcasm. ‘You can put up with my dust once a week, can’t you?’

  She smiled stiffly, her blue eyes fastened anxiously on him, while he pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Well, Annie?’

  To this conciliatory opening she did not respond. After a moment she remarked, ‘I heard from Dick. He’s thinking of getting married.’

  ‘Getting married, now? That puts us on the shelf, don’t it?’

  ‘You’re not on any shelf that I can see,’ she snapped.

  ‘Now – Annie …’ he deprecated, with an appealing smile. She showed no signs of softening. Seeing her implacable face, his smile faded, and he took an envelope from his pocket and pushed it over.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, hardly glancing at it. Then that terrible bitterness came crowding up, and he heard the words: ‘If you can spare it from her.’

  He let that one pass; he looked steadily at his wife, as if seeking a way past that armour of anger. He watched her, passing the tip of his tongue nervously over his lips.

  ‘Some women know how to keep themselves free from kids and responsibilities. They just do this and that, and take up with anyone they please. None of the dirty work for them.’

  He gave a sigh, and was on the point of getting up, when she demanded, ‘Like a cuppa tea?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind.’ He let himself sink back again.

  While she worked at the stove, her back to him, he was looking around the kitchen; his face had a look of tired, disappointed irony
. An ageing man, but with a dogged set to his shoulders. Trying to find the right words, he remarked, ‘Not so much work for you now, Annie.’

  But she did not answer. She returned with the two cups and put the sugar into his for him. This wifely gesture encouraged him. ‘Annie,’ he began, ‘Annie – can’t we talk this over …’ He was stirring the tea clumsily, not looking at it, leaning forward. The cup knocked over. ‘Oh, look what you’ve done,’ she cried out. ‘Just look at the mess.’ She snatched up a cloth and wiped the table.

  ‘It’s only a drop of tea, Annie,’ he protested at last, shrinking a little aside from her furious energy.

  ‘Only a drop of tea – I can polish and clean half the day, and then in a minute the place is like a pig sty.’

  His face darkened with remembered irritation.

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard,’ she went on accusingly, ‘she lets the beds lie until dinner, and the place isn’t cleaned from one week to the next.’

  ‘At least she cares more for me than she does for a clean floor,’ he shouted. Now they looked at each other with hatred.

  At this delicate moment there came a shout: ‘Rob. Rob!’

  She laughed angrily. ‘She’s got you where she wants you – waits and spies on you and now she comes after you.’

  ‘Rob! You there, Rob?’ It was a loud, confident, female voice.

  ‘She sounds just what she is, a proper …’

  ‘Shut up,’ he interrupted. He was breathing heavily. ‘You keep that tongue of yours quiet, now.’