To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One

by Doris Lessing

  ‘Graham,’ she said, setting down her cup. She was, he saw with annoyance, looking tolerant. ‘Graham, in about half an hour I want to be in bed and asleep.’

  As she said this, she offered him a smile of amusement at this situation – man and woman manoeuvring, the great comic situation. And with part of himself he could have shared it. Almost, he smiled with her, laughed. (Not till days later he exclaimed to himself: Lord, what a mistake I made, not to share the joke with her then: that was where I went seriously wrong.) But he could not smile. His face was frozen, with a stiff pride. Not because she had been watching him plot; the amusement she now offered him took the sting out of that; but because of his revived determination that he was going to have his own way, he was going to have her. He was not going home. But he felt that he held a bunch of keys, and did not know which one to choose.

  He lifted the second small chair opposite to Barbara, moving aside the coffee table for this purpose. He sat in this chair, leaned forward, took her two hands, and said: ‘My dear, don’t make me go home yet, don’t, I beg you.’ The trouble was, nothing had happened all evening that could be felt to lead up to these words and his tone – simple, dignified, human being pleading with human being for surcease. He saw himself leaning forward, his big hands swallowing her small ones; he saw his face, warm with the appeal. And he realized he had meant the words he used. They were nothing more than what he felt. He wanted to stay with her because she wanted him to, because he was her colleague, a fellow worker in the arts. He needed this desperately. But she was examining him, curious rather than surprised, and from a critical distance. He heard himself saying: ‘If James were here, I wonder what you’d do? His voice was aggrieved; he saw the sudden dark descend over her eyes, and she said: ‘Graham, would you like some more coffee before you go?’

  He said: ‘I’ve been wanting to meet you for years. I know a good many people who know you.’

  She leaned forward, poured herself a little more brandy, sat back, holding the glass between her two palms on her chest. An odd gesture: Graham felt that this vessel she was cherishing between her hands was herself. A patient, long-suffering gesture. He thought of various men who had mentioned her. He thought of Jack Kennaway, wavered, panicked, said: ‘For instance, Jack Kennaway.’

  And now, at the name, an emotion lit her eyes – what was it? He went on, deliberately testing this emotion, adding to it: ‘I had dinner with him last week – oh, quite by chance! – and he was talking about you.’

  ‘Was he?’

  He remembered he had thought her sullen, all those years ago. Now she seemed defensive, and she frowned. He said: ‘In fact he spent most of the evening talking about you.’

  She said in short, breathless sentences, which he realized were due to anger: ‘I can very well imagine what he says. But surely you can’t think I enjoy being reminded that …’ She broke off, resenting him, he saw, because he forced her down on to a level she despised. But it was not his level either: it was all her fault, all hers! He couldn’t remember not being in control of a situation with a woman for years. Again he felt like a man teetering on a tightrope. He said, trying to make good use of Jack Kennaway, even at this late hour: ‘Of course, he’s a charming boy, but not a man at all.’

  She looked at him, silent, guarding her brandy glass against her breasts.

  ‘Unless appearances are totally deceptive, of course.’ He could not resist probing, even though he knew it was fatal.

  She said nothing.

  ‘Do you know you are supposed to have had the great affair with Jack Kennaway?’ he exclaimed, making this an amused expostulation against the fools who could believe it.

  ‘So I am told.’ She set down her glass. ‘And now,’ she said, standing up, dismissing him. He lost his head, took a step forward, grabbed her in his arms, and groaned: ‘Barbara!’

  She turned her face this way and that under his kisses. He snatched a diagnostic look at her expression – it was still patient. He placed his lips against her neck, groaned ‘Barbara’ again, and waited. She would have to do something. Fight free, respond, something. She did nothing at all. At last she said: ‘For the Lord’s sake, Graham!’ She sounded amused: he was again being offered amusement. But if he shared it with her, it would be the end of this chance to have her. He clamped his mouth over hers, silencing her. She did not fight him off so much as blow him off. Her mouth treated his attacking mouth as a woman blows and laughs in water, puffing off waves or spray with a laugh, turning aside her head. It was a gesture half annoyance, half humour. He continued to kiss her while she moved her head and face about under the kisses as if they were small attacking waves.

  And so began what, when he looked back on it afterwards, was the most embarrassing experience of his life. Even at the time he hated her for his ineptitude. For he held her there for what must have been nearly half an hour. She was much shorter than he, he had to bend, and his neck ached. He held her rigid, his thighs on either side of hers, her arms clamped to her side in a bear’s hug. She was unable to move, except for her head. When his mouth ground hers open and his tongue moved and writhed inside it, she still remained passive. And he could not stop himself. While with his intelligence he watched this ridiculous scene, he was determined to go on, because sooner or later her body must soften in wanting his. And he could not stop because he could not face the horror of the moment when he set her free and she looked at him. And he hated her more, every moment. Catching glimpses of her great green eyes, open and dismal beneath his, he knew he had never disliked anything more than those ‘jewelled’ eyes. They were repulsive to him. It occurred to him at last that even if by now she wanted him, he wouldn’t know it, because she was not able to move at all. He cautiously loosened his hold so that she had an inch or so leeway. She remained quite passive. As if, he thought derisively, she had read or been told that the way to incite men maddened by lust was to fight them. He found he was thinking: Stupid cow, so you imagine I find you attractive, do you? You’ve got the conceit to think that!

  The sheer, raving insanity of this thought hit him, opened his arms, his thighs, and lifted his tongue out of her mouth. She stepped back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, and stood dazed with incredulity. The embarrassment that lay in wait for him nearly engulfed him, but he let anger postpone it. She said positively apologetic, even, at this moment, humorous: ‘You’re crazy, Graham. What’s the matter, are you drunk? You don’t seem drunk. You don’t even find me attractive.’

  The blood of hatred went to his head and he gripped her again. Now she had got her face firmly twisted away so that he could not reach her mouth, and she repeated steadily as he kissed the parts of her cheeks and neck that were available to him: ‘Graham, let me go, do let me go, Graham.’ She went on saying this; he went on squeezing, grinding, kissing and licking. It might go on all night: it was a sheer contest of wills, nothing else. He thought: It’s only a really masculine woman who wouldn’t have given in by now out of sheer decency of the flesh! One thing he knew, however: that she would be in that bed, in his arms, and very soon. He let her go, but said: ‘I’m going to sleep with you tonight, you know that, don’t you?’

  She leaned with hand on the mantelpiece to steady herself. Her face was colourless, since he had licked all the make-up off. She seemed quite different: small and defenceless with her large mouth pale now, her smudged green eyes fringed with gold. And now, for the first time, he felt what it might have been supposed (certainly by her) he felt hours ago. Seeing the small damp flesh of her face, he felt kinship, intimacy with her, he felt intimacy of the flesh, the affection and good humour of sensuality. He felt she was flesh of his flesh, his sister in the flesh. He felt desire for her, instead of the will to have her; and because of this, was ashamed of the farce he had been playing. Now he desired simply to take her into bed in the affection of his senses.

  She said: ‘What on earth am I supposed to do? Telephone for the police, or what?’ He was hurt that she still ad
dressed the man who had ground her into sulky apathy; she was not addressing him at all.

  She said: ‘Or scream for the neighbours, is that what you want?’

  The gold-fringed eyes were almost black, because of the depth of the shadow of boredom over them. She was bored and weary to the point of falling to the floor, he could see that.

  He said: ‘I’m going to sleep with you.’

  ‘But how can you possibly want to?’ – a reasonable, a civilized demand addressed to a man who (he could see) she believed would respond to it. She said: ‘You know I don’t want to, and I know you don’t really give a damn one way or the other.’

  He was stung back into being the boor because she had not the intelligence to see that the boor no longer existed; because she could not see that this was a man who wanted her in a way which she must respond to.

  There she stood, supporting herself with one hand, looking small and white and exhausted, and utterly incredulous. She was going to turn and walk off out of simple incredulity, he could see that. ‘Do you think I don’t mean it?’ he demanded, grinding this out between his teeth. She made a movement – she was on the point of going away. His hand shot out on its own volition and grasped her wrist. She frowned. His other hand grasped her other wrist. His body hove up against hers to start the pressure of a new embrace. Before it could, she said: ‘Oh Lord, no, I’m not going through all that again. Right, then.’

  ‘What do you mean – right, then?’ he demanded.

  She said: ‘You’re going to sleep with me. OK. Anything rather than go through that again. Shall we get it over with?’

  He grinned, saying in silence: ‘No darling, oh no you don’t, I don’t care what words you use, I’m going to have you now and that’s all there is to it.’

  She shrugged. The contempt, the weariness of it, had no effect on him, because he was now again hating her so much that wanting her was like needing to kill something or someone.

  She took her clothes off, as if she was going to bed by herself: her jacket, skirt, petticoat. She stood in white bra and panties, a rather solid girl, brown-skinned still from the summer. He felt a flash of affection for the brown girl with her loose yellow hair as she stood naked. She got into bed and lay there, while the green eyes looked at him in civilized appeal: Are you really going through with this? Do you have to? Yes, his eyes said back: I do have to. She shifted her gaze aside, to the wall, saying silently: Well, if you want to take me without any desire at all on my part, then go ahead, if you’re not ashamed. He was not ashamed, because he was maintaining the flame of hate for her which he knew quite well was all that stood between him and shame. He took off his clothes, and got into bed beside her. As he did so, knowing he was putting himself in the position of raping a woman who was making it elaborately clear he bored her, his flesh subsided completely, sad, and full of reproach because a few moments ago it was reaching out for his sister whom he could have made happy. He lay on his side by her, secretly at work on himself, while he supported himself across her body on his elbow, using the free hand to manipulate her breasts. He saw that she gritted her teeth against his touch. At least she could not know after all this fuss he was not potent.

  In order to incite himself, he clasped her again. She felt his smallness, writhed free of him, sat up and said: ‘Lie down.’

  While she had been lying there, she had been thinking: The only way to get this over with is to make him big again, otherwise I’ve got to put up with him all night. His hatred of her was giving him a clairvoyance: he knew very well what went on through her mind. She had switched on, with the determination to get it over with, a sensual good humour, a patience. He lay down. She squatted beside him, the light from the ceiling blooming on her brown shoulders, her flat hair falling over her face. But she would not look at his face. Like a bored, skilled wife, she was; or like a prostitute. She administered to him, she was setting herself to please him. Yes, he thought, she’s sensual, or she could be. Meanwhile she was succeeding in defeating the reluctance of his flesh, which was the tender token of a possible desire for her, by using a cold skill that was the result of her contempt for him. Just as he decided: Right, it’s enough, now I shall have her properly, she made him come. It was not a trick, to hurry or cheat him, what defeated him was her transparent thought: Yes, that’s what he’s worth.

  Then, having succeeded, and waited for a moment or two, she stood up, naked, the fringes of gold at her loins and in her armpits speaking to him a language quite different from that of her green, bored eyes. She looked at him and thought, showing it plainly: What sort of man is it who …? He watched the slight movement of her shoulders: a just-checked shrug. She went out of the room: then the sound of running water. Soon she came back in a white dressing gown, carrying a yellow towel. She handed him the towel, looking away in politeness as he used it. ‘Are you going home now?’ she inquired hopefully, at this point.

  ‘No, I’m not.’ He believed that now he would have to start fighting her again, but she lay down beside him, not touching him (he could feel the distaste of her flesh for his) and he thought: Very well, my dear, but there’s a lot of the night left yet. He said aloud: ‘I’m going to have you properly tonight.’ She said nothing, lay silent, yawned. Then she remarked consolingly, and he could have laughed outright from sheer surprise: ‘Those were hardly conducive circumstances for making love.’ She was consoling him. He hated her for it. A proper little slut: I forced her into bed, she doesn’t want me, but she still has to make me feel good, like a prostitute. But even while he hated her, he responded in kind, from the habit of sexual generosity. ‘It’s because of my admiration of you, because … after all, I was holding in my arms one of the thousand women.’

  A pause. ‘The thousand?’ she inquired, carefully.

  ‘The thousand especial women.’

  ‘In Britain or in the world? You choose them for their brains, their beauty – what?’

  ‘Whatever it is that makes them outstanding,’ he said, offering her a compliment.

  ‘Well,’ she remarked at last, inciting him to be amused again: ‘I hope that at least there’s a short list you can say I am on, for politeness’ sake.’

  He did not reply for he understood he was sleepy. He was still telling himself that he must stay awake when he was slowly waking and it was morning. It was about eight. Barbara was not there. He thought: My God! What on earth shall I tell my wife? Where was Barbara? He remembered the ridiculous scenes of last night and nearly succumbed to shame. Then he thought, reviving anger: If she didn’t sleep beside me here I’ll never forgive her … He sat up, quietly, determined to go through the house until he found her and, having found her, to possess her, when the door opened and she came in. She was fully dressed in a green suit, her hair done, her eyes made up. She carried a tray of coffee, which she set down beside the bed. He was conscious of his big loose hairy body, half uncovered. He said to himself that he was not going to lie in bed, naked, while she was dressed. He said: ‘Have you got a gown of some kind?’ She handed him, without speaking, a towel, and said: ‘The bathroom’s second on the left.’ She went out. He followed, the towel around him. Everything in this house was gay, intimate – not at all like her efficient working room. He wanted to find out where she had slept, and opened the first door. It was the kitchen, and she was in it, putting a brown earthenware dish into the oven. ‘The next door,’ said Barbara. He went hastily past the second door, and opened (he hoped quietly) the third. It was a cupboard full of linen. ‘This door,’ said Barbara, behind him.

  ‘So all right then, where did you sleep?’

  ‘What’s it to do with you? Upstairs, in my own bed. Now, if you have everything, I’ll say goodbye, I want to get to the theatre.’

  ‘I’ll take you,’ he said at once.

  He saw again the movement of her eyes, the dark swallowing the light in deadly boredom. ‘I’ll take you,’ he insisted.

  ‘I’d prefer to go by myself,’ she remarked. Then she smil
ed: ‘However, you’ll take me. Then you’ll make a point of coming right in, so that James and everyone can see – that’s what you want to take me for, isn’t it?’

  He hated her, finally, and quite simply, for her intelligence; that not once had he got away with anything, that she had been watching, since they had met yesterday, every movement of his campaign for her. However, some fate or inner urge over which he had no control made him say sentimentally: ‘My dear, you must see that I’d like at least to take you to your work.’

  ‘Not at all, have it on me,’ she said, giving him the lie direct. She went past him to the room he had slept in. ‘I shall be leaving in ten minutes,’ she said.

  He took a shower fast. When he returned, the workroom was already tidied, the bed made, all signs of the night gone. Also, there were no signs of the coffee she brought in for him. He did not like to ask for it, for fear of an outright refusal. Besides, she was ready, her coat on, her handbag under her arm. He went, without a word, to the front door, and she came after him, silent.

  He could see that every fibre of her body signalled a simple message: Oh God, for the moment when I can be rid of this boor! She was nothing but a slut, he thought.

  A taxi came. In it she sat as far away from him as she could. He thought of what he should say to his wife.

  Outside the theatre she remarked: ‘You could drop me here, if you liked.’ It was not a plea, she was too proud for that. ‘I’ll take you in,’ he said, and saw her thinking: Very well, I’ll go through with it to shame him. He was determined to take her in and hand her over to her colleagues, he was afraid she would give him the slip. But far from playing it down, she seemed determined to play it his way. At the stage door, she said to the doorman: ‘This is Mr Spence, Tom – do you remember, Mr Spence from last night?’ ‘Good morning, Babs,’ said the man, examining Graham, politely, as he had been ordered to do.