A Proper Marriage. Doris Lessing

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СКАЧАТЬ they were continuing on their way.

      ‘We’ll be late for the doctor,’ said Stella reproachfully, but Martha said, ‘We are ten minutes early.’

      The doctor’s rooms were in a low white building across the street. Looking upwards, they saw a series of windows shuttered against the sun, green against the glare of white.

      ‘Dr Stern’s got the nicest waiting room in town, it’s all modern,’ said Stella devotedly.

      ‘Oh, come on,’ Martha said, and went indoors without looking back.

      On the first floor was a passage full of doors, all marked ‘Private’. Stella knocked on one of these. It opened almost at once to show a woman in a white dress, who held its edge firmly, as if against possible assault. She looked annoyed; then, seeing Stella, she said with nervous amiability, ‘It’s lovely to see you, dear, but really I’m busy.’

      ‘This is Matty,’ said Stella. ‘You know, the naughty girl who married Douggie behind everyone’s back.’

      The young woman smiled at Martha in a friendly but harassed way and came out into the passage, shutting the door behind her. She pulled a half-smoked cigarette from her deep white pocket, lit it, and puffed as if she were starved for smoke. ‘I really shouldn’t, but the doctor’ll manage,’ she said, drawing deep breaths of smoke. She was a thin girl, with lank wisps of thin black hair, and pale worried blue eyes. Her body was flat and bony in the white glazed dress, which was a uniform, but no more than a distant cousin of the stiff garments designed by elderly women to disguise the charms of young ones. ‘My Willie knows your Douggie – they’ve been boys together for years,’ she said with tired indulgence.

      Martha was by now not to be surprised at either the information or the tone, although she had never heard of Willie.

      ‘My God, but I’m dead,’ went on Alice. ‘Dr Stern is my pet lamb, but he works himself to death, and he never notices when anyone else does. I was supposed to leave an hour ago.’

      ‘Listen,’ said Stella quickly, ‘that’s easy, then. Just slip Matty quickly in for her appointment, then we’ll all go and have a drink.’

      ‘Oh, but I can’t dear,’ said Alice feebly; but Stella gave her a firm little push towards the door; so that she nodded and said, ‘All right, then, there’s lots waiting from before you, but I’ll manage it.’ She slipped the crushed end of cigarette back into her pocket, and went into the room marked ‘Private’.

      Martha followed Stella into the waiting room. It was full. About fifteen or twenty women, with a sprinkling of children, were jealously eyeing the door into the consulting room. Martha edged herself into a seat, feeling guilty that she was about to take priority. Stella, however, stood openly waiting, with the look of one for whom the ordinary rules did not apply.

      Almost at once the consulting-room door opened, and a bland voice bade a lady goodbye; she came out blushing with pleasure and giving challenging looks to those who still waited.

      ‘Come on,’ said Stella loudly, ‘now it’s us.’

      She pushed Martha forward, as Alice looked around into the waiting room, and said in the kindly nervous voice which was her characteristic, ‘Yes, dear – it’s you, Mrs Knowell.’

      Stella went beside Martha to the door; but there Alice held out one barring hand, with a professional look, and pulled Martha forward with the other. The door shut behind Martha, excluding Stella.

      This was a large, quiet room, with a white screen in one corner which was bathed in greenish light from the shutters over the window. An enormous desk filled half the outer wall, and behind it sat Dr Stern, his back to the light. Over an efficient white coat a smooth pale heavy-lidded face lifted for a moment, the pale cool eyes flicked assessingly over Martha, and dropped again as he said, ‘Please sit down.’

      Martha sat, and wondered how she should start: she did not really want any advice. She looked at the top of Dr Stern’s head, which was bent towards her as he flicked quickly through some papers. He had a mat of thick black crinkling hair; his neck was white, thin – very young. She saw him suddenly as a young man, and was upset. Then he said, ‘If you’ll excuse me for one moment …’ and glanced up again, before continuing to leaf through the papers. The upwards look was so impersonal that her anxiety vanished. She yawned. A weight of tiredness settled on her, with the cool silence of the room. A patch of yellow sunlight slanted through the slats of the blind on to the desk. Her eye was caught by it, held. She yawned again. She heard his voice: ‘Allow me to congratulate you on carrying off young Knowell – I’ve known him quite a time.’ He sounded quietly paternal; and she was reminded again that he was probably no older than Douglas, who had agreed enthusiastically to Stella’s insistence that Martha should see the doctor at once: ‘Yes, Dr Stern’s just the ticket – yes, you go along, Matty, and get to know him, he’ll show you the ropes.’

      Yet, since Martha knew the ropes, there was nothing to say. Her eyes still fixed by the yellow patch of light, she let herself slide deeper into the comfortable chair, and Dr Stern inquired, ‘Sleepy?’

      ‘Haven’t had much sleep,’ she agreed, without moving.

      Dr Stern looked at her again and noticed that she, in her turn, was unhappily regarding Alice, who was folding something white behind the white screen.

      ‘It’s all right, Mrs Burrell, just go next door for a moment. I’ll call you.’ Alice went out, with a kind, reassuring smile at Martha. ‘And leave the door open,’ said Dr Stern, for Martha’s benefit, which she did not appreciate: she would have preferred it shut.

      And now Dr Stern, whose handling of the situation had been by no means as casual as it appeared, gave a swift downwards glance at his watch. Martha noticed it, and sat herself up.

      ‘Well, Mrs Knowell,’ he began smoothly, and, after a short silence, went on to deliver a lecture designed for the instruction of brides. He spoke slowly, as if afraid of forgetting some of it from sheer familiarity. When he had finished, Martha said obstinately that according to authority so and so another method was preferable. He gave her a quick look, which meant that this was a greater degree of sophistication than he was used to; almost he switched to the tone he used with married women of longer standing. But he hesitated. Martha’s words might be matter-of-fact, but her face was anxious, and she was gripping her hands together in her lap.

      He went off at a tangent to describe a conference on birth control he had attended in London, and concluded with a slightly risky joke. Martha laughed. He added two or three more jokes, until she was laughing naturally, and returned to the subject by a side road of ‘A patient of mine who …’ Now he proceeded to recommend the method she had herself suggested, and with as much warmth as if he had never recommended another. His calm, rather tired, remote voice was extremely soothing; Martha was no longer anxious; but for good measure he concluded with a little speech which, if analysed, meant nothing but that everything was all right, one should not worry, one should take things easy. These phrases having repeated themselves often enough he went on to remark gently that some women seemed to imagine birth control was a sort of magic; if they bought what was necessary and left it lying in a corner of a drawer, nothing more was needed. To this attitude of mind, he said, was due a number of births every year which would astound the public. He laughed so that she might, and looked inquiringly at her. She did laugh, but a shadow of worry crossed her face. He saw it, and made a mental note. There was a silence. This time his glance at his watch was involuntary: the waiting room was full of women all of whom must be assured, for various reasons, that everything was all right, there was nothing to worry about, of course СКАЧАТЬ