In Pursuit of the English. Doris Lessing

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ uneasy unless she got exaggerated reactions of delight, complaint, or shock to her own dramatized emotions. If I did not at first react suitably, she would prod me until I did. ‘There! You’re laughing,’ she would say, in relief. ‘That’s right. Laugh.’ Or, hopefully: ‘Aren’t you shocked? Of course you are. I knew you would be.’

      Rose said: ‘It’s no use your being all English with Flo. It gets her all upset.’

      As for Rose, she could communicate a saga of sorrow with a slight droop of her mouth; the climax to a tale about her stepfather would be indicated by the folding together, in resignation, of her two small hands in her lap, not a word spoken. Her single syllable, Yes? could silence anyone in the house.

      Rose made Flo uneasy, too. When she wanted to punish Flo she would sit, impassive, listening, refusing to register emotion, offering me the faintest of malicious smiles, until Flo said: ‘Ah, my Lord, you’re cross with me. Why are you cross with your Flo?’

      I knew that the invitation to supper meant more than I understood. I had to come to know that a complicated ritual governed what went on in the house. I did not at first think about it, out of an emotion which I now realize was a middle-class hypocrisy about the value of money, the value of time. But Rose made it impossible for me not to think.

      About the supper invitation she said: ‘I thought she would. She feels bad about getting too much for your rooms. She was expecting you to make her clean your rooms.’

      ‘I asked her to.’

      ‘She doesn’t like housework.’

      ‘Who does? But she came up and gave me a lesson about dusting and cleaning and ironing.’

      ‘I’d like to have seen it,’ said Rose. ‘What was your mother thinking of, sending you out into the world so ignorant?’

      ‘That’s what Flo said, too.’

      ‘Yes. Well, now she thinks she’ll make up by inviting you to eat sometimes. And, believe you me, it’s better that way, because she’s a cook better than anyone, even my mother.’ But just before we prepared ourselves to go down to supper, she became uneasy, and said: ‘You mustn’t mind Flo when she gets dirty-mouthed. Just laugh to please her and take no notice.’

      On weekdays, the family did not eat together until the men came in from work, about six. This meal was called tea. No one went to bed until late, after midnight. At about eleven was another meal, called supper. At both Flo served a rich variety of foods. There was always a basis of salads, cake, different kinds of bread and cheeses and fruit. Flo always cooked a different, fresh main dish for both meals. It might be spaghetti, some kind of meat, a pie, or chicken. The late meal, just before everyone went to bed, was the one they most enjoyed and lingered over. Besides, it was by tradition what Flo called a dirt session.

      On that evening when Rose and I went downstairs, the men were already waiting to be served at the table. They wore, as always after work, clean white singlets. The basement was always steaming hot from the stove and from the electric fire which was never turned off. Flo was making a cauldron of spaghetti which filled the steamy air full of the odours of garlic and olive oil and meat and cheese. We sat around the table, sprawling, our elbows resting, while Flo heaped our plates. Aurora, who never went to bed before her parents, was sitting on Dan’s lap. She had on a white tight nightgown, over which her black curls, Flo’s pride, cascaded to her waist. She had her arm around Dan’s thick neck, and was sucking her thumb. Although there were blue bruises of fatigue beneath her eyes, she continued to observe everything that went on, sleepily blinking, and nodding off, then forcing herself awake. Her smile seemed as full of sharp knowledgeable enjoyments as Flo’s.

      Dan’s attitude to me was the same as his to Rose: he watched us appreciatively, savouring our possibilities, but with caution. Flo kept a sharp eye on his every glance.

      She served herself last, and sat down, sighing, saying: ‘After all that gammon I ate before I haven’t room for a bite.’ We all ate enormously and praised Flo’s art from time to time, which she took as her due with a modest and satisfied smile. Dan chewed in ferocious mouthfuls, his white teeth glistening through the sauce, strands hanging from the corners of his lips. From time to time he pushed a spoonful into Aurora’s mouth, but she always made a face, chewed once or twice, and sat with the food, unswallowed, in her mouth.

      ‘That kid’s too sleepy to eat,’ Rose said.

      ‘It’s no good putting her to sleep until we go,’ said Flo. ‘She’ll just scream and scream.’

      ‘She needs a good spanking,’ said Rose. There was always a touch of sullenness in her voice when she mentioned Aurora. She disapproved of how she was brought up.

      ‘But I spank her, I do,’ said Flo eagerly, with a warm loving smile at Aurora, to which the child responded, like an accomplice.

      When we could eat not another mouthful of spaghetti, or salad or cake, Flo took away the plates, and sat down again, her eyes bright and black, looking for an opening.

      ‘Look at your belly,’ she said suddenly to Rose, who had loosened her waist-band.

      Rose gave me a glance which said: This was what I meant, don’t take any notice. She said to Flo, with careful unconcern: ‘What of it, after all that food?’

      ‘You look seven months. Doesn’t she, Jack? Doesn’t she, Dan?’

      Dan grinned; Jack’s smile was eager and timid. Flo drew our attention to Jack, and said: ‘Look at him. He’d like to have a little bit with Rose.’ Jack blushed and looked eagerly, in spite of himself, at Rose. Who said good-naturedly: ‘Who, me? I don’t want a little boy in my bed.’

      ‘He’s got to learn sometime,’ Flo said.

      ‘Yes?’ said Rose. ‘Then why pick on me? I’ve got to learn, too.’

      ‘That’s what I keep telling you,’ Flo said. ‘How old are you now? And as innocent as a baby.’

      ‘She’s twenty-three,’ said Dan to me, nodding and winking.

      ‘You shut up,’ said Rose to him, ‘you’re as old as you feel.’

      ‘It’s time you did feel,’ said Flo. ‘I keep telling you, Dan’s brother is like Dan, he likes a woman who knows a thing.’

      Rose, who was suffering because of the long quarrel, which I still knew nothing about, with Dickie, Dan’s brother, looked annoyed and put a stop to this hare – ‘Then if Dickie wants it, regardless, he can pay for it.’

      Jack sniggered. He sat listening, shocked, delighted, suffering, turning his eyes from one to another. Against the open, savage sensuality of Dan and Flo, and the heavy immobile good-nature Rose put on for these occasions, he looked defenceless and pathetic.

      ‘Yes. And he will, too, if he can get better.’ Suddenly she screamed at Dan: ‘Go on, Dan, tell her. Tell Rose about that dirty French girl. Tell what she did to you, the dirty beast.’

      Dan smiled, and sat silent. Flo, aroused and angry, yet delighted; screamed again: ‘Well, tell her, go on.’

      ‘I don’t want to hear,’ said Rose primly, who had heard it often before.

      ‘Oh, yes you do. And you do too, don’t you, darling?’ СКАЧАТЬ