To Room Nineteen: Collected Stories Volume One. Doris Lessing

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СКАЧАТЬ by kisses, but she considered it, thoughtfully, and said: ‘You can’t help being jealous if you love someone.’

      ‘Pearl!’ he snorted. ‘I’ve known her for years. Besides, who told you?’

      ‘You always think that nobody ever notices things,’ she said, sadly. ‘You’re always so surprised.’

      ‘Well, how did you know?’

      ‘People always tell you things.’

      ‘And you believe people.’

      A pause, Then: ‘Oh, Jimmie, I don’t want to quarrel all the time, there isn’t any sense in it.’ This sad helplessness satisfied him, and he was able to take her warmly in his arms. ‘I don’t mean to quarrel either,’ he murmured.

      But they quarrelled continuously. Every conversation was bound to end, it seemed, either in Pearl or in George. Or their tenderness would lapse into tired silence, and he would see her staring quietly away from him, thinking. ‘What are you getting so serious about now, Rosie?’ ‘I was thinking about Jill. Her Granny’s too old. Jill’s shut up in that kitchen all day – just think, those old nosy parkers say I’m not a fit and proper person for Jill, but at least I’d take her for walks on Sunday …’

      ‘You want Jill because of George,’ he would grind out, gripping her so tight she had to ease her arms free. ‘Oh, stop it, Jimmie, stop it.’

      ‘Well, it’s true.’

      ‘If you want to think it, I can’t stop you.’ Then the silence of complete estrangement.

      After some weeks of this he went back to the pub one evening. ‘Hullo, stranger,’ said Pearl. Her eyes shone welcomingly over at him.

      ‘I’ve been busy, one way or another,’ he said.

      ‘I bet,’ she said, satirically, challenging him with her look.

      He could not resist it. ‘Women,’ he said, ‘women.’ And he took a long drain from his glass.

      ‘Don’t you talk that way to me,’ she said, with a short laugh. ‘My boy-friend’s just got himself married. Didn’t so much as send me an invite to the wedding.’

      ‘He doesn’t know what’s good for him.’

      Her wide, blue eyes swung around and rested obliquely on him before she lowered them to the glasses she was rinsing. ‘Perhaps there are others who don’t neither.’

      He hesitated and said: ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ Caution held him back. Yet they had been flirting cheerfully for so long, out of sheer good-nature. The new hesitation was dangerous in itself, and gave depth to their casual exchanges. He thought to himself: Careful, Jimmie, boy, you’re off again if you’re not careful. He decided he should go to another pub. Yet he came back, every evening, for he looked forward to the moment when he stood in the doorway, and then she saw him, and her eyes warmed to him as she said lightly: ‘Hullo, handsome, what trouble have you been getting yourself into today?’ He got into the way of staying for an hour or more, instead of the usual half hour. He leaned quietly against the counter, his coat collar turned up around his face, while his grey eyes rested appreciatively on Pearl. Sometimes she grew self-conscious and said: ‘Your eyes need a rest,’ and he replied, coolly: ‘If you don’t want people to look at you, better buy yourself another jumper.’ He would think, with a sense of disloyalty: Why doesn’t Rosie buy herself one like that? But Rose always wore her plain, dark skirts and her neat blouses, pinned at the throat with a brooch.

      Afterwards he climbed the stairs to the flat thinking, anxiously: Perhaps today she’ll be like she used to be? He would expectantly open the door, thinking: Perhaps she’ll smile when she sees me and come running over …

      But she would be at the stove, or seated at the table waiting, and she gave him that tired, patient smile before beginning to dish up the supper. His disappointment dragged down his spirits, but he forced himself to say: ‘Sorry, I’m late, Rosie.’ He braced himself for a reproach, but it never came, though her eyes searched him anxiously, then lowered as if afraid he might see a reproach in them.

      ‘That’s all right,’ she replied, carefully, setting the dishes down and pulling out the chair for him.

      Always, he could not help looking to see if she was still ‘fussing’ about the food. But she was taking trouble to hide the precautions she took to feed him sensibly. Sometimes he would probe sarcastically: ‘I suppose your friend the chemist said that peas were good for ulcers – how about a bit of fried onions, Rosie?’

      ‘I’ll make you some tomorrow,’ she would reply. And she averted her eyes, as if she were wincing, when he pulled the pickle bottle towards him and heaped mustard pickle over his fish. ‘You only live once,’ he remarked, jocularly.

      ‘That’s right.’ And then, in a prepared voice: ‘It’s your stomach, after all.’

      ‘That’s what I always said.’ To himself he said: Might be my bloody wife. For his wife had come to say at last: ‘It’s your stomach, if you want to die ten years too soon …’

      If he had attacks of terrible pain in the night, after a plateful of fried onions, or chips thick with tomato sauce, he would lie rigid beside her, concealing it, just as he had with his wife. Women fussing! Fussing women!

      He asked himself continually why he did not break it off. A dozen times he had said to himself: That’s enough now, it’s no good, she doesn’t love me, anyway. Yet by evening he was back at the pub, flirting tentatively with Pearl, until the time came when he could delay no longer. And back he went, as if dragged, to Rose. He could not understand it. He was behaving badly – and he could not help himself; he should be studying for his exam – and he couldn’t bring himself to study; it would be so easy to make Rose happy – and he couldn’t take the decisive step; he should decide not to return to Pearl in the evenings, and he could not keep away. What was it all about? Why did people just go on doing things, as if there were dragged along against their will, even against what they enjoyed?

      One Saturday evening Rose said: ‘Tomorrow I won’t be here.’

      He clutched at her hand and demanded: ‘Why not? Where are you going?’

      ‘I’m going to take Jill out all day and then have supper with her Granny.’

      Breathing quickly, his lips set hard, he brought out: ‘No time for me any more, eh?’

      ‘Oh, Jimmie, have some sense.’

      Next morning he lay in bed and watched her dress to go out. She was smiling, her face soft with pleasure. She kissed him consolingly before she left, and said: ‘It’s only on Sundays, Jimmie.’

      So it’s going to be every Sunday, he thought miserably.

      In the evening he went to the pub. It was Pearl’s evening off. He had thought of asking her along to the pictures, but he didn’t know where she lived. He went to his home. The children were in bed and his wife had gone to see a neighbour. He felt as if everyone had let him down. At last he went back to the flat and waited for Rose. When she came he sat quietly, an angry little smile on his face, while she chatted animatedly about Jill. In bed he turned his back on her and lay gazing at the greyish light at the window. It couldn’t go on, he thought; what was the point of it? Yet he was back next evening СКАЧАТЬ