Love, Again

by Doris May Lessing Little Dorrit

  During the applause when the play ended, the three disappeared.

  An informal party for the company and neighbours had been arranged on the side of the house away from the theatre. Long tables held wine and cakes. Behind these the two pretty blonde girls, Shirley and Alison, served while Elizabeth and Norah, with Stephen, welcomed guests. The audience streamed away to the cars and coaches that would take them to the town or to London, but about two hundred people stood about on the lawn. Hal appeared and went straight up to Stephen, introducing himself not as Sarah's brother but as Dr Millgreen. Stephen did not know who he was but behaved as if this was a great honour for him. Hal refused a glass of wine, saying he had to return to London because he must be at his hospital early, said in a kindly way to his sister, 'Very nice, Sarah,' and went off, not looking to see if Anne, Briony, and Nell followed, or if they might perhaps like a glass of wine. From the other side of the lawn he did look back, apparently to approve the house, for he was wearing his professional look of a generalized benevolence. Various people hastened up to him and to Anne. For a moment he stood in a group of colleagues, or patients, or friends, a figure of kindly authority. It occurred to Sarah that just as she had never seen much more of Stephen than his Julie side (his dark and concealed side), so she saw nothing of the social life of her brother and her sister-in-law. Formal parties were not in her line, and their friends were not in her line either. But possibly there were a good many people who knew this eminent Dr Millgreen, and his clever doctor wife, Anne, and their two pretty daughters, as a likeable family. They might perhaps remark if they remembered, 'A pity about that girl of theirs. A bit of a handful apparently.'

  Just as Sarah was thinking that she should ask Hal and Anne about Joyce, the family got into their car and drove off. So she went on talking, as it was her part to do, with anyone who wished to talk to her. Yes, she had found it rewarding to work on this play — if you could call it that — but there were two authors, and Stephen Ellington-Smith, their host, would have a lot to say about it too. This went on for an hour or so, and the dusk had settled in the trees and shrubs when she heard a young man say with a laugh that he had been accosted after the performance as he came out of the new building by a couple of girls who were offering the male members of the cast a blow-job for ten pounds a time. It was Sandy Grears, talking to George White. Sarah at once went up to them and said, 'I'm afraid one of the girls was probably my niece. I suppose you don't know where they went?' She was finding it hard to appear calm, because the thought of Henry — who would have been in the new building with the others — anywhere near a paid-for blow-job was too painful almost to bear, like a grotesque sexual joke directed at oneself. The two young men at once adjusted their manner, from one appropriate to laughing at a couple of slags to one sympathizing with the relative of a problem child. George said he thought it was likely the girls were in The Old Fox in the town, for it was the only place open in the evenings. He offered to take Sarah there. Sandy went off, and this enabled Sarah to ask if there had been a young man with the girls. Yes, there had. George hesitated; he could have said more, but Sarah decided not to ask. She found it hard to believe that Sandy went in for blow-jobs offered by unhealthy youths, but one never knew. She was surprised she felt a genuine pang — an aesthetic one — that anyone who had enjoyed (for once an absolutely accurate word) the beautiful Bill Collins could even think of a blow-job with that poor derelict.

  On the way to town she told George about Joyce, and he was suitably sympathetic. His own sister was a problem. She was anorexic, sometimes suicidal, and it had all been going on for years. Once again, here was the unwelcome shift of perspective when a colleague's private life (never more than the backdrop to the life you know them in, their working life, their real life, so you prefer to think) comes forward and you are made to know with what difficulty and how precariously this friend maintains independence from that matrix the family. George for a time had had this sister living with him and his wife, but then it all got too much when the children were born. Now, unfortunately, she was in and out of hospital. Sarah and George then exchanged the lines of that conversation which takes place more and more often, to the effect that for every whole, competent, earning person are every day more of the people who cannot cope with life and have to be supported, financially or emotionally. The two went on to wonder if there were really more, or perhaps it was only that they were more visible because of our (after all quite recently adopted) view that disadvantaged people are infinitely redeemable. And what about those people who are seen as whole, healthy, independent, 'viable', but in fact are dependent on others? Sarah of course was thinking here of her brother, for what would he be without that drained-of-blood person his wife?

  The Old Fox called itself a wine bar, but it was a restaurant with a bar and loud music, and so full they could not see the other side of the room. Then, suddenly, there Joyce was. A group of young people squeezed themselves around a table, drinking. This was a far from disreputable place, and Joyce's group was the only doubtful element in it. Sarah, who was now faced with the necessity of doing something, but not knowing what, was saved by Joyce, who was pushing her way through the crowd with cries of 'It's my Auntie Sarah.' She was holding a tumbler of whisky above her head for safety. Standing in front of her aunt and reeking of whisky, Joyce chattered about the lovely play. She did not look at George White. It had not been more than a mild twilight when the play ended, but perhaps she did not look, on principle, at possible customers.

  'How are you going to get home?' asked Sarah.

  'Oh, we'll manage. We got ourselves here, didn't we?'

  The two adults stood listening while the poor child offered the smart phrases that were obligatory when she was near her friends. 'No dis, Auntie, but you're right out, we've nuff carn, we're safe.' Translated: No disrespect, but you're worrying about nothing, we've got lots of money, we're okay. Meanwhile her gaze moved continually to the door as new people came in. Clearly she knew this place well. Her smile, as always, seemed fixed. Her eyes were all pupil. Drugs enlarge pupils. Like the dark. Or like love.

  George caught sight of someone he knew. He moved off. After all, the company had been here for three days and this was the place for the youth of the town. At once he was surrounded: he was amiable, good-looking, always popular.

  'Joyce,' said Sarah, lowering her voice. 'Are you remembering all the things we tell you?'

  Joyce's eyes moved about evasively, and she said brightly, 'Oh, Sarah, of course we do; you're right out.'

  'What's this about your offering blow-jobs to all and sundry?'

  At this the beautiful eyes swivelled desperately. 'Who told you? I didn't… I never… please, Auntie… ' Then, recovering herself, she quoted (who — Betty?), 'But that's what men are like. That's all they care about; give them a good blow-job and they are satisfied.' And she looked proudly at Sarah to see how this bit of worldly wisdom was going down.

  Sarah watched those pretty lips struggle to offer her a smile and said, 'Oh Joyce, do have some common sense.'

  'Oh we do, I promise. But it's brass, you see. The trouble is, brass.' Then, unable to bear it another minute, she waved her thin and grubby hand not six inches from Sarah's face, saw she was misjudging distances, squinted, and retreated backwards, crying, 'Later on… later on… ' Meaning goodbye, goodbye. She wriggled off into the crowd to rejoin her friends.

  At the bar sat Andrew, on a stool, drinking. Feeling that he was being looked at, Andrew turned and stared at her. Then, deliberately, he turned back to the woman on the stool next to his — smart, middle-aged, flattered by him. Then he could not stand it and swung about, steadied himself, for he was tight, and came over to her. 'I don't have a car,' he said. 'If I borrowed one, would you…?' George appeared. 'No, I see you wouldn't,' and Andrew stalked back to the bar.

  'A pretty dramatic character, our Andrew,' commented George.

  'Yes.'

  'I wouldn't like him as an enemy.'

 
; Men, if not women, saw Andrew as dangerous.

  'Come on, I'll take you back.'

  She sat silent in the car as it sped through moonlit lanes, thinking for the thousandth time that there must be something sensible they could do about Joyce.

  'Are you thinking that there must be some solution if only you could think of it?'

  'Yes.'

  'I thought you were.'

  He did not stop the engine when she got out. Off he went, back to the wine bar, leaving her outside the now dark house. It was twelve, late for these parts. On a bench by some shrubs sat a tense and watchful figure. She walked towards Henry. As Susan had seemed earlier with Stephen: Henry was reeling her in on a line. She sat by him. He at once moved over so they touched all the way from shoulders to feet.

  'Where have you been?'

  She heard herself sigh: it meant, How irrelevant.

  'Benjamin was looking for you. He's gone to bed.'

  Her mind was spinning out its rhetoric: How often are two people in love with each other at the same time? Hardly ever. Usually, one turns the cheek… What she did say aloud, quite evenly and creditably, though her heart was thudding so he must feel it, was, 'There is always that moment with Americans when one feels thoroughly decadent. You can know someone for years, and then there it is. Good wholesome ethical Americans, tricky and decadent Europeans. Just like a Henry James novel.'

  'If I had ever read Henry James.'

  'In your heart of hearts you think of me as immoral.'

  'I don't want to know what you think of me.'

  'Good. And now I'm going to bed.' She got up, and he grabbed her hand. Pulling her hand away from his hand tore out great slabs of her heart. So it felt. He leaped up. He held her, still did not kiss her mouth, but his lips touched her cheek, sending fire all through her (sending what?), and her lips were on his hair. Soft hair…

  'Good night,' she said briskly, and went upstairs.

  She sat at her window, utterly overthrown. The sky was full of moonlight, so she saw as her sight cleared. Words welled up in her. She found herself sitting (with her eyes shut, for the moonlight was too empty and heartless), feeling the sweet touch of his hair on her mouth, while she muttered, 'God, how I did love you, my little brother, how I did love you.' Astonishment pulled her eyes open. But it was not now she could attend to what the words were telling her. She lay on her bed and wept, most bitterly. Well, that was better than what lay in wait for her. Tears and even bitter tears are not the country of grief.

  She woke late, was late at the breakfast table. Stephen had come in to look for his sons, for he wanted them to have a shooting lesson. Benjamin sat over coffee. He had been waiting for her. It was his turn to look ironical: he believed her to have been kept late in town by attractive temptations. Henry came in, just after she did, poured coffee, brought the cup and himself to the chair next to hers. He did not look at her. She did not look at him.

  Benjamin said, 'I've got to leave at two, if I'm going to catch my plane.'

  Stephen said, 'Then I suggest Sarah shows you around the place a bit.'

  Benjamin said, 'If Sarah's got time.'

  'Of course I've got time,' said Sarah, but it was after a pause, for she did not immediately hear him.

  'And Henry, perhaps you and your wife would have dinner with us? It's not too bad at The Blue Boar. The show'11 be over by ten, and we can be in town by half past.'

  'We'd love to,' said Henry. 'It might be a bit late for Joseph, but he'll manage. He's used to late nights.'

  Stephen had not thought the child would be at the dinner, and now he remarked, 'I'm sure Norah would keep an eye on him for you.'

  'I don't think he'd let me go. He hasn't seen me for a month.'

  'Just as you think best. I'll book. And Sarah — you too, of course.'

  Here his boys appeared, and he said to them, 'Come on, then, there's good chaps. Run and get the target.'

  The four went off.

  Sarah found she could not drink her coffee. Her mouth was already bitter with loss. She said to Benjamin, 'Shall we go?' Benjamin stood up, and this tall and solid man, in his immaculate, impeccable, improbably perfect creamy linen, succeeded in making the delightful old room seem shabby. He enquired too politely of Henry, 'Do you want to join us?'

  'I've got things to do,' said Henry.

  Benjamin and Sarah set off to stroll around the estate. They took paths as they came to them, sat on benches to admire views, found a field with horses in it, a dozen or so lazing under a willow near a stream. The horses watched the two to see if they were bearing titbits, then lost interest. A field yellow with grain and so smooth it seemed to invite them to stroke it slanted to a sheet of blue sky. In an enormous shed, or workshop, a harvester like an infinitely magnified insect stood throbbing while two young men in smart blue overalls leaned over it with cans of oil.

  This is the last day, the last day — beat through Sarah. Landscape, sky, horses, and harvester were all Henry, Henry. The shocking egotism of love had emptied her of anything but Henry. She told herself that Benjamin deserved at least politeness, and tried to chat suitably, but she knew that her words kept fading into inattention, and then silence.

  Benjamin began to entertain her, remembering how successful this had been in Belles Rivieres, with 'projects'.

  'How does this grab you, Sarah? A Kashmiri lake, an exact replica, with houseboats, musicians, the boatmen imported from Kashmir. It'll be in Oregon. Plenty of water — we need the right kind of lake.'

  'It certainly grabs me,' said Sarah, knowing she sounded indifferent.

  'Good. And what about a development of a machine that emits negative ions? It hangs from a moveable stand so you can push it from room to room. Dust is attracted to it and falls into a flat tray under the machine. After an hour or so there is very little dust in the air.'

  'That one certainly grabs me. No housework.'

  'It was my wife's idea. She was working for a firm that makes ionizers. She's a physicist. She's developing the machine.'

  'You can sell me one any time.'

  'I'll get her to send you one.'

  'Was the Kashmiri lake your wife's idea?'

  'We had the idea together. We were in Kashmir three years ago — before all the fighting, that kind of thing. I put it to a hotel group we are interested in, and they liked it.'

  'You sound as if you think it is a little frivolous.'

  'Perhaps I did, at first. But my ideas about what is frivolous and what isn't seem to have changed.' Here he would have liked to exchange with her a look deeper than words, but she could not afford to let her eyes meet his. Swords seemed to stab into her eyes, which might easily dissolve and flow down her cheeks.

  They walked towards a group of trees from where voices and an occasional gunshot emanated. They stood among trees and looked down into a glade. In the middle of this grassy space stood a thick wooden post, which, because of the times we live in, had to make them think of a man or woman with bandaged eyes, waiting to be shot. Rather old- fashioned? Did a post belong to an older and more formal, even more civilized, time? On the post was nailed a homemade target. Some yards away from it, below them but to the left, were Stephen, his three sons, two other boys, and two girls.

  Against an oak tree leaned an assortment of guns. The scene was remarkable because of its combination of the casual and even amateur — the home-made target and Stephen's and the children's clothes — and the strict rituals of the shooting.

  The children stood in a group a few paces behind a boy who was holding a gun: he had just finished his turn and was taking it back to the little armoury by the tree. They were restraining the two red setters who were excitedly moving about, their tails sweeping the grass. The child whose turn had come to shoot was being led by Stephen to the tree, where a weapon suitable for his age and degree of skill was carefully chosen. Every movement was monitored by Stephen: barrel tilted down, hold it like this, walk like this. When the boy was in place at the point they shot
from, Stephen stood just behind him and a little to one side, issuing instructions, though what he said could not be heard from this distance. The boy carefully raised the rifle, aimed, shot. A black hole appeared on the target, slightly off centre of the bull's-eye. 'Well done' was probably said, for the boy joined the group, looking pleased.

  Now a girl of about twelve went with Stephen to the tree. She chose a rifle, without guidance, strolled to the right place with Stephen, who was much less careful with her than with the boy, then aimed, then fired. Apparently it was a bull's-eye, for the target didn't change. The children emitted appreciative cries, and Stephen laid his hand briefly on her shoulder. The dogs barked and bounded. She rejoined the group, and another boy, Edward, Stephen's youngest, went to the tree with his father. What he was handed seemed to be an air gun. This time Stephen monitored every little movement: position of the forward hand, set of the left shoulder… of the right shoulder… position of the head… of the feet. Intense concentration. The shot appeared as a black hole on the edge of the white square with its concentric rings. The group was so hard at work no one noticed the two watchers, who moved on.

  'I would like to think we took as much trouble teaching our children to shoot. I suppose it shows ignorance, but why do they need to know how to shoot in this green and peaceful land?'

  'It's a social skill.'

  'And the girls too?'

  'One has to remember whom a girl might marry — I'm quoting.'

  Benjamin duly smiled.

  'You see, there would never have been any need for my daughter to learn to shoot.' As he seemed puzzled: 'We aren't aristocrats.'