The Real Thing

by Doris Lessing

  Rose would never, ever, understand ordinary decency, common sense, honesty. One did not learn these qualities when part of ‘all that’.

  Weaving nets and snares, crazy with fear, using every trick she knew, she would pull her rival Sarah towards her, into that house, that family, and then … The great family table with the children around it, and their friends. James at the head of the table, and sometimes his colleagues. She, Rose, at its foot. Olive … other people … And there, too, Sarah, sitting modestly in her place at the side of the table, with the children, like a visitor. Her husband (Rose’s) with his first wife, the two Northerners, two elderly Vikings, handsome if sun- and wind-dried, humorous, judicious, not commenting on this scene, and not even allowing their eyes to meet (which in itself would be enough to drive Rose hysterical with suspicion for she always and with everyone used those great eyes of hers in glances, connivings, little raisings of the brow, dark meaningful looks – she could not manage without them! Had never managed without them, her atmosphere of me-and-you) … but there they sat, her husband and Sarah, calm, smiling, undramaric, and at home in a world that Rose did not understand, and could not, for she had been born into that other place, where people survived.

  Rose could do not other than weave nets around Sarah, using James to do it. She would plot and plan and intrigue, lay snares for the world she could not understand, and she would pull it into her life and into her home and sit it at her table.

  And then?

  And then she would kill herself. There was nothing else for her. Her panic, her horror, would not be assuaged, appeased, because Sarah, obedient, amenable, sat at her table, but, on the contrary, it would rise up in her and kill her.

  Of course!

  It was obvious!

  It had been obvious from the start, and that was why Sarah had been in such a panic herself. To get out … to get away … to make sure none of these things would happen.

  ‘Rose, not Sarah.’ ‘Her, not me,’ she had heard herself muttering, from that part of her (that part of us all) which was so much more intelligent than the slow, lumbering, daylike self.

  Rose would ring herself, tonight. Or another of the children would. Or James would, with a message from Rose.

  Sarah would simply not answer the telephone.

  Meanwhile she switched on the lights, found a certain letter in a drawer, and dialled her old friend Greta in Norway. ‘Greta,’ she said firmly. ‘I want to accept your invitation, but I have a great favour to ask. I want to come now, at once. I want to come and use you as a base for walking trips, yes, all summer, a long time … And I don’t want anyone to know where I am. I don’t want James to know. Or Rose. Not anyone. All right? Yes, I’ll ring you from Oslo.’

  There, it was done.

  She briskly began to collect the clothes she would need.

  Tomorrow she would put her home into the hands of an estate agent, and go at once to the airport.

  Tonight, now, she would go out to dinner at a restaurant, not come home until late, and she would not answer the telephone … which was ringing as she ran down the stairs away from it.

  Two Old Women and a Young One

  The restaurant is used by publishers, by agents, and – if guests of one or the other – by authors. About the restaurant nothing much can be said: it is yet to be explained why one restaurant is more popular than another whose food is also adequate. It was perhaps too interestingly decorated, but at the same time it aspired to opulence. It is always full.

  Midday. People were arriving for lunch. By themselves at a favoured table beside a cascade of cream-and-green ivies were two old women. They were smartly dressed but fussily, with scarves, necklaces, earrings. Actresses? Was there a suggestion of self-parody in those eyelashes, the eye paint?

  They sat catercornered. Their table was set for a third. They refused an aperitif, then, as the restaurant went on filling, they asked for sherries.

  ‘Very dry,’ said one, to the waiter, and the voice announced that she was older than she seemed, for it wavered.

  ‘Very dry,’ said the other, a good octave lower, in a voice once pitched to be sexy, but now it rumbled on the edge of a croak.

  ‘Very good,’ said the waiter, and he lingered a moment, smiling. He was a lively young Frenchman.

  ‘Perhaps we have the wrong day?’ remarked one.

  T am sure we have not,’ said the other.

  And here came their host, a youngish man almost running to them, blank-eyed with anxiety. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he as good as wept, and ran his hand back over his boyish hair, disordered as it was by apology and by haste. He sat and the same waiter nodded, as he called, ‘Champagne, the usual.’

  ‘Dear me,’ said one old woman, ‘we are being spoiled.’ She was, perhaps, the prettier, a delightful old thing. Younger she must have been delightful, a rose, blue-eyed, blonde, and her hair even now was silver, a mass of intricate waves, tendrils, not unlike the casque favoured by old Queen Mary.

  ‘Indeed we are,’ said the other in her deep voice. She had certainly been striking, with dark eyes and, probably, hair. Now it was gold, a pale gold, in a modified chignon, held with a black velvet bow.

  Sisters?

  ‘I was held up on your account – not that it’s an excuse,’ said the host, and reached for the just-filled champagne glass. He waited only long enough for politeness, for as the other two glasses began to bubble and bead he swallowed down his first glass and at once the waiter refilled it. The two women watched and exchanged the briefest glance.

  ‘It’s all sorted out,’ said the publisher. “There will be two contracts, both on the same terms. It is being assumed you two will contribute equally to the book.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ said silver-hair. ‘Well, that’s agreed, then. I’m so glad.’ And she put back her champagne, in a gulp, and smiled gently at him.

  ‘Of course,’ said gold-head, in her throaty voice. I was sure you’d sort it all out.’ And she, too, drank off her glass.

  ‘How nice,’ said silver-hair, ‘to drink champagne at lunchtime.” Her voice was already more quavery than it had been, and when it reached for lower notes it achieved a reminiscent intimacy.

  ‘How nice,’ said gold-head, ‘to drink champagne with a handsome young man.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ said he, bluffly, startled. Quite upset he was. William was his name: call-me-William, but he wouldn’t say this to these two who, it was obvious, would take advantage in some way.

  The two women were focusing on him an inspection that he experienced as an intrusion. He was saying to himself, in a moment of panic, that between them they claimed almost a century and a half of years.

  He sat staring over his champagne glass at the two old women. He had not met them before, only spoken on the telephone, and as a result of these talks he had personally overlooked every clause of the contracts. He had not expected … well, he was shocked. Nothing in his experience had taught him how to see these two worldly old trouts, now both tight on a couple of swallows of champagne.

  ‘Darling,’ said silver-hair, ‘we’ve scared him.’ And she put her hand, shapely but blotched with age and full of rings, on his forearm.

  ‘Don’t mind us,’ said gold-head, it seemed to him with a quite grotesque naughtiness, ‘but it is all going to our poor heads.’

  Meanwhile the waiter was observing all this. He filled the three glasses.

  ‘We both of us live alone, you see,’ said silver-hair, explaining it all to him.

  ‘Oh, I thought you lived together … I don’t know why I did …’

  ‘We may be sisters, but we haven’t come to that yet.’

  “We’re still hoping for something better, you see,’ said gold-head, and then gave a snort of derisive laughter, Cod knows at what.

  ‘Living alone with my baby,’ said silver-hair, who in fact was Fanny Winterhome.

  ‘And I live with mine, and we both love our babies,’ said gold-head, Kate Bisley.

  They were widow
s. They had been theatrical agents for thirty years, had known ‘everybody’, had represented a thousand good troupers, famous and less famous, and now they were writing their reminiscences. The book would certainly sell for its anecdotes about the great, pretty near the bone some of them. ‘But never spiteful, darling, we promise you,’ Fanny had assured him on the telephone. There was also the question of their theatre expertise, past and present. No one knew more than they did, he had been assured.

  Yesterday the young (youngish) publisher had been told, quite by chance, by a well-known actor he had asked to help ‘promote’ the book, that the two women had been beautiful.

  He sat looking from one to the other.

  ‘Kate has a Burmese, and my baby is a Siamese,’ said Fanny. And her rouged lips kiss-kissed the air, an invisible pussycat.

  ‘I think we had better order,’ he said firmly.

  It was evident he cared about what he ate, and they did not. But as the waiter approached to drain the end of the champagne into the three glasses the host said, hypnotized into doing it – he was convinced – ‘Another bottle, I think.’

  ‘Oh good,’ sighed Fanny. ‘One can never have too much champagne.’

  ‘One can at this time of the day,’ said Kate.

  ‘Well, we’ll have to support each other to the train.’

  ‘Or perhaps this handsome man would escort us there?’

  ‘I certainly would, with pleasure, but I have an appointment I simply cannot be late for’

  ‘Oh dear, then we mustn’t expect too much of you,’ Fanny said, patting the pretty silver lattice above her pearl-bubbled left ear while her rings flashed. A ring caught in the hair. ‘Oh damn,’ she said, ‘I’ve got out of the way of dolling myself up.’ And she unclipped the earring, laid it on the cloth, unclipped the other, took off a ring or two.

  ‘It was all for you,’ said Kate, ‘but we are out of practice, you see.’ She was offering herself to him in the tones of her deep voice, just as Fanny did her light one. Their voices … while he smiled and tucked heartily into his starter, prawns and bits of this and that, he was trying to come to terms with their voices.

  ‘Aren’t you even going to ask about the terms?’ he enquired, whimsically, but with an undernote of grudge.

  ‘Oh I’m sure you’ve done well by us,’ said Fanny, her voice tinkling down his spine.

  ‘Besides, you wrote us the terms, have you forgotten?’ said Kate, and her deep bell made a descant with Fanny’s chime.

  Damn them, he was thinking.

  ‘Besides, it’s not likely you would try to cheat us,’ said Fanny, ‘when we were the best agents in the business in our time.’

  ‘True,’ he said.

  Both, having allowed the tines of their forks to dawdle in their fish, put down the forks and reached as one woman for their glasses.

  ‘Bliss,’ said Fanny, sipping.

  ‘Bliss plus,’ echoed Kate.

  He was looking past them at a table visible through a slight arch, where sat a young woman, who was facing him. She was entertaining an influential New York publisher, and was not looking at him, though she must have seen him there. She was more attractive, in style not unlike the Modigliani we all know so well. She had a long voluptuous white throat. Her black hair glistened like clean coal, and was cut in what was once called a bob. She had green eyes, and wore a grass-green jumper with a string of jet beads. Her skin was white, with the thick glistening look of camellia petals. He certainly was not the only man looking at her. But she had eyes only for the man opposite her, attending to him like … well, like a mistress determined to please. He acknowledged that it would not have occurred to him to make this comparison if he had not been subjected to these two old …

  As she continued not to acknowledge him, he leaned back again, prepared to put up with being embarrassed.

  They had noticed his absence of mind, and sat as quiet as two pampered budgies, drinking, musing, it seemed, about long-ago things – attractive memories, for their wrinkled mouths smiled, and their eyes were damp with champagne.

  He began on his main course, while they patiently, but indifferently, waited for him. They had said they didn’t want a main course. Urged again now to change their minds, Fanny said, “The pudding! That’s what I’m waiting for. I adore, adore sweet things now. I never used to.’

  ‘Sweets to the sweet,’ said Kate, apparently complimenting Fanny for him, since it didn’t occur to him to do so. Or was this a moment from her own past?

  Both were now quite tipsy, and Kate actually swayed a little, and unsteadily hummed a bar or two of – what?

  Fanny put her head on one side, lips pursed, and Kate said triumphantly, ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin.’

  ‘What a tune to dance to, that was,’ said Fanny. ‘Do you dance?’ she enquired, caressing him with her old sweet voice.

  ‘No, they don’t dance these days,’ said Kate. ‘We danced. They none of them do. Not real dancing. They just jump about.’

  ‘No,’ he confessed, fortifying himself with champagne. ‘I don’t actually ever seem to …’

  The second bottle was almost gone. No, he simply would not, he was damned if he would, order a third.

  He had swallowed down his food, and had not enjoyed it.

  He nodded, and knew it was desperate, at the waiter, who, it was obvious, knew exactly how to deal with these manstres sacrées. He came gracefully forward, smiling, bestowing his attention on both, in friendly glances, and began detailed explanations of the desserts. He might have been describing jewels, or orchids. His manner was full of flattery, and of appreciation, of the food, and certainly, of them. He had a favourite granny perhaps? The three were positively flirting! It was quite charming, as a performance, the host was prepared to concede that. When it was finally agreed that a certain confection of chocolate and crime fraèche was what they had to eat, the waiter pointed out it was not wise to let all those pretty things -for both women had now made piles of jewellery beside them – lie about anyhow on the tablecloth. He smiled, they smiled, and both swept up their valuables and let them fall into their handbags.

  ‘How do you know I wouldn’t run off with them myself?’ enquired the waiter laughing, departing to fetch their desserts.

  ‘Oh don’t be silly,’ sighed Kate after him.

  ‘He’s a dish,’ said Fanny. ‘I’m sure there are more good-looking young men about than there used to be.’

  ‘An illusion,’ said Kate.

  They seemed to have forgotten him, or had given him up, for they sat meditating and not looking anywhere near him.

  They ate their confections in lingering, appreciative licks and sips, but no, this performance was not meant for him, the host, who sat watching, trying to see them as the waiter clearly did, charming women, for when he had an unoccupied moment, he stood nearby, smilingly watching.

  Last week a certain impresario had remarked that these two had been the dishiest women in London.

  Dishy. A dish. Dishes. Dishiest.

  The champagne was quite gone.

  No, neither drank coffee these days and brandy would be too much of a good thing. They were quite happy to toddle off to their train.

  He told the waiter he would be back to pay the bill, and he took them out, one on either arm. This contact disturbed him, but he did not propose to analyse why. The waiter was holding the door open, ‘Au revoir, au revoir,’ he said. ‘Come back, madame, do come back, madame.’

  And, before turning back to his duties, he stood looking after them, and gave the minutest shrug, regretful, philosophic, humorously tender.

  There was a taxi almost at once. The host handed them in, both slightly unsteady, but in command of themselves. As he bent to smile goodbye, it occurred to him they were actually saying to themselves, and would to each other the moment he had turned away, ‘Right, we’ve got that over.’ A performance was done with. The very second their little waves at him – which seemed to him perfunctory, to say the least – were
done with, they sat back and forgot him.

  He returned to the restaurant. Now the Modigliani girl was alone. He sat himself down at her table, just as another colleague did. The three of them worked in different departments of the same publishing firm.

  ‘God,’ said she, ‘what one has to do for duty.’ She smiled matily at first one and then the other, but holding their eyes with hers. An Armagnac stood before her. She was a little tight too. ‘Drinking at lunchtime,’ she complained.

  At the next table sat a woman they all knew, an American agent in London. She greeted them, they greeted her, and she began to talk about her trip, enquiring about new young writers. Her voice resonated, commanded attention, as American professional women’s voices often do, insistent, not conceding an inch, every syllable a claim.

  The Modigliani girl answered her, and her voice was just as much in a local pattern as the American’s. Somewhere in England, at a girls’ school, at some time probably in the late sixties or early seventies, there must have been a headmistress, or even a head girl, of extreme force of character, or elegant, or rich, or pretty, but at least with some quality that enabled her to impose her style on everyone, making her enviable, copiable … by a class – then a school – then by several. For often and everywhere is to be found this voice among professional women formed at that time. It is a little breathy high voice that comes from a circumscribed part of the women who use it, not more than two square inches of the upper chest, certainly not a chest cavity or resonating around a head. Oh dear, poor little me, they lisp their appeals to the unkind world; these tough, often ruthless young women who use every bit of advantage they can. Sometimes in a restaurant this voice can be heard from more than one of the tables; or from different parts of a room at a board meeting, or a conference. There they sat, in professional and competent discussion, the American tough guy, the English cutie, or sweetie, or dish, or dolly-face, perfect specimens of their kind, one insisting and grinding, one chitter-chattering, and smiling, turning her beautiful long white neck, curved and taut, while the black silky hair swung on her cheeks.