COV02 - A Proper Marriage

by Doris Lessing

  He shook hands with her, invited her to drop in and talk it all over if she felt like it at any time, and went back to his desk.

  Martha returned to her flat in a trance of despair. Not the least of her bitterness was due to her knowledge that in some part of herself she was already weakening towards this baby. She could not forget that diving creature, bent in moulded bronze, about five inches long. In her bedroom, she found herself standing as she had seen Alice stand, hands curiously touching her stomach. It occurred to her that this child had quickened already; she understood that this long process had been one of determined self-deception - almost as if she had wanted this damned baby all the time, she thought quickly, and immediately pushed the idea from her mind. But how could she have mistaken those irregular but definite movements for anything else?

  When Douglas came home she informed him that nothing would induce her to have this child, with which he at once agreed. She found herself slightly annoyed by this. It was agreed that she should go at once to Johannesburg. Douglas knew of an astounding number of women who had made the trip and returned home none the worse for it.

  Martha, left alone next day to make preparations for the trip, did nothing at all. Then her mother flew in. Against all her intentions, Martha blurted out that she was going to have a baby; and was immediately folded in Mrs Quest’s arms. Mrs Quest was delighted; her face beamed pleasure; she said it was lovely, it was the best thing that could possibly happen, it would settle Martha down and give her no time at all for all her funny ideas. (Here she gave a small, defiant, triumphant laugh.) Unfortunately, as she had to get back to the farm, she could not stay with her daughter, much as she wanted to. She embraced Martha again, and said in a warm, thrilled voice that it was the greatest experience in a woman’s life. With this she left, wet-eyed and with a tremulous smile.

  Martha was confounded; she sat thinking that her mother must be out of her mind; above all she was thinking angrily of the triumph she had shown. She roused herself again to pack and make telephone calls; but they again faded out in indecision. The child, five inches long, with eyes, nose, mouth, hands and feet, seemed very active. Martha sat feeling the imprisoned thing moving in her flesh, and was made more miserable by the knowledge that it had been moving for at least a week without her noticing it than by anything else. For what was the use of thinking, of planning, if emotions one did not recognize at all worked their own way against you? She was filled with a strong and seething rage against her mother, her husband, Dr Stern, who had all joined the conspiracy against her. She addressed angry speeches of protest to them, fiery and eloquent speeches; but, alas, there was no one there but herself.

  Sometime later Stella came in, stepping blithely around the door, hips swaying lightly, eyes bright with interest. She had heard the news; the boys were already drinking Douglas’s health in the Club.

  ‘Everyone’s quite convinced that you had to get married,’ said Stella with a delighted chuckle.

  An astonishing thought occurred to Martha for the first time. ‘Do you know,’ she cried out, half laughing, ‘if I’m as pregnant as Dr Stern says I am, then I must have been when I got married!’ At this she flung herself back and roared with laughter. Stella joined her briefly; then she regarded Martha impatiently, waiting for the rather helpless wail of laughter to end.

  ‘Well,’ demanded Stella, ‘and what are we going to do about it?’

  It was at this point that Martha, in the stubborn, calm voice of complete conviction, found herself explaining to Stella how foolish an abortion would be at this stage. Stella grew increasingly persuasive, and Martha obstinate. The arguments she now found for having this baby were as strong and unanswerable as those she had been using, only ten minutes ago, against it. She found herself intensely excited at the idea of having a baby.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ remarked Stella disgustedly at last. ‘You and Alice are mad. Both mad, quite mad.’

  She rose, and stood poised before Martha to deliver the final blow; but Martha intercepted it by suggesting teasingly that Stella herself ought to start a baby, as otherwise she’d be left out of it.

  At this Stella allowed a brief gleam of a smile; but at once she substituted a disapproving frown. ‘I’m not going to have kids now, it wouldn’t be fair to Andrew. But if you want to shut yourself into a nursery at your age, then it’s your own affair.’ She gave the triumphant and amused Martha a long, withering look, dropped a goodbye, pulled on her gloves gracefully, and went out.

  She sustained the sweep of her exit until she reached the street. She had meant to go shopping, but instead she went to Douglas’s office. She told the typist to announce her, but was unable to wait, and followed the girl in, saying urgently, ‘Douggie – I must see you.’

  ‘Come in, Stell.’ He nodded to the typist, who went out again.

  Stella sat down. ‘I’ve just seen Matty.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a bit of a mess,’ he said at once. But he looked self-conscious, even proud.

  Seeing it, Stella said impatiently, ‘She’s much too young. She doesn’t realize.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know - she’s been putting the fear of God into me. She’ll be ill. I wish you’d speak to her, Stell.’

  ‘But I have been speaking to her. She won’t listen.’

  ‘After all, there’s no danger in a proper operation in Johannesburg, but messing about with gin and all that nonsense …’

  Stella shrugged this away, and said, ‘She’s as stubborn as a mule. She’s just a baby herself. She’s pleased now, of course, but that’s natural.’

  Douglas looked up sharply, and went red. His lips trembled. He stood up, then sat down again. Now he was white.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asked, smiling but irritated.

  ‘I’ll talk to her again,’ he muttered. He understood. Now all he wanted was for her to go. For the first time he had imagined the baby being born. He was imagining himself a father. Pride was invading him. It had already swallowed up his small pang of hurt that Martha had made up her mind without him, his aggrieved annoyance at her inconsistency. He felt nothing but swelling exaltation.

  Stella had risen. ‘You’re both crazy,’ she said.

  ‘There, Stella …’ he said, hesitated; then kissed her.

  ‘Well!’ she exclaimed, laughing.

  ‘Look, Stell, I’m awfully busy.’

  She nodded and said, ‘Come and have a drink, both of you, this evening. We’ll celebrate. Though I think you’re both mad.’ With another unconsciously envious look at his flushed, proud face, she went out.

  The moment she had gone he rang Martha. Her voice came gay over the air as she announced her conviction that having a baby was the most sensible thing they could both do.

  ‘Why, Matty!’ he shouted. Then he let out a yell of pure elation. He heard her laugh.

  ‘Come home to lunch?’ she asked. Then she added scrupulously, ‘Not if you’re busy.’

  ‘Well, actually, I’ve got an awful lot of work.’

  ‘Oh, very well, we’ll celebrate this evening.’

  ‘Actually, Stella asked us over.’

  ‘Oh, but Stella …’ She stopped.

  ‘We can decide that later.’ They each held the receiver for a while, waiting for the other to say something. Then he said, very stern and efficient, ‘Matty, you’re quite sure?’

  She giggled at his tone, and said derisively, ‘I’ve been perfectly sure for a whole hour.’

  ‘See you later, then.’ He put down the receiver - and nearly lifted it to ring her again. Something more, surely, must be said or done. He was seething with the need to release his elation, his pride. It was impossible to sit quietly working in the office. He walked across to the door of his chief’s office, and stood outside it. No - he would tell him later. He left a message that he would be back in half an hour, and went into the street. He was walking towards the flat, he realized. His steps slowed, then he stopped. On a street corner he stood staring at nothing,
breathing heavily, smiling. There was a florist’s shop opposite. He was drawn to the window. He was looking at some deep-red carnations. He would send Matty some flowers — yes, that was it. But as he was about to go into the shop, he saw again her face as he had last seen it that morning – set, angry, stiff-lipped. He did not enter the shop. A big clock at the end of the street said it was after twelve. He hesitated, turned, and set off towards the flat after all. He would surprise her for lunch. Then again he stopped, standing irresolute on the pavement. Nearly, he went back to the office. Almost, he directed himself to Martha. He gave another long look at the mass of deep crimson carnations behind the glass. Then he thought, I could do with a drink. He walked off to the Club, where he usually had a drink before lunch.

  The first person he saw was Perry at the bar, eating potato chips with a glass of beer. They nodded, and Perry pushed the plate of chips towards him.

  Douglas shook his head. ‘My ulcer’s been playing me up again.’

  ‘The more I ill-treat mine, the more it likes it.’ Perry directed very bright hard blue eyes at him, and asked, ‘What are you looking so pleased about?’

  ‘We’re having a kid,’ said Douglas proudly. He knew tears stood in his eyes: it was the climax of his exultation.

  ‘You’re joking,’ said Perry, polite but satiric.

  Douglas laughed, then whooped, so that people turned around to stare and smile sympathetically. ‘It’s a fact.’ He called to the barman, ‘Drinks on me. Drinks all round.’ In a moment the two were surrounded and Douglas was being thumped over the shoulders and back. ‘Stop it, silly sods,’ he said, grinning, ‘stop it.’

  Then Perry, with a wooden face, deliberately reached into his pocket and fetched out papers. ‘You’ll want to fix this up right away,’ he said, pushing the papers towards Douglas.

  ‘Don’t work so damned hard,’ said Douglas, laughing, pushing the papers back. Insurance policies - Perry worked as manager of a big insurance company.

  ‘The finest policy south of the Sahara,’ said Perry. He pulled out a fountain pen and handed it to Douglas. ‘Sign on the dotted line.’

  Douglas pushed them back at him again.

  But as they drank and talked, Douglas glanced over the papers, and as the two men left the bar he said, ‘I wouldn’t mind having another look at that policy sometime.’

  ‘I’ll send it over to you,’ said Perry.

  ‘You think it’s the ticket, hey?’

  ‘It’s the one I’d have if I was starting a kid.’

  Perry nodded and was walking away. Douglas thought, It’ll be a surprise for Matty. He wanted to take something back to her. He called after Perry, and the two went together to the insurance offices. Douglas signed the documents then and there. He rang up his office to say that he would not be back this afternoon, and went home to Martha. He ran the last few yards of the way, and pounded up the stairs holding the packet of papers in his hand, grinning like a boy with pleasure at the thought of her face when she saw the policy.

  Part Two

  You must remember that having a baby is a perfectly natural process.

  FROM A HANDBOOK ON HOW TO HAVE A BABY

  Chapter One

  Mrs Quest joyfully ran into the house and announced they were to have a grandchild.

  Mr Quest lowered his newspaper and exclaimed, ‘What! Oh Lord!’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ she said impatiently, ‘it’s the best thing that could happen, it’s so nice for her. It’ll settle her down, I’m so happy.’

  He listened for some time to his wife’s cheerful planning of the child’s future; it was not until the young man was due for university that he remarked uncomfortably, ‘It’s all very well …’

  But she swept on, illuminated by decision. The boy - he was to be named Jeffrey, after Mrs Quest’s father - was to be saved by a proper education from Martha’s unconformities; he would be, in fact, the child Mrs Quest had always longed for, the person her own two children had obstinately refused to become. Her eyes were wistful, her face soft. Mr Quest regarded it with increasing discomfort, for it could not but bear witness to what he hadn’t been able to do for her.

  ‘I think on the whole Sandhurst would be better,’ she concluded at last. ‘We’ll see that his name is put down in good time. I’ll write tomorrow. My father always wanted to go to Sandhurst, instead of Uncle Tony - it was the great disappointment of his life.’

  Mr Quest removed his gaze from the Dumfries Hills, whose blue coils were wreathed in smoke — a veld fire had been raging there unchecked for some weeks - and turned his eyes incredulously on his wife. Then he flung down his newspaper, and let out a short laugh. ‘Damn it all!’ he protested.

  Mrs Quest was gazing at the great blue buttresses of the mountain range. She heard his voice; her smile became a little tremulous. She swiftly glanced at him, and dropped her eyes.

  ‘One may presume the child’s parents will have something to say in the matter?’ he inquired. Then, dismayed by the pitiful incomprehension on her face, he suddenly put back his head and let out a roar of angry laughter.

  ‘But I mean to say,’ she protested, ‘you know quite well what she is, she’s bound to have all sorts of ideas …’

  ‘Oh, well,’ he commented at last, ‘you fight it out between you.’ He lifted his paper. ‘It will be time for my medicine in five minutes,’ he added abstractedly.

  Mrs Quest continued to dream her dreams, while she watched the light change over the mountains. It was an hour of pure happiness for her. But her husband’s withdrawal began to affect her. Soon the wings of her joy had folded. She sat in silence through supper; and looked like a little girl checked in what she most wanted. After the meal, she went to old chests and cupboards, and took out baby clothes she had kept all these years and unfolded them, stroking them with remembering hands. Tears filled her eyes. Life is unfair, unfair! she was crying out in her heart, that lonely unassuaged heart that was aching now with its emptiness. For what her husband had said meant that, once again, she was to be cheated. She felt it. After a long time she carefully folded the clothes again, and put them away in their lavender and mothballs. It was time for bed. She went out in search of her husband to tell him so. He was not in the house. She looked out of the windows. Light streamed from them down the dark paths of the garden. The moon was rising over the Dumfries Hills. Mr Quest stood, a dark, still shape beyond the reach of the streaming yellow house lights, watching the moon. She left the house and walked through the rockeries, where geraniums were a low scent of dryness rising from around her feet. She put her arm in his; and they looked out together towards the Dumfries Hills, which were now lifted towards the pale transparent disc of the moon by chains of red fire, and swirling in masses of red-tinted vapour.

  ‘Beautiful,’ said Mr Quest, with satisfaction. Then, after a pause: ‘I’m going to miss this.’ It was a half-appeal. Mr Quest, who for years had been playing his part in framing the family’s daydreams for escape to England or to the city, was longing for some reprieve now that the move to the city was certain.

  Mrs Quest said quickly, ‘Yes, but things will be much better in town.’

  Their thoughts moved together for a few minutes; and then he remarked unwillingly, ‘You know, old girl - well, she is awfully young, damn it.’

  Mrs Quest was silent. Now, instead of the charming young man Jeffrey, she could see nothing but the implacable face of Martha.

  The drums were beating in the compound. A hundred grass huts, subdued among the trees, were illuminated by a high flaring bonfire. The drums came strongly across the valley on the wind. The taste of wood smoke was bitter on their tongues.

  ‘I’m going to miss it, aren’t you?’ he demanded savagely.

  The sad knowledge of unfairness filled Mrs Quest again, and she cried out, ‘But we can’t die on this place, we can’t die here.’

  Against this cry the drums thudded and the crickets chirped.

  ‘It’s time to go to bed,’ said Mrs Quest res
tlessly.

  ‘In a minute.’

  They remained, arm in arm, looking out.

  ‘My eyes aren’t so bad, even now,’ he said. ‘I can see all the Seven Sisters.’

  ‘Well, you can still see them in town, can’t you?’ She added, It’s getting cold,’ as the night wind came sharp to their faces from a rustling glade of drying grass.

  ‘Oh, very well.’ They turned their backs to the moon and the blazing mountain, and went indoors. At the door he remarked, ‘All the same, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t more sensible for her not to have this baby.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense,’ she cried gaily. But she lay a long time in the dark, and now it was Martha’s face she saw, set stubborn and satirical against her own outpourings of joy.

  In the morning she rang up the neighbours to see if it was possible to get a lift into town. Nothing was said between husband and wife as she left but ‘Do what you can, old girl, won’t you?’ And she: ‘Oh, very well, I suppose you’re right.’

  Two days after Mrs Quest had heard the news from the bitter Martha, she marched into the flat to see her kneeling on the floor, surrounded by yards of white satin which she was fitting to a crib. Martha swept away her mother’s protests that it was absurd and impracticable to surround a baby with white satin, and in any case, why so soon? Martha had already bought flannel and patterns and had cut out nightdresses for the baby.

  Mrs Quest ignored the small protesting image of her husband, and disapproved strongly of the pattern for the nightdresses. She finished by inquiring, ‘Why not blue for the crib?’

  ‘Oh, so it’s going to be a boy?’ inquired Martha.

  Mrs Quest blushed. After a few minutes she conceded, ‘Why, are you going to have a girl, then?’

  Martha said nothing, and Mrs Quest understood that she had again confirmed her daughter’s worst ideas of her. She said with an aggressive laugh, ‘Anyway, it’s no good making up your mind you want a girl. I was sure you were a boy. I’d even chosen the name - and then look what I got!’