COV02 - A Proper Marriage

by Doris Lessing

  But Andrew remarked, with humorous protest, ‘I want to make it quite clear that while I think Boris should have considered himself bound to stay, he’s a good chap and quite sound.’

  There was a vote taken — a majority vote decided there should be a Communist Party. As an old Communist, he was bound to join it.

  Anton said, ‘I agree that he should have stayed. But I would like to protest against the word “saboteur”.’

  Sergeant Bolton let out his shoulders in his heaving silent laugh. Andrew interrupted it by saying, ‘We should elect a committee.’

  Sergeant Bolton shrugged impatiently. ‘A committee with a group like this?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anton, quiet but firm. ‘A committee.’

  Sergeant Bolton looked towards William, then Jasmine, then Martha. It was not until then that she realized he considered them his supporters.

  At Sergeant Bolton’s look Jasmine said, ‘I vote for Comrade Bolton.’ His eyes met hers and held them in a long intimate look. She blushed.

  Martha hesitated, and said, ‘I suggest Comrade Anton.’ She did not look at Anton, but involuntarily at Sergeant Bolton. He was smiling with tolerant sarcasm. It was really remarkable how the man could suggest he was being betrayed. But why? One could scarcely have a committee of one. But voting at once for Anton, instead of confirming Jasmine’s vote for himself, was a blow against him, those reproachful black eyes said; but he understood the world - and women too, for that matter!

  She smiled apologetically; the alliances in the group were, in short, being formed even then.

  There was a longish pause, which was ended by Anton’s casual ‘I would like to suggest Comrade Andrew.’

  Sergeant Bolton immediately countered with ‘And I suggest William and Jasmine.’

  ‘Too big,’ said Anton Hesse immediately.

  ‘Jasmine,’ insisted Sergeant Bolton.

  Jasmine, whose loyalties were almost equally balanced between Anton Hesse and the sergeant, looked for confirmation towards Anton, and saw that the watchful eyes said neither one thing nor the other. ‘I’m not experienced enough,’ she said confusedly.

  The young schoolteacher cried out, ‘I protest - why aren’t there any women on the committee?’

  At this all the tensions dissolved in a roar of laughter. Jasmine automatically became a member of the committee.

  As the laughter subsided, Anton said, ‘I suggest this meeting be now closed. It’s very late. The committee will discuss things and call a meeting of the whole group shortly.’

  They all rose. Sergeant Bolton went, smiling, over to Anton and Andrew, taking Jasmine with him. These four shortly announced they would hold a committee meeting there and then. The others had better get home to bed.

  They all walked down the dark stairway in silence. There was no need to say anything. They were together, dedicated and promised, and on the pavement they wrung each other’s hands, smiling at each other without speaking.

  Then William came up to Martha, and said, ‘Is everything all right, Matty?’

  She had to think before she remembered what he meant.

  ‘Oh, yes - I expect it will sort itself out,’ she said hurriedly. Her mind was still on what had happened. ‘I don’t think we should have let Boris go like that,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, Jackie knows what he’s doing.’ He was speaking out of the service loyalty, she could see. ‘You should see him with the lads on the camp — he’s marvellous,’ he added.

  She could imagine it. She saw Jackie Bolton, persuasive, understanding, almost tender - she had felt the spell herself.

  He said too casually, ‘He thinks quite a lot of you.’

  At first she was pleased, then she saw he was jealous because of that evening the sergeant had spent with her. She resented it.

  ‘Shall I come up and have a talk with the old man?’ he asked.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call him the old man,’ she said irritably.

  ‘Now, don’t be cross,’ he said persuasively, taking her hand. They were together in sympathy again. ‘After all - if you don’t love him, that’s all there is to it. You should simply tell him so. And that’s that.’

  She laughed a little. ‘That isn’t at all that.’ And now he again seemed young and inexperienced.

  ‘Why don’t you get yourself a room in town and simply leave him?’

  ‘Oh - I don’t want to hurry things.’

  ‘What’s the good of dragging it out?’

  ‘I’d better get back home quickly - it’s after twelve.’

  She was thinking again, He really is such a baby. And he was thinking, She doesn’t want to leave that comfortable life, that’s all.

  They parted, without even a kiss. But as she reached the car he came after her, and took her in his arms. They clung together in contrition because they were on edge with each other.

  ‘Why don’t you simply come with me to the hotel? Then you’ll have burned your boats.’ ‘But it’s so unpleasant that way.’

  ‘It’s so unpleasant that you have to leave him. Not how you leave him.’

  She was silent. He said, ‘Are you afraid of his divorcing you or something like that?’

  ‘You don’t understand him. He wouldn’t do anything ugly - not really. He’s just in a bad mood. He’s very sensible and straightforward …’ But here she tailed off in a sigh.

  A single stroke from the bell in the church across the park fell through the air, and she said, ‘I really must get back.’

  She drove home, parked the car quietly, and then saw that the house was filled with light. On the veranda Douglas was sitting where she had left him.

  ‘Why haven’t you gone to bed?’ she inquired lightly.

  ‘Where have you been - why are you so late?’

  ‘There were two meetings.’

  He ground out, ‘Was he there?’

  ‘Well, of course,’ she said, on that false light note.

  She went through into the bedroom, and he followed. He was grinding his teeth — she could hear the ugly sound just behind her.

  ‘Did you sleep with him?’

  She looked at him, astounded, ‘Of course not.’

  He grabbed her wrist and twisted it. ‘Tell me the truth.’

  Her wrist hurt, but pride forbade her to cry out. He dropped it, and stood looking at her with a swollen glare.

  She flung her clothes off, flung on her nightgown, got into bed. ‘I’m going to sleep.’

  He stood for a moment, then abruptly went to her cupboard, and began a frantic search among her things.

  She sat up. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ She was herself dismayed by the light inappropriate tone she could not help using. But both of them were playing roles, she felt. None of this behaviour was genuine, either hers or his. She felt that something would slip into place and they would become themselves.

  In the meantime he was flinging her clothes out behind him like a digging terrier. He found what he was looking for, the little box that held the contraceptives. He ground his teeth again, looking at it. Then he swiftly crossed the room and put it into a drawer of his own. ‘You aren’t going to have it,’ he said.

  ‘But I don’t want it,’ she said, helplessly laughing.

  It infuriated him. He locked the drawer and stood thinking. She could see that he was about to propel himself off into another course. Then, abruptly, he left the room. She leaned on her elbow, listening, while lights crashed on in one room after another through the dark empty house. He came back carrying Caroline, who was half awake, blinking in a sleepy smile.

  Douglas aggressively presented her the child, holding her out on his two forearms. Like a tray, she thought involuntarily. He said, in the sentimental voice, ‘Look, Matty, look at this.’

  She snapped out, in extreme embarrassment, ‘Oh, don’t be revolting, Douglas.’

  The disgust in her voice startled him out of his own picture of himself. He stood there holding out the child who was asleep again, on his tw
o extended forearms, blinking at her in comical bewilderment. Then he went red with shame, and rapidly retreated again back through the rooms. She saw the lights switch out methodically as he came back, and thought, He’s not at all out of control. He might imagine that he is, but he wouldn’t forget to switch the lights out if the skies were falling. It might put up the electricity bill by tuppence.

  He began to undress.

  Now what’s going to happen next? she wondered, out of her sense of improbability - it was not possible that this was really happening.

  As he was getting into his own bed, he suddenly changed direction and flumped over on to hers. He ground her shoulders, so that she felt the balls of his thumbs deep under the collarbone, and said viciously, ‘I’ll give you another baby - that’ll put an end to this nonsense.’

  ‘Oh no, you don’t,’ she remarked breathlessly. But it all seemed so much more vulgar than was probable that she looked at him with embarrassment. ‘You’re hurting my shoulders,’ she pointed out reasonably. He gripped her tighter for a moment, and pushed her shoulders back. She felt an instinct to struggle, then let herself go limp and said, ‘It’s no good trying to rape me, you know. You can’t rape women unless they want to be.’

  The word seemed to check him. He let her go, and stood up, thinking, blinking at her. Then he went to his own bed. She put out her hand and switched out the lights. She lay in the dark, trying to breathe silently, but her heart was beating like a mine stamp.

  She could hear him breathing heavily and irregularly across the space of darkness. Then she was asleep. She awoke with difficulty, hearing his voice, slow, persistent, as if he had already said it many times: ‘It’s no use pretending to be asleep. Wake up, Matty. Tell me, Matty — did you sleep with him, did you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  He repeated it; she repeated it. She fell off to sleep again. Again she woke in the dark, to hear that persistent voice, this time repeating, ‘Did you sleep with Hesse?’

  She laughed. ‘No, don’t be absurd.’

  He went through a list of names - it occurred to her after a while that he had memorized a list of the names on the Help for Our Allies Committee. She preserved silence for a while; she was only half awake; tiredness kept dragging her into sleep, and then she would be awake with the pain of fingers digging into her shoulder.

  She knew quite well that he knew she had not slept with William or anyone else. What, then, was this all about? He’s enjoying it, flashed into her mind; and the truth of this startled her completely awake. He was thoroughly enjoying the whole thing, and particularly the idea that she might have slept with twenty men. She lay in the dark, pondering: she was being confronted for the first time in her life with that phenomenon, male jealousy when it is self-conscious, with one eye on the invisible observer; enjoyable jealousy. But she fell asleep again, and again was woken by the pain of those jabbing fingers, which pride forbade her to protest against.

  Finally, towards dawn, when she was sick and dizzy with exhaustion, she said calmly, ‘Yes, I’ve slept with William, and with Anton Hesse.’ She then repeated, one after another, the list of the men on the committee. At once his fingers relaxed, and she heard him breathing deeply and regularly. She was wondering what he was thinking about now, when she realized he was asleep. It seemed that whatever he wanted had been given to him. She fell asleep again.

  She woke to find him dressing. She looked with curiosity at this sturdy and apparently sane young man, and remarked, ‘Well, and how does it strike you this morning?’

  But he ignored this, saying in that other voice, sentimental and pleading, ‘Now, don’t forget you must go and see Mrs Talbot, Matty.’ With this he left the room to get his breakfast.

  She thought that she must immediately collect her clothes and leave him. Then she thought, No, I’ll see Mrs Talbot first.

  Before he left for the office he came back, apparently normal, but with a wandering look in his eyes which told her that he was still in the grip of that hysteria, He pronounced rapidly, ‘I forbid you ever to see William again.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said promptly.

  This, it seemed, was what he had expected, even what he had come for, for he ground his teeth again, gazed at her in self-consciously shocked astonishment, and went out.

  Chapter Four

  The door was opened by Mrs Talbot herself. The door to Mr Talbot’s study was shut, and Elaine was nowhere to be seen. Mrs Talbot was fully dressed - stiff grey silk, with white bands at throat and wrists.

  Martha followed her into the drawing room and sat down. Mrs Talbot remained standing. Her eyes were filled with tears.

  ‘Oh, Matty,’ she cried out, ‘it can’t be true, it can’t. You can’t be leaving such a nice boy as Douglas for that other – of course I don’t know him, but …’

  ‘I’m not leaving Douglas for anyone,’ said Martha after a pause, during which she examined this new view of the position. The words ‘I am leaving him to live differently’ came to her tongue; she did not say them, because they sounded absurd - they should be said flippantly, in this house. Then she saw Anton Hesse in her mind’s eye and brought out aggressively, ‘I’m going to live differently.’

  But Mrs Talbot’s look at her was very shrewd. ‘We all feel like this, you know, Matty dear.’

  Martha thought, She means, everyone falls in love with someone else and wants to leave their husband. But Mrs Talbot was going on: ‘I remember when I was young – I was a pacifist – I quarrelled with my fiancé over the war … But Matty, it’s all such nonsense.’

  This depressed Martha; but she summoned the memory of Anton Hesse again, and recovered her sense of purpose.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she began. But what was she to explain to Mrs Talbot? She was unable to go on.

  ‘Oh, I do, I do!’ Mrs Talbot positively wrung her hands. ‘Oh, I was so happy thinking of you making Douggie so happy. If Elaine could be properly married, I think my last wish would be granted, and I’d die happy. How can you break it all up like this, Matty?’ Now she was crying, and patting her eyes delicately with a fragment of silk.

  ‘But, Mrs Talbot, I’m not properly married. I’m bored, bored, bored, you can’t imagine. I can’t bear it. I haven’t anything in common with Douglas, and I’ve been unhappy all the time.’ For this now seemed to her the simple truth.

  Mrs Talbot said in the murmuring voice. ‘But Matty, dear, you are such a well-suited couple, we could all see it. And he’s so proud of you - and you are such a good cook, and everything like that.’

  Martha smiled; and Mrs Talbot said hurriedly, ‘No, don’t do that.’

  ‘I can’t say what I mean, let me think.’ She even turned her back for a moment, and looked out of the shaded windows. She appeared very beautiful to Martha then; and that was more persuasive than anything she had said. This elegant elderly woman in her pretty room had such a look of completeness, of harmony, that once again that group of people seemed absurd and graceless; everything they were, or said, rang false for a moment, beside Mrs Talbot.

  She said, ‘There’s that nice house, you’ve got such a settled future, and that lovely little girl.’

  Martha flushed angrily. Mrs Talbot saw it and cried out, ‘But he’s good to you, isn’t he, Matty?’

  ‘I think he’s mad,’ said Martha. ‘I hate him. I hate everything about him!’ she added violently.

  Another quick look from the shrewd eyes. ‘He’s only jealous, Matty,’ she said placatingly.

  ‘But there’s nothing for him to be jealous about. I’ve always been quite faithful to him - I suppose that’s what you mean. And what he means, too. And he certainly hasn’t been to me,’ she added with the feeling that all this was irrelevant.

  ‘Oh, Matty! They aren’t like us, they really aren’t, you know.’

  Martha interrupted with ‘I don’t see why we should treat them like so many children.’ She resented having to use that ‘we’, associating herself with Mrs Talbot�
�s division of humanity.

  Mrs Talbot was silent for a while. ‘Look, Matty,’ she said in a different voice, brisk and practical, ‘you simply must realize that everyone feels like this. Everyone.’

  But Martha had mechanically risen to her feet, repudiating this argument. She was picking up her handbag, about to leave.

  ‘No, don’t go yet, Matty. If you’d only tell me what you have against him?’

  ‘But I haven’t anything against him!’ said Martha, laughing angrily. ‘I’m leaving, that’s all.’ She looked straight at Mrs Talbot, laughing. Suddenly, she observed, without knowing she had been going to, ‘Besides, we don’t get on sexually.’ She blushed, and was angry with herself.

  And now Mrs Talbot had coloured up, too, and had become animated. She turned on Martha as if this had been what she was waiting for. ‘Oh, Matty,’ she cried, ‘I knew it.’

  This surprised both her and Martha into silence. They turned away from each other, embarrassed. As for Martha, what she had said, the use of those words then, had had the power to set her at a distance from what everyone in their circle called their love life. Hers with Douglas slid backwards into the past, and seemed wholly abhorrent. It was finished. She had never felt anything but repulsion for him. The idea that he might ever touch her again made her shrink. Love with William shimmered ahead, a pervasive radiance which coloured the whole of life.

  Mrs Talbot was weeping again. ‘Oh, Matty, dear,’ she sobbed gently. ‘Oh, how I loathe this sex business!’

  Martha looked at her in astonishment. She thought of the room next to this one, the large bed, and those dark suave pyjamas tumbled by Mrs Talbot’s pillow. What on earth did she mean?

  She inquired, ‘Do you mean you don’t like making love?’

  At this, Mrs Talbot gasped, and the frail enamel of her face was pink. ‘I can’t talk about it - I’m not like you young things, you can say anything. And all your books and ideas …’

  ‘Well, that isn’t the point, anyway,’ said Martha flatly.

  ‘But, Matty …’ Mrs Talbot had come quite close, and had grasped her arm; it was stiff, so she dropped it again.