To Room Nineteen

by Doris Lessing

  When she at last turned she said, almost apologetic: ‘Would you mind if we sat down? I’ve been lugging great things around all day.’ She had spotted two empty chairs in a corner. So had he, but rejected them, because there were other people at the table. ‘But my dear, of course!’ They took the chairs, and then Barbara said: ‘If you’ll excuse me a moment.’ She had remembered she needed makeup. He watched her go off, annoyed with himself. She was tired; and he could have understood, protected, sheltered. He realized that in the other pub, with the people she had worked with all day, she would not have thought: ‘I must make myself up, I must be on show.’ That was for outsiders. She had not, until now, considered Graham an outsider, because of his taking his chance to seem one of the working group in the theatre; but now he had thrown this opportunity away. She returned armoured. Her hair was sleek, no longer defenceless. And she had made up her eyes. Her eyebrows were untouched, pale gold streaks above the brilliant green eyes whose lashes were blackened. Rather good, he thought, the contrast. Yes, but the moment had gone when he could say: Do you know you had a smudge on your cheek? Or – my dear girl! – pushing her hair back with the edge of a brotherly hand. In fact, unless he was careful, he’d be back at starting point.

  He remarked: ‘That emerald is very cunning’ – smiling into her eyes.

  She smiled politely, and said: ‘It’s not cunning, it’s an accident, it was my grandmother’s.’ She flirted her hand lightly by her face, though, smiling. But that was something she had done before, to a compliment she had had before, and often. It was all social, she had become social entirely. She remarked: ‘Didn’t you say it was half-past nine we had to record?’

  ‘My dear Barbara, we’ve got two hours. We’ll have another drink or two, then I’ll ask you a couple of questions, then we’ll drop down to the studio and get it over, and then we’ll have a comfortable supper.’

  ‘I’d rather eat now, if you don’t mind. I had no lunch, and I’m really hungry.’

  ‘But my dear, of course.’ He was angry. Just as he had been surprised by his real jealousy over James, so now he was thrown off balance by his anger: he had been counting on the long quiet dinner afterwards to establish intimacy. ‘Finish your drink and I’ll take you to Nott’s.’ Nott’s was expensive. He glanced at her assessingly as he mentioned it. She said: ‘I wonder if you know Butler’s? It’s good and it’s rather close.’ Butler’s was good, and it was cheap, and he gave her a good mark for liking it. But Nott’s it was going to be. ‘My dear, we’ll get into a taxi and be at Nott’s in a moment, don’t worry.’

  She obediently got to her feet: the way she did it made him undersand how badly he had slipped. She was saying to herself: Very well, he’s like that, then all right, I’ll do what he wants and get it over with …

  Swallowing his own drink he followed her, and took her arm in the pub doorway. It was polite within his. Outside it drizzled. No taxi. He was having bad luck now. They walked in silence to the end of the street. There Barbara glanced into a side street where a sign said: BUTLER’S. Not to remind him of it, on the contrary, she concealed the glance. And here she was, entirely at his disposal, they might never have shared the comradely moment in the theatre.

  They walked half a mile to Nott’s. No taxis. She made conversation: this was, he saw, to cover any embarrassment he might feel because of a half-mile walk through rain when she was tired. She was talking about some theory to do with the theatre, with designs for theatre building. He heard himself saying, and repeatedly: Yes, yes, yes. He thought about Nott’s. There he took the headwaiter aside, gave him a pound, and instructions. They were put in a corner. Large Scotches appeared. The menus were spread. ‘And now, my dear,’ he said, ‘I apologize for dragging you here, but I hope you’ll think it’s worth it.’

  ‘Oh, it’s charming, I’ve always liked it. It’s just that …’ She stopped herself saying: it’s such a long way. She smiled at him, raising her glass, and said: ‘It’s one of my very favourite places, and I’m glad you dragged me here.’ Her voice was flat with tiredness. All this was appalling; he knew it; and he sat thinking how to retrieve his position. Meanwhile she fingered the menu. The headwaiter took the order, but Graham made a gesture which said: Wait a moment. He wanted the Scotch to take effect before she ate. But she saw his silent order; and, without annoyance or reproach, leaned forward to say, sounding patient: ‘Graham, please, I’ve got to eat, you don’t want me drunk when you interview me, do you?’

  ‘They are bringing it as fast as they can,’ he said, making it sound as if she were greedy. He looked neither at the headwaiter nor at Barbara. He noted in himself, as he slipped farther and farther away from contact with her, a cold determination growing in him; one apart from, apparently, any conscious act of will, that come what may, if it took all night, he’d be in her bed before morning. And now, seeing the small pale face, with the enormous green eyes, it was for the first time that he imagined her in his arms. Although he had said: Yes, that one, weeks ago, it was only now that he imagined her as a sensual experience. Now he did, so strongly that he could only glance at her, and then away towards the waiters who were bringing food.

  ‘Thank the Lord,’ said Barbara, and all at once her voice was gay and intimate. ‘Thank heavens. Thank every power that is …’ She was making fun of her own exaggeration; and, as he saw, because she wanted to put him at his ease after his boorishness over delaying the food. (She hadn’t been taken in, he saw, humiliated, disliking her.) ‘Thank all the gods of Nott’s,’ she went on, ‘because if I hadn’t eaten inside five minutes I’d have died, I tell you.’ With which she picked up her knife and fork and began on her steak. He poured wine, smiling with her, thinking that this moment of closeness he would not throw away. He watched her frank hunger as she ate, and thought: Sensual – it’s strange I hadn’t wondered whether she would be or not.

  ‘Now,’ she said, sitting back, having taken the edge off her hunger: ‘Let’s get to work.’

  He said: ‘I’ve thought it over very carefully – how to present you. The first thing seems to me, we must get away from that old chestnut: Miss Coles, how extraordinary for a woman to be so versatile in her work … I hope you agree?’ This was his trump card. He had noted, when he had seen her on television, her polite smile when this note was struck. (The smile he had seen so often tonight.) This smile said: All right, if you have to be stupid, what can I do?

  Now she laughed and said: ‘What a relief. I was afraid you were going to do the same thing.’

  ‘Good, now you eat and I’ll talk.’

  In his carefully prepared monologue he spoke of the different styles of theatre she had shown herself mistress of, but not directly: he was flattering her on the breadth of her experience; the complexity of her character, as shown in her work. She ate, steadily, her face showing nothing. At last she asked: ‘And how did you plan to introduce this?’

  He had meant to spring that on her as a surprise, something like: Miss Coles, a surprisingly young woman for what she has accomplished (she was thirty? thirty-two?) and a very attractive one … ‘Perhaps I can give you an idea of what she’s like if I say she could be taken for the film star Marie Carletta …’ The Carletta was a strong earthy blonde, known to be intellectual. He now saw he could not possibly say this: he could imagine her cool look if he did. She said: ‘Do you mind if we get away from all that – my manifold talents, et cetera …’ He felt himself stiffen with annoyance; particularly because this was not an accusation, he saw she did not think him worth one. She had assessed him: This is the kind of man who uses this kind of flattery and therefore … It made him angrier that she did not even trouble to say: Why did you do exactly what you promised you wouldn’t? She was being invincibly polite, trying to conceal her patience with his stupidity.

  ‘After all,’ she was saying, ‘it is a stage designer’s job to design what comes up. Would anyone take, let’s say Johnnie Cranmore’ (another stage designer) ‘on to the air or television and say
: How very versatile you are because you did that musical about Java last month and a modern play about Irish labourers this?’

  He battened down his anger. ‘My dear Barbara, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that what I said would sound just like the mixture as before. So what shall we talk about?’

  ‘What I was saying as we walked to the restaurant: can we get away from the personal stuff?’

  Now he almost panicked. Then, thank God, he laughed from nervousness, for she laughed and said: ‘You didn’t hear one word I said.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I was frightened you were going to be furious because I made you walk so far when you were tired.’

  They laughed together, back to where they had been in the theatre. He leaned over, took her hand, kissed it. He said: ‘Tell me again.’ He thought: Damn, now she’s going to be earnest and intellectual.

  But he understood he had been stupid. He had forgotten himself at twenty – or, for that matter, at thirty; forgotten one could live inside an idea, a set of ideas, with enthusiasm. For in talking about her ideas (also the ideas of the people she worked with) for a new theatre, a new style of theatre, she was as she had been with her colleagues over the sketches or the blue material. She was easy, informal, almost chattering. This was how, he remembered, one talked about ideas that were a breath of life. The ideas, he thought, were intelligent enough; and he would agree with them, with her, if he believed it mattered a damn one way or another, if any of these enthusiasms mattered a damn. But at least he now had the key, he knew what to do. At the end of no more than half an hour, they were again two professionals, talking about ideas they shared, for he remembered caring about all this himself once. When? How many years ago was it that he had been able to care?

  At last he said: ‘My dear Barbara, do you realize the impossible position you’re putting me in? Margaret Ruyen who runs this programme is determined to do you personally, the poor woman hasn’t got a serious thought in her head.’

  Barbara frowned. He put his hand on hers, teasing her for the frown: ‘No, wait, trust me, we’ll circumvent her.’ She smiled. In fact Margaret Ruyen had left it all to him, had said nothing about Miss Coles.

  ‘They aren’t very bright – the brass,’ he said. ‘Well, never mind: we’ll work out what we want, do it, and it’ll be a fait accompli.’

  ‘Thank you, what a relief. How lucky I was to be given you to interview me.’ She was relaxed now, because of the whisky, the food, the wine, above all because of this new complicity against Margaret Ruyen. It would all be easy. They worked out five or six questions, over coffee, and took a taxi through rain to the studios. He noted that the cold necessity to have her, to make her, to beat her down, had left him. He was even seeing himself, as the evening ended, kissing her on the cheek and going home to his wife. This comradeship was extraordinarily pleasant. It was balm to the wound he had not known he carried until that evening, when he had had to accept the justice of the word journalist. He felt he could talk for ever about the state of the theatre, its finances, the stupidity of the government, the philistinism of …

  At the studios he was careful to make a joke so that they walked in on the laugh. He was careful that the interview began at once, without conversation with Margaret Ruyen; and that from the moment the green light went on, his voice lost its easy familiarity. He made sure that not one personal note was struck during the interview. Afterwards, Margaret Ruyen, who was pleased, came forward to say so; but he took her aside to say that Miss Coles was tired and needed to be taken home at once; for he knew this must look to Barbara as if he were squaring a producer who had been expecting a different interview. He led Barbara off, her hand held tight in his against his side. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ve done it, and I don’t think she knows what hit her.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘it really was pleasant to talk about something sensible for once.’

  He kissed her lightly on the mouth. She returned it, smiling. By now he felt sure that the mood need not slip again, he could hold it.

  ‘There are two things we can do,’ he said. ‘You can come to my club and have a drink. Or I can drive you home and you can give me a drink. I have to go past you.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Wimbledon.’ He lived, in fact, at Highgate; but she lived in Fulham. He was taking another chance, but by the time she found out, they would be in a position to laugh over his ruse.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘You can drop me home then. I have to get up early.’ He made no comment. In the taxi he took her hand; it was heavy in his, and he asked: ‘Does James slave-drive you?’

  ‘I didn’t realize you knew him – no, he doesn’t.’

  ‘Well I don’t know him intimately. What’s he like to work with?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ she said at once. ‘There’s no one I enjoy working with more.’

  Jealousy spurted in him. He could not help himself: ‘Are you having an affair with him?’

  She looked: what’s it to do with you? but said: ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘He’s very attractive,’ he said, with a chuckle of worldly complicity. She said nothing, and he insisted: ‘If I were a woman I’d have an affair with James.’

  It seemed she might very well say nothing. But she remarked: ‘He’s married.’

  His spirits rose in a swoop. It was the first stupid remark she had made. It was a remark of such staggering stupidity that … he let out a humouring snort of laughter, put his arm around her, kissed her, said: ‘My dear little Babs.’

  She said: ‘Why Babs?’

  ‘Is that the prerogative of James? And of the stagehands?’ he could not prevent himself adding.

  ‘I’m only called that at work.’ She was stiff inside his arm.

  ‘My dear Barbara, then …’ He waited for her to enlighten and explain, but she said nothing. Soon she moved out of his arm, on the pretext of lighting a cigarette. He lit it for her. He noted that his determination to lay her, and at all costs, had come back. They were outside her house. He said quickly: ‘And now, Barbara, you can make me a cup of coffee and give me a brandy.’ She hesitated; but he was out of the taxi, paying, opening the door for her. The house had no lights on, he noted. He said: ‘We’ll be very quiet so as not to wake the children.’

  She turned her head slowly to look at him. She said, flat, replying to his real question: ‘My husband is away. As for the children, they are visiting friends tonight.’ She now went ahead of him to the door of the house. It was a small house, in a terrace of small and not very pretty houses. Inside a little, bright, intimate hall, she said: ‘I’ll go and make some coffee. Then, my friend, you must go home because I’m very tired.’

  The my friend struck him deep, because he had become vulnerable during their comradeship. He said, gabbling: ‘You’re annoyed with me – oh, please don’t, I’m sorry.’

  She smiled, from a cool distance. He saw, in the small light from the ceiling, her extraordinary eyes. ‘Green’ eyes are hazel, are brown with green flecks, are even blue. Eyes are chequered, flawed, changing. Hers, were solid green, but really, he had never seen anything like them before. They were like very deep water. They were like – well, emeralds; or the absolute clarity of green in the depths of a tree in summer. And now, as she smiled almost perpendicularly up at him, he saw a darkness come over them. Darkness swallowed the clear green. She said: ‘I’m not in the least annoyed.’ It was as if she had yawned with boredom. ‘And now I’ll get the things … in there.’ She nodded at a white door and left him. He went into a long, very tidy white room, that had a narrow bed in one corner, a table covered with drawings, sketches, pencils. Tacked to the walls with drawing pins were swatches of coloured stuffs. Two small chairs stood near a low round table: an area of comfort in the working room. He was thinking: I wouldn’t like it if my wife had a room like this. I wonder what Barbara’s husband …? He had not thought of her till now in relation to her husband, or to her children. Hard to imagine her with a frying pan in her hand, o
r for that matter, cosy in the double bed.

  A noise outside: he hastily arranged himself, leaning with one arm on the mantelpiece. She came in with a small tray that had cups, glasses, brandy, coffeepot. She looked abstracted. Graham was on the whole flattered by this: it probably meant she was at ease in his presence. He realized he was a little tight and rather tired. Of course, she was tired too, that was why she was vague. He remembered that earlier that evening he had lost a chance by not using her tiredness. Well now, if he were intelligent … She was about to pour coffee. He firmly took the coffeepot out of her hand, and nodded at a chair. Smiling, she obeyed him: ‘That’s better,’ he said. He poured coffee, poured brandy, and pulled the table towards her. She watched him. Then he took her hand, kissed it, patted it, laid it down gently. Yes, he thought, I did that well.

  Now, a problem. He wanted to be closer to her, but she was fitted into a damned silly little chair that had arms. If he were to sit by her on the floor …? But no, for him, the big bulky reassuring man, there could be no casual gestures, no informal postures. Suppose I scoop her out of the chair on to the bed? He drank his coffee as he plotted. Yes, he’d carry her to the bed, but not yet.