The Grandmothers

by Doris Lessing

‘Lionel,’ said his ex-wife, ‘I think you sometimes scare her a bit.’

  ‘But not for long. What a little sweetie. What a little – I’m in heaven. Now, if we had a little girl, do you think we’d have stuck?’ he enquired of Jessy.

  ‘God only knows,’ said Jessy, giving the Almighty the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Edward, but this was as much a warning for the present as a judgement on the past.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ said Thomas. ‘Happy families.’

  ‘I’m claiming visiting rights, that’s all. Aren’t grandparents encouraged these days?’

  ‘You’re welcome to visit,’ said his ex-wife. ‘But let’s not push our luck.’

  Thomas telephoned Victoria to ask if he could take Mary to his swimming pool. Victoria said the child didn’t know how to swim, and Thomas said he would teach her.

  Then it was the zoo, the planetarium and a trip on the river-boat to Greenwich.

  Meanwhile Victoria was thinking, ‘But I have two children. What about Dickson? ‘What was happening was unfair. Yes, Dickson was still tiny, just three, but he knew his sister was getting treats that he didn’t.

  Jessy had remarked that it was not right, when there were two children, if one got more than the other.

  Edward said at once, ‘Don’t even think of it, Mother.’

  ‘Perhaps we could take him out sometimes with Mary?’

  ‘No. One’s enough. I’m sorry, but there are limits.’

  Now Mary was in her first year at school and miserable. This made Victoria remember how miserable she had been, though she had managed it by being quiet, and keeping out of trouble and – frankly – sucking up to the big boys and girls. She told Mary to do the same, and suffered herself, knowing that the child cried herself to sleep at nights.

  She speculated, amazed, how it was that the Staveneys could willingly submit their precious children to such nastiness, such cruelty – for she believed that the good schools, the ones children like theirs would attend, would be free of all that. In her most secret dreams, not shared even with Bessie. Victoria was hoping the Staveneys would send little Mary to a good school where she could learn and become somebody.

  Then Jessy telephoned to ask if Mary would enjoy a matinée? Victoria thought of Les Misérables and said Mary would love it. Victoria took Mary to the Staveney house where off went Jessy and Mary in a taxi, to be returned, in a taxi, to the council estate. Mary was in a state of babbling incoherent delight. Victoria never came to grips with what the little girl had seen. But the next time she was whisked off to that other land, the Staveneys, Mary asked Thomas if she could go to another ‘matney’. ‘A what?’ It turned out she thought matney was the name for a theatre. She went to another matney with Jessy and then to the zoo with Edward and Edward’s wife, and their three-year-old. And then, having begged, to another matinée, of a show Lionel was in. She returned to say that her grandfather was a funny man but she liked him. ‘He likes me, Ma,’ she confided in Victoria.

  Whenever this grandfather was mentioned grandfathers whirled dolefully in Victoria’s mind. She was being reminded that she must have had a grandfather, but as a fact he had simply disappeared. It was Phyllis’s grandfather she thought of as grandfather, a generic progenitor, an old man with his smelly urine bottle. But – she could not dispute it – Lionel Staveney was her little girl’s grandfather, and when Mary said, ‘She told me I was her grandchild and so I must call her grandmother,’ Victoria felt the earth shaking under her feet. When she confessed how she felt, Bessie reasonably said, ‘But what did you expect, when you told them?’

  Well, what had she expected? Nothing like this. It was the thoroughness of the acceptance of Mary that was – well, what? It was all too much! Bessie told her she was ungrateful, she was looking a gift-horse in the mouth. Victoria at last came out with: ‘I wouldn’t have thought they’d be so pleased to have a black grandchild.’

  ‘She’s not black, she’s more caramel,’ Bessie pronounced. ‘If she was my colour I bet they wouldn’t be so pleased.’

  About a year after she had first telephoned Thomas, Jessy wrote a letter to say the family were taking a house in Dorset in the summer, for a month, and people would come and go. Would Victoria agree to Mary’s joining them? Edward’s Samantha would be there for the whole month. Victoria was not invited, and she knew it was because of Dickson. Mary was sweet, lovable, biddable and friendly, but Dickson, now nearly four, was a different matter.

  The question of colour – no, it couldn’t be evaded – though Victoria could be pardoned for thinking that the Staveneys, except for Thomas of course, had never noticed that colour could be a differentiator, often enough a contumacious one, believing that whatever had happened – regrettably – in the past, was no longer a force in human affairs.

  Dickson was black, black as boot polish or piano keys. Somewhere long ago in his family tree genes had been nurtured to cope with the suns of tropical Africa. He sweated easily. Sometimes sweat flew off him as freely as off an over-hot dog’s tongue. He roared and fought; at the minder’s he was a problem, making trouble, causing tears. Mary was able to calm and charm him, but no one else could, certainly not Victoria, who often found herself weeping with exhaustion over Dickson’s brawling and biting. Bessie adored him, called him her little black imp from hell, her hell’s angel, and sometimes he would allow himself to be held by her, but not often. By now he knew that he was excessive and impossible and everyone’s headache, but that made him worse in behaviour and worse in effect, for he acquired pathos, saying things like, ‘But why am I impossible? Why am I a headache, why, why, why, I’m not, I’m not,’ and he would kick out around him until he fell sobbing on the floor.

  He could not possibly be an easy guest in any family, black or white. The Staveneys had scarcely seen the child. It seemed they had enquired of Mary if she would like Dickson to be invited, but Mary had replied, gravely, in her responsible little way, that Dickson would quarrel with everyone and would scratch and bite Samantha. ‘I told her – Jessy – that he would grow out of it,’ Mary told Victoria she had said. Quoting Bessie. ‘Don’t worry, Victoria, he’ll grow out of it.’

  But here was a real turn of the screw. Little visits here and there, a matinée, a tea party, but to go away by herself, for a month – they were asking her for a month? Yes, they were. The politician a mother has to be – let alone an economist – told Victoria that the Staveneys wanted Mary because of Samantha. Mary was good with small children. At the minder’s she was commended for it. Victoria thought – and it was bitter – Mary’s going to be a nurse for Samantha. Bitter and unfair and she knew it. Mary loved Samantha. An unanchored bitterness, ready to become suspicion, floated near enough to the surface in Victoria to be dangerous – she pressed it down. Wasn’t this what she had wanted for Mary? The little girl was being so lucky, and Victoria should be giving thanks for the blessing of it.

  This was what Bessie, who was taking to religion, called it. ‘It’s a blessing, Victoria. That family – they’re Mary’s blessing from God.’

  Now there was the question of clothes. Samantha’s were different, and Mary knew exactly what she needed. Victoria found herself being taken to a shop, by her little daughter, and instructed on what to buy. So this was what Samantha wore? Cheeky little clothes, and the colours were gorgeous – and it was all so expensive. But there was money in the bank for Mary’s clothes, put there by Thomas, and this was when she must spend it.

  Victoria was thinking, I am losing Mary to the Staveneys. She was able to contemplate this calmly. She did not believe Mary would come to despise her mother: she was relying on the child’s kind heart. She was thinking, as mothers so often seem to do, How is it possible that these two such different children came out of the same womb? A little angel – the minder’s name for Mary – and a little devil. ‘Never mind,’ said Bessie. ‘They’ll both grow out of it.’ And Victoria found she was thinking about her daughter as Phyllis had thought about
her. The terrible dangers that lie in wait for girls … the traps, the snares, baited by the devil with a girl’s best qualities – Bessie had just had an abortion. She wanted the baby, but she would have liked a father for it, and while she had a flat to put it in, she didn’t have a home.

  Off went Mary, wild with excitement, with the Staveneys. She rang her mother most days, for Victoria had insisted, and kept saying that it was lovely, oh, it’s so lovely, Ma. And then Victoria was asked to go down for a weekend. She arranged for Dickson to stay at the minder’s and took the train, two hours, into England’s green and pleasant land. But Victoria had hardly ever been out of London. It seemed to her she was being smothered in green, a wet green: it had rained.

  She stood on the platform of the station, in her hand her new suitcase full of her best clothes, and waited until appeared Lionel, with Mary on his shoulders. Mary slid down her grandfather to get to Victoria and kiss her, and the three went off, linked hand to hand, to the old car. Lionel’s mane of hair had a leaf in it and Mary’s new dungarees, bright purple, were patched with mud. She was fatter and sparkling with happiness.

  Victoria was in the front seat by Lionel, with Mary on her knee. The child smelled of soap and chocolate. Lionel kept up a banter with Mary, a chant of bits of nursery rhymes, references to things Victoria did not recognise, and Mary giggled, sitting on her mother’s lap but watching the big man’s mouth, from whence spilled words like spells. ‘Contrary Mary, smooth and hairy, the spider beside her big and scary …’ ‘That’s wrong, that’s wrong,’ the child shrieked. ‘You’re mixing them all up.’ ‘But Hairy Mary, did not scream, she ate up the spider with curds and cream.’ ‘I’m not hairy, I’m not,’ the child protested, dying of giggles.

  ‘Mary as smooth as silk, drank up all the milk, none left for her mother, her mongoose and her brother, she …’

  He kept it up, while Mary squirmed in Victoria’s arms, and as for Victoria, she was longing for the thing to end. They were driving fast through lanes where the wet green was heavy overhead, splashing down showers of wet around the car. She felt she could not breathe. Soon, soon, they would reach the house, which she imagined rather like the Staveneys’ town house, but they had stopped outside a little house all by itself with the trees growing close, and a great squash of garden, where a big tree leaned over a patch of lawn. On the lawn chairs and a table stood waiting. The house seemed to Victoria a nasty little place, not worthy of the Staveneys. What were they doing here? But Mary was out of the car, and tugging her mother out, by the hand. It seemed no one was about.

  All Victoria wanted was to lie down. Lionel told her to make herself at home: there would be tea in half an hour. Mary tugged her mother up tiny slippy stairs and into a dark little room that had windows broken up all over into patterns, letting in thin light. There was a big high bed with a white cover, and on this Mary was already bouncing, ‘Oh, it’s lovely, it’s a lovely bed.’

  Victoria wanted to be sick. Mary showed her the bathroom, which was tiny, with thatch showing through the window, where things were flying about. ‘Look at the bees, Ma, look, look.’ Victoria was discreetly and tidily sick, and retreated to her room.

  ‘Where’s your bed?’ she enquired, falling into the big white one.

  ‘I’m with Samantha. We sleep in a room by ourselves.’

  Told that her mother felt bad – a headache – Mary kissed her, and ran out.

  Victoria lay flat on her back, and saw the ceiling had a crack across it. In the corner of the room was a spider web? Was that a spider’s web? – Victoria fell asleep, just like that, but perhaps it was more like a swoon. She was shocked deeply, painfully, to her core. How could the Staveneys … and when she woke, Jessy was just putting down a cup of tea on the bedside table.

  ‘Sorry you’re not feeling too good,’ she said. ‘Come down when you’re better.’ And she left, the big tall woman, who had to bend her head at the door.

  Victoria lay and watched dusk invade the room. That meant it must be getting late. She should go down, shouldn’t she? Cautiously she slid from the bed, careful that her feet would not encounter – well, what? She imagined something soft and squishy that might bite. At the window she stood, careful to touch nothing, and looked down. Under the big tree, which had birds in it, making a noise, an assortment of people, not all of them Staveneys, sat about drinking.

  If Victoria went down, she would have to descend those stairs, find her way out, join all those people, who would have to be introduced. She could see Mary sitting on her grandfather’s knee.

  Just as Victoria had got up courage, she saw the company rise, variously. Some people went off to cars parked outside in the road. And then the Staveneys came in to the house and she heard them just below. The house echoed. It was a noisy house. And it was then that she saw, just beside the window, a great spider, making its way – she knew – towards her. She screamed. In no time Thomas had appeared, identified the trouble, and having taken her towel off a chair he enveloped the beast and shook it out of the window. It would climb back!

  ‘Well, Victoria, how are you, you look great …’ How could he see? It was dark in here. ‘Are you better?’ He kissed her cheek, and laughed, a tribute to their past. ‘Come down and have some supper.’

  Victoria wanted to say she would get into bed, put her head deep under that wonderful white counterpane and not come out until it was time to go back to London. Instead she began opening her case to find something to wear.

  ‘Oh, don’t bother about that,’ said Thomas. ‘No one bothers here.’

  And off he went and she heard him bound down the stairs.

  She followed. A big table almost filled another smallish room. Around it already sat Jessy and Lionel, facing each other, from the head and the foot, Thomas, with a chair opposite him for Victoria, Edward and a sharp observing young woman who must be Edward’s Alice. A chair piled with cushions accommodated Mary, near to her grandfather.

  Wine bottles stood about, and plates of cold meat and salad. Friday night, she was told: this picnic had been bought, but tomorrow she would see better things.

  Jessy had been here for most of the month, which was nearly up, and Lionel had come every weekend. ‘I can’t keep away from your daughter,’ he announced, ‘she’s my lady love.’

  Thomas had been several times. Edward not at all (this was his first time), because he was too busy. Alice had come to visit Samantha, who was in bed, young for late nights.

  Alice was eyeing Victoria, who felt criticised. In fact it was Alice who believed she was at a disadvantage. She had been brought up in a provincial lawyer’s family and was sure the Staveneys criticised her. They were so travelled, worldly, liberal and generous, often in ways that shocked Alice. She thought worse of the Staveneys for letting the little dark girl call Jessy and Lionel granny and grandfather. She did believe she was in the wrong to feel like this, but could not change. When Mary attempted uncle for Edward, he had told her, ‘No, call me Edward,’ and Mary did so; she was already calling her father, Thomas. If Edward was Mary’s uncle that meant that Alice must be Mary’s aunt, but the little girl had sensed Alice wouldn’t like that.

  Victoria was not jealous of Alice. Her Edward, the kind boy of long ago, lived in her mind, unchanged, and the Edward of now she did not much like. In fact these days she thought Thomas was nicer than Edward.

  It was a slow sleepy meal. Jessy kept yawning and apologising, and that made it easy for Victoria to say she was tired too.

  ‘Normally,’ Thomas said to Victoria, ‘we spend the evening in healthy parlour games, but tonight we’ll skip all that.’

  Victoria went with Mary to her room, where Samantha was prettily asleep in a little bed. Mary had a big bed, like Victoria’s. Mary put up her arms to kiss her mother and smiled and fell asleep.

  Victoria went to her room, looked for the spider, did not see it, dived into bed, and pulled up the white cover. In here, she was safe.

  Friday night. Two more nights to go �
�� she couldn’t, she wouldn’t, she hated it all. She could hear an owl hooting. Didn’t that mean death? It was in the big tree. The garden was full of horrors. At supper Lionel had said to Mary that she mustn’t forget to take crumbs out for the toad.

  ‘It’s dark,’ Mary had said, comforting Victoria with this sensible protest. ‘Toads can see in the dark,’ said Lionel. ‘It’s a perverse toad,’ Jessy had said. ‘I don’t expect they see many wholemeal crumbs in their usual diet, so why they like ours, I can’t think.’

  ‘We’ll find him some worms tomorrow,’ Lionel had said.

  Victoria did sleep at last and woke early to find Mary had come in the night and was asleep near her, on top of the coverlet. For a long time Victoria lay on her elbow watching her child sleep, rather as she would a ship sailing away over a horizon – if she had ever seen a sea that was not on television or in a film. Behind those tight smooth sealed eyelids was already a world that Victoria did not share.

  In the morning Victoria tried to find something in her case that would match Lionel’s old sweater that had a hole in its sleeve, or Jessy’s slacks and grey tweedy skirt. She did not have the right shoes either. They talked of walks and of Mary and Samantha going off on ponies with some other little girls.

  Victoria stood at the door of the house and felt that she was surrounded by jungle. She knew all about jungles, the way we do, from the screens, big and small: they were dangerous, full of wild animals, crocodiles, snakes and insects. This jungle had none of those but nevertheless was filled with hostile creatures. If she could just leave, leave now – but she didn’t want Mary to be ashamed of her.

  When the long breakfast was over – she drank some tea, and had to listen to Jessy lecture them all on the importance of a proper breakfast – she watched while they all went off to walk in woods that were near, and very wet. She said she would stay sitting under the tree, which was bound to be full of creatures that might drop on her, and tried to find haven in a room they called the sitting-room. She sat in a big chair with her feet drawn up, so that nothing could crawl up on them.