The Grandmothers

by Doris Lessing

  He had already been over the house and now he said, as David had expected. ‘It’s a good investment.’

  ‘Yes,’ said David.

  ‘It’s not overpriced. I suppose that’s because it’s too big for most people. I take it the surveyor’s report was all right’

  ‘Yes,’ said David.

  ‘In that case I shall assume responsibility for the mortgage. How long is it going to take to pay off?’

  ‘Thirty years,’ said David.

  ‘I’ll be dead by then, I expect. Well, I didn’t give you much in the way of a wedding present.’

  ‘You’ll have to do the same by Deborah,’ said Jessica.

  ‘We have already done much more for Deborah than for David,’ said James. ‘Anyway, we can afford it.’

  She laughed, and shrugged: it was mostly her money. This ease with money characterized their life together, which David had sampled and rejected fiercely, preferring the parsimony of the Oxford house – though he had never used that word aloud. Flashy and too easy, that was the life of the rich; but now he was going to be beholden to it.

  ‘And how many kids are you planning, if one may ask?’ enquired Jessica, looking like a parakeet perched on that damp lawn.

  ‘A lot,’ said David.

  ‘A lot,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Rather you than me, then,’ said Jessica, and with that David’s other parents left the garden, and then England, with relief.

  Now entered on to this scene Dorothy, Harriet’s mother. It occurred to neither Harriet nor David to think, or say, ‘Oh God, how awful, having one’s mother around all the time,’ for if family life was what they had chosen, then it followed that Dorothy should come indefinitely to help Harriet, while insisting that she had a life of her own to which she must return. She was a widow, and this life of hers was mostly visiting her daughters. The family house was sold, and she had a small flat, not very nice, but she was not one to complain. When she had taken in the size and potential of the new house, she was more silent than usual for some days. She had not found it easy bringing up three girls. Her husband had been an industrial chemist, not badly paid, but there never had been much money. She knew the cost, in every way, of a family, even a small one.

  She attempted some remarks on these lines one evening at supper. David, Harriet, Dorothy. David had just come home late: the train was delayed. Commuting was not going to be much fun, was going to be the worst of it, for everyone, but particularly of course for David, for it would take nearly two hours twice a day to get to and from work. This would be one of his contributions to the dream.

  The kitchen was already near what it ought to be: the great table, with heavy wooden chairs around it – only four now, but more stood in a row along the wall, waiting for guests and still unborn people. There was a big stove, an Aga, and an old-fashioned dresser with cups and mugs on hooks. Jugs were full of flowers from the garden where summer had revealed a plenitude of roses and lilies. They were eating a traditional English pudding, made by Dorothy; outside, the autumn was establishing itself in flying leaves that sometimes hit the windowpanes with small thuds and bangs, and in the sound of a rising wind. But the curtains were drawn, warm thick flowered curtains.

  ‘You know,’ said Dorothy, ‘I’ve been thinking about you two.’ David put down his spoon to listen as he would never have done for his unworldly mother, or his worldly father. ‘I don’t believe you two ought to rush into everything – no, let me have my say. Harriet is only twenty-four – not twenty-five yet. You are only just thirty, David. You two go on as if you believe if you don’t grab everything, then you’ll lose it. Well, that’s the impression I get, listening to you talk.’

  David and Harriet were listening: their eyes did meet, frowning, thoughtful. Dorothy, this large, wholesome, homely woman, with her decisive manner, her considered ways, was not to be ignored; they recognized what was due to her.

  ‘I do feel that,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Yes, girl, I know. You were talking yesterday of having another baby straight away. You’ll regret it, in my view.’

  ‘Everything could very well be taken away,’ said David, stubborn. The enormity of this, something that came from his depths, as both women knew, was not lessened by the News, which was blasting from the radio. Bad news from everywhere: nothing to what the News would soon become, but threatening enough.

  ‘Think about it,’ said Dorothy. ‘I wish you would. Sometimes you two scare me. I don’t really know why.’

  Harriet said fiercely, ‘Perhaps we ought to have been born into another country. Do you realize that having six children, in another part of the world, it would be normal, nothing shocking about it – they aren’t made to feel criminals.’

  ‘It’s we who are abnormal, here in Europe,’ said David.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Dorothy, as stubborn as either of them. ‘But if you were having six – or eight, or ten – no, I know what you are thinking, Harriet, I know you, don’t I? – and if you were in another part of the world, like Egypt or India or somewhere, then half of them would die and they wouldn’t be educated, either. You want things both ways. The aristocracy – yes, they can have children like rabbits, and expect to, but they have the money for it. And poor people can have children, and half of them die, and expect to. But people like us, in the middle, we have to be careful about the children we have so we can look after them. It seems to me you haven’t thought it out … no, I’ll go and make the coffee, you two go and sit down.’

  David and Harriet went through the wide gap in the wall that marked off the kitchen to the sofa in the living-room, where they sat holding hands, a slight, stubborn, rather perturbed young man, and an enormous, flushed, clumsily moving woman. Harriet was eight months pregnant, and it had not been an easy pregnancy. Nothing seriously wrong, but she had been sick a lot, slept badly from indigestion, and was disappointed with herself. They were wondering why it was that people always criticized them. Dorothy brought coffee, set it down, said, ‘I’ll do the washing-up – no, you just sit there.’ And went back to the sink.

  ‘But it is what I feel,’ said Harriet, distressed.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We should have children while we can,’ said Harriet.

  Dorothy said, from the sink, ‘At the beginning of the last war, people were saying it was irresponsible to have children, but we had them, didn’t we?’ She laughed.

  ‘There you are, then,’ said David.

  ‘And we kept them,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘Well, here I am certainly,’ said Harriet.

  The first baby, Luke, was born in the big bed attended mostly by the midwife, with Dr Brett there, too. David and Dorothy held Harriet’s hands. It goes without saying that the doctor had wanted Harriet in hospital. She had been adamant; was disapproved of – by him.

  It was a windy cold night, just after Christmas. The room was warm and wonderful. David wept. Dorothy wept. Harriet laughed and wept. The midwife and the doctor had a little air of festivity and triumph. They all drank champagne, and poured some on little Luke’s head. It was 1966.

  Luke was an easy baby. He slept most peaceably in the little room off the big bedroom, and was contentedly breast-fed. Happiness! When David went off to catch his train to London in the mornings, Harriet was sitting up in bed feeding the baby, and drinking the tea David had brought her. When he bent to kiss her goodbye, and stroked Luke’s head, it was with a fierce possessiveness that Harriet liked and understood, for it was not herself being possessed, or the baby, but happiness. Hers and his.

  That Easter was the first of the family parties. Rooms had been adequately if sketchily furnished, and they were filled with Harriet’s two sisters, Sarah and Angela, and their husbands and their children; with Dorothy, in her element; and briefly by Molly and Frederick, who allowed that they were enjoying themselves but family life on this scale was not for them.

  Connoisseurs of the English scene will by now have realized that on that powerf
ul, if nowhere registered, yardstick, the English class system, Harriet scaled rather lower than David. Within five seconds of any of the Lovatts or the Burkes meeting any of the Walkers, the fact had been noted but not commented on – verbally, at least. The Walkers were not surprised that Frederick and Molly said they would be there for only two days; not that they changed their minds when James Lovatt appeared. Like many husbands and wives forced to separate by incompatibility, Molly and James enjoyed meeting when they knew they must shortly part. In fact, they all enjoyed themselves, agreeing that the house was made for it. Around the great family table, where so many chairs could be comfortably accommodated, people sat through long pleasant meals, or found their way there between meals to drink coffee and tea, and to talk. And laugh … Listening to the laughter, the voices, the talk, the sounds of children playing, Harriet and David in their bedroom, or perhaps descending from the landing, would reach for each other’s hand, and smile, and breathe happiness. No one knew, not even Dorothy – certainly not Dorothy – that Harriet was pregnant again. Luke was three months old. They had not meant for Harriet to be pregnant – not for another year. But so it was. ‘There’s something progenitive about this room, I swear it,’ said David, laughing. They felt agreeably guilty. They lay in their bed, listening to Luke make his baby noises next door, and decided not to say a word until after everyone had gone.

  When Dorothy was told, she was again rather silent, and then said, ‘Well, you’ll need me, won’t you?’

  They did. This pregnancy, like the other, was normal, but Harriet was uncomfortable and sick, and thought to herself that while she had not changed her mind at all about six (or eight or ten) children, she would be jolly sure there was a good interval between this one and the next.

  For the rest of the year, Dorothy was pleasantly around the house, helped look after Luke and to make curtains for the rooms on the third floor.

  That Christmas, Harriet was again enormous, in her eighth month, and she laughed at herself for her size and unwieldiness. The house was full. All the people who were here for Easter came again. It was acknowledged that Harriet and David had a gift for this kind of thing. A cousin of Harriet’s with three children came, too, for she had heard of the wonderful Easter party that had gone on for a week. A colleague of David’s came with his wife. This Christmas was ten days long, and one feast followed another. Luke was in his pram downstairs and everyone fussed over him, and the older children carried him around like a doll. Briefly, too, came David’s sister Deborah, a cool attractive girl who could easily have been Jessica’s daughter and not Molly’s. She was not married, though she had had what she described as near misses. In general style she was so far removed from the people in the house, all basic British – as they defined themselves relative to her – that these differences became a running joke. She had always lived the life of the rich, had found the shabby high-mindedness of her mother’s house irritating, hated people being crammed together, but conceded that she found this party interesting.

  There were twelve adults and ten children. Neighbours, invited, did appear, but the sense of family togetherness was strong and excluded them. And Harriet and David exulted that they, their obstinacy, what everyone had criticized and laughed at, had succeeded in this miracle: they were able to unite all these so different people, and make them enjoy each other.

  The second child, Helen, was born, like Luke, in the family bed, with all the same people there, and again champagne anointed the baby’s head, and everyone wept. Luke was evicted from the baby’s room into the next one down the corridor, and Helen took his place.

  Though Harriet was tired – indeed, worn out – the Easter party took place. Dorothy was against it. ‘You are tired, girl,’ she said. ‘You are bone tired.’ Then, seeing Harriet’s face: ‘Well, all right, but you aren’t to do anything, mind.’

  The two sisters and Dorothy made themselves responsible for the shopping and the cooking, the hard work.

  Downstairs among all the people – for the house was again full – were the two little creatures, Helen and Luke, all wispy fair hair and blue eyes and pink cheeks. Luke was staggering about, aided by everyone, and Helen was in her pram.

  That summer – it was 1968 – the house was full to the attic, nearly all family. The house was so convenient for London: people travelled up with David for the day and came back with him. There was good walking country twenty minutes’ drive away.

  People came and went, said they were coming for a couple of days and stayed a week. And how was all this paid for? Well, of course everyone contributed; and, of course, not enough, but people knew David’s father was rich. Without that mortgage being paid for, none of this could have happened. Money was always tight. Economies were made: a vast hotel-size freezer bought second-hand was stocked with summer fruit and vegetables. Dorothy and Sarah and Angela bottled fruit and jam and chutneys. They baked bread and the whole house smelled of new bread. This was happiness, in the old style.

  There was a cloud, though. Sarah and her husband, William, were unhappily married, and quarrelled, and made up, but she was pregnant with her fourth, and a divorce was not possible.

  Christmas, just as wonderful a festival, came and went. Then Easter … sometimes they all had to wonder where everybody was fitting themselves in.

  The cloud on family happiness that was Sarah and William’s discord disappeared, for it was absorbed in worse. Sarah’s new baby was Down’s syndrome, and there was no question of them separating. Dorothy remarked sometimes that it was a pity there wasn’t two of her, Sarah needed her as much, and more, than Harriet. And indeed she did take off on visits to her Sarah, who was afflicted, while Harriet was not.

  Jane was born in 1970, when Helen was two. Much too fast, scolded Dorothy, what was the hurry?

  Helen moved into Luke’s room, and Luke moved one room along. Jane made her contented noises in the baby’s room, and the two little children came into the big family bed and cuddled and played games, or they visited Dorothy in her bed and played there.

  Happiness. A happy family. The Lovatts were a happy family. It was what they had chosen and what they deserved. Often, when David and Harriet lay face to face, it seemed that doors in their breasts flew open, and what poured out was an intensity of relief, of thankfulness, that still astonished them both: patience for what seemed now such a very long time had not been easy, after all. It had been hard preserving their belief in themselves when the spirit of the times, the greedy and selfish sixties, had been so ready to condemn them, to isolate, to diminish their best selves. And look, they had been right to insist on guarding that stubborn individuality of theirs, which had chosen, and so obstinately, the best – this.

  Outside this fortunate place, their family, beat and battered the storms of the world. The easy good times had utterly gone. David’s firm had been struck, and he had not been given the promotion he expected; but others had lost their jobs and he was lucky. Sarah’s husband was out of work. Sarah joked dolefully that she and William attracted all the ill luck in the clan.

  Harriet said to David, privately, that she did not believe it was bad luck: Sarah and William’s unhappiness, their quarelling, had probably attracted the mongol child – yes, yes, of course she knew one shouldn’t call them mongol. But the little girl did look a bit like Genghis Khan, didn’t she? A baby Genghis Khan with her squashed little face and her slitty eyes? David disliked this trait of Harriet’s, a fatalism that seemed so at odds with the rest of her. He said he thought this was silly hysterical thinking: Harriet sulked and they had to make up.

  The little town they lived in had changed in the five years they had been here. Brutal incidents and crimes, once shocking everyone, were now commonplace. Gangs of youths hung around certain cafés and street-ends and owed respect to no one. The house next door had been burgled three times: the Lovatts’ not yet, but then there were always people about. At the end of the road there was a telephone box that had been vandalized so often the authoriti
es had given up: it stood unusable. These days, Harriet would not dream of walking at night by herself, but once it would not have occurred to her not to go anywhere she pleased at any time of the day or night. There was an ugly edge on events: more and more it seemed that two peoples lived in England, not one – enemies, hating each other, who could not hear what the other said. The young Lovatts made themselves read the papers, and watch the News on television, though their instinct was to do neither. At least they ought to know what went on outside their fortress, their kingdom, in which three precious children were nurtured, and where so many people came to immerse themselves in safety, comfort, kindness.

  The fourth baby, Paul, was born in 1973, between a Christmas and an Easter. Harriet was not very well: her pregnancies had continued uncomfortable and full of minor problems – nothing serious, but she was tired.

  The Easter festivities were the best ever: that year was the best of all their years, and, looking back afterwards, it seemed that the whole year was a celebration, renewed from a spring of loving hospitality whose guardians were Harriet and David, beginning at Christmas when Harriet was so very pregnant, everyone looking after her, sharing in the work of creating magnificent meals, involved with the coming baby … knowing that Easter was coming, then the long summer, then Christmas again …

  Easter went on for three weeks, all of the school holidays. The house was crammed. The three little children had their own rooms but moved in together when beds were needed. Which of course they adored. ‘Why not let them sleep together always?’ Dorothy, the others would enquire. ‘A room each for such little tiddlers!’

  ‘It’s important,’ said David, fierce; ‘everyone should have a room.’

  The family exchanged glances as families do when stubbing toes on some snag in one of them: and Molly, who felt herself both appreciated but in some devious way criticised, too, said, ‘Everyone in the world! Everybody!’ She had intended to sound humorous.