Authors: Doris Lessing
The sheer, raving insanity of this thought hit him, opened his arms, his thighs, and lifted his tongue out of her mouth. She stepped back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, and stood dazed with incredulity. The embarrassment that lay in wait for him nearly engulfed him, but he let anger postpone it. She said positively apologetic, even, at this moment, humorous: ‘You’re crazy, Graham. What’s the matter, are you drunk? You don’t seem drunk. You don’t even find me attractive.’
The blood of hatred went to his head and he gripped her again. Now she had got her face firmly twisted away so that he could not reach her mouth, and she repeated steadily as he kissed the parts of her cheeks and neck that were available to him: ‘Graham, let me go, do let me go, Graham.’ She went on saying this; he went on squeezing, grinding, kissing and licking. It might go on all night: it was a sheer contest of wills, nothing else. He thought: It’s only a really masculine woman who wouldn’t have given in by now out of sheer decency of the flesh! One thing he knew, however: that she would be in that bed, in his arms, and very soon. He let her go, but said: ‘I’m going to sleep with you tonight, you know that, don’t you?’
She leaned with hand on the mantelpiece to steady herself. Her face was colourless, since he had licked all the make-up off. She seemed quite different: small and defenceless with her large mouth pale now, her smudged green eyes fringed with gold. And now, for the first time, he felt what it might have been supposed (certainly by her) he felt hours ago. Seeing the small damp flesh of her face,
he felt kinship, intimacy with her, he felt intimacy of the flesh, the affection and good humour of sensuality. He felt she was flesh of his flesh, his sister in the flesh. He felt desire for her, instead of the will to have her; and because of this, was ashamed of the farce he had been playing. Now he desired simply to take her into bed in the affection of his senses.
She said: ‘What on earth am I supposed to do? Telephone for the police, or what?’ He was hurt that she still addressed the man who had ground her into sulky apathy; she was not addressing
him
at all.
She said: ‘Or scream for the neighbours, is that what you want?’
The gold-fringed eyes were almost black, because of the depth of the shadow of boredom over them. She was bored and weary to the point of falling to the floor, he could see that.
He said: ‘I’m going to sleep with you.’
‘But how can you possibly want to?’ – a reasonable, a civilized demand addressed to a man who (he could see) she believed would respond to it. She said: ‘You know I don’t want to, and I know you don’t really give a damn one way or the other.’
He was stung back into being the boor because she had not the intelligence to see that the boor no longer existed; because she could not see that this was a man who wanted her in a way which she must respond to.
There she stood, supporting herself with one hand, looking small and white and exhausted, and utterly incredulous. She was going to turn and walk off out of simple incredulity, he could see that. ‘Do you think I don’t mean it?’ he demanded, grinding this out between his teeth. She made a movement – she was on the point of going away. His hand shot out on its own volition and grasped her wrist. She frowned. His other hand grasped her other wrist. His body hove up against hers to start the pressure of a new embrace. Before it could, she said: ‘Oh Lord, no, I’m not going through all that again. Right, then.’
‘What do you mean – right, then?’ he demanded.
She said: ‘You’re going to sleep with me. OK. Anything rather than go through that again. Shall we get it over with?’
He grinned, saying in silence: ‘No darling, oh no you don’t, I don’t care what words you use, I’m going to have you now and that’s all there is to it.’
She shrugged. The contempt, the weariness of it, had no effect on him, because he was now again hating her so much that wanting her was like needing to kill something or someone.
She took her clothes off, as if she was going to bed by herself: her jacket, skirt, petticoat. She stood in white bra and panties, a rather solid girl, brown-skinned still from the summer. He felt a flash of affection for the brown girl with her loose yellow hair as she stood naked. She got into bed and lay there, while the green eyes looked at him in civilized appeal: Are you really going through with this? Do you have to? Yes, his eyes said back: I do have to. She shifted her gaze aside, to the wall, saying silently: Well, if you want to take me without any desire at all on my part, then go ahead, if you’re not ashamed. He was not ashamed, because he was maintaining the flame of hate for her which he knew quite well was all that stood between him and shame. He took off his clothes, and got into bed beside her. As he did so, knowing he was putting himself in the position of raping a woman who was making it elaborately clear he bored her, his flesh subsided completely, sad, and full of reproach because a few moments ago it was reaching out for his sister whom he could have made happy. He lay on his side by her, secretly at work on himself, while he supported himself across her body on his elbow, using the free hand to manipulate her breasts. He saw that she gritted her teeth against his touch. At least she could not know after all this fuss he was not potent.
In order to incite himself, he clasped her again. She felt his smallness, writhed free of him, sat up and said: ‘Lie down.’
While she had been lying there, she had been thinking: The only way to get this over with is to make him big again, otherwise I’ve got to put up with him all night. His hatred of her was giving him a clairvoyance: he knew very well what went on through her mind. She had switched on, with the determination to
get it over with,
a sensual good humour, a patience. He lay down. She squatted beside him, the light from the ceiling blooming on her brown shoulders,
her flat hair falling over her face. But she would not look at his face. Like a bored, skilled wife, she was; or like a prostitute. She administered to him, she was setting herself to please him. Yes, he thought, she’s sensual, or she could be. Meanwhile she was succeeding in defeating the reluctance of his flesh, which was the tender token of a possible desire for her, by using a cold skill that was the result of her contempt for him. Just as he decided: Right, it’s enough, now I shall have her properly, she made him come. It was not a trick, to hurry or cheat him, what defeated him was her transparent thought: Yes, that’s what he’s worth.
Then, having succeeded, and waited for a moment or two, she stood up, naked, the fringes of gold at her loins and in her armpits speaking to him a language quite different from that of her green, bored eyes. She looked at him and thought, showing it plainly: What sort of man is it who …? He watched the slight movement of her shoulders: a just-checked shrug. She went out of the room: then the sound of running water. Soon she came back in a white dressing gown, carrying a yellow towel. She handed him the towel, looking away in politeness as he used it. ‘Are you going home now?’ she inquired hopefully, at this point.
‘No, I’m not.’ He believed that now he would have to start fighting her again, but she lay down beside him, not touching him (he could feel the distaste of her flesh for his) and he thought: Very well, my dear, but there’s a lot of the night left yet. He said aloud: ‘I’m going to have you properly tonight.’ She said nothing, lay silent, yawned. Then she remarked consolingly, and he could have laughed outright from sheer surprise: ‘Those were hardly conducive circumstances for making love.’ She was
consoling
him. He hated her for it. A proper little slut: I forced her into bed, she doesn’t want me, but she still has to make me feel good, like a prostitute. But even while he hated her, he responded in kind, from the habit of sexual generosity. ‘It’s because of my admiration of you, because … after all, I was holding in my arms one of the thousand women.’
A pause. ‘The thousand?’ she inquired, carefully.
‘The thousand especial women.’
‘In Britain or in the world? You choose them for their brains, their beauty – what?’
‘Whatever it is that makes them outstanding,’ he said, offering her a compliment.
‘Well,’ she remarked at last, inciting him to be amused again: ‘I hope that at least there’s a short list you can say I am on, for politeness’ sake.’
He did not reply for he understood he was sleepy. He was still telling himself that he must stay awake when he was slowly waking and it was morning. It was about eight. Barbara was not there. He thought: My God! What on earth shall I tell my wife? Where was Barbara? He remembered the ridiculous scenes of last night and nearly succumbed to shame. Then he thought, reviving anger: If she didn’t sleep beside me here I’ll never forgive her … He sat up, quietly, determined to go through the house until he found her and, having found her, to possess her, when the door opened and she came in. She was fully dressed in a green suit, her hair done, her eyes made up. She carried a tray of coffee, which she set down beside the bed. He was conscious of his big loose hairy body, half uncovered. He said to himself that he was not going to lie in bed, naked, while she was dressed. He said: ‘Have you got a gown of some kind?’ She handed him, without speaking, a towel, and said: ‘The bathroom’s second on the left.’ She went out. He followed, the towel around him. Everything in this house was gay, intimate – not at all like her efficient working room. He wanted to find out where she had slept, and opened the first door. It was the kitchen, and she was in it, putting a brown earthenware dish into the oven. ‘The next door,’ said Barbara. He went hastily past the second door, and opened (he hoped quietly) the third. It was a cupboard full of linen. ‘This door,’ said Barbara, behind him.
‘So all right then, where did you sleep?’
‘What’s it to do with you? Upstairs, in my own bed. Now, if you have everything, I’ll say goodbye, I want to get to the theatre.’
‘I’ll take you,’ he said at once.
He saw again the movement of her eyes, the dark swallowing the light in deadly boredom. ‘I’ll take you,’ he insisted.
‘I’d prefer to go by myself,’ she remarked. Then she smiled: ‘However, you’ll take me. Then you’ll make a point of coming right in, so that James and everyone can see – that’s what you want to take me for, isn’t it?’
He hated her, finally, and quite simply, for her intelligence; that not once had he got away with anything, that she had been watching, since they had met yesterday, every movement of his campaign for her. However, some fate or inner urge over which he had no control made him say sentimentally: ‘My dear, you must see that I’d like at least to take you to your work.’
‘Not at all, have it on me,’ she said, giving him the lie direct. She went past him to the room he had slept in. ‘I shall be leaving in ten minutes,’ she said.
He took a shower fast. When he returned, the workroom was already tidied, the bed made, all signs of the night gone. Also, there were no signs of the coffee she brought in for him. He did not like to ask for it, for fear of an outright refusal. Besides, she was ready, her coat on, her handbag under her arm. He went, without a word, to the front door, and she came after him, silent.
He could see that every fibre of her body signalled a simple message: Oh God, for the moment when I can be rid of this boor! She was nothing but a slut, he thought.
A taxi came. In it she sat as far away from him as she could. He thought of what he should say to his wife.
Outside the theatre she remarked: ‘You could drop me here, if you liked.’ It was not a plea, she was too proud for that. ‘I’ll take you in,’ he said, and saw her thinking: Very well, I’ll go through with it to shame him. He was determined to take her in and hand her over to her colleagues, he was afraid she would give him the slip. But far from playing it down, she seemed determined to play it his way. At the stage door, she said to the doorman: ‘This is Mr Spence, Tom – do you remember, Mr Spence from last night?’ ‘Good morning, Babs,’ said the man, examining Graham, politely, as he had been ordered to do.
Barbara went to the door to the stage, opened it, held it open for him. He went in first, then held it open for her. Together they
walked into the cavernous, littered, badly lit place and she called out: ‘James, James!’ A man’s voice called out from the front of the house: ‘Here, Babs, why are you so late?’
The auditorium opened before them, darkish, silent, save for an early-morning busyness of charwomen. A vacuum cleaner roared, smally, somewhere close. A couple of stagehands stood looking up at a drop which had a design of blue and green spirals. James stood with his back to the auditorium, smoking. ‘You’re late, Babs,’ he said again. He saw Graham behind her, and nodded. Barbara and James kissed. Barbara said, giving allowance to every syllable. ‘You remember Mr Spence from last night?’ James nodded: How do you do? Barbara stood beside him, and they looked together up at the blue-and-green backdrop. Then Barbara looked again at Graham, asking silently: All right now, isn’t that enough? He could see her eyes, sullen with boredom.
He said, ‘Bye, Babs. Bye, James. I’ll ring you, Babs.’ No response, she ignored him. He walked off slowly, listening for what might be said. For instance: ‘Babs, for God’s sake, what are you doing with him?’ Or she might say: ‘Are you wondering about Graham Spence? Let me explain.’
Graham passed the stagehands who, he could have sworn, didn’t recognize him. Then at last he heard James’s voice to Barbara: ‘It’s no good, Babs, I know you’re enamoured of that particular shade of blue, but do have another look at it, there’s a good girl …’ Graham left the stage, went past the office where the stage doorman sat reading a newspaper. He looked up, nodded, went back to his paper. Graham went to find a taxi, thinking: I’d better think up something convincing, then I’ll telephone my wife.
Luckily he had an excuse not to be at home that day, for this evening he had to interview a young man (for television) about his new novel.
It was during the week of hot sun, that June.
Three men were at work on the roof, where the leads got so hot they had the idea of throwing water on to cool them. But the water steamed, then sizzled; and they made jokes about getting an egg from some woman in the flats under them, to poach it for their dinner. By two it was not possible to touch the guttering they were replacing, and they speculated about what workmen did in regularly hot countries. Perhaps they should borrow kitchen gloves with the egg? They were all a bit dizzy, not used to the heat; and they shed their coats and stood side by side squeezing themselves into a foot-wide patch of shade against a chimney, careful to keep their feet in the thick socks and boots out of the sun. There was a fine view across several acres of roofs. Not far off a man sat in a deck chair reading the newspapers. Then they saw her, between chimneys, about fifty yards away. She lay face down on a brown blanket. They could see the top part of her: black hair, a flushed solid back, arms spread out.
‘She’s stark naked,’ said Stanley, sounding annoyed.
Harry, the oldest, a man of about forty-five, said: ‘Looks like it.’
Young Tom, seventeen, said nothing, but he was excited and grinning.
Stanley said: ‘Someone’ll report her if she doesn’t watch out.’
‘She thinks no one can see,’ said Tom, craning his head all ways to see more.
At this point the woman, still lying prone, brought her two hands up behind her shoulders with the ends of a scarf in them, tied it behind her back, and sat up. She wore a red scarf tied around her breasts and brief red bikini pants. This being the first day of the
sun she was white, flushing red. She sat smoking, and did not look up when Stanley let out a wolf whistle. Harry said: ‘Small things amuse small minds,’ leading the way back to their part of the roof, but it was scorching. Harry said: ‘Wait, I’m going to rig up some shade,’ and disappeared down the skylight into the building. Now that he’d gone, Stanley and Tom went to the farthest point they could to peer at the woman. She had moved, and all they could see were two pink legs stretched on the blanket. They whistled and shouted but the legs did not move. Harry came back with a blanket and shouted: ‘Come on, then.’ He sounded irritated with them. They clambered back to him and he said to Stanley: ‘What about your missus?’ Stanley was newly married, about three months. Stanley said, jeering: ‘What about my missus?’ – preserving his independence. Tom said nothing, but his mind was full of the nearly naked woman. Harry slung the blanket, which he had borrowed from a friendly woman downstairs, from the stem of a television aerial to a row of chimney pots. This shade fell across the piece of gutter they had to replace. But the shade kept moving, they had to adjust the blanket, and not much progress was made. At last some of the heat left the roof, and they worked fast, making up for lost time. First Stanley, then Tom, made a trip to the end of the roof to see the woman. ‘She’s on her back,’ Stanley said, adding a jest which made Tom snicker, and the older man smile tolerantly. Tom’s report was that she hadn’t moved, but it was a lie. He wanted to keep what he had seen to himself: he had caught her in the act of rolling down the little red pants over her hips, till they were no more than a small triangle. She was on her back, fully visible, glistening with oil.
Next morning, as soon as they came up, they went to look. She was already there, face down, arms spread out, naked except for the little red pants. She had turned brown in the night. Yesterday she was a scarlet and white woman, today she was a brown woman. Stanley let out a whistle. She lifted her head, startled, as if she’d been asleep, and looked straight over at them. The sun was in her eyes, she blinked and stared, then she dropped her head again. At this gesture of indifference, they all three, Stanley, Tom and old
Harry, let out whistles and yells. Harry was doing it in parody of the younger men, making fun of them, but he was also angry. They were all angry because of her utter indifference to the three men watching her.
‘Bitch,’ said Stanley.
‘She should ask us over,’ said Tom, snickering.
Harry recovered himself and reminded Stanley: ‘If she’s married, her old man wouldn’t like it.’
‘Christ,’ said Stanley virtuously, ‘if my wife lay about like that, for everyone to see, I’d soon stop her.’
Harry said, smiling: ‘How do you know, perhaps she’s sunning herself at this very moment?’
‘Not a chance, not on our roof.’ The safety of his wife put Stanley into a good humour, and they went to work. But today it was hotter than yesterday; and several times one or the other suggested they should tell Matthew, the foreman, and ask to leave the roof until the heat wave was over. But they didn’t. There was work to be done in the basement of the big block of flats, but up there they felt free, on a different level from ordinary humanity shut in the streets or the buildings. A lot more people came out on to the roofs that day, for an hour at midday. Some married couples sat side by side in deck chairs, the women’s legs stockingless and scarlet, the men in vests with reddening shoulders.
The woman stayed on her blanket, turning herself over and over. She ignored them, no matter what they did. When Harry went off to fetch more screws, Stanley said: ‘Come on.’ Her roof belonged to a different system of roofs, separated from theirs at one point by about twenty feet. It meant a scrambling climb from one level to another, edging along parapets, clinging to chimneys, while their big boots slipped and slithered, but at last they stood on a small square projecting roof looking straight down at her, close. She sat smoking, reading a book. Tom thought she looked like a poster, or a magazine cover, with the blue sky behind her and her legs stretched out. Behind her a great crane at work on a new building in Oxford Street swung its black arm across the roofs in a great arc. Tom imagined himself at work on the crane, adjusting the arm to
swing over and pick her up and swing her back across the sky to drop near him.
They whistled. She looked up at them, cool and remote, and went on reading. Again, they were furious. Or rather, Stanley was. His sun-heated face was screwed into rage as he whistled again and again, trying to make her look up. Young Tom stopped whistling. He stood beside Stanley, excited, grinning; but he felt as if he were saying to the woman: ‘Don’t associate me with
him
,’ for his grin was apologetic. Last night he had thought of the unknown woman before he slept, and she had been tender with him. This tenderness he was remembering as he shifted his feet by the jeering, whistling Stanley, and watched the indifferent, healthy brown woman a few feet off, with the gap that plunged to the street between them. Tom thought it was romantic, it was like being high on two hilltops. But there was a shout from Harry, and they clambered back. Stanley’s face was hard, really angry. The boy kept looking at him and wondered why he hated the woman so much, for by now he loved her.
They played their little games with the blanket, trying to trap shade to work under; but again it was not until nearly four that they could work seriously, and they were exhausted, all three of them. They were grumbling about the weather, by now. Stanley was in a thoroughly bad humour. When they made their routine trip to see the woman before they packed up for the day, she was apparently asleep, face down, her back all naked save for the scarlet triangle on her buttocks. ‘I’ve got a good mind to report her to the police,’ said Stanley, and Harry said: ‘What’s eating you? What harm’s she doing?’
‘I tell you, if she was my wife!’
‘But she isn’t, is she?’ Tom knew that Harry, like himself, was uneasy at Stanley’s reaction. He was normally a sharp young man, quick at his work, making a lot of jokes, good company.
‘Perhaps it will be cooler tomorrow,’ said Harry.
But it wasn’t, it was hotter, if anything, and the weather forecast said the good weather would last. As soon as they were on the roof, Harry went over to see if the woman was there, and Tom knew it
was to prevent Stanley going, to put off his bad humour. Harry had grown-up children, a boy the same age as Tom, and the youth trusted and looked up to him.
Harry came back and said: ‘She’s not there.’
‘I bet her old man has put his foot down,’ said Stanley, and Harry and Tom caught each other’s eyes and smiled behind the young married man’s back.
Harry suggested they should get permission to work in the basement, and they did, that day. But before packing up Stanley said: ‘Let’s have a breath of fresh air.’ Again Harry and Tom smiled at each other as they followed Stanley up to the roof, Tom in the devout conviction that he was there to protect the woman from Stanley. It was about five-thirty, and a calm, full sunlight lay over the roofs. The great crane still swung its black arm from Oxford Street to above their heads. She was not there. Then there was a flutter of white from behind a parapet, and she stood up, in a belted, white dressing gown. She had been there all day, probably, but on a different patch of roof, to hide from them. Stanley did not whistle, he said nothing, but watched the woman bend to collect papers, books, cigarettes, then fold the blanket over her arm. Tom was thinking: If they weren’t here, I’d go over and say … what? But he knew from his nightly dreams of her that she was kind and friendly. Perhaps she would ask him down to her flat? Perhaps … He stood watching her disappear down the skylight. As she went, Stanley let out a shrill derisive yell; she started, and it seemed as if she nearly fell. She clutched to save herself, they could hear things falling. She looked straight at them, angry. Harry said, facetiously: ‘Better be careful on those slippery ladders, love.’ Tom knew he said it to save her from Stanley, but she could not know it. She vanished, frowning. Tom was full of secret delight, because he knew her anger was for the others, not for him.
‘Roll on some rain,’ said Stanley, bitter, looking at the blue evening sky.
Next day was cloudless, and they decided to finish the work in the basement. They felt excluded, shut in the grey cement basement fitting pipes, from the holiday atmosphere of London in a heat
wave. At lunchtime they came up for some air, but while the married couples, and the men in shirt-sleeves or vests, were there, she was not there, either on her usual patch of roof or where she had been yesterday. They all, even Harry, clambered about, between chimney pots, over parapets, the hot leads stinging their fingers. There was not a sign of her. They took off their shirts and vests and exposed their chests, feeling their feet sweaty and hot. They did not mention the woman. But Tom felt alone again. Last night she had asked him into her flat; it was big and had fitted white carpets and a bed with a padded white leather head top. She wore a black filmy négligé and her kindness to Tom thickened his throat as he remembered it. He felt she had betrayed him by not being there.
And again after work they climbed up, but still there was nothing to be seen of her. Stanley kept repeating that if it was as hot as this tomorrow he wasn’t going to work and that’s all there was to it. But they were all there next day. By ten the temperature was in the middle seventies, and it was eighty long before noon. Harry went to the foreman to say it was impossible to work on the leads in that heat; but the foreman said there was nothing else he could put them on, and they’d have to. At midday they stood, silent, watching the skylight on her roof open, and then she slowly emerged in her white gown, holding a bundle of blanket. She looked at them, gravely, then went to the part of the roof where she was hidden from them. Tom was pleased. He felt she was more his when the other men couldn’t see her. They had taken off their shirts and vests, but now they put them back again, for they felt the sun bruising their flesh. ‘She must have the hide of a rhino,’ said Stanley, tugging at guttering and swearing. They stopped work, and sat in the shade, moving around behind chimney stacks. A woman came to water a yellow window box just opposite them. She was middle-aged, wearing a flowered summer dress. Stanley said to her: ‘We need a drink more than them.’ She smiled and said: ‘Better drop down to the pub quick, it’ll be closing in a minute.’ They exchanged pleasantries, and she left them with a smile and a wave.
‘Not like Lady Godiva,’ said Stanley. ‘She can give us a bit of a chat and a smile.’
‘You didn’t whistle at
her
,’ said Tom, reproving.
‘Listen to him,’ said Stanley, ‘you didn’t whistle, then?’
But the boy felt as if he hadn’t whistled, as if only Harry and Stanley had. He was making plans, when it was time to knock off work, to get left behind and somehow make his way over to the woman. The weather report said the hot spell was due to break, so he had to move quickly. But there was no chance of being left. The other two decided to knock off work at four, because they were exhausted. As they went down, Tom quickly climbed a parapet and hoisted himself higher by pulling his weight up a chimney. He caught a glimpse of her lying on her back, her knees up, eyes closed, a brown woman lolling in the sun. He slipped and clattered down, as Stanley looked for information: ‘She’s gone down,’ he said. He felt as if he had protected her from Stanley, and that she must be grateful to him. He could feel the bond between the woman and himself.
Next day, they stood around on the landing below the roof, reluctant to climb up into the heat. The woman who had lent Harry the blanket came out and offered them a cup of tea. They accepted gratefully, and sat around Mrs Pritchett’s kitchen an hour or so, chatting. She was married to an airline pilot. A smart blonde, of about thirty, she had an eye for the handsome sharp-faced Stanley; and the two teased each other while Harry sat in a corner, watching, indulgent, though his expression reminded Stanley that he was married. And young Tom felt envious of Stanley’s ease in badinage; felt, too, that Stanley’s getting off with Mrs Pritchett left his romance with the woman on the roof safe and intact.
‘I thought they said the heat wave’d break,’ said Stanley, sullen, as the time approached when they really would have to climb up into the sunlight.
‘You don’t like it, then?’ asked Mrs Pritchett.