A Proper Marriage. Doris Lessing
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on flypaper. All the time, daydreams about all kinds of romantic escapes – for years I believed it all. And now suddenly everything becomes perfectly simple, and don’t you see, it was all for nothing. That’s the point – it was all for nothing.’
She heard her voice rising dramatically, and stopped, irritated with herself.
Douglas was watching her. There was a look in his eyes which struck her. She looked down at herself. She was wearing a thin nightgown. She saw that he was finding her attractive in this mood. She was completely furious. With a gesture of contempt she picked up a dressing gown and covered herself. Then she said flatly, ‘I can see I am being ridiculous.’ Then, since he looked hurt and shamefaced, she began hurriedly, in an impulse to share it with him, ‘The whole point is this: if it wasn’t the sweepstakes, it was a gold mine or a legacy. In the meantime, nothing but the most senseless poverty –’
But again she heard that dramatic note in her voice, and stopped short. That was not what she felt! She was unable to say what she meant in a way that sounded true. Silence – and she was filling with helpless exhaustion. Suddenly she thought, It’s all so boring. She felt obscurely that the whole thing was old-fashioned. The time for dramatic revolts against parent was past; it all had a stale air. How ridiculous Solly was, with his communal settlements, and throwing up university – for what? It had all been done and said already. She had no idea what was the origin of this appalling feeling of flatness, staleness and futility.
‘Oh, well,’ she began at last, in a cheerful hard voice, ‘it all doesn’t matter. Nothing one does makes any difference, and by the time we’re middle-aged we’ll be as stupid and reactionary as our parents – and so it all goes on, one might as well get used to it!’
‘Now Matty!’ protested Douglas, helplessly, ‘what on earth do you expect me to do about it? I’ll stand by you, of course, if that’s what you want.’ He saw her face, which wore an unconscious look of pure hopeless fear, and decided it was enough. He got out of bed, and came to her. ‘Now, don’t worry, I shall look after you, everything’s all right.’
At this Martha clung to him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said brightly and falsely. ‘I’m an awful fool.’
He kissed her, patted her here and there in an affectionate and brotherly way, and then said, ‘For God’s sake, I shall be late for the office. You should have woken me before.’ He went whistling into the bathroom, and began shaving.
She went back to bed, propped a hand mirror on a ridge of blanket, and tried to brush her hair into shape. She did not want to be noticed, and each time Douglas came in to fetch something she hastily turned away. But when he at last came in fully dressed, he remarked, ‘Your hair doesn’t do too badly like that.’ He was now in very good spirits. He announced, rubbing his hands, that he must not be late. There would be some sort of show at the office for him – this was the first day he would be at work since his marriage. As he picked up some papers, and gave his usual efficient glance around to see what he might have forgotten, he remarked, ‘And don’t forget the sundowner party tonight at the Brodeshaws.’
Martha said quickly, ‘Douglas …’
He stopped on his way out. ‘I’m awfully late.’
‘Douglas, why can’t we go to England – or somewhere?’ she inquired resentfully. ‘After all, you said …’
But he cut in quickly, ‘There’s going to be a war, and we can’t take chances now.’
The newspaper was lying over the bedclothes – one glance at the headlines was enough. But she persisted. ‘But it would be much better there than here if the war comes – at least we would be really in it.’
‘Now look, Matty, I really am late.’ He went out, hastily.
For some time she remained where she was, surrounded by the lanky sheets of newsprint, by scraps of letter, by the hand mirror, the brush, a tangle of the new white wedding linen. The headlines on the newspaper filled her with nothing but the profoundest cynicism. Then she saw a small book lying open on the bed, and pulled it towards her. She saw it was Douglas’s engagement book, and left it; for it was certainly her strongest principle that, a wife who looked at her husband’s letters or pockets was the blackest sort of traitor to decency. But the little book still lay open, at arm’s length. It was, after all, only an engagement book; and these engagements would concern herself. Compromising with her principles by not actually touching it, she moved closer and read the entries for the next two weeks. There was not a day free of sundowner parties, dances, lunches. Most of the names she did not know. The little book, lying beside the crumpled newspaper with its frightening black headlines, provided the strongest comment on her situation. She saw Solly’s letter, with its emphatic scrawl of an address, foundering among billows of sheet. Her anxiety focused itself sharply with: I’ve got to get out of it all. She got up, and dressed rapidly. Her clothes were all crushed from packing; there was nothing to wear but the blue linen from yesterday. But what she looked like, she assured herself, would be quite irrelevant to Solly, who was now monastic and high-minded in his communal settlement. In a few minutes she had left the untidy flat behind, and was in the street.
And no sooner had she turned the corner which shut out the flats, than it seemed as if not only they but her marriage did not exist – so strong was her feeling of being free. She was regarding her marriage, the life she was committed to, with a final, horrified dislike. Everything about it seemed false and ridiculous, and that Matty who apparently was making such a success of it had nothing to do with herself, Martha, now walking at leisure down this street on a cool fine morning. It was only a short walk to the Coloured quarters, and she went slowly, loitering along the pavements under the trees, picking off leaves from the hedges, pulling at the long grass which forced itself up wherever there was a gap in the pavement.
What puzzled her most was that she was a success. The last few weeks, confused, hectic, hilarious, had one thread running through it: the delight of other people in this marriage. How many had not embraced her, and with the warmest emotion! Everyone was happy about it – and why? For – and this was surely the core of the matter? – how could they be so happy, so welcoming, when they didn’t know her? She, Martha, was not involved in it at all; and so in her heart she was convicting them of insincerity. They could not possibly mean it, she concluded at last, dismissing all these friends and acquaintances, the circle into which she was marrying. The whole thing was a gigantic social deception. From the moment she had said she would marry Douglas, a matter which concerned – and on this point she was determined – no one but their own two selves, some sort of machinery had been set in motion which was bound to involve more and more people. Martha could feel nothing but amazed despair at the thought of the number of people who were so happy on their account.
And now she began walking as quickly as she could, as if running away from something tangible. She was already, in mind, with Solly, who would most certainly help her, rescue her; she did not quite know what he would do, but the truth of her relations with the Cohen boys, difficult, sometimes, but at least based on what they really thought and felt, could not possibly betray her now.
The street he had chosen to live in was in the most squalid part of town. She could not help smiling sourly as the poverty deepened around her: nothing less than the worst would do for Solly! Once these houses had been built for the new settlers. They were small and unpretentious, simple shells of brick covered with corrugated iron. Now each house held half a dozen families. Each was like a little town, miserable ragged children everywhere, washing hanging across doorways, gutters running filthy water. Between two such concentrated slums was a small house high on its foundations, in the centre of a fenced patch of garden. There were no other gardens in the street, only untidy earth, littered with tins, bits of cloth, trodden grass. Here, inside the new fence, was rich dark earth, with neat rows of bright green vegetables. The gate was new, painted white, and on it was a large board which said ‘Utopia’. Martha laughed again: that touch of self-derision was certainly Solly’s, she thought.
She was opening the gate when she heard a voice. A youth with a watering can emerged from a small shed and demanded what she wanted.
‘I’ve