A Proper Marriage. Doris Lessing
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very young and inadequate. It was a snub to those real feelings she was convinced she must share with everybody, nothing less would do! After a moment she said, ‘All the same, everyone here is planning for the war, and we don’t know yet who the war is going to be fought against.’
She had spoken rather more loudly than she had meant; the gentleman from the press had heard her. He said irritably, ‘You’d agree, I hope, that one must be prepared for a war?’ This was the substance of the leader in that morning’s News.
Mr Maynard answered for her, in a smooth voice, ‘I daresay the younger generation, who will have the privilege of being killed, are entitled to know what for?’ He had acquired another glass, and was engaged in flipping this one too with his fingernail. The journalist’s look was caught by the gesture; he watched it for a moment; then some women sitting near asked him deferentially for his opinion on the international situation. He proceeded to give it. Martha listened to his string of platitudes for a few moments, then heard Mr Maynard again: ‘Another of life’s little disillusionments: you’ll find the newspapermen are as stupid as they sound. One reads what they say, when young, with admiration for the accomplished cynicism they display; when one gets older one discovers they really mean what they write. A terrible blow it was to me, I remember. I had been thinking of becoming one myself. But I was prepared to be a knave, not a fool.’
He had meant her to laugh, but she was unable to. She wanted to protest. Fear of his contempt for her clumsiness kept her silent. She was prepared to be thought wrong-headed, but not naive. He was using much more powerful weapons than she was to understand for a very long time.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘let me fill up your glass.’ It was her third, and she was beginning to be lifted away from herself.
‘Tell me,’ he inquired, having refilled his own, ‘if it is not too indiscreet, that is: What decided you to get married at the age of – what is it? Seventeen?’
‘Nineteen,’ said Martha indignantly.
‘I do apologize.’
She laughed. She hesitated a moment. She was feeling the last three months as a bewildering chaos of emotion, through which she had been pulled, will-less, like a fish at the end of a string, with a sense of being used by something impersonal and irresistible. She hesitated on the verge of an appeal and a confession; an attempt, at the very least, to explain what it had been like. She glanced at him, and saw him lounging there beside her, very large, composed, armed by his heavy sarcastic good looks.
‘If I may say so,’ he remarked with a pleasantly pointed smile which was like a nudge to proceed, ‘ninety-nine people out of a hundred haven’t the remotest idea why they got married – in any case you are under the illusion that you are a special case.’
With this encouragement, she took a sip from her brandy and ginger beer and began. She was pleasantly surprised that her voice was no less cool, amused and destructive than his own. She noted, also, that words, phrases, were isolated in deprecating amusement – as Solly had used the language that morning. It was as if she were afraid of the power of language used nakedly. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘not to get married when it is so clearly expected of us was rather more of an act of defiance than I was prepared to commit. Besides, you must know yourself, since you spend most of your time marrying us, that getting married is our first occupation – the international situation positively demands it. Who one marries is obviously of no importance at all. After all, if I’d married Binkie, for instance, I’m sure that everyone – with the exception of your wife, of course – would have been just as delighted …’
He laughed: ‘Go on.’
‘Though it would have been no less potentially disastrous than the marriage I’m committed to. Love,’ she noted how she isolated the word, throwing it away, as it were, ‘as you would be the first to admit, is merely a question of …’ ‘In short,’ she concluded, after some minutes of light-hearted description of the more painful experiences of the last few weeks, ‘I got married because there’s going to be a war. Surely that’s a good enough reason.’ There was not even an undertone of dismay to be heard in her voice.
‘Admirable,’ he commented. Then: ‘Entirely admirable. If I may give you some advice.’
‘Oh, I do assure you that I’ve taken the point.’
He looked at her straight. ‘And I assure you that you will find it much more tolerable this way.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said angrily.
He was on the point of making some further attempt, when she felt a hand on her arm. It was Douglas. He looked rather nervous, first because he was disturbing her conversation with Mr Maynard, secondly because she was looking so guilty. She felt very guilty. She jumped up quickly as he said, ‘Matty, we should be going.’
Mr Maynard released her courteously, and returned to his chair beside his wife. They stood at the door shaking hands with Colonel Brodeshaw and his wife. Mrs Brodeshaw took the opportunity to ask, ‘My dear, I wonder if you would like to help on the committee for organizing the ladies …’ It took Martha by surprise, and Mrs Brodeshaw swiftly went on: ‘Though of course, my dear, you don’t want to be worried by all this sort of thing yet, do you? It’s not fair, when you’re just married. We’ll leave you in peace for the time being,’ she promised, smiling. Then she added, ‘There’s a suggestion of starting a committee to investigate the conditions of the Coloured –’
‘I was down there this morning,’ remarked Martha.
Mrs Brodeshaw looked startled, then said, ‘Oh, yes, we know you are interested.’
Douglas came quickly in with ‘Perhaps we can fix it later, when we’re more settled.’
Again Mrs Brodeshaw retreated gracefully. They said goodbye. Douglas and Martha went to the car in silence. She saw he looked annoyed, and wondered why.
‘You know, Matty, I think you might have been a bit more pleasant about it.’
‘Charity?’ said Martha angrily.
‘It’s not such a bad idea, you know.’ He was referring to her being ‘in’ with the Brodeshaws.
‘Charity,’ she said finally. It dismayed her that he might even consider it possible. Then she felt sorry for him – he looked utterly taken aback.
‘But, Matty …’
She took his arm. She was now lifted on waves of alcohol: she was recklessly happy.
‘Mr Maynard was having a long talk with you?’ he inquired.
‘Yes. Let’s go and dance, Douglas.’
‘The Club? What? With the gang?’
‘The gang,’ she mocked. ‘We’ve put up with them for long enough, haven’t we?’
‘Let’s have a night by ourselves.’
But by now she could not bear to go tamely back to the flat. There was something in the talk with Mr Maynard which had unsettled her, made her restless – she needed to dance. Besides, she was instinctively reluctant to go now, in this mood of disliking him, which she did unaccountably, to spend an evening with Douglas.
‘Come on – come on,’ she urged, tugging at him.
‘All right, then, we’ll go and beat up Stella and Andy – and let’s get Willie and Alice. We’d better buy some brandy …’
She was hardly listening. She was wildly elated, she could feel that she was very attractive to him in this mood; it intoxicated her and deeply disturbed her that he should find her desirable when she was engaged in despising him. ‘Come on, come on,’ she called impatiently, and ran off down the path through the bushes to the car. He followed, running heavily behind her. It was dark now. The gateposts reflected a white gleam back to a large low white moon. The town had lost its ramshackle shallowness. A mile of roofs shone hard and white like plates of white salt, amid acres of softly