A Proper Marriage. Doris Lessing
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its turning the beginnings of peace. Slowly she quietened, and it seemed possible that she might recover a sense of herself as a person she might, if only potentially, respect. It was really all quite simple, she assured herself. That this marriage was a foolish mistake must certainly be obvious to Douglas himself; for if humility can be used to describe such an emotion, Martha was genuinely humble in thinking of him and herself as involved in an isolated act of insanity which a simple decision would reverse. His personality and hers had nothing to do with it. The whole graceless affair had nothing to do with what she really felt or – surely? – what he felt, either.
The dragging compulsion which had begun to operate when they met, which had made it impossible for her to say no at any stage of the process, seemed broken. It would be easy, she thought, to tell Douglas when he entered the room that they must part at once; he must agree. For since he shared her view that the actual ceremony was no more than a necessary bit of ritual to placate society, it followed he would view a divorce in the same light.
Thus Martha – while her eyes hypnotically followed the circling of the great wheel. But at the back of her mind was an uncomfortable memory. It was of Stella roaring with laughter as she told the story, while her husband laughed with her, of how she had, the day after their wedding, run back to her mother, because she had decided she didn’t want to be married at all, and most particularly not to Andrew; after some months of marriage, it seemed that Stella found this mood nothing but a joke. The fact that what she was feeling now might be nothing but what everybody felt filled Martha with exhaustion. She remained clinging to the sill, while tiredness flowed into her, an extreme of fatigue, like the long high note on the violin that holds a tension while the ground swell of melody gathers strength beneath it. Her limbs were so heavy she could hardly prevent herself from sliding off the chair; while her mind, like a bright space above a dark building, was snapping with activity. The small, clear picture of Stella laughing at her own story was succeeded by another: she saw Binkie, large, fat, heavy, grotesquely dancing with the baboon on the lawn outside the hotel; she saw herself laughing at the scene, arm in arm with Douglas. Finally, she saw a small yellow flower on the very edge of the Falls, drenched with spray and tugging at its roots like a flag in a gale, but returning to its own perfect starred shape whenever the wind veered. She could not remember having actually seen this flower. It was frightening that she could not – yet there was something consoling about it, too. She tried again and again to place the moment she had seen it; her mind went dark with the effort, as if a switch had been turned down. Then she heard, with a movement of slow, swelling sadness, the music from the amusement park. And now she understood that she was looking back at the hectic elation of those four days with regret – nostalgia was invading her together with the rhythm of the false cheap music. Yet the truth was she had disliked every moment of the time. She jerked herself fully awake; that lie she had no intention of tolerating. She stood up, and told herself with a bleak and jaunty common sense that she needed a good night’s sleep.
The outer door crashed open; the light crashed on. A cheerful young man came towards her, whirled her up in his arms, and began squeezing her, saying, ‘Well, Matty, here we are in our own place at last, and about time, too!’ With this he gave her a large affectionate kiss on the cheek, and set her down, and stood rubbing his hands with satisfaction. Then it seemed that something struck him; doubt displaced the large grin, and he said, ‘But, Matty, what’ve you done to yourself?’
Turning away quickly, Martha said, ‘I’ve cut off my hair. Don’t look at it now, it’ll be all right in the morning.’
Taking her at her word, he said, ‘Oh, all right, changed your hair style, eh?’ And he rubbed his hands again, with pleasure: she could see he took it as a compliment to himself that she should. ‘Sorry I was late, but I ran into some of the boys and I couldn’t get away. Had to celebrate.’ His proprietary look half annoyed her; but she could feel the beginning of fatal pleasure. From the way he looked at her and rubbed his hands, she knew that he had again been congratulated on his acquisition; and while she puzzled over the knowledge that this could have nothing to do with herself, she could not help feeling less heavy and unattractive.
‘They think I’m a helluva lucky…’ he announced; and at the thought of the scenes in the bar with the boys, a reflection of his proud and embarrassed grin appeared on his face. He swooped over to her, ground her tightly to him, and announced, ‘And so-so I am.’
Then, still holding her, but loosening his grip because his mind was on them and not on her, he began telling her some of the things they had said, in a comradely way, sharing the pleasure with her. At first she said, half anxiously, half pleased, ‘And what else?’ ‘And what did they say then?’ Until suddenly she jerked away from him, angry and red, and said, ‘I don’t think that’s funny, that’s disgusting.’
The very image of an offended prude, she turned her back on him; while, half shamefaced, half sniggering, he looked at her and said at last, ‘Oh, come off it, Matty, don’t put on an act.’
Martha undressed in silence, flinging crumpled blue dress, knickers, petticoat, in all directions. She stood naked. In the mood she was in, it had nothing to do with coquetry.
To Douglas, however, this was not apparent. He found the naked and angry girl an argument for forgiveness. Flinging off his own clothes, he bounced on to the bed, and moved over to give her room. Still frowning, she moved chastely in beside him; for the fact that they were annoyed with each other made the act of getting naked into bed on a level with sitting beside him at breakfast. She was irritated to discover that he did not understand this. She was on the point of turning over away from him, when the instinct to please turned her towards him. Love had brought her here, to lie beside this young man; love was the key to every good; love lay like a mirage through the golden gates of sex. If this was not true, then nothing was true, and the beliefs of a whole generation were illusory. They made love. She was too tired to persuade herself that she felt anything at all. Her head was by now swimming with exhaustion.
‘God, but I’m tired, Matty,’ he announced, rolling off her. He yawned and said with satisfaction, ‘How many hours have we slept during the last fortnight?’
She did not reply. Loyalty towards love was forcing her to pretend that she was not disappointed, and that she did not – at that moment she was sick with repulsion – find him repulsive. But already that image of a lover that a woman is offered by society, and carries with her so long, had divorced itself from Douglas, like the painted picture of a stencil floating off paper in water. Because that image remained intact and unhurt, it was possible to be good-natured. It is that image which keeps so many marriages peaceable and friendly.
She listened, smiling maternally, while he calculated aloud how many hours they had slept. It took him several minutes: he was nothing if not efficient.
‘Do you realize we couldn’t have slept more than about three hours a night during the last six weeks?’ he inquired proudly.
‘Awful, isn’t it?’ she agreed, in the same tone.
After a pause: ‘It’s been lovely, hasn’t it, Matty?’
She agreed with enthusiasm that it had. At the same time she glanced incredulously at him to assure herself that he must be joking. But he was grinning in the half-dark. She simply could not comprehend that his satisfaction, his pleasure, was fed less by her than by what other people found in their marriage.
Her silence dismayed him. He gripped her arm, pressed it, and urged, ‘Really, everyone’s been awfully good to us, haven’t they, Matty? Haven’t they? They’ve given us a hell of a start?’
Again she enthusiastically agreed. He lay alert now, feeling her worry and preoccupation. Then he suddenly inquired, ‘Did you see the doctor? What did he say?’
‘Oh, nothing much,’ she said, sleepy and bad-tempered. ‘He doesn’t seem to know more than we do, only he does the big-medicine-man act awfully well.’
But Douglas could not agree with this. ‘He’s very good, Matty – very good indeed.’
Her motherliness was warmed by his anxiety, and she at once assured him that he had been very kind and she