A Proper Marriage. Doris Lessing

at once the consulting-room door opened, and a bland voice bade a lady goodbye; she came out blushing with pleasure and giving challenging looks to those who still waited.

      ‘Come on,’ said Stella loudly, ‘now it’s us.’

      She pushed Martha forward, as Alice looked around into the waiting room, and said in the kindly nervous voice which was her characteristic, ‘Yes, dear – it’s you, Mrs Knowell.’

      Stella went beside Martha to the door; but there Alice held out one barring hand, with a professional look, and pulled Martha forward with the other. The door shut behind Martha, excluding Stella.

      This was a large, quiet room, with a white screen in one corner which was bathed in greenish light from the shutters over the window. An enormous desk filled half the outer wall, and behind it sat Dr Stern, his back to the light. Over an efficient white coat a smooth pale heavy-lidded face lifted for a moment, the pale cool eyes flicked assessingly over Martha, and dropped again as he said, ‘Please sit down.’

      Martha sat, and wondered how she should start: she did not really want any advice. She looked at the top of Dr Stern’s head, which was bent towards her as he flicked quickly through some papers. He had a mat of thick black crinkling hair; his neck was white, thin – very young. She saw him suddenly as a young man, and was upset. Then he said, ‘If you’ll excuse me for one moment …’ and glanced up again, before continuing to leaf through the papers. The upwards look was so impersonal that her anxiety vanished. She yawned. A weight of tiredness settled on her, with the cool silence of the room. A patch of yellow sunlight slanted through the slats of the blind on to the desk. Her eye was caught by it, held. She yawned again. She heard his voice: ‘Allow me to congratulate you on carrying off young Knowell – I’ve known him quite a time.’ He sounded quietly paternal; and she was reminded again that he was probably no older than Douglas, who had agreed enthusiastically to Stella’s insistence that Martha should see the doctor at once: ‘Yes, Dr Stern’s just the ticket – yes, you go along, Matty, and get to know him, he’ll show you the ropes.’

      Yet, since Martha knew the ropes, there was nothing to say. Her eyes still fixed by the yellow patch of light, she let herself slide deeper into the comfortable chair, and Dr Stern inquired, ‘Sleepy?’

      ‘Haven’t had much sleep,’ she agreed, without moving.

      Dr Stern looked at her again and noticed that she, in her turn, was unhappily regarding Alice, who was folding something white behind the white screen.

      ‘It’s all right, Mrs Burrell, just go next door for a moment. I’ll call you.’ Alice went out, with a kind, reassuring smile at Martha. ‘And leave the door open,’ said Dr Stern, for Martha’s benefit, which she did not appreciate: she would have preferred it shut.

      And now Dr Stern, whose handling of the situation had been by no means as casual as it appeared, gave a swift downwards glance at his watch. Martha noticed it, and sat herself up.

      ‘Well, Mrs Knowell,’ he began smoothly, and, after a short silence, went on to deliver a lecture designed for the instruction of brides. He spoke slowly, as if afraid of forgetting some of it from sheer familiarity. When he had finished, Martha said obstinately that according to authority so and so another method was preferable. He gave her a quick look, which meant that this was a greater degree of sophistication than he was used to; almost he switched to the tone he used with married women of longer standing. But he hesitated. Martha’s words might be matter-of-fact, but her face was anxious, and she was gripping her hands together in her lap.

      He went off at a tangent to describe a conference on birth control he had attended in London, and concluded with a slightly risky joke. Martha laughed. He added two or three more jokes, until she was laughing naturally, and returned to the subject by a side road of ‘A patient of mine who …’ Now he proceeded to recommend the method she had herself suggested, and with as much warmth as if he had never recommended another. His calm, rather tired, remote voice was extremely soothing; Martha was no longer anxious; but for good measure he concluded with a little speech which, if analysed, meant nothing but that everything was all right, one should not worry, one should take things easy. These phrases having repeated themselves often enough he went on to remark gently that some women seemed to imagine birth control was a sort of magic; if they bought what was necessary and left it lying in a corner of a drawer, nothing more was needed. To this attitude of mind, he said, was due a number of births every year which would astound the public. He laughed so that she might, and looked inquiringly at her. She did laugh, but a shadow of worry crossed her face. He saw it, and made a mental note. There was a silence. This time his glance at his watch was involuntary: the waiting room was full of women all of whom must be assured, for various reasons, that everything was all right, there was nothing to worry about, of course one did not sleep when one was worried, of course everyone was worried at times – of course, of course, of course.

      Again Martha saw the glance and rose. He rose with her and took her to the door.

      ‘And how’s your husband keeping?’ he asked.

      ‘Fine, thanks,’ said Martha automatically; then it struck her as more than politeness and she looked inquiringly.

      ‘His stomach behaving itself?’

      ‘Oh, we’ve both got digestions like an ostrich,’ she said with a laugh, thinking of the amount they had drunk and eaten in the last few weeks. Then she said quickly, ‘There’s surely nothing wrong with his stomach?’ Her voice was full of the arrogance of perfect health. She heard it herself. ‘What’s the matter with him?’ she repeated. The solicitude in her voice rang false.

      ‘I believe I’ve been indiscreet,’ said Dr Stern. ‘But he is silly not to tell you. Ask him.’ And now he smiled, and held out his hand, saying that if she wanted help, if she just wanted to drop in for a chat, she must give him a ring. Martha wrung the hand, and left his room with the same look of soft, grateful pleasure that the previous patient had worn.

      The other women watched her critically; they found that confused, self-confessing smile ridiculous. Then, as Stella rose to join her, they lost interest and turned their eyes back to the closed door.

      ‘Well, was he nice, did you like him?’ asked Stella urgently; and Martha said reticently that he was very nice.

      Nothing more, it seemed, was forthcoming; and Stella urged, laughing, ‘Did you learn anything new?’ And it occurred to Martha for the first time that she had not. Her sense of being supported, being understood, was so strong that she stopped in the passage, motionless, with the shock of the discovery that in fact Dr Stern had said nothing at all, and in due course Douglas would be sent a bill for half a guinea – for what?

      Stella tugged at her arm, so that she was set in motion again; and Martha remarked irritably that Dr Stern was something of an old woman, ‘sitting all wrapped up behind his desk like a parcel in white tissue paper, being tactful to a blushing bride.’

      At once Stella laughed and said that she never took the slightest notice of what he said, either; as for herself and her husband, they had used such and such a method for three years, and she distinctly remembered Dr Stern telling them it was useless.

      ‘Well,’ asked Martha ungratefully, ‘what did you send me for, then?’

      ‘Oh!’ Stella was shocked and aggrieved. ‘But he’s so nice, and so up to date with everything, you know.’

      ‘He can’t be much older than you are,’ remarked Martha, in that same rather resentful voice. She was astounded that Stella was deeply shocked – at least, there could be no other explanation for her withdrawal into offended dignity. ‘If you don’t want a really scientific doctor then …’ Belatedly, Martha thanked her for the service; but they had reached the door marked ‘Private’, where they must wait for Alice; and Stella forgot her annoyance in the business of wriggling the door handle silently to show Alice they were there.

      On the other side of the door, Alice was holding the handle so that it should not rattle, and watching Dr Stern to catch the right moment for announcing the next patient. Usually, having