London Observed. Doris Lessing

his wife in a heavy awful way that told Julie how full of calamity had been their discussions about her, ‘Sit down, we aren’t going to eat you.’

      Julie sat on the edge of a chair, but gingerly, because it hurt. It was as if she had been anaesthetized by urgency, but now she was safe, pains and soreness could make themselves felt. She watched her parents weep, their bitter faces full of loss. She saw how they sat, each in a chair well apart from the other, not comforting each other, or holding her, or wanting to hold each other, or to hold her.

      ‘Oh, Julie,’ said her mother, ‘oh, Julie.’

      ‘Mum, can I have a sandwich?’

      ‘Of course you can. We’ve had our supper. I’ll just …’

      Julie smiled, she could not help it, and it was a sour little smile. She knew that what had been on those plates was exactly calculated, not a pea or a bit of potato left over. The next proper meal (lunch, tomorrow) would already be on a plate ready to cook, with a plastic film over it, in the fridge. Her mother went off to the kitchen, to work out how to feed Julie, and now Julie was alone with her father, and that wasn’t good.

      ‘You mustn’t think we are going to ask you awkward questions,’ said her father, still not looking at her, and Julie knew that her mother had said, ‘We mustn’t ask her any awkward questions. We must wait for her to tell us.’

      You bloody well ought to ask some questions, Julie was thinking, noting that already the raucous angry irritation her parents always made her feel was back, and strong. And, at the moment, dangerous.

      But they had expected her to come back, then? For she had been making things easier for herself by saying, They won’t care I’m not there! They probably won’t even notice! Now she could see how much they had been grieving for her. How was she going to get herself out of here up to the bathroom? If she could just have a bath! At this point her mother came back with a cup of tea. Julie took it, drank it down at once, though it was too hot, and handed the cup back. She saw her mother had realized she meant it: she needed to eat, was hungry, could drink six cups of tea one after another. ‘Would you mind if I had a bath, Mum? I won’t take a minute. I fell and the street was all slippery. It was sleeting.’

      She had already got herself to the door, clutching the carrier in front of her.

      ‘You didn’t hurt yourself?’ enquired her father.

      ‘No, I only slipped, I got all muddy.’

      ‘You run along and have a bath, girl,’ said her mother. ‘It’ll give me time to boil an egg for sandwiches.’

      Julie ran upstairs. Quick, quick, she mustn’t make a big thing of this bath, mustn’t stay in it. Her bedroom was just so, all pretty and pink, and her big panda sat on her pillow. She flung off her clothes and waves of a nasty sour smell came up at her. She stuffed them all into the carrier and grabbed from the cupboard her pink-flowered dressing gown. What would Debbie have to say about that? she wondered, and wanted to laugh, thinking of Debbie here, sprawling on her bed with the panda. She found childish pyjamas stuffed into the back of a drawer. What was she going to do for padding? Her knickers showed patches of blood and that meant the pads hadn’t been enough. She found some old panties and went into the bathroom with them. The bath filled quickly and there were waves of steam. Careful, she didn’t want to faint, and her head was light. She got in and submerged her head. Quick, quick … She soaped and rubbed, getting rid of the birth, the dirty shed, the damp dog smell, the blood, all that blood. It was still welling gently out of her, not much but enough to make her careful when she dried herself on the fluffy pink towels her mother changed three times a week. She put on her knickers and packed them with old panties. On went the pyjamas, the pink dressing gown. She combed her hair.

      There. It was all gone. Her breasts, she knew from the book, would have milk, but she would put on a tight bra and fill it with cotton wool. She would manage. In this house, her home, they did not see each other naked. Her mother hadn’t come in for years when she was having a bath, and she always knocked on the bedroom door. In Debbie’s flat people ran about naked or half dressed and Debbie might answer the door in her satin camiknickers, those great breasts of hers lolling about. Debbie often came in when Julie was in the bath to sit on the loo and chat … Tears filled Julie’s eyes. Oh, no, she certainly must not cry.

      She stuffed the bag with the bloody pads and her dirty clothes in it under her bed, well to the back. She would get rid of it all very early in the morning before her parents woke, which they would, at seven o’clock.

      She went down the stairs, a good little girl washed and brushed, ready for the night.

      In the living room her parents were silent and apart in their two well separated chairs. They had been crying again. Her father was relieved at what he saw when he cautiously took a look at her (as if it had been too painful to see her before), and he said, ‘It’s good to have you home, Julie.’ His voice broke.

      Her mother said, ‘I’ve made you some nice sandwiches.’

      Four thin slices of white bread had been made into two sandwiches and cut diagonally across, the yellow of the egg prettily showing, with sprigs of parsley disposed here and there. Hunger sprang in Julie like a tiger, and she ate ravenously, watching her mother’s pitying, embarrassed face. Why, she thinks I’ve been short of food! Well, that’s a good thing, it’ll put her off the scent.

      Her mother went off to make more food. Would she boil another egg, perhaps?

      ‘Anything’ll do, Mum. Jam … I’d love some jam on some toast.’

      She had finished the sandwiches and drunk down the tea long before her mother had returned with a tray, half a loaf of bread, butter, strawberry jam, more tea.

      ‘I don’t like to think of you going without food,’ she said.

      ‘But I didn’t, not really,’ said Julie, remembering all the feasts she had had with Debbie, the pizzas that arrived all hours of the day and the night from almost next door, the Kentucky chicken, the special steak feeds when Debbie got hungry, which was often. In the little kitchen was a bowl from Morocco kept piled with fruit. ‘You must get enough vitamins,’ Debbie kept saying, and brought in more grapes, more apples and pears, let alone fruit Julie had never heard of, like pomegranates and pawpaws, which Debbie had learned to like on one of her trips somewhere.

      ‘We aren’t going to pester you with questions,’ said her mother.

      ‘I’ve been with a girl. Her name is Debbie. She was good to me. I’ve been all right,’ said Julie, looking at her mother, and then at her father. There, don’t ask any more questions.

      ‘A girl?’ said her father heavily. He still kept his eyes away from Julie, because when he looked at her the tears started up again.

      ‘Well, I haven’t been with a boyfriend,’ said Julie and could not stop herself laughing at this ridiculous idea.

      They were all laughing with relief, with disbelief … they think I’ve been off with a boy! What were they imagining? Julie contemplated the incident in the school cloakroom with Billy Jayson that so improbably had led to the scene in the shed with the dog. She had joked with Debbie that it would be a virgin birth. ‘He hardly got it in,’ she had said. ‘I didn’t think anything had really happened.’

      Probably Billy had forgotten all about it. Unless he connected her leaving school and running away from home with that scene in the cloakroom? But why should he? It was four months after they had tussled and shoved and giggled, she saying, No no, and he saying, Oh come on, then.

      ‘Are you going back to school?’ asked her mother carefully. ‘The officer came round last week and said you still could. There are two terms left. And you’ve always been a good girl before this.’

      ‘Yes, I’ll go back,’ said Julie. Seven months – she could manage that. She’d be bored, but never mind. And then … This was the moment she should say something more, explain, make up some lies, for they both sat staring at her, their faces full of what they had been