The Four-Gated City. Doris Lessing

Embassy. She had a foreign accent. She was under orders of silence. For some days, the vigilance of the reporters was redoubled: it had shown signs of slackening off. Martha had to be careful to move around the house so that she could not be seen from the windows.

      Upstairs in one room Paul lay on his bed, playing with the cat. She brought food to him there. And in another room, Mark lay in the dark, smoking and thinking. After a while he got up, went down to the study and very carefully read all the newspapers from the start of the affair until the present time. There were several weeks of them; and they included the serious newspapers, the popular Press, and the high-class magazines that were studying the subject of treason in depth, and in articles that had a very high intellectual tone.

      When he had done this, Mark said that he had finally understood the meaning of the old saying that the last refuge of a scoundrel was patriotism.

      He sounded rather cool about it. He was still ill though, or at least, looked ill. But he was in possession of himself. And he had made a decision. He was going down to the country, to stay with his old nurse, who had looked after himself and Colin, and he would take Paul with him.

      ‘And what about Francis, it’s going to be holidays again in a month?’

      ‘He can come to Nanny Butts’s too – it’ll be quiet there. And perhaps things will have blown over.’

      When he and Paul were ready, suitcases packed, he said: ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to be a decoy.’

      Martha put on a coat, made herself seem indifferent, and walked openly out of the front door. A group of men waiting there at first seemed stunned. At her impertinence, at daring them? At any rate, she had gone several yards before they chased after her. One of them offered her a hundred pounds for the story. She smiled. He put it up to two hundred. She smiled again. She went around the corner and into a café. They all came in with her. She kept them there, discussing the possible sale of her revelations about the Coldridge household, until she judged Mark and Paul had got well away. Then she walked back to the front door. The car had gone. Mark Coldridge had gone. ‘Nice work,’ said one of them, laughing. But others, professionally hating, scowled and muttered, like parodies of journalists in a bad film, or in a comedy.

      Inside the house, was now only Martha. She went openly in and out, smiling politely at two hopeful journalists who remained. Then at one. But he went too. Then, peace, until Miles Tangin knocked at the front door and asked to be admitted. He had a proposition, he said. She was angry. He was affable. His manner was that of a wronged man concerned to give explanations. There was a genuine reproach for her lack of understanding. She should have retired to sharpen her anger, and set it on guard. But she let him in. Curiosity had a lot to do with it. Curious, she sat listening while he offered her one thousand pounds for the story of Mark’s mistress. He accepted her refusal with the remark that everyone had their price, but that the story was not worth more. He seemed to expect she would feel belittled by this; he even made a consoling remark: If Mark had a larger reputation, then more than one thousand pounds would have been forthcoming. Of course, if there were any justice, his reputation would be larger. It turned out that he admired Mark for having written the best novel for his money – Miles Tangin’s – since All Quiet On The Western Front. If he, Miles Tangin, were a critic, that would be put right, but for his sins, he was a journalist. Only for the time being: he was writing a novel. He also admired Mark for (he hoped Martha would not take this amiss) his taste. The house must be empty, if Mark was away? He did not think Martha ought to take it like that, all was fair in love and war. Anyway, he’d be making the suggestion again later: she was his cup of tea, all right. Meanwhile he was busy, he was off to the country to find Mark Coldridge. There’s a lot of Britain,’ said Martha.

      ‘No, dear, there isn’t. When one of these upper-class types go to the ground he’s at an old teacher’s, or nanny. I know how their minds work.’

      He left, affable.

      She telephoned Mark, to warn him. But a journalist had already appeared at Nanny Butts’s cottage. Mark was coming back to London.

      He came that evening. He had been to his old school, explained the situation to the headmaster, and Paul was already installed.

      And now, said Mark, they are welcome to me. He dictated a short piece for the Press saying that he stood wholeheartedly behind his brother in whatever action he had seen fit to take. Asked if he was a communist, he said he was, if that made him one.

      And now, silence.

      Mark was in his study. He stayed there. What sort of a state he was in, she did not know. His manner was cold, abrupt, but agitated.

      She was in her room trying to see what was likely to happen next, trying not to be taken by surprise by events. The immediate facts were that Francis would be home soon, after what must be an awful time; Mark had been writing the usual weekly letters, but had not mentioned the sensational news which every paper had carried for weeks: Francis must surely have seen the newspapers. Paul, in a state of shock, had been dumped in a school which, ‘progressive’ or not, was still a boarding-school. Mark, as far as she could see, was in a state of shock. He certainly wasn’t dealing with the problem, now pressing, of finance.

      The bills for Lynda’s hospital were unpaid. There was Francis’s school – very expensive, and there would now be Paul’s school. Ideally, Mark ought to find, in the next month, a couple of thousand pounds. He could not find so many shillings.

      The factory? But she did not like to interfere with something she understood nothing about. Then Jimmy Wood arrived one afternoon to see Mark. Mark’s door was locked. Martha therefore talked to Jimmy.

      Or she tried to. They were in the kitchen, and they drank tea and ate cake – everything that was normal and reassuring. There he sat, smiling, as usual. And there she sat, opposite him, trying to understand him. She had seen that he was a human being constructed on a different model from most, but this did not help. Making contact with Jimmy, or trying to, one understood how one meshed with others. They were angry, they were pleased, they were sad, they were shocked. They might be several things in the course of an afternoon, but at any given moment one talked to an angry man, a frightened man, etc.; one contacted a state, an emotion. But Jimmy Wood? There he sat, smiling, while he heartily ate cake and asked for more, and even got up to refill the kettle and put it on the ring. All this went on, the activity of a man enjoying his tea. He had come to this house because he wanted to say something. Mark not being available he was saying it to Martha. But what? He was disturbed about something. His movements were those of an agitated man. His eyes were hidden behind the great spectacles and his mouth, a thin, pink, curved mouth, smiled.

      He was upset by Mark calling himself a communist? Martha tried this note – but no. There was no resonance. Yes, that was what was throwing her off balance: where other people resounded, he did not. He wanted to leave the factory and find work elsewhere. But he said this without emotion – it was a fact that emerged after an hour or so. Why? He talked about two contracts that had not been renewed. Did he know why? – He thought it was because of the ‘fuss about Mark in the papers’. But that was not his point. Did he think the factory was going to have to shut down? No, not necessarily. They could coast along for months, even a year or so. But there was a job that would suit him in a factory in Wales. Martha suggested that Mark would be upset if he, Jimmy, left. They had worked together for years. From what she could make out of the mask-face, this embarrassed Jimmy. She pressed on: ‘He’s very fond of you,’ and was faced by the great baby-head and the round glinting spectacles, and the pink smiling mouth. She felt extremely uncomfortable. He poured himself more tea, and energetically dotted up loose currants on the end of a wetted forefinger.

      Martha sat, going back in her mind over the various points that had come up. Not politics – no. To him, the greatest of irrelevancies. Not money – the business would survive temporary difficulties. At random she said: ‘I expect Mark will be back at work in a few days. Perhaps sooner.’ And now, just as if Jimmy had not said he would leave, he began talking about a machine he and Mark had planned to start making. It was as if she touched a switch, which had caused him to work again. From his remarks, all random, even disconnected, a picture emerged of Mark and him, spending