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MODERN CLASSIC
A Ripple from the Storm
Doris Lessing
Book Three of the
‘Children of Violence’ series
Contents
There is no passion for the absolute without the accompanying frenzy of the absolute. It is always accompanied by a certain exaltation, by which it may first be recognized and which is always working on the growing point, the focal point of destruction, at the risk of making it appear to such as have not been warned, that the passion for the absolute is the same as a passion for unhappiness.
LOUIS ARAGON
From the dusty windows of a small room over Black Ally’s Café it could be seen that McGrath’s ballroom was filling fast. Groups of people clogged all the pillared gold-painted entrances of the hotel.
Jasmine said composedly: ‘Jackie’s very late,’ and, having neatly fastened the windows and turned herself around, she smiled at Martha. Martha smiled back with affectionate devotion. The devotion was no less because its quality had changed. Three months before, she had regarded this competent girl with awe: Jasmine was not afraid to stand on a platform before hundreds of people; she understood that mysterious process organization; and people always suggested her first if a secretary were needed. Martha had been used to watching her descend demurely from a platform with her files and papers or selling pamphlets at the door, feeling that she must be of an entirely superior order of person, not because she was competent, but because competence was the result of years of service in public causes of one kind or another.
Now Martha could do these things herself. She had learned without knowing she was learning by being with Jasmine so much of her time. She understood she had become for others what Jasmine had been for her when the pretty English schoolteacher, Marjorie Pratt, her fine blue eyes alive with admiration, had said: ‘I do admire you, Matty, for not being afraid of doing these things in public.’ At which Martha had felt an affectionate pity – not for Marjorie, who would herself soon acquire these so easily acquired qualities, but for herself of three months ago.
Martha said: ‘William’s late too. They’ve probably got some sort of meeting in the camp.’
Again the two girls exchanged a warm smile. In it was the affection every member of the group felt for the others: a communal tenderness. But there was more: Jasmine and Martha, both with lovers from the airforce, had a special tie. They did not speak of what they felt: their men would most likely be posted soon, and they would be left alone: their happiness was lit by the foreknowledge of loss. Or rather, this was what each felt on behalf of the other, a gentle protectiveness for the other’s situation, as if for someone weaker; and all these emotions were part of that greater elation on which they had all been floating now for months, ever since the formation of ‘the group’.
The small grimy room had in it a small deal table, a couple of hard benches and some unpainted chairs, This was the group’s headquarters and home. It was also the scene of Jasmine’s love, for there was a campbed folded against the wall beside the filing cabinet. To Martha, with her painful need to admire someone for qualities she could never