A Ripple from the Storm. Doris Lessing

in hospital, with the right things for him.’

      At this moment a large car stopped outside the entrance of the court, and a well-dressed young woman got out of it. Martha recognized Ruth Manners, now a young matron with children: two small girls sat in the back of the car with a native nanny. She came picking her way across the court on large well-polished shoes, and did not raise her eyes to see the group of people until nearly on them. She recognized Martha, and gave her a polite smile, while her pale cautious eyes were animated for the space of a startled second at the sight of Murdoch, before she decided that he, like Martha, was outside her radius of interest. On Murdoch’s face was a wild irreverent grin: ‘The Welfare,’ he said, audibly and derisively.

      Ruth Manners ignored him, and said to the woman: ‘How is he?’

      ‘Very bad, miss.’

      ‘Has he changed his mind about coming into hospital?’

      ‘No, miss, sorry to tell you, he hasn’t, the sickness has him unreasonable, miss.’

      Ruth Manners looked full of patient distaste for the whole situation. She asked in cold clear tones: ‘Shall I try and make him see reason?’

      ‘If you like, miss, but he’s not himself.’

      Martha and Murdoch stood to one side while the young woman went to the doorway and stood looking down at the long knobbly form under the white sheet.

      ‘Ronald,’ she said, or rather stated.

      The form did not stir.

      ‘It’s the Welfare,’ said the mother helplessly, but on a note of warning.

      There was a growl and a mutter of obscenities from under the sheet. Ruth came back and stood in front of the mother, her expression of distaste even more marked. ‘You must see,’ she said in a high patient voice, ‘that there’s nothing at all we can do. Is he taking his medicines?’

      ‘Yes, miss, I make him.’

      Ruth Manners continued to stand, frowning, looking around the court as from a long distance. Suddenly all her distaste focused: her pale eyes under the black crooked brows moved in a snap towards Murdoch and Martha; her face contracted with hatred, and she said: ‘I suppose you communists have been putting ideas into his head.’

      The colour flamed into her thin angry cheeks and she walked stiffly back to her car.

      Murdoch grinned and said: ‘It’s the Red Hand again. Man, but we get into everything, we’re under every bed.’

      The woman, tugged backwards and forwards out of her stoic and patient stance by the pull of the lively swinging little girl on her hand, said: There was a baas here yesterday talking to Ronald. Ron liked him. Perhaps he could make him go to hospital.’

      ‘Who was it?’ asked Martha, slowly translating the ‘baas’, in her mind, into who it must be – one of the men from the camp.

      The woman, with her eyes on Murdoch’s extraordinary assortment of clothes, said with delicacy: ‘I think he was from the camp too.’

      ‘What did he look like?’

      ‘He was selling your newspaper.’

      ‘We’ll see if we can find out who it was,’ said Martha,

      She and Murdoch left the court together, while the patient tired woman and the lively child looked after them, and the woman on the candlebox shouted: ‘You promised me faithfully my room. You promised it.’

      ‘I don’t see who it can be,’ said Martha, ‘unless Bill’s been doing our street. And by the way, you should have done this court – you forgot it.’

      ‘I was getting around to it, I was getting around to it,’ said Murdoch instantly, in an aggrieved voice. He had a way of suggesting he was unfairly accused at the slightest suggestion of criticism, but he was, above all, humorous. Now he grinned clowningly at Martha and said: ‘Give me a chance, comrade. I was having a talk to a nice girl in the street behind this one.’

      Martha asked: ‘What girl,’ realized that she was thinking ‘white’ – because her first thought had been, there are no girls in this area, meaning white girls, was shocked at herself, and out of her guilty anger said: ‘You know quite well the group has taken a decision you’re not to have affairs with Coloured girls, it’s against the group decision.’

      ‘Have a heart,’ he said, ‘I was only talking to her.’

      He looked as guilty as a schoolboy, and Martha, disliking herself, said: ‘But in any case, why shouldn’t you? It’s a bad decision, it’s undemocratic.’

      ‘Och, we should listen to Anton now, he knows his stuff, he’s the real mackay,’ said Murdoch with sentimental earnestness, and Martha, irritated by the sentimentality, said: ‘But Anton doesn’t have to be right all the time, does he?’

      A tall lanky figure approached along the dusty broken pavements, wearing clothes several sizes too small. It was Bill Bluett.

      ‘Wotcher,’ he said, lingering at a short distance. His face was stiffly serious, but he winked at Martha with a pantomimic sideways twist to his mouth. ‘Finished?’

      Martha said: ‘There’s a man in there who’s ill and he won’t go to hospital.’ Bill Bluett responded to her agitated voice instantly, by saying with a soft jeer: ‘Dear me, naughty naughty. These people don’t trust hospitals. They should be taught for their own good.’

      ‘She’s right,’ said Murdoch, one airman to another. ‘He should be in hospital.’

      ‘Of course he should.’ The voice was still a soft jeer. Bill Bluett had cast Martha in the role of ‘middle-class comrade’ and never let her forget it.

      She said to Bill: ‘Was it you who made friends with him? His mother said there was someone.’

      ‘Perhaps I have.’

      ‘But why be mysterious about it?’

      Bill Bluett, patiently explaining to an imbecile, said: ‘These people don’t like going to the native hospital, being treated like that.’

      ‘Obviously not – on the other hand I don’t see it’s sensible to die before you need for a political principle on this level. He’s not going to hospital because the Coloured people don’t want to be treated as “Kaffirs”. They want their own hospital.’

      Bill Bluett and Martha, natural antagonists since they first set eyes on each other, faced each other now, frowning.

      ‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘Nothing like an intellectual for reducing everything to its principles. But he won’t go. And that’s all. He’s one of the few around here with any political understanding at all. He influences quite a few of their lads. I’ve dropped in on their sessions once or twice. What would he do in hospital?’

      ‘Perhaps he wouldn’t die so quickly?’

      All at once Bill decided he had sufficiently made his position clear, for he gave her a warm grin, and said:

      ‘OK, Matty, I’ll go and smooth his brow for you. But first there’s another little problem. There’s a bloke in the next street who’s going to have his furniture taken away if he can’t raise two pounds by six o’clock this evening. That’s half an hour from now. We’re quite a bunch of charity workers, aren’t we? Fork out.’ He pulled his trouser pockets out and picked out a sixpence from the lining of one. Murdoch found three shillings. Martha opened her handbag and found five.

      That’s not going to keep the baby off the cold floor,’ said Bill Bluett. He nodded at the satchel over Martha’s shoulder and said: ‘Hand over.’

      ‘But that’s The Watchdog money.’

      ‘We’ll have to borrow from it, that’s all. We can make it up in collections from the group.’ He appropriated the satchel, and counted out two pounds