The Grandmothers. Doris Lessing

waiting for him.

      ‘Where did you get to?’

      ‘I went for a walk.’

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I like to walk too.’

      ‘I’m a bit of a lone wolf,’ said Tom. ‘I’m the cat who walks by himself. So, if that’s not your style, I’m sorry.’

      ‘Hey,’ said Mary. ‘Don’t bite my head off.’

      ‘Well, you’d better know what you’re letting yourself in for.’

      At this, Harold and Molly exchanged glances: that was a commitment, surely? And Mary, hearing a promise, said ‘I like cats. Luckily’

      But she was secretly tearful and fearful.

      Tom was restless, he was moody. He was very unhappy but did not know it. He had not been unhappy in his life. He did not recognise the pain for what it was. There are people who are never ill, are unthinkingly healthy, then they get an illness and are so affronted and ashamed and afraid that they may even die of it. Tom was the emotional equivalent of such a person.

      ‘What is it? What’s wrong with me?’ he groaned, waking with a heavy weight across his chest. ‘I’d like to stay right here in bed and pull the covers over my head.’

      But what for? There was nothing wrong with him.

      Then, one evening, standing out under the stars, feeling sad enough to howl up at them, he said to himself, ‘Good Lord, I’m so unhappy. Yes, that’s it.’

      He told Mary he wasn’t well. When she was solicitous he said, ‘Leave me alone.’

      From the periphery of the little town, roads which soon became tracks ran out into the desert, to places used by students for their picnics and excursions. In between the used ways almost invisible paths made their way between the odoriferous bushes that had butterflies clinging to them in the day, and at night sent out waves of scent to attract bats. Tom walked out on the tarmacked road, turned on to the dusty track, turned off that and found a faint path to a little hill that had rocks on it, one a big flat one, which held the sun’s heat well into the night. Tom lay on this hot rock and let unhappiness fill him.

      ‘Lil,’ he was whispering. ‘Lil.’

      He knew at last that he was missing Lil, that was the trouble. Why was he surprised? Vaguely, he had all this time thought that one day he’d get a girl his own age and then … but it had been so vague. Lil had always been in his life. He lay face down on the rock and sniffed at it, the faint metallic tang, the hot dust, and vegetable aromas from little plants in the cracks. He was thinking of Lil’s body that always smelled of salt, of the sea. She was like a sea creature, in and out, the sea water often drying on her and then she was in again. He bit into his forearm, remembering that his earliest memory was of licking salt off Lil’s shoulders. It was a game they played, the little boy and his mother’s oldest friend. Every inch of his body had been available to Lil’s strong hands since he had been born, and Lil’s body was as familiar to him as his own. He saw again Lil’s breasts, only just covered by the bikini top, and the faint wash of glistening sand in the cleft between her breasts, and the glitter of tiny sand grains on her shoulders.

      ‘I used to lick her for the salt,’ he murmured. ‘Like an animal at a salt lick.’

      When he went back, very late, the house dark, he did not sleep but sat down and wrote to Lil. Writing letters had not ever been his style. Finding his writing illegible, he remembered that an old portable typewriter had been stuffed under his bed, and he pulled it out, and typed, trying to muffle the sharp sound by putting the machine on a towel. But Molly had heard, knocked and said, ‘Can’t you sleep?’ Tom said he was sorry, and stopped.

      In the morning he finished the letter and posted it and wrote another. His father, peering to see the inscription, said, ‘So, you’re not writing to your mother?’

      Tom said, ‘No. As you see.’ Family life had its drawbacks, he decided.

      Thereafter he wrote letters to Lil at the university, and posted them himself.

      Molly asked him what was the matter and he said he wasn’t feeling up to scratch, and she said he should see a doctor.

      Mary asked what was the matter and he said, ‘I’m all right.’

      And still he didn’t go back ‘down there’; he stayed up here, and that meant staying with Mary.

      He wrote to Lil daily, answered the letters, or rather notes, she sometimes wrote to him; he telephoned his mother, he went out into the desert as often as he could, and told himself he would get over it. Not to worry. Meanwhile his heart was a lump of cold loneliness, and he dreamed miserably.

      ‘Listen,’ said Mary, ‘if you want to call this off, then say so.’

      He suppressed, ‘Call what off?’ and said, ‘Just give me time.’

      Then, on an impulse, or perhaps because he soon would have to decide whether to accept another contract, he said to his father, ‘I’m off.’

      ‘What about Mary?’ asked Molly.

      He did not reply. Back home, he was over at Lil’s and in her bed in an hour. But it was not the same. He could make comparisons now, and did. It was not that Lil was old – she was beautiful, so he kept muttering and whispering, ‘You’re so beautiful,’ – but there was claim on him, Mary, and that wasn’t even personal. Mary, another woman, did it matter? One day soon he must – he had to … everyone expected it of him.

      Meanwhile Ian seemed to be doing fine with Roz. With his mother, Tom’s. Ian didn’t seem to be unhappy, or suffering, far from it.

      And then Mary arrived, and found the four preparing to go to the sea. Flippers and goggles were found for her, and a surfboard. Within half an hour of her arrival she was ready to embark with the two young men, on the wide, dangerous, bad sea outside this safe bay. A little motorboat would take them out. So this pretty young thing, as smooth and shiny as a fish, larked about and played with Tom and Ian, and the two older women sat on their chairs, watching behind dark glasses and saw the motorboat arrive and take the three off.

      ‘She’s come for Tom,’ said Tom’s mother.

      ‘Yes, I know,’ said Tom’s lover.

      ‘She’s nice enough,’ said Roz.

      Lil said nothing.

      Roz said, ‘Lil, I think this is where we bow out.’

      Lil said nothing.

      ‘Lil?’ Roz peered over at her, and pushed up her dark glasses to see better.

      ‘I don’t think I could bear it,’ said Lil.

      ‘We’ve got to.’

      ‘Ian doesn’t have a girl.’

      ‘No, but he should have. Lil, they’re getting on towards thirty.’

      ‘I know.’

      Far away, where the sharp black rocks stood in their white foam at the mouth of the bay, three tiny figures were waving at them, before disappearing out of sight to the big beach.

      ‘We have to stand together and end it,’ said Roz.

      Lil was quietly weeping. Then Roz was, too.

      ‘We have to, Lil.’

      ‘I know we do.’

      ‘Come on, let’s swim.’

      The women swam hard and fast, out and back and around, and then landed on the beach, and went straight up to Roz’s house, to prepare lunch. It was Sunday. Ahead was the long difficult afternoon.

      Lil said, ‘I’ve got work,’ and went off to one of her shops.

      Roz served lunch, making excuses for Lil, and then she too said she had things to do. Ian said he would come with