The Four-Gated City. Doris Lessing

see it as slumming.’

      He had coloured.

      ‘Now, look, Henry – you’re right. I couldn’t for long stay in those jobs – but for exactly the same reason that I couldn’t take yours, that’s what you ought to be able to see. Can’t you really understand that?’

      ‘Well, frankly, no.’

      On the chair by him a folded evening newspaper; and even from where she was, she could see, peering over, that the headlines and editorials were to do with the red, socialist, classless, etc., Britain.

      They had finished their fish. Henry had ordered some blanquette of veal for both of them. It wasn’t bad. The wine, however, was very good indeed, marvellous; and Martha was drinking it, although she knew that drinking it might lead to an exchange every word of which she could recite even before it happened. She smiled, offered him scraps of travellers’ tales from the strange land across the river, to which he listened, with the air of a potential traveller choosing possible landscapes for adventure.

      At last he said: ‘If it’s a question of your being a restless sort of person, that you’d want to move on after a year or two, I think we do rather expect that from our staff, the war has unsettled people, including me, I’m afraid.’

      ‘No, it’s not a question of being restless.’

      Determined that the tedious exchange, imminent, would not take place, she reached for her wine glass – and knocked it over. The waiter being away, she dabbed at the stain with her napkin. Then the imp took over.

      ‘I’d like another serviette,’ she said.

      Henry called to the waiter with his eyes.

      ‘If you could bring another napkin,’ he said.

      Martha suddenly laughed. He frowned incomprehension.

      ‘I don’t know why it is,’ he said, ‘but I do know that girls are so much cleverer than men at … picking things up. You could, you know, if you tried. For instance, we had a girl in our office. She was only … her father was under me during the war, a very good type of man … well, she came to us as a typist and inside a year she had picked up … now you really can hardly tell her from … she takes over on the switchboard for instance … for some reason men don’t do it so well, they aren’t so adaptable. But if you listened to how other people talk, you could learn very easily … that sort of thing.’

      The gaps in this homily which had been delivered, half with irritation that he was being forced to verbalize his position even partially; half with genuine concern for her future, for which, the Lord knew why, he felt himself responsible, she now filled in, summing them all up.

      ‘I could learn to pass,’ she said.

      He sat back in his chair, his handsome, fair, well-bred face all dark with annoyance.

      It was not the slightest use. But the imp had control.

      ‘Henry, if I told you that this meal we are eating is going to cost you over £5, in spite of the fact you are supposed to be restricting yourself because of the war – and that the people I’ve been with don’t spend that on food in a week – and then ask you to look at that newspaper … oh, I don’t know, what is the use!’

      ‘Very poor, are they?’ he said quickly.

      ‘Very. But that isn’t the point.’

      He leaned back. ‘Well, aren’t we all, these days?’

      ‘I should have said not.’

      ‘You weren’t here during the war,’ he said emotionally. ‘I’ve learned that, after that, there’s nothing to be said.’ ‘You must see, Martha, that it’s going to take time to get this poor old country on its feet again.’ ‘Of course.’

      ‘God knows we’re poor – but what more do you people want? You’ve got your Labour Government in, they’re not my thing, far from it. I’m more of a Liberal I suppose, though I vote Tory, but they’re in, they’re doing a job – you’ve got your socialism. Of course there are people who think that five years of Labour Party has ruined this country. I’m not one of those, but there is no class left in this country. What do you want?’

      ‘But, Henry – well, I really don’t know, how can you say – or believe … Henry, if those people I’ve been with – if they turned up here at this restaurant, they wouldn’t be admitted …’ He froze, attacked, undermined: here was precisely where he could not think or look, therefore it was in bad taste. ‘Not that they would turn up, of course, they know better. After all, I wouldn’t have been admitted, probably. They’d have said the place was full. It was only because I gave your name.’

      ‘If they did turn up, I for one’d be only too proud – the salt of the earth. We learned that in the war.’

      ‘Not to mention the other war.’

      There now was rolled towards them the sweets trolley. Henry chose for her and for him, a trifle, though it had another name. Throughout the restaurant, people were eating nursery puddings, under French names.

      ‘I really don’t know what it is you people want,’ he said pettishly.

      ‘To have things called by their proper names, that’s all. Did you ever actually meet your Uncle Maynard?’

      ‘No, well of course, he was rather the black sheep, so one gathers.’

      ‘Justice Maynard? Well, I’ve been remembering something he said to me. Ten years ago, more. He said that he couldn’t stick England because no one called a spade a spade. So now he administers law and order in the colonies, where one can. I’ve only just recently understood what he was talking about.’

      ‘Hypocrites,’ said Henry quickly. ‘Of course, they’ve always called us that.’

      ‘No, no, if you were hypocrites that would be something. A hypocrite is somebody who maintains a virtuous position knowing it to be false. You all seem to me to be – you’re drugged, you’re hypnotized, you don’t seem to be able to see facts when they’re in front of you – you’re the victim of a lot of slogans.’

      Here the wine waiter offered the lady a sweet liqueur and Henry brandy. The lady insisted on asking for brandy. The wine waiter offered Henry a look of commiseration, so far had complicity grown between them. But Henry frowned at him and told him to bring brandy. Martha and the brandy changed the note or current: Henry was able to let slide away any chance there was of their meeting on at least the possibility of there being something in what she said: Martha, gay buccaneer, adventuress, warmed by wine, enabled him to wave over his partner. There arrived at the table John Higham, as charming and as handsome as he, his face presented towards Martha in a look almost transparently eager to taste this phenomenon, who was outside the rules of ordinary politeness – for he examined her openly, boldly: exactly as the dockers, before being made to know by Stella that she was, temporarily, one of their women, were able to call across a street: Hello, darling. She had been outside their circle of humanity. Martha was outside John Higham’s. For a moment the two men sat, united, opposite Martha, eyeing her. It was ugly: behind them, the waiter, and behind him the headwaiter: very ugly. And again, she never would be able to explain why; they would not know what she meant. They were savages, masters and servants both.

      ‘Martha will have none of us, I’m afraid,’ said Henry, insolent, but smiling.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ said John Higham.

      ‘I simply cannot imagine, apart of course from the Maynards asking you to keep an eye on me, what you want me for?’

      They even exchanged glances here, as if she were not able to see that glances were being exchanged – as if they were invisible. Extraordinary, extraordinary people: Iris and Jimmy, Stella and her man, had more delicacy, more consciousness of themselves.

      ‘You underestimate yourself,’ said John Higham. ‘You’ve done legal work, haven’t you? You’ve