Four Gated City (14 page)

No, not if she had a thousand pounds to spend, was there anything to buy-until she knew what she was going to have to be. Her suitcase in her hand, she dawdled, wasting time until it was one o’clock and time for Phoebe.

The restaurant off the Strand was a lower-level version of Baxter’s; a large room dotted with small tables each with four Windsor chairs. There were dull floral curtains, and wallpaper of a pinkish floral design. The standard to which both related was the same; somewhere behind both was a country house, or a large farm house: the country, at any rate, with centuries of a certain kind of taste behind it. If Fanny’s and Baxter’s had to do without paint or new curtains for fifty years, they would still present themselves to the world with impermeable self-esteem. The menu of Fanny’s offered the same kind of food, but plainer, without sauces, and much cheaper.

When Phoebe arrived, she nodded at the waiter, who knew her; and had inspected Martha thoroughly before even sitting down, though from different standards to Henry’s. Martha’s failure to ring up immediately she had arrived in London: and then, her unreliability, had confirmed, if not frivolity, at least a more fortunate experience than hers, Phoebe’s. Martha’s appearance underlined it. Phoebe wore a skirt and a rather dull jersey, and pearls. Martha
wore a linen sleeveless dress on a day which was only by courtesy a summer’s day; and her appearance paid no homage at all to service. Also, her suitcase stood by the chair, after so many weeks in London. Before Phoebe had even sat down, she had made it clear that Martha was a disappointment. She ordered, while Martha followed suit: chicken soup, tinned; boiled fish in an egg sauce; steamed jam pudding. There was a stain on the tablecloth.

‘And how are you finding London? ’

This, since it was Phoebe who asked it, was a serious question. Martha deliberated. To whom in the world could she say what she had found in London? Jack-perhaps. A little. And now, because it was Phoebe who sat there, opposite, the past weeks changed their aspect and presented ‘London’ to Martha as a series, containing dockland Stella, the café and Iris; Jack; Henry; and the people in the streets and pubs. Fragments. This was a country where people could not communicate across the dark that separated them. She opened her mouth to say: I am thinking a good deal about class … and shut it again, though Phoebe had seen her about to speak and still waited. It was nothing to do with class. In Africa, as a white, she was so and so; and if she had been black, must be such and such. There was something in the human mind that separated, and divided. She sat, looking at the soup in front of her, thinking: if I eat, if I start this routine of meals, sleep, order, the fine edge on which I’m living now is going to be dulled and lost. For the insight of knowledge she now held, of the nature of separation, of division (for any number of different sets of words would serve to state it, none being of any real use), was clear and keen-she understood, sitting there, while the soup sent a fine steam of appetite up to her nostrils, understood
really
(but in a new way, was in the grip of a vision), how human beings could be separated so absolutely by a slight difference in the texture of their living that they could not talk to each other, must be wary, or enemies.

Phoebe waited. She had never travelled out of England. Martha was a traveller. She wanted to know.

Class? Phoebe was dedicated to its abolition, presumably, as a stalwart of the Labour Party.

Martha picked up her spoon and started on the soup. ‘I think a great deal about food, for one thing, ’ she temporized: feeling strongly that Phoebe deserved better than that.

Phoebe, let down, said, on a fine edge of rebuke: ‘Not very surprising, in the circumstances.’

The war having appeared in the wings of their meeting, it moved off again: Martha felt guilty. She had heard that Phoebe had had a bad time during the war. Her husband had been mostly away, except for leaves when the two little girls were conceived. The marriage had broken up. One of the little girls had been very ill. Phoebe had held a job in a government office, had fire-watched, had looked after the children, had been ill herself … One could not imagine Phoebe as anything less than admirable. Martha kept quiet.

‘I have just the right job for you, ’ announced Phoebe at last, since Martha the traveller was silent. She was making a good many things plain in this one announcement. She was left-wing labour: but not so left that she did not regard some well-known left-wingers, her ex-husband for one, as ‘extreme’. She was bound by her position, to regard all communists with a greater hatred and suspicion than she would a Tory. Her sister Marjorie was-from her point of view-a communist; she was dangerous, dogmatic, wrongheaded. But this was the role that Marjorie had always played for elder sister Phoebe. Martha was a friend of Marjorie’s. But Mrs. Van der Bylt in correspondence, in constant touch with a dozen of the organizations which Phoebe committeed or secretaried or manned, had written offering Martha as a valuable recruit for the cause. Which meant that Martha’s degree of redness had been defined as tolerable-not only personally, as what Mrs. Van and presumably Phoebe could stand, as people; but what others might be expected to stand. In an inflammable time. Not altogether complimentary that: Martha was not altogether sure she liked being so safe. Besides, whatever else she had learned in London, she was sure of one thing: anything her communist friends had told her of the poverty of the working people; of the blind selfishness of the middle classes (she hadn’t met the aristocracy, irrelevant, probably), was true. More than true. If she were going to have to be political, communism was nearer her mark than ‘Labour’ in its various degrees. Yet for days now she had been coming towards Phoebe, and knowing quite well that in doing so she was choosing her future. Her immediate future, at least. Well, one thing was certain. She was bound to be in a false position of one kind or another. That couldn’t be avoided. To what extent?

‘What kind of a job, Phoebe? ’

‘We are going to start an organization for freeing the colonies, that sort of thing. A society or organization here, with the progressive movements there. And we need a secretary.’

‘I see.’

Martha considered Phoebe’s ‘We’. She was not in a position to define it.

‘A fairly broadly based thing.’

‘I see. Anyone who would support the objectives? ’

Phoebe hesitated, coloured, gave Martha an acute but wary glance, and lowered her gaze to her soup. ‘There would have to be limits. You know,
of course
, that communists are proscribed in the Labour Party-and other organizations? ’

‘Yes, of course, ’ said Martha, bland out of irritation. The irritation was unreasonable. Phoebe was doing her duty. As she, Martha, would do in her position.

Phoebe now waited for Martha to say clearly where she stood. Martha was damned if she would-besides, she didn’t know herself. Mrs. Van’s recommendations were going to have to do.

Phoebe, annoyed, spooned in soup. Martha did the same.

‘We do need someone with real experience of the colonies-someone who knows the conditions, experience with the natives.’

‘For a start you can’t use that word any longer-natives.’

‘Oh! No? Well there you are, that’s why one needs …’

‘But I don’t think I want to do that sort of job.’

‘Well of course the money wouldn’t be very good, ’ said Phoebe, making it clear that in her eyes this was no reason to refuse any job. ‘But there would be compensations.’ She meant, the society of people like herself; the interest of the work; above all, knowing oneself to be of use-exactly as Martha would in her position.

‘The thing is, I don’t want to be in that atmosphere. When I came to England, it was to get out of it.’

And now Phoebe was bound to be disappointed in Martha. For one thing-why had she wasted her, Phoebe’s time? What other kind of job did she expect?

‘I see, ’ she said, tightening her lips, and looking for the waiter to take away her soup and bring the fish. She was busy, had no more time to waste.

If Marjorie had sat there, she would have cried out, all emotion
and affectionate indignation: Well, Matty, if you’re going to take that line! If you’re going to be like that! Well then!

But Phoebe was not Marjorie. And Martha was not ‘Matty’, was refusing ‘Matty’ entrance. In order not to be ‘Matty’ she had to be cool, brisk-hard. As hard as Phoebe.

Martha now ate gluey fish in silence, thinking of Phoebe, of Marjorie. For this was the real experience of the meal, what she would take away from it. Phoebe was physically like Marjorie. Coming on Phoebe suddenly, without warning, Martha would have embraced her, lovable and absurd Marjorie, the younger sister. She had known Marjorie for how long? Over ten years! They had seen each other nearly every day. Marjorie had appeared, before the war, in the colony, as ‘immigrant’ - a girl from England. The people who worked with her all had the same attitude to her-an affection, almost an amusement. ‘Marjorie’ they had said, meaning her quality of charm, desperate enthusiasm, earnestness. But what had they known? Only this: Marjorie the younger sister. And an arrangement of eyes, nose, hair, pretty English skin. Here they were in front of Martha now, as Phoebe.

What had made Marjorie was this: a doctor in a country town in England with bookish tastes and an interest in politics, had brought up two daughters, his wife having died when they were children. They were very alike: pretty, fair, lively, English girls. Phoebe, the elder, was bossy and downright, with Marjorie, the girl five years her junior. Eventually Marjorie had escaped from Phoebe, had had to, to gain herself.
But
: sitting opposite Phoebe, who spoke in Marjorie’s voice, who was so like Marjorie, how could one not wonder: who was Marjorie? She was not her voice; not her face; not her body; not her eyes or her hair. Her manner then? But Marjorie’s breathless, defensive, agitated charm-that was all younger-sister. So had she won breathing space from Phoebe through their childhood. Marjorie was just-the younger sister? Of course not.

But who, what? Martha had no idea.

Martha sat opposite the brisk, pretty efficient Englishwoman, who was Phoebe, consciously preventing herself from talking to Marjorie. She was ashamed. She had never known Marjorie. As always, she had been lazy, unimaginative: she had never done more than talk to the younger sister. Well, if she wasn’t careful, she
wouldn’t do more than talk to the older sister! For that manner was so strong in Phoebe, it was hard to imagine one could get past it.

Of course, I’d be prepared to advise, ’ said Martha.

‘There are always plenty of people ready to do that, ’ said Phoebe at once; then, seeing that she contradicted herself, looked irritated, and suddenly very tired. ‘We do need help, ’ she said.

‘Phoebe, have you felt
caged
, shut inside an atmosphere? ’

‘Well, frankly
yes
, ’ said Phoebe, meaning the war again.

‘No I didn’t mean the war, ’ said Martha, clumsily, for Phoebe’s reproach was so strong.

‘I can’t imagine myself not working for what I believe in-frankly, 1 can’t.’

‘Does one actually have to work in some organization! Well I can see why you are annoyed. You’re not an employment agency! I don’t know why I imagined.’

Phoebe’s glance at the words ‘employment agency’ betrayed that that was exactly what she had been thinking.

‘Well, I do always seem to know of jobs that need filling … let me see then.’

‘I suppose what it comes to-I’ve had enough of organized politics for the time being.’

Phoebe was silent for some time. Martha knew why. Without Mrs. Van’s recommendations, Phoebe would have set her down as one of the people whose reforming energies had come out of passionate identification with Russia, the pure and the perfect: just another red with a broken heart, a weak reed, a neurotic, a washout. But Mrs. Van had said differently. Therefore Phoebe sat, eating jammy sponge with a teaspoon, her eyebrows drawn together. She looked so like Marjorie that Martha experienced a variety of awe, or panic. It seemed inconceivable that she could not say: Marjorie! and that the person opposite would respond out of ten years of-friendship?

‘Mrs. Van Bylt said you had done research-that kind of thing? ’

‘Yes. Tell me, Phoebe, do you and Marjorie ever write to each other? ’

‘We are neither of us very good correspondents. How is she? She’s had another baby, she said. That’s four now? ’

In her voice the shadow of a pain, something personal, ‘And I’ve never met her husband of course.’

‘He’s a nice man. A quiet kind of man. He’s a civil servant.’

‘So she said, ’ said Phoebe, making it clear what she thought of civil servants: reminding Martha that she herself had married a crusading firebrand from the left. She lifted her face and smiled at Martha: who felt as she had that morning with Iris and her Stanley: an area of family emotion had been highlit, touched on.

Suppose I said to her: ‘Your sister’s a very unhappy woman. She’s bored with her nice reliable husband. She had children out of a compulsion. She’s living in a permanent nervous breakdown’ - no, of course she could not say this. This woman did not understand despair-or rather, the admission of it. And besides, such information, if it were not diagnosed-and it would be-as a symptom of Martha’s own identification with the neurotic weakness of this world, would be confirmation of the younger sister’s always expected failure.

‘Is it a success-that sort of thing? ’

‘Well, yes; I think the four small children are a bit of a handful at the moment.’

‘I don’t see that. After all, you have plenty of servants out there, don’t you? ’ She snapped this out, her face in high colour, and said everything about her own life, which was doing a hard poorly paid job, and being responsible, and bringing up two small girls without a father-without help, without servants.

‘I think I know something for you, ’ said Phoebe, pushing aside the personal, while her face still flamed red, and her fingers clutched her purse. ‘There’s my brother-in-law. My ex-brother-in-law. He wants some help. He’s a writer. Of a kind, of course. It’s a hobby really. He’s got some sort of a business or other.’